Off to the Beach?

If only!

This gorgeous image, featuring our best-selling BEACH LIFE cushion, was styled by the lovely Selina Lake for Country Homes and Interiors magazine.  The bright, bold colours always make me think of summer holidays on the beach.  All very rockpools, flip-flops, deckchairs and beach huts!

So we will keep wishing and who knows... maybe!

A Vintage Bowl Full of Summer

What can be better than a breakfast of Dorset cereal [we are absolutely determined to win one of those campervans!] and blueberries all served up in a fabulous vintage bowl.  I recently sourced some lovely vintage cups, saucers, plates and bowls for the shop but these handpainted bowls are sooo beautiful, I just couldn't bear to part with them.  They are old but have no makers marks so I have no idea who manufactured them...

VINTAGE SUMMER SALE!

It's that time of year again... when we launch our fabulous VINTAGE SUMMER SALE!  This summer we are offering a wonderful range of vintage-inspired, home accessories and gifts at an amazing 40% OFF!  If you can't make it to our lifestyle store, in beautiful North Yorkshire, then here's just a sample of some of the gorgeous designs available...

Sale starts, in store and online, 

Saturday 16th July 2011

A Window for Summer...

Yesterday I spent a few happy hours designing new window displays for the shop.  Feeling very summery [it's amazing what a bit of sunshine will do to a person], I went for a bright, garden-party look complete with wonderful, vintage French day bed, piles of gorgeous linen cushions, in zingy citrus colours, all topped off with a rainbow of paper lanterns!

Blooming Summer!

Our garden is a farm garden.  For those not in the know, this means that the farmer NEVER gardens and his wife, yours truly, rarely has the spare time to give it the attention it needs [all on her lonesome].  The result - a partially [and I do mean partially] cultivated field!

I went out to pick some flowers yesterday and realised, pretty quickly, that we have little left in bloom in the garden at this time of year apart from wild flowers.  Bad planning, I hear you say!  Planning?  What planning?  I rest my case!  I did find enough flowers to create a couple of pretty posies for the house and workshop...

 

Bring the summer in...

I put this mood board together to remind myself of what summer feels like - even when it isn't apparent outside!  This is just a small selection of the lovely things we have in store right now.  The gorgeous images were taken by Kevin Peschke of Millennium Studios. I'm now dreaming of blue skies, sandy beaches [preferably deserted ones!]and white-washed beach houses...