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The Rare Brands Christmas Market 2013

Today I had the pleasure of joining a friend to visit The Rare Brands Christmas market, the only problem was that I wasn't very organised and didn't take my camera so the images here are from the websites of my highlighted companies.

Always on the look out for beautiful home textiles my eye was drawn to Reason Home who sell textile items with 'a modern aesthetic based on traditional crafts.' The cool colour pallet is well matched to the soft cotton base fabric and the scale of the patterns are perfect to balance between traditional and modern.

The Kennington Lane Press brought high quality letterpress cards with a great sense of humor to the event. It was lovely to hear that Emily transferred her skills in sculpture into the fine art of letterpress. I am sure that adding bespoke cards to the collection would be a big hit!

As I write this post I am treating myself to a chocolate covered strawberry from Strawberry Fox who not only grow the soft fruit in Sidlesham, West Sussex but they also make the yummy chocolate themselves. Really lovely! It was also fascinating to hear that the artwork for Strawberry Fox was created by published artist Jackie Morris.

My final highlight for all larger bottomed cyclists is the sprung leather seat from the Indian Bicycle Shop. I need one of these!

I have my own stall tomorrow at The Vintage and Very Nice Market Bazaar, Chichester, please come along and say hello.

Yay Retro!

I recently sent a beautiful Dick Bruna jigsaw from Olive Homeware onto a new home and realised that my customer was the amazing Sue from Yay! Retro.

The yay retro! online vintage shop was a year old last month. What started as a hobby has become a wonderful business which has regular customers and followers all over the world. Sue has been able to spend the past year sourcing the very best in retro china and home wares from the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70 and popping her finds onto the Yay Retro Facebook page where we have been following her for some time.

In the same way that we select items which we would love to own (like our organic blankets) Yay retro is super selective, only selecting the best designs, and highest quality items which they would love to have in their own home.

Yay Retro say ‘Personally I collect Poole Pottery from the 1950s-60s in the Streamline shape, I adore the matte finish and minimalism of it. I have a section on the website which has the more unusual and stylish pieces from Poole for sale, plus some of the standard tea sets.’

Sue’s background as a professional photographer is immediately evident, the facebook community love her photography in vintage styled settings and it really makes Yay Retro stand out.

Colour and pattern is key in the products we select for Olive Homeware, from Sleeping Bunnies to Jessica Hogarth designs. You can see these colour and pattern sensitivities in the items which Yay Retro love

…‘Things I love to find are colourful 50s check tea sets from Empire or Washington Potteries, funky cups, saucers and mugs from Staffordshire Potteries, bold floral pieces from the 70s and lovely Scandinavian china from makers such as Figgjo Flint. I also adore the simplicity of Gaydon Melamine from the 1960s - perfect for use in the home or in your VW campervan.’ We agree with Sue, these are amazing designs!

New Designers - A Talented Bunch

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting New Designers Part 2 at The Business Design Center. The overall standard of work was excellent and I have picked out 4 creative designers to share with you.

Alex Allday is a graduate from 3D Design:New Practice, Loughborough University and was exhibiting a collection of tableware which included plates and drinking vessels. Each pattern is built out of a collection of almost geometric shapes but resulting in a floral/organic design. Alex has selected pretty summer tones for her patterns with great results.

A sneaky peak into Alex's comments book showed that she had already received some fantastic feedback, congratulations. Keep up to date with Alex's progress on her image based blog alex-allday.tumbler.com

Alex's fellow classmate Helen Robson also caught my eye with her sustainable shelving system which showed a beautiful material sensitivity.

Although her paper shelving looks delicate the folded paper has surprising strength. I would have loved to see Helen's shelves as a packaged product, I would have been tempted to buy one!

A small part of New Designers is devoted to One Year On, an opportunity for graduates from previous years to exhibited as a start up business. This area of the event is fascinating, a fantastic opportunity to see the development of the individuals work as well as a great way to buy or order realised products from new UK designers.

Laura Fletcher Textiles caught my eye as I entered the exhibition space, her hand woven textiles are beautiful! The simplicity of her Chalkney Stripe cushion (above image bottom cushion) is stunning with subtle individual lines of colour.

Laura's experience as a trend forecaster is evident in her work and I am confident that the colours and textures in her collection are the start of a future trend.

Josie Shenoy Illustration was also part of One Year On. The highlight of Josie's work were her 3 large scale prints, one of which seen above has been used as a record cover. These large illustrations are the first that I have seen in a round form and with such a difference between line drawing and fully coloured illustration within one image.

My overriding feeling from New Designers was what a high standard is achieved by these graduates in not only their designs but also in their understanding of the commercial demands of a product and the demands of the industry. Almost all graduates, not only in One Year On, have not only their own blog but a website and professionally printed brochures to accompany their products. Competition for design vacancies is extremely high but employers should be assured that the standard of design graduate is equally high.

A Beast of a Quilt

At the end of my last blog post I mentioned the quilt I was working on at the time. Each of the quilts I have made have been for very close friends and despite the great joy it brings to make something for a friends new family I also a feel a real responsibility to do a good job and to make a quilt that fits it's new owner.

Our great friends Ellie and Rich went on the holiday of their dreams last year to South Africa on Safari, we loved seeing the amazing photographs they returned with and hearing them speak so enthusiastically about the wildlife they saw. When Ellie & Rich announced their pregnancy I knew straight away that I would make a lion quilt.

All did not go to plan! This finished design is not the design that I started with. As with all of my quilts I drew out several designs prior to starting to cut, originally I designed a large square quilt, the lion filled most of the quilt. I cut all of the pieces but once I started to sew the blocks together it became clear that the joins were not going to meet up. As all of the lovely ladies at sewing club know this was a disaster.

I decided to make a new design with much smaller blocks, I am not really a quilter, but it made sense that smaller blocks would have less stretch across each block making the joins more reliable. I drew out a new design and re-cut the blocks into the new design. I am so pleased that the design changed as the character of the lion comes across much better in this design.

The lions face is made up of blocks the same size as the rest of the quilt but it is machine appliqued onto the surface of the background, I have lined up the vertical and horizontal lines so that the face sits well into the background. I have hand quilted several lines onto the face to give definition and character.

As I have done in previous quilts I chose a range of cotton fabrics from plains, gingham to Liberty prints. I selected tones of blue for the background at the top of the image and vertical lines of green for the base, my hope was to create an effect of the lion looking out from behind long grass. I hand sewed several curved lines onto the green area to further emphasise the grass.

I selected a bright orange fabric for the reverse, which was also used within the lions face, as this would draw the image together and is one of Ellie's favourite colours. I used a darker orange for the binding.

It was so rewarding to see Baby John on his quilt this morning and I really hope that it is something he can use for many years. The Olive Homeware family wish the new Bax family an amazing adventure together xxx

Quilting Lessons Learnt

I started quilting 10 years ago when a friend leant me a book which belonged to her mother. I selected beautiful Liberty fabrics and I followed the instructions to the word until it came to actually quilting the layers together, then I got scared! This quilt is still not finished.

When Baby Olive Homeware was 3 months old I realised that I hadn't made anything for him and decided that I would make a quilted play mat. I planned out a simple pattern which focused on stripes built from random lengths of fabrics, many of which are Liberty.

I made the quilt 120cm x 120cm so that it could be used as a generous floor play mat but also cover the bottom of a single bed. I was so pleased with this quilt and Baby OH played on it until he could walk, now it is waiting for him to be ready to move into a bed and will keep him warm this winter.

The simplicity of this quilt gave me confidence that I could create contemporary colourful quilts that were also practical and could be popped in the washing machine. When a friend was expecting I adapted my play mat design and created a pram blanket (image above). I used a thinner wadding which was more successful that then thick wadding which was much easier to machine.

Since I have found my new quilting bug I have made two other pram blanket quilts. When my childhood friend announced that she was having another baby I was thrilled to be able to make a girls blanked. This time I incorporated two pink edging detail stripes which made the blanket pull out of shape slightly but gave another level of interest. This blanket is feminine without being pink and twee (I hope).

Last week I finished my most recent blanket, I can't wait to hear the exciting news that it's new owner has arrived and is snuggly and warm. I stepped away from the safety of randon lengths and each piece is an identical size, I am very pleased with how many of the corners match up now it is sewn together.

I decided to keep the colours pale with only accents of deeper tones. I selected Liberty fabrics among others and made sure that there was a soft green theme as this is my friends colour of choice for almost everything. I used 4 colours to sew 10 lines of hand stitching, this was much harder work that I had expected but was really worth it, unlike the edging strips I tried previously the stitching kept the blanket nice and square.

I have started work on my next blanket which is a real 'beast' and a big project, I have limited time to finish (the new owner is due in 3 weeks) but I can't wait to see it finished.

If you would be interested in ordering a quilt please email me at [email protected] but please do also remember that we sell a beautiful range of organic blankets in our online shop www.olivehomeware.co.uk

Chichester Art Trail 2013

This morning was a real treat. Baby OH was having time with Mr OH and I went to spend some time with my good friend Lavender Loops and her beautiful daughter.

We were hoping to visit several of the artists taking part in the Chichester Art Trail whilst the sun was shining but the weather had other ideas and it was quite grey.

Our mood was not at all grey and after a coffee in town to create an action plan we went to see Hannah Clear (trail no.25). Hannah creates pretty applique homeware and gifts with very well selected fabrics and a wide range of products which were all perfectly executed.

Hannah had a beautiful gazebo positioned next to a stream in the extremely pretty gardens of her mother’s home built in 1820. As well as her textile items she also had a collection of dainty illustrations of animals, many in couples (watercolour, ink & felt on fabric, £40).

Gaye Clear (trail no.25) was exhibiting a collection of paintings in a perfect garden studio. It was inspiring to hear Gaye describe and demonstrate her techniques, included building depth into the background using a scalpel and a graphite pencil creating texture behind her gouache mushrooms.

My 'best in show' piece from Gaye's collection is this skilful image of the ocean, I love how you can read the story without being given details such as a boat or a bird.

The approach to Julian Broad's home was amazing (trail no.23), sat opposite a picturesque church the Broad home is framed by a safari of life size animals.

The charming creator of these animals welcomed us to take a tour of the gardens which led us round to the flint studio. The studio was shared with Judy Larkin and Rosie Broad. Judy creates smooth and almost translucent stone sculptures which are a stark contrast to the 'work in progress' and raw feel of the room.

This image of Alex Beale's three dimensional portrait of Julian Broad is my favourite of the day. It sits calmly displayed with cables and power tools.

It is difficult to translate from a crafted item into a product but Rosie Broad has chosen exactly the right materials, fixings and text for the packaging of her leather elbow eggs. It was a pleasure to talk with Rosie about her work and how a thoughtful gift of a handmade mask (decorated with patterns found within textiles in her home) led to her work being feature in Glamour Magazine. I love the theatrics of Rosie’s hare mask.

Our final visit of the day was Sally Knight (trail no.21). I always enjoying seeing printed work and it is often prints which we buy for our home. After training with Dale Devereux Barker, Sally diversified her artworks to include print, mixed media and painting.

My favourite of Sally's painting were mounting roughly in her window and had been painted at her temporary studio table between visitors, I rather regret not buying one.

I visit many vintage and craft fairs, today was a great opportunity to look outside of the box, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time with Lavender Loops and as always Baby Lavender was a pleasure to be with xxx

Further images and information from our visits today will be posted on our facebook page.

Brand Style at The Modern Pantry

Since starting Olive Homeware it has been my intention to put serious effort into our brand style, hopefully this will happen in the up coming weeks and we really hope that you like the developments we make.

This week I was in London and saw two examples of extremely well considered branding. In St Johns Square The Modern Pantry sits next door to The Zetter Townhouse. The Modern Pantry has a flawless clean appearance with a vintage quality, of course the building greatly helps with this brand image.

The interior is crisp, clean, white and welcoming. Tones of grey are carried from the exterior into the interior balanced by the warmth of vintage timber furniture. Painted brickwork and copper lights give an edge and provide the textures required to complete the sceem.

The Zetter Townhouse has a quite contrasting style but exactly the same imporession of quality and luxury. Every element has been considered and brought together to give an eclectic luxury atmospher. Hand painted signs at the door and the crip white exterior open into a room full of velvets, painted wallpaper and homely details, all in warm tones.

The printed brochures available at the door have the personal touch with a hand drawn illustration of the exterior and beautifully taken photos of the interior.

PS. We love the sign on the gates x

This brief visit was perfect inspiration for our brand, great food for thought x

Snowshill Manor

As the Easter Holidays were rapidly drawing to a close, the kids were beginning to climb up the walls (and as for once it wasn’t raining or snowing), we decided to meet up with friends and head out for the day. Determined to make use of our National Trust membership, my eye was caught by Snowshill Manor. The description read:

Charles Paget Wade’s passion for craftsmanship, colour and design began when he was just 7 years old. His motto was ‘let nothing perish’, and his life was dedicated to finding, restoring and enjoying objects of beauty, both everyday and extraordinary.

‘I have not bought things because they were rare or valuable. My guiding essentials have been good design, colour and workmanship. What a joy these old things are to live with, each piece made by the hand of a craftsman, each has feeling that no machine could ever attain.' Charles Wade

It did not disappoint!

Delving through heavily panelled and beamed rooms with sloped floors, you barely noticed that it was sometimes hard to stand up straight, because of the visual myriad of Charles Wade’s collection. It was obviously so meticulously selected and laid out, allowing you to see the development of design over centuries of invention, and allowing close examination of everything from the largest collection of Samurai weapons and armoury (the boy’s favourite room!) , to musical instruments, bicycles and prams in the attic, intricate sewing and handicraft, to my favourite item that sat at the very back of the attic; an 18th century desk, designed to allow a blind composer to compose music with the aid of a raised stave carved into the desk top with regular holes along each line (apparently a pre-cursor to braille) each row having and different shaped pins to represent the different notes.

Truly, the whole house was an amazing statement of craftsmanship and the beauty of even very utilitarian objects, and such a unique collection.

Emerging from the house into brilliant sunlight (the sun having decided to show it’s face for the afternoon!) it allowed us to sit in the Art and Crafts-styled garden and watch the children roll down the sloped lawn and play in the woodland maze.

Hannah Hurley

Creative Coast

We have had a busy few weeks and quite frankly the weather has been dreadful! Today the sun was shining, about time, and we decided to make the most of it by taking Baby Olive Homeware along the coast to Emsworth for a walk around the mill pond.

This walk usually only takes about 15 minutes but as we are encouraging Baby OH to walk more he walked all the way so it took twice as long. We were ready for a drink and snack so went straight along to an Emsworth Crafts event which I had heard about from our friend Pete's Pots.

I love the simplicity of these jigs which are part of Pete's collection, they are so functional but with an great deal of beauty in the traditional materials.

I enjoyed seeing the work of local jeweller Amelia Gray. This event ran from just 10am to 1pm and looked forward to welcoming local customers, each stall holder put a great amount of care into their stall presentation and the twigs used by Amelia gave an extra dimension to her stall and highlighted the beauty of her glass work against the raw bark.

At many events on the South Coast you will find artwork of the coastline, these sunny illustrations are painted by Barbara Jones and are beautiful. They perfectly represented the mood of the day, sun shining and celebrating the local area and community.

After we left Emsworth Crafts we travelled back home along the coast and then walked into Chichester so that Baby OH could catch 40 winks in his pram. I had seen on Facebook that there was to be a craft event organised by 'All That's presents Crafts at The Assembly Rooms' in Chichester (the venue of our regular Vintage & Very Nice Market Bazaar).

We were greeted just inside the entrance by this brilliant knitted bear made by Elsie-Rose Crafts. The skill to make such a characterful bear is amazing, especially as he was fully dressed, he was definitely under-priced at £19 and I truly hope that he is nw on his ay home with a new family.

Not everything on sale was my cup of tea but many sellers stood out for there quality, these sellers included Truly Coco's who were displaying a collection of wedding cup cakes alongside a wedding cake which I have shown the detail of above. The creator of these cakes managed to create contemporary cakes with a balance of occasion and elegance, not an easy task.

These enchanting sleeping bunnies are made by La Sua Seconda Vita who was also displaying a collection of hand made bears and rabbits which were extremely skillfully made with an eye for detail, real characters which would fast become treasured and were so well made they could have been played with by generations.

It has been a great day, Baby OH is nw fast asleep and it is time for a glass of wine! Have a great weekend xxx

Mark Hearld - Birds & Beasts

Some time ago I was looking at the coming events program for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and was terribly disappointed that Mark Hearld's exhibition would be at a time that I wouldn't be able to visit my family in Sheffield and that I would miss the opportunity to see his work. I was then thrilled when a work engagement meant that I could stop off in Sheffield with Baby Olive Homeware and nip in to his event. I was not disappointed.

Mark Hearld Birds & Beasts was on at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park from 17th November 2012 to 17th February 2013, a prime slot for capturing the imagination of Christmas shoppers. Don’t take this as a criticism; this was clever programing for the YSP and an inspiring event for customers.

It is a difficult time of year, when your head is full of all the gifts required and all of your plans for the festive period, it was a joy to see so many beautiful, well considered and unique gifts brought together in one place, the only problem was that I was tempted to buy many of them for myself.

Mark Hearld Creamware Mug £16.95

Not only do I love the style, colour choices and mediums used by Mark but I also think that he and the curators put together a varied and thorough event. The entrance to the YSP had Mark’s painted birds flying above your head whilst his tiny door mouse showed an easily missed attention to detail.

Mark's original artworks of timber painted animals and framed animal paintings were for sale at a higher price point than his UK produced homeware and gifts. They have great character which would take some skill to replicated.

It was an extremely cold day in early December when we visited and our freezing walk around the grounds was rewarded by the stunning winter Yorkshire view.

Baby OH very much enjoyed the Miro exhibition and I was extremely tempted to buy the well balanced contemporary/vintage work by ceramic designer Ragnhild Marstad.

Tinted Infused Neutrals - Nude

This week I was lucky enough to attend a trend forecasting event where Yorkshire based trend specialist Victoria Redshaw from Scarlet Opus gave a fascinating talk about the winter 2013/2014 trends.

Julie Yonehara -The Transformative Chronotype. Exploration into the use of natural light. Simply stunning realised product, pattern and texture.

Through extremely thorough research Victoria and her team determine new trends 18 months in advance. The first trend we learnt about was 'The Vision' which combines three main aspects:

1. Bio technology. Integration of smart materials with nature, resulting in roots which grow as lace and heart monitor graphics.

2. Iridescence. Curtains or light, colour boundaries and glowing colours.

3. Soft colours, defused pastels, tinted infused neutrals and nudes with gloss black and whites.

Cloth & Thread. Beautiful linen cushion with a great expression.

I am not surprised that this is a blossoming trend, within the last week my Facebook news feed has been full of beautiful examples across the vintage, craft and design world. Here are some inspirational examples both from Scarlet Opus and from my current news feed.

Carole Collet. Biolace, straberry noir 3. 'Biofacturing'

Lindsey Lang Sunny Day Cushions. Soft tones and organic shapes but balanced with a crisp line.

David Mikhail Architects, London house renovation and extension.

Are you 'on trend?'

It Has Been Too Long!

I must start this post with an apology, I have somewhat neglected my blog and I am sorry.

I recently attended the February Vintage and Very Nice Market Bazaar as a customer but I will be back as a stand holder at the Easter weekend market. It was lovely to have time to speak with the new stall holders and to catch up properly with some regulars.

Cinnamon Kids is a regular stall at Vintage & Very Nice and is run by Penny. There is a lot to learn from this professional business, as well as Penny's eye for detail in her vintage products she is also extremely skillful with her hand made children's clothes. The new and vintage items sit together beautifully, especially with the soft tones of blue & green. Cinnamon Kids is now selling at The Carousel, Chichester.

The Carousel is a very exciting shop which opened last weekend in Chichester. I have been very privileged to assist the owner with some of her graphics and social media which has been a steep learning curve but thoroughly enjoyable.

You can see a Cinnamon Kids dress here in the window displayed with simplicity alongside one of Pete's Pots and Something More Exciting artwork (one of our hand printed lavender cushions is keeping them company). Something More Exciting (SME) are a family run business and it is always a joy to see them at events in Chichester. As well as many smaller items and vintage toys SME specialise in intricate paper cut graphic images which would rival any made by Rob Ryan.

Unfortunately our newest items do not fit the brief for The Carousel but are now in our (new look) online shop. Our new writing sets show sketch illustrations on beautiful Japanese paper, we think they have a beautiful balance of Japanese tradition, contemporary simplicity and on-trend illustration, we really hope you agree!

Now for a rest like this lazy hare! Hopefully it won't be so long until our next post xx

PS. You can now follow us on pinterest

Petworth Christmas Market - Day 2

Today started with a glimmer of hope that the weather would be better than yesterday but it didn't last, by the end of today our stall was sat in a puddle! However, this did not dampen our spirits and we had a great day.

We met many lovely people today and it is a pleasure to introduce them to you. I am going to start with my 'Best in Show' which is Anna Louise Ford Textiles. My only purchase over the weekend was a beautiful cushion from Anna and I loved her personalised towels.

We really enjoyed meeting our neighbours from Reclaimed & Reloved who sell painted reclaimed furniture of a high standard and using a very well selected colour pallet.

The products on sale by Bramley were all of a vintage 'time gone by' aesthetic and were perfect gifts, we saw many happy shopped walking round with these beautiful mini suitcases. I love their vintage photograph post card.

When I visited the Petworth Christmas Market as a customer last year I took Baby OH who was only 8 weeks old, my highlight last year was Fenella Smith's ceramics and it was a real pleasure to meet her today and see her new designs. Fenella's uk made ceramics are beautifully illustrated.

Finally, I enjoyed seeing the vintage inspired fabrics used by Tallulah Fox, great fun!

We have had a busy, damp and fun weekend and I would like to say again what a well organised event this has been, we hope to be at Petworth again next year. Now it is time for a bath and a glass of wine!

www.olivehomeware.co.uk

Petworth Christmas Market - Day 1

We are now home safely from day 1 at Petworth Christmas Market and are pleased to be in the warm and dry. Our marque fought hard against the relentless rain today but we were beginning to get slightly soggy feet by 3:30.

We had an early start and had to leave Chichester at 7am! We had our stall set up by 9:30 and I would have to say that the organisation at this event is the best that I have experienced.

We had all of our new stock available and many hand printed cushions, lacing shoes and Japanese paper balloons are on there way to new homes, many ready for stockings.

We decided to keep vintage items to a minimum but our vintage books did very well indeed and we have a beautiful Midwinter Stylecraft Coffee Set waiting for a buyer tomorrow.

We started our day with breakfast from The Hungry Guest, a local artisan baker. Their breads looked delicious and I am sure that as their promotional leaflets says 'you'll be in bread heaven'.

It was lovely as always to see Julia from Winters Moon. With a selection of vintage and vintage inspired homeware and toys there are always many items to delight.

I particularly enjoyed meeting Paulo today and seeing the beautiful handmade items he had on his stall. Paulo has a great eye for pattern and fabric selection and his paper globes were beautiful and unique.

I first met Big Birds Boutique at the Clothkits sewing club and her bright and colourful stall was full of treats. I have never seen fabric tape in liberty fabrics before, brilliant.

Big Bird Boutique also has several truely original designs, including AMAZING floor cushions and stunning bird wings, take a look www.bigbridsboutique.co.uk

We enjoyed the amazing cakes from A Taste of Dreams, yum yum yum.

Our good friend Lavender Loops visited the event today and suggested that I would like the products for sale on Zarafet's stall, she wasn't wrong!

Zarafet had a wide selection of towels and table linens which were in well selected tones and were clearly made from high quality yarns.

It is an inspired move for Nicole Phillips to maximise on her amazing drawings and paintings by bringing our her our textile collections. Nicole's new tea towels are beautiful and perfectly compliment her vintage items.

We are very much looking forward to what tomorrow will bring and will bring you another update with more of our favorite stalls.

Christmas Gifts

I thought it was time to write a quick blog about the great stock we have which is perfect for a thoughtful and unique Christmas gift.

Our lacing shoes were delivered today and we are thrilled. Baby OH has his own waiting for him to get a little older. In a society so used to velcro this is a great way to teach children how to tie their shoe laces, you will be praised by their teacher when they don't need help. £6 each plus an additional £1.25 postage and packing.

We have 5 colours available, green, red, yellow, pink and lilac with contrasting laces (not always the same as the images). Made from natural wood, smooth surface, durable and dyed with organic dyes.

For younger children we have our organic blankets. We are currently the only UK supplier of these beautiful organic blankets. These are made with bold, confident patterns and soft brushed organic cotton - Perfect for keeping little ones warm this winter. Organic Cotton Blankets £29 or Organic Cotton Essential Blankets £21 plus £5 postage.

For your outdoor loving friends and family we have Gavin Coyles Cork Bird House, spoil for loved ones and the birds!! £25 plus £3 postage and packing.

Our final perfect gift is Jessica Hogarth's Coatal Tea Towels, inspired by the higgledy piggledy buildings that litter the north east coast of England. Available in Navy Blue or Orange for £7 plus £1.25 postage and packing, dimensions 48cm by 78 cm.

We really hope you have a minute to go over to our website and find the items which we are sure your friends and family will love this Christmas xxx

London Design Festival - Part 2

It has been a bigger gap between writing part 1 and getting round to writing part 2 of my London Design Festival Review than I had planned but I hope there will be a few pics which were worth the wait.

Huzi Design had a stand at Tent London and put a real smile on my face with their game of posing with a paper moustache, I love their Pizzly Bear designed by Japanese designer Masahiro Minami, the Huzi website says 'Polar bear is avoiding the ice melt, while Grizzly bear is escaping North from the heat. The global situation has caused their unlikely meeting. This rocking chair tells a story of their love and the environment.'

Tea for one by DesignK also made us smile, which was a huge success as the companies aim is to design products which demonstrate 'original and interesting concepts that are made to make people smile.' I particularly like the addition of illustrations such as bears and flowers.

We LOVE the mature textiles and patterns used by Tamasyn Gambell for her interior product collection. The colours and shapes used by Tamasyn perfectly answer the current trends and Tamasyn was extremely welcoming. (I was so pleased that her business cards were samples of her fabric, mine is going straight in my scrap book.)

Tamasyn also showed a beautiful collection of notebooks, perfect for lists and ideas!

Sian Elin is my final pick for Part 2 with her joyful prints, great colours and a really full collection of wallpapers and fabrics to choose from.

Our own products show many of the qualities we saw at the London Design Festival, why not have a closer look at the blankets and cushions available on our website.

Hopefully part 3 will follow soon with a furniture inspiration xx

London Design Festival - Part 1

I am so sorry that this blog is quite late, I have a really busy few weeks (I still need to make the thank you cards for Baby Olive Homeware's birthday).

It is so easy to concentrate on the day to day tasks of life, work and family, for me the festival was a needed eye opener to the amazing talent, vibrant patterns and inspirational developments in design based in the Uk. Here are the first highlights from the London Design Festival.

I have mentioned Rachel Powell previously but her patterns are extremely current and her brief to evoke images of our childhood is hugely successful. Rachel launched her Deere John wallpaper at Tent London and if I had a wall that could be papered in Baby OH's bedroom I would have already placed an order.

It is always a pleasure to see the talented Victoria Delany (my university friend) and to see her amazing success as a jeweler and interior product designer. Victoria's candlesticks are striking in either mono or bright colours and I believe that her Moire lamp is award winning.

Victoria has a studio and workshop called The Quarter Workshop, why not take a look and book onto one of her courses!

Mini Moderns first came to my attention with their Pet Sounds pattern (a friend of mine had recently had her first baby and this perfectly illustrated her family's musical love). It has been a pleasure to see this UK based company go from strength to strength and I could not keep the smile from my face in seeing their colourful display.

A definite favorite was the stand demonstrating the skills of Japanese Mashiko ceramics. Mashiko is not a company, rather a method of making functional, beautiful ceramics. The design of this collaborative stand was striking and by far the best at Tent London, the tones in the shadows mirror the subtle tones in the glaze of the ceramic vessels.

I will do my very best to upload more highlights and UK based talent over the next week or so, further updates will be on our facebook page.

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