Colour + Design Archives - Page 36 of 60

Ready For Their Close Up, Mr De Mille

April 7, 2009 By Paola 10 Comments

This weekend the weather was utterly fabulous, so of course we spent it going to Ikea and doing loads of chores around the house and garden. We are in that in-between stage with lots of half-completed jobs and Ikea flatpack boxes lying round the house, but progress of sorts has been made.

We did take a short break on Sunday to go for lunch at the Volunteer Park Cafe and then for a stroll around Volunteer Park, stopping at the conservatory along the way.

I just happened to have my macro lens on my camera, so it was a good opportunity to get up close and personal on some of the flowers.

My New Toy

March 31, 2009 By Paola 3 Comments

The vintage Dutch yarn swift I bought off Ebay arrived yesterday and it is so much more beautiful than I hoped – a beautifully carved and lovingly constructed work of art. I love it to bits.

Here it is posing with some new yarn. Ravelry is going to bankrupt us.

Why is all the equipment and stuff associated with knitting just so gorgeous? It used to be so much easier to resist in the days of utilitarian metal needles and scratchy acrylic yarn.

Making An Easter Tree

March 30, 2009 By Paola 9 Comments

People have been wondering what an Easter tree actually is. I think it’s originally a Northern European tradition (Swedish? German?) but is becoming increasingly popular in the UK. We never had one when I was a child but I’ve made one every year since the Minx was born.

They’re very easy to do. Just put some florists’ oasis/foam in a bucket; stick in some branches, (either flowering tree branches or some twisted willow as I’ve used here); cover the top with sphagnum moss; decorate with little wooden pastel-painted eggs and ornaments, and finish off with peculiar pompoms.

I found our little decorations, by Gisela Graham, a few years ago on Ebay, but I see that for US peeps Williams Sonoma is getting in on the act with some pretty wooden eggs, which are even on sale if you want to snap some up. If you were one of the crazy people who doesn’t like my pompoms, I sup-pose some pastel satin bows would do at a pinch.

Seattle Chocolates

March 26, 2009 By Paola 2 Comments

Talking of pretty patterns, I know I’m supposed to be doing Weightwatchers, but a couple of these chocolate bars from Seattle Chocolates just happened to fall accidentally into our shopping trolley at the weekend.

Of course I only had one or two squares (who are you kidding? – Ed) but I’m pleased to report that they taste just as gorgeous as they look.

Oh and the below would make an extremely acceptable Easter egg substitute.

Giveaway! – Pretty Puzzle Books

March 24, 2009 By Paola 29 Comments

Everyone seems to be doing pretty patterned bookcovers nowadays – I posted recently about the Virago special editions and Penguin has recently got in on the act with foiled hardbacks designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, which I would dearly love to own. (More images here).

You too can now jump on the patterned book bandwagon with the new Spring collection of gorgeous little puzzle books from Andrews McMeel and the Puzzle Society.

Each book is about the same size and shape as a Moleskine notebook but features a different, beautiful, embossed, foiled or flocked cover. It makes sense really – we take care to find pretty notebooks and pens to stash in our handbags, why should puzzle books be ugly?

To have a chance of winning all four of the books pictured, just tell me in the comments below what is the prettiest or ugliest thing you currently have in your handbag. I’ll keep the competition open for a week and choose the winner using an unbribable random number generator (though you are welcome to try bribing ME). I’m also happy to ship anywhere in the world. You will need to make sure you leave an email address with your comment so I can contact you if you win.

Good luck!

I am so tempted to keep these for myself, as they really are rather attractive, but the chances of me finding a spare moment for puzzling, are, shall we say, somewhat remote.

The Dilemma of the Sh*t Brown Stairs

March 23, 2009 By Paola 21 Comments

Slowly but surely, the colours for the main room are coming together (yes, I know it’s been ages but I’m still searching, vainly so far, for the right pink- and yes, I know you told me to paint it green).

One question on my mind at the moment is what to do with the stairs, which face directly into the main living room and are currently painted the most revolting shade of diarrhoea brown.

I’ve posted up a couple of ideas here and here with other staircase inspiration, but was flicking through an old Livingetc yesterday and came across this picture of Orla Kiely’s staircase in London which I rather like (though it is intrinsically a much more beautiful staircase than ours). Though not in red.

What do you think? Have you seen any other good painted staircase ideas anywhere? I’m worried that painting a stripe will add an extra layer of complexity that the room doesn’t need, but it IS much more fun than just painting the stairs white. The other option of course is just to find a door to replace the one which is currently missing, which we may still do whatever we end up doing with the stairs.

In the Background

March 23, 2009 By Paola 1 Comment

Yesterday we went for a walk in Seattle’s rather splendid arboretum (say what you like about this city, but it is incredibly good at trees).

It’s been a long snowy winter in Seattle terms, so the spring flowers are only just unfurling, but it was a lovely day for a walk with my newly cleaned 60mm lens, which I am very happy to have back in my arms.

I’ve been using some of these images as desktop backgrounds and if you’d like to do the same, please feel free to nab them (got to my Flickr, select the image, choose ‘All Sizes’, open the ‘Large’ size, right click on the image and select ‘set as desktop background’). Please remember that all images are my copyright.

Speaking of desktop backgrounds, check out the Kindred collaboration between Holly Becker and Heather ‘Ez’ Pudewa, who have collaborated with a number of artists to produce free artist desktop backgrounds (also downloadable notecards and gratitude notes).

This Makes Me Proud To Be A Quarter Welsh

March 19, 2009 By Paola 2 Comments

Yet another awesome video

Sabotage – or You Just Died and Went to Cupcake Heaven

March 18, 2009 By Paola 13 Comments

I’m back doing Weightwatchers and getting back on the Wii Fit again as, due to extreme laziness, I haven’t lost any weight since I posted this.

This has of course led to every blog I read to enter into a conspiracy to see who can post up the most enticing/intriguing pictures of cupcakes they can find.

So, in a spirit of ‘if you can’t beat’em, join ’em’ and with apologies in advance for sabotaging your diets here they are.

First up gorgeous things from Aussie Hello Naomi {via Whorange}

Then cupcakes that look like burgers, so you can beat two junk food cravings at once (from here {via Twig and Thistle}

Chocolate Guinness cupcakes with Bailey’s buttercream (I am SO stealing that idea) to celebrate St Patrick’s Day from Trophy Cupcakes (available through March 31st for all Seattleites).

Finally this has been around the blogsphere a bit but I am DETERMINED to make him some day {via Violet Posy}.

More Adventures in Knitting

March 16, 2009 By Paola 1 Comment

Just another quick update before this turns into a knitting blog. Since I have no other projects which are remotely close to completion I promise no more knitting for some time.

The pain-in-the-ass socks are finished. And I don’t even like them very much. They’re very baggy and saggy – a combination of knitting a size too big (the pattern didn’t have instructions for Small Adult); very soft cashmere/silk yarn and a pattern with no real ribbing to it. But they’re nice enough for wandering round the house and GORGEOUS in bed.

Apologies for the extremely crap pictures. These were the last pics taken with the point and shoot. I’ve got my old camera back now – it’s unrepaired because the repair would have cost too much, we’ve decided to go for a camera upgrade instead! Though this will have to wait due to this month’s surprise $2,000 car repair bill.

The yarn barf is turning into this – a scarf knitted from silk and seaweed. I’m enjoying this as the pattern is piss easy and it knits up quickly as it’s mostly made of holes. The yarn itself is utterly gorgeous, has beautiful drape and sheen and the colour is amazing, imagine silk dipped in blue-black ink. It does seem ridiculous to be knitting this though, when it was snowing at the weekend and the sky is leaden grey.

We did manage a brief afternoon of sunshine yesterday though so I rushed out to take photos.