For Knackered Final Year Students

Pilo Pilo designed by Sae Shigeto & Lenny Ming Lo, are rings for the sleepy and ever so slightly bored.

Thanks to the increasing frequency of exhausted sounding status updates on Facebook, the lovely ladies of 4th year Jewellery Design at DoJ have reminded me of these curious pieces of design. A simple ring with a small pillow attached to the shank is possibly not to the level of design work which I hope to see from these girls degree show, which takes place in the next few weeks (I'll post the details once I remember to write them down!), however, it is a piece of design which has tickled me since I discovered it last year.

I only wish I'd thought of this during the dullest of dull lectures I attended at the art school. No matter how hard they tried, sometimes the tedium of certain subjects wouldn't allow conciousness. One girl I knew, I believe slept more in lectures than at home. However, had I designed these rings, with their large variety of textile patterns, I surely would have made a small fortune?

For the 4th years, this is the last slog, push yourselves through this last phase of exhaustion and then relax and enjoy your degree show week. It is simultaneously boring as hell and brilliant.

Good Luck for your assessments!

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Listening: Stina Nordestam - Fireworks

A Type of Obsession...

AMradio - Etsy

I've become obsessed with the idea of buying a letter press drawer. My mum has one, she bought it with birthday money years ago and until we got new book shelves it hung in the hall covered in trinkets; tiny toys from when my sisters and I were kids, a tiny clock, large wooden beads off of an old necklace...it was a place were the little oddities of the house seemed to gather. And latterly when the books took its place, the drawer moved to my work space in the spare room and then propped up against the wall because my work space has moved and the wall it hung on has been plastered, painted and left for my sister to draw on.

I would 'borrow' my mums and put it in my room for all the odd things I can't seem to get rid of, but as well as the suitable amount of guilt I would feel from this action, I really, really want to find my own. So I'm scouring eBay and Etsy to see if I can find a nice one that will ship to the UK cheaply since most I've found seem to be in the States.

Just my luck huh? Maybe the Birthday fairy will find one for me!

Listening: John Martyn - Small Hours

This Paper Circus

Whilst searching for one thing, I came across a Folksy seller called Under the Stairs Studio and these very sweet, handmade, 'Paper Circuses' which spin to show different images. In this case three illustrations of caged birds in a varying shaped cages.

Could make a lovely alternative to greetings cards, though pose difficulty in squeezing it into an envelope...

Listening: Otis Redding - These Arms of Mine

Oops...

I'm kicking myself a little tonight, I logged on to blog something sweet I found on Folksy (will do after this) and having previously switched on comment moderation so that I would know when/if someone commented on any of my posts I was absolutely delighted to find a new message. Except I think I've got a slight trigger finger issue.

Therefore I got a nice comment, have no idea which post it was for and I've managed to delete it like a complete fool!

So this is just a quick message to apologies to Photopuddle for deleting your post.

Sorry! Shall try not to do it again...

...unless anyone's mean then I reserve the right to censor your arses!

:D

Let Them Eat Cakewich!

Every year, my sisters and I try and make the most brightly coloured, ridiculous cake we can think of for my little sisters birthday. Four years ago we made a Jaffa Cake Cake. Three years ago it was Barbie pink with sparkles. Two years ago it was pale blue with stripes, but it ended up looking as though we'd melted Bounty wrappers over it, which was quite off putting! And last year it was rainbow coloured cupcakes.

But this year, I've got a plan and it involves a cake tin by Fred.

Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop

"Drip, drip, drop

Little April shower

Beating a tune

As you fall all around"

- Frank Churchill; Larry Morey

New window display at work designed and made by Louise and I and installed last Wednesday. Brightens up the High Street during these wet interludes before the summer.

Love...

I don't often fall in love with clothes, or at least I don't as frequently as other members of my family do - my little sister is slightly and ever so sweetly obsessed with clothes, especially pretty dresses she doesn't tend to wear. However I had completely fallen in love with this hand made dress by Elsa Mora as a tribute to her grandmother.

I think it's a stunning tribute, and it's the combination of pale vintage colours and the appliqué flowers which adorn the neck line which I find so appealing. Plus the project brought Mora and her mother together to talk about her grandmother and the importance of passing things from one generation to the next.

When it comes to textile craft my mum has taught me most things; knitting, sewing, crocheting etc but we're going to ask my gran to teach us how to make pillow lace, a skill which has come down through the Belgian arm of the family. I think it's about time that we passed that skill along.

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Mostly Harmless

I think most people would admit than in their childhood, they probably ate pretty odd things. Or at least they remember hearing of the friends and siblings having weird foody experiences. The most famous in our household involves a fern, which is not recommend. Another rather common alternate food stuff is Play-Doh.

Own up, if you didn't try it as a kid, you probably will at some point as an adult purely because someone will say "it's edible you know?" and it is luckily. Curiosity lead to an odd smelling, bad tasting but utterly harmless toy being invented to help children be creative and not poison themselves. A voyage of discovery.

I didn't however know people ate crayons. I can see why they might possibly appeal, they're colourful and could be construed as sweeties buy little children, but wax can't taste good! Fortunately again they are non-toxic, so if you or your kids are eating a pack a day, this might be interesting for you as an alternative: edible & highly nutritious crayons.

Made up of a mixture of powdered seeds, nuts, dried fruit & veg, the ingredients are separated out into coordinating colours - the flavour of the crayon being defined by the colour mix, meaning there is no distinct flavour of one ingredient instead an amalgamation. This powdered colour combination is them mixed into melted marshmallow which acts as a setting agent that can then be forced into a crayon shaped mould and packaged to mimic their waxy rivals.

Made by blogger Luxirare, I really do find this idea fascinating, it's a little bit of Willy Wonka or his non-fictional equivalent, Heston Blumenthal. It's all about magic and entertainment. In this incidence to me it's about the curiosity of childhood where anything and everything is a new sensory sensation.

Though, if you used them for colouring in...wouldn't your drawings start to smell eventually? Just a slightly worrying thought.

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Closet Office Space

I'm a bit of a space saving kick at the moment, and once again I've found something that when I eventually get my own place I'm definitely going to do.

The jewellery side of my life doesn't really lend itself to bedroom living, and luckily my parents have given me the space to set up, however, in order to make my room more efficient and with leaving university and having little paper work these days, I gave up my desk for more storage for books and clothes. But I do miss the desk from times to time, for example when I'm doing resin work and need a warmer space for it to cure or when I'm dying various materials and need to leave out a dozen containers. But I admit, I'm smitten with this concept of an office inside a wardrobe.

I found this on Curbly, a site I'm becoming somewhat obsessed with for its DIY postings and mavens, and the basic premise is to treat a built in wardrobe like a room, paint it and wall paper it. Meaning if you're coveting any 'oh so beautiful' but 'way to expensive' wall paper you can probably afford to splurg on a roll given its such a teeny tiny space.

I admit to being swayed by its kitschness, however any way to hide the mess of a workspace is good in my book, especially when you're a magpie for junk.

Wonder if I could fit a jewellery bench in one one day?

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A Stairwell Book...

I've always had a soft spot for book rooms in houses. Where you have to have your little set of stairs to get up to the top or ones that run around a rail. It's all a bit of theatre, but going from a kid who never read, I've gone to a proto-25 year old who's bedroom is primarily books. There is, however, little room for literature left in my room and it's therefore scattered all over the place, with no real rhythm or rhyme, so when I saw this concept, I was a little jealous.

The designer, Tom Sloan of Levitate Architects, has designed a space saving solution in a Victorian flat which marries a severe lack of space and the fashion for book rooms. This is done by lining the stairwell in bookshelves which project out on alternate shelves to make steps for the staircase.

"We created a ’secret’ staircase, hidden from the main reception room, to access a new loft bedroom lit by roof lights. Limited by space, we melded the idea of a staircase with our client’s desire for a library to form a ‘library staircase’ in which English oak stair treads and shelves are both completely lined with books." - Tom Sloan (Apartment Therapy)

This is the sort of thing I'd build in a house ever without a second floor, somewhere you could sit and peruse your books and hide away from the world, which wouldn't be dissimilar to the set of The Seven Year Itch. In the film Tom Ewell's character's apartment has had its stairs blocked off which would naturally lead to the upper floor of the house and Marilyn Monroe's apartment (thus creating two rental properties). The stairs have, however been left in-situ and have been lined with books creating the perfect place to hide and read. Not that Ewell's character does much reading.

I've always had a soft spot for stairs leading to nowhere, like these ones in Perth I photographed a few years ago:

I assume they used to lead somewhere, but I haven't got the foggiest, which is exactly why I like them.

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