2009 is drawing to a close, and 2010 is waiting in the wings… Our dynamic team at Badec Bros Deco will be taking a well-deserved break from 18 December 2009, until 6 January 2010. You have until Thursday, 26 November 2009 to place your orders for delivery in 2009! From next week on, we will be taking the orders for 2010.

Therefore, should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, Cubedec laser-cut logo, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, Cubedec bench, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, Cubedec water feature, pergola, arch, sculpture or trellis, you can contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it!

Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

2009 is drawing to a close, and 2010 with all of its opportunities and challenges is peeping around the corner …

Our dynamic team at Badec Bros Deco will be taking a well-deserved break from 18 December 2009, until 6 January 2010. We thank you for your valued support and wish you a blessed Christmas and joyous festive season. We look forward to collaborating with you in the new year.

Remember, should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, Cubedec laser-cut logo, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, Cubedec bench, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, Cubedec water feature, pergola, arch, sculpture or trellis, you can contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it! Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

We have had quite a few requests to provide décor ideas to hide unsightly air conditioning units in gardens. Badec Bros Deco specializes in feature walls, such as gabion feature walls. These designer walls are ideal to hide air conditioning units, unsightly views, or ugly old walls, without having to remove the existing wall.

We manufacture our gabion walls from 30mm x 3mm angle iron, which is welded together to ensure a strong frame. Then we weld strong, steel mesh onto the frame to create the shape of the wall. Once the hollow wall structure has been manufactured, we install it on site and fill it with pebbles, slate stone or chunky quartzite gravel.

Alternatively, we can also construct mild steel feature walls and add intricate detail to the surface of the steel to decorate it. There are three finishes to choose from. We can powder coat the feature wall in any colour imaginable, or we can apply mild steel finish or a rusted finish. Our powder coating is SABS approved.

Badec Bros Deco can also manufacture mild steel screens. These screens can be used to create privacy or to hang Cubedec hanging pots or hanging sculptures onto. We can customize our mild steel screens to any size and shape and with a wide range of finishes, such as powder coating in any colour, mild steel finish or a rust effect or even wooden cladding.

Should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec feature wall, steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, Cubedec laser-cut logo, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, Cubedec bench, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, Cubedec water feature, pergola, arch, sculpture or trellis, please feel free to contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it!

Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

Mosaic is frequently used with water, both indoors and outdoors.

Water features and swimming pools are nearly always decorated with mosaic. Mosaic is both waterproof and durable, which makes it such an ideal medium to use to decorate your water feature or pool. There is also a visual affinity between water and mosaic, which is aesthetically pleasing.

Badec Bros Mosaic has also created a collection of beautiful mosaics to clad the baths of an exclusive lodge in the bushveld. Our creative team also crafted striking mosaics for the basins, showers and bathroom floors for the lodge. The choice of tile types, colours and sizes, as well as, the different sorts of designs is also very versatile.

This vibrant company continues to grow from strength to strength, with trend-setting designs and professional installations. Should you be interested in having Talita Badenhorst design and quote you on a unique mosaic for your home, garden, office or lodge, you can contact her on her e-mail address at talita@badecbros.com  

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to stun you with her creative ideas.

Christoph Neimann is a genius art-essayist for the NYTimes. He’s done awesome pictorials about sleeping and his young sons’ adorable obsession with the NY subway system (go check those out, they’re great- so elegant and clever). He even tiled his his bathroom like a pixellated subway map because his kids are so ape for it.

Here he is again with a perfect little fall spread featuring leaves.

Heart heart heart.
Via Kottke.

I took photos of all the mosaic work in the garden today, partly to inspire me for the big piece of wall behind the kitchen, and partly to see how my stuff has improved from the first mosaic I did four years ago. All the realy good stuff is not mine but Michael’s and Jasmine’s. It is such a nice element to add depth to the garden and a good way of recycling other people’s unwanted or broken tiles. It also makes me look differently at shapes and empty spaces while it satisfies my urge to be a bit creative.

This is a little project that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.  When we first bought our house and starting dabbling in the garden we found a few pieces of broken crockery including almost all of a blue plate.  None of it’s worth anything…except to us.  It speaks to us of continunity, from the previous owners to us, an incidential time capsule.

I have gotten a bit behind with my write-ups on Flash Forward since I have been out of town. I visited the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio in San Francisco on Friday and will be blogging about that over the next few days.

Jeff “Doc” Jensen of Entertainment Weekly has some theories about Flash Forward. I loved to read his theories on LOST each week, so I am leaving you with his latest musings on Flash Forward.

Enjoy!

In the new issue of Entertainment Weekly now on newsstands, you’ll find a story written by yours truly in which I geek out on my new TV obsession, the ABC sci-fi drama FlashForward. If you’re new to the show, here’s what you need to know: On Oct. 6, the planet blacked out and for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and everyone on earth saw a brief vision of their respective futures. The saga’s center is FBI agent Mark Benford (Shakespeare In Love’s Joseph Fiennes), who during his brief quantum leap saw himself investigating an elaborate conspiracy behind mankind’s perplexing power nap. The day glimpsed in all the flashes: Thursday, April 29, 2010. (Yep, the show will air that night.) Will Mark’s faithful wife Olivia (Lost’s Sonja Walger) find herself in bed with another man? Will vaguely sinister scientist Simon Campos (Dominic Monaghan, another ex-Lostie) strangle a dude to death? And will FBI agent Demetri Noh (Star Trek’s John Cho), who saw only darkness during his flash, be (gulp) dead? “The high concept pitch is simply this: if you were given a glimpse of your future, what would you do with it?” says FF’s exec producer David S. Goyer. “If you see something bad, can you change it? If it’s good, how do you make it come true?”

One of the things I love best about the series is the explicit and implicit references to science, literature, philosophy, and pop culture. When investigated, these references suggest all sorts of possibilities about what’s really going on in the saga, or at the very least add some cool or ironic shading to the story. For example: we’ve been told that Agent Noh will be killed on March 15. That also happens to be the date of Julius Caesar’s murder. More on the nose with FlashForward: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, in which a seer tells the Roman leader to “beware the Ides of March,” i.e. March 15. Is that just the writers having some smarty-pants fun—or are they planting a cue that a Brutus-like colleague will betray Agent Noh?

Here’s another example—a little more tenuous, but if you follow my Doc Jensen work on Lost, you know that making pseudo-intellectual leaps are part of what I’m all about. In FlashForward’s third episode, Agent Benford traveled to Germany to interview a Nazi war criminal who claimed to know something about the true nature of the global blackout. The old Nazi was being held at Quale Prison, and as it happens, the word quale is directly linked to a philosophical term dealing with—in wikipedia’s words—“the subjective quality of conscious experience.” (The fact that FlashForward would name a prison after such a heady concept is pretty provocative. Is the show trying to suggest that objective reality is unknowable and mankind is fundamentally at odds with each other because we are locked into our unique, idiosyncratic perspectives of the external world?)

Are you with me?! I hope so, because in the weeks to come, I plan on doing even more obsessing about FlashForward here at EW.com, beginning with a complete TV Watch recap of the next episode, airing Dec. 3. Until then, here’s are some additional references (legit and perceived my crazy eyes) that FlashForward has made during its first nine episodes—and some theories about what they could mean.

Lost
Of course, Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) and Sonya Walger (Penelope) are living, breathing embodiments of Lost. Both actors played characters linked to Desmond Hume. During the show’s third season, the ex-Hatchman became super-charged with The Island’s electromagnetic energy and began having flash-forwards of Charlie’s death. He also went back in time and tried to change his destiny. David Goyer—a big Lost fan—slipped a billboard for Oceanic Airlines into the pilot, inspiring fans to wonder if both shows exist in the same universe. At the very least, they may share a similar philosophical idea: that no matter how much you try to change predestined events, fate will get what it wants.

“Across The Universe” by Rufus Wainwright
Like Lost, Cold Case and so many other shows, FF has a penchant for episode-ending slow-motion montages, set to rousing score or a thematically loaded pop song. One of my faves was Wainwright’s cover of this classic tune by The Beatles, heard in the Oct. 29 episode “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps.” In the 1999 Robert J. Sawyer novel that inspired the series, the blackout/flash-forwards are caused, in part, by an anomaly in deep space—literally “across the universe.” Coincidence? Nay! I say: Synchronicity! As in…

“Ghost In The Machine” by The Police
Agent Benford is a fan of the band and wore a T-shirt featuring this album’s artwork to an undercover operation—infiltrating an underground club catering to “ghosts,” people in the FF universe who didn’t see anything in their flash forward and thus believe they are destined to die before that date. According to band lore, the album was inspired by Sting’s fixation with Arthur Koestler, an egghead who postulated that people, events, and time are psychically linked via the concept of Synchronicity described by Carl Jung. (The Police song “Synchronicity,” from the album of the same (also inspired by Koestler), is a FlashForward theory unto itself; check out the lyrics here.) Koestler’s books include The Ghost In The Machine, The Roots of Coincidence (a book that has had a big influence on sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book writers), and Janus: A Summing Up, an exploration of systems theory that says that a larger whole or “holarchy” is make up of individual components called “holons” that also contain systems within themselves, or something like that, or maybe nothing at all like that, and yes, I don’t have any clue what any of this means. Bookmark that Janus name—we’ll be coming back to it in a minute.

Jericho
In FlashForward, Jericho is a military contractor that provides private armies to the highest bidder. Their soldiers apparently played a role in the attempted killing of Aaron Stark’s daughter, Tracy, in Afghanistan. I also suspect they are providing goons to the conspiracy that perpetrated the global blackout. Of course, Jericho was also the title of the short-lived, intensely loved cult drama that imagined the aftermath of a cataclysmic nuclear attack on the United States.

David Baldacci
Trying to make sense of Jericho’s treacherous attack on his daughter, Aaron likened the situation to a “Baldacci novel.” David Baldacci is the best-selling author of hugely successful books like The Collectors and Absolute Power, political potboilers that usually involve elaborate government conspiracies. Application to FlashForward: I’m thinking President Segovia (played by Peter Coyote)—who is (or was) tight with Assistant Director Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance)—knows much more about the global blackout than he’s telling. And remember Senator Clemente (Barbara Williams), the congresswoman who was leading the subcommittee investigation into the flash-forward event? She was no friend to Segovia and Wedeck, yet the president made her his new vice president—presumably to stifle her persecution of Wedeck’s Mosaic team. No, it’s not very realistic that a president would appoint a hated political rival as his No. 2—unless, of course, Segovia and Clemente aren’t the bitter enemies they appeared to be. I’m thinking that yes, Senator Clemente is in on the conspiracy, too. So what’s the conspiracy? Here’s the clue that sketches the big picture:

“D. Gibbons”
The “bad man” from little Charlie Benford’s spooky vision and one of many cryptic clues gleaned from Agent Benford’s flash forward. The name undoubtedly refers to Dave Gibbons, co-author of the subversive superhero saga Watchmen, whose intricate mystery plot concerns (SPOILER ALERT!) a conspiracy to encourage world peace by staging a fake alien invasion. And like FF, Watchmen stuffed coded clues and tell-tale non-sequiturs in the margins of its story. I’m thinking that the power players behind the global blackout were attempting to do something similar—usher in a new era of world peace by staging a global cataclysm designed to cause everyone to rethink their lives, the way they live their lives and the political, religious, and philosophical barriers that divide us. The bipartisan union of President Segovia and Senator Clemente is symbolic and representative of the narrative the conspiracy was/is trying to promote throughout the world. The two-faced, double-edged nature of this scheme to engineer planetary rebirth via planetary catastrophe is reflected in our next clue…

Janice/Janus
Janice is the name of the FlashForward character who saw herself having a baby on April 29… even though she’s a lesbian who is currently not in relationship and had been deeply ambivalent about even having kids until recently. Janice sounds exactly like Janus, the two-faced Roman deity of open gates and closed doors, of beginnings and endings. Janus is a deeply ironic, very paradoxical dude—both hopeful and ominous. That’s very Janice. Speaking of double-sided clues…

Beilby Porteus
Mosaic’s search for “D. Gibbons” led him to Pigeon, Utah, where he encountered a mystery man, coined “The Chess Player” by fans, in an abandoned doll factory. Before escaping, the chess player said, “He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over.” That’s a famous quote from Porteus, an 18th-century English clergyman and noted abolitionist. His other major claim to fame was introducing something called “The Sunday Observance Act,” a “blue law” that regulated the ways people in England could spend their recreational time on Sunday. This is could be a double-faced clue. On one hand, we have an ostensible bad guy, quoting a guy linked to a righteous cause (ending slavery) and famous for forcing a righteous way of life on society (the Sunday Observance Act)—another possible proof on the aforementioned world peace conspiracy. But is The Chess Player part of The Blackout Conspiracy—or working to subvert it? The Porteus quote is darkly ironic. And coming from The Chess Player, it sounds like a warning or threat. Possibilities: If The Chess Player is trying to promote the conspiracy, he might have been trying to tell Benford that trying to solve the mystery of the blackout calamity will only produce another calamity—the ruin of its peace-promoting effect. But if The Chess Player is trying to fight the conspiracy, he might have been trying to tell Benford that flash-forward event had backfired—or will backfire when it reaches its fulfillment on April 29. FYI: Porteus is associated with another ironic quote that could be applied to FlashForward and my “Conspiracy of Peace” conspiracy theory: “War its thousands slays; peace its ten thousands.”

White Queen
The Chess Player left behind some clues for Mosaic, including a chess piece—the white queen, which provocatively intersects with all sorts of fantasy and geek pop. The White Queen is a character from Through The Looking Glass—a scatter-brained figure that lives her life backwards and struggles to live in the present. (“Jam-yesterday or Jam-tomorrow, but never Jam-today.”) That’s fitting for a show whose people got mind-scrambled during the global blackout and are now playing out futures that may have already come to pass—who are constantly being reminded and challenged to bravely defy fate by “living in the now.” However, “White Queen” is the handle of several prominent characters in comic book land, including the morally ambiguous X-Men foil Emma Frost (who can see into other people’s heads) and another baddie, Sat-Yr-9, an unhinged femme fatale from an alternate reality Earth. Yes, it is unlikely FlashForward was deliberately trying to forge a connection to the latter character. But she does embody a high concept theory in quantum physics that was explicitly referenced by Dominic Monaghan’s Simon Campos character: the idea that all possible realities actually exist. (See: the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment, used by Campos to seduce the blonde lady on the train.) I won’t beat this dead (Schrödinger’s) cat further by bringing this full circle and explicating the link between Alice In Wonderland and quantum mechanics, or how the whole notion of white and black chess pieces illustrate the binary either/or dynamics of alternate reality logic. However, and fittingly, I will ask you to entertain at least two possibilities: 1. That what everyone saw in their flash-forward was actually a peek into an alternate reality; and 2. That per the implications of Schrödinger’s Cat, which says that reality isn’t created until directly observed by the viewer, that the future sketched by the flash-forwards is now locked into place as a result of being directly observed by everyone in the past via the global blackout. Got that? Thought so. Also see: A Christmas Carol SPOILER ALERT! David Goyer says Charles Dickens’ classic novel—about a grinch who’s shown a vision of his (possible) future—looms large in the Dec. 3 episode.

 

Grayson’s first five days mosaic, originally uploaded by oleg.shpyrko.

Mosaic of the selected images in celebration of Grayson’s big five-day birthday anniversary.

Em um mosaico muito bacana, da até para ser usado como Wallpaper.

Confira:

Here’s a bonus one since some people like to shred these challenges a little too quickly.

Let’s see how you do on this one!

No squinting allowed!

You wanted another challenge after what happened last week? Fine. Here it is.

This is my Feckless Friday post for this week.

You can log your guesses using the comment function on this post. Good luck!

This month sees the start of the Garden Mosaic Project for Mencap Stockport. Our first workshop took place last night. The group of twelve members thoroughly enjoyed creating four large mosaic designs: a frog (Kermit!), a rainbow, a wasp emerging from a flower and an abstract piece. They all look terrific and will be cast into paving flags to form a colourful feature within the new patio at the front of the garden.

Three more groups that use the centre will be contributing to the design during further workshops on Saturday and next week. By then we should have mosaic designs for a total of 16 paving flags.

Stockport is where its at! We’re also working with students at Stockport College to make three mosaic wall panels that will adorn the walls of a quadrangle within the labyrinth of college buildings.

The outdoor space has been beautifully re-vamped so that the students can enjoy using it for exercise and recreation and the scheme has been possible through assistance from The Groundwork Trust. Today was the first session of working towards the design for the mosaic. The students used wax crayons and watercolours; flower petals and sticky-back paper to produce flower designs that will be incorporated into the overall design for the mosaic panels.

Watch this space for updates and images as the projects develop……

Badec Bros Deco has manufactured a wide range of impressive Cubedec pots over the past 2 years. We recently combined our stylish Cubedec A pots with mild steel Cubedec pedestals, to decorate the garden of a client.

Our Cubedec A pots and Cubedec pedestals are manufactured from 1,6mm mild steel sheets, which we fold and weld. All our pots are manufactured with a round inner steel bar to support plastic planters, which come standard with all our pots, unless otherwise specified.

You can choose between three finishes for your Cubedec pot: rusted, mild steel finish, or powder coating in any colour you can dream of. Our powder coating is SABS approved. Once the chosen finish has been applied, we seal the pot to protect it from rusting. We can customize these stylish planters to any size and shape and finish them off in a wide range of materials. We can also manufacture these pots and pedestals from grade 304 stainless steel. Other decorative options include mosaic cladding, wooden cladding and even laser-cut signage or designs in the steel.

Should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec A pot and pedestal combination, Cubedec bench with your laser-cut logo, modern pergola, Cubedec steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, Cubedec water feature, arch, sculpture or trellis, please feel free to contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it!

Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

As you know by now, Badec Bros Deco also specializes in steel dustbins. These designer dustbins are ideal to add stunning focal points to your home or for use in a trendy shopping centre or mall. We really love a creative challenge and excel at designing and creating customized exterior or interior décor pieces for your home, office or garden, such as innovative mild steel pots, trendy garden benches, artistic trellises, arches and pergolas, as well as, imaginative sculptures. Our creative team can dream up and manufacture any type of décor that your heart desires and customize it to your specifications – size, shape and colour. We use a wide variety of mediums to create our master pieces, including mild steel, stainless steel, wood, sandstone, plexiglas, mosaic tiling and the like. We manufacture our steel dustbins from mild steel and can add intricate detail to the surface to beautify it. There are three finishes to choose from. We can powder coat your contemporary steel dustbin in any colour imaginable, or we can apply a mild steel finish or a rusted finish. It is possible to manufacture your unique steel dustbin according to the exact dimensions you require.

Our powder coating is SABS approved.

Should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, Cubedec laser-cut logo, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, Cubedec bench, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, Cubedec water feature, pergola, arch, sculpture or trellis, please feel free to contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com 

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it!

Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

Does it bode well for my new home–and the neighborhood in general–that the new-build condo down the street is covered in shiny, iridescent glass mosaics???

While I personally think the design is pretty yuck, I do always applaud the use of mosaics on a facade!

The creative team at Badec Bros Deco was recently commissioned to manufacture a stainless steel, cascading water feature for a client. Firstly, we created seven Cubedec B pots – troughs – in varying dimensions from grade 304 stainless steel.

The stainless steel sheets were folded and welded together along a single seam line, to create a flawless overall appearance. Once all of the troughs were manufactured, we installed the water feature on site, with the lowest trough being filled with black pebbles.

We can also manufacture this stunning water feature from mild steel and finish it in one of three finishes, namely: a mild steel finish, rusted finish and powder coating finish. There are literally hundreds of different colours to choose from for your powder coating finish and this finish is SABS approved. Our Cubedec water features can be customized to any size and shape. As our CEO, Edrich Badenhorst likes to say; “The sky is not the limit.”

Please feel free to contact us with your ideas and we will be sure to bring them to fruition. We love a creative challenge!

Should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec water feature, 3 dimensional garden sculpture, 3 dimensional signage, slim mirror pot, Cubedec bench with your laser-cut logo, modern pergola, Cubedec steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, arch, sculpture or trellis, please feel free to contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it!

Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

Master bedroom (17 x 13 sq ft)

Master bedroom with striped paint wall

Master bedroom windows let in lots of light

Master bedroom windows at sunset

Master bedroom triple sliding closets with built-in shelving

Master bedroom windows in the evening

Second bedroom (12 x 11 sq ft)

Bedroom two with sliding glass door

Bedroom two

Bedroom two with sliding glass door to outside catwalk

Bedroom two with full wall of closets with built-in shelving

Third bedroom/den/office (10 x 10 sq ft)

Den, office or third bedroom with cork floors and glass sliding door out to catwalk/deck

Den, office or third bedroom with built-in desk area and TV shelf

Den, office or third bedroom, with sitting area, overlooking entry

Den, office or third bedroom with built-in desk/closet area and TV shelf (at night)

Bathrooms

The “blue” bathroom (complete with blue tub) is upstairs. The “yellow” bathroom is downstairs in the entry area.

Blue bathroom (original porcelain floor tile); blue tub /shower and linen closet opposite vanity

Blue bathroom window overlooking catwalk and front yard

Blue bathroom original mosaic tile countertop

"Yellow" full bath downstairs - great opportunity to give this your own touches

"Yellow" full bath downstairs with blue slate floor and terrazzo shower base.

And finally, here they are – photos of what we’ve managed to do in our bathroom back home a month ago.

As you know / don’t know, we live in London in a rented flat, but our hearts – and our own flat – are still in Poland. We have never managed to finish it to the standard we wanted because we moved to the UK having just bought it and being able to do only the basics. Now every time we come back to visit our family, we try to add to it.

The next visit over Christmas will be even more important as we’re thinking about renting it out, and for that we need to finish at least the projects we’ve started, if not the whole place!

Our orange-cream-brown bathroom is actually the only room in the flat that more or less started coming together and is almost finished – it really is missing a few minor details (though my husband wouldn’t call it details…)

Below is what we’ve managed to complete last time – some embellishment around the mirror, and a tall cupboard for the much needed storage. I’m not going to show the whole bathroom yet – I’ll do that when we finally finish it off, but I can proudly say that the bathroom design and most of manual work have been done by my husband with a tiny bit of help from me.

Mosaic mirror frame

Actually, this decor has never been planned. We thought we’re going to have just an extension shelf over the mirror, on the same level as the top of the cupboard next to it. But then it turned out that we have some remnants of the panelling which we could use for the shelf. The only problem was that it was some milimeters shorter than the cupboard, which would result in the front of the shelf being a bit recessed in comparison to the cupboard, so the idea of having it at the same level for a sleek look would be lost. So we thought and thought… and then I came up with an idea of adding something decorative to the front of the shelf to disguise the difference in level, and we settled for some mosaic.

Obviously, there are many types of mosaic, and originally I thought we’d get the traditional glass mosaic. We also needed to make sure that the size of single tile (or two / three etc) is more or less the same height as the front of the shelf.

But after some strolling around the decorating shops, I saw this decor and I loved it! The original version was vertical (the size of the usual tile decor) so I broke it up into pieces, got rid of the supporting (and irritatingly difficult to remove) plastic frame beneath which normally holds the mosaics together for easy mounting on the wall, and used each separate tile as I wanted, making sure I don’t repeat the pattern much.

I mounted it onto the shelf using a standard all-purpose strong glue, and it worked very fast and was much easier to work with than the tile glue. Of course, be careful with this – you don’t want your fingers stuck together forever

…and after a moment of drying up, we were able to hang the shelf up!

DIY in bathroom - mosaic mirror frame

DIY in bathroom - mosaic mirror frame close-up

Tall cupboard

This is another example of recycling what was already in the house. My parents have bought a set of furniture to my teenage bedroom ages ago; one cupboard had glass door. We thought we saw some stain on it, so we asked for replacement. The manufacturer duly resent the door, but never took the faulty one. In the meantime we decided the fault is almost unnoticeable, so haven’t even replaced the door. And so it lay for ages in the basement, which my husband noticed some time ago and had his plans for it

Even though I know how good a DIY-er he is, I was still surprised by what he managed to do in half a day (with some finishing touches the next day) – he has actually measured up, had the panels cut, finished the edges, and built a proper cupboard for our cupboard, nicely employing all colours from our bathroom’s scheme.

Even so, I can hardly survive having something so big in my house without me adding the teeniest bit to it… so I’ve decided to  use the spare mosaic tiles to finish the door handles

DIY in bathroom - my hubby's cupboard

DIY in bathroom - cupboard door handles

So, that’s it for now. Going back now to choosing textiles for Christmas… hmmm maybe that’s a topic for my next post

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

I am on a real creative journey just now.  Whilst i have been doing mosaics for some years, i have run out of space at home, and most of my friends have received them as presents.  So 2009 has been the year when i have tried to start selling.

It actually has been quite an emotional time, as most people see me as a marketing, organised, self confident person, but when my creativity comes into play, i become a nervous wreck.

It started out when i entered a piece into the Opus Mosaic Gallery, Exeter annual exhibition.  i started to have dreams about taking the mosaic there and them all laughing at me for handing in something that was totally inappropriate. 

It represents all the things that i would like in my take on Heaven – so ice cream, wine, cakes, hot air balloons, my family, cute animals.  Anyway, they didn’t laugh and it duly got exhibited.  I wasn’t able to see the exhition in place, but my spies told me that my piece held its own, and even sold!  whey hey.

Since then, i have linked up with a couple of outlets nearby – Comrie Croft and Carnelian Crafts – who are selling my pieces… note the word ’selling’.  Which is great.  i have also dabbled with Etsy, but haven’t quite got it right – any advice please. I think that in my head i cannot see anyone buying heavy mosaics in what is essentially an American site, though there are buyers in the UK – it is the issue of postage.

Just now, i am dipping my toes into the world of craft fairs.  I will be at the Crieff Primary School on the 27th November and the Morrison’s Academy on the 28th November. Essentially i am tapping into people who may know me to do the sympathy buying.  But i have no idea how much to make, quite how to price things, or, in fact, what i am doing.

Will keep you posted on that front!