Another bear...

Yesterday I wrote about a nice antique bear I'd seen at a friend's house (and then hunted out on eBay). Now I'm writing about bears AGAIN. 

I even wrote about another nice bear, I've just remembered, only a couple of months ago too. Lordy, have I no imagination? Come on. They're good bears. Enjoy them! These bears are the work of illustrator, Sandra Dieckmann.



Sandra is a 29-year-old

Two bears

Last week, I was at the flat of friend and artist Russell Loughlan, whose poignant animals-thinking-deeply artworks I wrote about recently. He had a new junk market purchase sitting on the kitchen table. 

As you might imagine, Russell's place is full of animal-related decor and art. So hardly surprising that this one doesn't buck the trend. Isn't he nice?



Funnily enough, my neighbours (whose

Bathrooms have feeling(s) too...

Hello, it's Abi here – sorry for the radio silence but I've been a bit ill and then went off to Marrakesh for a week (expect a post on all things Moorish soon). 

So, after Kate opened up the proverbial can (excuse the pun) when she posted a much-debated picture, it got me thinking about bathrooms. 




You can buy this original, 1956 Briggs Bathroom advert from Arcanium Antiques on Etsy 

Eve Spencer's provocative wallpaper

Well... not only provocative wallpaper. The stuff you'll see below – all created by wallpapers and fabric company, Eve Spencer – that falls under that category is also most beautiful. Though the hawk killing a cat, daddy long legs and "Oil Bird" designs may not be everyone's fancy.

Among some of the other prints, there is just the beautiful – but with a non frilly, girlie angle (so much

Away day

A little post to say there won't be a post today. 

But that meanwhile, you might like to check out some archive posts... see below. (And I'll be back on Monday with some really amazing wallpapers to ogle.)



You could find out from the head of a locations agency how to turn your own house into a film location... Or how to arrange stuff as beautifully as Supermarket Sarah does it... Maybe your

At home in young Japan

Today, I'm handing over to friend and former colleague Andrew Pothecary. We used to work together at the Daily Telegraph, but these days he lives in Tokyo, where he recently photographed and designed a beautiful, fascinating book about the the interiors styles of young Japanese people. Over to Andrew...



A shelf in the home of Youta Matsuoka, aka the artist JonJon Green. More details below

How

Rescued 1970s children's book cards

One of Alison Sye's fans compares her to a Womble in a comment on the artist's blog. It's a pretty good description: since Alison specialises, just like the fictitious 1970s inhabitants of Wimbledon Common, in "making good use of the things everyday folk leave behind"*.

Among a few other things, Alison does a very nice line in unusual, hand-stitched cards. And right now she's doing a giveaway of

Herman Miller, an animated history

Essentially this is a 108-second marketing video for Herman Miller. 

But when your marketing video is also a beautifully animated 108-year history of your iconic design company, and name-checks mid-century legends including Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Alexander Girard and Isamu Noguchi – well, it's kind of worth watching.




And if you like this, you'll probably love the Eames

Ikea's old new table

The first piece of flat-pack furniture Ikea ever sold? Right here.

And now Ikea is reissuing this 1956-designed classic, and selling it again in stores for £40 from next month after designers there recently found the original drawings for it in the company's archives.




The new table, renamed the Lövbacken, is almost entirely faithful to the original design, with its classic midcentury

1950s grocery signs from Pedlars

This lovely set of American grocery store sales signs is for sale as part of Vintage Friday at Pedlars. 


Sold as trios (you can buy prunes/pork and beans/raisins, or palm soap/mayonnaise/evaporated milk) they are £49 a set. Great kitchen wall decor.





Stock is limited (they are originals) so get in quick if you want them. Pedlars.co.uk

Russell Loughlan's emotional animals

I love Russell Loughlan's work. It makes me feel a bit tearful looking at it sometimes. 

He draws animals onto salvaged maps, pages from books or old postcards, and gives them feelings (quite complex ones). Simple. But very beautiful and strangely moving.

















If you're in London, Russell has his first solo exhibition on at the Beardsmore Gallery in NW5, opening tomorrow for ten days

Hurrah for Park Hill Estate

Why? The sprawling 1960s-built estate in Sheffield is one of six British buildings shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize (the winner is announced in September). 

The Grade II Listed estate – the largest listed structure in Europe – which sits high on one of Sheffield's surrounding hills, was nearly demolished in the late 1990s but got saved when English Heritage gave it its listed status.

Before and after in Berlin

I like interiors. I like writing about them, looking at them and creating nice spaces to spend time in... in my own home, at least. Which was what I discovered when I agreed to help a friend do up his new flat in Berlin last year.

Because, oh my god. Doing someone else's interior – a friend's? In another city to the one you live in? Where you don't speak the language or know any of the shops?

Exhibition: Elisabeth Blanchet's photographs of the Excalibur estate

I first read about the Excalibur estate in southeast London in a magazine story by the photo-journo duo, Megan Taylor and Ros Anderson. 

They covered this 150,000-strong post-war mini village of prefab bungalows when news of its impending redevelopment/destruction was announced last year. The portraits and interviews are lovely – you can check them out here. Meanwhile, another photographer,

Pattern porn for textiles geeks

Pattern Box is a brilliant idea: take a collection of beautiful, contemporary textile designs – in this case, a collection of 100 curated by New York City’ s celebrated Textile Arts Center – and turn them into postcards.


The set costs £14.99 (RRP) and is published by Princeton Architectural Press. You can buy it from here. Also included is a booklet about the designers, highlighting their

Owl many?

Are you over owls? They have done the rounds, somewhat (I haven't done a count in my house, but can see three just in my office as I type).

But just as you may have been thinking you couldn't look another retro, line-drawn beast in the feathers... along comes this.



This is a different class of owl altogether. This owl looks edgy. You want to know what he's got going on. You want to hang out

Folklore at Aesop

Do you know the lovely shop Folklore, a place that sells pared down and beautifully-made simple objects? 

I have featured some of their more affordable products here before, but they recently collaborated with Aesop, the Aussie skin-care brand of comparable stylistic leanings, and set themselves up a presence in the brand's north London branch to celebrate Aesop's anniversary.






More than

Boring desk rejuvenator

The product I'm about to share may not have the sort of aesthetics that get me hot under the collar, but there's quite a lot to be said for a product that gives you back some desk space. 

Especially if, like me, you work from home and quite like to tidy things away at the end of the day so your work clutter is a less prominent part of your home-life. But, like me, you also fail...



I've got a

Paul Farrell's black bear cushions: but what about that sweatshirt?

Last week I wrote about the colourful work of illustration company, Kitty McCall – which you can buy from a design company called Unlimited.

While I was browsing through their other stuff, I found a beautiful bear print designed by Paul Farrell, whose beautiful bird prints I've featured before.



I posted the bear on Facebook and the bear was popular. In fact, there's even been a request to

The best fireplace in the world?

Yeah, it's totally the wrong time of the year to be showing you a fireplace, I know. But when I discovered this wonderful work of art (quite literally) I had to give it an unseasonal share.

The fireplace is designed by the Cincinnati-based Rookwood Pottery Company, founded in 1880 by Maria Longworth Nichols and the first female-owned US manufacturing company. And I can't imagine liking a

New Designers 2013

Yesterday afternoon I popped into the preview of New Designers, the annual exhibition in London showcasing emerging design talent. 



3,000 new graduates are selected to appear and share their wares with the public during the two-week period the show runs. It happens in two parts, and Part Two is the one I was interested to see, as it has a big interiors and illustration focus. It runs until 5

Introducing... Kitty McCall

These colourful, geometric prints remind me of a cross between the Jean Helion painting I saw in the Tate Modern recently, and Collier Campbell's 1983 Cote D'Azur fabric design, which I think my mum once had as curtains.  

The prints are the work of design company Kitty McCall, aka Catherine Nice, whose inspirations includes cubism, and whose background is fashion and textile design (now it

House porn Tuesday: buy Richard Rogers' 1968-built home

Rogers House, in Wimbledon, southwest London is a snip at £3,200,000. A tiny bit out of reach? Oh well. 

You can still steal some spectacular ideas from the – original – colour scheme in the modernist home, which is still owned by the family of its designer, Richard Rogers, the architect behind landmarks including the Pompidou Centre and the Lloyds building.



Images © Richard Powers


Richard

Terrible estate agent photos

Anyone who's ever trawled property selling websites, or even the flatshare ones, will know how important it is to see a good set of photos...

...and how wrong the people selling or renting out a place will sometimes get it.





This beauty, which ingeniously employs a racy red basque and a tray of champagne in an attempt to sell the rather dull looking flat, was the spark for a very funny