My bedroom

Hello bedroom! I have some new pics on flickr including this one of my bedroom. I made lovely new bed cushions made from a vintage butterfly print and a paisley print vintage dress. My crochet blanket came from a charity shop and the lampshade is a Habitat sale purchase made from cork which is a material I really like.

The chest of drawers came from an antique shop in crouch end and is made of victorian pine. It's one of my favs. The fireplace is not orignal and is a horrible fake mahogany. I did read in living etc though that to disguise a not so nice fireplace the surround should be painted the same colour as the walls. As you can see we haven't tried this yet! The walls are a bit distressed looking as I stripped the hideous 80's wallpaper (green textured background with brown roman collums) about a week after we moved in as it was so so so bad!

The show and tell at broadway market last night was a bit of a fiasco due to staff not turning up so everyone waited hours and hours to be seen. I left after 3 1/2 hours as had to get the bus home! Better luck next time....

House versus Home?

London is still being buffeted by horrible rainstorms and we are wondering if that is all the summer we are going to get.

Tonight was a late night shopping trip to Ikea to buy a cheap table for me to use as a print table. I got what I wanted aswell as some box frames which I am going to use for some mini chook worlds (pics to explain what the heck this is will follow soon).

Ikea have the slogan of 'do you live in a house or a home' which got me thinking ours is definately a 'home' ! Most of the houses in the interiors magazines I have read lately just leave me a bit cold. It's a bit wood floors - check, large gilt mirror - check, glass extension for a kitchen - check and the houses are always in London and always have a couple who are architects/interior designers who have impossibly cute kids with names like Song and Otter.

But I do like the 'feng shui' house in this months Living etc. The kids rooms look like real kids bedrooms that they can have fun in rather than an adults idea of a 'styled' kids room. I also like thier mix of vintage furniture and street art like the banksy print.

vintage fabric from the states book

I bought a book called 'Vintage Fabric From The States" in the Tate Modern bookshop on sunday but only had some time to have a look at it properly today and it is gorgeous. The range of fabrics is really good with lots of sweet little florals, polka dots and some really fab children's prints. It is split into rooms to with fabrics for the kitchen, bedroom etc. Somehow though I have managed to buy the japanese version rather than the english one I was reading in the bookshop! Not fussed though as the images are great.

I really like the style pages in it too especially the pic with the cotton reels. I am for some strange reason quite into cotton reels at the moment. I have some proper vintage ones too in my sewing box inherited from my gran and I remember playing with them quite vividly from when I was little. She had a great button collection too and that was always great fun so I am keeping some for Katherine to play with when she is a bit older.

I actually used some of my 'vintage' thread on monday night as I was making two box seat cushions for my sister's companies stand at The Bar Show at Earl's Court. I felt quite apprehensive about making them as the fabric was a beautiful silk from the Gainsborough Weaving Company and I was worried I'd mess up and waste the fabric but it all turned out fine. (littlechook breathes huge sigh of relief!)