Eastern infatuation Part I...

On Friday morning, as I strolled past one of my favourite local second-hand shops, Granny's Attic, something in the window display caught my eye...

It couldn't be...? Surely, it couldn't be one of those lovely - I think - traditional Vietnamese or Chinese (?) bamboo rice storage jars (or perhaps copies of) that I have been admiring in some blogs and oriental-themed shops for some time. Admired their beauty and gasped at the normal £ 60- 90 price tag, that is... 

Feeling rather pleased to have finished a large assignment in the early hours of that very morning, I thought this £ 5 (!!) bargain would be a splendid reward...!

  

And so it was that this second-hand find gave birth to a whole new blog post from our front room, where my desire to surround myself with warm, spicy colours and a more gold-shimmering palette has been given free reign...

The second photo in the quartet above is of a basket (also seen in the mirror in the very first photo in this post) on the wall above the sofa, opposite the fire place .

(The original red tassel of this ceiling lamp has been exchanged for a 

window decoration from the Scandinavian oriental-inspired store Indiska.) 

From the mantelpiece hangs a chain with, among other things, a small Buddha. The very same little Buddha featured in a display I made a few years back, from which a photo was used to decorate some candles. Yes, well spotted, there is one of them, in front of the fire place, on a cast iron candle stick I found in a reclamation yard a few months ago.

My wall paper curtain panels (will be shown in their entirety in the next blog post) next to a home-made lamp   from years ago, whose only claim to qualify for this otherwise oriental-inspired room was the colour of the apples...

The wall colour does appear a very strange shade in some of these photos... It is certainly not as screamingly yellow as it looks in the image below, or as apricot as in the one above. More of a soft, warm, matt yellow, and we sometimes call it the "winter room", as this is a room which feels warm, both in colour and, obviously, because of its wood-burning stove.

In one of the photos above is a hint of another second-hand bargain I came across the other day, and which will be the focus of my next blog post from the same room...

Wishing you all a gold-shimmering Sunday!

Helena

Fa-la-la-la-la  la-la-la-...yum!

With the festive season here, it is time to stock up on sweet treats for Rudolph and his horn-clad mates. In old  chocolate and tobacco tins from local second hand shops and car boot sales, some home-made ginger bread moose and trees rub shoulders with some home-made chocolates (cinnamon/hazelnut-flavoured, see recipe here), eyeing up the colourful candy cane strangers in the taller tin. 

The home-made goodies are clearly a little thrown by the curvy shop-bought cane knock-outs, and earlier today I heard worried whispers from the sugar-stacked tray... Concerns that the humans might reject the 'boring browns' and aim straight for the 'stunning stripes'. Hushed voices talking about 'outsiders' and 'initiation rites'. Well, reassuring the gingerbread and the chocolates that I would always be faithful to my brown buddies, I managed to calm them down...

... and with the help of my yuletide-spirited mediating pine twigs, gone is now all talk about 'outsiders'. In fact, as I was leaving the room, I heard the pine twigs invite all the sweets to embrace the message of peace and love...

Not that it matters that much...

In a house full of sweet tooths, these sweet darlings will not be given much time to fret...

... they will most likely not live to see tomorrow! 

Oh dear, I am now worried that anyone using Google Translate will end up with a horribly morbid story here... Let me just clarify, I am only talking about eating the biscuits and the chocolates!!!

Wishing you all a lovely start to the new week!

Helena

From all of me to all of you...

...a very, VERY Merry Christmas!

Defying gravity...?

Who says baskets need to stand on tables and floors? I like to play Mary Contrary sometimes and avoid placing everything on ground level, or table level, or any flat surface reminding us of Newton's boring law. Hanging things from the ceiling, like lanterns or levitating Buddhas on swing-like shelves, or even upside-down flowers in tune with the season, all very modest outbreaks of civil disobedience. Or perhaps more like interior decorating naughtiness. Or could I plead artistic freedom? At the very least, it makes life a little more interesting.

As for baskets, walls are definitely the way to go.

Go East...

For those of you who have just begun to relax into the tranquil white backdrop of our kitchen-diner and the CALM area, it is time to hold on to your seats and open your minds to a little taste of saffron, a whiff of baklava, a hint of the Orient.

And for those of you who may wonder what one does when one cannot find a curtain material one likes, but is head over heals in love with a particular wallpaper? Easy. You hang two strips of wallpaper from the rail and ask them to believe they are curtains. Think wallpaper. Be wallpaper. And oh yes, you also prey your baby who is just getting ready to walk does not decide to pull himself up grabbing any curtains... Success rate on last prayers? 100 %. Still hanging and baby boy will be four in March.

And by the way, wallpaper cum curtain prayers require no religion. Just some faith in interior well-being.