Monday, November 8, 2010

Hurrah!


The July/August issue of House and Home is on shelves now! On the cover is the lovely Julianne Kelly, who shares a project that she worked on in a period house on the east coast. We also have a really warm and individual house in Malahide, along with tons of outdoors-y ideas, customised high street furniture and my guide to the wonderful city of Copenhagen.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Yet another addiction of mine


Along with books, cute kitchen stuff, random pieces of furniture and god knows what else, I am unavoidably drawn to eye-catching prints and posters. I make an effort to ignore the urge, but it's hard. Right now I really need to put the brakes on my habit though, because I currently have three items sitting in poster tubes waiting to be framed.  I love a little lunchtime window shopping online at the Keep Calm Gallery and in December I treated myself to an Eat Your Greens print when I was buying my boyfriend an All You Need Is Love print. I had both custom framed,  because they're a slightly irregular size and I couldn't find a frame to fit in any shops. If the AYNIL one hadn't been a present I reckon they'd both be still sitting in the tube, but I got my butt in gear and EYG has a happy new home on my kitchen wall. The wonderful Christy in Moy Framing (beside the Gate Theatre at the top of O'Connell St. Tel: 01 836 5331) did a great job on them, and it was only €60 to frame the two, which I thought was an excellent price. He also had them done in a day. Then one day I came across a pic of a large move poster in someone's living room and my imagination, as per usual, went into overdrive. I went online and bought oversized (69cm x 102cm) posters for two of my favourite movies, Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, cause I figure they'll look wonderful framed, sitting side-by-side maybe in the hallway, or near the piano, or maybe in the guest bedroom. I have yet to summon up the energy/funds to have them framed, however, so they are, of course, still in the tube, propped against a wall in my bedroom. Along with, of course, my For Like Ever print that I got in New York, as well as a wee print from La Scala opera house in Milan for the performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde that we went to see there in February. Aaaaaaaaany day now...

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Curtains for me!



I did an extremely enjoyable curtain making course in Roisin Cross Silks out in Dun Laoghaire this weekend. So so so much fun - I was very excited about it but a little skeptical as to whether I really would be able to learn how to make curtains in a mere two days. Well the wonderful Maedhbh Walsh was such a great teacher that I now feel quietly confident about slowly but surely making curtains for my own house. We learned how to line and interline them, so that they'll make rooms nice and cosy. My first curtain making project will be my bedroom curtains, and as well as the beautiful silks out in RCS I've been taking a look at other fabrics that might work. Since they're still going to be costly, even though I'm making them myself, I'm going to be quite careful about opting for something that will wear well over time, but will be interesting and not all bland and boring. I love the idea of a metallic pattern on a earthy coloured fabric - like the silver-embossed material in the top pic, and that Indian-style brown and copper (though I'm not sure how well that would age from a style point of view) on the middle cushion in the second, both from Osborne and Little.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Cranking the nerdy-ness up a notch


I received an Amazon delivery today (always a nice little interlude among the more practical tasks of the day), it's my Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Crafts. There's loads in there that I want to try, and it's an A-Z so it's seriously comprehensive, containing how-tos on everything from tin punching to these amazing huge paper lanterns, as well as nice wee ideas for gift wrap and tags. On the subject of crafts, I missed Kirstie last night - anyone catch it? I think that they only show their online repeats on PCs and not on Macs, which is a pain.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Paper chasing














I'm like a child in a sweetshop when I'm around lovely stationery, I love pretty cards and paper and notecards. I always have my eye out for more (I'm so greedy, I really am) and I there are some really fab stationery shops and designers on the other side of the Atlantic. My sister-in-law in New York sent me a fab wee postcard as a thank you card a couple of months ago, featuring a map of Florence, and I found out that the company is called Cavallini and they are stocked in four shops in Ireland - Pemberly, Sage & Stone, Concepts and Forget Me Not - but I have no idea where any of those shops are so...that's maybe not so helpful! Anyhow, luckily for me I am heading off to New York on Wednesday, so when I'm there I'll hopefully pay a visit to Kate's Paperie where I might pick up one of these beautiful map wrapping paper designs - if they were in nice frames they would look great on the wall of a study, guest bedroom or landing. I'm also having trouble finding nice magazine files, so I might use this paper to cover some plain ones. 

Monday, November 1, 2010

Much sighing and lengthening of wish lists




Anthropologie is one of my favourite shops ever, online or high street, at home or in another country; the only thing that keeps it from the number one spot is that they don't sell food. When we were in New York a couple of weeks ago, that and Target were my only serious shopping destinations. I did spend an inordinate amount of time in Anthropologie (it's so very hard to tear yourself away from the loveliness of it all), and I treated myself to a few wee bits and pieces, like pretty drawer handles, and even a dinky milk jug that I guardedly ferociously in my hand luggage on the way home. The furniture is the epitome of loveliness - the prices, unfortunately, are not. Take, for example, the Terai folding chairs above. Yes, I know they are fab. The price in dollars is the guts of 200, while in euro it's 155.76, and that's before tax or shipping or any of that jazz. Gulp. So, in the spirit of our next issue being the thrift issue, I nabbed some dodgy old fluro green, blue, pink and orange chairs that were in the kitchen in work and tackled them with paint and fabric. Ok - so they don't have the posh-sounding Sheesham wood as bone structure (I painted them in a tasteful grey from Crown), and they may have been staple-gunned to bejaysus with Hickey's finest wadding, but they do have lovely fancy fabrics from Sanderson and Zoffany on em. They'll be on show in all their glory in the next (May/June) issue of H&H, but in the meantime if I get a chance I'll grab a camera and take some pics to pop up.