so much prettiness...

Hello lovelies!!  How are you?  Haven't got long tonight...on deadline to make a lampshade that a friend has commissioned...as usual I have left it to the last minute!  But in a weak moment I checked my blog roll and look what Alice Apple has been up to...

 

Sooooooooo pretty!!! They are postcards and are available in her Etsy shop - though I think a few of the designs may have sold out already - I love them all!!

Thank you all so much for all the amazingly supportive comments on my last post - I'm so sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to them all but we've been hit by more illness - will it never end?!  

The fabric sale went really well and it will definitely be a regular thing.  I had a great time and met lots of lovely people;  I got a real buzz from the happy smiles on their faces as they left clutching piles of my gorgeous fabric!  And best of all I sold enough to justify buying more fabric to top up my stock - Yay!!!  So here's a sneak peek at some of the lovely new bits I've bought...

Yikes what a treat - it appears that I now have the beginnings of a job - buying fabric!  And the best bit is that I can sell a bit and keep a bit for myself - I'm in heaven.  I have set myself a deadline of end of March for getting my first listings into the Etsy shop so I'm going to be busy for the next few weeks - fingers crossed for no more germs!

I hope you've had a good week and have a nice weekend planned...I'm popping down to the seaside to visit a good friend - on my own. She has a free and easy lifestyle with no kids...I can't quite imagine what we'll get up to but I'm most excited about the prospect of a lie-in!  Have fun whatever you do won't you?  I will be!

Rachel xx

I'm still here...

Hello lovelies!! I really have been a rubbish blogger so far this year!  Either I'm much busier or my (already woeful) time management skills have deserted me completely - maybe a bit of both.

I would love to do a big catch up post but I've just grabbed a moment at the pc before I put the kids to bed...suffice to say I'm well, I've been doing a lot of sewing, and I'll be selling some vintage fabric at our local craft shop next weekend which is exciting.  

I totally missed my 1st Blog Birthday!!  It was on Friday - I remembered all week and then on Friday all kinds of unexpected things happened and I totally forgot.  But I think the universe remembered...Caroline of the lovely blog Scraps Of Us  has just had a lovely giveaway on her blog and she chose the winner on Friday...and I won!!  Thanks so much to her, I'm really looking forward to receiving all these gorgeous scrapbooking goodies she's sending my way...

I feel very lucky...thanks Caroline! x
 
This morning I had a wander round our local monthly Vintage & Flea Market with a good friend.  There weren't quite as many stalls as usual but that was actually quite nice - it wasn't as packed with people and I felt like I got a chance to look at everything properly.  Unfortunately my camera battery died so I couldn't take photos!  But when I got home I charged it up so I could show you these...

I love that Puffin book sooooo much!! The inside isn't as exciting and colourful as that all the way through, but for the princely sum of £1 I could afford to buy it for its cover.   Here's a detail of the back...

 

There's nothing like puffins dancing on a rainbow to brighten my day!

The blue things are 2 linen teatowels which have never been used - they look like they were printed yesterday...

...and the yellow fabric is a double sheet and 2 pillow cases - you can never have too many vintage pillowcases, right?! 

I hope you've had a lovely weekend...I am going to try to be a better blogger this coming week...I've missed reading your blogs properly and having the time to comment. 

And welcome to my new readers and followers - thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment.  I've been lacking time recently but I still love blogland so much.  Looking forward to spending a bit more time here when I can!

Rachel x

 

pretty pins...

Hello lovelies, how are you doing this bank holiday Monday? It has been pouring with rain here, but luckily we've had a few busy days so we have surrendered to laziness - the house is a sea of lego and we are full of pancakes, so all is well with our little messy corner of the world.

I have been having fun on Pinterest recently, I have over 1,000 followers (I'm not even saying how many pins I've got, suffice to say I must have spent a LOT of time pinning over the last few months!), and my goodness there's a lot of loveliness out there on t'internet!  

Architectural patterns and prints are a trend I've been enjoying, here are a few of my recent favourites...

I discovered printmakers Birorobot  via their lovely Saul Bass pins, like this one...

then they treated themselves to this stunning Melitta coffee set - I'm glad they did, otherwise I would have had to (and I so can't afford to!)- it's soooo gorgeous!  I left an effusive comment about its loveliness and now they are following me here, welcome and thanks to them!

 I also love this vintage magazine cover...

 

and this lovely Paris tourism poster, designed by Herman Verbaere in 1960 ...

and this Stig Lindberg illustration is just gorgeous...

and don't even get me started on Mary Blair!

And it's not just vintage designers and illustrators who do it for me, I love this illustration by Tim Hopgood, who is interviewed here on 1973's blog...

and I also love this poster by The Heads of State...I've got a real thing about overlapping translucent colours at the moment.

Inspired by all this architectural fabulousness, I think we might spend this rainy day making stuff like this...

 

or this...

or this...

though I'm not sure if we've got enough boxes for this!

All of these photos have been linked from my Pinterest boards,  if you pop over there you can see all my pins and click through to the original sources.

I'm off to rummage in the recycling, hope you have a great day whatever you get up to. Thanks for reading and welcome to my new followers, it's lovely to have you here!

Rachel xx

a lucky find....and a goodbye

Hello lovelies, I hope the sunshine has visited you today, it's been lovely here, hooray!

I love the style of illustrations from the 60s and 70s, and since having my own kids I have really enjoyed rediscovering picture books from my own childhood, and finding new gems from past and present.  I have built up quite a collection of special books which will still be on my shelves long after my kids have left home!

The other day I was out for a rare child free potter round the shops, and while browsing one of my many local charity (sorry I just can't get used to calling them thrift!) shops, I came upon a pile of school reading books from the 70s; a lot of them were nothing special, but I'm glad I looked through them all because my goodness there were some treats hiding in there....

 

Aren't they lovely?  Each book has lots of different stories with different styles of illustration, and none of the illustrators are properly credited, there's just a list of names at the beginning of each book.  M has been struggling with his reading - partly because the books they give him at school are boring - but he's enjoying working his way through these stories, and when he's finished with them I think I'll be cutting them up and framing my favourite pictures.

While writing this I found out that Maurice Sendak has died at the age of 83, so goodbye and thanks to him. Where The Wild Things Are is one of my all time favourite books.  RIP Maurice, you were a totally unique and precious talent who brought a bit of wildness and joy into millions of childrens lives. 

Hope you've had a lovely, happy, colourful day.

Rachel x

something old, something new #1

Hello and happy Friday!  I hope whatever you're up to and where ever you are you've had a good day so far, and have exciting/relaxing weekend plans to look forward to.  

One of the things I want to share on my blog is my love for illustration, particularly children's books; since having children I've realised what a huge influence picture book illustrations have been on me and my taste in art and design.  I was lucky enough to get a lot of my favourite books from childhood back from my Mum when I had M (now 6), including Two Can Toucan by David McKee, which is the first book I ever remember actually reading for myself.  Looking at it now, it feels like a masterpiece of line and colour, and I can see why I love the designers and artists that I do when this was what my young developing mind was fed!

it's hard to choose which pages to share, they're all so fabulous, but here's another of my favourites: 

I guess these wonderful illustrations were later considered dated and unfashionable, because a new edition of the same book came out a few years later with new illustrations, also by David McKee but not (in my opinion) nearly so special! 

I have such a great collection of vintage children's picture books, sometimes I have to remind myself to look at new books coming out now for the kids, as there are some really great contemporary illustrators out there.  My latest discovery is Patrick Hruby, who is similar to early David McKee in that he combines really bright, saturated colours with black and white to a really striking effect:

I don't know if this is just me, but I actually salivate when I look at his pictures, those colours are so bright and juicy!  I was lucky enough to get a slightly damaged copy of his ABC is for Circus book cheap on Ebay for R (2), it's out of print so pricey now but hopefully they'll do another print run soon, it's on AMMO books who do some really gorgeous stuff.

I must admit I have a real soft spot for the hand drawn quality of the David McKee illustrations, and I find some contemporary images created on computers a bit too 'clean' and sterile, but I really love how Patrick Hruby's illustrations suggest magical worlds that I would love to visit.  Wouldn't you love to live in this house?

Scandilicious!

I've had some great fabric delivered this week and my partner's got some time off next week, so he'll be taking our little one out on Tuesday and I've got a date with my sewing machine - cushion covers here we come, got a couple of commissions that need making, and some playing to do just for the love of it.  

Have a lovely weekend, I've got a busy one planned so might not manage another post till Monday, though if inspiration hits I'll do my best to share it with you. 

Rachel x