Flower Love

I’m really in love with flowers and candles lately. There is two downsides to this, 1) I am terrible at flower arranging and 2) I always bitched about people who liked candles – I never saw the point? Now I’m a complete sucker for the ambiance  they create. I have real expensive candle lust too, I want Jo Malone, Miller and Harris and Diptyque candles! This is not good news because all of these are around £30 for a glorified tea light.

Back to the flowers, these lovely flowers were created by my dear sister, who forages for natural foliage and made me this creation in a beautiful vintage milk creamer. I really appreciate gifts like this as I’m so hopeless at making flowers look nice. I’m a creative person but flowers just stump me every time, if anyone knows or a great flower arranging book please let me know – I’ll snap it up! So much glorious sun here in London, and so much more to come – I’m off to Athens on Thursday for my annual work holiday…. wish me luck! 

New Season, New Colours

Phew! It would appear spring is finally here. I think today must have been the hottest we’ve had so far, my cheeks feel a little warm from sitting in the park for most of the afternoon. As the new season arrives I’ve been feeling itchy for some new colours, styles and accessories – hence being really drawn towards blue! Today I tried the newly opened, Tibits, man was the food good. Amazing vegetarian fare, well worth a visit if your in London. 

I’ve been a bit bad at blogging lately, the sad news is my Nikon D40X has died, completely. So, now I am using Miles’ camera – it’s not as much fun as having your own. Back to blue, I managed to find these blue lovelies in TKMax of all places. I love the vintage corn flower blue enamel coffee pot next to the modern retro Jonathan Alder melamine plate. The cool colours are pretty calming – which is always nice in a hectic world!

Tree of Happiness

The tree is up , after so much waiting and excitement! I am really please with how it turned out. In the lead up to Christmas I got slightly over excited and bought a lot of tree decorations and I was beginning to think that they would all clash horribly. However it appears that they al look rather nice together (well, I’m pleased with it). The whole tree is all glass decorations apart from very few which are plastic. I have been collecting and sourcing glass decorations from all over, including a little shop in my home town of Whitstable where I got my glass fishes from Poland. The shop is called Buttercup and is very sweet. Others were from London, my parrots were from Oliver Bonas (a brilliant shop).

We couldn’t have a real tree as we live on the second floor but my slim (space saving) tree has made me surprisingly happy. I have loved collecting bits for it, my dream of a vintage style glass decorated tree has finally come true. I’m a massive fan of Christmas and this is my first Christmas living with Miles, so having our tree that we put up together is really special to me. I don’t want to go on being mushy, but Christmas is a time for love – and Miles rocks! If anyone else is a Strictly Come Dancing fan then you will share my sadness that it’s almost ending. It has been an amazing series, and as someone who danced Ballroom and Latin for nearly 5 years it makes me just want to get the dresses out and hit the floor again……I think I feel a new years resolution coming on!  

Christmas Crafts

I’m really early on this one but I am just so damn excited about Christmas! I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this year will be my first year with a place to decorate. Plus it’s my first Christmas living together with Miles … so it’s pretty special. I have been crafting my heart out trying to make some unique and special decorations. Now I am not the best crafter out there so when I set my self a challenge it takes me a while to complete as I am lacking in the skills – however after 8 hours of stitching and felting I finally made a Christmas Russian doll. She’s not perfect, but after all that time and effort she’s going on the tree no matter what (faults and all). 

I have also been making lots of felts hearts, they only take 45 or so to make! It will be interesting to see how all these creations turn out, or if I ever get the time to finish the all by Christmas?! Miles and bought our first decorations yesterday and I got so excited I wanted to put them up straight away – obviously I was restrained, it was hard. I can wait to get a tree and decorate it! Is it just me, is anyone else out there excited by Christmas coming?

Tissue Shroom

The weather has been so unbelievably hot in London this weekend, I think it was set to top 21 degrees today and after trekking 5 miles around my local woods I can confirm it’s pretty damn hot. Yesterday I ventured out into London to attempt to find crafting materials, I ended up in Liberty’s very nice haberdashery section and came out a little poorer for it (they had a great selection of sparkle felts). I also stopped the the very cool All The Fun at The Fair in Kingly Court, Carnaby Street which sold the best knitted cactus’ ever! After lunch at the super Cha Cha Moon I found this adorable pink tissue shroom.

It reminded me so much of Shroom from Super Mario, but in super cute pink I couldn’t resist. It’s from a shop called Bird Cage Boutique  in London and they have the matching trays which are really awesome too. I am busy crafting and making Christmas felt lovelies ready for my first year of having a home to decorate – and my first Christmas living with Miles! Hope everyone else is enjoying the weather? It’s crazy making Christmas tree decorations when I am wearing flip flops and have the windows wide open. 

Something Different

 I finally found time to make a few changes to the flat, Miles and I have decided to stay here in our tree house flat a little longer so I thought I would add a splash colour to get rid of my decorating itch (we rent so you can’t decorate!) I bought this amazing cushion over at Lush Designs (as mentioned before) and it is the most amazing quality – I love it! It is like a fairy tale cushion and I love the blue it really brightens up the room.

 In keeping of adding a bit of colour I decided to paint my table legs, and get some black chairs to match our Mexican oil cloth.  I have never been a fan of black furniture, but with our living room and our whole building being so 1950′s inspired it works quite well. I feels really nice to make a few changes, I love projects! So, Summer is officially over and photo are getting hard to take as the light is not too good, but I’ll keep trying to get some good shots. I am off on my holiday soon (finally) can’t wait –  sunny Greece here I come!

Table Treasure

Wow, it’s the rainiest bank holiday ever here in the UK. However can’t moan too much it’s still a day off from work and a chance to snuggle up on the sofa in a blanket, with Nylon and Country Living - whilst drinking tea of course. I thought I would share my new table mats with you all, I had been looking for sometime now as I wanted something unusual (not store bought) and finally I found some at Grand Designs Live 2008.  

They are by an independent tableware designer and maker called Jenny Duff and the artist of the designs is Gillian Blease. Jenny’s company, Jenny Duff Tableware is fantastic, she has so many beautiful designs and offers them all a range of sizes. The thing that made me smile the most about my new table mats was that I had searched London high and low for something unusual and Jenny Duff Tableware is based only 15 miles from my home town of Whitstable?! Freaky that I had to go to Grand Designs in London to find her, it just proves that the crafting community doesn’t really have a good support network here in the UK – local crafts can slip unnoticed, even from my hawk eye!

I just wanted to say a really big thank you to Holly over on Decor8 for mentioning my little humble blog in her ‘Happy Friday’ post …. and saying that she ‘couldn’t stop looking at’ it. I am extremely flattered as Decor8 is one of my favourite, and the best blogs out there!

Rewarding Roses

Moving on from my living room and my thrifty table, this is a little peek at my new bedroom in the  flat , and my biggest indulgence to- date - Cath Kidston Rose bedspread. It cheers up my day so much it turns the chore of making a bed into a pleasure as it is so rewarding to see it sitting so pretty once made. 

I know it is just ever so slightly girly, but it is so pretty and makes me feel special every time I lay on it on snuggle up in it. It’s kind of special too because it’s the first real thing I have been able to buy in the whole time I have been working. Ok, I am going to stop going on about a bed spread now as I don’t want to appear to have an unhealthy obsession with it (I don’t really). 

For the rest of my time I have been consumed by the lovely Pushing Daises, as a huge Jean Pierre Jeunet and Tim Burton fan I am in my element as Pushing Daises seems to be a strong mix of the two. Also, I’m currently dreaming about taking a trip to Laduree at Harrods for Macaroons and afternoon tea, after Fortnum and Mason and the Ritz I have a passion for high class afternoon tea (eeekkk, it’s an expensive habit!).

Table Make Over

I really wanted to make my new table pretty but not too girly as this flat is half a boys flat, so I thought I would get some great oil cloth to make over the old table that my sister gave me. This table is pretty special it still has drawing on the underneath where my nephew secretly got underneath it a did some lovely drawings! Anyway, I digress – I wanted some unusual oilcloth and the one I had seen to get was Kitsch Kitchen and I foolishly saw it in Antwerp but never got around to buying it. Well it soon became a a real bee in my bonnet – you can’t seem to get Kitsch Kitchen anywhere in the UK, especially not the more unusual patterned cloth! So I did my homework and I finally found a really great oil cloth supplier that I was really excited to share with everyone. Viva La Frida sells imported Mexican oil cloths that are identical to Kitsch Kitchen at a much better price too!

I went for the black lace, and was pretty pleased with how nice the old table came up. I was considering painting the legs – I still haven’t ruled it out but I think for now they match the chairs so well I will leave them be. So I hope this is a hopefully tip for any one looking for alternative oil cloth in the Uk, and you don’t fancy Cath Kidston.  I have been away from the blog the last week due to a food over indulgence I am addicted to French Macaroons, and tonight I gored on way too much Dim Sum at Dim T, I am about to crawl into bed to sleep it all off! Goodnight x