The bell jar obsession

There’s an atmosphere of slight hysteria in the office today. It might have something to do with the arrival of a scratch ‘n’ sniff Yankee Candle press release (low-lights include  ’Strawberry Buttercream’ and ‘Tutti-Frutti’…), or perhaps it’s the news that two of the most lovely home brands, Farrow & Ball and Jo Malone, are teaming up to launch an exciting new collection next week? (We’ll keep you posted!) Then again, perhaps it’s the thought of today’s annual Cath Kidston sample sale that’s getting us all a bit over-excited. For me though, it’s bell jars that are floating my boat today…

Whether it’s ogling the gorgeous bell jar displays in London’s hippest Shoreditch shops, Comfort Station and Caravan, or staring longingly at the stunning pages of Australian stylist Sibella Court’s new book Etcetera (which has just landed on my desk. Hurrah, hurrah! Hopefully we’ll show some pics on here soon – it’s due out in April in the UK. For now, check out her shop The Society Inc for a flavour or click here for a preview…), I seem to be surrounded by glass domes filled with curious objets…and I’m hooked! This all ties in with the current vogue for dark romanticism, macabre Victoriana drama and dusty museum display cases – something we’ve discussed before. All very Darwin. All very Gothic. All very dead. Of course, you don’t have to fill your bell jar with beady-eyed taxidermy or creepy skeletons…dried hydrangeas, vintage silk ballet pumps and mercury glass candlesticks would all look lovely. Or you could always opt for a little china bird. For reasonably-priced bell jars, see yesterday’s hot shop, Dee Puddy (£22 for a large 30cm one), Hibbitt, or Crocus. If you can wait until springtime, we spotted a fab little glass bell jar in the new Sainsbury’s spring/summer 2010 collection for just £7.99! Bargainous, to be sure. Of course, garden cloche bell jars DO look a bit like boobs, and they don’t come with bases – but a glass cake plate does the trick. Vintage lab bell jars with bases are REALLY expensive, even on eBay, tragically.

Here’s a cute bell jar pic from The Guardian to add yet more fuel to my bell-jar-obsession fire! I really can’t stop thinking about bell jars. Perhaps I’m actually losing the plot. Or maybe I’m just high on ‘Tutti Frutti’ scratch ‘n’ sniff…– Ellie

Hot shop: DEE PUDDY

Dee Puddy has a fabulous name. It’s a bit like P Diddy, but cooler. Dee runs a lovely online shop, selling some wonderful little treats…

I like her vintage section in particular (surprise, surprise) and recently bought one of her little 1950s tea tins. You’ll spot some of these soon in our January issue if you look closely… they were originally used for storing thousands of tea samples from North India, Malawi and Bangladesh. A small amount of each numbered batch was retained by the tea company for a year in case of any quality complaint from a buyer then, after the year had elapsed, the old samples would be tipped out and given or sold to staff. The tin I have still smells of tea! But I think I’ll be using it to store jewellery on my dressing table. I also bought a little ceramic ‘Buttons’ tag to tie to my jar of never-ever-used-or-needed-yet-lovely-to-look-at buttons:

And, since we’ve just officially launched Christmas on this blog, Dee does a lovely range of festive bits and bobs, too…

I was tempted by the French goose tape, because it goes so well with the goosey Thornback and Peel inspired (in other words, blatantly ripped-off) Christmas cards I am making. Should I tape each envelope shut? Shall I put a Hobbycraft feather in each card…? Hmmm. So many questions. What a very serious job I have. On a par with being an MP or a surgeon I’d say. Mwah ha ha haa. – Ellie

Christmas is coming

I can’t ignore it any longer. The lights are twinkling away on Oxford Street, the carols are playing in the shops, and I overheard a woman on Saturday saying she only had one more present to buy, which sent me into a mad panic. Advent starts next week – SO, it’s time to bite the bullet and get festive…

Our gorgeous December issue front cover is just the picture to get us in the mood. Highlights include: walls painted in the lovely Potter’s Wheel matt emulsion, Dulux; Glass dome bell jar, Dee Puddy; White bird bottles, Polly George; Large 3d star, Heal’s; Porcelain church tealight holder, Dotcomgiftshop; White Christmas trees, M&S; and white metal tree centrepiece, Velvet Brown. I love the Potter’s Wheel grey walls in this shot, and it’s made my current obsession with dark grey even worse. As has this December shot:

The wooden stars in this pic are from RE and the cool twiggy tree is from John Lewis. Check out stylist Milly Goodwin’s lovely flat, and you’ll see my dream combo of dark grey walls and brightly coloured accessories – just got to persuade the OH that it’s the way forward! Colours that have made it through to the shortlist for our living room include: Farrow and Ball’s Downpipe, The Little Greene Paint Co’s Dark Lead, and Fired Earth’s Mercury. OH says, like the front door swatches, they all look the same. He might have a point. – Ellie

Serendipity – a beautiful blog

Let’s start the week with some inspiration! Bethan’s just stumbled across Sadie Olive, a lovely blog written by Sara Duckett, a Californian photographer. Her love of vintage lace, antiques and all things pretty means every post is a visual treat.

This makes me want to rush home and tie pink velvet ribbons around my vintage cutlery too! At the moment, we store it all in French Cassoulet tins – practical, but not half as pretty!

What a lovely start to to the week! I love the vintage scales above, and the beautiful styling in these shots. On closer inspection, it turns out Sadie Olive is not just a blog – it’s a whole empire! Sara runs three shops – she sells antiques, postcards and prints of her photographs, does graphic design and sells collectibles…is there anything she doesn’t do?! She’s also on her third blog. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. – Ellie

Awright, crumpet?

It’s Friday. We’re all tired. It’s raining in London, and flooding in other parts of the UK. It’s very GREY. For some unknown reason, our office air con is set to somewhere in the region of freezing, so it’s also COLD. It’s the kind of day when you’d give anything to be wrapped up in a snuggly woollen blanket, wearing soft cashmere socks, sipping hot chocolate (or even better, a mulled wine!), beside a roaring fire, playing Scrabble and toasting crumpets. In fact, I just want to climb into our lovely November issue cover shot:

Crumpet toasting is an art which requires proper toasting tools – check out this lovely traditional extendable toasting fork, just £6 at Cox and Cox – perfect for toasting crumpets in the winter, and also useful for cooking sausages over a campfire in the summer months.

I’ve also got a few Grandpa’s Fireforks from Light My Fire – they just clip onto a fire poker or a stick, so you can easily store them and carry them. They came in handy recently when I dragged the OH to a forest for a bushcraft week of wild camping without civilisation (well, except for an Aero Bed, and a trip to Tesco, SIGH). Cox and Cox also sell a chestnut roasting pan, for £15:

We always roast chestnuts at Christmas by burying them in the ashes below the grate, but I suppose using a pan is much less messy! Are you feeling cosy yet? Thanks to these pictures and the steaming coffee that Ros has just delivered to my desk, I’m warming up slightly now! Check out this snug Scottish-style bedroom from our November issue and these cosy shots from our archives:

That’s all for this week, folks. I’ve signed up for a tray-making class with Ella Doran on Sunday to make some personalised Christmas presents, so I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m slightly concerned that everybody else there will be under 10 years old, having seen lots of photos of little kids making trays on the website, but surely, like pottery painting, there is no age limit (!?). My plan is to basically rip-off a Charlene Mullen design, but since drawing is required (not my strong point) it could go either way. Have a lovely – and hopefully a warm – weekend! – Ellie

EXCLUSIVE: New 2010 bed linen

This lovely image just appeared in my inbox and cheered me up on this windy, grey November day. It shows some new REN bed linen from House of Fraser’s spring/summer 2010 collection – all very floral, and all very pretty.

This picture has also confirmed a few things that I have suspected for a while now: Firstly, that the white IKEA four-poster Edland bed frame looks very cool without any curtains/sheets draped on it. And secondly, that making a collage feature wall of gorgeous wallpaper samples CAN work. There’s a cool location house with this sort of collage effect, which I’ve spotted in hundreds of mags over the years. Here it is in Living Etc a while back:

I think as long as your other walls are white, and you choose the papers carefully, this can look lovely. It’s great if you just can’t decide which wallpaper to go for – and very cheap if you just use free sample sheets! – Ellie

Vintage seed labels fun

Burgundy Brocante is a new website – well worth a peep if you’re a crafty type, or a fan of all things vintage. As well as a nice selection of vintage home buys such as glass bottles, chairs and embroidered linens (all sourced in France) this little online shop also has a massive collection of original 1920s French seed envelope labels – just £6 for 24.

You could glue them on to small brown envelopes for storing seed, or use them to make gorgeous greeting cards, gift tags, or even frame them for some vintage wall art. I love the bright colours and pretty illustrations on these – and you can buy French seed packets too, with a label glued on the front and sowing instructions printed on the reverse. My ‘Chou’ one is so ‘chouette’!

Burgundy Brocante is run by David and Jane Gratton who live in the Burgundy region of France and spend their time hunting for lovely vintage bits and bobs. What a wonderful life! They’ve sold at antiques fairs for a few years, but have just launched their website, meaning we can all access these lovely labels now. Hurrah! – Ellie

Sneaky peek: SPRING 2010 WALLPAPERS

Big blooms are, well, BIG next season, so these stunning Japanese-style wallpapers from Superfresco Texture’s new spring/summer range at Graham and Brown are bang on trend. My favourite is the Eve design in pink, shown here in a lovely bedroom…

Having said that, it’s also gorgeous in grey, and at £30 a roll, you really can’t complain.

Also new is this elegant Poppy design, which looks fab in retro schemes. – Ellie

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