The beauty of produce

Well, my children are very clever. They discovered our friends' vegetable garden, went picking, and laid out a beautiful still life, without me even asking! It's quite beautiful.

Keep my coffee warm baby!

I don't know about you but I hate cold coffee, and always seems with coffee made in a plunger that by the time it has drawn to be strong enough to wake me up in the morning, it is also lukewarm. I found this free pattern on Ravelry, and it was a super-fast knit, using half a ball of natural unbleached wool yarn. It is so stylish, and practical too!

This would make a great gift, especially at the last minute.

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Laundry Love

My sister-in-law has recently moved into her dream house. She deserves it too, after 16 years of tiny London apartments. Visiting there last week, she proudly showed me the large section of her kitchen which is going to become the "Utility" as they call it here in England, or the laundry. I expect she will put quite a lot of thought into how it is going to be organised, and so looking at that blank space I thought, what would I do if I could design my laundry area from scratch?

What a fun project! I know that a lot of people have to make do with the space under their kitchen sink, and haul the ironing board out of the wardrobe in a panic in the mornings to get the shirts done. Well, what if we could all have our fantasy laundry room? It can't hurt to dream a little...and then once we're inspired we can see what little touches we can bring from our fantasy world into real life, just to make things a little more enjoyable.

So the first thing I did was start drooling over the great stuff you find all over the web on design sites, and in magazines - you know those laundries that have been put together by a stylist and will never be touched by tumbledrier lint or bits of grass from inside your son's socks.

This is my dream fodder...

Hirondelle Rustique

Style At Home

Centsational Girl

Now, having waded through hundreds of inspiring photographs (after a while, you think you don't really want to do up your laundry room anymore...) I have to ask myself, how on earth does a normal person do ANYTHING inspiring with a real-life laundry? I mean for goodness sake, please tell me who has enough space in their house to have a laundry room like this?:

Hampton Design

So, back to the real world. Now, I did find a couple of normal, real-live women who have attempted pretty fantastic laundry-room makeovers. Here are a couple of examples:

Centsational Girl took this

and made this

Not bad right?

However, I think I would tire of this after a while. It's smart, and pretty but after a while I would forget what it looked like before.

No, what I am going to need to make laundry interesting are some unusual touches. I am going need the things I use to be beautiful. So, what about some handmade laundry soap?

un arc-en-ciel dans lavabo

Yes it's lovely, but it may get a little tedious having to grate all that soap. However, having a couple of bars next to the sink with an old grater ready to wash your pretty lace undies...now that's practical and stylish. And how about getting an old wash basin too...vintage utility items have an immense beauty, unique to each item because of the years of hard work put in on them by women just like us.

Not sure my white shirts would like the rust though...

Practically, though, it is quite easy to find the more old-fashioned laundry accessories, brand new. Wooden pegs, for example, are gorgeous and sturdy. And of course, you can go mad with storage items.

Country Living

So, to finish off, I did a bit of leg work for you to source some beautiful and practical laundry-room basics which you can buy online. So get yourself a cup of coffee (or tea), maybe a yummy piece of cake, and using these basics, build yourself a dream laundry (or at least just dream it).

Gorgeous Ironing Board Covers (you could get two and change them seasonally) are $25 from Etsy.

This cotton drawstring bag with pegs is on sale at Raw Edges Studio for $12.80

Isn't this sunshine yellow tin wash tub gorgeous? Guaranteed to brighten even the rainiest washdays. It's $40 from Sigmosaics.

And this is my favourite, because I have always used an old Ikea bag to keep my lost socks until their partners show up again.

It's $18 at Handmade By Bette.

Well, I could go on forever. Let me know if you use any of these ideas, I'd love to see what you're up to!

CHA CHA CHA - the art of retro and vintage

I have told you once before about my very talented friend Megan (remember the great photography site!). Well, there is no end to Megan's creativity. When I visited her in London two years ago, I discovered that the living room of their very gorgeous Victorian semi was full of...yes you guessed it...STASH!! Fabric, lampshades, vintage retro finds. I think Megan's husband Hugh is a saint to be not even bothered by the loss of a room in the house to eye candy.

The purpose behind the stash (there always is one of course!) is Megan's online shop which sells the most unique and original retro and vintage finds, including lighting, furniture and clothing. Let me give you a little taste...

An original 1950's Lloyd Loom chair re-upholstered in original Alexander Girard fabric.  Is it not a thing of true beauty?

Megan sources original vintage fabric, and can upholster furniture and lampshades as request. Doesn't this just take you right back to the seventies?

The great thing about Megan's store is that she has taken the hard work out of sourcing vintage. She has a fantastic eye, and you can be guaranteed that anything she has chosen will have that stylish "kick".

I am the proud owner of a vintage wallpaper-covered scrapbook, and address book. Isn't this a great idea! Especially if you are not courageous enough to cover a whole wall in it!


Take a look at her shop and be inspired!

It's official - I'm addicted to bags

It does not happen to me often that I can make something people actually admire. My craft experiences in school were always of the order of "Highly Commended" (in other words, quite nice, but not good enough for a real prize). My mother sent me on a sewing course as a teenager. Unfortunately the project was to make a SUIT out of KNIT fabric. I mean how ridiculous. It was horrible. Once I had finished, I threw it away.

So you can see why I got so excited when I first tried out this bag pattern from Vanessa Christenson, and everyone started commenting on my bag:

Friend: "I love your bag. Where did you buy it?"

Me: (smugly) "I made it."

Friend: (incredulous) "What!"

Me: (faltering slightly, at the fact that my friend couldn't believe I actually made it) "Yes, it turned out well didn't it?"

Friend: (proudly) "If you sold those, I would buy one."

Me: (incredulous) "Really?"

So you see, I have now been encouraged by my stroked ego to make more of the bags that caused a temporary buzz of  fame amongst my social circle. In fact, I have made four in one sitting. I might even open an Esty shop...(one step at a time).

In the meantime I am making them as gifts. This is the one I made for my children's teacher as a goodbye gift.

The pattern was not free, but it has more than made up its value already. You can also buy the flower pattern separately if you have a thing for fabric flowers.

What I love about this bag is that the lining peeps through, and co-ordinates with the flower. It's not too fussy, but just that touch of glamorous.

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Help! I need a girl's birthday gift, now!

This Friday evening I panicked. I suddenly remembered that my daughter had a birthday party to attend the next morning. And we were going out that evening. And I had forgotten to buy a gift.

Yes, in the past, I must confess, I have grabbed the newest looking book off my children's bookshelf and wrapped it. But this party was for my daughter's best friend, and I couldn't get away with something, well, less than the best. Knowing the birthday girl is feminine and loves vintage dresses and hair accessories, I went online and found a great, easy (and free) fabric rosette pattern.

In the morning, I spent twenty minutes over breakfast making the rosettes, and then attached them to one of my daughter's pink headbands. Popped into a pretty gift bag with some tissue paper and sparkly sprinkles, it made a gorgeous, handmade gift (that would have cost a lot of money at an uptown boutique).

So if you have a girl's gift emergency, here is the pattern for the rosettes. If you don't have a headband handy, you could attach them to a hair elastic, or you could sew a little square purse and attach them to that. They make anything fabulous.

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No matter what happens - use great stationery

One of my greatest weakness is my desire to communicate to the world on beautiful paper. With an expensive ink fountain pen. And preferably an original letterhead design.

I can't walk past a stationery shop. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I discovered Papyrus in the Pacific Place Mall in Seattle. You must remember, America dwellers, that the rest of the world is still discovering stationery.

So, you can imagine that one of my greatest decision, my biggest burdens, in our preparations to emigrate to America has been - what shall I use to notify our change of address?

Should it be a postcard? In fact providence would have it that The Executive Homemaker has free change of address printables this very morning. While these are cute, and probable great for a local move, I didn't think they had the punch, the originality, the clout needed for a final "I'm leaving the country forever".

I had to do some research. I had bought myself a pack of 50 white pressed notecards ready for this project. I needed a printable that inspired me.

What a blessing Google Reader is. I just typed in "printable" and it searched the archives of all my favourite blogs for inspiration. And that is where I found the treasure!

Indiefixx has some gorgeous printable art and it's all free! I chose these two gorgeous little artworks, with birds as the theme. Paste them into word, and plan two cards per A6 postcard note, with a note on the back saying "We're flying away...".

My plan is to have them in my bag to give to family and friends that I see regularly, and pop one into any written correspondence I send. Then I will go through my contact list and post out to anyone left.

Cute, no?

I am looking forward to something else I can design use the Indiefixx art. I am sure there will be some thank you cards coming out of my printer soon...

Happy Coasters!

I found this great tutorial to make quilted coasters from Mother Lode. The best things about it was that my mother-in-law gave me a bag full of those little fabric swatches you get from interior decor shops. Apparently one had gone bust somewhere and she had picked them all up for a bargain. Frankly, I had no idea what to do with them. The pieces of fabric seemed too small really to make anything of consequence. But in my heart I knew that somehow, somewhere they could be useful.

So when I saw this tutorial, I was super-excited! Little squares of fabric, all co-ordinated for me already, just asking to be made into 5" square quilted coasters!

So here is the first batch I made. They aren't quite the quality to give as gifts, so I kept this set for myself and I will make some more now that I am practiced.

 I used contrasting thread so that the stitching came up clearly.

Very cute!

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