Before Christmas, when I actually had some earned money through ETSY shop sales & my $20 pocket money allowance, I splurged on a few books & I also received some for Christmas.
I adore collecting books for our home libraries & so often get disappointed when they turn out to not be so great. Money & postage wasted. The best bits in Amazon search & not much else worth looking at.
But in this batch I have found some little beauties!
I'm not quite sure which rock I was hiding under but I think I am possibly THE last person to come across Mollie Makes magazine, Tif Fussell aka Dottie Angel and Pip Lincolne from Meet me at Mikes. I apologise to you all! I don't get to read very many blogs, or buy too many magazines and I'm just not very savvy when it comes to knowing who is who & what the buzz is all about right now.
As I said, my rock is my house & I live in it. Thats about it.
Well its funny because all at about the same time, I noticed people talking about this Mollie Makes business, just as my friend Kass Hall blogged about meeting Tif Fussell and then I think I was even following Meet me at Mikes on Twitter not having any idea what it was all about when Pip Lincolne appeared on The Circle on TV.
I've blogged before about how things fall right out into my lap just when the timing is right and I am ready to SEE them!
Well blow me down with a feather. I was ready!
I had been feeling much frustration last year, more than any other, about the state of my house. Its not that I live in a hovel or anything, just that my house was/is a complete mish mash of new & old & filled with all sorts of my collectables & hobbies that it didn't seem to quite gel in my mind.
Raising 5 children and all that goes along with that means that money for projects or new additions AND time to put things in place result in home improvements happening at a snails pace.
So, lovely reading....
Mollie Makes
I finally figured out how to download magazines to my iPad [thanks Tamar, and doh! I already had Zinio, just wasn't really using it!] so I am now up to date with my downloaded Mollie Makes. Talk about love and feeling right at home!
I love this magazine for its beautiful pictures, gorgeous crafty projects & possibly most of all, reading about people who live creative lives & peeking into their businesses & their homes. Its also been a valuable resource for homebody unsavvy me who is not very well connected - for links to shops, products & people I just simply must have in my life! Great read.
Its a UK magazine so will cost you if you want to get the hardcopy but quite affordable indeed if you download through either zinio.com or through itunes in the app store. I think that is mostly the same thing. I used to buy through Zinio, and in fact did last time, but it then came through on an Apple invoice. So whatever works. You can also read it on your desktop if your phone is too small or you don't have an iPad!
So then I buy myself Dottie Angel...
Oh and by now I am feeling like I know which type of people I really belong to. The kind of people who I want in my very own tribe. Or to live on my expanding lovely commune type prairie [without the radical religion, cultism & polygamy] and with whom we could sew old things into new pretty new things, then feed chickens & collect eggs then sit around and drink lovely cups of tea [just forget that I don't yet drink tea, but I'm trying], a spot of painting and the kids would all frolick amonst the lambs & collect tadpoles at the creek bed and finally....
.....all would be right with the world.
Ahhhhh, can you picture it? Who's in?
Tif Fussell's alter ego is Dottie Angel - "a peachy eclectic bohemian woman of an uncertain age!" Some of her do's include:
- do have high hopes
- do think you are most peachy perfect
- do feel a little crafty at least twice a day
- do embrace all that is granny chic and give it a forever home
Her book is filled to the brim with inspiration. Vintage goodness, thrifting, upcycling, repurposing. Its magic. Anything & everything you could possibly find in an opshop, well Dottie Angel could turn it into some sort of scrumptious gorgeousness - for certain! And the stitching! Its put me into a frenzy of wanting to stitch anything & everything in sight. The more old floral sheets & patchwork loveliness I can get my hands the better. Pity the money doesn't extend very far but I don't have to do it ALL now. I can merrily sticth & craft & acquire slowly for the rest of my life! Yay!!
Its like a bible on granny chic. Which term by the way, I have only learned TODAY! I rarely read book forewords and introductions - I get straight to delicious. And I heard it earlier today sometime... hmmm where? I know, I saw it on Pinterest somewhere and I've pinned something about it. I thought to myself, "granny chic" hey? Ok, not bad.
We've had Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic bibles for years now and we've moved onto repurposing our granny finds from op shops because we are all wanting to be kinder to earth right? So yessss! What a great description for this new/old vintage/crafty/homely revolution we are moving through!
And now I read it in Tif's "DO's" list, twice in one day! Well, that is just uncanny. How bits of my life come together, never cease to amaze me.
So next, for Christmas I get a bunch of Pip Lincolnes books!
Filled with all sorts of cute upcycling projects & crafty goodness. And she's a Melbourne girl! Way to go!
One of the books is a sewing one. I don't do patterns really but I love all the inspiration and lots of things to get stuck into in all my spare time. Her newest book, 'Make Hey while the sun shines" is full of DIY crafty projects, some of which I might be able to get the kids to help. All add fun & colour to homes. I especially love the 'friendly blankets for cozy couples' and the 'geography seat'. There's a few knitting/crocheting projects which hopefully I can progress to at some stage too. Mostly I love the way the book has been put together, lots of lovely visuals and collections of interesting finds. Gorgeous! I also like the stiching guide & instructions at the back, holiday reading list and music playlist. Very cute indeed.
Between these three bibles on creativity, I have my DIY vision of projects I can do for my house, totally sorted. I can see too from all of these that it is also possible to have a bunch of old stuff, lots of modern stuff [read: Ikea] and throw it all together with lots of lovely eclectic, crafty home made & vintage goodness filling the gap between.
But wait there's more...
For Christmas I also received Design Sponge!
Design Sponge [Grace Bonney from Decor 8] showcases homes with fabulous design. Its a bible for home design and if I can borrow some words from Jonathan Adler who wrote the foreword...
"And now this tome that you are holding in your paws - four hundred pages of tips, inspiration, and general gorgeousness - perfectly captures the mood of the day. It reminds us that design is about inspiration, not snobism. It's about empowerment, self-expression, and pluck."
And that's really it in a nutshell. Perfectly said.
It is 100% delicious, heavy to carry and overflowing with ideas of how one goes about putting it all together - you know, putting it together in ones home! I love it. Now many of the bits are very swishy and out of reach for me financially but there's also DIY examples & perhaps I can make some things happen here which I otherwise would thought beyond my budget. There's also lots of very clean & organised & although eclectic, quite minimalist concepts, some of which just won't fit in a home containing many small humans. And the stuff belonging to those many small humans.
So that's where this other book below can help me bridge some gaps...
Lucky me also received Etcetera [Sibella Court] for Christmas!
I just found her website & shop tonight while writing this post. It looks all kinds of wonderful I am checking it out for sure tomorrow!
Now to her book! Its made out the most beautiful paper to touch. And its a masterpiece in capturing homes filled with collections & living among those treasured things. The book is a delight to flip through with all its ephemera sprawled across pages and woven through the whole the book. Its also full of impressive museum type collections and display ideas.
Sibella says "she is a list maker, a lover of beautiful things, a interior stylist & a paint colour designer who doesn't miss details."
Snap!
Ok, so I don't design paint colour, I just use it! And one can consider themselves an interior stylist of they have bought or made & moved into perfect position, every single thing in their own home, can they not? Ok not so much, but it is a great interest of mine. And there's great desire to keep working away, evolving my house.
Just thinking... Anyone seen War of the Roses? One of my faves. My great fear is that I'll get a divorce from Jeff when the house in finally done, I'm content & all there is left to do is plumping cushions. So luckily for me, I don't plan to finish. Shabby Chic, aspired to be there. Granny Chic, thats where I'm headed baby. Bohemian Whimsy Chic - you heard it first here on my blog, that is next in line.... Not sure after that. But no doubt there'll be something.
Well anyway, Etcetera, there's so much to love about this book. So much I love about this book. There's not alot of new in this book, not really much modern at all. There's lots of old, older and ancient even. There's handmade. There's historical. It really is like a dusty old museum full of living & lives lived. Total fascination. I have picked up this book several times and I see something delicate & whimsical & beautful and different, every time. I am so glad I bought it. I'm not sure it will appeal to the masses, certainly not the minimalists at all. It wasn't made for them, of that I am sure. My house will also never look like anything in this book, yet I find it amazing!!!! The book does have a place in my home and fits in here. And the book will be appeal to many, the sort of people who collect treasure and who like to have it around them. Who like to be surrounded by things of beauty, of history, hand made. I am one of those peeps.
Design Sponge & Etcetera, I had both wanted for a while and these two very much bridged the gap of home mish mash designing/putting together problems for me. I fit right smack in the middle of Design Sponge and Etcetera. CLICK!
Or at least I aspire to. Its the direction I'm taking my house. One little functional nook with interesting things at a time. Slowly evolving, at snails pace of course, over the many years I wish to live here.
So there you go, very inspired by all of these new books. I bet many of you could be too!
Kate xo
