a day out in london doing a spot of research

peter jones on the kings road is always a worthwhile stop when around south west london and i got a few snaps in of the current trends in interior textiles and stationery. i can be in there for hours looking at all the fabrics, wallpapers, cushions, bedding, stationery, tea towels, accessories...basically, it's a treasure trove...need i go on?!

donna wilson

there was a pretty good mix of bedding styles in the homeware department - scion and clarissa hulse grabbed my attention straight away...

anorak

joules

and of course it would be wrong of me not to include some snaps of the fabulous orla kiely so here are some duvet covers and stationery. she even has garden gloves these days! ...oh how i envy her sometimes!

 

some new stationery that i haven't seen around before from k two - sticky labels , notelets, magnets, and  label, ribbon & tag sets...

 and then it was onto spitalfields...

amsterdam . . . the tulips (or maybe not)

and so our last stop was to keukenhof. the weather hadn't warmed up much since our arrival so i wasn't expecting any tulips if i'm honest. and just as well because i didn't get any!! the crocuses had come out to play though so well done to them. and the greenhouse was used to show off any tulips that we weren;t getting to see outside. so now will follow a lot of photos of flowers. enjoy.

looks like a beautiful field of tulips, right? photo trickery my friends. they're in a tub.

the years theme was 'UK' and obviously london was a big part of that. there were beafeater uniforms and the red phone box placed about...but i can't help but think they could have done a little more - like actually make a tube map from different colour flowers. i've similar at kew and unfortunately this didn't quite match those standards. still, the uk isn't the easiest of themes and they were still building the show so it may well look better.

the willem alexander greenhouse had squares and squares and more squares of tulips planted, and also hydrangeas, lilies and hyacinths.

there were soem outside gardens to walk through and this one was by far my favourite- pink and turquoise buckets full of spring flowers and a beautifully decorated caravan!

and of course, we had to get a snap of a windmill!!

amsterdam . . . the design

so i promised you a look into some of the shops in amsterdam to see what kind of design goods they are selling...well here you go...




first up is GUUS, a cute little boutique shop just off of the main streets. it had table mats, kids toys, magnets, lighting...all very quirky and right up my street :)

ceramic bottles. not sure what you'd do with them but they looked quite nice

finally. someone has modernised v   paper decorations vhghhhhh

the cork placemat. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm                                

paper tree houses to add to your plants!

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a little further down the road we have KITSCH KITCHEN. don't think i need to explain what kind of delights where held within these store walls...

quite frankly these owls just scare me

painted tealight holders

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