Vintage Style Vessels

Recently I don't seem to be able to resist buying glass bottles in various shapes and forms! Is it just me, or is there something just simply appealing?!

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milk bottles....

Three Potato Four

Max Attenborough

I love bottles with the stoppers like these....

Re Found Objects

Max Attenborough

Dotcom gift shop

and perfect for the bathroom, vintage pharmacy/medicine bottles....

I'm so Vintage/Etsy Bluebell Bazaar/Etsy

Lucky Little Dot/Etsy

look out for colourful bottles from other countries, with the text in different languages....

Craft Hotel

you will never have to buy a vase again!

Debi Treloar

Debi Treloar

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xxx

Wallpaper Pinboard

When I visited the flea market in Paris at New Year, I picked up a lovely old vintage picture frame... I'd been looking out for one as I wanted to create a pinboard for my office, using wallpaper samples! So, at the weekend, I got to it, and here's how I did it, and the results! The frame cost me €15 at the flea market, the wallpapers samples were collected up while I was deciding on paper for the hall, and the cork tiles were around £7 for a pack from a DIY shop....

Firstly I had to measure up the cork tiles to fit the frame, I had to use 2 tiles as they weren't long enough, but I just used a staple gun to join them together. I used 2 layers of cork to stop it being too flimsy....

Next I superglued the 2 layers of cork together and then I laid out the scraps of wallpaper they way I wanted them in the frame....

and then all was needed was to superglue the wallpaper onto the cork! easy peasy! I placed some heavy books on top while the glue dried to make sure the paper was nice and flat. And then I just popped the wallpaper covered cork into the frame...

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, although now that its done, I'm scared to pin anything on it!! I will do eventually but I actually quite like how it looks as it is!

xxx

PS Does anyone know where I can get some nice drawing pins?!

Rachel Castle - Beautiful Bedlinen

One of life's simple pleasures has to be slipping under some freshly laundered (or even better, brand new!), crisp bedlinen.... and you can't get any fresher and crisper than the lovely designs from Rachel Castle...


She also has some gorgeous prints, perfect to hang above your bed, to complement the bedlinen! Rachel seems to have such a fantastic eye for colour and mixes simplicity with quirkiness perfectly....

xxx

Stacks of books....

Things are pretty hectic at the moment, its that time of year when all the trade shows are on, so I'm out hunting down lots of new goodies for the shop! And I have lots I want to do around the house, hopefully one of those things is putting up some shelves at some point... we have books everywhere! But at the same time, I quite like how stacks of books can look....

selina lake

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Canadian House & Home

House to Home

or neat and tidy on shelves?! I'm not sure! I reckon a bit of both is probably the answer!

I love this image...

Canadian House & Home

what do you think?!

Lisa Stickley designs for Debenhams - Preview!

I do love Lisa Stickley's designs, I especially loved the enamel Warley Blue range, of which I myself, own a lovely big pot! I love how she has given these classic enamel items a more modern twist by adding the floral design.
She has a lovely range of goodies on own her website from textiles to china (and there is currently a sale on!) and you can still pick up the enamelware from Tree House Blue.

And now Debenhams have just announced they are launching a range of Lisa's designs! And as with the Warley blue they are describing the new range as one "that translates Lisa Stickley's ability to create nostalgic pieces with a contemporary twist"


The range is to include printed bed linen, colourful kitchen storage, dining & tea time crockery, table linen and kitchen textiles as well as decorative accessories, priced from just £3.50 - so nice and affordable!

The range will not be available until August 2010, but here is a little sneak preview....!
What do you think?!

xxx

Create a hanging plate display

Back in November I told you about my plate collecting in preparation for creating a display on our hall wall... and now it is finally complete! I thought I would run through how I did it in case you fancy giving it a go too!

Firstly I bought these yellow invisible plate hangers from John Lewis, they come in different sizes, about £1.50 for the smaller ones so not too pricey....


Give all your plates a good clean, and then lay them out bottoms up. The instructions with the plate hangers says to rub some scouring paste on the back of the plates - I just made a paste using baking soda, a little water and a little salt. Rub this into your plates, rinse clean and leave to dry.


measure up your plate hangers, I found that mostly they overhung the flat part of the bottom of the plate, so I trimmed them all down so they fitted neatly into the flat part.


Then with your fingers, rub some water into the sticky side of the plate hangers until they are gummy, and then stick them to the back of your plates.


Then you need to leave them overnight to dry. Don't worry it is possible to remove the plate hangers at a later date - you just need to soak the plate in warm water, and it will not damage the plate.


Finally, lay out how you want to arrange the plates, and then dig out your hammer & nails!


I started hanging the ones from the bottom first, so they don't end up too low on the wall which would look at little weird. I also found it best to hang the plates as you go along rather than trying to mark out where your nails are going first, so then you can work out spacing as you work. While I stuck to my layout plan, you don't need to be massively accurate.

And here is the finished result!

left-hand bird plate is from TK Maxx, top bird plate is by Lou Rota, right-hand bird plate was bought at Chiswick car boot sale, middle plain cream plate from Mud Puppy at Etsy, all other plates came from Chinasearch.

My favourite plate from the display is the one from Mud Puppy at Etsy, which was a lovely Christmas pressie from my other half....! Its simple but so pretty!

xxx

White floors

Last weekend, we finally got round to ripping up the carpet in my home office! I am so pleased it is gone as it was pretty grim, and I am so looking forward to getting to work on the pretty ropey floorboards (see similarly ropey photos!) and painting them a beautiful white!

It just seems to work in pretty much any room don't you think?!

pics via Living Etc, Atlanta Bartlett, Trine Thorsen