Craft room HEAVEN

Our spare bedroom is referred to as ‘The Zone’ at present, a room my other half claims he needs ‘for work’. A room that is in actual fact blatantly a PlayStation room. But one day, when he’s out, I’ll redecorate and he’ll come home to find THIS:

There are so many lovely things in this craft room from our January issue. The Vika table legs and top from IKEA, the laundry bin covered in pretty Cath Kidston oilcloth for storing rolls of fabric, the ribbon spools pleasingly lined up on a length of dowel, the colour-sorted fabrics…SIGH, SIGH, SIGH. – Ellie

Kelly Doust: The Crafty Kid

Today, we’ve got a sneaky cheeky preview of Kelly Doust’s new book, The Crafty Kid, due out in the UK this July (and out in Australia this June). It’s the sequel to her first book, The Crafty Minx – also the name of Kelly’s blog – and it’s bursting with fun craft projects to do with children, and for children.

There’s plenty to choose from in this 250-page crafter’s treat, and the pictures are lovely! Fresh, colourful, and beautifully-styled with vintage cotton reels, pretty buttons and haberdashery bits and bobs. There are over 50 projects, from cotton book bags, felt egg cosies and oilcloth aprons to picnic blankets and bedroom decorations.

There’s a photo of Kelly at the back of the book in front of her lovely vintage yellow-painted craft cupboard, and if you pop to Design*Sponge, you can see more pics of her house. I like the way that she conveys a sensible ‘make-do-and-mend’ philosophy throughout this book – recycling scraps of fabric and using thrifty finds wherever possible.

Even if you don’t have kids, there are loads of ideas in here that you could actually just make for yourself! Or, make as gifts for children of friends. There are helpful ‘Keeping little hands busy’ boxes throughout the book with simple tasks for children to do at every stage.

The Crafty Kid is published by Murdoch Books this July, and will be £16.99. – Ellie

Wordy bedroom

Let’s finish the week with this lovely shot from our December issue – I love the cushions and the artwork!

You can find the canvas at Box Brownie Trading, and the cushions are from Notonthehighstreet, made by Useful and Beautiful. Have a lovely weekend – I’m off to a car boot sale tomorrow to gather more vintage rubbish/treasure (?!) for my home. The early start is always worthwhile…I’m on the lookout for some pretty plates to turn into clocks for Christmas gifts! And no doubt I’ll end up buying just one or two little things for myself, too…be rude not to really. TEE HEE. – Ellie

NEW Pantone Addict fodder

Flicking through the Seletti catalogue is always inspiring. Highlights in the current collection include giant Lego brick furniture blocks, some fabulous wooden cutlery, and gorgeous Pantone tins:

As the youf of today (apparently) say, ‘O to the M to the G’. (I can’t believe I just typed that, even in an ironic way). ANYWAY, these stunning tins are available from The Holding Company, £17 each, and look fabulous here in a craft room.

The Holding Company also stocks the cool Pantone chairs, which I’ve had my eye on for a while:

I was pleased to learn today that the dashing young Yorkshire designer, John Green (who I met at 100% Design in September and flagged up as ‘one to watch’) is about to have his fabulous Pantone ‘wall stores’ manufactured and distributed by Seletti, so we can all get hold of them, which is good news for Pantone geeks such as myself!

On a similar theme, our art department has a beautiful book of Pantone stickers, which I thought might have great Crafting Potential until I realised that to buy one costs literally HUNDREDS. So, I just flick through it every now and again and lick the pages, instead.

And until John Green‘s Wall Stores are released, I’ll just have to gaze at my little Pantone mug (House of Fraser) to get my colour fix. – Ellie

Detling Antiques Fair

You sacrifice your lie-in and get up at crack of dawn in the dark. You lug around bags of heavy coins. You have to endure cold wellies, freezing fingerless gloves and muddy burger-van coffee. And let’s face it, it’ll probably rain. But bargain hunting at an antiques fair is well worth the effort if you want to pick up some quirky one-off items to make your home look extra special…

At Detling IACF over the weekend I spotted so many lovely things. Check out these gorgeous vintage sewing storage drawers (sadly a bit out of my price range!) and pretty ceramic lids for tooth paste and anchovy paste. How amazing would the sewing drawers look in a craft room? And the lids would make cute coasters…

Haberdashery fans beware: there was a great range of vintage fabrics, old buttons, lace and needlework tools. I bought a delicate tape measure for styling purposes (it only has inches on it!) and some pretty buttons to add to my collection.

There were plenty of wooden printer’s blocks, and lots of elegant bottles and jars, and I spotted a beautiful vintage paint-box. I was really impressed by the range of stalls (although in addition to the vintage stalls there were a lot of traders selling collectable china dolls, lobsters, Disney characters etc which weren’t really my thang) and it only took an hour to get to Detling from London by car. I came home with: a pair of wonky antlers, some Observers books, a bag of pretty stamps (for craft purposes!), some buttons, and an old milk bottle with ELBOW FARM written on it to use as a vase. The boyfriend was delighted as always (NOT) with the latest batch of vintage tat, but I managed to smuggle most of it in except for the antlers. He just doesn’t GET it. I showed him the antlers trend page in the March issue of Ideal Home, and pointed out that antlers are everywhere now, even in high-street shops he’s heard of like M&S:

But he still doesn’t seem to appreciate One-Horn-Big, and says he’s not living in ‘a trophy-filled hunting lodge’. We’ll see. Remember, he said he wasn’t going to live in ‘a 1950s flipping village fete’ but that Union Jack bunting’s been up for almost a year now… – Ellie

Heavenly home offices

I just got back from the launch party of Very, a new online fashion and homes store, replacing the old Littlewoods Direct site. There were some cool new interior pieces on show and, because I’m redecorating our home office at the moment, a gorgeous perspex office chair for £79 caught my eye. It’s not available until September, sadly, so I’ll have to wait. But in the mean time…here are three beautiful offices from House to Home for us all to aspire to!

Mmmm, love the Ercol chair here, and the wirework waste paper basket…and basically this whole look!

Oh, how lovely it would be to have a craft room like this. And I love the vintage map propped up on the desk below, too. 

Thank goodness the days of having to find space for a massive clunky PC are over – flick through homes magazines from the 1990s and every issue has some kind of under-stairs or hidden-in-a-cupboard space-gobbling computer corner monstrosity. Now, with tiny laptops and wonderful WiFi, a home office can just be a small corner of kitchen work top, a coffee table or a compact desk, and laptops are better looking than ever before, so there’s no need to hide them away. Phew! – Ellie

6 HIGH STREET TRENDS for 2011

Who needs expensive trend forecasting companies when you’ve got the new February issue of Ideal Home? It’s in the shops now and contains a massive trend-prediction pack full of beautiful photography and great buys. Here are the six key high street homeware looks for this season…

Think: streamlined 1950s-style furniture, subtle prints, Scandi influences, Ercol, Robin Day, Eames. Shop for the look: John Lewis, Dwell, Aram, Illustrated Living.

Think: Bold floral prints, bright colours, eclectic quirky accessories, craft, folk. Shop for the look: M&S, Anthropologie, Berry Red, Plumo.

Think: workshops, warehouse, school rooms, labs, factories, functional, industrial, retro. Shop for the look: Baileys, Elemental, Junk Deluxe, In My Room.

Think: Midnight blue, starry touches of silver and gold, night skies, saturated colour, inky indigo, copper and bronze. Shop for the look: Heal’s, Crown, Kazzbar, Bo Concept.

Think: Nostalgic, pared-back, coastal, country, hurricane lanterns, nautical stripes, grain-sacks. Shop for the look: Ian Mankin, The Linen Works, Roger Oates, Nordic House.

Think: grown-up, caramel, oyster, silk, blush, velvet, pearls, satin, ruffles and full-on glamour. Shop for the look: Laura Ashley, Lavender Room, The White Company.

PHEW! I think that’s quite enough trends for one post. Just in case you’re taking notes: 1: Mid Century Modern, 2: Floral Folk, 3: Factory Lines, 4: After Dark, 5: Back to Basics, 6: Age of Elgance. Over and out! – Ellie

Lisa Stickley for Heals: PREVIEW

I know, I know, we’re spoiling you today. It took a lot of persuasion, a few bribes here and there and perhaps a little bit of cheek, but we have it. Le scoop: Lisa Stickley‘s new bed linen designs for Heals (launching on 8th December). Regardez:

HURRAH for Lisa who, despite a punishing schedule churning out Debenhams designs, craft books and beautiful handbags, still manages to come up with such a fresh, pretty collection. I particularly love the trees design (which would look oh-so-cute in a kids’ room with the new Harlequin Boutique trees wallpaper but that’s by the by…) and also the orange set below, which is called Tangerine Hankie Flower:

As the youngsters round my way say, this is bare good, innit. – 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

Typefaces treat

Obsessed with Helvetica? Got a thing for Wing Dings? Fancy a bit of Futura? If you’re a typefaces geek like me, check out this gorgeous new book: Type, A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles. It’s a beautiful hard-back book, crying out to be cooed over – the kind of tome that deserves pride of place on your coffee table stack.

Apart from the fact that this is a fascinating read all about the history of fonts and a lovely visual book to own and cherish, there’s another reason why I love it. Each copy comes with a unique access code to a huge online library of high-resolution graphics and typefaces, which you can download and use for free!

Perfect for cheap wall art – I’m going to print a few vintage typeface specimen sheets out and frame them. And imagine the Crafting Potential! I plan to use the downloads to make some personalised stationery, vintage-style Christmas cards, cute labels for homemade jam…and some of the downloads feature vintage chemist labels, which you could print out and glue to jam jars or glass bottles for cheap yet lovely bathroom accessories. Hurrah! – Ellie