We can now officially say that Christmas is next month…yikes! Do not fear, we are here to help you through the festive madness with some great gift ideas albeit whilst eating lots of mince pies. So to kick off the season we are jumping straight in with a selection of beautiful red products – from cushions to tea cosies – you won’t want to put them under the tree!

For more lovely products visit The Courtyard Boutique.

 

If you’re like us and have been captivated by the recent advert for Twinings Tea and can’t help singing along to the soundtrack we have a treat for you (and us!). Charlene Soraia, a UK singer songwriter is the artist behind the beautiful voice and the video below is the complete song…so get a very appropiate cup of tea and sit back and be swept away by the mellow tones of Soraia. To listen to more of her music you can visit her website here http://charlenesoraia.com/

So, as promised (a little later than planned ) we have managed to make a start on some hand embroidered cards in honour of the amazing Penguin Threads covers by Jillian Tamale that we coverd in our last post.

As you can see from the image above, we have made a start, please don’t judge us on our speed, we have been very busy of late putting the final touches to some new products for the launch of the site! Helping us on our way with our new project was the lovely Stitchable Stationery pack from Sublime Stitching. Jenny Hart cleverly guides you through the stages and the final result is a beautiful textured card, your very own piece of art that you can send to your nearest and dearest!

Well, we better get back to it and hopefully finish this design quick smart and on to the next! You never know, you may find a little hand made greeting in one of your orders some time soon!

We came across this colourful image of a very neatly stacked selection of Penguin book spines, it totally brightened up our day and thought we’d share the love and hopefully brighten yours too!

This got us thinking about all those other great penguin book covers, past and present. We got to searching and came across an array of stunning designs. Some of which we were familiar with, and others that we were not, but that’s the beauty with Penguin covers, every time we re-visit this area, we find others to add to our favourites list.

Needless to say there is a whole host of images available online, and many like-minded Penguin-loving geeks are out there posting their albums (thank you!). Have a little look at Mr Bizzle’s great set on flickr for more!

There’s something particularly special about Jillian Tamale’s Penguin commissions, successfully sealing not one but two commissions for the loveable publishers, including a set of cloth coloured editions and now a Penguin Threads series.

Jillian’s second commission was to design hand-sewn covers for three classics for the Penguin Threads series: Jane Austen’s Emma, Frances Hodges Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Although the final covers are reproductions of the original artwork (would have been a bit crazy to embroider each individual cover!), they maintain some of the tactile contours of the original threads. Check out her blog for more info.

We are in ore of her handy work and it has inspired us here to get making! We will endeavour to post some proof of this pledge to pick up our needles and hoops! Check back soon for an update…

 

What a tasty display of furniture! This bold Kartell installation at Salone could not be any louder, with neon lights and pieces that include Philippe Starck’s Louis Ghost chair you could not wish for more.

via weheart