Leezar's Christmas Tree

Here at dandi we are all getting into the spirit of things with just 8 days left until Christmas! So we thought we would show you our clever Leezar's lovely Christmas tree which has been decorated with hand sewn dandi fabric ornaments. These are simple to make and look very stylish, whilst adding a personal touch. Instructions can be downloaded in PDF form here.

Deck you Door with Dandi

This Christmas the Dandi girls are focusing on the personal touch you can bring through hand made decorations and crafts. Deck your door with this fabulous Christmas wreath, made with signature printed and plain-dyed dandi fabric. Its a cinch to whip up and looks striking with a few leaves paced in the bow. This wreath was lovingly hand crafted by Leezar with her new sewing machine. Click here to download the PDF and instructions.

Retailer Watch: Turner & Lane, Melbourne

A while back the Dandi ladies paid a visit to the gorgeous store Turner & Lane in Malvern, Melbourne. Turner & Lane stock a wonderful selection of elclectic gifts & homewares in the front of their shop, with a colourful kiddies section out the back.Everything was displayed so beautifully and Dandi even featured in the window so we had to share it with you!

A Dandi Birthday

There is a Dandi Birthday today! Mindi is one year wiser. This means lots of tea, cake, hugs and a trip up the street for a Dandi girly lunch :) 

For her Birthday the Dandi ladies put together a gorgeous gift box filled with all the equipment to make her own lino print art works. Stay tuned for the results! 

Manny also cleverly made this gorgeous card from a lino print she did recently - too cute!   

An Evening with Amy Butler ♥♥♥

Us Dandi Girls have been huge fans of Amy Butler Fabrics for a long time now, we all have a few of her fabrics in our personal stashes at home at get very excited whenever a new range is launched. Her designs are always so colourful, playful and unique.

Last night we were thrilled to go along to a fabulous presentation by Amy Butler herself! The evening was hosted by the wonderful team at Living Creatively. Thank you for organising such a wonderful and inspiring night!


Amy's designs have always struck a cord with the Dandi team, sharing a passion for botanical and geometric prints in bold and fresh colours. Amy's story is nothing less an inspirational and we are happy to report she is just as beautiful in person as her gorgeous patterns.

Visit Amy's website to find out more.

Dandi in Real Living Magazine

A little bit of shameless self promotion and bragging to get us through Thursday. Here are all the lovely Dandi ladies in our studio as seen in this months issue of Real Living (November). What a fine (and dandi) looking bunch! Grab your copy now :)

Dandi DIY Decorations

These paper decorations are so simple to make and look stunning and elegant. Caroline made these white paper and pink ribbon decorations for her brother Ian and his fiancé Pip's recent engagement party. They were very effective and moved beautifully with the breeze. Why not get crafty and try them for your next party.

You will Need:

Stack of A4 paper or thin card
Lengths of ribbon
Sewing machineStep 1 : Stack 4 to 6 pieces of paper or thin card in a pile and cut out circular discs
Step 2 : Cut a piece of thin ribbon to desired length, you may want to fit several globes on your ribbon or just one or two depending on where you hang them
Step 3: Place the end of the ribbon on top of the stack of discs. Using a sewing machine, sew the discs and riboon together down the centreline on top of the ribbon
Step 4: Leave a gap in the ribbon length and sew another stack of discs. Repeat with more stacks until you have reached the end of the length of ribbon
Step 5 : Fold the paper discs back to create a fan/ globe form
Step 6: Hang the strands of decorations up and enjoy !

Dandi ♥ Paper Boat Press

During Caroline's recent visit to the lovely Coming up Roses store in Balmoral, Brisbane, she came across these gorgeous ceramic ornaments from Paper Boat Press. Artist and poet Kylie Johnson hand makes these little gems - Dandi love them so much we had to share them with you!

Retailer Watch: Coming Up Roses, Brisbane

Our Caroline was up in Brisbane for the weekend and decided to pop in to visit Sarah from Coming up Roses. Coming up Roses is in the leafy suburb of Balmoral in Brisbane, QLD one of our favourite retailers, Sarah has stocked our range since we started the Dandi brand and has supported us as we have grown from strength to strength. We knew she had a great eye for design and her store certainly reflects this - wow ! An amazing selection of unique brands all beautifully displayed, no wonder the store has such a loyal following. Here are a few piccies of this gorgeous shop. If you are in or around the area it is well worth stopping in, especially in the lead up to Christmas, at 118 Bilyana St Balmoral, QLD. Above: Sarah's darling mum, Lorraine.

Dandi awarded as finalists

Dandi are please to report we are finalists in the 2008 Home Beautiful Awards. The winner of our category went to Royal Doulton, for the Terence Conran by Royal Doulton Bird Jug. As you can imagine we're pretty happy to be selected as a finalist along side such prestigious and large brands such as Royal Doulton. All finalists will be published in the December issue of Home Beautiful so keep an eye out for our Bamboo range.

In the Kitchen with Polli (and Dandi!)

How cool! Our friends at Polli are featured on our favourite blog: Design*Sponge. Anna has cooked up a vegetarian storm which looks amazing. What's even better is that they are eating lunch with a Dandi oilcloth tablecloth over the table! Thanks Polli ladies! View the recipe here.

Retailer Watch: Giving+Living, Sydney

This week our Leezar went to visit Toni from Giving+Living in Lane Cove (North Shore of Sydney). Toni has a lovely shop with great displays and the Lane Cove Plaza atmosphere is always nice to visit. Toni has stocked the Dandi range loyally for a number of years now and is always so lovely to chat to! We've attached some piccies of her shop, in the weeks leading up to Christmas drop in and visit her for some wonderful gift ideas at 146 Longueville Road Lane Cove

Home Beautiful: Product of the Year Awards

As part of the Home Beautiful Product of the Year Awards, the Dandi Bamboo range will be on show at Westfield Bondi Junction for two weeks. Be sure to come and see our products amongst the other finalists between October 6th – 19th. Home Beautiful will be announcing the category winners as well as the overall Product Of The Year Winner and Australian Designer of the Year on October 9th.Dandi are thrilled to be selected as a finalist and have our fingers crossed for more good news...

Engaged!

We are very excited to announce our Leezar is engaged! She is planning the wedding for October next year - a beautiful spring wedding in the Blue Mountains. In the meantime she has been busy organising her engagement party so we thought we might share some pics of the engagement party invitations which Leezar has lovingly designed and put together (with a little input for Corey too!)

Leezar and Corey have chosen a chocolate brown and red theme (their favourite colours, respectively)
Stamps were used to address the envelopes - well worth the time and effort as the end result is gorgeous!

Project Runway Cameo

A dandi ironing board cover has been spotted on TV! Well, sort of, a while back Sunbeam commissioned us dandi girls to design a pattern for an ironing board cover to be sold along side their irons. We were recently watching Project Runway Australia and immediately recognised the ironing board cover being used by the designers!

Dandi and Orlando - Madison October 2008

Just a quick note to share the fact that our bamboo range is currently featured in the October issue of Madison Magazine as part of their Green Guide. We are pretty stoked to be sharing a page with Orlando Bloom!

Three Cheers for Bamboo!

We are very excited to announce that our range of sustainable bamboo bowls and chopping boards has been selected as a finalist in the 2008 Home Beautiful Product of the Year Awards. As you can imagine we are absolutely thrilled to be recognised as a finalist in such a prestigious event.

All finalists will on on exhibition from October 6th to 19th at Westfield Bondi Junction. If you're a Sydney sider be sure to visit the Dandi range when it shares the spotlight with the industry's best homewares.

An overall winner will be announced on the 9th October, so wish us luck!

Kylie Kwong at Think Big

Dandi attended the Think Big Business Forum at Homebush on Wednesday to hone our business skills to grow the Dandi brand. The keynote speaker was celebrity chef Kylie Kwong. Kylie gave an inspiring presentation on her business growth of her successful restaurant Billy Kwongs, her TV shows and the delectable range of cook books. She made everyone's mouths water with a delicious cooking demonstration and even signed a Dandi catalogue for us, so lovely.

We love the guiding philosophy behind Kylie and the Billy Kwong restaurant.

'To leave as small and light an environmental footprint as possible, to give back to the community whenever and wherever we can, and to think globally and act locally.'

Dandigami lotus flower

After many requests from you all since the show here are the easy to follow folding instructions to make your very own lotus flower, or download a PDF version. More images of the lotus dandigami napkins can be found here. Happy folding !. Until the end of September every order of paper napkins from the website will receive a set of 5 dandigami instructions so your table setting will never be dull. The lotus flower is just a teaser!

Dandicrafts

The big hit at the Stitches & Craft show was our Dandicraft. Everyone loved the Do It Yourself kits including the Fabric Mobiles and Treasure Box kits.

Thank you to the many customers who bought the Treasure box kits. A popular suggested use was to make their own wedding bonbonniere, pop a little chocolate inside and you have a lovely thank you gift to all your guests. We think they also look cute in little clusters.



Another dandicraft which received a great response were our DIY mobile kits. The tactile fabric pieces of the mobile will brighten up any corner of your home. You can choose colour ways to suit your space and mix and match shapes and lengths to get the look you're after. The finished look is so stunning, and it couldn't be easier to make!



The DIY kits have everything you need to get started including, detailed instructions, folding / cutting templates and dandi fabric swatches. The DIY kits aren't available through our online store just yet, watch this space for more information or send us an email.

Living Creatively / Stitches and Craft show

The Dandi girls are now back from the Stitches and Craft show. We had a wonderful few days amongst some of Australia's best crafters. Over the next few weeks we will be doing posts on these fantastic brands, all of which were our neighbours in beautifully set out Living Creatively area. For those who didn't make it to the fair just check out how gorgeous it looked. The team at Living Creatively had a garden display, complete with fabric cabbages and little felt cake treats. And who could forget the 2 little bunnies hopping around - too cute !

Stitches and Craft Show

Dandi would like to invite you to come along at see us at the Stitches and Craft Show at Rosehill this week. The Dandi girls will be exhibiting in the Living creatively area and will be conducting workshops on all things fine and dandi. We'll also be selling direct to the public during the show so don't miss our show specials.

Dandi made our first television appearance on Mornings with Kerri Anne show on Wednesday. Roving reporter Jamie came to see what Dandicrafts we were up to and loved our folded napkin demonstrations. Thank you to all who saw the show and came out to visit us at the fair.

Dandi expert napkin folder extraordinaire Leezar, is demonstrating to visitors how to fold a beautiful lotus flower from a Dandi paper napkin. With every paper napkin purchase customers are given a free set of dandigarmi folding instructions to take home.

Bamboo Featured on Daily Imprint

Thanks to daily imprint for featuring us on your blog! We are feeling very happy :)

DIY Dandi Art

Leezar recently jazzed up her pad with these cute covered canvasses. Full intructions follow and thanks to the beautiful Keira for Modelling!

You will need:
Staple gun,
4 canvasses 12" x 12",
4 Dandi Cotton napkins.
Instructions: It couldnt be easier!
Stretch each napkin over a canvas and staple to the back, be sure to pull it taught. Leezar used 2 x Plain dyed chocolate napkins and 2 x Printed Olive Branch chocolate napkins. It's a simple, cheap and effective way to dress up a wall. What's more is that you can update it easily and co-ordinate it to match your table setting - super chic!

Bonbonniere Dandi Style

Its been a while between posts - the dandi girls have been busy packing and sending orders and preparing for our Bamboo launch - more details on that later. Today we thought we would share with you a neat idea which Manny came up with recently for a wedding she was a bridesmaid for. The Bride had asked her if she had any cute ideas for bonbonniere which would fit into the pink theme of the wedding. Manny came up with these origami lotus flowers made using dandi paper napkins and decorated with a ferrero rocher.

Manny received heaps of comments for these gorgeous and practical keepsakes so if you would like a PDF of folding instructions to make your own for dinner parties or other special occasions then please drop us an email.

Our gorgeous Manny peacefully folding together 140 origami lotuses

The full effect - looks dreamy!

The happy couple - thanks for letting us brag about your wedding!