Operation: Decorate House!

After months of sourcing and over-coming my nerves, I finally started decorating my house!

Living Room before

and after

Dining Room

transformed!

Hallway

with wallpapering just finished

And with pictures up!

Bathroom

which is lovely anyway

it just needed some bits and bobs

and some colour!

The black trim was inspired by the Mucha mirror and prints that I had

I think it looks rather classic!

1st floor corridor before

and after!

Further down the corridor during preparation

and afterwards!

I was at my most creative whilst decorating this corridor

Inspired by travels and a love for old bits of paper

it was a great big cut and paste project! I loved it!

All of these maps were found in a bin in a secondhand book shop

I picked them up for mere pennies

A much cheaper way than buying expensive world map wallpaper at £70+ per roll!!!

Bedroom before

and after!

Inspired by a peacock

 

 

 

and filled with my favourite colour!

My very clever mum even made me this quilt to go with it!

It's quite the compliment, don't you think? And that really is some ultra impressive detailing - thanks very much mum!!

Up to the top floor

which now looks all ocean like

and that skylight just bounces off the blue making it so bright and inviting..

..which is great really cause it leads up to my top floor studio!

which I've now settled into and is full of things to help me make and create

I knew all this stuff would come in use one day!

Enrollment letter!

At long long last I recieved my enrollment letter...I'm off to university, officially! Hooray Hooray!

Portugal!

Mike and I found a brill deal to the Algarve, we had a self-catering apartment in the sleepy fishing village of Alvor. I have been interested in Portuguese tiling and was looking forward to taking lots of photos...here's a look at my finds of the week!

A view from our back balcony, looking out on to the complex

The resort we walked through on the way to the beach...I love the colours of the flowers, especially against the white washed buildings. That turquoise is just delicious too!!

A very pretty pairing

need to take the exposure down on this a bit but that's a lot of pretty patterns!!!

close up of the tiling on the bench...

...it's just gorgeous!

Tiling, tiling...

....EVERYWHERE!

A beautiful roadside palm tree

The light in our apartment - clever design!

Beautiful facade

and interesting composition...

More gorgeous tiling

 

And the Mourish styling of the complex

Jewelery Making Workshop with Tanvi Kant

I went to a Jewelery Making workshop at Nottingham Castle today, run by the artist Tanvi Kant. I had a great day and was introduced to her working process of twisting, binding, knotting and stitching offcuts of unwanted materials. It was just lovely, working with beautiful saris and dress making offcuts. The processes of the day help to develop an understanding of the real content of the cloth. 

The workshop ran alongside the exhibition 'Lost & Found' which was part of 'Critical Cloth' and 'Remainders'. The three exhibitions "examine how artists use garments and materials with a previous life, transforming them into something unique and far removed from their past associations or uses."

 

It was very inspiring set of exhibitions and I went twice to visit it! I really loved the work of Lucy Brown, Shelly Goldsmith, Amy Houghton, Tanvi Kant, Daniel Marcus Clark and Rhiannon Williams.

Here are some images from the workshop:

This piece includes handmade ceramic pieces, which was a process she started when she took Decorative Arts at Nottingham Trent University...the same course I'm about to start!

the material we got to work with

 me working on my binding

 

Tanvi wearing a piece from her collection and showing how she loops her creations to make those beautiful neck pieces

Tanvi showing us how she uses the Bandhani technique in her work

which creates pieces that look like this!

my piece at the end of the workshop

and here are some much more sophisticated pieces...those from Tanvi's collection!

I love the piece on the right - really beautiful forms are created by simple process of looping

I love how delicate this is...

...and that with a piece of similar length, once bound, structural textured pieces like this can be created