A Nice Plaice... Designer Fish Bowl

Designer fish bowl designed by student Teddy Luong at Carlton University School of Design. These can be pre-ordered from Unica Home for the ultimate fishy home. Pretty cool huh?

I Want a Mac Book

If only to have one of these...& not because they are utterly cool, & would make my working life so much easier & would look swish in my gorgeous new studio... & beacuse I deserve one (I have been good all year). What I would give just to have one of these Twelve South Mac Book Protectors that I found via Designers Block

Children's Woodland Bedroom Ideas

I love painting & interior design and am currently brainstorming for the re-design of my one and a bit year old Daughters bedroom. Lilly’s never really had a ‘nice’ bedroom & now that she spends more time in her room, I wanted to re-design her room with lovely bright colours that will be visually stimulating for her. She loves the outdoors and nature so my inspiration is taken from her love of that. Here is my mood board with a tiny glimpse of things to come...
‘Secret Woodland Children’s Bedroom’
Do you like the theme?

I have some fantastic creative DIY ideas to achieve the look which I will post in the coming weeks.

Colour Co-ordinating Bookshelves

I have been the proud owner of a colour co-ordinated book shelf for years & am quite pleased with myself for that too. I started doing it when I was at school (I have always been a bit anal about neatness / colour & having everything in it’s correct place). When people come round to the house they are always drawn to the book shelf and almost always comment on how neat & tidy my books look but don’t quite understand why. Then I proudly tell them it’s because they are colour co-ordinated. The normal reaction is to ask how much free time I actually have. But it’s surprising how quick it is to organise your books in this wonderful array of colour co-ordinated neatness & it will change your life. You will get a certificate smile when people comment on your books (and they will because it looks cool).

I have been overwhelmed with work (Christmas cards are flying out) & my baby girl, Lilly, is learning to walk so tidying tasks really have taken a back seat. Part of Lilly’s morning routine after breakfast is to take each book off one by one and place onto the floor which is where they stay for the rest of the day. I'm quite happy with this as it gives me roughly half an hour to catch up on emails whilst she happily occupies herself with the task. At the end of the day I rush around tidying up, putting the books back on the shelves in a rough colour order. After weeks of doing this, my gorgeous feature of a book shelf (pre-baby) is looking very dishevelled & rather scruffy (post-baby). Re-organising it has been on my to-do list for a few weeks now and moves ever closer to the bottom of an ever expanding list (mummy hood & business running is not easy when done together).

But alas, I have been inspired by Blah Blah Blahg’s recent post to move this little task to the top & get things done once & for all. This weekend I plan to get organised and colour co-ordinate my life. Pictures to follow...

Coulson Macleod Prints

Pheweee It's been a busy week. But I wanted to post about these beauties before I sign off for the weekend. I first read about these beautiful prints at Design Sponge & noticed that they are also fellow sellers on notonthehighstreet.com. I have wanted to post about their stuff for ages.

I LOVE every single one of these handmade limited edition prints from the Love Collection by Coulson Macleod. Each one is handmade and makes for a beautiful heartfelt & unique gift.

If I absolutely had to choose - this would be my fave & is most definitely on my wish list:

Fabulous news is that they are offering free UK P&P on all orders.

Have a happy weekend!

Flowers Cath Kidson

Image from Concrete Honey

Im in love with flowers this week. I love being bought flowers but don’t see anything wrong with buying yourself flowers. This week Ive promised to treat myself to some. On a floral theme take a look at these beauties from Cath Kidson. Enjoy....

Cake Stand £20 / Dinner Plate £5.00 / Fabric by the metre £18 / Wallpaper £22 / Small Storage Bag £9 Large £12.

Great Design

This made me smile. It also made me really want to drink a glass of water. So classicly Paul Smith, this 'Paul Smith for Evian' bottle adds a fantastic injection of style & colour into an everyday object.

Love it!

Buy of the Week!

As a Cancerian I’m a real home girl. I love my shell! It's felt cold this week & when autumn sets in I start nesting getting ready for the cosy nights.

This week I bought this from the dot com gift shop. I can’t wait for it to arrive. I’ve had my eye on a similar one for a while but when I saw the price of this one... just £15.95 it had to be bought there & then. With the rainy days settings in (did they ever leave...?) make wiping feet irresistible. They have this lovely English Rose one -

and this cool multi colour stripey door mat -

and what about this black & white flock door mat -

All from the dotcomgiftshop

Happy Weekend

I love bed.

The best place in the world for me to be is my bed. It does good things to me & I am at my best in bed.

I haven't seen it a lot this week & I have been seriously sleep deprived. In the war, malnutritioned soldiers would fantasise about food & it would take up most of their daily thoughts. When the war was over and food was no longer scarce, they would gorge on food & showed traits found in people with eating disorders. I have missed you bed. I would like to gorge on sleep this weekend.

I get up at 4am most mornings to organise previous days orders & work before my little girl wakes at 9 - which is when my day really starts. This week She's been poorly so have been up in the night too.

I would love to be here. Have you ever taken your duvet outside to the garden in Winter & wrapped up with a hot coffee...? You should it's a good feeling.

(image from here)

I love bed linen shopping. Mine's a crisp white cotton Julien Macdonald spread with crystals. In fantasy land this is my dream bed. I imagine the person that sleeps in this bed wakes up looking beautiful.

(image from here)

I recently bought some goose/duck feather duvet & pillow cases which has done my desire to sleep no favours. In reality this is my dream bed. This weekend sleep is most definitely on the agenda. Happy Weekend xx

(all other images from here)

Cool Wallpaper - Idea

WIP: Future Craft Room : 4/27
Originally uploaded by eklektick

I came across this clever use of paint work by eklektick. to display art pieces or drawings in your very own home gallery.

You can buy wallpaper like this but eklektick has saved their pennies and painted these fab frames on their wall. What a clever idea!

This got me thinking... I love this effect but as I can't paint my walls I started thinking about a temporary alternative to achieve a similar look. Then it dawned.... VINYL!

After a search I came across these which are my favourites. From i love retro these black, silver & mirrored vinyl picture frame wall stickers for £14.95 for the set.

And for a little colour and a bargain price at £6.95 for the set these coloured vinyl photo frame wall stickers from the dot com gift shop. For those who aren't arty, can't paint their walls... go vinyl.

Your very own home art gallery for a bargain price.

Wall Art

I am currently renting and cannot decorate the walls of my home. The palette is neutral at the moment and as I love COLOUR I have been on the look out for some statement art pieces to personalise my bare walls. I bought this map from notonthehighstreet.com a few weeks back from The Future Mapping Company & am just waiting for a free weekend where I can enjoy hanging it. I’m thinking of a white gloss frame.

Not only does this map look ultra cool, with silver metallic seas & colourful continents—but it also uses a very clever formula in it’s layout. It uses a Cylindrical Equal Area Projection—which basically means that the Countries are represented in their correct proportional size and not how most maps portray our world. Most maps lose the true proportions of countries due to the process of transferring a round globe onto a flat surface. On normal maps the Soviet Union became 223% bigger than it actually is amongst other countries. This map gives a really interesting & accurate vision of the world.

Litho printed on a coated silk finish available framed, magnetised or tubed prices from £27.50 now with FREE Shipping!

Obsessed

I've always loved the Union Jack. Not only is it the fabulous flag of our lovely nation (with the cross of St. George - red over the cross of St. Andrew - blue), it has huge style value with it's boldness & vibrancy.

It's so popular at the minute in interiors & fashion & I try to use it where possible in my home (pictures to follow). I am obsessing over these gorgeous red Union Jack cushions by Lulu & Nat which go perfectly with our 'God Save The Queen' personalised birthdays cards. The perfect birthday pressie (hint hint...) Cute!

I will be blogging about these girls regularly as I just love their stuff. They will be exhibiting at Top Drawer this September & I really hope I can get out to meet these two lovelies.

Union Jack Cushion Covers £65.00 Machine hand embroidered from Lulu & Nat