Monday, September 20, 2010

At Home With: Claudia

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Hello and welcome! Today am very excited to feature the home ,that is so close to nature.Claudia, who loves to dress up well and who is very creative be it her dressing or her home. She lives in Germany with her husband and son.. The house is filled with so much warmth and love...her outdoor space seems like a fairy tale to me.... that is where I long  to be...
I am sure you will love it.... there is a bonus that comes along.. Claudia was kind enough to tell us about her beautiful home in her own words...... 
Click on images for better view

Above : This used to be  the living room of our home in Princeton,NJ.
We moved with all this to Germany a year ago, except for the amazing strelizia, tropical plant that I loved so much.

One of my very personal ideas of decoration (not that I have a concept, but it happens to be so), is to include artworks or crafts of my child in the rooms. I think it adds a very cute ,familiar and warm touch , fits best with all the other things we can find here: a patchwork of objects and furnitures that tell us the stories of our life journey.

This paper owl on front right is a cute craft my son made at school.
The old sofa  is from ebay Germany,has a supercute embroidered cover that I bought at a fleamarket in NYC. On the wall is the print on canvas  which shows an artwork of Gustav Klimt. Actually it is either in bedroom or in living room.
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Friends came over to watch a football game in the backyard in summer, it was Worldcup in South Africa and we had a great time. The table was inspired  by African patterns and colors.I brought  the wooden chicken with bread from Brazil, the set for salt and pepper from a trip to Namibia and  the fabric on  the table is something I got from a friend ( from Ikea).

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My husband was traveling and my boy had summerbreak already, the weather was fantastic and we built a gypsy camp to chill out  in  the backyard and we too moved out with it. That was the place where we slept, ate and played games for almost a week. Of course my son loved the gypsy life... and me too!

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The colorful fabrics are sarongs, in my home country, Brazil they are used mostly by the people at the beach.They aer very pretty and colorful batik(tie dye) art fabrics and they usually come from India,Thailand,Indonesia and Brazil.I used to do lamps with them and thats why I still have many in different colors and patterns.
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More enamel pots , decorated the side fence of the  backyard with some field flowers.

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This is the canopy sofa that looks totally different from the original one, we bought. I made a new cover with an antique natural linen fabric, also for the pillows. I have also replaced the fabric on top, now there is this rich embroidered ornament, a very old piece from Kazakistan, where the nomadic  people use to decorate their tents with. Some embroidered cushions are from Ikea.
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Above:It was originally supposed to be an Advent wreath where you light up 4 candles on Christmas time. I placed this little clay animals that I brought from Namibia as candle holder on the wreath. Then (Christmas) I had little apples and herbs and pines twigs on it. I loved the way it turned out so much that I've decided to leave the Christmas wreath all year hanging, just re-decorating it from time to time as per  the seasons. On this picture, it has flowers, herbs, physalis and the clay mules with candles.
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Above: The other side of dining room that still has some winter decorations there because we all love the calendar so much... the dresser is from a flea market in New Hope (USA) a place I used to go with my family.Above is another print on canvas (Gustav Klimt).This colored wood village is a calendar I built long time ago, it has one door or window to open on each december day until Christmas.The sun above the yellow house has a little music box with crank handle, it plays "here comes the sun" the last day is the pink church with a tiny bell,all lighted.
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Above: This is our  dining room , this day I've decorated it with lanterns, flowers and garlands for son's birthday breakfast (I'm a drama queen, when it comes to birthdays), I also set a special table with candles, etagere with fruits, cake and our sweet flowery dishes.
The cupboard on back right corner is gipsy furniture from Romania, it has some colorful flowers painted on it. The old light blue bench is painted and decorated with flowers and insects by me and my son.

Below: The wall on left has lots of paintings bymy son.

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Above: In the kitchen you will find fresh herbs, lots of old enamel pots of my beloved collection. also there are olive twigs i brought from my last trip to spain. I made the curtain is  with potato stamps.
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 A corner in the kitchen : little doll stove, olive twigs from Spain and enamel pots.


What do you think? so much of hand made love ..... I am so happy to see her son being so creative.. hope you enjoyed the lovely home..... you can see more of stylish claudia  here Thanks Claudia!

13 comments:

GB September 20, 2010 at 1:43 PM  

What a stunning home! Warm, personal, beautiful!This was a great post Akshatha! Thank you for sharing.

A. Naik September 20, 2010 at 2:50 PM  

thanks Gagan!

Rekha September 20, 2010 at 7:44 PM  

Simply awesome, I spent so much time ogling at these pics...each pic shows creativity and the personal style. The decor unconventional, cozy and happy...fabulous post Akshata.

Shivani Negi September 20, 2010 at 9:18 PM  

Mind-blowing post...soooooo creative and interesting..got to learn a lot..thanks Akshatha for sharing such a lovely post

Unknown September 20, 2010 at 10:30 PM  

this is such an amazing home! full of love & greenery & magic! Its like living in a fairy tale! Thanks a ton for sharing this..I must now revisit these pictures..so please excuse me!

Sayantani Mahapatra Mudi September 20, 2010 at 10:40 PM  

what a beautiful and vibrating home. with this post you almost transported us to a fairyland of magic and drama. awesome.

Purnima@a creative project September 21, 2010 at 12:03 AM  

Beautiful home!! A feast for eyes!!

Anonymous September 21, 2010 at 1:10 AM  

Akshatha, thank you one more time for featuring my home here in your beautiful blog! It was a great pleasure to contribute to the post and even more joyful for me, to meet such a creative, artistic and a sweet person like you!

Thank you all the viewers for kind comments and sweet words, it feels so good to share a (virtual) bit of my home and life having a feedback like that!

Have a great time Akshatha and all you lovely readers and followers!

hugs & kisses

Claudia

Sudha September 21, 2010 at 9:34 AM  

this is really inspiring..so many elements and ideas which one could!

Anonymous September 21, 2010 at 10:42 AM  

oh my gosh!! thats such a beautiful and inspiring home... Oh my! oh my!! so much love in there... its amazing.. That home sure has a heart and soul of its own!!

Sound Horn Please September 22, 2010 at 6:52 PM  

What a warm and welcoming home! You can really see Claudia's personal stamp on everything...

Sharon September 30, 2010 at 10:50 PM  

This is such a lovely post, Akshatha! How could I have missed it?

Love your new blog design too:)

Rev. Alma Faith Crawford April 30, 2018 at 5:01 AM  

Beautiful -- but you must know Roma people experience the term gypsy as pejorative.

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