Lovely tree decoration for a child’s room
From the home of Emily Henson
I just saw this on Design Sponge – what an ingenious idea for decorating a child’s bedroom wall, or even a grown-up’s room. Adorable birdhouses… I think I’d feel as though I were sleeping in the branches of the Magic Faraway Tree up there on the top bunk.
The Catorialist
On the street... Nearly Spring, Los Angeles CA
I’m more of a dog person but this website is pure gold – love the picture captions. Check it out: The Catorialist.
And the winner is…
Thanks to everyone who entered the competition for the Kyoto General Store prize. No-one picked my no.1 favourite item (the Midori post-its – I’m a sucker for post-it notes and those little mushrooms are so cute) but my second favourite is the Matrioshka clips above. So (drumroll…) the winner is Colleen Moir, who chose them first. Congratulations!
And if you do make an order at Kyoto, mention you first heard about them here at checkout, and they’ll throw in a free gift with your order.
Have a lovely weekend, one and all.
So that’s what an etching is
My 'Jug of flowers' print
My friend Lisa and I decided to take a printmaking class ages ago now at the Pine Street Studios, thinking we’d turn up to find people doing silk screen printing on fabric (the class description was a bit vague and so, it turns out, were we) but made the happy discovery instead of a traditional printmaking course using methods for paper.
This is one of my pieces, scratched out on a piece of metal with a sharp pointy thing (yes, that’s the official term for it) and then inked and run through a printing roller. It’s trickier than it looks, but quite fun once you get into the swing of things. I popped it in a box frame and it’s now hanging in the hallway.
Click here for the entry on the printmaking course I took at Prints Charming afterwards, so I could finally get some experience with silk screening.
The man in the park
I took a picture of this graffiti I spied in a Stanmore park some time ago, and then a friend told me it’s actually of a man who sits there almost every day. I haven’t seen him, but I think it’s touching he’s been immortalised in this most urban of ways.
For more fantastic graffiti, check out an earlier post here.
Sneak peek at No Chintz projects
Felt tea cosy and boiled egg cosy
Here’s a little peek at some of the projects I’ll be making for the first three No Chintz workshops. Above is my beloved pompom-adorned tea cosy, inspired by Loani Price of Wild Tea Cosies fame, but with no knitting involved (because I still haven’t figured out how to do a purl stitch without ending up all twisted up like a pretzel – true story). And a flower embellished egg cosy, just in time for Easter (it’ll be here before we know it).
These are a cinch to make and so fun, too – the felt means they’re also very forgiving when you want to multi-task, completing them while drinking a large glass of red wine, say (as I was when putting these together last Saturday night*).
And below, some simple oven mitts and the apron I’m making tomorrow for the private class – all these are made by hand and can be completed within 1.5-2hrs max.
*If making a tea cosy on a Saturday night is the very definition of old age, then I may just be 93.
Deckchair stripe oven mitts
Delicious home and The Design Files
Lyn Gardener's Fitzroy home
Egads, check out this gloriously feminine home, featured on The Design Files recently. James would have a conniption if I tried to do up the house like this (it might just be worth it). The dressing room’s enough to make me swoon.
The owner is Lyn Gardener of Empire Vintage in Albert Park, Melbourne. I want I want…
Giveaway from Kyoto General Store
This cute Japanese stationery could be yours
The lovely Skye from Kyoto General Store has offered a giveaway to Crafty Minx subscribers: the Winged Wheel Gift set, including a Kiku Writing sheet set and Okaoquruma boxed mini card and envelope set along with free postage & handling. To win, please post a comment and mention your favourite product from the online shop. The person who chooses closest to my favourite thing will win, and I’ll announce the winner at the end of this week on Friday 5 February. Bon chance!
Beatles to Bowie
The Beatles in 1964
Speaking of the UK (see post below), I started looking again through some of my favourite UK sites, and found that the National Portrait Gallery is featuring the Beatles to Bowie retrospective at the moment. I wish I could be there to see it.
The NPG has to be my favourite place in all of London – when I lived there I would spend entire days just wandering through the various rooms and viewing the archives. There’s so much to see in people’s faces. And when they’ve been captured in a picture, you’re absolutely free to stare. I just love that – to me they are endlessly fascinating.
Here are two more black & white pics I love below – perhaps for sartorial inspiration more than anything else.
The incomparable Astrud Gilberto
Oh Edie... an Edie Sedgwick pic by Keith Moon
A cosy English winter
It’s hard to imagine as I sit here, silently wilting amidst the wet heat of a Sydney summer, but oh to be staring out the window at sights like these…
My father-in-law, D sent me these images recently of their farm in south-west England, snowed in as they were with the heaviest snowfall they’ve had in over thirty years. To be sitting inside near a roaring fire, sipping hot chocolate and cutting up old jumpers to make a soft toy or two, or a hot water bottle cover for a friend… now that would be bliss.
Deer in the fields
Or maybe a tea cosy from the book, like this:
My love heart tea cosy
