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Art & Culture, Home & GardenDecember 18, 2015

Guest Blogger in Residence: Selvedge looks at Harris Tweed

By Amanda

Today is the last of our guest blogger in residence posts from Selvedge Magazine. We’ve really loved having Polly and her team write about textile heritage for us and hope you have too. Today they are looking at Harris Tweed.… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 16, 2015

Festariums, The New Terrariums

By Amanda

Terarriums! So last season! It’s all about the Festarium now…. OK, I made that up, but look how cute the terrarium looks when you make it a Christmas decoration. I learnt how to pimp up my terrarium at McQueen’s Flower… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 15, 2015

Christmas Gift Guide for M.A.Ds

By Jane

Today’s Christmas gift guide is brought to you courtesy of M.A.D and is particularly relevant if the M.A.D in your life is a graphic designer/architect type, as it is packed with tasteful/practical ideas as well as the odd ridiculously expensive… Read More

Art & Culture, Home & GardenDecember 11, 2015

Guest Blogger In Residence: Selvedge Magazine Investigates Welsh Blankets

By Amanda

This week, Selvedge Magazine looks at Welsh Blankets and I’m warning you, you’re going to want one after you’ve read the post…… Wales’ rich community of designers and makers – both historic and contemporary – is often overlooked in comparison… Read More

Fashion & Beauty, Home & GardenDecember 10, 2015

Good Gifts for Grown Up Gardeners

By Amanda

While we’re out and about in a festive shopping frenzy, or indeed doing it all online this year, it’s worth taking a moment to look at the imagery being used to flog us stuff. We grown up women had the… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 9, 2015

Christmas Gift Guide for Middle-aged mums

By Jane

Today its my turn to bring you my pick of the most interesting Christmas gifts for middle-aged mums – or indeed any of the women in your life. You may also want to send a link to any clueless men… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 8, 2015

A Christmas Card Strategy (and special offer) with Cath Tate Cards

By Amanda

Aeons ago, back when all we had to communicate with was paper and pen (remember those days children? Oh, no, I guess you don’t) middleagedad and I used to dread doing Christmas cards. Even though we didn’t send that many… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 7, 2015

Christmas Gift Guide for Teenage Girls

By Jane

Todays Christmas gift guide is curated by our very own in-house beauty expert and font of all teenage girl knowledge – my daughter. My mum always used to say, having a daughter keeps you young and it is indeed true.… Read More

Home & Garden, Out & AboutDecember 3, 2015

Christmas Gift Guide for the Boy About Town

By Amanda

For the second in our series of gift guides, I thought I’d ask my sons what were the crucial, stylish must have items for every teen and twentysomething boy about town. The conversation went something like this…. Me: what are… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 2, 2015

Christmas Gift Guide for stylish women (and men)

By Jane

So it’s officially December and time to start thinking about buying presents. Is it just me or does Christmas seem to have been going on for months already? In order to help you find the prefect present, or to point… Read More

Home & GardenNovember 26, 2015

Alternative Christmas Pudding

By Jane

If you’ve missed stir up Sunday and like me, are not overly fond of Christmas pudding anyway (all that small fruit makes me gag), you might want to think about trying out the rather delicious sticky toffee alternative below. I… Read More

Home & GardenNovember 25, 2015

The Powerful Smell Of Home

By Amanda

I don’t think either Jane and I are there yet, but there will come a time when we might want to downsize from our family homes to something easier to handle as we get older. Personally I have my eye… Read More

Fashion & Beauty, Home & GardenNovember 20, 2015

Guest Blogger-In-Residence Polly Leonard, On Protected Status For Textile Heritage

By Amanda

Our second post from guest blogger in residence Polly Leonard of Selvedge fame. This week Polly’s putting forward a strong arguement for textile heritage recognition…do I feel a campaign coming on? What do Single Gloucester, Arbroath smokies and Whitstable oysters… Read More

Home & GardenNovember 18, 2015

Mid Week Cooking: Dish Next Door

By Jane

Imagine this – it’s 6pm, you have at least another hours work to do and nothing in the fridge. And even if there was, the thought of cooking when you get in is a step too far. Take aways are… Read More

Art & Culture, Home & GardenNovember 13, 2015

You Have To Be Careful About Craft, by Selvedge’s Polly Leonard

By Amanda

We had an AMAZING response to our Guest Blogger call-out, thanks to all of you who mailed us and today we are delighted to introduce a month long guest blogger Friday residency with Polly Leonard, founder and editor of our… Read More

Home & Garden, Out & AboutNovember 12, 2015

Writing With A Needle with Rosalind Wyatt

By Amanda

Today our regular guest blogger Julia Little, tells about the joy of re engaging with a needle and thread….over to you Julia. As Alber Elbaz said, when he recently stepped down from the creative reins of Lanvin, “Maybe we are… Read More

Home & GardenNovember 5, 2015

10 Years of Womens Fiction

By Jane

This week I went along to the ‘Best of the Best” event at the Piccadilly Theatre to mark the 20th Anniversary of the Baileys Womens Prize for Fiction. Presented by Kate Mosse Co-Founder and Chair of the Women’s Prize for… Read More

Home & Garden, Out & AboutOctober 27, 2015

Anthropologie’s Auction: how to get your hands on some stylish Christmas decorations

By Amanda

This has got me very excited, our friends over at Anthropologie are selling their super-creative in store display props to raise much needed cash for the Save The Children’s charity Child Refugee Crisis appeal. We love Anthro stores, they are… Read More

Home & GardenOctober 16, 2015

The best bedlinen can’t be judged by thread count, says The Secret Linen Store

By Amanda

We have a guest post today from Molly, co founder of the Secret Linen Store, who is keen to tell us about thread count…and there’s a bit of a treat at the bottom of the post. Over to you Molly….… Read More

Home & GardenOctober 7, 2015

For anyone thinking of buying a spiralizer….

By Amanda

I LOVE a kitchen gadget. My cupboards are overflowing with them and its a habit I blame on my mum and dad, who enticed me with their groovy electric carving knife in the mid 70s (possibly the coolest thing to… Read More

Home & GardenSeptember 28, 2015

Books and box sets: M Train and Narcos

By Jane

Last weeks Autumn Equinox marked the official end of the summer and as the nights draw in our thoughts turn to books and box sets, as we anticipate cosy nights by the fire. The highly anticipated sequel to one of… Read More

Home & GardenSeptember 14, 2015

How to make a Terrarium with Yardley and Grace & Thorn

By Jane

One of the great things about blogging is being asked to really interesting launches and events and last week I was invited to the launch of Yardley‘s new fragrance English Bluebell. A group of bloggers gathered at the Hackney based… Read More

Home & GardenSeptember 1, 2015

Tool time with Concrete Matter

By Jane

When M.A.D and I lived in Toronto one of his favourite (trashy) tv programmes was Home Improvement, a US sitcom starring Tim Allen as an all American dad who hosts his own Home Improvement show Tool Time. M.A.D is quite… Read More

Home & GardenAugust 27, 2015

Upscaling home fragrance: wish list thinking with Fornasetti

By Amanda

One thing Project Perfume has taught me is that scented candles are a bit old school when it comes to scenting your house; there’s a whole world out there of alternative ways to make your home smell divine. Middleagedad thinks… Read More

Home & GardenAugust 21, 2015

Country Home Inspiration at Gudrun SJõdén

By Amanda

Last weekend I went to Wales to visit my friend Lindsay, who has fabulous taste and could be the Martha Stewart of Pembrokeshire in terms of what she does with her house style. Living as she does, miles away from… Read More

Home & GardenAugust 3, 2015

See this: Life in Squares

By Jane

If you haven’t heard about the new BBC 2 drama Life in Squares where have you been. It explores the lives and loves of the Bloomsbury Set – focusing on sisters Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell – and is fabulous,… Read More

Home & GardenJuly 29, 2015

Miss Magpie Spy’s new range of cards

By Jane

We have long been fans of Miss Magpie Spy’s work and were delighted when she sent us a few sample from her new range of cards last week. I caught up with Niki Groom the woman behind the illustrations her… Read More

Home & GardenJuly 3, 2015

Guest Food Blogger Jo Orr: Cool Food for Hot days

By Amanda

Food for the heat this week, with our guest food blogger Jo Orr It’s such a pleasure when the idea you have in your head actually translates into reality. I was lying in tangled sheets this morning, cursing the fact… Read More

Home & Garden, UncategorizedJuly 1, 2015

More Urban Gardens at Grow London

By Jane

Remember a couple of years ago we predicted a house plant revival. Well now you can’t move (well in East London anyway) for succulents, cheese plants and cacti. The house plant trend is now definitely a thing and has opened… Read More

Home & Garden, Out & About, UncategorizedJune 29, 2015

The Flower Appreciation Society: An A – Z Of All Things Floral

By Jane

I have been a huge fan of the vintage style of the Flower Appreciation Societie’s casual approach to flowers for some time now, not least because they are big fans of ceramic swans (I have an ever growing collection), and… Read More