"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. Time, self-pity, bitterness, and exhaustion can take Christmas out of the child, but you cannot take the child out of Christmas..."
Erma Bombeck
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Sunday, 20 December 2009
Erma Bombeck On Christmas
"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. Time, self-pity, bitterness, and exhaustion can take Christmas out of the child, but you cannot take the child out of Christmas..."
Erma Bombeck
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Christmas Entertainment Spots
Because these ever so slightly risque little animations make me giggle every time I see them and you all know that anything with a vintage image or two gets me over-excited. Bless my little heart...
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Twas the Week Before Christmas...
..And not a child in the house was washed. Mostly because the only child I've got has with his usual impeccable timing decided that this was just a downright lovely week to stay at home with a silly temperature and get under Mummy's feet while she did her up-most to put on the pantomime that is Christmas!
Oh my but it was a such a darling weekend. We went to see Nativity which was quite the most festively tear-blinkingly lovely film I've ever seen (though Finley hid behind his hands throughout and thereafter declared it "terrifying"), then spent Saturday tra-la-la-ing around the kind of enormous big shopping mall that brings out the Christmas beast in the most unlikely of candidates. There was gnocchi and red wine in Carluccios, a journal that made me swoon procurred in Selfridges for brain-storming the details of my top-secret project for 2010, and a handful of gifts bought for stockings...
And then it was on to baby-sit a beautiful house. The kind of house I wanted to shove in my handbag and refuse to give back. The kind of well appointed house where lo and behold everything works, and one doesn't have to peel away the seal of the fridge to grab the milk or faff about with the mysteries of digital television in order to sit down and feel positively faint at the sight of Robbie Williams dueting with my beloved Olly (my cards are on the table there aren't they!). The kind of house where life is easy because money makes it that way and thoughts and idea's come-a-tumbling because it belongs to someone else and one need not worry about the memories lining the minamalist surfaces but can instead curl up on the couch and wait for gorgeous boyfriend to do something spectacular with haddock and gorgonzola.
The next day after breakfast-a-deux we went hunting for a Christmas tree, though the very thought of dragging a tree into the house before the ritual that is Tree-Decorating Day on the 17th was giving me palpitations and I could barely explain such vaguely ludicrous trauma to Richard who set about his mission with all the enthusiasm of a festive elf. And so it was that we stood dithering in quite the coldest "room" full of trees, debating the merits of a most peculiar blue tree and finally settling upon an eight foot tree with a long trunk and well balanced branches just perfect for the eclectic, rather bonkers collection of decorations I intend to throw at it in the next few days, and which could I suspect bring about the early death of what has been a beautiful friendship with a man whose heart hurts in the midst of all my "junk".
And then we went to collect my little boy who had spent the afternoon following a reindeer driven sleigh carrying Santa and had developed a temperature in the early forties for his trouble. A little boy who spent the next two days slipping deliriously in and out of sleep, chattering to himself and resisting all attempts to make him comfortable, then sprang out of bed this morning, dragged on his party tie and declared himself well enough to attend the Christmas Shebang in school!
So here I am: a week before Christmas with a naked tree gracing my dining room and a list as long as my arm of jobs that need doing. And am I doing them? Well...the short answer is no. I figure Christmas will still be on it's way tomorrow and this afternoon it would be ok to make the house twinkly for a little boy liable to be exhausted after a day partying. I think it would be perfectly fine to re-read a lovely little post about Brocantehome that made me cry (I love the idea of being someone's blog-crush!), indulge my new piccallili fetish and scribble in my new journal.
Christmas will still be on it's way tomorrow...
Friday, 11 December 2009
Puttery Post!
Hello Housekeepers! At the beginning of the week I sent out details of the all-new Puttery Post for 2010 in the Brocante Newsletter, but quite forgot to mention it here. And so for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about and all those of you who have been kind enough to sign up already (thank-you, thank you, thank you!) I hereby provide a few more details...
Each Puttery Post email will be in your in-box first thing in the morning and will include one teeny tiny ALL-NEW puttery treat with which to brighten your day! Based around an (accessible!) calendar of vintage housekeeping routines, rituals and celebrations it will hopefully show you the way to create routine while reminding you to honour the teeny tiny things that go such a long way to making life so scrumptious! Alongside a list of lovely little BrocanteHome-made celebrations I will be also basing the treats around seasonal delights and annual celebrations like Easter and Valentines alongside lesser known calendar events like St Bastilles Day and Friendship day to ensure we always have a little something to celebrate! And at the end of each month I will send you a link to a pretty download with all of the puttery treats mailed to you listed so you have a copy to slip into your BrocanteHome Housekeepers Planner...
There are two ways to pay, either a tiny amount monthly or a reduced rate annual subscription both of which you can find in my Etsy store and should you have any questions, please, please do not hesitate to ask me and I will do my best to help on Monday morning when I return from house-sitting something beeeeeeeeeuuuuuutiful with Richard.
Have a lovely weekend Darlings.x
P.S: Someone has been kind enough to nominate BrocanteHome for a Little Blog Award and I would really appreciate it if you would pop over and vote for me, pretty please....
Among His Effects We Found A Photograph
My Mother is beautiful as a flapper
She is so in love
that she has been gazing
secretly at my father
for forty years.
He’s in uniform,
with puttees and swagger stick,
a tiny cork mustache
bobbing above a shore line of teeth.
They are “poor but happy.”
In his hand is a lost book
he had memorized,
with a thousand clear answers
to everything.
Ed Ochester
My Space
Tina over at The English Muse recently posted about the really rather wonderful column that is My Space in the Guardian newspaper. Featuring the "cherished room" of many a British star in their own field whether it be writing, fashion designing, cooking or acting, etc, etc, the column throws up a myriad of rooms and more pertinently from my point of view a gorgeous explanation of the rooms history, its inspiration and the reasons why it is indeed so very cherished by it's owner...
While Tina featured the rooms of British fashion designers, I have just spent many a happy moment re-visiting my favorite spaces online and found myself drawn to an eclectic collection of rooms which if drawn together in one house could quite easily satisfy my every creative whim...
First on my list, is the room above, Sam Roddick's "film room", a quirky room stuffed with nostalgia and the kind of reclaimed "objet trouve" girls like me dream of happening upon. I rather think the arrangement of old portraits above the fireplace is nothing short of wonderful...
Next up on my list is milliner Stephen Jones garden room, a space he describes as the perfect place to throw a milliners tea-party. I mean really, who wouldn't love to don a scrumptiously silly fascinator (love that word!) and eat cupcakes in an ivy sprinkled dining room?
For a room in which to read, or indeed, play Monopoly by the fire, I choose Jan Pienowski's living room. Look at those books! Look at that divine red leather reading chair! Jan is the author of Meg and Mog and has lived in this house for more than 43 years. To me this is the epitome of living with what you love, and honouring the four walls of a house you are thoroughly committed to...
Next on my list is Alice Temperleys studio. Renowned for her oh so pretty dresses, this is such a feminine space and if you look closely you will see some truly quirky rather wonderful objects like that lamp hanging from the rafters. Surrounding yourself with all manner of collectibles seems like such an incredibly wise way to spark creativity. I can't think straight in a spartan space...
In my experience conservatories are often the rooms that fall foul to bad decoration as if those who build them issue rules on their design and will only allow the provision of a wicker sofa or two, a few bundles of twigs and the odd rubber plant or else the entire contraption will be knocked to the ground. Which is why m'dears I find Celia Birtwells Flower Room so utterly charming. Even with fairy lights, gingham and welly boots abounding, this still manages to be a peaceful space and seems just right for quiet contemplation or indeed sketching the garden outside...
Next up is Lauren Child's (of Charlie and Lola fame) kitchen. Isn't it just downright fabulous? I love the idea of kids banging on the piano while I stir spaghetti and I do believe there is absolutely nothing precious about this room at all. I want to be sitting right at that table, blogging and drinking coffee while Finn sits next to me splashing paint and telling me all about his day...
And finally if you don't mind, I want to retire to Lulu Guinness's bedroom. Though I can't quite take to the end-table at the foot of the bed, the rest of the room is so fabulously girly and I rather think it must be heaven to wake up under a satin quilt and the sprawling branches of a magnolia tree. Divine, divine, divine...
And so that concludes my little tour of other peoples houses. Which is your favorite? Which gives you the heebie jeebies and would have you hiring a skip in which to banish all that ugliness? Which room in your house is the one you most adore?
So many questions, so little time. I keep forgetting it's Christmas.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
The Little Things
It's the little things. It's the sepia tinged doillies tied with raffia around curly twigs, the first time you hear Fairytale of New York this Christmas, a Frys Chocolate Cream.
It's the green tinged white roses he leaves lying in the porch for you to find, gloves with the teeniest row of pearly buttons, and a late afternoon call from your Mum wondering why you have been so quiet all day. It's December, a little boy fretting about his performance as a shepherd, the Aran jumper wrapped hot water bottle that soothes your aching tummy and a tiny shrub of evergreen fir sitting in a jam-jar on your bedside.
It's the tiny things: a recipe for cinnamon roasted almonds discovered on Twitter, a glass of warm blackcurrant, the eucalyptus on your hanky. It's the lists you are making compulsively, thank-you's beamed telepathically to those who sign up for your year of Puttery Treats, the odd little message your little boy leaves on your pillow, the wind blu and blu + the howse woz batered but that bird she had wings of fyre, and the cozy hum of the boiler springing into life at six o'clock in the morning.
It is rows of tiny children wrapped up like snowmen, Little Clusters of loveliness, and the lavender soap you wash your hands in daily. It's Christmas Cards wrapped in ribbon tied bundles, black pudding and the moment you crawl exhausted into an icy cold bed and swoosh your arms and legs in and out like a snow angel on speed. It's a china cupful of Darjeeling first thing in the morning, a crumpet topped with Marmite cheese, and a pair of boots that make him laugh out loud and declare he will no longer be seen in public with you.
It's tangoing hunch-backed down the hall to the bathroom with your babba, chicken fried rice and a blanket sprinkled with rhinestones. It's the resolve to wear the boots ALL DAY EVERYDAY until he grows to love them because they are surgically attached to your feet, scaring yourself witless watching Paranormal Activity and the bliss that is knowing Christmas has arrived because you have just bought your annual copy of the Radio Times.
It's the small things: his little felt-tipped hand clutched in yours on the way to school, a Shepherds Pie, the school Christmas fair, and an old lady who stops you and your Mum in the streets and says "Now tell me, my Darlings, do I look a fool in this hat?"
The tiny things, the little things, the small things.
This, that, everything.
Gorgeous One-Off Shops
After much dithering about the state of the magazine nation I have come to the conclusion that Easy Living is almost definitely the magazine most in tune with the lifestyle a heap of Vintage Housekeeping bloggers are waxing lyrical about daily...
This month it has outdone itself with a supplement featuring fifty of the finest independant shops in the UK, many of which, rather deliciously have online stores too.
So in an effort to make last minute Christmas shopping a little easier for my fellow UK readers I hereby present quick links to the most scrumptious of the scrumptious. Don't blame me if you spend a silly amount of money now will you?
Made In Hastings.
Winner of the Country Living Business award 2007, Made In Hastings is a co-operative featuring an eclecticly delicious collection of handmade often local loveliness. Look out for the Sophie Azimont paper bunting...
Berry Red
Featured on Brocante before, Berry Red is a Hereford based store with a rather stunning website featuring all the latest Greengate products, a collection of vintage wares and much else besides. Love, love, lurve the Squint style Kimono Fabric Bench...
Colloco
With a simple, easy to navigate website, Colloco is a one-stop shop for loveliness with a huge range of wares perfect for Christmas shopping. I particularly love the Keep Calm It's Only Christmas cards...
Law and Company
Based in my sisters neck of the woods, I do believe I may have received a gift or two from this lovely little boutique. An ode to decorative living, there is a very hard to find in the UK, rustic crown, available in the Christmas section...
Re-Found
Now ubiqtuous on every Uk Vintage shoppers boutique list, Re-Found is described by Easy Living as "shopping nirvana, plain and simple" and I couldn't let this list pass without directing you to go see the French "Antique" Journals which are quite frankly close being the nearest thing I've ever seen to notebook heaven.
Decorative Country Living
Still one of the finest County lifestyle boutiques in the UK today, Decorative Living's online store is a credit to Amanda Knox's eye for truly beautiful things. The mirrors are to die for...
Period Features
Like happening across an old fashioned hardware shop made pretty, Period Features is jam-packed full of quirky loveliness you probably didn't know you know you need, but will henceforth find yourself unable to live without. Case in point: almost everything in the Sundries collection.
Wren
Owned by sisters Casey Gregory and Jemima Johnson, the newly opened online division of Wren is quirky enough to charm your pants off. Featuring everything from old fashioned wooden skipping ropes to Cosy Cottage Socks (yum!), the French Lavender Glass Bottle is (obviously!) a favorite of mine this year...
Sage Inspired By Life
Smacked with luxury, Sage online is a scrumptiously well-edited collection of tiny bits of cosy nothing selected by Becky Sage. My favorites? The rustic-ly lovely sticky notes.
Lavenders Blue
Described as "a real piece of France for you and your home", Lavenders Blue features a lovely collection of French furniture, vintage good's and accessories. I would sell my Mummy for the grey Library Bookcase with Ladder, but obviously I would rather you didn't tell her...
Diana Forrester
Based in Edinburgh, this online store features an affordable collection of lovelies for the home, some of which are rare around these parts, not least of all the gorgeous collection of embroidered shelf-trim so beloved of Vintage Housekeepers from near and far.
And finally...
McCully & Crane
Who cared enough to create a lovely little tour of their shop for our pleasure, and have such a fine little, rather bonkers collection of vintage lovelies, I feel inspired to find my way to Rye because online shopping isn't available. Where Rye may be...
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Last Christmas
It is a rare day indeed that I find myself chucking a book into a shopping basket full of sausages and pomegranates, but occasionally the book fairy taps me on the shoulder in the most unlikely of places and whispers, Psssst, there! That one is for you! And I tell you, my little fluttery literary advisor is very rarely wrong...
Because though Julia Williams book is blessed with the kind of cover that would usually conjure up nightmares of the sanitized country-life chick(en) lit kind, I was seduced m'dears by the double whammy that is a) adding another little book to my Christmas novel pile, and b) happening across a story that features a woman who makes her living peddling domestic advice on the internet!
You see, Catherine Tinsall (gedditt??) the heroine of Last Christmas is otherwise known as The Happy Homemaker, the internet Goddess of all things Domestic and this is the tale of the Christmas her carefully stitched up life begins to come undone. Featuring a cast of characters rather cheesily named Noel, Gabriel and Marianne all of whom are muddling their way through the festive season in a village called Hope, I can't say I've got high hopes for great literary shakes but methinks there is a time and a place for the cosiest of Christmas stories and that time, my Darling Housekeepers is now when nothing, but nothing, sounds snugglier than climbing into bed early with a cup of piping hot spiced chai, a Lindt reindeer and a hop and a skip into a festive tale guaranteed to have a fairy lit happy ending.
Night Night Sweethearts.x
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Christine Bauer
Just because I thought you might be in need of a little inspiration this morning I hereby present a studio to die for, styled and photographed by Christine Bauer...
As I suggested in my last list of puttery treats I rather think it is time we committed to some scrumptiously new ideas for a new decade and it seems to me that creating a dedicated, gloriously gorgeous place to work, may just be the place to start...
Anyone care to share their creative ambitions for 2010? I rather think mine might have to be a secret for the moment...
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Puttery Treats For December
Ah December. Lovely, cosy, demented December! In between the shopping and the planning and the decorating and the rhinestones and the glitter there is still a little life to be lived, a house to be kept and dreams to be shored up, which means I really rather think it is time for a few puttery treats!
* Fill jam jars with bird seed, add a pretty tweety label, and top with a doillie. Leave by the door ready to take with you every time you go into the garden...
* December is a month studded liberally with pure inspiration, so take the opportunity to start dwelling on a project that will become your raison d'etre for 2010. Open a new bookmark folder on your browser, or start a Posterous blog and begin collating anything related to your new project. It's a new decade: perhaps it is time for a new dream? It doesn't have to be big, it just has to something that is authentically you now and will be absolutely you tomorrow...
* Plant Winter pansy's in vintage bundt tins. Fill jelly moulds with mercury glass baubles.
* Fill the mantlepiece with permanent Christmas Cards. Paste vintage wallpaper over tiny blank canvases and collage a vintage Christmas postcard over it.
* Line the base of a pretty tray with reindeer moss and fill it with pillar candles for an understated fragrant breakfast table centrepiece...
* Teach the kids to knit and work each evening on little squares to be stitched together for a family Granny blanket. Use up old scraps of wool and try not to get too pernickety about the quality of the little one's knitting!
*Fill the prettiest floral vintage bowl you can find with lengths of crocheted lace, mercury glass or silver ornaments and old vintage photographs and place it on your bedside for a bowlful of vintage Christmas cheer.
* I like to think of Christmas decorating as a process of layering, culminating in the decorating of the tree and the lighting of the lights in mid December. Start with scent. Spray a little Christmas into the air. Play Christmas music. Patch cushions and old blankets with floral jingle bells or snowflakes. Add pine cones to a bowl-ful of shiny red apples.Wrap soap in vintage Christmas Hankies and pile into a footed dish. Add a little Christmas to every surface in the house before you begin to decorate...
* Grate a little nutmeg or stir a little cinnamon into your children's bedtime drink and tell them it is Christmas milk...
P.S: Don't forget you can get 550 Puttery Treats here and a few in your in-box monthly when you sign up for the BrocanteHome newsletter!
A Reminder From Mrs Beeton
"In December, the principal household duty lies in preparing for the creature comforts of those near and dear to us, so as to meet old Christmas with a happy face, a contented mind, and a full larder; and in stoning the plums, washing the currants, cutting the citron, beating the eggs, and mixing the pudding, a housewife is not unworthily greeting the genial season of all good things".
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