Toast launches a recipe book

Fans of Toast will be pleased to hear there’s a gorgeous new Toast recipe book out. Toast founders Jessica and Jamie Seaton first met cooking expert Pamela Hunter Brown while they were in Ireland doing a three-week photo shoot for their AW09 ranges. Pamela cooked for the whole team and become a close friend – a Toast recipe book collaboration was soon underway, to be filled with Pam’s recipes for nourishing, heart-warming food. Sadly, Pam died unexpectedly in August, but Toast has continued with the project and created a charity book in her honour – Pam’s Recipe Book.

The recipes are all from Pam’s notes, a real A-Z of rustic, soul-food – perfect for this time of year. From roast pumpkin soup and ‘mum’s flapjacks’, to Irish brown soda bread and winter vegetable broth, it’s all designed to make you feel, well, Toast-y warm! The rest of the pages are filled with stunning photographs of the rugged Irish landscape, taken by Jenny Zarins, which conjure up the wild spirit of the countryside and make you feel as though you’re in need of a piping hot mug of soup! It’s a lovely book, £5.95, from Toast. All profits go towards medical charity. – Ellie

Door Addicts Anonymous

My name’s Ellie and I’m a door-aholic. Our front door is in serious need of a make-over, so I’ve been bothering the boyfriend with paint charts, window film samples and dragging him down boring letterbox and door knocker aisles in DIY shops – much to his chagrin.

For him, as long as it has hinges and a lock, a door is a door. For me, the door must be painted black, French grey, or in Farrow & Ball Green Ground, or maybe Cooking Apple Green, have chrome door furniture, a lovely window film number panel in the transom window above it, and tasteful privacy film in its panes to be even vaguely acceptable. When I’d shown him the fifteenth paint swatch (all, I confess, similar shades of green and grey…) he flipped, and accused me of being a door addict. Which is, regrettably, the sad truth. It’s got to the point where I find myself fantasising about my dream door on the bus…at the hair-dresser’s…even in bed (!)

The ever-helpful Housetohome site has lots of lovely door fodder to feed my habit…you can find out how to create a smart front door, how to choose a door and what the most popular paint colours are for front doors. If you’re a window film fan, head to Brume, The Window Film Company (AKA Frostbrite), or Purlfrost who do a fabulous range of etch-effect Victorian-style window film panels:

And then, once I’ve finally found the right door, the right shade of grey/green/black exterior eggshell paint, the perfect letterbox and the right kind of window film – it’s time to choose the FONT for the numbers in the transom window. Ariel? Futura? Suggestions on a postcard to the usual address please! – Ellie

Curious Chocolate from the Bailey family

Sally and Mark Bailey’s 26-year-old son Ben has just launched his own business, Curious Chocolate. I’m salivating over the lovely website already – it basically combines two of my favourite things…old letterpress printing and chocolate!

Now, we rarely talk about food here, but the Baileys connection and the gorgeous packaging means I’m willing to sneak this in! Inspired by a trip to an old Amsterdam letterpress workshop, Ben Bailey’s chocolate bars come wrapped in graph paper covered with fabulous fonts – a typography lover’s dream come true! My favourite has got to be the ‘Mouthful’ mint bar – how appropriate for me.

The drinking chocolate in a rustic preserving jar would make a fabulous stocking filler, but it’s the jars of pretty chocolate-coated nuts and raisins that have caught my eye…they look like pebbles, eggs and olives! Very curious indeed!

All this talk of chocolate, and nothing but a lousy, dry and slightly squashed satsuma on my desk, which I have been ignoring for about a week now. Sigh. – Ellie

Macabre TREND: Victoriana drama

Skulls, insects, diagrams of horrific medical instruments, Victorian-style Darwin-esque etchings and Natural History sketches are all over the world of design at the moment. Let’s call this trend: Macabre. It’s dark. It’s gothic. It’s black. It’s creepy. Think of a dusty museum display case in the 1800s – full of spidery death and decay; skeletons, faded labels, stuffed birds with beady eyes, sad rows of dead butterflies, scientific diagrams of insects, plants and animals – all lifeless.

Has this dark romanticism got something to do with 2009 being the bi-centenary of Charles Darwin’s birth? Perhaps. But whatever the roots of this dark trend, I’m LOVING it all. RE, one of my favourite shops, has embraced it with relish, launching a whole new ‘Macabre’ collection, with vintage plates covered in skulls, eyes, snakes, scorpions, lizards, lobsters and spiders, as well as insect napkins.

Also, check out their ‘Esquire’ notebooks with sketches of lethal-looking barber’s and dentist’s tools as well as some less-scary brushes. Their ‘Gardener’ notebooks and ‘Cook’ books all feature similar Victorian etchings, too.

The recent revival of the glorious Pictorial Webster’s – A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities might have contributed to the current obsession with flora, fauna, and dead things sketched or etched…

Featuring over 1,500 engravings that originally graced the pages of Webster’s dictionaries in the 19th century, this chunky volume is absolutely fascinating. Meticulously cleaned and restored by fine-press bookmaker Johnny Carrera, the alphabetically-arranged engravings show everything from Acorns to Zebras, Bell Jars to Velocipedes – a Victorian list of ‘curiosities’. Crafting fans will be as excited as I am about the rubber stamp set that features these fantastic images…and the A-Z wall cards are CRYING out to be framed as wall art, or propped up in nurseries and designer offices…

These cute cards also tap into another trend we’re seeing emerge – the Alphabet trend – but let’s not complicate things with all that now!! Having a quick look for some high-street Macabre buys, I spotted a black skull candle in Paperchase, a skull cushion in Dwell, and some funky flock skull wallpaper from Barbara Hulanicki at Graham & Brown…

I’ve been a fan of the Victorian-style sketched jewellery at Paraphenalia for a while now, and it fits in with this look perfectly!

Let’s end with this pretty butterfly calendar from Anthropologie. Have a lovely, if a tad macabre, weekend. – Ellie

PLEASE vote for us! (intermission)

Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this blog to BEG you, shamelessly, to please vote for us in the November Dorset Cereal’s Little Blog Awards. All you have to do is click on the link to the right, or indeed, click here to vote, and vote for HomeShoppingSpy in the Lifestyle category. We’d be so grateful. And, if you vote, you might even win youself a sack of muesli. Oh, the glamour! – Ellie

EXCLUSIVE: Supermarket cuckoo clock!

Well knock me down with a feather! This amazing cuckoo clock looks like a stylish and expensive designer item, but the good news is, it’s not. In fact, it’s from the spring/summer 2010 collection at…wait for it…drum roll…TESCO!

That’s right, folks. Supermarket-chic is moving in to a whole new realm of excitement next season…great news if you’re a ’style on a shoestring’ kinda gal like me! We’ve been sessioning the spring/summer press shows this week, and there are lots of exciting things on the horizon, but I just had to share this sneaky peek with you today! It’s due to hit Tesco Direct in March, for just £45. – Ellie

Bonfire night lanterns

Throw a fireworks party and fill your home and garden with pretty paper lanterns for a cosy glow…

These lovely paper fairylights from Blueberry Park can be personalised with your own words or patterns – great for weddings, birthdays and children’s rooms.

I love the ‘tea & cakes’ idea – sweet at any time of year. I wish I could tell you that I’m having a lovely fireworks party tonight with twinkling lanterns, hot pumpkin soup and roasted chestnuts… but the reality is that I’ll be doing the same thing I do every year – standing in a crowded park, dodging sparklers, eating a cheap hot dog (and half the paper napkin too probably, in the dark) and wishing I’d remembered my gloves!

If you are having a party, these flying lanterns from Cox and Cox are fabulous for a striking display.  – Ellie

Paper projects to make you smile

Crafters – check out our new ‘book of the week’: Reprodepot Pattern Book: Flora, just out in the UK. It’s a beautiful collection of vintage-inspired floral textile designs, hand-picked by Djerba Goldfinger of fabric purveyor Reprodepot, with a foreword by Grace Bonney of American blog Design*Sponge.

As if the pages of floral gorgeousness are not enough, there’s the added bonus of a CD with 225 high-resolution patterns on it, ready to print out and use for your own projects. HOW. EXCITING.

From party decorations to stunning stationery and gift wrap, the book includes instructions for 12 creative projects, but once you’ve got hold of those magic files and a decent colour printer, the only limit is your own imagination!

I love these simple paper flowers – they look fab, and they’ll never wilt!

The Reprodepot Pattern Book: Flora is out now, £16.99, Chronicle Books. There’s also a Folk book, for double the fun. – Ellie

3 random COOL things for Friday

ONE: Paper-cutting artist Rob Ryan has transformed his Ryantown shop into ‘Ryantoon’, in honour of Newcastle FC. All the products are black and white, and he’s banned colour completely until 15th November. I’m heading over to the Columbia Road area this weekend, so I’ll check it out and report back on Monday!

TWO: Muji is releasing a new collection of very funky silicone trays – perfect for ice cubes, or making chocolates, or soaps…

I love the idea of serving cold drinks with ice spoons, or a mug of hot chocolate with a solid chocolate spoon on the saucer ready for dunking and stirring – and how cool are the letter moulds for chocolate cake decorations? These silicone moulds are due to hit stores in late November, and will cost from £7.50 each.

THREE: Just when you thought there were enough arty tea towels in the world – check out these lovely African-inspired designs at Design My World. They remind me a bit of the funky Anorak patterns, or the new Linea House of Fraser range – animal shapes are all the rage at the moment.

I’ve just been sent an exciting book which I plan to read this weekend and share with you all next week…but for now, it’s back to reality with a thud sadly. The dishwasher drawer feature beckons…! Have a lovely weekend x  – Ellie

Halloween ideas (no plastic tat allowed)

Like Valentines Day, I can’t help feeling that Halloween has got a bit commercial these days. When it comes to plastic fangs, rubber rats and glittery skulls (BTW this is possibly the most hilarious ‘crafting idea’ ever from the mighty Martha. Simply dig up a grave…) you can count me out. Having said that, I’m all for a bit of pumpkin soup, some beautiful autumnal leaves scattered on a tablecloth, rustic party decorations, and cute Halloween crafting ideas – just not the whole plastic bat, plastic tat thing.

I love these pretty sweetie cones made from origami paper and tied with rustic twine. Beautiful – and a great idea for wedding confetti, too. Of course, in reality, any children trick-or-treating at my house on Saturday night are more likely to get a fun-size (what’s ‘fun’ about small?) Mars bar thrust into their sticky paws than a carefully crafted country-style cone, the aesthetic beauty of which would probably be wasted on the greedy little monkeys anyway. But it’s nice to dream.

If you’re artistic and clever (not sure if I attempted this that it would be a success!) you could carve lovely leaf shapes into pumpkins – much more classy than an evil face but, I admit, not so much fun lantern-wise. There’s nothing like a spot of apple bobbing to spoil guests’ carefully applied face paints – this idea of turning the bucket into a decoration itself is easy and it looks lovely. Float little candles among rosy apples, and choose a rustic metal pail (as opposed to a plastic washing-up bowl), for a gorgeous look.

Another alternative to a scary face on a pumpkin is to cut small circular holes and create an elegant lantern look. By the way, if you’re having pumpkin trouble, the lovely people at House to Home have created a great ‘how-to carve a pumpkin’ video which might help! Check it out. I like these fab painted pumpkins from American Country Living magazine, too:

So many lovely ideas! And not a plastic bat in sight. I’m going to a Halloween party this weekend, but as the theme is ‘dead celebrities’, I’m not sure it’s going to be a classy, gorgeously-styled affair sadly… – Ellie