I fell in love just the other day: the moment I laid eyes on this range my heart skipped a beat, and I completely went weak in the knees when I touched the garments. The more I found out about the designs and company profile, the more my heart fluttered. This Danish fashion designer gets the enhance the everyday hallmark for being everything we want in a fashion label.

Introducing, AYMARA…

“in this modern, transient world, everything is quickly discarded. i wanted to create a product that endures, not just in time, but also in people’s hearts”. Maria Høgh Heilmann, fashion designer AYMARA

AYMARA is named after the original Bolivian people and their language, Aymará. This exclusive fashion company meets our demands as the modern, conscientious consumer with their stunning, high quality garments wrapped in good conscience.

”The vision for our collections for women, infants and home is to create original, but classic designs in such authentic and durable materials so they can last many seasons. When we combine this vision with fair trade principles, the result is authentic sustainability.” Trine Fyhr for AYMARA

AYMARA is part of a developing project in Bolivia – the first Danish fashion label to introduce the Llama fibre (called cashlama) and to create awareness of Bolivia and their exclusive products. Read more about AYMARA right here.

My wardrobe has been in serious need of refreshing and this is exactly what I was looking for – I am going for the wrap cardigans, and that top in the first image has my name on it. Oh who am I kidding, I cannot take a favourite item here, I mean, look at those long johns! I also want the entire homeware range you see above. AYMARA, I’m so glad I found you.

Photography by (blog)house reader, Deborah.

This diptych was taken when her and her man travelled to Bathurst, NSW, Australia (one of my favourite country towns), they had a fabulous time and decided to hold their wedding there at a farmhouse which will be in a few months! Deborah wrote, “it’s amazing where you wander and how your heart follows suit.” I could not agree more Deborah. Oh your images make me miss that Australian sun. Beautiful submission, thank you.

I am busy archiving all the first entries and have just been picking ones out randomly as I go- so no tears if I haven’t put yours up on the blog, all in good time. And don’t hesitate to submit more if you find you have come up with more ideas – no time limits thus far so if you spy your wandering heart again then do take the time to capture it.

a beautiful submission by michelle, from which the heart shape has been cut from a slip and rests ever-so gently on the corner of the chair…

“All of my work deals with intimacy and I prefer to use recycled, personal materials. This image was taken in maybe the most intimate space in my life, my bedroom.”

one of seven submissions by blogger/photographer 22butterfly.

Love this. I will display more of Maggie’s submissions as inspiration for us all, she has created some magnificent vignettes for the project. My Heart Wanders is on it’s way! (i promise to reveal the deadline date in coming days)

For this post’s soundtrack, click here.

I often wonder what life was like for the people who lived in Paris a couple of centuries ago. Did they see the same things that I see today? Did they look down at the same cobblestones? Well, have a look at these to find out…

La rue Soufflot in 1850…

And today, 158 years later…

Le Carrefour de l’Odéon in 1850..

And today…

The 6th arrondissement back in the 1800′s…

And today, with the looming Montparnasse tower in the background…

and some more…

Pretty cool non? Amazing to think that we have been walking the same streets for all these years. Click here to see some more.

You are all probably well aware now that I am a nature girl. I am drawn to all things natural, and I gain all my styling inspiration from nature. And so while I am on my Sunday sloth fest, instead of getting out there amongst nature, I am going to bring the nature to us today. And all in the name of fabulous design. Let’s start with these beauties…

Hans Silvester is the photographer of this incredible book called Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa. My fabo friend Beve from the wonderful blog Afropolitans sent me this link knowing full well that it would make me jump up and down with girlish excitement. She also sent me the link to this great article about the book which is described as a tribal fashion show inspired by the wild trees, exotic flowers and lush vegetation of the area bordering Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan… “these tribal people have created looks that put the most outlandish creations of Western catwalk couturiers to shame.” I have already ordered my copy from Amazon, as even though this article is so full of awesome images from the book, I cannot get enough of them. I need this book. now. Plus, who doesn’t love having their face-painted? Oh I am sooooooo inspired…

Next up on our nature walk through the blogosphere, I am taking you all with me here:

I found this treasure on what I believe to be my personal secret source of life’s most interesting and incredible things, a blog authored by a mysterious and extraordinarily talented chick. So who and what am I raving about? Cherry Coloured. And the author I must reveal, is more than just a pretty blogger, she answers by the name of Nyla, and she made this documentary about Jeff Buckley, which I only just realised (GASP!!!); she takes these beautiful photographs; and she finds and shares these treasures with us. Nyla’s blog is a must on your daily blogroll, that’s if you want to find such a place as this:

Yep, we are talking the ULTIMATE in fine nature backyards here. I am completely enraptured – a totally sustainable rainforest community nestled into the tree tops of a 6,000 foot rainforest mountain on the South Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. The residence is called Finca Bellavista, and they even have high-speed Internet and WIFI. That means we could all live there and STILL blog away. Can’t you imagine us coo-ing each other from across the tree tops? You would all be invited to dinner on my treehouse terrace, where we can have a bloggers meeting right here…

So who is coming with me?

Oh I almost can’t keep up with this post, my imagination is running wild now. I am thinking of how we could dress our treehouses, with all the incredible finds we have been sharing on our blogs, including these French creations which I want vite…

These are called Living Stones, floor cushions in the shape of oversized pebbles that are made from 100% wool and are environmentally friendly with no use of chemical dyes. They also have an outdoor range:

Don’t the French just know what we want? But so do Kim and Jo, because they started me on the wander that lead me to these delightful pieces. As it goes, I was perusing their WINK post as I always do on my free weekends and as you know they introduce new bloggers, and this one called Shift caught my eye. So over I went and that is where I found the rocks for my new treehouse accomodation. This new blog has loads more inspiration, so go check it out. While you do that, I am just going to stick a flower in my hair, leaf through the pages of my new book, and sit on my treetop terrace on my new furniture. Hope to see you there…

After a long and very busy week, yesterday’s outing was a real treat: It started around 10am when friends Hayley and Gavin invited us on a day trip to the National Park Hoge Veluwe. This park is a real gem of The Netherlands as it consists of 5500 hectares of unspoilt woodlands, grassy plains, sand drifts and is the natural habitat of deer, mouflans (goats) and wild boars. The best way to see the park is by bike of which there are hundreds of free ones at your service, especially for park visitors. We all hopped on one each and set off to explore our surroundings. The air was so beautiful and reminded me very much of the fresh air of the West Coast of Canada. I was in heaven as I rode past moss-covered rocks, baby pine trees and thousands of lofty conifers. The most bizarre and beautiful of all was the sand field which just appeared before our eyes after riding through a few kilometres of thick forest, it was as if we had ridden on through a travel machine which had taken us right into the sahara…

As if that wasn’t enough to captivate us, right in the heart of the parkland is the Kröller-Müller Museum which houses an extensive collection of works by living and long gone artists, including some 200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh.

Two artists who tantalised my artist taste buds were Tom Claassen …

and Anselm Kiefer…

images from White Cube.

Although things got a little obscure with Anselm when we all discovered that he had used his sperm in one of his sculpture creations. Needless to say before we walked away in shock we all took a look at this masterpiece.

There is also a world famous sculpture garden within the museum grounds that we did not get time to visit but we are all keen to go back in warmer weather, take a picnic and spend a long lazy afternoon amongst the forest surroundings. Thanks again Hayley and Gav for a fab day out!

all other images courtesy of the Kröller-Müller Museum