Win a $1000 shopping spree with AURA

To celebrate the release of our new Spring Summer collection we are offering one lucky winner a $1000 Shopping Spree with AURA! Thats right $1000 to spend on your favourite AURA products! For your chance to win head over and "like" us on Facebook and click the "WIN" box.  Then visit www.aurahome.com.au and "like" your favourite product. Good luck everyone! 

Escape to the Country - it was worth the wait!

So it has been a bit of a journey over the past year, with a lot of trips to the country for husband and I but it was worth the wait. We are finally the very proud and excited owners of our new country escape, beautiful barn and all!!!

I can only thank my very supportive and patient husband (and AURA team who have had put up with me and live the dream) for coming on this life journey with me.  Oh and thanks in advance for the huge amount of painting that he may have to do later in the year. I have been told very loudly that he doesn't like gardening!

My husbands pride and joy "the barn" every man needs a shed! Without the barn I don't think he would have let us buy it. But I have to agree it is rather gorgeous. Watch this space, I am looking forward to sharing our adventures when the work begins! Lots of painting, decorating and veggie planting ahead.....

My super cool new Vacuum

Sorry for the lack of posts lately - I have been fortunate enough to be travelling for the last 3 weeks and as well as having an incredibly inspiring trip I had a very nice surprise on return! I arrived home to a very clean house (thank you very much husband!) I do believe that this was helped by our super cool new Ergorapido vacuum that he thinks is quite fun :) It impressed me no end by vacuuming up not only our dogs hair but his visiting friend who was a Golden Retriever! Task well done! I am very thankful to anything that not only encourages my husband to clean, it comes in a super range of cool colours so if your in the need I highly recommend! :)

Real Living December Issue

Loving the new Real Living Christmas issue and the "Pretty not pricy" table settings. Favourite one has to be the outback glamour but then the natural & rustic features our very own Inka in Artichoke napkins! 

Beautiful Christmas table styling inspiration

I received my new Christmas issue of Inside Out today and I'm just loving it! Especially the "One Table Three Ways" themes - Classic European, Banquet Bouquets and Natural High. It is definitely inspiring me and getting me thinking about my Christmas "look" - If I had to choose my favourite its the Classic European, but I have a red painting in the dining room so maybe Natural High with Red could look fabulous? They are all beautiful, helped of course by the wonderful styling of Mr Glen Proebstel and Photography of Sharyn Cairns.

Zara finally here

Well the day has finally arrived that Zara has blessed us Melbournites with her presence, heres a shot taken in the city today of the crowds looking pretty excited and looking like they dont mind abit of a wait! With the newly renovated Myer and David Jones and now Zara - there's 3 good reasons to start shopping in Melbourne city centre again! 

A fabulous start to a Friday!

Do you ever wake up feeling abit tired (especially after a fabulous and relaxing long Easter break) and wonder why do we work so hard all of our lives?? Well this morning I woke up to a little shot that was emailed through from our lovely Canadian distributor and all of those dreary Friday thoughts went straight out the window! I've always dreamed of AURA being up there with the Donna Karan's and the Calvin Klein's of the world and here we are in all our glory sitting pride of place next to Mr Klein in The Bay in Toronto. Take a bow team AURA - this definately out does the royal wedding for me this weekend!

Happy 10th Birthday AURA!

 Aimee Marshall, Jessica Davidson and I.

 Julie Lewis and Mary Mumby.

The AURA glamour girls, Jaine Fulcher and I with Richard Waller.

Beth and Kathee, from 360 Degrees.

Tanya Buchanan and David Novak-Piper. 

Lesiele Hailame, Kathee Gunn, Lisa Thomas, Claire Patience.

The AURA ladies.....

"Time flys when your having fun" and so it goes that AURA has turned 10! and we celebrated in style at The Bite Club in Sydney to thank our wonderful Media friends for their generous support over the last 10 years and to also launch our new Winter 2011 collection.  The new collection has been inspired by a journey into the Andalusian countryside thanks to my recent trip to Spain and what a perfect venue. Thank you everyone who attended it was a wonderful night, and a very special thank you to the fabulous AURA team, Jaine and Jess, we are a very passionate team and we have all worked so hard on AURA to enable it to grow into the wonderful brand that it has become. Here's to the next 10 years!! 

Kate Spade - Xmas wrapping inspiration in Hong Kong

I love this emerald & chocolate wrapping in the Kate Spade Hong Kong Store.

I do love the constant colour overload at Kate Spade, and her HK store windows were no exception. They have made me start thinking about my Christmas wrapping (about time since today is December 12th!) and I dont know which way to go - bright and metallic or earthy and natural - I think I might have to mix them both as even though I am feeling abit more natural these days its hard to go away from exotic colours like this. So now I have to start thinking about gifts and putting up the tress since I have the wrapping worked out! In case you havent guessed im never very organised at Christmas....

Lovely Christmas shots

A beautiful xmas, some lovely new inspiring shots from Toast. Putting me in the Christmas mood! 

Silver fancy

Inspiration for an exciting secret AURA event we are working on, what can be more lovely than shiney, old fashioned cutlery, reminds me of family lunches from when I was young. Some things become more special as you grow older. 

Bring on the tapas napkins!!

Our new hand printed tablelinen has arrived and I'm pretty excited, I've got the family coming over tonight for my Spanish fiesta - and my new Gallery tapas napkins in Caper have just landed on my desk they are sooo cute! Above is our lovely shot of the Gallery tapas in Ginger, I think I could get used to using these smaller 25cm (a quarter of the size) napkins all the time - I know they are going to be just perfect around our kitchen bench eating olives and anchoas with the special Spanish Cava we brought back from Seville to celebrate my husbands birthday (Happy Birthday honey! xx)

New Years Resolution

People keep asking me about my New Years resolution and I really cant think of one I am honestly going to stick to so I thought this image summed it all up for me - image from Third Draw Down.

Family at Christmas

This is a beautiful note - one of the many in the lovely 3 week journey of David Eustace and his daughter Racheal which you can read at The Anthropologist - their journey takes them from Los Angeles to a little town called Eustace - with Christmas coming up and a couple of very special people in my life recovering back to health I found a little note like this to be very inspiring and welcomed.

A special wedding in India

A beautiful Indian wedding missed

I have a very special friend in India that I have known for over 12 years - on Sunday he and his family celebrated the wedding of his son Anuj and his new bride Ambika - congratulations Anuj and Ambika it looks like a truly wonderful evening was had and we do wish we could have been there to share it with you. All our best wishes from Australia xxx