London is calling.

I am super excited for 2012 –  I am going to be making a variety of trips to cover some really great events. I am busy putting together my schedule and plans, but the one I am most excited about is a return to London to attend the Chelsea Flower Show. The trip would not however be complete without a stop at one of my most favorite places on the planet — the Liberty department store. If you haven’t been there, these yummy images give an little glimpse of the place.

To start, it is a beautiful Tudor building in the heart of London’s West End. It is filled with the most imaginative of department store crossed with design products that are worth getting lost in for hours on end.

And then there are the storied prints. Liberty prints and the fabric that they are generally printed on have been a favorite of mine since I discovered them years ago. If I were a collector, Liberty fabric  and liberty print adorned items would be a worthy thing to gather. I imagine making beautiful quilts and pillows and basically anything else that can be crafted with fabric.

I love Liberty spotting and seeing where the fabric turns up. Of course, there was the relatively recent Target range, but a few years before J Crew did a line of shirts and I have seen many a clothing/ shoe/ accessory designer work in the prints here and there. I really love finding them in home goods — but I haven’t yet seen them to brought to the garden. Hmmm…Waiting….

images:  miss cherie, Red bubble, Liberty, little green notebook, and cabinet a bidoulles.

You can see more Liberty print inspiration on my Liberty Pinterest board.

Have you read the bios of my team on Leaf Magazine’s website?   We had some fun with writing them and since they went online, I have had all sorts of fun responses from people about my own write-up.  It confirms the ambivalent feeling that I have had for some time towards the bio on the this site and I am encouraged to finally get around to changing up the ‘about’ section.  It has been annoying me because it is just so dull and not entirely reflective of me -plus (happily) I am bringing in a few contributors that I want to give some love to – so that has been added to the ‘To Do” list. I’ll let you know when the new version is up and the contributors can be introduced officially.

Anyway, in the bio I mentioned my truck songs….and I have subsequently had numerous questions about them.  While, at the moment, I simply don’t have to the time to share the list in its entirely, I will tell you a new song that is going to be added into the rotation.  I discovered Valley Low by Blisses b through Anne Sage this morning.  It is seriously good — and I couldn’t agree more with Anne’s description: “If Vampire Weekend and a mini tiger had a baby; then the Talking Heads and a ten gallon drum of glitter had a baby; then those babies had a baby; Blisses B would be that baby.”  Yes – exactly.

My truck tends to get parked for the winter, which isn’t really a good thing because a few things happen -

1) The plow guy feels no remorse for piling large amounts of snow in front of it, securing its winter lock down.

2) Mice and other creatures move into the inner cavities of the truck causing amazing things to happen — like the time that the cab suddenly filled up with billowing white smoke causing me to drive up on the sidewalk in the middle of the day in the middle of downtown Worcester, MA and then bail out as quickly as possible because I thought it was about to blow in good hollywood-esque fashion.  Quite a scene.  Turns out the mouse house that had been built in the heater core had caught fire and truly, you know have no idea how much smoke little bits of grass and fluff make when they catch fire in front of a fan. (I am taking a tip from a friend to put dryer sheets in the glove box and any other place I can think of apparently they don’t like the freshsmell of human like laundry).

Which brings me to #3) A really funky smell takes hold when it is closed up for that long.  It is a combo of mouse nastiness, the remnants of the previous owners chain smoking and sourness that results from the forgetfulness of the current owner to roll up the windows before it rains.   I have got to replace the seat covers because they are just gross and probably the bulk of this stench is harboured there.   I am planning to make my own from Mexican Blankets.  I shopped for seat covers and they were at least 90 bucks, but I can get a great Mexican blanket for $20 which is more durable, and after a few lines of stitching, I will have something far more suitable to my own sensibilities.

But the (#4) biggest reason is that when I drive any other car but the truck I am just driving a car, but the truck is an adventure, a journey, an event to do something fun and even though the thing is a nightmare in the snow and ice, I think taking a whole season off from adventures it just too much.

images from the mad preist, Mexican wholesale blankets

I am not sure how I feel about being old enough to see fashions and fads truly recycle themselves.  I remember my grandmother and mother saying to me “Thats not new….I remember when blah blah was the fashion back when I was….blah blah”.  Well, now I am saying it.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with my sun block printing kit.   I loved it and it seemed at the time like something lots of other people did too…..so the resurgence of this pretty way to capture a bit of your garden for your home couldn’t please me more, even if it does make me sound like my mother and make me wonder if I may need to begin lying about my age.

Have you noticed the resurgence of sun prints?

Sun printing was originally developed by Anna Atkins (a British botanist, 1799-1871) who used the process to document and catalog plants.  She felt it was more accurate than her drawings.  There is a great telling of the story of her and the algea that she first documented at Venetian Red.

The process (as applied to not just scientific record keeping) reveals beautiful results that are perfect for decor of all kinds.

Here is my round up of all the sunblocking that is catching my attention:

Blueware Tiles, vases and even lampshades by Studio Glithero.

Both Martha  Stewart and Garden Design have nice write-ups about the how-tos and you can get printable fabric at blue prints on fabric.

You can also learn more about doing it yourself from a new book by  Christine Schmidt of Yellow Owl Workshop.

I am excited to give this old craft of mine a new twist….maybe I can even get my kids hooked on it, and one day when they are 30 something, they can say, hey- “that’s not new,  I used to do blah blah back when I was blah blah…”;)

To see more sun-spiring print inspiration, check out my newest pinterest board.

images from Martha  Stewart , Garden Design, Rinne Allen,  and that cake (which is not really cyanotype but an airbrushed edible copy) is from Once Wed.

Did I mention that its April vacation week?  Can you hear the strain in my voice?  Yes, its a lot harder to lead my normal life while also keeping an 8 year old and a 5 year old constructively entertained.

This morning after they got their hair cut, we stopped by a new place I recently discovered.  Gallery 56 is a great consignment shop in a nearby town.  I finally found new dishes.  My old set was vintage china sourced at a garage sale when I was in college.  Needless to say, (15+ years later)  it was a few plates short of a set.  I had filled in with some ikea standards, but as it turns out plate design is kinda important.  The ikea’s are high in the center, annoyingly making our food sauces flow to the outer edges.   I found that these are much better used underneath plants.

Anyway out new dishes in hand, my daughter and I washed, and put away the new (vintage china) set and swapped out the old.  And in the spirit of spring cleaning (and the fact that everyone was happy to help) the insides of the cupboards got a washing and I decided to paint the inside of my cabinet doors with chalkboard paint.  It was a 5 second decision as I had some paint on hand, but I am so pleased with the results.  A perfect place for notes and grocery lists.  And kids love when you start to spontaneously paint things….

So this a long story to tell you that I want to use chalkboard paint in more places  ( I still have leftovers) and in search of ideas….I came up with this….

and this…

and all of these…..

When I saw this, I had one of those, Ah-ha moments where I wondered why I didn’t think of that.

A number of years ago I had a project where, through the installation, a couple of large shade sails got damaged.  Nothing major, quarter sized holes in across a 16 ft span, but not suitable for the client whe paid top dollar and deserved undamaged goods.  So the spares have languished in my barn since.   I am determined to put a wood floor in the barn this summer so a big clean out is in order and I have been considering what to do with these sails.   And now I have it….make a shower stall in the garden.  (I have the perfect spot and have been wanting one forever)  All I need is to cut down the sails to size with my metal plumbing pipe frame, add rivets where needed, and string to the frame. (and of course put in the plumbing — but that is actually going to pretty easy, I think, with a quick phone call to the plumber). You could do this too with some marine grade fabric.

This BTW this an image from Sarah Jessica Parker’s house in the Hamptons and was featured in Elle Decor.

Image by William Waldron for Elle Decor. Image found via remodelista.