ephemerette

Say hello to Hiro! Some of you might be aware that a few months ago I lost my beloved cat Smokey after 10 happy years and  6 harrowing months of battling with kidney failure. Since then, as the grief of losing such a deeply loved family member has ebbed away a little day by day I've had the urge for another feline companion. Initially I pushed those thoughts away, there's no way I could replace Smokey, but then those thoughts started ambushing me at the strangest of times to the point where I've even dreamt about cats. I've always been a cat lover, even from a very young age and I just can't imagine life without a feline friend around. Last week after some wrestling with my conscience and a few tears over Smokey I decided that we were ready to welcome a new friend home, and planned to start looking to adopt once I'd finished with some renovating I'm doing. Fate however tends not to go along with logical plans and as it happened this little

Image via Iconic Photos It's Friday. It's a long weekend in the UK and even longer for me as I have an extra day. The sun is most definitely shining. Something extremely exciting will be happening later today... I'm referring to it as operation K and that's all I'll say for now! Happy weekend!

images via Per Gunnarsson Mismatched tea light holders and baby's breath,  pastel glassware and ice cream dishes, beautiful pink blooms, letters on shelves.  

via therese sennerholt

I couldn't help but take a few snaps of this beautiful collection of Wedgwood tea sets I spied recently whilst trailing around a department store in search of some non hideous curtains for my living room. All of the patterns and styles have been revived from vintage pieces held in the Wedgwood and Coalport archives, and are beautifully packaged in embossed teal and gold gift boxes. The top two images are from the polka dot tea story  collection, and second two from the Harlequin collection.

lonely city olden days skyscrapers Wild hodge podge ice cream coloured cities, and pastel vignettes of shops and streets by London based illustrator Janice Long, who also writes a blog called drawing in the back room  to journal her progress with drawings. There's all sorts of joy on paper available to buy at Janice's etsy shop  (my favourite is Lonely City). cakes at thirty three shops and balconies

Billie Holiday by Warpaint , such a lovely dreamy quality to this song, perfect for a lazy warm Sunday evening.

via boligmagasin I'm usually not a fan of multicoloured styling, bit too playschool for me but this floor quite simply *rocks*

Yummy. I'm in love with the rich colours and composition of this photo of Gemma Atherton (doing the obligatory starlet in scanties shoot for British GQ  sigh).

via she design I'm really on a Scandinavian tip at the moment, j ust love the intricate honeycombform of this  pouffe  designed by SHE design studio based in Oslo, Norway. A pparently its entirely constructed of textile and bounces slightly when you sit on it!

Ooh want. My beloved (no name) little tan satchel is slowly dying after several years of use and abuse, more than a few trips abroad and one horrible man putting is hand in to nick my wallet, so I'm in the market for a replacement. Not sure who this one is by, but it's fitting the bill nicely, well structured, adjustable strap, lovely rich colour and the perfect size to carry enough, but not too much of my   crap  chic possessions around.

Mia Doi Todd "Open Your Heart" dir. Michel Gondry Love, love, love Michel Gondry's work, but not really heard of Mia Doi Todd until now. This must have been loads of fun to film.

I came across the Alvhem website recently which is a Swedish property brokerage and interior design company based in Gothenberg (which has now been added to the already huge number of cities I wish to visit!) Its chock full of beautifully styled, gorgeous light and sunny apartments which make me want to immediately pick up sticks and move...and/or paint every surface in my home bright, bright white.

This week I have been mostly:  ferrying my dad to various medical appointments, wondering why the skin around my eyes is literally peeling off (and as a result not wearing any make up, looking terrible, then repeatedly bumping into someone I have a huge crush on), painting my nails coral,  cursing the weather, eating industrial quantities of refined sugars and watching my butt expand exponentially, planning to go on a diet, booking a trip to Berlin , screaming because apparently my washing machine was hungry and somehow shredded a hole in my favourite jeans, buying new jeans , desperately trying to console a dear friend in distress, trying to get my head around the implications of having a new Government (its my job), not getting enough sleep, wondering how long I can go before having get my fringe trimmed, booking tickets to see bands , missing my cat, trying to find new artwork for my living room , planning new blog posts but not delivering.... As you can see from the bold type

Rob Ryan time lapse at Pick Me Up gallery from karl sadler I love Rob Ryan's paper cut designs, always sweet and sometimes they break you heart a tiny little bit. Stumbled across this stop motion video by Karl Sadler of Rob and his team of cutters painstakingly creating one of his designs for the P ick Me Up graphic art fair which ran at S omerset H ouse earlier this month. Rob has a shop in Columbia R oad in L ondon called Ryantown , and also sells work through his website here .

I'm smitten with Bryonie Porter's wallpaper covered vintage dressers and drawers. Now I'm pretty sure I can't afford her £300 plus commission fee to attack one of my old bits of furniture with the best of Timorous Beasties or Osbourne and Little's papers, but I'm seriously considering a smaller scale attempt at it myself, watch this space for the (possibly awful) results sometime in the future...

images originally NYT & musette Ahh to be she...in g ay P areee ...Coming from someone who generally leaves the country at least every quarter, my complete holiday fail for the past 7 months has me aching to get outta town right now . I' ve had to jump through all sorts of administrative hoops to reschedule my original planned trip to Lisbon to the A utumn , which is an unbearably long way away, so as V (my travelling soul mate) and I can't possibly ba re the prospect of being stuck in England for much longer we're tentatively discussing another quick trip to somewhere in E urope  within the next few months. The main problem we're having is decid ing where to go...  Paris? For a bit of louche cafe culture? Madrid? Gua ra nteed fabulous food and fun loving people. Berlin? Style, music and mayhem...  How to decide?

I love discovering new blogs and talented people through comments left on posts, and that's exactly how I discovered Elizabeth of E tells tales  who hand makes these charming cushion covers, available at her etsy shop iviemade . I've got a huge crush on the Eiffel tower pillows (eventually you'll work out I basically have a huge crush on almost anything with an Eiffel tower on it) . If you hurry over to her blog right now, she's running a competition to win a pillow in celebration of her blogging birthday.  

To dry for : An entire website devoted to tea towels...well why not? Having a stack of these would certainly make washing up much more fun.

here obv. How cute is she? The only time I can successfully pull off a headscarf is when I'm scrubbing the oven...sigh

I'm really enjoying flicking through the decor 8 interior styling group on flickr here . Lots of inspiration, well curated and loads of obviously very talented people contributing. I'd love to join in but being honest I'm so symbolically disorganised I'd clearly never get myself together enough to contribute regularly - anyway it's great source for ideas and inspiration.

I feel like I've been re designing my bathroom for about a year now to finally replace the frankly skanky 1950's suite with what will hopefully be a sleek modern shower room with a few glamorous touches. I came across these gloriously pattered tiles by Tex-Tiles recently, They specialise in creating patterns based on traditional and contemporary fabrics and carpets, taking inspiration from around the world. I'm loving the Umayyid black and white geometric tiles pictured in Homes & Gardens below, a perfect way to introduce a little Moorish style in a modern way.

Yes I really am still in my PJs.....paying the price for spending last night watching circus burlesque over dinner here , followed by an awful attempt at jiving ...followed by slightly more dancing elsewhere... My head. Ow.