Worship your walls

It’s easy to feel a bit nervous about using wallpaper with all the pattern, colour and occasional bit of texture that it brings, but I think that wallpaper is a wonderful decorating tool and following a few key principles will help to achieve just the look that you are after.

As with any scheme, it is important to find your own style and stick to it, and this very definitely applies to your wallpaper selection. From traditional to modern, and all the styles in between, there is a wallpaper for you, so keep looking until you find a design that works for you.

Angie Lewin’s wonderful wallpaper with a hand drawn feel in beautiful knocked back colour tones www.stjudes.co.uk

By contrast, if you like a wallpaper to make more of a statement, Osborne and Little’s Tessella could be for you. www.osborneandlittle.com

If you are using a wallpaper, don’t be afraid to hang your pictures – the pattern will still provide a good backdrop to your artwork. This classic country trellis pattern wallpaper creates a lovely background to the pictures – and the impromptu cocktail bar!

Fired Earth Walled Garden Broughton  www.firedearth.com

Look at the paint colours for your ceiling and woodwork carefully as generally you want them to blend with the colour tones in the wallpaper. If your ceilings are low or sloping, think about wallpapering them – be brave, it will look great!

The low sloping ceiling of this room is disguised by wallpapering it in with the walls. Beautiful Blue Roses wallpaper by Kate Forman www.kateforman.co.uk 

 

I generally think that if your wallpaper is patterned (rather than a textured plain paper) that a plain curtain works better. However, there is the odd occasion that using a matching curtain and wallpaper can look stunning.

This very classic damask pattern wallpaper from Lewis and Wood looks wonderful with matching curtains. Lewis and Wood Venetian Damask http://www.lewisandwood.co.uk

Wallpaper is a great way to add personality and fun to your children’s rooms and there are some great new patterns on the market for you (and your little princes and princesses) to choose from.

Gymkhana wallpaper from Rockett St George www.rocketstgeorge.co.uk

Les Bidules wallpaper from Pierre Frey www.pierrefrey.com

Happy decorating!

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Easter bunnies

With the Easter weekend nearly upon us, we just could help but bring you one or two bunny related home accessories. We’ve majored on items we like rather than keeping strictly to bunnies, so please forgive the inclusion of the odd hare or two. Wishing you a lovely Easter break, from all of us at Angel and Blume.

Knitted bunny rabbit tea cosy from Nervous Stitch at Not on the High Street

Ceramic bunny table lamp with light up LED tail from Rockett St George

 

Baby bunny tea towel from Father Rabbit – this fabulous company is based in New Zealand but will ship to the UK, so it makes economic sense to order lots of things at the same time 🙂

 

Hilarious rabbit screen prints from HAM – impossible to choose which to show you as they all made me smile

Lovely second hand rabbit jelly moulds from Re-Found

Beautiful Harvest Hare fabric from Mark Hearld available at St Judes Fabrics

Loads of gorgeous things to buy featuring the Rabbit and Cabbage design on from Thornback and Peel – and 15% off rabbit accessories right now!

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Christmas at the Strover Gallery

Don’t miss the fab Christmas show at the Strover Gallery in Fen Ditton running from 5th until 22nd December. Artists include Emma Dunbar, Liz Somerville, Susan Bower, Clive Blackmore, Arthur Neal and Henrietta Dubrey. This is an  amazing show with something for everyone – well worth a visit.

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Colourful Christmas

In complete contrast to my restrained and tasteful White Christmas blog (see November 6th) I now bring you a colourful, festive and frankly unashamedly gaudy festive ideas – really, what is not to love?

Hang these deliciously colourful Christmas stars from The Contemporary Home on your tree, in the window or anywhere else you can find – the more the merrier!

Some of you are going to love these angelic little feather birds from Petra Boase, and others of you are going to hate them! Personally I love them. And they would be perfect clipped to the branches of your Christmas tree.   

From the same company, these paper ball garlands are an updated version of the paper chain classic. Pick your colours from 17 available and use as many as you can!

  

For a burst of festive colour, hang these woollen baubles from The Contemporary Home on your tree, or better still, in a cluster on their own for maximum impact.

Two wonderfully colourful and ever so slightly disco bauble options from Graham and Green – if you can’t pick between them, put both on the tree, in as greater quantity as you can manage!

And finally, there is no reason that your front door shouldn’t be as splendidly colourful as the rest of your house and this Christmas wreath from Habitat fits the bill perfectly.

Happy Christmas decorating!

 

 

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Wonderful wallpaper

We have been using lots of wallpapers in our projects recently and we are feeling rather inspired by the beautiful papers that are available. There are a few things to think about when using wallpaper – we tend to use a plain curtain with a patterned wallpaper and make sure that other fabrics in the room don’t fight with the pattern of the wallpaper; we generally choose a woodwork and ceiling paint that blends with the background of the wallpaper and most important of all, if you are considering using wallpaper for a feature wall, make sure there is a good reason for doing only one and if there isn’t, be brave and do them all – it nearly always looks better!

  

Lewis and Wood do some great wallpapers, and whilst they are known for their fabulous character and sporting wallpapers, they also do some really wonderful florals, damasks and toiles. Above is the divine Bolton Scroll (an Angel + Blume favourite) and Indienne which works beautifully with their matching fabric.

 

The Zoffany Gustavus collection is inspired by Gustavian Sweden and contains papers in soft blues, grey and green. It is absolutely beautiful and works well with Gustavian style furniture, or just on it’s own.

These are new papers out from Zoffany and when I saw them I was really blown away by them. They are in the Classic Damask range and whilst the whole range has great grandeur, it could be used very succesfully in smaller residences!

 

Andrew Martin has a super range of really fun wallpapers that work beautifully in boy’s rooms, studies or anywhere an injection of fun is needed. Above is Newton (left) and Pythagoras both in wonderful classy greys.

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