Etsy UK is having a – real-life – exhibition

I've found some pretty special art over the years on Etsy – these affordable portraits are particularly memorable, as is the work of this Israeli artist (I've since bought two of her mini canvases and love them very much). I've also admired some rather unusual portraits on the site, too.

And now Etsy UK is hosting its very own art exhibition – a real one, not a virtual one. And here's my favourite piece in it.

It's called Path to the Beach and is by Shetland-based painter Kristi Cumming who runs an Etsy shop called Islandla. It's also the painting used in the poster to advertise the show (good to know I'm on the same wavelength as those Etsy bods). And this inaugural event takes place in London (but they're hoping to roll it out nationwide before too long) and you can catch it in Clerkenwell over the weekend, from Friday 17 to Sunday 19 October.

More than 600 Etsy sellers applied to appear, from all over the country, but there was room for just 15 of them – from oil painters to ceramicists – at the show. You can check out the line-up and all the details at the Etsy exhibition page right now.

Object of the day: Kimmy Hogan's sleeping Dachshunds

This is pretty much the cutest illustration of a dog you will ever have seen. Right?

The print is titled The Dachshund. Appendix 4: Sleep Study and it was drawn by (no surprises) a Dachshund-owning artist named Kimmy Hogan.

Sleeping dogs, especially little ones, are particularly endearing and Kimmy has captured that aspect beautifully, in this very simple series of line drawings.

Kimmy, who is based in Australia, based the sketches on her own miniature dachshund, Rio.

And the good news? It may only be for sale in Australia, but Kimmy's stockist Elk in the Wood offers FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING. Woo! The print costs $40AUD (£22) for an A4 sized version and $75AUD (£41) for the A3 version.

Kimmy also has an Etsy shop, but she's on maternity leave at the moment. But you can still catch her at her beautiful blog, Whitewiththree.blogspot.co.uk. As I'm on a bit of a houseplants tip right now, I particularly enjoyed her inspiring latest post, on that very topic.

Post by Kate

Introducing... Durido

Isn't this a nice idea for brightening up a dark wall?

These colourful, graphic designs are the work of Mojca Dolinar and Marko Durini, AKA Durido, a new design company based  Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The pair explain online at their Etsy shop that "a lot of energy and positive vibe" is what goes into their work, and say that they hope it will "contribute to your happiness and joy". Nice!

The prints also come in the form of calendars (below). The prices for prints alone (minus hangers) is around £12.

Not all are the same, bold graphic style – I love Durida's illustrative work, too.

The nice wooden hanging bars are available separately in two different sizes, priced from around £15. They'd be handy for hanging all sorts of things – large wallpaper samples, pieces of fabric you love, classic second-hand silk scarves (or new ones, Abi has an incredible Grayson Perry scarf, a souvenir from an exhibition, in a big frame on a wall). There are other places that sell these bars in different sizes, or perhaps Durida can custom-make. If you're handy, you might want to make your own (there are instructions here).

Veering from interiors for a moment, they also run a fine line in these sweet t-shirts.

Bespoke orders are an option, so these drawings may well be available as prints if you'd prefer them on your wall to on your chest. Don't quote me on that, but do drop Mojca and Marko a line to find out more.

You can find them at: Etsy.com/shop/DURIDO

Object of the day: horse hangers

Perhaps inspired by Les Trois Garçons' haul earlier this week (particularly the wall-mounted unicorns), I have my heart set on these.

Regular readers will know of my fondness for an equine accessory. But is this a step too kitsch?

Neighhhhhhh! It is for sale in the US at Etsy (from a shop called Equine by Lauren) along with a range of similar designs featuring different horses (this, I think, is the best). Don't you just love the sense of dynamism?

Alas, at around £130, it more than tops the threshold for free imports into the UK (anything over £15 is chargeable) and so the tax would bump up the price. I'm still debating... but also considering making my own. I'll keep you posted.

The Friday edit: the week's best bookmarks

I'm dabbling with making this a regular Friday regular: a round-up of some of my favourite stories from around the web, the homes and design-y things I've bookmarked in the last week or so. 

Let's give it a go.

Clockwise from top left

1. Donna Wilson has designed the interior for the remote Fogo Island Inn, off the coast of Newfoundland. There's a lovely story behind it and the building is incredible. Check it out at Donna's blog, Leaves and Twigs.

2. Close-up images of skyscrapers blur the lines between graphic design and photography. See more of Alexandre Jacques's architectural photographs at PSFK.

3. This print (designed by Marcus Eriksson) appealed because, just like Anna Dorfman, book cover designer and author of the excellent (and also newly discovered) blog, Door Sixteen, I'm going to Sweden too – for the wedding of some friends of my boyfriend in June. Never met them. Never been to Sweden. Love this poster because it made me even more excited about it. And made me laugh.

4. A very 70s Californian beach house – featured on Apartment Therapy, it is the real deal, pile carpets and pine kitchen cupboards and all. Loved it.

5. Peruvian textiles meet mid-century Danish design at A Rum Fellow with their new chair collection. Prices aren't small (£325-£950) so if you, too, can't stretch to the chair check out their colourful Peruvian tape (£7 in the sale) and trim one you already own. Read more about them here.

6. Painted wooden spoons! So simple, yet so pleasing. These ones are from Canadian Etsy shop Storiebrooke.

Good weekend all. What you up to in this grim weather? I'm looking forward to seeing Bill Callahan...



...and other than that, staying at home out of the rain eating cosy food, seeing the lovely Jill and Terence who live in this amazing house, watching Shane Meadows' Stone Roses film with them on the sofa and employing the dog as a hot water bottle.

Post by Kate. Images: Fogo Island Inn; Alexandre Jacques; Marcus Eriksson; Apartment Therapy; A Rum Fellow; Jessica Helwick

The USB typewriter: would you?

Well, would you?

Old typewriters are beautiful things. And recycling beautiful old things is a beautiful thing. And this Smith Corona Sterling isn't the only old-school machine that Pennsylvanian techy inventor, Jack Zylkin, has transformed into a fully-functioning USB keyboard for any PC, Mac or iPad.

Look, here's another one he's pimped.

They go for around £400-700, depending on the vintage of the typewriter. "People love typewriters," Zylkin says in his Etsy shop profile, "and lots of people have them on their mantle or in their attic. But there is just no place for them on a modern computer desk. So, with the USB Typewriter project I am trying to rescue typewriters from garages and attics and put them to use again." He also sells DIY kits at $74 (around £48) so you can convert your own old typewriter at home.

The conversion is all about attention to detail: Zylkin has devised ways to incorporate non-standard keys such as F1-F12, and the Esc and Ctrl keys. On request, he'll also fix the typewriter's carriage return key (post-typewriter generation: that's the big key that goes "ping" in the office scenes in Mad Men, and moves you onto the next line on the paper) to work as a modern keyboard's enter key. The old machines will also work computer-less, for an extra vintage sheen, and can be used as iPod docks too.

It's a totally brilliant idea. Just like those old-fashioned telephone receivers you can get to plug into your mobile. But the only people who used those were fashion show front-rowers and early east London adopters – and as soon as the fad lost its new sheen, landfill was surely hit with a heavy load of bakelite and moulded plastic. So are these keyboards different? Would you use one?

Find the USB Typewriter shop on Etsy.

Excellently unusual portraits

This morning I saw a particularly brilliant Facebook post by Emma and Sarah, my lovely neighbours that they have kindly given me permission to share.

Their friend's mum – Bath-based Liz Ladd (contact details below) – has knitted them a pair of dolls in their images. Sarah, on the left in the photo below, is a barrister – and so is knitted wearing her courtroom wig and gown. Emma has a swish of bright, bleached hair and massive glasses. Aren't they brilliant?

The Emma doll was made a while back – the FB post was to show off her newly woven partner. Now here are the neighbours in the flesh (you'll have to imagine Sarah in her work-gear). Spot the difference – haha.

I've written about unusually executed portraits before, but this got me looking for even more alternatives, which I'll come back in a sec – but first, if you didn't nose around Emma and Sarah's very beautiful little flat first time around, see it here – and see Emma's amazing stone carving and sculpting work at her website. 

Right then. Now for some more excellently crazy portraits, all of which you can commission from the artists in your own likeness. And I must make an advance apology for any non-Etsy shoppers reading (though if you don't, do! God it's brilliant): this is a shameless Etsy bonanza.

Ximena Carreira – or Zine – is an Argentinian-based artist, from Córdoba (but she ships worldwide). These teeny, tiny hand-painted dolls are around £16 for a child or pet and the adult figures are around £23 – they come in any configuration you like. Just send her a photo. Zine




"I can do beards, glasses, guinea pigs, plaits … you name it," says Sonia Lyne aka Dandelyne, who makes these miniature embroidery hoops – below – in Melbourne, Australia (if that's not your neck of the woods, her postage fees outside the country are very reasonable).

They come in 10cm, 12.5cm or 15cm in diameter, depending how many people and pets you want to squeeze in – and she has a check-list of information she'll need from you before she goes ahead (details of the beards, glasses, guinea pigs and so on). The portraits start at $45 Australian dollars (just under £30) for a wall hanging hoop – you can also get littler ones as necklaces and brooches... but that would surely be taking the weirdness a bit too far, no? Dandelyon

Now this, above, is the kind of thing I'd totally get a couple as an unsolicited wedding present. Only I'd probably choose the wrong sort of couple to give it to and they'd be really freaked out and cursing me for deviating from their wedding list instructions... do you think? Surely anyone would love to receive a pair of these, with their faces on them, freaky or not? Mm. Well. Watch out soon-to-marry-couples I know – these have your faces on them. They're made by North Carolina-based illustrator, Jordan Grace Owens, whose other work – for example – you can see on the left.

I like her. We might revisit and give her work a stand-alone post shortly. Meanwhile, find the dolls at Jordan Grace Owens

I'm a sucker for anything animal related. I love how the dog portrait, above, really captures that pathetic glimmer dogs give off when they want something. (It's working even in canvas form isn't it?) I've covered some different pet portraits before that you might like (and which deliver to more destinations), and these ones start at around £100 but they can only take US orders/delivery addresses. Red Tile Studio

Finally, a great gift for a girlie teenage girl? I reckon. But she'd have to be very special, because they're also around £100 a pop (no postage though – as the designs are emailed to you unless you want paper versions posted – $15 extra if so). These digitally designed 2D dolls are made to order by Kate Gabrielle in Princeton, USA, and she says she's "not great yet at doing guys" so won't yet recreate chaps (in case the budding David Beckham in your life was springing to mind). Sweet & Lovely 

If you'd like your own knitted doll portrait, please contact Liz at cat_ladd@yahoo.co.uk

Happy Easter

Your Home is Lovely is having a long weekend off (glamorously, to cart most of the contents of the garage to charity shops...). 

We'll be back on Tuesday. Until then, hope your weekends are even more stylish – but if not, enjoy these stylish neon wooden eggs.

Neon Dipped Eggs, around £20 (plus delivery, they are on sale in the US). Find them and other beautifully bright, hand-made homewares at Wind and Willow.

Over-sofa drinks rest

A month or two ago, I included a simple but superbly useful device in a round-up of 'ingenious objects'; it was a u-shaped piece of wood designed to slot over your sofa arm and provide a flat surface to rest your drink, book or small plate upon when the table is to far and the floor too low.

It wasn't cheap – over £160. But it was beautiful and despite the simplicity of it, something so useful it almost justified the price tag. In case you didn't agree, I have just found this.

Even simpler, this Dutch-made 'bankplank' ('bank' is Dutch for sofa, and 'plank' is Dutch for, well, plank) isn't, perhaps, as beautiful (aesthetically, I'd prefer a flush top), but it is just as useful. It comes in different woods including – above – spalted maple, as well as black walnut and reclaimed mahogany. It also comes in different sizes.

Bankplank, Ep Bordewijk, around £20 (prices are in Euros) plus around £4 delivery within Europe.

Beach photographic wall art

What could be more cheering at this time of the year to have on your wall than a giant photo of a beach (for snow-covered British readers, at least). Not your classic tropical beach cliche, the sort of image you get on canvasses in large DIY stores' decor sections. Oh no. Something altogether more interesting – like this...

...which is part of the latest Etsy 'Get the Look' series, and provides a nose around this super stylish pad in San Francisco (which you can also rent, should you be on holiday in that neck of the woods).

Anyway, read more about that and see images of the rest of this home/holiday let at Etsy, and if you want to adorn your own walls similarly, do check out Kim Olsen Photography.

This image, 'Beach Cinque Terre, Italy', is great. I love all the colours, and the way that big umbrella in the foreground ties them all together. It costs around £90 for a 16"x24" canvas print. She can make different sizes to order, too.

I really like this image of Kim's, too, taken of Point Reyes Lighthouse in California. Same price and size as above (for non-States-based readers, she is happy to ship abroad, although it doesn't say so on the page – it just depends what size and format print you order and how easy it would be to send. But she is happy to look into options and get a quote for delivery outside the US).

The American Photographer's Gallery also ships to the UK. There you can buy vintage stunners such as this classic 1970s Slim Aarons' print of the beach at St Tropez.

You could also always try blowing up your own image via an online service such as the one BonusPrint  or Snappy Snaps offer (there's lots more detail about those in this post). Or try online print-to-order galleries, such as 55Max (though, depending on what you go for, the options there can be a little commercial, like you got them off-the-shelf) and Surface View, which is excellent – they'll also print onto birch ply or expertly mount your photography – but can be pricey. I also discovered last week, while nosing around Wayne and Geradine Hemingway's lovely online shop, that they sell some pretty cool prints through their Land of Lost Content strand. A bit different, as you can see below.

Check out more ways with photography as wall art in this post on the topic from earlier last year.

Wish lists

Last night a new reader on Twitter said she had loved the Neisha Crosland vinyl floor tiles I featured a while back – and that she'd added them to her wish list.

It got me thinking about wish-lists, what what would be on mine. And then I remembered I had written out a far more prosaic list around a year ago, and stuck it to my fridge door. Twelve months later, I have done precisely two things from it ('snails' and 'dispose of fence' in case you are interested – how glamorous I am – am I the only person with such a dull wish-list?).

But last year was an epic DIY adventure, and it tired me out a bit (especially this part). So roll on the spring and maybe I can cross some things off that damn list at long last.

Meanwhile, I can avoid it with much more interesting shopping wish lists, which I can handily store  right here, rather than on lists stuck on the fridge. Here are a few less boring things on my house wish list...

This ingenious sofa-arm shelf for sale on Etsy (but from Blisscraft and Brazen, a reclaimed wood design store based in Canada, but easy to get a good joiner to make one up for you if you are elsewhere in the world).

A beautiful portrait of a good face, painted in oils, like one of these by Kai Samuels-Davis.

A set of Pretty Pegs, top, for my green sofa, above, which has not very nice ones. Or I may even just finally get around to painting them... when I can decide on a colour...

Crochet rugs

Crochet rugs. Not a patchouli-scented 1970s throwback (or am I just thinking macramé?) but a rather lovely strand of enticing new items found on Etsy today.

What do you think? A giant, tactile doily on the floor, I like it.

This this grey crochet rug, £127, above, is by a young Finnish company called Hooked Design, whose debut collection (ie, this one) specialises in ecological lace carpets hand-made from recycled material salvaged from the textile industry, largely cotton.

The rugs are all made to order and so take three or so weeks to arrive. I really like this big black design – this size (200cm – the largest they make), though a) you can't see its lovely holey bits in this photo, and b) it is out of my price-range at £665. But the smaller rugs start at around £60 for a 60cm diameter.

I also really love this colourful hexagon crochet rug by La Casa de Coto. It measures 75cm across and costs £56.90.

And if Britain was a sunnier country, one where you could really justify outdoor textiles of the rug variety – I'd have one of these luscious turquoise patio rugs, for around £32 made by Camille Designs in Georgia, in the US. Then again, it'd work just as well inside – quite a nice bathroom rug for the right floor. made from mildew-bashing braided cord and measuring 33 inches across.

She does a nice hot pink one too, for around £45 for a slightly bigger diameter of 35 inches and a frillier shape.

Monochrome masterpiece

The first thing I did as I decorated my house was to paint it all white. I'd long dreamed of the clean simplicity of the classic pale backdrop – I imagined I'd magically begin to hoard less, and that my bits and pieces, suddenly 'curated' rather than clutter, would gain stature, as if in a freshly whitewashed gallery. Ha. Obviously that never happened. It's just not my natural style – and, once a hoarder... 

But it wasn't all down to my lack of style discipline: although my house has heaps of huge windows (it's a poor-man's Span house, so they go wall-to-wall) and light-bouncing Scandi-ish pale floorboards (they came with the house – good design Lambeth Council), bits of it remain gloomy and dark. So colour has crept onto walls. And white soft furnishings are not ideal with a frequently muddy dog. But I can still dream. And when I saw this beautiful Idaho home, belonging to jewellery designer, Jennifer Hagler, on the Etsy blog, I thought I'd share what exactly it is I dream of...

Love the slightly haunting drawing above the sideboard; and wall-fixing furniture like this is a top tip if you want to maximise space and flash a bit of minimal chic. (Just don't shove loads of tat underneath it every time you tidy up.)

This (bottom right image) is a far better use for those hanging Ikea containers; I tried putting herbs in mine (messy), and they currently hold kitchen utensils, uselessly, as the angle means everything always falls out. But stubby little pens and pencils, parfait. Mine may be reborn on my office wall. 

I have written about bunching up a light garland like this (right hand picture) before, after seeing it in the home of the Brigg blog. It is a good, cheap look. And – hurrah – some typographic art that doesn't look dated. Nice font.

See more images of Jennifer's place on the Etsy blog, as well as lots of get-the-look shopping inspiration. You should also check out Jennifer's very beautiful blog, A Merry Mishap and the geometric jewellery she designs and sells through her Etsy shop. It's clean and minimal, but striking – just the sort of jewellery you'd expect someone living in this flat to design.

All photos from Etsy.

Two festive shopping events

If you happen to be in or visiting London or Nottingham to do your Christmas shopping, here are two events to stick on your map. 

I love Pretty Dandy, which I posted about earlier this year. And now they are having a one-off flea market type event, with items old and new as well as music and workshops going on.

And if you are as much of an Etsy nut as I am, you'll be excited to hear that the website becomes a real  live thing for the day at a nice-sounding do at Tate Britain, in London as part of the Pimlico gallery's celebration of its Pre-Raphaelite exhibition.