Things I like

For my birthday last month, this rather superb present turned up in the post:

Judy Reeves in silver

It’s a Judy Reeves (my dog) necklace in silver, as made by my lovely friend Elin, who makes beautiful jewellery – her website is here: http://www.elinhorgan.com. I had seen her a few weeks previous to my birthday and she had said she was in the middle of making me something so I was quite excited to find out what it was, but I never imagined this! Apparently she had emailed Chris to ask for some side profile shots of Judy to help with the shape.

Here’s the little lady herself wearing the necklace:

Judy Reeves wearing Judy Reeves

Amazing

I have just seen this house on Retro To Go, out of all the amazing houses they put on there it has to be the best one I have seen so far, maybe the best one ever. More pics and floorplan here: http://www.themodernhouse.net/tmh/sales/328/accomodation/0/0/4.

It’s in Chislehurst in Kent, but if it was on the sea front somewhere then it would be perfect. This is one of those please let me win the lottery moments!!

Whenever I am feeling a bit uninspired, I seem to end up on Flickr looking for pics of other peoples vintage pottery collections, vintage kitchen stuff and any kind of exciting 1970’s inspired interiors. It always seems to cheer me up for some reason, I think it’s because it reminds me of the prospect of finding some of these treasures in charity shops, car boots, Ebay etc. Although it does seem that everyone has got wise to the ‘value’ of these items and seem to be sticking ginormous prices on anything interesting I find (apart from The Ark in Albert Road, Southsea).

Yesterday we went to the Chichester car boot and Chris had a ridiculous row with someone on a stall about a vase:
Chris (picking up some reproduction almost-Whitefriars style vase that we’ve already got) – ‘Look at this, do you want another one Sarah’
Bloke on stall – ‘That’s Whitefriars that is, worth a lot of money’
Chris – ‘Well, actually no it’s not, it’s a reproduction… nice vase though’
Bloke on stall – ‘Yes it is’
Chris – ‘No it’s not’
Bloke on stall – ‘Yes it is, it’s Whitefriars, it’s worth a lot of money’
Chris – ‘It’s not Whitefriars, believe me’
… and so on, it probably could have gone on in the same way for 10 minutes. Last year, whatever car boot I went to, if I saw anything vaguely ‘retro’ or the odd Hornsea Bronte patterned item (which is hardly difficult to find), before I’d even touched it the stallholder would be like ‘Yeah that’s Hornsea, from the 70’s, it’s retro, worth a lot of money’ etc – so annoying!

Anyway, these are a few of my favourite mugs / kitchen stuff photo pools, where I can look at things without getting the spiel:

Vintage mugs – http://www.flickr.com/groups/45432195@N00/
Lovers of Carlton Ware – http://www.flickr.com/groups/1184567@N20/
The Vintage Kitchen – http://www.flickr.com/groups/thevintagekitchen/
Staffordshire Retro Mugs – http://www.flickr.com/groups/retromugs/
The people who run Staffordshire Retro Mugs also have this particularly nice website, don’t like the gif-age of the pics but some fab mugs: http://www.topkop.dk/

This is completely my ideal type of house. The decor is a bit too minimalist for my liking, but I can just imagine having ladderax units stretching across the living room wall with all our lovely bits of pottery and glassware on them and turning the downstairs study room into ‘Bar Reeves’ (or my workshop for sewing etc):

http://www.themodernhouse.net/tmh/sales/295/intro/0/0/16

In my dreams!!

Just seen this on the excellent Retro To Go blog:

New Commodore 64

It’s the ‘new’ Commodore 64, you can install Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems on it.

http://www.retrotogo.com/2010/03/commodore-64-returns-as-modernday-allinone-pc.html or http://www.commodoreusa.net

I spied a few bits by Isak on the hisforhome blog last week and yesterday saw the man and lady tray in one of the Sunday papers.

Had a look at the website – http://www.isak.co.uk/ – and have now fallen in love with everything on there, especially this wallpaper:

Cats and owls © Isak

… which can be found here: http://www.isak.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3_9&products_id=70.

I’m especially fond of the little owl on the cats back.

I came across this website via the Pepe and Friends blog:

http://nicolegastonguay.com/gallery/album/72157594343700268/.

In a nutshell, it features cute, big eyed, knitted versions of various food items, animals and household things. This one’s my favourite:

Knitted gherkins!

I wish I this was good at knitting, the most I’ve ever been able to do is a rubbish scarf. I think I’ll stick to the sewing. Anyway, the lady responsible for these items of amazingness is called Nicole and she’s a fiber artist and designer who lives in NYC. You can buy the burger and hot dog from her shop, as well as a cheeky spray can and bottle of moonshine.

Again I wrote about a few of the bits I got, but never updated fully. The owls range was amazing. I managed to buy pretty much everything I wanted, with the exception of the glasses case and the travelcard wallet, both of which I am cheesed off about because they sold out in Portsmouth and Southampton really quickly. I got the spies out for them all over the south east, but unfortunately they were long gone from the shops. Although I do hold out a tiny bit of hope, because when I went to Tottenham Court Road Paperchase on Wednesday night they had three owl passport holders, which definitely weren’t there when I visited in June and scoured the place.

Anyway here’s the bits I’ve got.

Paperchase owls stash

Paperchase owls doormat

Paperchase owls tea towels

I’ve just realised that I forgot to include my A4 binder and A4 document wallet, however in these photos are: big laundry size bag, smaller magazine size bag, shoe box, stationary set, tin of coasters, stickers, key top, mug, pen, purse, passport holder tea towels and door mat.

The designer of this range is fab, some more of her work can be seen here: http://www.lillarogers.com/artists/jillian-phillips.

I wrote previously about a couple of the bits I got, but here’s a pic of my mini stash:

Paperchase Funny Foods

I found this range quite late, so there wasn’t much left of it in the shops and I didn’t want most of the stuff I saw (e.g. the mini bag). The thing I am most gutted about not buying, and what makes it really gutting is that fact that I actually saw and held it in the Brighton Paperchase but returned it to the shelf, is the plastic toadstall moneybox. It was perfect.

I was in London for work purposes for a few days during the week and paid my first visit to Westfield on Tuesday evening to have a good look round and to also pop into Paperchase to see if I could get anything Food Friends related. I was unsure what, if anything, would be available in the shops cos it’s not on their website or Amazon as yet. Very excitedly I came away with the two melamine plates, a pencil tin, mug and stickers. The next evening I went to the store on Tottenham Court Road and got a beaker, keyring and shopping bag. Neither store has properly merchandised the range yet, so it was all scattered around and took a bit of hunting around to find. I also saw a CD case, key tops, luggage tags, an umbrella and Ipod cases.

Paperchase Food Friends

Back at home, today I went over to Gunwharf Paperchase and they actually had a proper display set out for it. I got a recipe book, bookmarks and a pencil sharpener.

Paperchase Food Friends

They also had little tin suitcases and some of the other stuff I had already seen in London. The recipe book is lovely, I think it’s my favourite thing so far. I’m going to stop buying stuff from the range now, having spent quite a lot of money, however if tea towels or any more kitchen related items make an appearance then I’m pretty sure I’ll be adding them to my collection!