Monthly Favourites: August 2016

Aug 23, 2016
3 min read

Every last week of the month myself and Alexa will take it in turns to share with you our monthly favourites. These can range from hair care to instagram pages of our belladonna of the month. We hope they inspire you!

Belladonna of the month: Isabella Pagnotta

@isabellapagnottadesigns is currently, and has been for a long time, my favourite surface designer.

Everything made is screen printed and hand-painted by Isabella, who is currently based in London. Her amazing attention to detail is beautifully incorporated on several different surfaces, ranging from chairs for children to ceramic plates. Whilst scrolling through her page you immediately notice the intricate floral designs, and striking colour choices, that each tell their own story and come from different sources of inspiration. She is always on the search for more!

Follow Isabella’s blog, Facebook and instagram to keep in the loop with sneak peeks of new projects, new blog posts and what she is getting up to.

Song of the month: Cake by the Ocean- DNCE

Can't help but scream at the top of your lungs singing “ah ya ya ya ya ya” whilst dancing around the house and shaking those hips? Neither can I.

This song always gets me jumping around singing along to it’s catchy chorus. It was definitely the summer song for me and Alexa when she popped over to see me in Portugal. In an interview with MTV, Joe Jonas confesses that whilst "working on the record, these Swedish producers that we were working with, they kept confusing 'sex on the beach' with 'cake by the ocean,' so that's how the song started." Always love a little story behind a song.

Either way let it all out ladies because who doesn’t want to dance around by the ocean?

Book of the month: Quiet by Susan Cain

This book has definitely given me confidence with some features of my personality considered to be those of an introvert. I actually identify myself as an ambivert, which for me is the best of both worlds. However, making the most of my introvert features has sometimes proved difficult. Many people believe that to be one of the best/most successful you need to be an extrovert, which was the opposite a few years ago.

Susan Cain shows the history and relationship of extroverts and introverts, and empowers introverts to use their qualities to their benefit. If you are an introvert, or an ambivert, grab a copy and read this inspiration of a book! I promise you, you don’t want to miss out.

Quote of the month:

“He asked me ‘what’s your favourite position?’ I said ‘CEO.’”- Lauren Conrad

Featured on our instagram page this month, I was just itching to share it up on our blog. This was Lauren's response during a radio interview with Sway Calloway. I don’t think I need to go into too much detail as to why this is one of my favourites.

Lauren Conrad keep being a female boss!

Podcast of the month: Elora Hardy: Magical houses, made of bamboo

"With creativity and commitment you can create beauty, and comfort, and safety, and even luxury out of a material that will grow back." Elora talks all things bamboo, architecture and innovation. Amazing to see through this podcast the houses, schools, restaurants and other buildings her and her father built using bamboo. Listening to her words inspires me to make the most of my resources, doing the very best I can for myself and the world around me. Head over to Ted Talks to watch it!

Article of the month: 9 ways to become a successful blogger by Nomadic Matt

Nomadic Matt is a successful travel blogger and author of the New York Times best-selling book, How to Travel the World on $50 a Day. Ranging from tested tips, advice, and suggestions he reaches out to millions of people, and as a travel blogger myself he is a big inspiration for me. He also, thankfully, recently shared valuable blogging tips through this article. I just had to share this one with you as me and Alexa have only had this blog running for two weeks, and it is our baby that we want to see flourish. If you are beginning a blog like us and could use some tips, head over to Nomadic Matt's blog to read this article.