Last minute crafty decorations

If you're snowed in and haven't been quite as organised as you'd planned, it isn't too late to decorate your tree/house/table beautifully for the big day. Our tree's stylish silver and white decor scheme has been immeasurably improved by a few multi-coloured, splodgy and very glittery decorations handmade by my 17 month old niece. Here are some of my favourite decoration ideas, found on Etsy. The best bit is, they give you a good reason to sit inside and not venture out into the sleet.

Decorations made from old comic book pages (above).

Bird garland made from newspaper stuck onto cardboard, strung onto kitchen string or ribbon.

If all else fails, write on some citrus fruit with a felt pen and stick them in a big bowl.

Or decorate some eggs - who said this was only for Easter?

Happy Christmas.

Kitchen is finished!

Well, almost... finally we've got all our appliances installed and working, and we're using our lovely new kitchen. We definitely learned a lot along the way, but I am very happy with it overall. My only regret (maybe) is not going for a standalone fridge freezer... but then, those aren't very big and we do have a monster amount of space for chilling things now, which is fantastic.

Alternative Xmas tree

This is a cool alternative Christmas tree I found over on Houzz. Perfect for those who don't have space for a real tree, can't afford decorations or are simply not feeling too Christmassy...

Wonderful wreaths

For our Christmas party we had the lovely Annabel who has her own bespoke floristry business, teach us how to make lovely Christmas wreaths. And it was surprisingly easy! Having made a 'real' wreath I'm totally over making a bauble wreath... but I will be posting a step-by-step guide to making your own wreath tomorrow so stay tuned.

Jenna and Danielle get stuck into foliage and decorations.

Finance manager Steve is pretty proud of his creative efforts.

Our efforts turned out surprisingly well for first timers I think you'll agree.

Ho ho ho

I finally decorated the tree. Having sat naked in the corner of the living room for almost a week, it's now happily baubled-up and shedding needles all over the floor. Needs more baubles perhaps??

How to start an art collection

Buying art is a passion of mine, but I don't know much about it - or what to collect, other than what I fall in love with. I've never tried to collect with a view to 'investing', but a couple of the pieces I own have turned out to be good investments. I bought a small painting at the Affordable Art Fair a few years back, by a latin American artist who had had some good solo exhibitions as well as group shows in Argentina. A few years later, the same artist's work seems to be selling for at least four times what I paid for my painting. Not that I'd ever sell it...

One of my other favourite painters, Jimmie James is holding a sale of his works which means you can pick up an original for the bargain price of $100. Check out his list of paintings for sale here. You can't have these two though, 'cos they're mine!



Here's a good video on how to start an art collection:

Say it with personalized stationery

It seems to be a peculiarly American thing to stamp your initials all over your tote bag/pillow cases/boxer shorts - which is a little too much for me - but I really do love the idea of personalized stationery. At Christmas it's especially lovely to make your card stand out from all the others which plop onto the doormat (if anyone is sending real paper cards anymore, that is).

So today I've been looking at personalized stationery. My favourite is Fabulous Stationery, whose cards are exactly what they claim to be. Last year I ordered some of their holiday cards and they were great quality, and not too expensive. They have tons of graphic, slightly retro designs which definitely get the festive season off to a stylish start. (See above and below).

Those personalized family cards with photos of smiling/gurning babies don't always do it for me so if you prefer to play it safer, you can't go wrong with a beautifully stylized portrait of your family like these by Etsy-er Saratams.


Another favourite is Moo cards. You can either print from your own images, or choose from their range of designers; currently featuring very cool illustrators like Rachel Cave


and Jo Askey. I've ordered customised post cards from Moo this year as our holiday cards - great for the environment too, as they use 60% less waste to create then normal cards, and NO envelopes!

If even that is a bit too saccharine for you, how about some classic initials? Fancy but not too blue-blood, these cards by Etsy-er DingbatPress would work at Christmas or any time of the year. After all, even in the age of email we all love getting a card through the post, right?

Dear Santa...

We decorated the office last night and now I'm in the festive spirit, so I thought I'd put together my wishlist of all the things I'd love Santa to bring me this year.. hint, hint!

And what do you know, it turns out I'm obsessed with birds and organising things! I swear, these were put together with no theme in mind but it's interesting when you see them all together in a moodboard like this... perhaps we should all make moodboards to determine what's on our sub-conscious mind :) Happy wishlisting!

To see details fo the products, and where to buy click here.

Fabulous DIY fabric headboard

This gorgeous headboard idea comes from design*sponge this week. I've love these fancy headboards but covering them in funky fabric like this takes it to a whole new level of loveliness. I have been looking for a way to make my own headboard for the spare room which doesn't currently have a headboard on the bed. This seemingly simple DIY could be just the trick.

Fabric wise I think I'll go for a pattern to contrast with the plain walls. Here's a good (simple?) step-by-step guide to recovering a headborad from eHow.

Decorating diary - week five

It's nearly over! The kitchen is practically done, and now that we have a work surface (white Corian, mmmmmmmmm) it's really looking like an actual kitchen :)

The Corian (well, LG Hi-Macs to be precise) worksurface was not cheap, but I think it is worth it; it looks so much better than laminate, and it's lovely and warm and soft feeling to the touch. I might have to restrain myself from just sitting in there, stroking the counter top all day long :)

Remaining bits to do include fitting the ceramic hob, installing the downlighters and finishing the fridge freezer door - oh, and re-painting the splashback. But I am loving the electric blue. Counting down the days 'til we can wash up and even COOK in there!

Stylish Christmas decorations

Christmas decorations can easily stray into tacky territory, but I found these fantastic ideas while strolling through Flickr today. This beautiful Christmas tree by ATLITW is perfect if you don't have enough space for a real tree in your living room - and I love the way it uses up all those pretty-but-I'm-not-sure-what-to-do-with-it bits and pieces you know you have stashed away waiting for a time to use them. Oh wait, is that just me?

I love this non-traditional Christmas tree and stocking set-up. What a great way to decorate a mantepiece.

I often think Christmas trees look a bit boring in traditional green/red and white but a hodge podge of bright colours can look tacky, so kudos to Boopsiedaisy on Flickr who has made such a fun, candy-coloured display. Love it!

See more of her Christmas pics here.

Finally, the talented swallowfield has inspired me to make this stunning bauble wreath. I really like the slightly clashing red and pink colours. To make the wreath I'm going to start with gardeners oasis wreaths (about 12" diameter) and then thread the baubles onto wire and push them into the oasis in a circular pattern.

I'll post pics to show you the steps if it works out!

Decorating diary - week 4

Slowly but surely, it is definitely coming together! After a week or so where nothing much seems to have happened to the kitchen, it feels like we're making progress each day again. We painted the walls white last weekend (Charlie's first attempt at painting above!), the rest of the units have been fitted and the splashback has been painted bright blue.

When they fitted the cooker hood, they fitted it at what seemed to be a ridiculously low height - the kitchen fitter claimed this was 'standard' but I kept hitting my forehead on it (and I'm 5'4"!) and Charlie could look down on the top of it, smashing his chin on it!
Thankfully this week they have raised it up to a more normal height.

I'm now wondering if we should paint the bannisters blue too - or maybe that would be too much?

We have an oven!!! How exciting...

Free advent calendar from Mibo

I have mentioned striking Mibo graphic products before in this blog, but I can't help mentioning them again! They have just launched this gorgeous advent calendar, available to download from their site for FREE - what a deal!

Download it from the Mibo.co.uk website.

Decorating diary - Kitchen units are in!

It's really starting to look like a kitchen... bit worried I won't be able to reach the top wall cabinet shelves, though! Oh well, I just need to find a stylish step I guess. That's what happens when you're only 5'4".

Decorating diary - week 2

Oops, there goes another wall...


Hit a slight snag in the kitchen renovations this week... having measured the room three times the kitchen design wasn't quite right once the wall actually came down, so we had to knock another wall down, too! Hey ho, whats a stud wall between friends? The benefit will be an extra window in the kitchen, and more space. I think I'm beginning to understand what they mean by "a money pit"...

Cute Christmas

Yesterday I blogged about the luscious new Mibo calendar. Today I couldn't resist sharing these cute little Christmas creatures from Mibo too - a nice throw back to the days of 'make-it-yourself' decorations. These would make such a great project to make with kids over the Christmas holidays. Get that pritt stick out!

Ready for new year

I love calendars and cool stationery so was extra pleased to get the news that the new Mibo calendar for 2010 is available. The monthly illustrations are so beautiful, you'll want to frame them when the year is over and for less than £3 it's an absolute bargain.

Decorating diary - week 1

Week one we knocked down the chimney breast load-bearing wall in the kitchen, and started to move the plumbing for the sink and the boiler.

Say it with beards

An oldie but a goodie. Who wouldn't want to speak beard? View the full alphabet font at Design Milk.

Gorgeous greys

With a whole flat to decorate (yippeee!) I am suddenly totally stumped by paint colours. You'd have thought after reading Domino and Living Etc religiously for the last 5 years I'd have it all planned out, but somehow the reality of actually having a real room to plan is a bit overwhelming!

Until today that is, when I saw this stunning 'sneak peak' on one of my fave design blogs, design sponge. The shades of grey in this beautiful home are exactly what I had in mind (sub-consciously)... now all I need to do is find a UK equivalent paint colour to the lovely shades in these pics.