Flower radiators from Hellos. A mere £460 ($650 – good grief, the pound is crashing through the floor) for each flower.
Made of aluminium and available in a variety of coloured, matte and shiny finishes.
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These Would Make Me Happy
Yarn Barf
This is what I am working on today.
Why oh why do people insist on selling me yarn in skeins? I am hopeless with them. The yarn is absolutely gorgeous though.
In other news, I have finished a project. Pics to follow when it has finished blocking. And I have just purchased a vintage yarnwinder thingamajig on Ebay at vast expense.
Light Up My Life
Jona Hoad is a UK-based lighting designer, who specialises in wallpaper-like lighting panels and lighting installations for hotel bars, restaurants and your house if you’ve got enough money.
Here are some pictures from the DeVigne Bar in Marylebone and the Vanilla Bar in Soho. Sometimes I do like a bit of spangly overthetopness.
I also liked these pictures from his website, which reveal that things are not always as they seem in the world of interiors photoshoots.
Adventures in Crochet
Holly at Decor8 has been writing a fabulous series about unleashing your creativity, which has made me decide that this is the year I learn to crochet.
I have a couple of super scary projects I’m contemplating (to be discussed when they’ve percolated a bit more) but have told myself that I can’t buy the yarn for anything big until I’ve finished the incredibly tedious blanket of doom. In the meantime I’m attempting a few simple projects, so I can see what this crocheting lark is all about and whether it really is for me.
My first project was a cover for the orchid the Minx gave me for Valentines Day. I adapted Erika Knight’s bottle covers from Simple Crochet and used some string I found in our useful drawer and a length of fine chartreuse ribbon I found at the bottom of my knitting bag which I must have bought for some project I can no longer remember.
It wasn’t difficult, though string and ribbon are not the most forgiving of media, and has encouraged me to persevere, though the Husband did take one look at the finished article and said, “Isn’t that all a bit macrame’?” and I couldn’t really disagree.
Here’s some crochet that actually looks good. Found via the Style Files and available here if you can read Dutch, these are all crocheted in polyester so are good for outdoors. I’d love some for the deck.
More details in my Ravelry notebook. Come and find me there.
Public Service Announcement – Matte Stephens Giveaway
When we were talking paint colours recently (still dithering about that and waiting on a couple of samples) a couple of you mentioned my little Matte Stephens painting, which I picked up when Matte gave his talk at the Lab last year. It was originally intended for the Minx’s room, but I’ve decided that I love it far too much to waste it on her.
I bought the picture because, although it’s supposed to be a picture of Matte’s wife Vivienne, it reminds me of the Minx, and the fir trees and umbrella are just SO Seattle.
Those of you who spend a lot of time in the American blogosphere will certainly have seen Matte’s work before – much of his talk at the Lab was about how he had been quietly plodding along with his art for years, before becoming something of an overnight sensation, with lots of interesting projects in the works.
However, for those of you who don’t know him so well he has an Etsy shop here full of prints, and a blog here. You can also buy original works here at Velocity. And as of today he is giving away these three new pillows on his blog.
I hope you appreciate how much I love you, as by telling you this I am severely impacting my own chances of winning.
Here’s Matte and Vivienne at the Lab last year
Just updating to say that, just in case you’re not lucky enough to win, the pillows are on sale at Urban Outfitters at a very reasonable price.
Go Love Your Room – Victorian House in London
I was awash with nostalgia after seeing these pictures on Crooked Shmooked of the quintessential London Victorian house. Most of our friends with kids in London live in houses like this and if we had stayed in London I’m sure it’s the sort of family house we would have ended up buying. (This particular house is not far from where we lived in Notting Hill in London and in an area we were definitely considering moving to).
Vast swathes of houses like these were put up in the 19th century all over London, and while this is certainly not on the cutting edge decor-wise it’s a very well done example of the genre, is quintessentially London and the sort of decor I love. If you want to use it for a photoshoot all details are here.
Come in! The encaustic tiiles inside and out are very Victorian and very typical, but the colour of the front door is fresh and modern and the beautiful stained glass is again a very Victorian idea, though I’m not sure if the glass in this particular door has been restored and modernised.
I’ve sat in so many rooms like this, with beautifully ornate fireplaces, a large bay window and an ugly telly tucked in the corner, because no one knows quite where to put it. Not sure about the sofa though.
Got to love the that Paul Smith ‘Love’ needlepoint from the Rug Company. It’s the companion piece to the one hanging in Carrie Bradshaw’s redecorated apartment and something I’d love to have here in Seattle, if only George Bush and Gordon Brown hadn’t stolen all our money.
I wish twinkly interior light strings were more prevalent in the US. We had them all over the flat in London and you can generally find good examples at Habitat and Graham & Green. Unfortunately the voltage is all wrong for the States (which we forgot about when we shipped some twinkly lights back for the Minx’s room last year).
Pretty much everyone in London has extended into the loft to get a bit more space.
Yet Another Awesome Video
As someone who is in the process of knitting thousands of interminable small stitches for my blanket, I do hope this video was made by some sort of camera trickery, and not by someone knitting every frame.
Keyboards of Desire
I want one of these so badly it hurts (though probably not as much as my hands would hurt using one, as I can currently only use a very ugly ergonomic keyboard). I never knew before that there was a hole in my life only a decorative keyboard could fill.
Handmade and available here and here for about $165 or £115.
{via If It’s Hip It’s Here}
Two More Awesome Videos
A sign of the times – which has inspired me to count up those coins {via The Daily Dish}
This is long, but if you’re struggling to create something, anything, it’s well worth the listen. I wasn’t a huge fan of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love but she sure can give a cracking a motivational speech {via the ever-inspirational Uncle Beefy}.
Fabulous Lampshades – Insatiable Studios
The wonderful lampshades in the house featured below are handmade by Seattle-based designer Jill Smith, owner of Insatiable Studios.
The shades are all meticulously crafted using a papier-mâché process and then decorated with found papers. Her lampshades are available to buy online and her work also adorns several commercial spaces, such as PCC and the Dahlia Lounge here in Seattle and Nordstroms in Chicago.
Two of my favourite places to go – the Dahlia Lounge and PCC
I really want one for the lucite lamp base I found on Ebay last year which is currently adorned by a VERY dull Ikea lampshade. It’s going to have to wait a bit though as I’ve just had a nasty bill for camera repairs.
This is NOT a fabulous lampshade
