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Wednesday 24 December 2014

Styling the Seasons: December

Well here it is…Merry Christmas! I’m finishing off this year with the simplest of #StylingTheSeasons posts to illustrate my happy Christmas news – we have a house! Well a flat with a mortgage for life but whatever – house! 

As you can imagine the last month (or y’know six months…) has been a bit up in the air getting our little pad tied in. But after a year of in-between living I’m already settling in very nicely to our new home. And am going to finish off the year cooking Christmas dinner for the first time, just for me and boy. Nice.

One of the first things I did when we got the keys was put up this beautiful Liberty print wreath up on the front door. You like? I’m very smugly pleased to say – I made this!
I had a little help though…as this was created at the #SewLiberty event at wonderful Liberty back in November, which I was invited to by Charlotte from Lotts & Lots and Katy from Apartment Apothecary – the clever ladies behind the Styling the Seasons project.

On that lovely day the kind folk at Liberty put on lashings of tea, cake (including my first mince pie of the season) and then came the fabrics – oh so many beautiful fabrics for me and a wonderful gang of bloggers (including some old friends, new faces and the gals behind blogs I’ve known and loved for years) to play with.


The Styling the Season ladies and Liberty’s team invited us to make something wonderfully festive from the beautiful fabrics and we did just that! All made even easier with The Homemakery shop’s donation of excellent crafting products and invaluable advice (for the, ahem, less nimbly finger for us a.k.a. muggins here).
So using a Homemakery wreath ring, gorgeous gold ribbon, a truck load of pins and the truly divine (and aptly named) Lucy Daisy C, Tana Lawn liberty fabric I made this beaut.

It was such a wonderful day and I’m *so* happy to be able to hang it on my door (just) in time for Christmas. I'm planning to pop a little peek into the flat someday soon too…once we are box free :)

Merry Christmas!

Sunday 30 November 2014

Styling the Seasons: November

Just *squeezing* in on the last day of November...here are my pics for Apartment Apothecary and Lotts & Lots' inspiring Styling the Seasons project. For my November I'm channelling gentle winter whites with a sprinkling of autumnal burnt oranges and reds just holding on: 
I've included the London map as this month has felt a bit like limbo for me, so this sums up feeling a little bit lost in the city...
The beautiful lights (yet to be lit!) were kindly given to me by the lovely people at Cable & Cotton. I'm hoping to be using these in another future post too, but thought they are a nice gentle addition to these shots:
The orange jar is full of carrots pickled in mead, not my own creation unfortunately but just love that colour!:
Keeping it simple this month - but looking forward to bringing on some patterns and festive cheer next month...roll of Christmas! 

Saturday 29 November 2014

Extra

Extra bonus points to November - with the addition of these four cosy pairs of woolly Catherine Tough socks to my winter wardrobe. I'll be living in these guys 'til oh about April (what! I've got cold feet ok!? And y'know who could resist fluffy flamingoes!). 

Thursday 27 November 2014

November: the best bits

This has been November. These were the best bits:

Popping over to super sweet and super talented Teri from The Lovely Drawer's home for a beautiful blogger brunch. So lovely to spend time with such an inspiring bunch. It was a pleasure to giggle, chat and meet them all - catching old friends, finally meeting longtime online pals and brand new lovelies too.


I had the pleasure of afternoon tea-ing (my first!) at the wonderful Sketch Gallery - now want my home to be both blush pink and covered with David Shrigley art. The food weren't half bad either.
This made me smile, no need for the Selfridge Nutella personalisation service then:
I nearly (happily) drowned in the most beautiful Liberty fabrics at the Styling the Seasons workshop, but more on this later (you're going to LOVE it)...
Had a whistlestop tour of the wonderful Renegade Craft Fair (could have spent all day there!) managed to get my mitts of a super sweet Hello Harriet phonecase:
And topped the month off today with my annual pilgrimage to the Donna Wilson sample sale and picked up these treats. It's on until Sunday if have a chance!

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Styling the Seasons: October

I can be a stubborn little thing when I want, stuck in my ways (routines rule ok!), happy hunkering down with the things that make me feel most comfortable, untroubled and safe. But sometimes I surprise myself with my ability to push myself into less comfortable situations, trying new things, going out of my comfort zone. And *almost* always I find that I like it. 

Which is why when Apartment Apothecary mentioned the #StylingtheSeasons project somehow my adventurous, carefree self said - 'why not, let's give it a go'. Stubborn me has found this all a liiittle bit harder, but here goes nothing with my first proper foray into giving this styling malarkey a go.

So here's my October Styling the Seasons pic - it's all about that hunkering down that you know I like, cosy autumn Sundays, staying in with your favourite homegrown hobbies, comfort food and, of course, tea. 
A couple of outtakes that I like too (this one is pre tea round)
And another shot that I played around with but never got any further:
All taken with the (inevitable) audience up on the mezzanine floor:
Looking a tad skeptical...

Thanks so much to Katy and Charlotte from Lotts & Lots for setting up this little challenge, I'm enjoying overcoming the difficulties - look forward to giving it another go in November!

Sunday 5 October 2014

Lately

Lately real life stuff has been keeping me nice and busy. Nothing in particular. Nothing fancy. But just all the busy. So here are the highlights (you wouldn't want to see the lowlights - they contain a badly behaved cat, missed yoga classes and lots of work emails...) of what I've been up to over the last month or so:

Getting lost at the V&A during the London Design Festival (can you spot me?!): 
 Lovely details:


  

I didn't manage to get my September #stylingtheseasons up in time, but it looked a little something like this. October's (might) make it up in time:

This happened: 

I went to Dan Tobin Smith's LDF exhibition The First Law of Kipple. It was very pleasing to look at indeed:



And I had my name embroidered on a woollen pineapple. See told you I've been busy...

Monday 25 August 2014

Alderney snippets

Alderney island has been on The List to visit pretty much forever. I've got family ties to this beautiful Channel Island, have heard stories about it my whole life, seen pictures from there, heard the local gossip. To the extent that I *thought* I'd know just what to expect, but it in fact I really hadn't a clue. It turns out that Alderney is full surprises. And I love surprises, so I liked it even more. 

I even kinda liked the plane ride...well maybe *survived* would be more of an accurate description - but with views like this, you'd be mad not to like it just a little bit:
The first thing you need to know about Alderney is that it really is very small. It's about 3 miles long, has about 2000 residents - however it's also pretty big in its own ways - it has its own money (but it's sterling still), its own government, blue post boxes:
Yellow phone boxes...
And even its own numberplates. I totally won on spotting the lowest AY numberplate number with this badboy (get me etc etc):

It doesn't really have chain stores, there is still a clothes shop (Shirley's!) on the island that my Grandma opened in the 60s (which is one of my very very fave things). So it has a really lovely local, villagey vibe, a proper high street and some beautiful old houses throughout the island. 


Along with breathtaking countryside, coastlines and wildlife - we did a full circuit of the coastline in one day (with a leisurely lunchstop in the middle):






Oh and don't get me started on the beaches...



Play spot the boy in this one...

However as Alderney was actually occupied during the Second World War this has left an unexpected mark on the island - with bunkers, forts and lots more structures were built pretty much all over during the five years of occupation. It was never invaded, but there is a sad history attached, as many mainly Russian prisoners of war were brought over to the island partly to build these structures. 

Alderney already had lots of existing older forts (its history is thought to date back the Romans) which means this mixture of old architecture and the German additions has been left as a reminder across the island's beautiful landscape. One of the most prominent is called The Odeon by locals as this radio tower so resembles a 30s cinema:






Some of the old forts have been covered up, destroyed or used for other uses over the years, some structures that still remain - have even been lived in:


More surprising/lovely stuff - puffins (this was as close as we got):
 This gate:
Oh gosh the best (and most plentiful) blackberries - everywhere


Beach sunsets barbecues:

These rescue horses (I of course immediately made up long and involved stories about their friendship...):

My cousin's wedding! The *actual* excuse for going there in the first place (thank you Holly for getting me there finally!):
Country teas (locally made cakes - obvs):
Trying my Sea Salts out in the actual sea:
Me and the boy:
Merci Alderney - it was grand!