Autumn is coming

Conkers

On a walk around a Cambridge college we found some huge horse chestnuts with a shower of glossy conkers below. I placed them on an oak table in a heart shape, a celebration of autumn and an organic homage to Kettle Yard's stone compositions. Find out more about Kettle Yard, here.

A little stone church

Stone church at Knoll House Hotel

This stone craftwork is by the entrance of Knoll House Hotel, where we had a lovely break in July. It's rather cute and who knows how old it is?

Beautiful and useful.... introducing the 1930s home

A copper pudding mould

William Morris once said: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. Beautiful and useful, this copper pudding mould was bought from a charity shop for one pound. I used it for a traditional Piedmontese chocolate pudding - I will share the recipe soon, so watch this space!

The 1930s house

I'm also hoping to follow Morris's philosophy in my new project: transforming a 1930s house into a home. 

I have a tight budget, which means doing a lot of work myself, with the help of my partner. I'm going to show you the various stages of transformation, indoor and outdoors through a new blog, called The 1930s home.  If you want to follow my journey, see you  there!

Royal Wedding Photo Album

The cult of beauty at the V&A

V&A Cult of Beauty's merchandise

The V&A in London is running an exciting exhibition called The Cult of Beauty, which showcases masterpieces from the Aesthetic Movement, including paintings, prints, designs, photos, jewellry, drawings and decorative items from 1860s to 1890s. As a fan of the Pre-raphaelites, I find this exhibition wonderfully inspiring.

And to accompany The Cult of Beauty, the V&A shop is selling stunning merchandise - I'm very tempted by the earrings and peacock brooch! Would love to go and re-visit Lord Leighton house too! Click here to see pictures of this amazing house.

Pavonia by Frederic Leighton, 1858-9. 

Private collection © Christie's

Woodland's wooden wonders

Hedgehogs, rabbits and a stunning squirrel

A felled tree at my daughter's preschool was transformed into a beautiful bench and organic sculptures by chainsaw carving artist Tim Atkins.

I couldn't resist showing off these beautiful woodland creatures and hope one day to be able to have one in my own garden!

An owl

Mushrooms

Beautiful and useful

Lakeland Microwave Apple Cooker

Today I'm interpreting the William Morris's motto by stressing the useful bit - I bought this in charity shop only to find out that it's still sold. To me it has an 1980s retro look, when microwaves became popular all over the world.

I was wondering about the instructions (being a second-hand item I thought they had been lost) then I googled the name on the box and found Lakeland's page featuring this product. I was pleasantly surprised that the company addressed a negative comment about the lack of instructions by providing guidelines and a recipe! Click here to find out more. According to other users, this product is great for onions and to steam veg.

Spring blooms: bold colours for a grey spring day

Winter-flowering pansies, still going strong in spring

Red tulip

Daffodil

Another lovely tulip variety

Hyacinth

Silent Sunday - Ark teapot only 50p from charity shop

Silent Sunday - handmade with recycled fabric

Silent Sunday - Cambridge blues

Happy New Year

Belated greetings of Happy New Year! I have been busy doing my day job as digital copywriter so my blogs have suffered a bit of neglect.

My quest for beautiful and useful things has not been put on hold, though. I have bought lots of lovely items, especially during the sales. Here are two: one is beautiful, the other is useful...

Microwave egg cooker: 99p from Oxfam (brand new)

Beautiful marbles, luxurious nostalgia for a tiny price