Real homes: the gratuitous display cupboard conundrum

In an ideal world, the fabulous Fornasetti menu plates that I've written about here before would be within financial reach, and the glass-fronted kitchen display cupboard would now be full of them.

Indeed, if I had, over the years, collated a beloved curation of anything with some kind of theme – ceramic or otherwise – then the cupboard would easily have some kind of 'look' going on. But no...

The cupboard – once my grandma's dining room glasses cupboard – is a luxuriously gratuitous space. There isn't really anything that needs to go in it that we can't fit into the regular kitchen storage areas and, simply so that it is not empty, it currently houses lots of random things that would look better in other parts of the house. Except that that wouldn't leave the cupboard eerily bare. So the randomness remains while the hunt for the right decorative collection continues. But I think I may have found something to start it...

...Grayson Perry's limited edition plates, £30 each from the National Portrait Gallery.

Each of the four fine china plates has a gilded edge and features a detail from Perry's wonderfully off-beat self-portrait, Map of Days, which you can see in full below.

In a clip from his excellent Channel 4 series Who Are You? you can watch Perry talking about why the idea of making a traditional self-portrait makes him cringe because, to him, it feels like "going back to the earnest 16-year-old in the art room at school trying to look down the barrel of my own angst".

Two mugs featuring Perry's work are also available, see one of them below, along with other pieces produced by Kit Grover to tie in with Who Are You? along with other homewares and accessories. See the full range here at the NPG.

There are lots of pretty plates about, and the idea of having things "just for best" pains me – if you love it, use it. But I'm breaking my own home philosophy here, and veering towards a slowly-built collection of art that happens to be on plates – lending it a kitchen-y theme. Sturdier plates can still be interesting, but they'll just have a different function. Artist plates are a nice way to begin building an art collection on a budget and Perry could be starting something in the kitchen... My other idea, inspired by a helpful tweet from the Balcony Gardener, is to turn the cupboard into an indoor greenhouse and stuff it with interesting plants. Perhaps I'll do both... watch this space.

If you like unusual plates, check out some other favourite designs I've featured here, including ceramics by: La Kinska, Louise Wilkinson, Melody Rose, vintage Ironstone and Evie Lotts. You might also like the monochrome Day Birger range at Rockett St George, which I also have my eye on.

Object of the day: old French bowls and plates from The Peanut vendor

These beautiful plates range in date from the 1930s to the 1950s and are available from The Peanut Vendor (whose owners' wonderful home I wrote about AGES ago, here).

The online and actual shop (in north London) has a big batch of these beauties fresh in... for just £4 a-piece.

Affordable enough to start a little collection...

Check them out at The Peanut Vendor, and get in quick as the shop is shutting for a little holiday on Sunday.

Post by Kate

Object of the day... Louise Wilkinson plates

These plates are just two from a small collection by designer, Louise Wilkinson. 

I'd like them all, but these – marginally – are my two favourites.

Nice aren't they? In dinner plate size they cost £19.50 each. Below are a couple of the sweet side plates, priced at £14.50.

Louise launched her range at Liberty in 2012 and will be exhibiting at Tent London later this year. See more and buy at Louisewilkinson.co.uk.

Object of the day: M&S melamine

You could of course use these bright and beautiful melamine plates for a picnic, as intended, but wouldn't they look wonderful hung on a drab wall?

They are eminently affordable and available in the Summer range at Marks and Spencer.

Rio Dinner Plate, £3.50

If you follow me on Pinterest, you may already have spotted a mini gallery of plates on walls. If not, and you're after some inspiration, do take a look.

Rio side plate, £3

There is more in the range – not so hangable, alas – but too good to get out only for the summer season.

Rio Flower Tray, £9.50

Rio Cereal Bowl, £3

Introducing... Pen & Gravy

At the weekend I walked through my local market, to-do list in pocket and not intending to stop – but then I got drawn into a little stall selling the most beautiful, colourful graphic patterned plates – and also striking hand-drawn fabric lampshades with the same repetitive designs. 

Turns out the seller, also the designer and maker, is Jamie – aka Pen & Gravy (pictured at his stall, below) – and, in his own words, he "draws on lampshades and plates", as well as selling screen-printed versions of his designs as wall art.

The patterns remind me a little of the West African wax prints I'm often found banging on about enthusiastically here, or those geometric colouring books you used to be able to get – anyone remember what those were called?* Many a rainy childhood Sunday was eased with one of those and some felt-tips.


Visit the Pen & Gravy blog to see more of Jamie's work, and you can buy some of it via his Etsy shop, though, as Jamie warned me on Saturday, there isn't much stock online. Best thing is if you like any of the things in the pictures on his blog, just email him and he'll either dig one out or knock you one up bespoke styles. Plates start at £20 and A3 prints start at £10. 


* A helpful reader knows exactly the ones - see comments section to find out if you're interested

Urban ceramics and synchronised swimmers

I'm not big on watching sport – though there will be some bits of the Olympics I know I'll enjoy: generally the bits that your average sports fan overlooks. Like the gymnastics, especially that thing they do with the balls and ribbons, and the synchronised swimming. 

It's probably all about aesthetics (which tells you all you need to know about my prowess at competitive sports). And there's something about the symmetry of the latter that makes it so visually pleasing. Which is just what artist, Alice Mara thought when she came up with the idea for this excellent plate after getting herself a ticket to this weird and watery Olympic event.

Swimmer side plate, £24

Cavaliero Finn – purveyors of fine yet affordable art from established as well as emerging talent – are selling this alongside some of her pieces with the same theme, including a sweet milk jug, sugar pot and cup and saucer (and it's worth reading the back-story there about how the work was created with the help of a friend and a 1950s swimming hat from eBay). 

When I checked out Alice's own website I loved some of her other designs too, lots heavily influenced by her London life – she lives in Walthamstow – and inspired by the urban landscape. Like 'lipstick stall' plate, 'fruit and veg' plate, and my personal favourite, 'building' cup and saucer, below which, as she says herself, are "imbued with humour, colour and surrealism".

Kinda weird, huh? And probably all a bit love-or-hate. But I definitely feel the former. Definitely conversation starters...

And, finally, couldn't resist this trinket box, £25, inspired by Alice's local dog track.

Now that's what I call bunting

I'm not entirely convinced by bunting. The Jubilee has really helped it jump the shark, and it can look terribly twee.

But I loved this reincarnation of bunting, seen at the launch last night of Josie Da Bank's new picnic range.

 

Nice, isn't it?

The launch was on the top floor of Selfridges, one of the outlets where Josie's stuff will be on sale – and the whole place had been transformed, Bestival style with quirky, colourful decor; Josie, as you probably know, is the other half of Mr Bestival, aka Rob da Bank, as well as being producer and creative director of the festival, along with its family-focused sister, Camp Bestival). The cups on a wall were an interesting idea, too. 

I can't decide if I loved them or found them strangely creepy in an Alice in Wonderland way... 

So here is Josie's new picnic set: as you'd expect, joyful, bright and covered in her own lovely illustrations. 

It is available to pre-order on CultureLabel for delivery mid-July. By which time we might even have some picnicking weather.

Two plates from the range: the small version costs £8 and the large, £10. The rest of the range starts at £4 for one of the short tumblers.

Happy subversive Jubilee

Brit readers, are you sick of seeing tacky Jubilee souvenirs? Then you will love photographer Alison Jackson's trademark subversive take on the Queen's big day, which comes in the form of an amusing range of limited edition china. These plates are my favourite...

Alison Jackson Jubilee Teaplate Set, £120, Culture Label 

...and 'Ma'am' popping into William Hill surely the best of the trio. The plates are part of a limited edition of just 60, and you can get a discount if you order within the next six days. The set is fine bone china and edged with burnished 22kt gold. There are several other humorous products in Jackson's New English range, including tea-towels for £11.95.

Queen Mug, £20, also from Culture Label

Less subversive, but still a million miles from the acres of schmaltzy, bunting-y, twee, tat on offer hoping to earn its sellers a throwaway buck, is this mug. This Whitbread Wilkinson creation works year round, and what a brilliant design: it holds biscuits in her crown. Genius.

Happy long weekend all!

The V&A's pattern archives

The V&A has an incredible three million designs for textiles, wallpapers and prints. Lots are 20th century designs and the museum has taken a selection and adorned new objects with these little bits of design history. 

The range includes things covered in designs by Keith Vaughan, a self-taught artist and conscientous objector to WW2, whose work forms an exhibition on until June 12 at the excellent Pallant House Gallery in Chichester; the colour Brit fashion designer/national treasure, Zandra Rhodes, John Drummond, who designed for Hull Traders and also Sandersons during the 1950s; textiles designer and fashion tutor at Central St Martins, Natalie Gibson, who is profiled colourfully on the Stylelikeu blog;  Eddie Squires, who commemorated the moon landing in 1969 with his Lunar Rocket design. These are my favourites from the shop...

Clockwise from top right:

Homemaker plate, £12
Designed by Enid Seeney in 1957ish and produced by Ridgeway Potteries this classic design has now been reissued.

Teal Leaf stag head (small), £35
Although they've been dotted through magazines and on Pinterest again and again, I still haven't tired of the stag head as a good bit of home decor. I prefer mine made rather than shot, and this wooden one is enhanced further with patterns taken from 18th and 19th century Italian textiles. Apparently it can be hung outdoors as well as inside. He'd make a great feature for a garden needing a splash of colour (particularly if, like me, you are so inept at gardening that you won't get that in your flowerbeds).

Fisherman (left) and Fishes tea-towels, £5 each
Printed with designs, respectively, by Keith Vaughan (see intro) from 1956; and Rhona Park, from a 1951 furnishing fabric, are part of a vast range of gorgeous textiles from the V&A in dishcloth form, for just a fiver. I have a friend who has turned tea-towels as wall-art, by putting them in frames and into home-made cushion covers (with different fabric as a backing).

V&A Pattern: Liberty & Co book, £7.99
Here are 80 pages of pure pattern from the Liberty Archives, plus a free high-res CD of images to play with. You can see more of this beautifully packaged series as well as some other lovely design books here.

While browsing the V&A shop, I also discovered a great search facility that allows you to search patterns by decade. Here, for example, is the 1950s section. I could flick through these for hours...

Happy Easter!

And I hope you are celebrating it with some bunny as sweet as this...

Oak 'baby bunny' egg holder from a range of equally cute designs, £15, from Hop & Peck

Curating collections

My friend Holly likes collecting things. And she has a LOT of things. But collecting is an art, and she is good at arranging stuff, so it doesn't look like she lives like a crazed hoarder, or at a car boot sale. 

As Terence Conran says in his excellent The House Book, the 1974 edition of which I am somewhat addicted to: "The most disparate and surprising objects can be happily brought together. They may be related in shape, in genus, in colour of not connected in any way – there for the simple reason that their owner likes the look of them." Below, you'll see examples of most of those approaches.

The birds "Genus" grouped things give a sense of order to otherwise disparate objects – in terms of shape, colour, size and so on. The black and white pair, far left, are from Twenty Twenty One, priced £26.50 each. Maiden do an owl moneybox similar to the white fellow in the middle for £11.

Oh yes, and this is Holly.

In case you're wondering where you've seen that directionally coiffed chap behind her before, possibly in photos of my house.

We are the only people we know who has one, it was a sew-it-yourself doll that our mums both saved coupons for when we were little from a cereal called Force Flakes – hair man, whose name is Sunny Jim, was their logo. You can sometimes find them on eBay.

Plated up Holly's collection of side plates follow no rule except that they are all plates. Because they're all little, rather than dinner plates, even the pricey ones can be an affordable luxury. I like that they are a mixture of random charity shop finds (the Millenium plate, above, bottom left) and posh shop buys. Says Holly: "The London Eye plate [second row, centre, above] is the most expensive; I love that at first glance it's a classic 50s utopian style, but on closer inspection it depicts urban decay... and the London Eye. It's by Timorous Beasties – and I've  always been a fan of Robert Burns so their name just adds to the joy!" (It's part of TB's Toile range – you might have seen the fabric and wallpaper. Buy from £30 at Kitchen Critic.) Most of all, I like that they all have a story. This is what home is all about.

As for the other plates: "The elephant one was an unsought-for find when I was cutting through Peter Jones one day. It was under a tenner and I just had to have it. It's now got a little chip on it, but somehow that just makes me more fond of it." (This Emma Bridgewater design, commemorating the Jubilee, is similar – though bigger and pricier.) The cow types plate [bottom left in left hand image, above] is one of the most recent additions and my current favourite. I bought for 12 Euros it in Lisbon; it was in the window of an old-fashioned tobacconist's. We walked past it every day and I became totally obsessed. The lady in the shop seemed surprised I was so excited about it. When we walked past the next day, she'd replaced it with one showing different types of hot air balloons. The hearts plate was a bargain at 99p, from Tiger, my new favourite shop. It made its debut on Valentine's day when I gave my boyfriend his morning toast on it. The Spanish red tapas plate is the first I ever bought. It's from a gorgeous homewares shop in Barcelona – it was about 4 Euros and I love the bright 50s feel of it. The yellow tapas plate came from the same shop and the Banania one was about 2 Euros from a French service station on the road trip we took to get there, for some friends' wedding. Le Page De Dessin plate (bottom right, pale yellow) was my mum's – a gift from her oldest friend, years ago. I coveted it and last year my mum very kindly gave it to me." The top one, the face with the orange hair (she's called "Meg" and was a present from me because Holly is fond of ginger hair), is by Donna Wilson.

Get a grip Who needs matching cupboard doorknobs? I love how these add interest and colour to uniform, white bathroom cupboards. Not on the High Street have a decent selection, or do like I did to spruce up a plain Ikea set of mini drawers, and eBay as many as you need and collect slowly.

You've been framed An immense array of pictures work together because although all the frames are different, they are all black, and all the images are monochrome. Holly had previously had the wall behind them painted a paler grey, and they looked OK. But when she switched to this stronger shade the photo wall really came into its own. So think about what's framing your frames, too.

What a card The Penguin Postcards (£9.74 from Amazon, above right) I've featured before, as I have a set too. But I like how Holly's arranged them all in this double-sided frame (you can get them in Habitat).

Over to Holly to explain the display on the left: "The V&A shop sell these funny limited edition boxes of tiny prints, every one is different. They had one displayed in a frame and I loved it so nicked their idea. Itt took bloody ages but was worth it." The V&A shop still sell them, they are by Tom Martin, and the box-full costs £25.

Well padded Holly is a demon crafter. One of her crafts is making cushions – which is why she has so many. It gives her something to do with all the fantastic fabric she collects...

Date for your diaries: cushion sale, London, Saturday 14 April
Holly's having a sale of around 80 of her designs on April 14 in central London. I'll post  more about it nearer the time, but put the date in your diaries if you're local and drop by for details in the next couple of weeks (you can always sign up in the subscription box, top of the column on the left hand side of this page, to get posts delivered direct to your inbox if you don't want to miss it).

Here's one of her beautiful creations in solo glory.

I will also be running a cushion competition – so definitely sign up if you want to be in with a chance of winning one, as well as some other hand-made goodies for runners up.

And of course not everything needs to be part of a collection. Some things just look lovely on their own.

Today's favourite interiors shop... RE

I have a new favourite window shopping haunt. RE is also a real-life shop, based in Corbridge, Northumberland – it's hard to sum up exactly what the owners, Simon and Jenny, specialise in. Here are a few of things I most loved from their shelves...


Vintage jelly mould lights, from £48. Old graters, £8. These come in various sizes and shapes.

There is a lot of cleverly recycled stuff, quite a bit of made locally stuff, and then some totally random stuff. As they put it: "If you need a plaster Virgin Mary and a bottle of the best bubble bath in the world, this is the place".

I originally stumbled across the shop because I was looking for vintage jelly moulds for a friend to make bedside lights from (having been inspired by interiors stylist, Jasmine Orchard's beautiful version). RE, as you can see above, sell ready-assembled ones. And those graters would do a good job too, with a loop of wire fixed to the tops of them.

Plastic squeaky doll, £5. These are a good size to copy Arno with – 24cm high. Refired vintage plates, from £22. Exactly what they say they are: old plates given a new look with a butterfly design overlaid and glazed on.

I'm a fan of a doll for interior accessorising (as you can see here). But these ones, above, are altogether less creepy: but what would you do with them? At the flat of stylish Saltoun Supper Club host, Arno Maasdorp he displayed similar dolls on his black painted staircase to great effect. But a lone doll in a wall niche would also be striking – just look at Antoni & Alison's use of Mr Blobby.

Made in Britain plate

I totally love this plate, designed by Repeat Repeat. There's also a hearty matching mug to fill with builders' tea and a teapot, too. 

The idea behind the collection, say designers Gillian Naylor and Mark Faulkner, was to get across the message that bone china is still made in England. 

Britannia plate, (175ml across),£14.95, from Not on the High Street. The matching mug costs £13.75.

Vintage Christmas plates

These beautiful, reasonably priced, vintage-inspired festive plates are on the crossroads between kitsch and elegant, but I like precisely that clash: they'd be a great Christmas dinner table talking point.

They (and lots of other lovely designs) are made by Evie Lotts who describes herself as "a graphic designer who loves nature". The designs shown here are: deer, Santa's little helper, and pine tree, they're made individually each cost £9.65, plus a couple of quid for postage (from Spain).

I'm currently rustling up some more festive-themed posts – is there anything in particular any of you would like to find, be inspired about or just look at? Send me your themes and I'll aim to please!

Beefeater plates

I was very excited to find these psychedelic plates (£65 for the six-part set) on sale in my favourite new shop, H is for Home (warning: you will waste hours ogling the lovely, random but well organised and affordable vintage goodies here). 


Why? Because I already have two of them and wasn't sure if they were just a bit weird – I found them in a junk shop in west London and no one else took much of a shine to them. I don't even eat meat – so it seemed perhaps bizarre that I'd picked up a pair of steak plates (the stamp underneath is "Beefeater" by English Ironstone Pottery). I had swooped on them purely because they are bulls and I am a Taurus by star sign. (And a shopaholic who needs very little excuse to buy anything homes-y at all.)


The only people who shared my enthusiasm were (luckily) my deeply stylish neighbours, Emma and Sarah, who couldn't wait to show me their collection of fish plates from the same range.


If you miss out on these ones, there are lots more going on eBay.

Best of British

Ziggi Ziggi is a new discovery. Lots of cheap and very cheerful homewares – including this range of British-themed chinaware (there's lots more, including different plates, King's Road mugs and a Royal teapot, but these are my favourites). 

The online store also has a brilliant "shop by colour" facility. Genius. 

But back to British: Fish & chips mug, £4.95; Brittania dinner plate, £5.95; Brittania eggcup, £4.95 

More affordable art

Yesterday I blogged about some gorgeous Panda-based prints for a child's room from A Little Bit of Art. Just after I'd posted it, I couldn't resist a bit more window shopping on the site and dug out a few more goodies. I wouldn't usually blog about the same shop or site twice in a row – but there was just so much more there and I needed to justify the very long time I spent thinking, "want that"... "want that"... "want that"...

For the small dog in my life, I had to start with this super sweet and slightly kitsch canine covered number under the banner Collection of Joy (£20, A3 size, open edition digital print).

And it's not only prints for walls that the shop sells. LOVE this plate! (It's £30 and 250mm diameter.) There are some tea-towels and other illustrated accessories for sale on the site too.

And these fishing boats are just great, aren't they? By artist Hanna Melin, it costs £60.

And this is just brilliant. Love the dayglo tinge. It's by Robert Rubbish, costs £50 (48cm x 64cm, signed, limited edition screenprint of 200). I really want it.