Flowers just seem to be finding me without me even trying at the moment, and particularly my favourite flowers of all – roses. My obsession with roses, and with scented candles, collide nicely with the beautifully fragranced Rose scented candle from George & Edi hand poured, soy candle I bought recently from Maaike & Co. It is sitting on my desk right now making my afternoon all round fabulous. Available from Maaike & Co for $55.

Recently I heard someone saying how they always laugh at American sitcoms as often the female characters are always shown putting hand cream on last thing before they went to bed.  I wish this actually was the case with all of us, but often we are too busy putting the last load of dishes on, folding a final lot of washing or checking on a crying child. I think most of us are just happy to remember to get our makeup off before bed, and to actually get there before midnight. But I do love this Argan Hand Cream from MOR, and is smells so lovely I think I will have to try and start putting it on last thing. Your hands will thank you for it, not just now but in later years. My Mother still has lovely hand at 72 and I swear it is because she has put cream on her hands every night for as long as I can remember. I love the Argan Hand Cream in Kashmir Petals with Cabbage Rose Flower extract and Shea Butter that goes with the soap MOR released earlier this year and retails for $34.99.  It has no synthetic dyes, parabens or sulphates and a little goes a long way. I have the Argan Hand Cream with Kashmir Petals to give away, so leave a comment on the bottom of this post and I will draw a winner at the end of the weekend (7th July).

Flowers feature in eyewear this coming summer with both Prada and Dolce and Gabbana showing beautiful flower encrusted frames for us to wear when the weather turns.

Prada Glass $815

Dolce and Gabbana Glases $885

My love affair with Marimekko, particularly the Unikko Poppies print (red is my all-time favourite) isn’t showing any signs of fading. My one regret with our current home (and it pretty much is my only regret) is that I wasn’t able to use this wallpaper anywhere. To be fair, I would have actually liked to use it in a small bathroom – or even just an old fashioned WC (single loo) so that when you opened the door you got a huge rush of colour and pattern that just had to make you smile.  I would love to use it one day by wallpapering the interior of a closet… it is available from Bolt of Cloth in Auckland, Christchurch and on-line.  It is @$295 70cm wide and  10m roll.

I can’t live without flowers in the house.  That is a fairly dramatic statement, but I always try and find a way to get flowers in the house.  If the fortnightly budget doesn’t allow it, then I will settle for foliage (magnolia) or even cuttings from the lemon tree in the garden.  I am probably damaging it, but I don’t care.  There is something wonderful about having something so beautiful and delicate in the house. The fragrance is just an added bonus. Some one else is even more obsessed with flowers than I am.  Sandra Kaminski has created her entire life around flowers, filling her own home with them, working with them everyday and now writing about them to share her flower passion. As a stylist she works on magazines and now has released Flowers at Home by Sandra Kaminski Photographs by Geoff Hedley.  What I love about this book is its classic theme running all the way through it – using gorgeous blooms in simple ways that are inspiring and achievable. Flowers, as with anything, can be ‘fashionable’ and often in a quest to do it ‘differently’ flowers can just be done badly.  Sandra takes flowers through the year – and, even in a nod to the American calendar, has included Halloween.  There are displays for Christmas and Easter, but I have to say I love the simple displays the most as they make me feel like I could just pop out into the garden and grab some flowers and put them in a crystal wine glass and they would look as good as hers.  They can’t, but I would imagine that inspiring us to try is the point of the book.  I can vouch for Sandra’s love of flowers as she covers the entire house each christmas for her annual Christmas Party and the house looks incredible. I will be looking forward to this coming one, and the next book that Sandra writes with Geoff. Flowers at Home by Sandra Kaminski and photographs by Geoff Hedley is published by Renaissance and retails for $75. At 325 pages – it is a lot of book, a lot of flowers for the price.