Category Archives: pretty things

new love affair with Pinterest, neon with neutral, and grey with yellow

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Pinterest has been winking at me from various blogs and websites for a while now, but I had resisted it’s flirting as I already spend way too much time on the computer. With my blog, facebook, google reader, hotmail and twitter I don’t have the time for another online relationship!

However Pinterest knew how right it is for me and persisted in it’s chasing. Eventually I couldn’t resist a little fling, and now I’m hooked. It wasn’t until I actually gave it a go that I got what it’s all about. I already spend so much time browsing the internet for inspiration and then saving images to my computer, or pages as bookmarks, or to my reading list. This just gets them all together in one place. Such a good idea. Great for mood boards and decorating inspiration. 


So far I have been collecting image ideas together for my retro kitchen unit soon to be desk. The exterior will be neutral to blend in with our light airy dining room but I want the inside to reflect me as it will be my little space in this little house I share with my sister, boyfriend and two spaniels!

There are times when I just can’t resist a pop of bright colour but I do believe less is more. I first came across the idea of neon highlights on the Pocketful of Dreams website (that’s my wedding obsession coming through there). How gorgeous are these DIY neon flowers? The mixture of neutral and neon seems to be appearing with the Spring fashion in the shops too. Like this neon border scarf at Gap.

I might have to treat myself to this!

I love the contrast of neon against neutral and have been thinking about adding some neon pink highlights to the interior of my desk. Pinterest has enabled me to collate my ideas and see if it would work. I have started a board called ‘nod to neon desk ideas’. Yes I could paint the entire inside of the desk neon pink but I don’t think this will achieve the subtle pop of colour I’m after. I will probably get migraines from sitting at the desk whilst spending all my time with my new love Pinterest too!

You can have a look at my nod to neon desk ideas board here.

I’ve also started an inspiration board for my bedroom which I plan to start in March when I am next on annual leave. At the moment I’m thinking mainly white, with grey (of course, the love affair with grey continues), lots of black and white photos, maybe an alcove or fireplace in the Laura Ashley Pimlico wallpaper, and then adding hints of soft yellow to keep it pretty and fresh. I may just stick to the grey and white colour scheme, but Pinterest is allowing me to flirt with this yellow idea for now.

See my shades of grey and hints of yellow bedroom board here.

To get me started on my room I received a lovely new set of bedding from John Lewis from my family for my birthday this week. It will finally replace all the hand me down bedlinen I currently use! It’s too nice to get out of the packet and actually use yet though. I’m still looking at it through the packaging! I think this will fit in perfectly with my colour scheme. i love white bedding, it’s so clean and fresh. The grey stripes add a a nice touch. The seersucker texture is lovely too. I love a mixture of white in different textures, it’s subtly interesting. I’m going to mix and match the pillowcases with others, and add a grey throw to keep it cosy. Hmm and maybe a pale yellow cushion….or two?

Are you having an affair with Pinterest too? What’s your current colour obsession?

felted wool jumper pouffe

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A while back I found a new website called

The Other Duckling

and I have fallen head over heels. Have a look. Some gorgeous things and some great inspiration. Especially those knitted pouffes. To die for. Plus the lady that designs them is called Erica, I love finding people that share my name!

Mother goose can knit. I tried to learn at Solfest one year, I felt very domesticated, but I struggle with anything beyond a scarf, actually I haven’t even finished one of those yet. If I’m honest I don’t think I have the patience to knit. I’m an instant results kinda girl, the reason I take more photos these days then I paint. I can’t afford one of those gorgeous pouffes but if I could I’d get the duck one straightaway.

So instead I had planned to have a nice little chat with mother goose and see if she fancies rustling up a little cover for my little, unloved, rubbish tip find pouffe. The handiest little thing I ever came home from the tip with. Anyone else nearly always leave with more then they came with? I know you aren’t meant to take things away from the tip, a stupid rule I think, but surely there is nothing wrong with pouncing on the innocent man about to throw this in and asking if I can have it? It’s not the prettiest but it sure is handy as a foot rest, extra seat when we have guests or place to put a tea tray down. It has been sat around the house for about 3 years now waiting for me to decide what to do with it. 

Then the other day in John Lewis I spotted these…

Click on the pictures to go to the John Lewis website. I have hinted for the one above for my birthday. I was quite surprised at the price. I expected it to cost more then £40. I also saw and fell in love with this by Donna Wilson…

Don’t think I’ll be getting that no matter how much I hint!!

So back to my tip find pouffe. The felted pouffes in John Lewis and Kirstie Allsopp’s Christmas craft programmes (did anyone else see them, so good) inspired me to try and make a felted wool cover for my pouffe. Here’s how it turned out.

And here’s how I did it.

Firstly I went into town and scoured the charity shops for any 100% wool jumpers, in the right shades of grey of course! I managed to get 4 at a total cost of £20, although I only used 2.

Then the hugely rebellious bit. As someone that has mega OCD tendencies about the clothes washing I found this both scary and exhilarating to do! I put them all in on a 95 degree wash, with a couple of rough old dog towels to duff them up a bit. They came out half their size and nicely matted into felt! Hooray! Prior to felting them one of the jumpers had fit perfectly around the pouffe as if it was round someones waist, so whilst it was damp I stretched it back over it and cut it into shape. Again very exhilarating and scary cutting wool like that but as it had matted well it didn’t fray, phew!

Whilst the felt was drying Tom took me to Hobbycraft as a treat to buy a clover felting tool (I’m a cheap date!). It’s craft heaven in there but I didn’t want to buy my wool for darning from them as I believe it supporting local businesses when I can, so went to the beautiful fibre and clay in Knutsford for some. When the rest of the felt was dry I cut a circle out of the light grey jumper for the top of the pouffe. 

Using a wooden heart decoration I cut out small heart shapes for the edge of the pattern out of the sleeves left over from the jumper covering the sides. Then I cut out circles, diamonds and arrows, and arranged them on the light grey circle. I pinned them into position and then using a clover felting tool and piece of foam attached them together. the felting tool has five barbed needles that push fibres from the top piece of felt through the bottom piece of felt matting the fibres. This did take a while as the jumper fibres weren’t that matted to begin with, I probably should have boil washed them a second time. Fortunately this is the kind of thing you do in front of the TV just make sure you put the foam on a metal tray so you don’t felt the shapes to your leg!

I cut a circle of padding for the top of the pouffe to make it a bit comfier. Once all the shapes were attached I used some dark grey wool to attach the top using a blanket stitch. I am really pleased with the result. The pattern seems to be well attached and staying in place at the moment! I haven’t allowed anyone to sit on it yet though!!

Some of the crafty things I have been up to…

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Mother goose has recently moved up and bought with her a number of crafty bits and bobs. There is nothing quite like a bit of cutting and sticking as soup for the soul. It has got me right back into the habit of making things. One of the things I made recently, as little Christmas presents, were these pine cone hearts. As always apologies for the poor photo quality. I am too scared to use Justine’s Nikon in case I break it!

Tom and I helped his Gran cut a dead tree down last summer in her garden, well thats a lie, Tom cut the tree down and I stood watching and directing with his Mum, then we collected all the little pine cones that fell off all over the drive. I kept them in a bag gathering dust in the bottom of the under stairs cupboard until I had time to make them into these heart wreaths. I simply wrapped wire around the tightly around the cones and tied a ribbon to them. They seemed to go down well with the recipients, including Tom’s Gran.

Bye secret garden see you next summer!

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Towards the end of August we had a bbq which was the perfect reason to get some more work done on the garden. We took some photos before everyone arrived but then Jus lost her camera usb lead so she couldn’t upload them until recently. Here they are. We were really pleased with how is looks.I cut up the mattress from the futon, as we no longer needed it and it was falling apart, and used it as a cushion for the concrete bench. I had wanted to cover it properly but ran out of time so just covered it with a throw. The dogs found it very comfy, I think they thought I had done it especially for them!This pretty little plant was reduced from £7 to 50p at the local garden centre as it was looking a bit sorry for itself. This west facing wall gets the sun all afternoon and the plant has been reincarnated in it’s new home! The wall basket came from Past gardens and Interiors in Plumley. I love this place it is full of little gems like this at quite reasonable prices and big, beautiful, architectural, antique garden structures to drool over. Some of them are bigger then our little house! I had tried to line it with that moss used in hanging baskets but it kept falling out. Then Tom and I were sat under this huge wall basket at a local cafe and I noticed they had used old sack to line it. Hooray problem solved. For a while there I had become a bit obsessed with hanging baskets and suitable lining materials. A subject I had never seen myself becoming interested in let alone obsessed with!

I bought this lovely bunting off ebay. I had it hung in the the dining room but as that room was being stripped out ready for decorating it has been promoted to the secret garden and it looked gorgeous flapping in the breeze whilst cleverly disguising the washing line!I made this little heart a couple of years back out of an old basket and garden wire. The basket was falling apart so I made a whole batch of them and they have made great presents for friends since. I still had a few left so this one made it onto the gate.The area to the right was all uneven and cracked concrete, so to tidy it up before the party I bought 5 bags of pea shingle to cover it over. We ran out of time to put the glass back into the shed door but it was nice to get the door hung.Shortly after the bbq the weather took a turn for the worse so work on the garden has stopped for now and the dining room is on it’s way. The garden gets no sun in the winter so any autumn planting will happen in the front garden. Hopefully these beauties will survive the winter and flower again next year. 

Close to you

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You may have read my earlier post ‘Happy Campers‘ about some text paintings I was searching for inspiration for. Jus and I have been writing loads of different meaningful, cryptic lyrics down from songs we love but we hadn’t found anything right. The great thing about writing this little blog is it keeps me on track and makes me finish things so I can blog about them. I had a horrible painting left over from my A level in art many years ago. It has sat on the landing for ages. I haven’t wanted to hang it but also couldn’t bare to paint over it as it took me so long to do. However it’s over ten years old now and never been hung. I needed something to practise on and so on a crazy, tired day post night shift I painted over it before I had chance to deliberate. I had found some large letter stencils on eBay the previous week that had recently arrived. I was listening to the radio and The Carpenters song Close To You came on. I love the honesty and simplicity of the lyrics. So I picked some lyrics and committed myself. I dug out my art box. I haven’t painted for a few years now and my confidence has slipped so decided this would just be a trial run, and a way to stay awake post night shift so I slept that night. It is also very different to the type of things I usually paint. As we are on a budget I wasn’t going to buy any paint specially for this. So as I had lots of both black and white acrylic left over from a previous project I decided to make the background grey. Like a stormy sky colour. Inspired by my trip to the Outer Hebrides a few years back.

Isn’t Poppy the camper just beautiful? I miss her so much. I have had this photo enlarged onto acrylic, I could look at that sky all day. I was worried at first the background might be a bit dark and gloomy, but thought it made a nice contrast to the happy, gooey lyrics. Then I quite simply painted over the stencils with white paint, making some of the letters lighter then others to create texture and stop it being too hard, as the text type is quite blunt. The whole things still looked a little harsh so I decided to soften it up with some birds.

I love blue tits so googled some images and drew them out onto card. I then cut the stencils out. So far I have put 2 birds onto the picture. I am debating whether to add more or not. What do you think? Part of me feels less is more, painting is sometimes like a famous singer coming towards the end of their career, sometimes you just need to know when enough is enough and leave before that disastrous comeback album. How many birds is enough birds. I’m thinking of some feeding across the bottom but not sure. Comments welcome and much appreciated!!

todays pickings

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Today a very exciting package arrived. I love eBay especially when it leads to gems like this. I have wanted some old coffee sacks for a number of upcoming projects, and I wanted to keep these a secret until I had used them in a variety of exciting ways, before proudly unveiling them in the blog. But I am terrible with secrets. I purposely ask friends not to tell me any, they bubble away inside me just waiting to burst out! I managed to get these beauties for about £2 a sack. Some people are selling them for ridiculous prices on there so I have been sat waiting and watching for weeks. Then these popped up and I made a hasty mobile bid with seconds left whilst on my way to work, I pulled over of course, but don’t tell my manager this is why I ran in at one minute to the time I was meant to be there, it was all that traffic that had left me huffing and puffing on my arrival! The listing had said there would be a variety of designs. I have ended up with 8 different designs so much better then I expected. From all different countries too. What do you think? My first project is the dining room chairs. I’m off for the next couple of days so hoping to get them done and will be blogging all about it soon.

Happy campers

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Work on the house is going slow at the moment due to work commitments on both our part. I am also off camping tomorrow to Devon with Tom for some much needed time off. However I am always looking for house inspiration and will be updating the blog as soon as I’m back. In the meantime I’ll be doing some research for my next art project. Inspired by work by Box Brownie Trading (love love love).

My friend Jenny sells some of their things in her amazing shop House in Knutsford (check her website out, or if you can, go there in person as she’s so lovely). Her shop had a fire over the Christmas holiday and she recently reopened. I spotted a similar piece to the one above on her opening night. If we weren’t saving for project ‘entire house’ I would have bought it there and then. Instead I decided to use some of the many canvases hanging around the house to make some of my own personalised text paintings. I’ve been on the look out for sayings, lyrics and poems that I could use. Jus has been on the case too. I’m building up a good collection of interesting words and when we get back from camping I’m looking forward to getting started. I’ll upload step-by-step pictures once I get it finished. Erica xxx

Shades of grey

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I’m still deciding on a look for my bedroom. It’s a way off yet as I have quite a bit of work to do in there before I can decorate, but planning it keeps me inspired and working hard. When you renovate there is so much boring stuff to do before you can start the exciting job of decorating and styling. Every now and then I treat myself to a motivational window shopping trip to remind myself of what all the hard work is for. We could easily just decorate the house as it is. And I’m sure it would look nice. But it wouldn’t be right. We would just be covering over any problems and I believe if you are going to do something do it properly because it always costs you more time and money in the end. Ok rant over. This little speech is mainly a chat with myself as I’m on an 8 night stretch and Jus is mega busy with a project deadline at work. It’s times like this I just want the house done already! Anyway back to the original intended content of this post. I found this beautiful bedlinen in John Lewis by jigsaw. First I knew that they were doing homey things and what a treat. Two of my favourite things. The use of the colour grey and birds! Gorgeous! I want it.

Click on the image to be redirected to the Jigsaw site.

Paper Lanterns – treasure find of the week

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Paper Lanterns – The Crafts Dept..

Just found this whilst blog-surfing.

We have a house full of these horrible paper lanterns, there is one hanging above my head right now like a big, dusty, paper planet. It just screams student-let. Now we can make them gorgeous until they can be replaced with something a lot more stylish. Another project to add to the next day off list. I love reusing things and turning them into something much more beautiful so this appeals to me. It’s like the Gok Wan effect for lanterns.