Inspiring Ingela

A post on How About Orange sent me to Ingela P Arrhenius' site and I was mighty glad I stopped by. Ingela is a retro inspired illustrator based in Stockholm and her work is fabulous. This is a chocolate box she designed:

Fings Wot I Like

Fancy Plants

Pride

Hooray! The Great Ebbo is painting again!

After Dave started full time work again, he didn't really have much time to paint. Then when he finally felt inspired enough (my words), he had hand injuries (both hands!). So for a long time, this unfinished painting has stared at me from the easel in the living room:

I actually quite liked the ghostly quality it had with the outlined cat perched on top of a butte (I looked it up!).

This weekend, he finally got the paints out again and finished 'Pride'.

Boot Sale Booty

The tiki gods smiled upon me today, my friends. After co-ercing David into another boot sale so soon after last weekend's, I found this Orchids of Hawaii tiki mug on the first stall I came to:

Tiki stuff is not easy to come by in England, so imagine my surprise when I found this Coco Joe's hula girl figure on the same stall:

It says HW2 on the bottom but I'm trying to figure out exactly how old it is. Soon, I came across a lovely couple who seemed to be boot sale fanatics. We spoke about the tendency to buy things and then wonder what to do with them when you get home. Despite this conversation, I bought a box of 8mm movie title joins from them. They let me have it for 10p:

The illustration is adorable and I love the brand logo in the top left corner. This is how I expect Switzerland to look when I finally visit. My final purchase was this Spear's MultiPuzzle game from the 1960s:

A bargain at 50p and I know some kids who will enjoy this game a lot.

That may have been MY final purchase, but I'm happy to say that Dave actually bought something this time. As I was buying my game, he found these vintage field glasses:

They seem to be made of brass and we have no idea how old they are but they work really well. The tiki stuff was my highlight though and I would've been happy if I'd found nothing else.

A Clue?

I've just come across this ceramic cat money bank on eBay:



It reminds me a lot of the enigmatic yellow object seen on The Brady Bunch which I blogged about here. The style is similar to the kind of thing I imagine would be on the Brady object's face.

The plot thickens... or does it? What do you think fellow sleuths?

KatOH - Daiba

While looking for more Shinzi Katoh fabulousness, I came across pictures of these bears...... and I was really pleased to see them.


When we were in Tokyo, my fabulous and gorgeous Japanese friend, Akiko took us to Odaiba.

image via WikiTravel

Shinzi KatOH!

Off to Bedfordshire

My bed has become nasty and hateful.

Here are a couple of ones I like the look of from The Sleep Room (yes, I'm aware they're almost identical):

The last one has storage underneath but I'm not sure if this affects comfort in any way.

Does anyone have any advice/recommendations?

Cooking up a Bargain

Today, I went to my first boot sale of the season. To be honest, it was a little disapointing but just as I had all but given up hope I found a few gems - all on the same stall.

These plates , made in Holland by Royal Sphinx, have the sweetest patterns. I particularly like the style of the birds and trees.


These two books aren't in fabulous condition but I love the cover designs - especially the cookery book.

The Illustrated Book of Magic Tricks by Will Dexter was published in 1957 and Perfect Cooking was published by Parkinson Cowan Appliances Limited in 1959. It appears to have been given upon purchase of one of their gas ovens which looked like this at that time.

The book has a few full page colour illustrations to go along with their 'entertaining tips';

as well as smaller artistic treats such as this seductive onion:

and these frolicking cloves of garlic(?):


I'm off now to sample one of the recipes contained within - Coconut Cake (sadly, I have to cook it first).

If you'd like to see more of the colour illustrations, I've uploaded them to my flickr stream.

Oh, Polly Q

Looking at polly q's home makes me happy.

And jealous.




Everything looks so cheerful and fun. I particularly love the cushions and the yellow ball pedestal clock.

This vintage coach poster (which hangs in her hallway) is also a treat:





It's the perfect picture to encapsulate the clear sunny day I'm experiencing in my slice of England today - except I'm not at Great Yarmouth, or anywhere near the seaside for that matter. Nor am I mending a fishing net... but it's sunny and bright and so is this poster.

See polly_q's flickr photostream here.

King of the Brady Jungle

Before I delve too much further into season 3 of The Brady Bunch, I wanted to share something that has intrigued me in season 2.

In 'The Liberation of Marcia Brady', something on the television captured my attention. No, it wasn't the delightful Marcia espousing her views on women's lib, it was the yellow 'object' ON the television set.

I'm a Rocket, Man

Kitchen Retro posted today about an interpretion of Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' by actor, Sebastian Cabot.

It made me chuckle because I also like to think about the meaning of lyrics when you speak them rather than sing them. It also reminded me of William Shatner's performance of "Rocket Man" at the Science Fiction Film Awards (if you want to skip the intro, the 'song' starts at 0:50).

This cracked me up when I first saw it. I didn't realise it was such a cult classic but have since seen it parodied on Family Guy.

If you enjoyed that, I suggest you search for his version of The Beatles', "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" which is also a treat.

If you preferred Shatner in his earlier Trekking days - you might enjoy this 'edge of your seat' fight scene from Star Trek:

Stella-r Design

I feel I should clarify something.


I'm aware that my last post about minimalism can seem a bit at odds with this blog which often features things I'm lusting after. However, in some ways I feel posting such things on here actually stops me from buying them. It's almost as if I can log it and forget about it. If it turns out to be something I REALLY want, I can find it again easily (my wishpot works in much the same way).


There is also the simple appreciation of beauty, good design and mid century style. There are things I really like that I would never buy as they wouldn't really fit the style of my home (even if I could afford them). Looking at such images can make me feel that little bit more creative.

It is in this vein that I present to you, Michelle Mason's Stella design:
'Stella' is made of felt and available as a colourful table centrepiece (above) or a much larger rug (below).



There is a picture of a squared (or rectangular) piece on the Michelle Mason website but it doesn't seem available at this time.

True Minimalism

Do you really need all that stuff?

I was living up to my namesake today and went surfing - blog surfing that is. You know where you click on a link in one blog, which takes you to another blog, which takes you to another blog...? A link on inspirationbubble led me to an interesting post on Retro Age Vintage Fabrics about how Gandhi owned less than ten things when he died. This linked to thought-provoking minimalist site, mnmlist and I read a post about how stuff has come to overwhelm us. I got inspired.

Now I'm already pretty minimalist really, but for ages I've been living with an abundance of mugs and some boring old plates that I bought when we first moved here. They're beige and I'm bored of them. I don't NEED so many mugs. I'm constantly coming across cool mugs that I would prefer. My place is so small I can't afford to waste space on things I don't love so I'm culling (the mugs in the picture aren't mine - I wouldn't mind having so many if they were).

Enthused, I went to one of the local charity shops and asked what stuff they'd take (or rather, wouldn't take) and came back determined to get rid of stuff I don't need or like. So far, I've sorted out my bedroom by reorganising my drawers and turfing clothes that I don't really wear anymore or shouldn't.

I can't stand clutter, especially in the bathroom so I transferred less-used items into a box and chucked out products that are never used. The bedroom and bathroom are now clean (which is usually enough to rejuvenate me) and I'm looking forward to living a more streamlined life. Hopefully, Dave will look critically at his clothes because our shared clothes cupboard is still in a bit of a state and I've thrown out all I can (he dreads these moments).

On to the kitchen!

images via Cemetarian & Lena's Blog

The Greg Brady Project

Here it is folks - interior designer extraordinaire, Greg Brady revamps an ordinary den into a swinging bachelor pad! I thought all of us budding retro home decorators could take a few tips from his genius.

Crowd the entrance foyer with decorative features. How about an owl mobile mixed with an abstract mod one. Why not try two? If you don't have space to hang it, just tack it to the wall! And don't forget flowers - paper or plastic are best.

Don't bother with furniture - barrels or crates will do. Your single bed will look a whole lot more stylish as a mattress on the floor. Is that a hookah I see before me?

Drape as many different types of patterned fabric as you can find, over as many different surfaces as you can find. Cover your walls with art - mix but don't match!

Your new room may inspire you to cultivate a whole new look for yourself.


I tend to lean towards the Marcia and Jan related episodes but 'Our Son, The Man' has to be my favourite episode so far. This is the one where Greg feels he is now a man (now he's in high school) and is in need of his own personal space. He is allowed to turn Mike's den into a bedroom decorated in his own personal style.

And what a style! I do wonder if the actor who played Greg, Barry Williams, had any input on the decor. Being a teenager, he could've given a few suggestions on what an ideal teenage pad would look like. I'm almost scared to admit that there are actually quite a few elements of this room that I like!

By the way, you can check out what Barry's up to now on his blog, The Greg Brady Project.

I'll leave you now with some immortal words of style guru Greg Brady, "Kids, what do they know about life?"