Beautiful shelves

It's quite a simple idea to arrange books on shelves by colour, like this rainbow arrangement:

#97755087 / gettyimages.com

(We've tried something similar but in practice, you are rather limited by the books you have available. And most of ours have pesky writing on the spines in a variety of fonts. Which is great for when you are trying to locate something but does affect the aesthetic!)

Anyway, this beautiful arrangement was in the Sunday Times Style Magazine 13 July 2014:

As you can see, it doesn't follow the spectrum strictly, but it looks beautiful and something that might - just - be achievable on a practical, domestic basis. Definitely an inspiration for when the nights draw in and the house needs a new look.

V V Rouleaux

This week we had a trip to V V Rouleaux in Marylebone Lane, London - a fantastic shop for ribbons, feathers and trimmings. The driving force was the need to find something to trim a blind, partly to make it look good and partly because (we can be honest, can't we?) it hadn't been measured up properly and could really do with being an inch longer... but nothing at the usual haberdashery shops was very inspiring. Time to visit the expert.

And there we found this wonderful feather trim for £11.75 a metre! Lots of other colours are available too, as well as many wonderful ribbons and braids.

As well as ribbons and trimmings, V V Rouleaux also sells ribbon flowers, corsages, hats and headresses and runs short courses in how to make ribbon flowers, hats and headresses, and tassels and knots. Check them out here. It's one of those great shops were you come out just wanting to start a project with the goodies in the cute carrier bag:

A picture of the blind with its new trim will follow in due course!

Ikuva sofa cover review

We have a new sofa cover!

The sofa itself is that ol' favourite, an Ikea Ektorp. It still has many years of wear left in it, but we wanted new covers and there was nothing that available from Ikea that hit the spot (not that they weren't good, just that none of them had quite the look that we wanted).

So some googling led us to these people - Ikuva. They make covers for Ikea sofas and chairs, including some of the discontinued styles. And they have a wonderful range of fabrics to chose from, which you can also buy by the metre for your own projects.

This fabric is Fanfare, in the 'heather' colourway, which is both washable and dry cleanable. It took 4 weeks for the cover to arrive (as stated on the website), and the staff at Ikuva were happy to give an update on the timing so that we could plan for their arrival. They were very polite and professional and we think that they have done a great job! Plus the cover itself was good value - £245 (the price obviously depends on which fabric you chose) plus £8.95 for UK delivery. If you are near Leigh On Sea in Essex, you can save the delivery charge and pick up from Ikuva yourself.

Happy 4th July!

That's it really - happy 4th July! 

Love the photo above - if you are going to make a statement, make it a big one. As for the photo below,  at Hingham House the garden is all ready for planning tonight's dinner. 

The book on the table is a much-loved first edition Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, originally published in 1950 by McGraw Hill (copyright General Mills Inc), but a facsimile edition was published in 1998 by John Wiley and Sons and is available here from Amazon. It's a delight if you love old cook books and has this recipe for a cherry pie, complete with a hatchet decoration:

The caption suggests it would be suitable to celebrate George Washington's birthday, but we think it would be equally suitable today too.

Happy 4th July!

PEONIES = 10% off at bunches.co.uk!

You know we love peonies - here's another reason! Until midnight on Sunday 6 July using the PEONIES discount code will get you 10% off all orders (except subscription gifts) at bunches.co.uk, the leading online florist. We - and more importantly, the recipients - have never been disappointed when we have used them and the people at bunches.co.uk are so lovely that they include free delivery and free chocolates! Had to share...