A Mishmash of Style. The Grande Finale!

Hark at me, bigging up the final part of my series A Mishmash of Style.  The "grande finale" indeed!  What am I like?  No, don't answer that one, you cheeky blighters!

So, let's have a look at my revamps and little projects around the house. 

I've bored you before about stuff I've made in previous posts but forgot to show you my knitted er.... dunno what it's called....er.... a cosy for a bottle which I use as a vase thingy:

There are loads of such things in blogland but they are usually crocheted and mine is knitted.

Now, if you are not of the crafty kind and have a short attention span, this is one hell of a perfect project for you.  Paper bunting.

This took me all of 20 minutes to do.  I bought a pack of mixed crafty paper from a pound shop, cut out small bunting shaped pieces (aka triangles) and glued them onto string et voila!  Couldn't be simpler, could it?

This is our shoe cupboard bought from Ikea and embellished with large butterfly stickers from Supernice.

Supernice has a lovely range of wall stickers, bunting and gifts such as my Amy Winehouse travel card holder here.  However, what is really tickling my fancy at the moment, are these fabulous wallpaper silhouettes made from the most fantastic selection of vintage wallpaper.  I'm rather liking this giraffe:

Or take a look at Mr Ostriche:

Yowser! That wallpaper reminds me of my very own wallpaper that I blogged about here.  Look!

I bet some of you clever artistic people out there could make those animals very easily. Although, you would need more than one strip of wallpaper to create a big animal (the giraffe for instance is 140 cm by 100cm!). If you wanted to go small, though, there's these cute little birds:

 

Or this:

Or this:

Anyway, dear readers, I've digressed big time.  Let's get back to the nitty gritty, shall we? 

This coffee table was given to Mr J and P by his Grandmother Gladys (she who painted roses and the occasional nude - I've never shown you the nude have I?  I will, one day!) for his 21st birthday.  There used to be an old map underneath the glass top but over the years, it became very faded.  We searched for a replacement but couldn't find anything suitable, so as a temporary measure, I bunged in a cheap bit of fabric from Ikea.  This "temporary measure" has been in place for some years now!

I bought this old desk from a yard sale for a couple of quid.  I painted it white and then decoupaged it with pages from Little Miss J and P's old Beano mags:

I had this old wardrobe door when I was living in a shared house ooooh decades ago now!  I painted it a hot pink and it look horrible and then painted it white, did a bit distressing and added a few shells and bob's yer uncle:

I've posted about this brassy looking magazine rack before.  Here's the before:

And the after:

I have masses of these wonderful posters given out free with The Guardian some years ago now.  These are just a very small selection of what I've got:

I've used a few of them to cover these shoe and boot boxes:

Any ideas of what to do with the rest of them would be greatly appreciated!

OK folks, that really is it!  Thanks for bearing with me and for your lovely comments on parts 1 and 2.

Byeeeeee xxxxxx.

A Mishmash of Style. Part 2.

We've had some gloriously sunny days in London Town with temperatures reaching a heady 18 degrees on some days.  Meanwhile, here at J and P Towers, I've been feeling poorly and very sorry for myself.  I've got a STINKING cold, the second one in as many months and I'm not a happy bunny. 

Oh well, that's enough moaning from me.  I'm soldiering on, dear readers, to present to you - part 2 in the Mishmash of Style series!

This time, I'm going to focus on the vintage and the ethnic.  (It's so exciting isn't it?  Isn't it?).

I'll start with some vintage stuff that I haven't shown you before.

I love this clock.  Sadly, it doesn't work anymore and our local clock mender type person (so-called) tells me that he can't fix it because he hasn't got the parts.  Call himself a clock mender - I don't think so.
 

This1960s clock is a terrible time keeper and has an annoyingly loud tick tock but I love it anyway.  It has an inscription on it which says "Presented by the Management and Staff of the HLB 5 November 1964".  How sweet.

This is my Yogi Bear from when I was an ickle girl.  Mr J and P is using this picture as his profile pic on Facebook!  I think I may have to steal his idea and have it as mine on Blogger.

A family heirloom.  A rocket lamp. From the 60s or 70s - one of those decades....



Ignore the clutter at the base of the lamp


 Lovely standard lamp from eBay.  Bought it off an Australian woman who lived in a very posh flat in very posh Highgate (North London) and who was going back to Oz.

Our dresser (not old) which houses, if you look closely (sorry for terrible pic), our collection of coffee pots and salt and pepper sets.  (I'll be boring you to death with my collections of egg cups, salt and pepper sets and jugs in a future post - oh lucky you!).

On the ethnic front, I used to have an obsession with all things Indian.  All in all, Mr J and P and I have been to India three times (different parts each time).  Loved its weird and wonderful ways.  Desperate to go back, hopefully when Little Miss is a bit older.

We have a Ganesh in virtually every room of the house.  Ganesh is the Hindu God of Obstacles and he's worshipped as a remover of obstacles, although he can also place obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked.  I might be driven to praying to him before the next jumble sale in that case!

These are just a small selection of our Ganeshes.  This one was a present from Mr J and P's bro.  It sure is big and heavy and doubles up as a perfect book end:

I love this hanging papier mache Ganesh atop Garuda (a mythical bird like creature) which dangles from a light in our hallway (bought from Varansi):

Ganesh and another god (I'm sorry to say that I've forgotten who the other god is - Shiva, I think) in our spare room:

This trio of gods are Jagannath, Baladeva and Subhadra - bought from Puri on the east coast of India:

You can just about see a small selection of my rather big collection of Ladybird books.

A cute little tin which we bought from outside a temple in Trichy in south India.  Haven't a clue what it was meant to contain.  Does anyone know?

We have loads of these Mexican tin ornaments throughout the house.  I've never been to Mexico, but these were prezzies from Mr J and P's bro who has:

An Indian elephant towel holder.  Don't think that was its original use!

Another family heirloom.  Great Grandma and Great Grandpappy J and P lived in Singapore in the 1930s.  The Buddha lamp base is from there and is topped with an Ikea shade.

Are we still awake? 

Well, folks, stay tuned for the next installment in a few days time where I'll be showing you my embellished/ revamped bit and bobs.  Oh the excitement of it all.....

Have a great weekend. xx



A Mishmash of Style. Part 1

At J and P Towers, today, we're having a little spring clean!  Or, in the words of Mr J and P, we're having "a good poke around in corners that aint never been poked before!"  Yes Sireeee.

Our home style, in case any of you darlings were wondering, is a little bit modern, a little kitsch, a bit vintage, a little ethnic and a little bit embellished.  Yes, you guessed it, it's a  mishmash of styles.

I thought I'd show you a few of my favourite things dotted around the house starting off with some modern objets.  First up is a cardboard stag.  Yes, you did read that correctly, here it is:
 

I bought the cardboard stag kit for Mr J and P two Xmases ago and he assembled it all by himself.  Didn't he do well?

A very modern cuckoo clock which permanently has the time of 10.15 on it because nobody in this house ever remembers to put in a new battery.

The standard lamp in our front room.  The base is a cheap one from Ikea and the shade is from Graham and Green, one of my favourite online shops. The shade is made from wallpaper by either Osborne and Little or Cole & Son, can't remember which now.

Very modern flying ducks in our downstairs loo.

Our loo walls are a calming shade of green NOT this strange mustard colour.  I blame the camera....

A modern take on the sunburst clock by Karlsson:

Now, people go on about Scandinavian style which is great but I'm a keen fan of the Dutch style.  We have Dutch friends and the home of one couple, in particular, is a wonderful mix of modern and kitsch (next time we go visit I'll take photos to show you, you won't be disappointed).  Looking around our house, my favourite kitschy items happen to be presents from our Dutch friends.  Yes, we're now looking at our kitsch stuff, (come on, keep up at the back please).  Take a look at this wonderful holder which we use for storing paper towels but which can also be used for toilet rolls or even magazines and newspapers:

Made from delicious Mexican oilcloth, it's from a shop called Kitsch Kitchen.  Check out the link here and drool over the bright plastic and oilcloth goodies.

I love my squirrel knob (er hem):

It's from Pakhuis Oost, it's well worth looking at their website here if you don't know it already.

I'm not sure that this is really kitsch but I'll bung it here anyway.  It's a Delftware milk jug.  It's sooo cute, I love it:

Look at this lovely photo frame.  It's got nearly everything a body could ever desire.  Ric-rac, pompoms and.....

CLOGS.  With Ribbons.  Swoooon......

An itsy bitsy photoframe with an equally itsy bitsy piccy of Little Miss J and P:

Well folks, that's it for one post.  Don't get too excited now, but I'll be posting Part 2 in a few days time.  I bet you can't wait.....

Far from Bootiful

On Sunday, I dragged myself out of bed early and took Mr J and P, Little Miss and her cousin, who was sleeping over, to our first car boot of the year.  Lordy, it was dire.  It took place in a dingey barn somewhere in Essex (Noak Hill, just in case you want to avoid it).  There were a measley 10 tables in all with a sea of dvds and the odd plastic toy thrown in for good measure.  We were in and out in about 2 minutes, it was that bad, and I was in a grumpy mood for the rest of the morning.

It put me in mind of terrible jumble sales I've been to where there's so little for sale that the helpers have had the time to fold the few clothes they have and neatly place them on the tables.  Soooo disappointing.   I like 'em piled high myself  as in this pic:

What have I been buying lately?  Sewing patterns that's what I've been buying.  I'm keen to make something from the fabric I bought at a recent jumble sale. 

I'm attempting the modern top on the right for starters

Bearing in mind that I've NEVER encountered a sewing pattern before, the emphasis has got to be on EASY:

I've been reading my Newnes Complete Needlecraft book (1970 ed) and getting to grips with terms such as basting, stay stitching, yokes, notched hems and so on.  So far, I've managed to pin the pattern to the material like so:



 It almost looks like I know what I'm doing doesn't it?  Well, we shall see, dear readers.  Wish me luck.

Other items I've got recently include this classic TG Green mixing bowl for a mere 25p at a jumble sale  (I saw one in a charity shop the other day priced at a ridiculous £12.50.  How mad is that?):

Metres of a cheerful orange and yellow floral fabric for £2.59 and an 80s Habitat tin with its Habitat sticker still intact (£1):

Before I love you and leave you, I was very honoured to receive an award from the fabulous Scarlett at Scarlett Loves Elvis .  Scarlett is an insaitiable bargain huntress and hilarious with it, and if you don't know her blog, why ever not?

The Liebster Blog award is awarded to smaller scale bloggers (with less than 300 followers).  Yay, let's hear it for smaller scale bloggers!  The rules say that you should post the award on a blog post and refer back to who nominated you and then nominate your favourite smaller blogs and let them know they've been awarded.  So, here goes:

Lovely Lucy at Tete en l'Air, The Vintage Knitter and Melissa at Clothwork who are all very creative and I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem deciphering sewing patterns.  Sigh.......

Gorgeous Nici at Giddy Little Miss whose "day to day ramblings" (her words, not mine) are a pleasure to read.

Fabulous Jo at Hesta & the Pugs whose vintage finds are to die for.

Check out these blogs immediately - you don't know what you're missing!