A collection of birds

Sorry for the long absence! We had a lovely holiday, and were then away this weekend as well, and as a result I'm very behind with lots of chores, and also haven't written a blog post for far too long!

We've had people staying in our home recently, to look after Millie the kitten (who's not so much of a kitten any more), and it's always interesting what people notice. A friend commented that we had quite a lot of birds cropping up throughout our home, which made me have a good look around at everything, and I realised that she's definitely right!

I don't know why I sound surprised, it's definitely me (and not the boy) who has sourced and placed all these little creatures around and about the place. I decided that to complement our fabulous Laura Ashley Summer Palace wallpaper (my boyfriend was incredulous that we had to share our bedroom with an entire flock of pink birds) we should have a gallery of bird images. I bought a few cards gradually, and then just framed them in Ikea‘s ribba frames. Lovely, cheap and yet very attractive art work I think. I’ve tried to hang the pictures in a casual-yet-perfectly-spaced way!

I liked the effect so much, that I did something similar in the bigger bedroom. I might change these though, as I think the pictures are a little lost on the larger wall.

We've also got a few little bird ornaments cropping up about the place...

Finding a bit of a theme (and creating your own pictures of course) can be a good, budget way of getting continuity throughout your home, and accessorising whilst you're at it!

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More online art...

I don't know how I forget to mention this site (http://www.advicetosinkinslowly.bigcartel.com/) in my last post... most remiss. The picture I got from here is hanging in my hallway, and gets many compliments. AND it was only a fiver. Bargain!

(Sorry for the slightly crooked picture...And I'm still trying to decide whether or not to fill this whole wall - which is over the stairs - with pictures, or leave it quite plain and simple.)



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Online art

Always on the search for nice pictures with which to decorate my home, I decided to look online. It can be overwhelming at first, because there are just soooo many places to look, but I found some great sites!

The Keep Calm Gallery (http://www.keepcalmgallery.com/) has some very cool stuff. I’ve bought a fabulously retro “Keep Calm Carry On” poster from there. Annoyingly it was a bit of a strange size, and didn’t seem to fit any of the frames I saw in the shops. Framing things professionally can be a costly business, and if you haven’t paid much for a print it doesn’t always seem worth it. However, on this occasion I ended up buying a large ribba frame from Ikea and just getting the mount cut. It was still £22, but much better than the £70 odd they quoted me to frame the whole thing.

Also from the Keep Calm Gallery I bought a limited edition print of these Russian Dolls by Hazel Nicholls. I did splash out and get this professionally framed, and am thrilled with how it looks. It also ties in nicely with our little collection of green ornaments.

Easyart.com is a saviour if you want to get a print and you know exactly what you want (otherwise the choice is rather too overwhelming for an indecisive person like me)! I bought a large poster of Picasso’s Don Quixote from this site, which with a tiny bit of trimming fitted into a great wooden frame that I found in a junk shop for next to nothing. It was my Dad’s favourite picture, and I too love it’s simplicity. It’s propped against the wall at the top of our stairs and I think looks great.

Some other online sites I’ve come across that it might be worth checking out:

www.canvasetc.com

At Canvas Etc they say ‘we don't mass produce our canvas art, in fact we don't even carry any of the canvas prints on this website in stock. Instead we individually print and lovingly hand craft each canvas to order in our own studio.’

www.mailorderart.co.uk

Original artwork costs between £200 and £400 on this site, but there’s a huge range of cheaper printed canvases to choose from too.

www.tate.org.uk/shop

Adorn your walls with a masterpiece from the Tate’s collection, a limited-edition print from a St Ives artist or an exhibition poster that one day might be a collector’s item.

www.bookishdesign.co.uk

You know I love my books, so I think this site is brilliant. Liha Okunniwa adores vintage book sleeves, so she sources her favourites and then scans them in and turns them into posters.

www.diy.com/artomdemand

B&Q has launched Art on Demand, an online service that lets you choose a picture, decide if you want it as a framed print or canvas and then see how it looks on screen before you buy it. There are more than 140 images to choose from, in a range of sizes and frames.

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More pictures...This time graffiti

I always like looking out for cool graffiti, and actually at the moment I keep trying to remember to take my camera with me when I go to work because every day on the way to the tube I pass a stencil of a pigeon on a white wall that looks very funky. What I have taken a photo of is this rather cute ‘love’ image that's on a wall in a park near our house. We’ve got it on a canvas, I’ve recently got a black and white one printed and put it in a black frame for a friend’s anniversary present and I’ve also made a couple of wedding cards out of the same image. I wonder who the artist is!!



One of he most famous graffiti artists is of course Banksy, and I love this copy that I bought from a stall in Spitalfields Market - http://www.visitspitalfields.com. It came in this cool frame, which I think looks great alongside our arco style lamp. And, a mere £25. Bargain.

Crafty, crafty - making a picture

I love pictures, but I surprised myself by finding them the hardest thing to buy when we moved into our flat. To me pictures should be personal, they should mean something, and if not, they should be especially stylish and amazing to make up for it! I intend to run through lots of the pictures in our house at some point, but thought I'd start with credit-crunch-crafty-pictures! The ones you can make yourself. Again forgive my complete lack of practical artistic ability...

If, like me, you’re not a dab hand with a paint brush or a pencil, then don’t despair, you can cheat. I love the effect achieved here, and it really was very, very simple. I just bought a sheet of this cool Penguin books wrapping paper (for £1.50!), and cut it to fit a simple Ikea ribba frame. As you’ve probably gathered I do love my books, so this seemed appropriate. And hopefully not too many people will have the same thing.

You could frame lots of things like this - a nice piece of wallpaper, a scrap of fabric, a funky tea towel…

My boyfriend has a recording studio in our flat (sadly we don’t have soundproofing…) and we’ve made some great pictures for the walls, again using Ikea Ribba frames. You can buy ones that have CD sized mounts, and so we’ve framed artwork from his singles and album to make very personal (and quite professional looking) images. His musician friends are always envious. We also took a few pictures of the precious recording equipment, and framed them too. They look really cool, and are personal too!