#bowerhaus

Shentel Lee – An Accidental Business

Who are you? 

I’m Aussie born Designer who is currently living on the Island of Borneo in a rather small city called Kuching, AKA “Cat City.” I moved here after marrying my high school sweetheart and have two boys, Benjamin who is four and Kingston who is two. Next year would be my tenth year live abroad.

Tell us about your work or creative pursuits?

After graduating from UTS with a degree in…

Photographer: Ramon Location: Norwest Business Park

I'm back with part 2 of my Now and Then Outfit Post. I was meaning to post this last night but time is my enemy! I swear, the days seem so much shorter these days.

As promised, I've dedicate this week to blog which is proving difficult with my blog layout crapping out on me lately due to updates and currently blogging during a break while helping a friend move. Multitasking as much as I can to get things done before I fly off to Brisbane this weekend. I still have to go 2 places before I head home tonight, trim my kitten's nails which is a mission on it's own and dye my hair.

Again, a huge thank you to the sponsors for this look; the floral blouse is from Persunmall, flared skirt from Choies, jewellery from Bowerhaus, shoes from Ministry of Retail and fedora from Lack of Color.

I love this gorgeous blouse from Persunmall and goes with most of my bottoms in my closet. I've noticed that in my closet, my bottoms exceed my tops so will be keeping an eye out for good boxing day sales next week.

Brisbane is going to reach a scorching hot 35 degrees this weekend and I'll be brining along this gorgeous fedora by Lack of Color for some shade :)

I apologise in advance but you will see this Choies flared skirt quite a bit on my blog. I love wearing it and has become my go-to skirt lately.

Yes, I have trimmed my hair and chopped off around 3 inches. My unintentional ombre hair is starting to become a healthy, one colour now. It's sad to say that my curls no longer stay as long as it used to without product but it's been a while since my hair has not been dry or brittle.

Styling with Bowerhaus jewellery. More about Bowerhaus in an upcoming blog post.

Whats great about this necklace is that the pearls and jewels used to make it are authentic. Once you pick it up, you can feel that it's cold and weighted. I learned so much through my time at Bowerhaus and promise a post will be up soon!

Details of the Persunmall blouse <3

I'm going to try and blog as much as I can while in Brisbane but I have 3 current projects that I need to do while I'm there. 2013 has been amazing so far and I'll be posting up all the highlights this year had to offer me. Only a couple weeks to go till 2014 and I'm so excited to see what's in store.

I had the honour of being invited to view the new Bowerhaus collection, meet the designer and the unforgettable and intimate experience of making our own jewellery.

"Born and raised in Australia, sisters Shen-Tai and Elizabeth Lee named their label Bowerhaus after the Australia Bowerbird. The most notable characteristic of bowerbirds is their unique courtship behaviour where the male bowerbird will spend hours fanatically collecting shells, leaves, flowers, coins and even discarded pieces of plastic or stones to create a bower worthy of attracting a female mate. Likewise the lee sister's are utterly obsessed with collecting beautiful trinkets from all over the world, decided that it was time to put their mark into their obsession. Inspired by their father's vintage coins and mother's pearls they design with materials that they source from all over the globe. Old world charm and understand confidence are all the hallmarks of Bowerhaus."

It's the first time ever stepping foot in a Sydney mansion where the head office of Bowerhaus is located. When I stepped foot in their home, it felt like I was in a museum. Their dining room could fit a comfortable 30 people, seated, was transformed into a gorgeous showroom.

I felt so intimidated being in front of a designer whose work has been featured on Serena Van der Woodsen on the popular Gossip Girl and whose house looks like it has been featured in all home living magazines and TV shows.

Bowerhaus takes pride in their packaging and each piece of jewellery ordered online will be delivered in their gorgeous packaging along with a stunning helium balloon to make it even more special.

Everything from the 2 different types of branding to the type of gems and where they are sourced from were well thought out. It wasn't just about putting 2 and 2 together, it was about creating something meaningful and beautiful. It makes more than just a statement piece, it creates a story with meaning.

Elizabeth has such a great vision, the set up of the whole showroom was well thought out and everything flowed so well together. The bracelets were displayed on a cupcake holder on top of their cute Bowerhaus boxes.

Their collection was amazing and made me fall in love with jewellery. I have never been much of a jewellery person but through this experience, I have learned to appreciate jewellery and the amount of time that goes into coming up with a design, creating the technique to join all the beautiful pieces together and searching for the right jewels, beads, pearls to put together.

The best advice that the talented Elizabeth gave me that day was to think about the most common jewellery you wear, the colour of your jewellery, your style, what you will be wearing, the main colour of your wardrobe, then find the colours that will match. I thought of my everyday style which was sophisticated chic, mostly in nudes and whites and I wore a lot of silver jewellery.

I had the opportunity to create my own bracelet and although it was an extremely stressful job to do, I had a blast! Elizabeth was great and so down to earth. They have been in business for 3 years and have already been featured in countless magazines and expanded to stores in New York and around Asia. Check out their range on the Bowerhaus website.