Vintage Delights at Mid Century Modern, Dulwich

Last Sunday saw me and the boyf take a rather drizzly yet still lovely pootle over to the Midcentury Modern show, held in the leafy splendour of Dulwich College (well, it would be leafy, if the weather had actually bothered to become Spring yet, gripe, moan…) With several shows a year at locations throughout London, the show is a mecca for lovers of all things Skandi, mid-century and Eames-ey.

Reluctantly, despite stroking many an Eames, the boot of Serge the Corsa remained furniture-free as we travelled home (once you’ve scored bedside tables for £5 the pair off of eBay, everything else just seems kinda pricey). But if I had dusted out my credit card for a bit of Mid Century wonderment, here’s who I would have been brandishing it at:

1. Some classic vintage plus a rather classy lighting collection from The Modern Warehouse, straight outta trendy Hackney, east London – join their mailing list for an invite to their quarterly open evenings.

2. Mainly drawn over by the quirky name (who doesn’t love both elephants AND monkeys?!) plus this rather charming little chair, mid-century specialists Elephant & Monkey stock a pretty keenly-priced range of mid-century furniture pieces as well as a vast selection of artwork and travel prints.

3. With a magpie’s eye not dissimilar to my own, Winter’s Moon are clearly drawn to highly saturated, folksy-retro style vintagewares (love these tins!) They also do a mean line in upcycled pieces, including some rather clever vintage fabric fused trays which *may* be appearing in a Woman’s Weekly feature I’m working on for a May release…

4. Many south-east Londoner’s I know are always banging on about the virtues of vintage shopping in the Crystal Palace area – and the slick offering from Designs of Modernity, who are based at Crystal Palace Antiques and Modern, might just have convinced me to get out my compass and head down that way.

Although I loves my vintage, I must confess my favourite part of the show is seeing their wonderfully curated selection of new (and new-to-me) designers and makers. Here’s a few of my favourites from the day.

5. A little too cute to leave out are these rather simplistically charming prints by Ruth Green Design - all limited edition and printed on high quality Fabriano cotton rag paper

6. Despite looking like it’s been upcycled from an old bit of a WW2 warship, this striking desk is actually a brand-spanking-new piece of design, named Archie and produced by London-based design collective The Source. He’d look resplendent in my exposed brick loft extension studio that I’ll be converting in 2045, sigh…

7. Headed by Belma Kapetanovic (who sent me a very nice email afterwards about my styling work – thanks, Belma!) Element Interiors plays on Ms Kapetanovic’s graphic design background, resulting in pared-back, retro-style illustrations inspired by natural forms, which are applied to wallpaper, rugs and cushions.

8. Sometimes the simple ideas are the best – and by Kirsty’s laser cut birch ply lampshades, sold in two different sizes and sent as flat pack, are ticking all the Skandi-chic boxes (and they actually come from Wales)

9. A sort of crazed Aztec-meets-Hoxton (in a very good way) offering from newly-launched Jane Oliver, these animal heads caught my eye – step aside, antler trend – I think you have a fight on your hands…

10. Sourced from beautiful Essouira in Morocco, Beldi rugs come direct from traditional makers in a vibrant array of pattern and colour, from hardy rag-rug style boucherouite to delicate, fine-woven Azilal.

11. Hand finished in British pottery epicentre Stoke on Trent, these delightful ceramics by Louise Wilkinson are reminiscent of classic blue and white china, but are given a modern twist with quirky animal motifs and flashes of on-trend fluoro.

And most excitingly, after popping my name on a list to win a cushion from Crush Cube – whose lovely vintage fabric-covered cushions and cubes were on display at the show – I only had an email to say I’d bally well won it! So I get to have a little slice of mid-century loveliness after all *cue excitement and running round the house deciding where to put it*

{Images: Top image, courtesy of Augustus Greaves and taken from the Modern Shows website. All other images taken from each designer/retailers’ respective websites, as per the numbered credits}

Terminal Mirage: Abstract Photography that’s not all it seems

Flipping through the Sunday Times magazine recently, two things caught my eye: one, I was still reading the 3rd Feb issue – why am I so slow at reading? And two, some rather outstanding photography which at first glance looked like abstract close-up images of wall tiles, but is in reality something very different indeed.

Part of photographer David Maisel’s Terminal Mirage project, they are actually all aerial shots of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, Western United States. Exceptionally rich in sodium, magnesium, potassium, chloride and sulfate, along with algae and bacteria also living in its waters, the mineral content of each lake results in its kaleidoscope of colours. With parts of the lake used to commercially extract salts and minerals for industrial use, it is hard to determine exactly where nature’s touch ends and the toxic influence of man’s hand begins. By deliberately obscuring function and scale, the viewer is left to ponder exactly what they are looking at, who created it and why it’s even there.

To find out more, do take yourself over to David’s website for more of a gander. Bring a cuppa with you.

{Images: All copyright photographer David Maisel}

Meet the Blogger: Offline Adventures at the ME London Hotel

Well after last week’s blogging frenzy it’s been a little quiet over here, whilst I calmed down from the excitement/terror of giving my first ever public talk to a group of over 100 members of the Interiors Blogosphere, for the wonderful Meet the Blogger event at the ME London hotel. To my relief, it all seemed to go rather well – my slideshow worked, I didn’t fall on my face/have any freak Wardrobe Malfunctions ending in Dr-Pepper-ad style social disasters, and I think I kept the incoherent rambling to a minimum. After spending the week working with Dulux to create a series of blog posts on their latest SS13 trend, I presented all my findings to anyone who’d listen, along with some extra post ideas for other bloggers to try out, plus a few real-life examples of features I’ve created which give a spin on a bog-standard press release.

Dulux also hosted a painting workshop to teach attendees the ombre technique I trialled on my bedroom wall earlier this month, along with some other highly interesting workshops, including basic photography techniques by interiors snapper Paul Craig, plus a furniture painting masterclass by Louise from West Egg Interiors.

The food was naturally a chi-chi affair, created in line with this season’s colour trends (we all do this at home, right?) which prompted a feverish bout of Instagramming from the assembled crowds.

Keynote speaker Yvonne from Belgian uber-blog Yvestown even bought along a film crew for the day (she’s currently the subject of a TV show about bloggers, Shoot, airing currently in her native homeland I believe). She talked passionately about how she’s managed to carve out a rather idyllic lifestyle for herself through the opportunities her blog has afforded her, going on to host a more practical styling workshop alongside British blog royalty Will of Bright Bazaar. And if that wasn’t enough, a team of nail artists suddenly appeared at the end, lined up along the side like a row of very stylish jurors, to ombre/spot/stripe our nails into perfection. I went for a sapphire/baby blue ombre mash-up but due to post-speech shell shock, forgot to actually photograph it, but trust me, it looked very cool.

To see a bit more about what I talked about, take a pootle over to my Pinterest board on the topic, with a multitude of links and inspiration. Big thanks to Mischief PR for approaching me to work with both them and Dulux on it all, and also to Meet the Blogger for so graciously hosting me. And a special shout-out to Byron Burgers, who very kindly reserved a table for 14 of us at the last minute post-event, and even appeared to have quickly repainted an internal wall for us in-keeping with the key colour themes of the day…

{Images: All copyright photographer Yeshen Venema for Meet the Blogger, via Flickr, apart from the Pinterest screengrab and bottom striped photograph, which are mine}

Crafternoon Delight: Painted Easter Egg Project

After my ombre-fest at the start of this week, I was keen to try out the other main painting style of Dulux’s Collective Passions trend – the stripe – as well as get my craft on for a little Easter-inspired project before the week was out. Having completed two decorated egg projects recently for other clients (which will be on the blog soon), I figured I’d make it a hat-trick and use up a few leftover duck eggs to boot.

So to create your own, you will need some duck eggs, a skewer, bottle tops, thin masking tape (I got mine from Hobbycraft in the model-painting section), brushes and, of course, paints – standard emulsion works perfectly well. Before you start you’ll need to blow out your eggs – gently make a hole in the top of each egg with your skewer by slowly grinding from side to side until it pierces through, then repeat on the underside. Poke it in a few times for good measure to break the yolk. Gently blow through into a bowl and think happy thoughts of the omelette you will later be making with the leftovers. Give each empty egg a good wash, blow out any last bits of water, then leave to dry thoroughly. And then you can begin:

Add a base coat of emulsion all over each egg – it’s easiest to hold the egg with two fingers and paint around them, then set it down on a bottle top and fill in the finger-gaps once it’s dry. Give each egg a second coat for a nice even coverage.

Add your masking tape, carefully pressing down the edges, particularly around any curves. Continue the tape the whole way round the egg, overlapping slightly at the back.

For Egg A, add three stripes in a line starting from the centre and going off to the left, then remove the middle stripe when finished.

For Egg B, add a single vertical stripe around the middle of the egg.

For Egg C, add two evenly spaced bands horizontally in the middle of the egg.

Time to add your second colour to each egg.

For Egg A, paint over the ‘empty’ stripe and the left hand side of the egg beyond the left hand piece of masking tape.

For Egg B, freehand paint a rough line about halfway round the egg then fill in the lower half.

For Egg C, paint under the lower masking tape band on the egg. Add a second coat to all.

Leave Egg A to dry whilst carrying on with the other two.

For Egg B, freehand paint the top quarter of the egg, again leaving a rough paint line.

For Egg C, paint the top third of the egg over the upper masking tape line.

Just Egg B left to finish – paint a final band of colour over the middle section of the egg, again keeping your brush strokes rough at the joins. Aim to keep the line relatively straight but don’t worry if it goes a little wonky, it’s all part of the charm.

Carefully remove the masking tape from each egg and touch up any blemishes with more paint. Sit back and admire your handiwork. Possibly whilst eating your omelette.

Display on your tabletop in egg cups or little jars/shot glasses/tealight holders/jugs (this rather lovely little one is the Marne from Habitat), or alternatively thread through some embroidery floss and hang them decoratively from some twigs in a vase. Invite your friends round to marvel at your creative genius.

So wondering where the inspiration came from? Behold:

Top: Egg painted in Rock Candy 2 and Bongo Jazz 1

Middle: Egg painted in (top to bottom) Fragrant Cloud 4, Lilac Spring 3, Flying feather and (stripe) Paradise Green 4

Bottom: Egg painted in (top to bottom) Fruit Fool 6, Frayed Hessian 3, Rock Candy 6.

After all that fun I couldn’t resist having a final play and as I had a card to make and present to wrap (a little belated birthday gift for the boyf as I had to postpone his real birthday due to Work Horrors a few weeks back), I decided to mock up a few card blanks using a megamix of the colours I had left from my Collective Passions testers. Having army-precision-planned the egg painting exercise, I went a bit free and easy with this and just slapped on the paint in a myriad of ways for a slightly rough-and-ready but hopefully charming-in-a-homemade-way type of vibe. I then got utterly carried away and decided to wrap said gift in some plain white paper (I used the underside of a wallpaper offcut) and painted little squares on that too, finishing things off with (what else) a splash of Washi tape.

Normal blogging service will resume next week, but I do hope you’ve enjoyed this week of painterly adventures. I shall be presenting my findings on all of the above (plus lots of added extras) at the Meet the Blogger London conference tomorrow so if you’re going, I’ll see you there, and if you’re not, just assume that I was fabulous…

Happy Friday everyone!

{Images: Photography and styling throughout by Joanna Thornhill, apart from the three roomset images next to the painted eggs, which are courtesy of Dulux}.

{Psst: wondering why I’m blathering on about Dulux all week? Well, I’m working on an exciting online collaboration with them, exploring their latest SS13 trend, Collective Passions. All week I will be producing blog posts with this trend as the starting point, and then on Saturday 9th March I will be presenting my findings at Meet the Blogger London. To find out more about both, click here.}

All of the Lights: Light Show at the Hayward Gallery

I love my job. Not all the time (particularly on Admin Days), but in the broader sense, it’s pretty ace. But sometimes it can be hard to switch off. When you work from home and your work is in interiors and you’re also decorating your house from top to toe, sometimes it’s hard to think of little else. A “break” in-between writing about inspirational cushions and plotting a kitchen makeover shoot is these days spent frantically scouring eBay for cheap old cupboards, so I can finally store my guest towels somewhere other than in a leftover moving-house box on the floor, alongside dealing with DIY calamities (sigh)…

My point being, sometimes it’s easy to forget to step out of that interiors bubble and look at the big wide(r) world, as when we do, more often than not it provides the inspiration we’d been desperately seeking earlier. And a visit to the Hayward Gallery’s Light Show exhibition on London’s Southbank (where I snapped this cool graffiti and huge tree inexplicably wrapped in fabric, above) quite simply blew my little socks off recently.

An exploration of the way artists are increasingly using light itself as a medium, a series of displays and mini ‘sets’ play with the visitors’ visual and sensory perceptions – and some of them will LITERALLY blow your mind. Let’s put aside any deeper meaning and symbolism for a moment (look away, artists): this exhibition is fun! From Conrad Shawcross’s Slow Arc Inside a Cube IV (a small room where the play of light and shadow convince your brain the space is swiftly bouncing up and down, giving your the off-the-waltzers fairground-leg wobbles when you exit), to Olafur Eliasson’s Model for a Timeless Garden (a pitch black space with a bank of miniature fountains, flashed with strobe lighting to ‘freeze frame’ its movement), this is a playground for all. Case in point – it’s not often you see swathes of toddlers at art galleries actually engaging with the work on show, rather than just running amok round their exasperated parents.

From an interiors perspective (see, I just can’t help myself) it was fascinating watching how different lights and colours bled together in the graphic set of Carlos Cruz-Diez’s Chromosaturation, with both its hues and aesthetic sharing a little similarity with Dulux’s Collective Passions SS13 palette, along with Brigitte Kowanz’s beautiful Light Steps, giving a completely different twist to the much-berated (in interiors) fluorescent tube light and causing me to now lust after this, spotted in the gift shop.

{Images: All photography by Joanna Thornhill apart from the room set at the end, which is via Dulux. Light Show is on until 28th April 2013 and booking in advance is strongly recommended.}

{Psst: wondering why I’m blathering on about Dulux all week? Well, I’m working on an exciting online collaboration with them, exploring their latest SS13 trend, Collective Passions. All week I will be producing blog posts with this trend as the starting point, and then on Saturday 9th March I will be presenting my findings at Meet the Blogger London. To find out more about both, click here.}

Borderline: The Return of the Paper Wall Trim (in a good way)

As my post on Monday decreed, the paint effect is poised for a major comeback in the style stakes. Well, in my book anyway, having now committed a bedroom wall to its dual-coloured charms.

Don’t just take my word for it – the lookbook for none other than Sir Terence Conran’s SS13 collection for M&S featured a gorgeous painterly background, and Designer’s Guild’s stunning Castellani paper consists of a subtle ombre, sneaking its way up many a stylish wall.  But that’s not the whole story. Its fickle friend the border, last seen circa 1992, has also quietly been nudging its way back into polite society.

Take a moment to let that sink in. Now think about it: the paint effects in Dulux’s Collective Passions trend are, in the main, essentially bands of colour. Kinda like a border. So converting it into paper is, really, a logical progression. But think not of those sad, dog-eared strips of fleur-de-lis designs butted up to Auntie Maureen’s Artex ceiling. These are MUCH more exciting. Take these little striped fellows, above. The newly-launched brainchild of Pure Style pioneering author and stylist Jane Cumberbatch, each 10m roll comes with its own little pot of wallpaper paste and a brush, ready to stick up as a charming little dado, trim a doorframe or even add colourful detailing to a tired piece of furniture.

And ever at the forefront of cool wallpaper offerings, Cole & Son have just launched a fantastic new collection by Fornasetti (called friezes, mind), offering a witty take on the idea of panel designs. I’m desperate to install Promenade (bottom) in my hallway once I’ve shed it of its current textured wallpaper, and I’ve actually used the  beautiful Pennini (middle) design in a shoot I styled for the Spring issue of Heart Home magazine, out tomorrow!

Also featuring in the same Heart Home shoot is this clever ‘wallpaper tape’ by Custhom. Available in five colours, its super-sized circle design is inspired by Dutch typography and gives a unique pattern every time it’s displayed (and it’s removable, too).

Which segues us rather nicely into the somewhat inevitable: Washi tape for walls. After a write-up in Ellie Tennant’s hilarious post on the topic, the worldwide washi sensation continues to grow apace with the launch of extra-wide rolls, perfect for all manner of interior customisations. Originating from Japan, the rolls are currently stocked in the UK by children’s e-tailer Molly Meg (but will doubtless be everywhere by the end of the year). Though you can still achieve magic with the humble small roll, as proven by designer and blogger Ann Kelle, who created this amazing striped washi wall with a megamix of thin tapes.

And to finish, a rather charming idea from The Painted House, as featured recently on the equally charming Decorator’s Notebook blog. Based on a traditional Romanian product, company owner Clare Bosanquet adapted the traditional roller system to create several different designs for use on both fabric and walls. I’d particularly love to give this a go on a flat furniture door, possibly adding some vibrant Bongo Jazz 1 over a dusky Chalk Blush 1 background…

{Images: all copyright the companies/blogs they are credited to. Marks & Spencer’s products, from a selection, Terence Conran for M&S. Designer’s Guild Castellani wallpaper, price on enquiry. Pure Style borders, £30 for a 10m roll. Cole & Son Multiplette wallpaper, £190 per 7.5m roll; Pennini, £110 per 10m roll; Promenade, £350 per 68.5x10m roll. Custhom Offset self-adhesive wallpaper tape, £32 per 10m roll. Molly Meg washi masking tape rolls, £3 for 1cm wide/£7.50 for 5cm/£15 for 10cm wide. The Painted House rollers, £10 and patterned rolls, £15 each.}

{Psst: wondering why I’m blathering on about Dulux all week? Well, I’m working on an exciting online collaboration with them, exploring their latest SS13 trend, Collective Passions. All week I will be producing blog posts with this trend as the starting point, and then on Saturday 9th March I will be presenting my findings at Meet the Blogger London. To find out more about both, click here.}

Colour Chip Inspirations: Get the Look

After the paint-a-thon of the last few days, I thought I’d down tools today and showcase a little selection of scrummy homewares instead, inspired by Dulux’s Collective Passions colour palette (left). But rather than make life easy for myself, I decided to give it a little twist: each item featured represents one of the sixteen colours that make up the total trend, placed like-for-like on the page. Y’see – clever, huh? Nope, not interested, just want to know where to buy the pretty things from instead? Oh, OK then…

1. Homemaker bookcase, £470, Liam Treanor. 2. Drum stool in yellow, from £400, Tom Dixon. 3. Slangevar love seat in Flint brushed cotton, £945, Sofa.com. 4. Clay fishing lamp outside wall light, £64.99, The Contemporary Home. 5. Go Away I’m Blogging China mug, £9.95, The Literary Gift Co. 6. Leaning man side table in orange, £150, &Then Shop. 7. Side wall clock, £24 (SALE), John Lewis. 8. Milo jug in pale heather, £40, LSA.  9. Offcut bench in flouro, £165, Tom Dixon. 10. Ombre throw in turquoise, £44.99, Mocha. 11. Serving board in dusky pink, from £30, CoucouManou. 12. Porcelain teapot in purple, £30.99, Wayfair.13. Light Blue St David’s Cross wool cushion, £69.95, Melin Tregwynt at Liberty. 14. My Plate in green, £14.95, SCP. 15. Floorlamp Z, £129.95, Design My World. 16. Pappelina Aki mud rug, £86, Cloudberry Living.

Right, I’m off to rearrange my cushions by colour spectrum…

{Images all taken from each company’s respective website – click the links for further details}

{Psst: wondering why I’m blathering on about Dulux all week? Well, I’m working on an exciting online collaboration with them, exploring their latest SS13 trend, Collective Passions. All week I will be producing blog posts with this trend as the starting point, and then on Saturday 9th March I will be presenting my findings at Meet the Blogger London. To find out more about both, click here.}