Tuesday Huesday: Stained Stairs

May 8th, 2012

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flight of stair risers stained with different marquetry patterns

I saw a copy of an image of these stained stairs and sought out the original to see how they were done. Well, after a nifty little Google image search trick*, I found the people who actually did them. They were designed a few years ago by Melanie Royals and stained by her studio assistant, Melissa. The designs which mimic marquetry work are stencilled, or more accurately “Modello-ed”, then stained by hand – hugely time & labour intensive, but what a result!

As well as stairs, her designs look amazing on walls and on floors too – here are lots more photos of their handiwork.

*Go to the Google homepage, click on the ‘Images’ link found on the top toolbar, enter/paste the url of the image file you found on the internet into the search bar. To find the url, right click/control click on the image and select “copy image location”. Finally, click on the camera icon. All the instances of the image that are online will be magically listed!

Ideal Home Photoshoot

May 5th, 2012

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photography light illuminating vintage Kenneth Townsend "London Series" tiles and other items on a shelf

In our last post we mentioned this week’s photoshoot of our home.

photography equipment in a pile on the floor of our sitting room

Photographer, Simon Whitmore and stylist, Sally Denning arrived on Wednesday morning laden down with loads of equipment – cameras, lenses, lights, light reflectors, computers – all essential kit to produce glossy magazine-quality images.

photography light illuminating a shelf in our sitting room with a view through to our kitchen and laundry area

There were hours of arranging, discussing and reviewing images. Our blog photos take us quite a bit of time, but this is a different world!

Photographer, Simon Whitmore and stylist, Sally Denning in our kitchen discussing photos

The house feature is for Ideal Home Magazine and will be published sometime in the Autumn.

Forthcoming Attractions: Early May 2012

May 4th, 2012

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vintage orange enamel Cathrineholm "Lotus" kettle with vintage orange floral patterned apron and orange floral print Staffordshire Pottery mug

There isn’t the usual number of items in this Forthcoming Attractions post. It’s just that they really summed up the last few days. We had a magazine photoshoot on Wednesday chez H is for Home. The groovy flower-power apron represents the hours of cleaning we had to do before they arrived – and the fabulous Cathrineholm kettle represents the endless cups of tea that kept us going! It’s not that we live in a dirty house or anything, but there’s a constant battle against coal dust & dog fur.

Both items will be hitting the shop soon – and a further post about the photoshoot will follow very shortly too!

Wednesday Wish: Artists’ Textiles 1940-1976

May 2nd, 2012

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cover of "Artists' Textiles 1940-1976" by Geoff Rayner, Richard Chamberlain and Annamarie Stapleton

We normally talk about books in our Bookmarks blog series – but we’ve not seen this title yet as it is yet unpublished!

Artists’ Textiles 1940-1976 by Geoff Rayner, Richard Chamberlain and Annamarie Stapleton is due out later this month – so keep your eyes peeled for a review!

Tuesday Huesday: Mariem Besbes

May 1st, 2012

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Mariem Besbes hand-dyed fabrics

Mariem Besbes is a Paris-born Tunisian craftswoman who weaves textiles from wool. She colours them with her own hand-mixed dyes made from henna, madder and other natural materials to produce the most vibrant reds, earthy browns, lush greens, zingy yellows, aquamarine blues, regal purples…

Visit her website to see many more examples of her exquisite fabrics!

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