I’m really loving all the botanical print wallpapers and fabrics available at the moment and I’m thinking about using some to freshen up our living room curtains. Coincidentally, I have also been working on some floral illustrations to liven up my website so look out for those soon.
Here are my favourites. You can see lots more botanical prints on my pinterest page, as well as more gilhoolie loves… boards, from wallpaper to chevrons to tea and print-makers, something for everyone!
Of course, if you fancy a botanical print bespoke lampshade you won’t find in the shops do get in touch.
Well, I’ve had a REALLY long break from gilhoolie and I have to admit I’ve found it a bit hard to get back into things after the relaxing (yes, relaxing!) school holidays. I was just clearing up after the weekend and nearly stepped on a discarded pin and, as well as being relieved no-one had trodden on it, I was inspired to get back to making lampshades as soon as possible.
Now that my boys are both settled at their new schools, I’ve started thinking about where to go next and I’m feeling a lot better (except for the quietness when I walk back in the front door in the morning – I don’t think I’ll ever like that!)
One of the things I’ve decided is that (as well as doing more exercise – feels like new year resolutions time!), as I live so close to London I really need to go in more to look for inspiration so I’m planning another trip to Liberty and various fabric shops that I haven’t been to before. I’m quite fussy about fabrics; it has to be ‘just right’ before I’ll spend time making a lampshade from a carefully chosen piece. I just came across the new Liberty lifestyle craft fabrics on their website and I like quite a few of them – can’t wait to buy some and make some lampshades!
Here’s a selection of my favourites:
Liberty Copeland
The colour and flowers in the turquoise Copeland design caught my eye initially but I also think the browns and oranges would go well on a traditional style lampshade.
Liberty Leonard
I love the dainty flowers in this design; the green is my favourite – why I am always so drawn to green?!
Liberty Dance and Garnett
And finally, the colours in these beautiful designs called Dance and Garnett just made me smile…
As I’m feeling a tad rusty, my plan is to make some small, hand-stitched empire lampshades from my fabric finds, including one with different fabrics on each panel, back soon with updates…
I love Spoonflower and really wish I had more time to sit and play, I must make time soon. They have regular competitions and I’d like to enter one in the not too distant future.
In the meantime, I received an email a couple of weeks ago from a lady called Beth who had seen my tulip lampshades on etsy but wanted to order the fabric in a different colour to decorate her new baby’s bedroom. I can mix different colours for screen-printing but if you live in another country then Spoonflower is just amazing. I uploaded three new colours, Beth chose one (peachy pink) and we both ordered swatches. Mine arrived today and it looks gorgeous, hooray!
I really hope she likes it and goes ahead and orders fabric to make curtains and bedding for her new baby. You never know, maybe later this year I’ll be posting some photos of the finished room on here, here’s hoping!…
Well, the Christmas holidays are whizzing by but there’s been plenty of time for nice cups of tea, along with far too many mince pies and choccies. It was so nice to have a bit of ‘me time’ yesterday and do a bit of drawing while the boys played with their new toys and bothered their Dad while he’s at home!
Retro teapot and cup
I really like the shape of my teapot and teacup (see my previous blog post ‘All nice and cosy’) and thought they would be fun to draw. Again, I added some detail with fabric; this time just stuck on and not machine embroidered so even easier. The fabric has a small pattern which worked really well and is in keeping with the simple ink drawing. One of my favourite Christmas presents was a bundle of fabrics from my Mum and this one is called ‘Chards’ from the Cut Out and Keep collection by Heather Moore. I’ve got a feeling I’ll be using more of her fabric in my pictures as the print is nice and small and quite retro too, plus the colours are lovely. Not sure what I’ll draw next but I know I want to do another armchair and lampshade one; maybe more traditional this time but I might have to go on the hunt for more fabric to add to my collection first…
Well that was a bit of ‘me time’ in the morning, then it was a pretend family gun battle round the house before dinner and a tombola after dinner (a sneaky way to earn pocket money from us parents, funny boys!)
