NEW DESIGNERS: Abigail Edwards Seascape wallpaper

Coastal style is always a big look for Spring/Summer. Every year at Ideal Home we’re inundated with ideas, products and everyone’s different take on the trend. It’s an easy look to live with; breezy blues, crisps whites, nautical stripes, distressed wood, driftwood accessories, fisherman’s lamps…you know the sort of thing! It’s always a treat though when smaller, up-and-coming designers interpret the trend in a new way. Abigail Edwards is a freelance stylist who recently launched her own collection of hand drawn wallpapers. Her latest Seascape design is simply dreamy..

Available in black (Winter) and soft blue (Summer), the rolling waves are so soothing to look at, I could get lost in them for hours. This paper would look gorgeous in a bathroom, a downstairs loo or even on a house boat (I actually used to live on one!)

At £59 a roll, the papers are all hand drawn by Abigail and printed in Lancashire at one of the few remaining traditional wallpaper printers in the UK. When she’s not busy styling she is working on two new wallpaper designs, tiles and even table linen. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with. Happy weekend all. Spring has nearly sprung!– Alice

The Top FIVE Vintage Magpie Buys

Emerging from the Antiques Barn the other day, like a mole, blinking and blinded by the cold, harsh light of day, I felt a wave of happiness wash over me, for in my pocket was a key – the final item on my Top Five Vintage Magpie Buys list. The quest was complete. The search was over, the misson at an end. And I could rejoice.

1. A key. Preferably old, ideally big, slightly rusty, with an interesting shape and a Secret Garden look. Illustrated here by Yvette Inufio‘s lovely photograph – which you can buy on Etsy incidentally. Tie an antique velvet ribbon to the key, then place it on a pretty, vintage book for the ultimate effect. Alternatively, tie a luggage label to the key with words ‘La cle de mon coeur’ on it in old-fashioned letter stamps. Pretentious? Yah. Lovely? Oh yeah.

2. A pair of wooden shoe lasts. Yes, they’re creepy. They look as though they might start tap dancing around your house at midnight, but they’re SO handy as door-stops, and look pretty darn cool on a shelf, too. You can buy them in Pedlars, and they’re always knocking about at car boots, but check for woodworm.

3. Vintage kitchen scales. Retro, metal, old. The larger the better. Of course they will take up valuable work-top space and are completely impractical and often inaccurate or broken and unusable but they look so completely and utterly charming, you won’t care. You might be unable to cook but at least you’ll have a cool kitchen to admire. And you can put things in the bowl, such as apples, onions, or a small cat.

4. Letters. Collect them. Preferably your initial. Think rusty signs, inky wooden printing blocks, old Scrabble tiles…I wish I could pretend that this beautiful collection of Es is mine. But it’s not. It belongs to stylist Emily Chalmers of Caravan fame. SIGH.

5. The Anglepoise lamp. Effortlessly cool. Always a winner. The Little Black Dress of interior style. If you find a vintage one you fall for, but it doesn’t work, don’t despair. If you visit the Anglepoise website, you can buy a re-wire kit, and download a handy PDF of instructions too. Hurrah. – Ellie

SNEAK PREVIEW: Vivienne Westwood wallpapers

What do you get when you mix fashion with interiors? Spooky wooden mannekins dressed in beautiful clothes made of wallpaper, of course. Vivienne Westwood has teamed up with Cole & Son to design her own collection of papers, all based on her signature fashion designs.

Keep your eyes peeled for her iconic ‘Squiggle’ print – as seen in autumn-winter 1981/82, (her Pirate collection, dahling,) as well as a pretty ‘Cut-Out Lace’ design inspired by her spring/summer 2007 collection, and ‘Insects’, which is based on Elizabeth I’s wardrobe.

This new collection’s due to be launched on 27 September at Focus, so it should be available later this autumn. I quite like the new designs, but I’m more intrigued by the way they’ve shot them – who knew that paper clothes could look so good? Now we can finally make use of the thousands of rolls stacked high in the Ideal Home office… – Ellie