Victorian teacup candles

After not-that-many hours of burning, my Jane Austen candle died. And I went on a Sunday Afternoon mission to find a new scented candle. Which is when I found these - Victorian and Twenties teacups filled with vanilla wax, from a teeny kitsch shop called Nicholas and Steele in Raynes Park.
The scent is very light; perhaps too light. But you can use the 'holders' afterwards as teacups. Bought one but have my eye on six more. Dangerous, given the shop is 50 steps from my house - and that the candles are £15 a piece...

Polished v Pebbles

My favourite is still the wonderfully rugged, non-descript, concrete and beautifully imperfect flooring in Andy Warhol's Factoy. Here are some of the other most intriguing floorings...
(The loo pebbles is the en suite of a particularly unique hotel)

Fantasie Florentine

Just discovered Fantasie Florentine, a teeny paper shop near the Ponte Vecchi in Firenze (and next to the gorge Hotel Lungarno with the best restaurant in the city). A prunish elderly lady with lots of hair slides and a shop the size of a stamp that smells of incense. Inside, is rolls of the most beautiful paper for the equivalent of 30p. Here are three of the designs I bought. She also covers books, pencil pots and bookmarks with her papers. No website, sadly.

My Rome-o

Another Rome purchase - a mounted lamb's skull on a plaque. What do you think? Paid EUR20 for it. Only after I'd handed over the cash, the owner looked delighted and he and his wife shook my hand profusely. Rip off? Or friendly Italianos?

Fashion art - Mario in Rome

Greetings from Rome, where I saw the Mario Testino exhibition. Nearly bought a print of this Gemma Ward-goldfish portrait...

Little rusty chandelier

This, I love. A Little Rusty chandelier. Better, it holds candles, not horrible glarey lightbulbs. A steal at £17.95 (gosh, I hate that expression). Would sit well in a sitting room with a rough, bulky railway sleeper mantlepiece.

What I fell for

...This stove. All shiny and traffic light red. I couldn't afford it, of course. Most things at TwoColumbiaRoad are beyond my thin means. So I bought this instead...

A Jane Austen candle. Frivolously priced at £21 given it doesn't smell of much. Supposed to smell of jasmine and gardenia. Should have gone with the Edgar Allen Poe.

Moodboard for: Beach huts, clapboards, St Ives, Cape Cod

My mood board: Whitewashed. Sand tangled. Pastel doorframes. Clapboard walls. White.

Lighting and textures

Something evocative about the crumbly textures, clashing tile patterns and dewy lighting here. I took there on recent trips to Sudan, Senegal and India.

Homely hotels

Villa des Orangers in Marrakech - one of few hotels I'd rather live in, than have a home. The city itself is a stressful bind but the private riads...

Mine was over two storeys. Up top, in front of the bed, was a clawfooted bath beside a open fire place.

The pictures (or this sleepily written post) simply doesn't do it justice.

Lofty ambitions

My perfect loft. Rafters. Colour. Stripped back floor. Mood board walls. Thanks Bright Bazaar. That is all.

Pigeons and sunshines

I know it's only a mug. And not even a floral, chintzy one. But there's something just right about pigeon grey and sunshine yellow.

Spotted it at cutesy boutique Treacle on Columbia Road. Shame it's £10.50. Worth it though...

Flower market

Was very excited about making my first trip to Columbia Road Flower Market on Saturday, in London's East End.
But out of all of the flowers in the market, what did I pick? A £1 bunch of what Wills called 'hippy flowers'. Ditty, brash clashing colours, teeny little petal heads. They didn't even have a name.

But they still put my £10 crispy, papery velvet roses to shame

And studys that cook...

Following on from my previous post, I also like the way Isle Crawford makes rooms so fluid - and how this kitchen merges with a dining table, which merges with a bedroom... And that rather ominous sword in the middle.

Still not as fluid as the rolltop bath I once saw - in the centre of a bedroom...

Kitchens That Sing

If you didn't see Stella mag's Interiors Special on Sunday, this is what you missed... Isle Crawford's delicious kitchen. All marble, wood, streamlined steel - and a picture of the Queen with a wonky crown. Don't know how on earth to crack this on a budget. Though you might want to try Dannetti for the rainbow bright plastic chairs.