It's all about the home now for me.  Though I am planning the bigger details of my wedding I haven't forgotten that I will have to start thinking about my future new home that I will share with my hubby to be.  Still reliving the beauty of my recent trip to Sweden, their design influence has been branded on me big style.  The clean white walls and floors, crisp typography prints and black accented lighting, these types of spaces and equally serene and cool.  However I am, and will remain a daughter of the tropical islands and this too will be reflected in wherever I choose to lay my hat.  Vibrant coloured cushions, Asian Pottery, retro sundrenched photos and Ikat fabrics will make a house a home, and give it layers of character.  The two looks are pretty contrasting, but an amalgamation should be possible...no?

Here are what I find are the staple items that characterize the Swedish look!

With these central pieces below you could try and bring that island living to wherever you live.

What a spread!  Cool girl, mussy grungy hair and loungy clothes all sum up my ideal Autumnal casual style.  Prancing around at home in chunky knits, comfy socks and jersey leggings is my idea of a good time.  Plus, this model's eyebrows!!!  They are perfection.  Good work Elle Italia!

Knowing full well of the cheesy family album aspect of all this we just couldn't help ourselves.  Take four good friends, instagram lovers, a beautiful home and some spare time and what you get is a our Vanity Fair inspired at home photoshoot!  It was so much fun and really makeshift with us all taking turns to hold our phone torches up for extra lighting and me running out of my seat numerous times to set the timer for our group shot.  This all came about via the interesting mind of Andy Burton (Below), so Boy Burton this is for you!

Happy Friday!!!  We at The Bamboo District love Wes Anderson and his films, we even blogged about his collaboration with Prada to make the Candy ads before.  So how happy does the release of the official trailer of his new film The Grand Budapest Hotel make us.  The cast is a mixture of old favourites like Bill Murray, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson, and new such as Ralph Fiennes and Saoirse Ronan.  Even the trailer shows the promise of Anderson's fast paced, quirky comedy and amazing set design, let the countdown begin!  Also as a side note, if you are a fan too I have added his  book  to my Christmas list, maybe you might like to add it to yours too. :)

Halloween is but a few weeks away and though I usually do not celebrate this time seriously like some party animals I always thought that I would do my hair in this cute double bun style on the 31st!  I like it's mousey vibe and how it is very cute but still quirky too. If I did head off to a party later I may just dab some eye liner on my nose, draw some freckles and whiskers and I really will be a mouse!  With all this being said, I did blog about my Halloween outfit three years ago too.  I went as Zombie Amy Winehouse (RIP).

So Double buns...your cup of tea?

Here it is!  My Blogshop Stockholm write up.  As mentioned before on previous posts I am a huge fan of the website DesignLoveFest a blog by Graphic Designer Bri Emery housing her inspirations, graphic design skills and personal style content.  Through her site I was introduced to the photographer Angela Kohler, an LA based commercial photographer and video director; and together their class they put on called Blogshop.  The main basis of the class and the content taught is photoshop tricks and blog managing advice.  I had taught myself photoshop for the past few years and though nailed the basics there were aspects I knew I could be doing better.  When I discovered that they were teaching in Stockholm this year I knew I had to go.  I am so happy I attended this class instead of visiting their previous classes in London as it made me discover such a gorgeous city, and of course became the location of my recent engagement!

I have some photos of the weekend here, let me take you though them!

The classes were held in the fancy Summit meeting rooms in Hornstull, Stockholm.  The venue was two stops away from my flat, or a 15 minute walk along a cool main street with fantastic shops.  The room we had our class was all white with a mirrored back wall, though the hallways and other rooms in the building were designed equally cool but with different styles.

The classes themselves were fantastic.  We learned so many cool shortcuts on Photoshop and style ideas of how to design a good post.  We also covered more specific photo related topics like retouching, composition and my absolute favourite; making Gifs!!  (Check out the title image.)

We were also feed really well on this course.  11am Mimosas, roast chicken lunches, cinnamon roll snacks and the best smoothie I have ever had as an afternoon pick me up.  It was so yum, and considering food in Sweden is really expensive I really appreciated it.

With what I have learned I intend to use towards totally streamlining my often mish mash clunky style of posting, may even change the provider of my blog so I can have more freedom to personalize most things and even branch out to branding everything so I can produce some affiliate materials like business cards and flyers, the world is my oyster.  Watch this space.

If you are reading this and this class looks fun to you why not check out the dates of their future classes.  They are mostly in the USA but they do branch out quite a lot and I could not recommend it highly enough!!

An update on a personal part of my life...I have recently gotten engaged!  It has nearly been two weeks now and it feels equal parts exciting and funny!  Now I can look at Bridal things and not seem like a creep. :)  My Future hubby proposed in the most perfect way while in Sweden, with a perfect ring that he designed.  I adore him very much.  We have been together for five years, friends longer and both so excited in this new chapter in our lives.  My blog won't turn into a Bridezilla fest but I am not going to lie in that it won't feature a few times over the next year.  It's all pretty grown up, eeeeeeek!

You may know of Artist JR, whom I featured in the past for his distinct style of black and white photo portrait art that is connotative to social issues distinct to the locations the pieces are displayed.  His current large scale project is called Inside Out where he and his team produce large portrait photocopies of locals and pastes them on local landmarks of the area.  Some are small towns where the locals then choose where to paste their specific images, like schools or town halls. Others are in Capital cities and the projects are in collaboration with local authorities and the pasting occurs in National Landmarks.  In London where I'm from, it was the beautiful Somerset House that was chosen to have thousands of faces strewn all over the courtyard and months earlier there was an epic version in New York's Time Square.  The project in brief highlights the diversity of the area, and to give personality to the many faces that in times can be lost in this vast wide world.  The works will slowly fade with nature taking it's course with winds and rains or  will be taken away when Somerset House wants to be it's classical self again, but for now I am glad to be part of this and if you are in the area you should try and be part of it too.  Follow @JR on twitter for up to date info of his work.

In my Goddesses on Earth list Model Liu Wen is high up there.  Frequent readers will know that she features heavily in past Editorial Envies but this offering by Marcin Tyszka for Vogue Thailand seriously kicks everything she has ever done out of the park! Her poses, her beauty, this photography, this styling, this make up, this hair!  Perfection. I absorbed so much content online but this collection of images has really taken my breath away which is a pretty tough thing for Fashion photography to do these days especially for Studio stories.  Bravo to everyone involved in this project, uuugggh, it's so stunning it makes me sick.

Stockholm, Sweden.  Man I love you.  Seriously this city and this whole trip has been a dream.  An expensive dream but a dream non the less.  The architecture of the Old Town, Gamla Stan with it's narrow orangey and yellow buildings has such a historic charm,  the hipcat island of Sodermalm which our flat was located had cute boutiques, coffee cafes and yummy bakeries and there were so many other corners of the City which had it's own thing going on like forests and boat docks!

Sweden rightfully is crown the home of impeccable design.  The eateries to the stationary were so beautiful, I bought bowls, paperclips and string as souvenirs.  Also, the people were so beautiful, seriously so hot.  Groomed and so stylish, but mostly they did it all so effortlessly.  Fashion wise there were plenty of beanie hats, black leggings and new balance trainers for the ladies and tight cropped side hair cuts, leather bomber jackets and smart boots for the men.  It was a sight.

My course that I attended was amazing too but I will cover that later in another in depth post, as well as another post around something else epic that happened on this trip. :)

If anyone reading this post hasn't had the opportunity to visit this city I could not recommend it more.  if there are a bunch of you and wanted to find a flat to stay why not check this one out, which is the one I stayed in via Air BnB.  It was perfect!  

I will end this post with some photos from the trip, because it is a photo set after all.

(they really love their dogs here)