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Remember the old my heart wanders days, when we used to look for subtle hearts in unexpected places and share the images with each other? That was way before I embarked on the big adventure of writing and publishing  the book, and way way before I became a first-time mum (still blows my mind).

Well, the other day I decided to relaunch the original my heart wanders “collective” on instagram and I’m really glad I did -  since then we’ve collected over 150 images from around the world, and I wanted to share a few of those with you here today. I’ve also included blog links and instagram usernames so you can follow these fab fellow instagrammers. And if you’d like to see more, check out the growing collection here, and if you’d like to join in, add this tag to your instagram photo: #myheartwanders . Enjoy…

from me: “this afternoon I took Laly for a stroll in the sling to help settle her and I found this on our path, it made me smile & remember to take a moment to breath life in. #myheartwanders Tag your wandering hearts xx” {instagram username @piajanebijkerk}

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from nanette at rummage: “THERE ARE LOVE HEART TREES HERE IN BYRON! The girls keep finding these leaves on our travels.” {instagram username @nanettelf}

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from the lovely one claire day, featuring her daughter Lalie {instagram username @oneclaireday}

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on the left, from ingrid : “whilst exploring today, do you see what I see?” {instagram username @inkalaimages} & on the right,  from Kylie at paper boat press:  “my mums collection of heart shaped rocks in the garden of our rock house in the bush… where my heart has wandered this weekend @piajanebijkerk #myheartwanders quite divine me thinks dear friend… “{instragram username: @paperboatpress}

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on the left from azuree wiitala at xo, azuree:  “Heart splatter. #myheartwanders #ubiquitoushearts” {instagram username: @xoazuree} & on the right from lori moon studio: “found heart.” {instagram username: @lorimoonstudio}

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on the left from  pip wright: “I found a heart-shaped island of snow” {instagram username: @thehouseofpip} & on the right from marte marie: “My little heart found in an old drawer in Milano” {instagram username: @marte_marie_forsberg}

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from her library adventures: “sunday evening… under the maple tree, reading pia jane bijkerk’s my heart wanders, gathering fabric samples and drinking lady grey tea…” {instagram username: @herlibraryadventures}

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on the left, from loved handmade: “morning shadows” {instagram username: @lovedhandmade} & on the right, from mollys maison: “homemade kiss biscuit” {instagram username: @mollysmaison}

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and one more from me: “a little corner of my home with handmade heart many thanks to mady dooijes sweet children”

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“My little reader… I first saw this park on a page of Pia Jane Bijkerk’s, My Heart Wanders. The pink flowers, the book benches… I showed it to Clara and we dreamt of finding it, like a secret garden. With a little help from google and my bike riding parisian super boyfriend, we found it… And at the most perfect time, when there were still flowers on the trees, and petals on the ground like pink snow. “oh Maman, c’est le jardin du beau livre!”….”

“oh mom, it is the garden in that beautiful book!”

Finding this little story and image made my heart soar. Thank you sweet Caroline & Clara.

xx

PS Caroline has a fabulous blog with incredible images, one to add to your regular reading for sure.

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Last month Country Style launched their very own blog on the beautifully redesigned Homelife website, and I’m thrilled to have been invited to be one of the contributors. So far on the blog fellow contributor Louise Marshall has taken readers to the Sydney Flower Market, Samantha van Egmond guides us through the fabulous Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania, and gives us all a tour of Hobart, Country Style’s editor Victoria Carey takes us behind the scenes of some wonderful shoots and shares an inspiring video of basket weaver Harriet Goodall made by Annette Cohen, while Lara Hutton takes us to The Mornington Peninsula.

My posts featured on Country Style so far include:

some of my favourite country living blogs, as seen below…

Marte Marie Forsberg’s beautiful Le Voyage Créatif.
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Rohan’s delicious Whole Larder Love.
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Nadia’s ever-delightful La Porte Rouge.
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…my flower wall in Amsterdam which you may recall featured in Anthology Magazine some months back…

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… and a trip through Lamington National Park in Queensland.

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It’s been fun writing for their blog, I love that magazines and fellow stylists and photographers here in Australia are now getting into blogging, it makes our virtual community all the more rich and layered.

I have an upcoming post which features some behind the scenes shots from a story I styled that is in this month’s issue of Country Style. The article is about historical Hill End in NSW, photographed by Sharyn Cairns. I had such a blast styling the artist’s cottage featured in the story, and I adore Sharyn’s photographs. Look out of the May issue which is on sale now, and also my blog post about it which will go live on the Country Style blog some time next week.

In the meantime, enjoy perusing the new Country Style blog and be sure to leave comments on posts you like to encourage the contributors along.

Bon weekend

xx

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Mary Jo Hoffman posts one image each day  on her beautiful new blog called ‘STILL’. Conceived as a one-year project dedicated to exploring “the compulsive human desire to gather, sort, arrange, and document”, Mary Jo arranges her daily collections of found natural objects on a white background, keeping to a minimalist format…

My thoughts? Love it… so completely day enhancing… can’t wait to see what each day brings…

Congratulations Mary Jo, welcome to the blog world!  xx

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I’ve been so looking forward to sharing this news: My Heart Wanders will (finally!) (and officially!) be hitting US shores this coming month, and will be distributed by the lovely IPG books. For those of you who have been waiting so patiently to be able to buy the book locally, the wait is over…

If you own a shop in the United States and would like to sell My Heart Wanders in your store, please contact IPG books directly, for order placement you can call (800) 888 4741.

Above are a few sneak peeks at some of the visual spreads you’ll find inside the book. And here is a bit more info about what you’ll discover between the pages…

This book also tells the story of how Romain and I met, it’s a romantic tale that is even more poignant now that our baby girl is in the world. It’s a book that I hope one day she will cherish too…

For more info, you can check it out here and here, and if you would like to see some of the window displays I created in Sydney last year in celebration of the release of the book, please click here.
Exciting times!

xx

PS 7 week update: I love being a mum.

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Having grown up in a small town which proudly claims the most bicycles per capita in the country, I am pretty comfortable on a bike–but did not think that biking in New York was a reasonable option. It’s no Amsterdam, after all. But fortunately we happened to move to the city during a wave of change that meant more–and better–bike lanes all over the city. And there are so many wonderful places to bike to, within a matter of minutes. With a little confidence (and a helmet), you can really get almost anywhere on two wheels. The city publishes maps specifically for cyclists, and of course Google maps has a bike-route option that will highlight the easiest and safest routes, whether you are headed to Central Park or out to Brighton beach.

In fact, Central park becomes quite small when you tour it on a bike. You have to stay on the main roads, but you can hop off and head into the heart of the park for a picnic or to watch the baseball leagues practice.

When we first moved to New York, you could still drive all the way down Broadway–but they did have a bike lane. Cars have since been banned through key sections in Times Square and Herald Square, but the bike path still exists. Biking down Broadway, with massive buildings and billboards on every side, and crowds converging on every corner, is an unforgettable feeling (if a little unnerving at times)!

For a tamer experience, there’s “Summer Streets”: for a few days each year, in the summer, bikers, walkers, and rollerbladers are given free reign over Park and Lafayette Avenues (and given access to ride right up to and around Grand Central Station). It throws traffic on surrounding streets into chaos, but it should not be missed if you happen to be visiting then.

However, the bike route around the island of Manhattan is perhaps one of the prettiest rides one can take. Our favorite parts are lower Manhattan and the West Side parkway. You can bike up the west side to the George Washington Bridge (and across if so moved). If you do make it that far, you’ll find a little red lighthouse–the last lighthouse on Manhattan Island!

Of course there is so much more to New York than Manhattan, and if you are willing to brave the crowds, the ride over the Brooklyn Bridge is amazing–especially near sunrise or sunset. But really, wherever you go–whether it be a day-long affair or a few hours around the streets of the West Village, riding around New York City will afford you a completely different (and exciting) perspective.

Thank you so much, Pia, for having us! It has been been so lovely sharing this space with you.

Ashley & Aron Bruhn, Hither & Thither

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note from Pia: thank you both for sharing your beautiful photographs and stories about living in NYC, you’re welcome back to the (blog)house guest quarters anytime x

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So here she is, our little girl, born at 6:30am on Valentine’s Day. She came into this world strong and determined, just like I felt she was in the womb. Her name is Laly (pronounced lah-lee) – it’s a French name Romain and I picked out many months ago but we wanted to meet her first to be sure it was right, and as soon as we saw her we knew that she was indeed our little Laly…

This has been an incredibly intense journey from the very beginning – the pregnancy, birth, and these first two weeks of motherhood… what a ride, it’s like nothing I have ever experienced. Even though I’ve always admired and respected the mums of the world, I have a greater found respect for all mums past and present. This is one tough job. But just take a look at these photos, they are snippets of the glorious moments to be cherished…

Everyone tells me it gets easier and that by week 6 or so, routines can be established and sleep can be had. I am counting on it. And I’ve learnt this: If there is one way to be sure you are living in the moment, have a baby.

Wow, we are a family now: Valentine’s Day for us will always be when two became three.

xx

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New York, like most great cities, is a place many seek to see from above: the views from the Empire State Building or the Top of the Rock, looking south to Lady Liberty or north to the expanse of Central Park are legendary.

The roof of the Met brings you nowhere near as high–the view is nowhere near as dramatic–but the setting is magical! Never mind the fact that you must first pass through the Met and its gorgeous collections, but then you emerge onto the roof and find yourself smack-dab in the middle of the park, in the middle of the city.

The past two years’ rooftop exhibits (a new exhibit debuts each Spring and runs through the fall) have been particularly dramatic, filling the space so as to force interaction. Doug & Mike Starn’s Big Bambu–an evolving bamboo structure, lashed together with climbing rope, that seemed to glow in the afternoon sun–even invited visitors to climb up into the piece.

On Fridays and Saturdays, the Met stays open until 9pm (though access to the roof garden is generally cut off slightly earlier), and the space feels like a beautiful happy-hour. On those evenings, you can go late enough to watch the sky change colors and see buildings that fringe the park begin to light up for the night.

It’s one of those places that has been well publicized, yet still tends to be slightly off radar: it’s tops on our list of places to wow houseguests.

Ashley & Aron Bruhn, Hither & Thither

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All photographs and words in this guest post by Ashley & Aron Bruhn of Hither Thither

One of the culinary scenes you will find in full force here in New York–and, thankfully, around the country–is the farm-to-table movement. At the heart of this is the city’s Greenmarket network, the largest outdoor urban farmer’s market network in the country.

We are particularly partial to our local Greenmarket, which also happens to be the city’s flagship market, in Union Square. Open Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, it makes eating locally and seasonally a reasonable and exciting (if still expensive) part of our lives. And even when we aren’t stocking our fridge from the market’s stalls, it’s nice to know that many of the area’s restaurants are (we’ve even spotted some celebrity chefs trolling for goods).

It’s wonderful to watch the seasons changing from the vantage point of produce–and to sense excitement mounting for prizes like strawberries, ramps, or those very first concord grapes. There’s literally a celebration when asparagus arrives. And then one has to act fast and indulge plenty before the scene changes again. (We did our best to make sure we got our fill of crisp, almost sweet asparagus before it started to disappear: we had it almost every night for two weeks!)

A farmer’s market isn’t an obvious destination for a visitor to the city, for someone unlikely to have a kitchen or an occasion to cook, but the Greenmarket at Union Square is not only a beautiful sight (especially when the flowers start to appear in the spring) but a revealing look at how the city actually lives.

Ashley & Aron Bruhn, Hither & Thither

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