TOAST Inspiration

Hello guys, Happy Monday!! Did you have a good weekend? This weekend I finally had a chance to really indulge with flicking through magazines and catalogs - and my favourite one is the new TOAST House & Home A/W 2011 catalogue - a company based in Wales. I love it! This is totally my style - a mix of vintage, clean lines, querky yet simple designs and general coziness without pretention.

First of all the editing of the actual catalogue is beautiful, I read it like a deco mag - full of inspiration and vivid colours. It presents a mix of 'styling' and individual pieces to purchase. The overall setting is meant a converted barn/ranch (my dream home) full of crates, bare brick walls (heaven) - and has a general untidy feel to it.


It is a real source of inspiration if you are into knitting and crochet-ting (I wonder who would be into that sort of thing). The blankets and cushions are beautiful just by their simplicity (I told you granny squares were bang on trend this winter) and the colours would brighten up any chilly nights to come (yes, I am getting obsessive about yellow).

I never knitted socks - but I am really considering starting since I saw this picture - I love the green colour...

So unfortunately this unstated luxury comes at a price... So it is a good job it is also a source of homemade home inspiration - definitely a keeper and something I will go back again and again.

So guys, are you inspired? Ready to embrace Autumn and Winter?

Noas' Libellule {Pinterest inspired}

Hiya everyone! Hope you are all having a good week - full of creativity and inspiration! Don't forget that tomorrow I will be showing you how to make your very own pouch with lace. I am really excited about this project, and I hope you are too.

Today I want to tell you about my current texture obsession. It seems that everyone is obsessed, and I can see a great {buy it or make it} post coming up. May I present to you what I am dreaming about at the moment, the chevron pattern.

Image via Maggie makes

I know, it is a bit bold but it also can really make a strong impact. It's essentially a series of V's laid out in a row. It's a little bit wavy but with more of a hardened edge. I am one for clean lines - probably the scientific buried in me...

Image via pinterest

If you choose the right colors and placement for a Chevron design then you can evoke that wavy, undulating relaxed feeling that lies beneath this design. Of course, you could also choose to go all out with creating a bold look using this pattern - look at that quilt below! A statement or what!!

Quilt through pinterest

So what do you think? Are you missing some chevron in your life and your interior? I definitely do... I have an idea of what I want to make... just need the time - but it will complement quite well the texture and colour scheme of our living room.. Will say no more.

PS: You may notice that the original images are a bit different from the one I posted here, I am working on adding textures to my pictures... Only experimenting at this stage, but it is quite promising I reckon.

{ Ideas to steal - edited } Countryside wedding

Hiya guys, happy Monday! Hope you all had a great weekend.. I certainly did! Last Saturday I attended one of my university friend's wedding in South East London - a true countryside wedding in her parents and grand-parents's gardens (they live next to each other) - bang in the middle of London. They did nearly everything themselves! You can have an amazing wedding on a tight budget...

IDEAS TO STEAL...

1. Custom-made tube station sign (Her brother's wedding present). 2. Wedding stencils. Find stencils at the Stencil Studio. 3. Cake stand made of discarded crates and heart-shaped garland - and yummy carrot cakes of different sizes. Find similar crates @ Hen and Hammock. 4.Lace napking ring. Try McCulloch and Wallis for Cotton Lace trims.

My favourite picture - their last dance..

Better get the camera charged up again, we are off to the next wedding on Thrusday!

PS: Had to edit some bits and bobs.. and added some links to shop.

Home Inspiration - Creating Moodboards

I love free softwares - they are free and usually a bit more basic and easier for me to use.

I have been looking at creating moodboards for a while - not just for the house but also for new handmade projects. We are currently considering the colour of the curtains we want in the main room, and sometimes it is just easier to have a board to visualise the project.

So when I ended up on olioboard, I was very excited. And it was really easy to use. I added a lot of items - as by doing a moodboard after the room has already been decorated meant that it was less about inspiration and more about trying to match one new item with the rest of the house.

The only criticism that I have is that I could not add any words to the moodboard (it may not be the done thing... ). I added some in Picasa (another wonderful free tool).

Here is my moodboard for downstairs, hopefully ensuring that M is convinced that blue curtains are the way forward. My username is frenchgrenouille, add me if you sign up to it!

Home inspiration 19

You know it, as you have seen in the previous post (sorry for the rant about builders, I just had enough of it) we are (nearly) at the decoration stage of the house. And the dilemma is here: painting or wallpaper? Argghhh... I can paint (well, my first experience was not really conclusive but it was not too bad) but putting up some wallpaper - well that is just scary.

And then I found THIS wallpaper:

Knitted room by Surface view

Well that is serious inspiration for next knitting projects (I am still knitting, I am really). It looks like the D&G winter collection on the wall for you to see everyday! The different designs are created by Chae Young Kim, A Korean-born, London-based artist. Check out the homepage of her website, it is very inspiring.

So of course this is right up my street, but M... well he is 1) a man, 2) a man, and 3) well a man. He only agreed to add some colours to the walls. Let's say - as far as the wallpaper is concerned - it will take some convincing. But I may get away with it in the 'hobby'/office room (aka the box room).

Home Inspiration 17

Well, less for the home, more for me! And hopefully for all of you reading this post. I suppose this before/after post will also come handy when I will be reviewing my wardrobe (which is apparently going to shrink whilst moving to a bigger house - all for the sake of beds to accomodate my 6'2 husband).



Keira of a pretty penny blog {Real Style Life on a Real Life project} made a superb necklace out of a T-shirt... I know sounds crazy, but look at it, isn't it beautiful?

She was inspired by this video and added her own modifications to the lengths of each newly created tubes. There are a few T-shirt that M could easily do without (if my wardrobe is shrinking so will his!) and I may have some time tomorrow.. Hope to be able to show you something then. If you are inspired, and decided to change one of your t-shirts please let me know!

Home Inspiration 13

A Friday post rather than Thursday. Was sent to Paris for work Wednesday and Thursday(someone has to do it!)

And here it was, what i knew was true for a long time, all over the magazines - wool (that is knitted wool) is totally in!

I am feeling really trendy right now! All these hours of knitting are clearly well worth it (should remind M of this tonight - he has a very trendy wife!). Very exciting stuff.

Anyway, back to home inspiration... I found those little gems from Korea (made by KamKam). The 'dressed-up furniture' is, literally, furniture dressed with felt that is decorated with clothing elements such as belts and buttons that are used to close the cabinet doors. the series consists of four items: a dressed up stool, cham cabinet, cham bench and belt felt.

The grey cabinet can be closed by fastening felt belts. an inner magnet fixes the door shut,that can also be rolled if one wants to leave it open. Because it is 'dressed' with felt, the shape of the furniture has a soft appearance.

the upholstered 'dressed-up stool' has a storage that can be closed with three buttons - much like closing a shirt or jacket. the door can also be fixed by rolling it up using a magnet that is built within.

I love the grey cabinet, it would really soften the atmosphere of a room, those colours would also brighten any room - just very clever designs.

Home Inspiration 11

I am sure you have all looked (bought?) some of Caroline McGrath posters. I thought that was such a clever idea - so new, so beautiful!

All the interior design magazines I read (and believe me I read many) featured the prints. Can you have too much of a good thing? Well I am ashamed that the novely worn off a bit. It is still great, but it felt that everyone had the print..

However I found out a very cool way to have my unique word cloud. Wordle explains that it is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide.

The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends

Here are some of display on the website

All I need now is to find my favourite text (I am considering the song my parents wrote for my wedding - yes, they decided to sing in front of all the guests, and boy did I cry!). What text would you choose?

Home Inspiration 10

This post is really just about inspiration as this designer is in South Africa...

South African company REcreate specialises in taking old luggage, milk bottles, typewriters and other back-of-the-basement items into unique pieces of furniture.

Designer Katie Thompson is the brains behind RECreate. Even though she is not the first person to take a crack at the art of recycling, Katie Thompson definitely has a knack for turning so-called “junk” into household gems.

Some of my favourites are below:

I cannot wait to go to my nearest boot sale...

(Home) Inspiration 9

This is a bit different from my regular inspiration posts...

Meet Aidan a 5-year old who loves monsters. On September 13, 2010 he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). He pulled through his first round of chemo . Unfortunately, he must go through 2 to 3 more years of chemo treatments and everything that goes along with that.

While in chemo and resting at home Aidan has been spending quite a bit of time drawing.

In order to help his family out they started selling prints of his works as well as a few originals on Etsy. All proceeds will go directly to Aidan’s medical bills.

I have been really moved by this story, and a monster from Aidan should really make it into my home, as a personal reminder that it could happen to everyone. And also hoping that Aidan will get better soon.