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Basket Cases: 5 Clever Ways to Repurpose Gift Baskets

If you were a lucky boy or girl at Christmas, you'll have gift baskets just begging to be repurposed. Try these 5 ideas for storage and decoration.



If you were a lucky boy or girl over the Christmas period, you may now have attractive gift baskets and hampers lying around just begging to be reused and repurposed. Whether you've received traditional woven wicker baskets, faux leather hampers or shabby chic wooden crates, don't let these beautiful items go to waste.

To breathe fresh life into your old hampers and empty gift baskets, we've curated 5 fabulous "basket cases" to provide a little design inspiration.

1. Hanging baskets
If you're green fingered, why not fill your empty wicker baskets with flowers and foliage? This is a wonderful project which is very easy to put together at home. Perfect for bringing a little colour and rustic charm to exteriors and outdoor spaces.

Simply string up your empty wicker gift baskets, fill them with compost, plant your favourite flowers then hang them up to beautify outdoors areas. We particularly like the addition of a trailing creeper in the lower basket to add pretty fronds and greenery to your creation.

Stacked baskets full of your favourite herbs also work wonderfully, great for cooking and wonderful for adding scent to a kitchen garden or patio.

 

 

 

2. Stencilled storage

 If you're a hoarder of clothes, shoes, records, perfumes or DVDs, larger gift baskets and hampers make brilliant, tucked away storage, which look pretty on the outside, while keeping clutter safely on the inside.

If you have larger wooden chests or baskets left over from bigger gifts, why not turn them in to beautiful and practical storage? You could even stencil them with their contents (we particularly like French versions: "Chaussures" for a touch of romance and culture). For sturdier chests, pop a couple of pretty cushions on top to provide extra seating.

3. Bathroom baskets

We're in love with these innovative bathroom baskets. Simply hung from towel rails, these are laid-back, repurposed
storage of the most inspiring type.

Customise to taste with your chosen rails and hangers and use to hold all of those bathroom essentials, without clutter. Perfect for those of you who dream of an elegant,  minimal bathroom with plenty of charm.

 

4. Basket bookcase

For avid readers, these basket bookcases are a gorgeous way to store, organise and showcase your favourite books. We love the customised labels, although we think alphabetical baskets would be even better. If you are particularly keen on a couple of authors, they could be given pretty labelled baskets all of their very own.

5. Spice baskets

A well stocked spice collection is essential for any self-respecting home gourmet - and airtight, former gift baskets look so much more beautiful than plastic or supermarket-bought alternatives. We especially like the look of this small, rustic wooden chest, wonderful for laid-back kitchens with a warm, vintage style.

To keep your herbs and spices fresh, make sure you use baskets with lids, or pick up some Tupperware which fits your baskets perfectly. You can even subdivide larger baskets to fit all of your flavours simultaneously. Delicious!

3 essential home design trends for 2014

Welcome in the new year with a revamp for your interiors. If you're searching for a little inspiration, look no further. Here are 3 trends to look out for.

New year, new start - if you're ready to welcome in 2014 with fresh interior design, we've compiled a handful of our favourite influences to keep you on trend. From copper accents to a powerful blue colour palette, we've scoured far and wide to bring you some of the most versatile, beautiful and inspiring interior design ideas set to be big over the coming year.

Decadent kitchens

Once a space for minimalist design, cool modern metal and bright simplicity, the style-conscious kitchen is set to become a more indulgent space in 2014. Forget clean lines, pared back appliances, medical metals, light woods and bright whites, this year the kitchen is given a touch of glamour.

Think rich, dark woods, art deco embellishments and deep hues. Where better to cook up something delectable than in a beautiful kitchen space, after all? We have warm, dark green paired with dark wood surfaces and a beautiful, feature piece of lighting as a key kitchen look in our 2014 scrapbooks this season.



Saturated turquoise

Banish beige and forget neutral shades, this year warm and bold blues are proving popular. Traditionally a cooler colour, there's a hot side to this shade which has made one of the most popular shades for 2014, alongside the recently announced Pantone Radiant Orchid colour of the year.

When it comes to the blues, however, there is a whole colour wheel of choice out there; from rich navy tones to beautiful ultramarine colour pops. Mixing and matching shades is a popular look, but it is a bright, saturated turquoise which is proving to be the favourite blue this year.

Don't go for feature walls, instead introduce turquoise to all corners of your room, accompany this bright, bold colour with tiled or medium-to-light wood flooring and decorate with mixed textures and materials to create a light, eclectic and naturally beautiful look.



Copper highlights

Copper is the interior designer's metallic inspiration of choice this year. The warm glowing metal makes a refreshing change from more clinical chrome and showy gold highlights. It has a homely, ethnic feel which adds a touch of brightness, without seeming cold or pretentious. Copper works wonderfully with bold patterns of all shapes and sizes, from chintzy vintage designs to bold, modern floral patterns and monochrome geometric designs. Use in moderation to add highlights to a strong decor.



What's your design inspiration this year? Are you introducing any of our favourite looks into your home? We'd love to hear what's influencing your decor in 2014, let us know with a comment below, or drop us an email at info@bluemahogany.com.                                                    

Pantone colour of the year 2014: Radiant Orchid

Looks like we're trending!

The new blue mahogany logo will be revealed in January 2014. Coincidentally it includes a shade of magenta very similar to the pantone colour of the year for 2014; Radiant Orchid! 

I promise you we did not see a sneak peak of Pantone’s trend forecasting sessions!

Jingle bells

Christmas is coming soon and the Blue Mahogany team is getting ready !!!

Are you creative?

According to this article I must be!



http://www.fastcompany.com/3016689/leadership-now/10-paradoxical-traits-of-c
reative-people?goback=.gde_103871_member_274067768#!




10 Paradoxical Traits Of Creative People


Creative people are humble and proud. Creative people tend to be both
extroverted and introverted. Creative people are rebellious and
conservative. How creative are you?

By: Faisal Hoque <http://www.fastcompany.com/user/faisal-hoque>



_____

I frequently find myself thinking about whether I am an artist or an
entrepreneur <http://www.faisalhoque.com> .

It is safe to say that more and more entrepreneurs are artists, and artists
of all kinds are entrepreneurs. And the trend is only on the rise as all
things (art, science, technology, business, culture, spirituality) are
increasingly converging.

Creativity is the common theme that drives both entrepreneurs and artists
alike. But creative people are often also paradoxical.

In the words of distinguished professor of psychology and management Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi:

"I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work,
to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up
with new ideas and new things. If I had to express in one word what makes
their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show
tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They
contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them
is a multitude."

Mihaly describes ten traits often contradictory in nature
<http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199607/the-creative-personality> ,
that are frequently present in creative people. In Creativity, Mihaly
outlines these:


1. Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also
often quiet and at rest.


They work long hours, with great concentration, while projecting an aura of
freshness and enthusiasm.


2. Creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time.


"It involves fluency, or the ability to generate a great quantity of ideas;
flexibility, or the ability to switch from one perspective to another; and
originality in picking unusual associations of ideas. These are the
dimensions of thinking that most creativity tests measure and that most
workshops try to enhance."


3. Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and
irresponsibility.


But this playfulness doesn't go very far without its antithesis, a quality
of doggedness, endurance, and perseverance.

"Despite the carefree air that many creative people affect, most of them
work late into the night and persist when less driven individuals would not.
Vasari wrote in 1550 that when Renaissance painter Paolo Uccello was working
out the laws of visual perspective, he would walk back and forth all night,
muttering to himself: "What a beautiful thing is this perspective!" while
his wife called him back to bed with no success."


4.Creative people alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted
sense of reality.


Great art and great science involve a leap of imagination into a world that
is different from the present.


5. Creative people tend to be both extroverted and introverted.


We're usually one or the other, either preferring to be in the thick of
crowds or sitting on the sidelines and observing the passing show. Creative
individuals, on the other hand, seem to exhibit both traits simultaneously.


6. Creative people are humble and proud at the same time.


It is remarkable to meet a famous person who you expect to be arrogant or
supercilious, only to encounter self-deprecation and shyness instead.


7. Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping.


When tests of masculinity and femininity are given to young people, over and
over one finds that creative and talented girls are more dominant and tough
than other girls, and creative boys are more sensitive and less aggressive
than their male peers.


8. Creative people are both rebellious and conservative.


It is impossible to be creative without having first internalized an area of
culture. So it's difficult to see how a person can be creative without being
both traditional and conservative and at the same time rebellious and
iconoclastic.


9.Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be
extremely objective about it as well.


Without the passion, we soon lose interest in a difficult task. Yet without
being objective about it, our work is not very good and lacks credibility.
Here is how the historian Natalie Davis puts it:

"I think it is very important to find a way to be detached from what you
write, so that you can't be so identified with your work that you can't
accept criticism and response, and that is the danger of having as much
affect as I do. But I am aware of that and of when I think it is
particularly important to detach oneself from the work, and that is
something where age really does help."


10. Creative people's openness and sensitivity often exposes them to
suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment.


"Perhaps the most important quality, the one that is most consistently
present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of
creation for its own sake. Without this trait, poets would give up striving
for perfection and would write commercial jingles, economists would work for
banks where they would earn at least twice as much as they do at
universities, and physicists would stop doing basic research and join
industrial laboratories where the conditions are better and the expectations
more predictable."

Paradoxical or not, what I have learned most is that there is no formula for
individual creation. As Mihay says, "creative individuals are remarkable for
their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever
is at hand to reach their goals." So, more than anything else, what it takes
to be creative is resourcefulness and the courage not to give up.

We've been nominated (again)!!!

The interior design excellence awards (IDEA) are back this year and yours truly has been nominated for the second year in a row. Being nominated is a huge honour and privilege and we are all really super grateful and very excited here at Blue Mahogany. We will be even more elated if we win!

This year we are down for a couple of categories including Young Designer of the Year and Best Retail Design.

 

Wish us luck!!

GUIDE 2013

Christmas is just around the corner...

This week I'm in love with...

Stripes! Well, not just this week. I've always had a thing for stripes. No idea why. I wonder if a psychologist could tell me. Maybe I'm a not-so-closet control freak and am fascinated by order and rules and clear boundaries... maybe. Who knows. Who cares?

Here are some stripey things I love :)

How Fabulous is this satin ribbon lamp from Isabel Stanley design

 

Livingetc.com

These striped Louis chairs are the ultimate in vintage chic

Simple. Striking. Masculine. Feminine. Timeless.

Best friend discounts from our friends at Uno

Potato, Potato

You say “backsplash”, I say “splashback”!

A year or so ago I was working on a residential project and the architect in charge of the build was US-trained. Very knowledgeable guy, years of experience but when it came to the kitchen detail he kept referring to the splashback as a “backsplash”. I couldn’t find it in my heart to correct him.  I just thought if I said “splashback” often enough, he’d get the idea and correct himself. When I suggested a mosaic tile to go on the wall behind the sink, as this would make a lower maintenance SPLASHBACK than a stainless steel one, he agreed that mosaic tiles would indeed make a great backsplash!

Fast forward to last weekend and I’m watching Extreme makeover home edition on TV. As usual, the dream team is creating a magical home from foundation to furnishings within a week. Cut to the scene where Ty is telling us his plans for this family’s huge new kitchen/diner. Lo and behold, he’s picked out some lovely hand-painted tiles for the... you guessed it... backsplash! And that’s when the penny dropped. It was an American thing. I remembered the US-trained Architect I had worked with all those months ago and realised that when I was proudly saying “splashback” in perfectly put on Queen’s English, he was probably wondering why I kept calling it that!

That revelation inspired me to compile a list of things you might come across while building or decorating your home and the British/US translations that might come in handy. If you can think of any more that I've let out, please feel free to leave a comment!

British	American
Splashback Family room Larder Flat Loo Lift Serviette Wardrobe Power point Cooker Curtains	Backsplash Den Pantry Apartment Bathroom Elevator Napkin Closet Socket Stove Drapes

Corporate chaos

I was going to write this piece for my column in ThisDay but I felt this would be the perfect medium for me to vent, without worrying (as much) about word limits and political correctness.

Not enough people know this but there is an area of overlap between interior design/decorating and branding. One should not exist entirely independently of the other. However, when interpreting your brand in the interiors of your workspace it need not be literal. Whenever I meet with commercial clients to get a brief for designing their offices, boutiques, bars, etc.. it is really important that I get a clear idea of their brand identity and the image they are trying to project. I take away as much literature, stationery, logos etc as I can. For me, the space in which your customers or clients meet you says in so many words what your 'mission statement' or slogan may try to capture. I do not however colour match your logo and cover every wall and surface with that exact same shade of blue or lime green!

An office not too far from me has all its interior walls painted lime green. As they were decorating I peeped in through the window and wondered how on earth they'd be able to do any work and be productive in such an acidic space. A few days later I drove past and they'd hung up tangerine coloured curtains! I wondered what they were thinking when they made those choices. What were they trying to say? What kind of business could this be? Great colours, yes. But put together it was just so intense and so.... much!

A couple of days ago I saw one of their business cards. Their logo is green and orange. Oh, I see! Now it made sense. They're a young company, bringing an innovative product to the market. The graphic designer who came up with that logo probably thought Green = fresh. Orange = bold, daring, avante garde. It totally makes sense. On a business card. But in their offices, the spirit of that message could have been interpreted in a light and fresh space. Maybe some modern furniture. The odd splash of orange or green here and there in a potted plant or a piece of artwork. Maybe the floors or ceilings could be clad in an unusual material, creatively used. Possibly some really funky yet simple lighting. That would have said to me: young, innovative, ground breaking company. And not just "I took my business card to Dulux"!

BLiNG vals offer.

Santa's little helpers

Hello there!

From the guys who brought you the Sexy Summer Threesome, we are back again with a retail experience you will not want to miss. The Santa’s Little Helpers Christmas fair is happening this weekend and we’ve got something for everyone! Home accessories, gift items, jewellery, ICE watches, clothing and fashion accessories, Christmas cakes and desserts, cupcakes, mulled wine, hampers... and the most amazing gift wrapping service you have seen in a long while.

 

So whether you’re looking to do some last minute Christmas shopping, buy a gift for friends and family, something special to treat yourself or some delicious treats for the kids, it’s all happening in Lekki this Sunday.

 

Sunday December 12^th, 2010

Blue Mahogany Studio, 1B Omorinre Johnson Close, Lekki Phase 1

12noon - 8pm

 

 

Christmas begins here!

See you soon,

Omon and Emeka

Xxx

 

 

 

We had a young lady come over to the design studio recently. She's working in a furniture company run by a male MD. She's having a great time in her job and says she is definitely learning a lot from them and the projects she has been involved in. However, she feels she's missing something. Her hope was that in internship with us would teach her a little something extra about interior design with "a woman's touch". I initially wasn't sure how to take this but I decided it was a compliment.

It got me thinking though, about how male and female designers or architects might approach a project differently. It reminded me also of a project I was asked to look at a couple of months ago. The prospective clients were are well known restaurant in Lagos that had recently had a huge makeover. They'd flown in an Italian interior designer who had put together a gorgeous scheme. But after millions of Naira spent, they called me in to have a look at the space because it was still missing 'something'. Turned out the designer (very talented I might add) was male. I am not sure how relevant that was to the outcome. He was also gay but again the relevance of that is debatable.

I've put together a few images and wonder if you can tell which ones have 'a woman's touch'.

Photographs courtesy of  www.oliversteel.com and www.sheilabridges.com.

Beauty is...

not just in the eye of the beholder, but in all the senses.

We had a few people over for dinner this weekend. Simple nibbles, everyone brought a bottle... It was meant to be one of those evenings where you enjoy good company and have a great time with minimal effort. After just coming back from holiday I was still in a 'chilled out' state of mind. I wasn't about to slave away in the kitchen, spend ages agonizing over flower arrangements and then eons more picking out the perfect hostess outfit. This time I couldn't be bothered to be bothered.

That's what I thought until the first guest called for directions to the house. And then I felt that little flutter of anxiety. OMG, how can we entertain and the house not be absolutely, perfectly... beautiful? What to do, what to do? When in doubt, whip out the props! I've found that the right lighting and a strategic bowl of fruit can do wonders for a room. And scented candles? Absolute magic.

Two lanterns just outside the front door make people feel welcome and a little bit special as they approach. Almost like you rolled out a red carpet, just for them. I cheekily snuck in a squirt of room fragrance by the entrance so that as you walk in you are welcomed by this lovely calming feel-good scent. Dim lighting creates a nice 'restauranty' ambiance and flickering candles dotted around the room suddenly turn our living room into this glamorous entertaining space. Trust me, almost anything looks glamorous in candlelight! Ipod and dock, check! Set to shuffle and turn down just so. By the time you get to the dainty canapes laid out on sleek black platters, you have no idea that really they are just little crackers with a bit of cream cheese, salami and black pepper that literally took us 10minutes to rustle up!

If you ask anyone who was there that night (apart from that weird guy with the tacky belt who looked like he'd rather be at a Timaya concert), they would all say they had a great time and the evening was just... beautiful!

Uno Home Accessories presents...Sexy Summer 3Some (Home accessories, lingerie and delicious cupcakes and desserts)

 

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10 days to the Sexy Summer Sale Event!!!