By Marica

Being in the interior design industry, our studio library contains many magazines (and I mean a-freaken-lot). Magazines are a great source of inspiration and it keeps us informed about what’s happening in the local and international design scenes. Over the years (and hundreds of mags), we have separated wheat from chaff and established a short list of our favourite magazines that we seldom deviate from – we are quite the magazine elitists.

However, earlier this year and quite per chance, Rose bought an Ideas Magazine (it contained an article on Toile that caught her eye)… and we LOVED it!

Ideas speaks to a different facet of my creativity – it stirs my “you can do this yourself” muscle (a part of me I believed to have died after the horrible décor DIY trends of the mid to late 90s). However, with the current handmade and nostalgic fads doing the rounds, I am newly inspired to create with my hands (btw, something I’m not very good at).

Ideas is page upon page of awesome and original décor, fashion and culinary DIY inspiration. Every time I turn a page, I find myself exclaiming, “I can do that!”, “That is SO clever!”, “We should do this!” It completely inflames and satiates the DIY diva in me at the same time!

Predictably, my favourite features are the “Craft & Décor” and “How To” sections. Ideas also include a “Templates” section at the back of the magazine with patterns, motives & cut-outs used throughout the magazine – that way you can just have it photocopied or blown up to scale to create the brilliant items you just read about.

Guys and gals at Ideas you can pat yourselves on the back – you give out an excellent magazine, and after that one impromptu purchase we haven’t missed one issue!

Check out Ideas Magazine’s website for some more DIY goodness and very interesting and crafty ideas…here.