Stills from our home.....

 

....nostalgic decorating.... 

 

 

I have always had a passion for interior design, but I am not a fan of the run-of-the mill home accessories you can buy in high street shops. I believe that the way you dress your home should reflect not only your personality, but also tell the story of the life you've led....

So I like to fill our family home with memories....items that mean something to us....reminds us of something we did or somewhere we've been....pictures of our family or heirlooms passed down the generations....beautiful objects that speak of the past...reminds us who we are and where we come from. I love pieces of art or items with a personality....sometimes I will come across something at a  shop or market that speaks to me, sometimes the sentimental purpose of something lies within it's use and  sometimes I like to make something....create a new memory....to add to the tapestry of life....

......I call it nostalgic decorating.

 

So today I thought I'd show you a few arty stills from around our home, and tell you a little bit about the items shown......

 

On my kitchen shelves (left-right):  The large blue and white ceramic canisters used to belong to my gran in Norway, the small blue and white ceramic French canisters I found at a local marked stall , at the back you can see one of my homemade lace print dishes.....The white ceramic jug is perfect for showing of flowers or springs first green sprigs...
At the front you can see:  my husband's tin tea-light holders, antique etched shot glass (part of a set of 6) that was a wedding present from my cousin, the small glass vase is perfect for Little Miss Moo's wild flower posy's  and I love the vintage feel of the recycled green tint milk glass....

 

 

 

We live in a Victorian terraced cottage in a village near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. We have only lived here for a year and a half so there is still a lot that needs doing to the place to make it ours....Although it is smaller than we would have liked, we fell in love with the character of the house and the area....

The kitchen  is at the front of the house, and the first room as you come in through the front door...

As we live opposite the lively village pub, I've had to be a bit inventive with the window dressings here.....trying to preserve our privacy at the same time as letting as much light in as possible (the ground floor can feel quite dark).....So keeping the window dressings white and fresh, I've used a mixture of venetian blinds and white crochet helmet curtains, made by my mum's best friend, and very Scandinavian in style.....and I have leant an old stained glass window pane on the window sill......the lace detail hanging planters I have filled with heather as it reminds me of where I grew up, where it dominates the landscape in the late summer months....

 

 

 My love of lace is also reflected in the large glass cookie jar I keep on the shelf next to the kitchen window....I simply glued on strips of lace along the top and bottom....The old camera was a steal at £1 at a local charity shop, and I simply had to have it! The frosted glass globe brass tea light lamp was another charity shop find, and I am planning on giving it a little ageing treatment....The wooden cat was a gift from my mum and Dad after they'd been on holiday in Greece. I fell in love with the blue glass base oil-lamp when I saw it at a local market stall, and at only £2 it had to come home with me....even if it does stink of oil (I will probably never light it out of fear...) The wooden royal dog was bought on a whim last time I was back in Norway....

 

 

This is Little Miss Moo's first chair...it was a simple wooden chair from IKEA, but I painted it and decoupaged the seat....as she is getting too big for it now, it is being used as a side table in our front room. The bowler hat was worn by my husband at our wedding...We had a "Laurel and Hardy" theme, and I walked down the isle to "the kookoo song" and all the men wore bowler hats....I've simply rested it on top of the shade of a cheap lamp, that I spray painted black....

If a shoe could define me it would be converse...I live in them and have several pairs. I love that their design has not really changed at all through the years...

 

 

 This painting is huge....it hangs in our front room, and I originally painted it when Mr and I moved in to our first flat together in 2003.....Having grown up by the sea, I find nautical themes soothing and inspiring.... 

 

 

When we moved in to our Victorian cottage, we decided to try and decorate the house in sympathy with the era it is from...I am totally crushing on the Victorian trend of keeping curiosities in bell jars and cloches at the moment...I have 4 so far, and Mr is threatening divorce if I come home with any more....I have also developed an unlikely liking for taxidermy, but have yet to take it any further than butterflies, so figurines of birds will have to do for now....The weird creature ceramic bottle in the background was a wedding present from one of my best friends from Norway, and was actually made by her partners mother.......The bulldog ashtray used to belong to my granddad and is one of my most treasured possessions....

 

 

My printers tray:

In Norway most homes have a printers tray, or a "settehylle" as they call it...it is a great way to display all those little keepsakes and mementoes that otherwise gets forgotten in a drawer somewhere.... Ours contains champagne corks from our wedding, pinecones found on a lovely autumn walk through the forest, a fossil found on a beach in Bridport whilst visiting friends, a matchbox with an old image of a village harbour near where I grew up, dolls size tea cups ,shells and stones....lots of stones: Little Miss Moo loves finding things to add to the printers tray....and comes back with pockets full of sticks and stones....

Below the printers tray you can see my framed taxidermy butterflies....an anniversary gift from Mr last year!

 

 

On top sits one of little Miss Moo's first toys, Mr Piggy.....together with a little porcelain bird I found in a charity shop....the "honey jar" was part of Little Miss Moo's outfit for World Book Day earlier this year, when she dressed up as the cat from the nursery rhyme "the owl and the pussycat".....

 

 

Our bedroom is in dire need of decorating....we have no wardrobes at the moment, but a friend of ours is currently making us some custom built ones....can't wait!! ...so in the mean time all my clothes are all over the place...in heaps on the floor and hanging from the curtain rods....In this image you can see the outfit I wore to my mormor's funeral last month...

 

 

This is my favourite necklace....it is from Allsaints , and it dresses up any outfit....Little Miss Moo calls it my robot necklace....I absolutely love the jewellery box....got it years ago, cant remember from where.....but it reminds me of Poirot....that 1920's art deco style..

...the canvas in the background I had made at Snappy snaps, and is a black and white snapshot from our wedding....we hired an old fashioned routefinder double decker bus to take our guests to the party venue, and I absolutely adore the way our friend and photographer captured the moment me and Mr got off the bus...the angle of the photo is superb, and I enhanced the red of the bus and the colour of my bouquet to add some interest in the image.....

 

 On the mantle piece in our bedroom, I have a box frame that contains Little Miss Moo's first pair of converse, the two etched glass lanterns was part of the table decorations at our wedding party and the framed xxxxx print we bought on our honeymoon in Paris.....

 

 

 On the bathroom window sill: a selection of coloured glass jars and bottles from IKEA.....love the vintage feel of these....and they remind me of my mormor's dressing table...

 

 

The purple glass votives was a Christmas gift from my sister-in law, the checked gold and white heart shaped jewellery box contains Little Miss Moo's necklaces she was given at her christening.......I don't have the time for loads of beauty products these days, but Stella McCartney's perfume Lily is my current signature scent, and one of my few luxuries in life.....the lace printed jewellery dish I made myself, see how HERE...and the pearl necklace used to belong to my mormor....

Also in the dish , you can see one of my newly arrived business cards.....I was so excited, I had to restrain myself from handing them out to strangers in the street....

 

I hope maybe this post has let you get to know me a little better.....It has made me realize how much I am looking forward to tackling some of the bigger projects in the house....little by little...we'll get there in the end!!

 

Thanks for popping by..

 

xxx

June