Three from the Design Arcade

* I was provided a pair of press tickets to the Grand Designs Live so I’m marking posts from my visit as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

One of my favourite parts of Grand Designs Live is the Design Arcade. Last year it’s where we met the Card Boys and where we bought our new light so it has pretty good credentials!

Though the show overall seemed smaller than it had been in previous years, and (sob!) there were no room sets, the standard in the Design Arcade was as good as ever. Like any show the participants vary year to year, but noticeably this year at Grand Designs Live there were less ‘big’ and well known companies and more new to us brands, which is not such a bad thing.

But back to the Design Arcade, and what caught my eye this year:

1 Luxury Wallpaper by Avalana Designs

It was the swan wallpaper that caught my eye, and then the wallpapered background of the stand. The detail, the colours and in the case of the flowers, their size. Aren’t they fabulous?

On their website there’s also bedding and furnishings that complement each other, and while once my thing for bedding was ‘crisp and white’ over the past few years I’ve definitely changed my style to incorporate much more colour, so there could be the very real chance of a purchase in the hopefully not too distant future.

And it’s still the swans that are calling me…

2 Scented Candles by The Wick & Wax Co.

I love a candle or two, but it was the ‘Made in Stamford’ that caught my attention as that’s one of the places we’ve been visiting more regularly in our house search. Even though we’ve ruled it out as somewhere to live, it’s very much still on the somewhere to visit regularly list.

On their website there’s information about the luxury candles which are handcrafted in small batches and promises a ‘touch of luxury with a clearer conscience’ - I’m looking forward to seeing more of this company, and smelling their wares at shows which I hope will soon be classed as more local, and exploring their scents to work out which to buy. I don’t know about you, but sometimes the choice is just overwhelming - and not just for candles.

3 Door Signs by These Fair Hands

Now you might be thinking these are like any other door signs you might have seen, but they probably aren’t. These ones are made by from Corian, which is stone like and hard wearing, and you’ve most likely heard it used for kitchen worktops. But it’s also weatherproof which makes it ideal for door signs, which by their very nature are outside and subject to the elements.

On their website you can see the full range of door signs and more - and on the intro page, they say they don’t do standard - every piece they make is different, but beautiful.

This is another future potential purchase for me, and it’s the more modern designs, such as the 93 Lakewood Road sign, that appeal most, but the work in all of them is exceptional.

So some great finds, and some potential future purchases from me which is ok as for the first time ever I think, we left the show empty handed but armed instead with buckets of inspiration.

Repurposing a crochet project, and getting it done

Sometimes you start a project and it goes for a while, then it stops. If you’re lucky you may pick it up again and start where you left off and all’s good, but at other times there’s nothing else for it but to start again.

I liked the yarn, and the colour variation that two strands of double knit gave, as well as the thickness which for a laptop cover I was keen to have. I like the pattern. I’d crocheted a baby blanket in this pattern previously - the baby is now two and a half! - but I couldn’t get into the flow for my laptop cover, which I so desperately wanted.

I know right, it didn’t make sense.

So I frogged it.

Frogging is a crochet slang for ripping it out - ribbit, ribbit - so frogging it, it makes me smile every time.

So with a large ball of wool, I started a granny square. I wanted something that didn’t take much thinking, and as this was the first time I’d really picked up my hook since last summer, I wanted to see progress quickly.

And I did.

As it grew the colours by chance formed themselves into pretty even blocks of colour - I’d like to claim I planned this, but it was a fortuitous fluke.

My very loose plan was to make the square big enough so that when folded into an envelope-ish shape it would hold my laptop. As it grew, there was much trying it for size until it was done.

And just look how much wool from the previous project I had left. Clearly granny squares are less yarn hungry than my previous pattern, but thankfully the double thickness yarn gave the padding I wanted. I’ll use this cover when I pack my laptop into a weekend bag, so it doesn’t need to be as robust as if I were carrying it around everyday.

With a button sewn on - contrasting of course - it was done, and in super quick time. And I’ve one less Work-in-Progress (WIP) on the go too!

Words, text and script

I don’t usually struggle for words, but when I’m making cards they’re the one of the things I think I can improve on. And often as they are one of the final elements to be added, it can be make or break, so I’ve been looking at different options. I’m a big fan of brush lettering, but need to practice more to improve both my confidence and the finished result, and honestly it doesn’t work on all cards. I’ve die cuts and stamps for greetings, salutations and even numbers and letters of varying sizes and these work well, but again not for everything. And the longer the phrase or word the more time consuming it becomes.

I’ve tried stickers with mixed results, as I’m less keen on it being such an obvious sticker and the metallic lettering available in packs from well known craft shops again, only takes me so far. I’ve created my own text in Word and printed that, but doing this every time isn’t sustainable and I’m still working my way through a batch of greetings from a good number of years ago!

I’ve been watching the multi-media Instagrammers and admiring the phrases they use on their art, as to be fair this is a fair step up from where I currently am, and then inspiration - or rather Etsy-spiration - struck. And I found there was so much to choose from, so spending a few pennies over a pound for a download, I was off. I’ve included a snippet of the download from PixieDustFiles on Etsy below, so you can understand why I was so pleased with my (now obvious) discovery!

From the cards I’ve made recently I know that I prefer the text to be raised slightly, to stand out and add texture. Yes, I could use the sponge adhesive blocks, but I’ve also realised I can add craft foam to the whole piece and use a glue stick, which is a lot less tricky than trying to get the backing paper of such tiny adhesive blocks I can tell you!

So with a patchwork of saved-from-other-projects craft foam stuck on the back of my printed sheet I was almost ready to go. All I needed to do to test my theory was to make sure they’d stuck - hence the random pile of boxes - and to cut them up. I started off with the scissors, and that worked well but was, as you can imagine, slow. So I tried with my guillotine and had some success with that. In the end though I reverted back to the scissors as there was something really mindful about creating these little adornments.

And a tip for cutting things out - which I know sounds obvious - but use the whole length of the scissor’s blade, not just the tip. The less you open and close the ‘jaws’ means the less scope there is for changing your cutting line, so you’ll have straighter, cleaner lines, assuming you position the scissors correctly. And of course this goes for whatever you’re cutting, it really does make a difference,

So now I have a box of ready made adornments for cards and collages, and along the way I spent some time mindfully fully focussed on the task at hand, so a win-win all round.

I’ve learnt too, these used standard paper and printer settings, I’d be keen to try this on card, or even photography paper to see how that works, and I’m also thinking about creating my own text files, so I can get exactly what I want. And not surprisingly the section of foam that was less ‘patchworked’ worked better, and was easier to cut the individual phrases even though I’d tried to make sure the joins were carefully aligned.

A little bit of inspiration goes a long way doesn’t it?