Feeling blue...

... but in a good way!

(The images in this post look better if you click on them to view them against a black background.)

Having returned from Lacock with blue & white inspiration from the Tearooms, I rummaged through my cupboards to find my blue and white second hand shop finds (50 p - £ 1 per piece), to organise my own little tea party...

But... ehm... you can't blaim a girl for being slightly distracted by newly bought pansies and stunning sunshine, can you? And so it was that no tea was ever brewed, but pretty pansies projecting their petal pride from the small coffee cups. 

These particular cups were bought second hand by some friends in Sweden, because they knew these were identical to the ones my grandparents used to sip their three o'clock coffee from. Just looking at these little  cups and saucers brings back so many memories, and I can almost hear my grandfather quietly slurp the coffee whilst holding a sugar cube between his teeth, the way he always did...

The garden table (spray-painted to look old and rusty) was brought in to 

the conservatory and decorated with some ivy from the garden...

There is something about the white and blue that oozes summer vibes, don't you think?

And if I am not mistaken, that is where we are heading, slowly but surely!

...and then one thing led to another...

... and a blue & white cushion was born!

The perceptive reader might recognize the photo on the cushion as the third one in this blog post, although a mirror image of it due to the transfer process. I used Iron-On T-Shirt Transfer paper, which can be found in most stationery shops (I made lavender sachets in the same way here.), and some white linen fabric I had in the cupboard. A couple of straight seams and voilà, a summer-inspired cushion. The images are not perfect, perhaps because of the not entirely smooth linen fabric surface, but we can perhaps call it...ahem... "rustic"...?

Wishing all you of you, new readers and old, the loveliest of weeks, 

and thank you for stopping by!

Helena

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Layered  loveliness...

Snow drops are on their last breath on the road side, ready to move over and give way to other colourful spring-petalled cousins. A few days ago, with fingers itching for some floral play, I grabbed a handful of the snow drops, a couple of stems of Chrysanthemums from the flower shop, some ribbon, left-over linen fabric and burlap and there, ready to go, I set to work. Hearing my heart humming joyous spring tunes, I also decided it was time to air my latest DIY project, the wooden cake stand... 

I made this cake stand in the same way as the one I made with plates and a cup a year ago, but this time I used different sized "plates" of birch, covered the wired metal rod with strips of burlap/hemp, and topped it off with a left-over piece of the wooden branch from which I made napkin rings before Christmas.

The wholegrain strawberry yoghurt with grapes, served in small tea light holders from IKEA many years ago, was devoured just a moment after these photos were taken...

Funny that, how two hungry boys just having returned from school seemed a lot more interested in the edible props than stopping to admire mum's little decorating frenzy...

***

Magazine feature

For those of you who subscribe to Country Homes & Interiors, you may see a familiar face in the April issue that arrived today (due to arrive in UK stores on Thursday, March 8th). In April last year, photographer Brent Darby and journalist Hazel Dolan did a feature of our home. Both were such lovely people and very skilled at making me feel at ease, despite my being rather uncomfortable having to appear before rather than behind the camera. Below are two of the pages from the feature:

***

Thank you SO much for all your kind comments on my last blog post. Those of you enjoying old English stone houses, "watch this space" as there are more to appear here soon. I confess to lately having gone a little wild and crazy with my camera on my walks in the spring sun...

To those of  you who may have found your way here through the magazine feature, a warm welcome and thank you for stopping by!

All the best, 

Helena

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Bring on the sprouts...!

However, just as I am no friend of a cabbage-inspired cuisine, 

nor are you likely to ever catch me munching brussels sprouts... 

But who says you have to eat them?!?!

So, true to my motto "Play with your food!", and inspired by something I remembered seeing in Minna's stunning blog Blomsterverkstad last year (read her blog post here) about how to turn these little greens into flowers, I ventured into the garden a few weeks ago...

... to set a small winter table with hints of the festive season...

... but this blog post does not end here... so, are you ready...?

Drum roll...

Here we go...

***

Announcing a small birth...

Dear readers,

Some of you may know that my "day job" is as a Communications Consultant and University Guest Lecturer in Intercultural Communication. I enjoy this work very much and find it hugely interesting!

However...

I am also - and this may come as no surprise to you - passionate about interiors and how you feel and live in them, as well as how to try to recycle and upcycle old items and use nature's own treasures when decorating, to aim for a both personal, soulful and sustainable home.

Having had such kind and encouraging response from you (the world's loveliest blog readers!), and having been contacted through my blog by professionals showing an interest in my ideas and photos, I have for some time been pondering if I could pursue this path too...

So today I invite you to witness the modest birth... of ...

Helena Bernáld Interior Styling & Photography

You are welcome to visit my website at:

http://www.helenabernaldinteriorstyling.co.uk/

With a lot of lecturing work lined up, I may have to take baby steps here at first, but I look forward to exploring what is possible and how to combine the two jobs! I hope you would like to join me on this exciting  journey too!

Now, stand back, here comes the champagne cork!

...and there is more....:

***

Published in A Mi Otthonunk

Some of the images above, together with some of my other winter and Christmas-inspired photos and ideas can be seen in a six-page feature in the Christmas issue of A Mi Otthonunk (= Our Home)  (http://www.amiotthonunk.hu/), which is out in the shops in Hungary today. I feel very honoured - thank you Tímea for contacting me!

To those of you who may have found your way here from the magazine feature, welcome to my blog! For those of you who may not have access to the magazine, but would like to see the feature, I will try to show it to you in the next few days.

So, having shamelessly blown my own trumpet and also a tune for brussels sprouts, 

I will let the final note today be an encouraging fanfare to play more with your food!

(It need not be wasted, as in most cases, it can be eaten after having been used as decoration!)

Wishing you a playful weekend!

Helena

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Fa-la-la-la-la  la-la-la-...yum!

With the festive season here, it is time to stock up on sweet treats for Rudolph and his horn-clad mates. In old  chocolate and tobacco tins from local second hand shops and car boot sales, some home-made ginger bread moose and trees rub shoulders with some home-made chocolates (cinnamon/hazelnut-flavoured, see recipe here), eyeing up the colourful candy cane strangers in the taller tin. 

The home-made goodies are clearly a little thrown by the curvy shop-bought cane knock-outs, and earlier today I heard worried whispers from the sugar-stacked tray... Concerns that the humans might reject the 'boring browns' and aim straight for the 'stunning stripes'. Hushed voices talking about 'outsiders' and 'initiation rites'. Well, reassuring the gingerbread and the chocolates that I would always be faithful to my brown buddies, I managed to calm them down...

... and with the help of my yuletide-spirited mediating pine twigs, gone is now all talk about 'outsiders'. In fact, as I was leaving the room, I heard the pine twigs invite all the sweets to embrace the message of peace and love...

Not that it matters that much...

In a house full of sweet tooths, these sweet darlings will not be given much time to fret...

... they will most likely not live to see tomorrow! 

Oh dear, I am now worried that anyone using Google Translate will end up with a horribly morbid story here... Let me just clarify, I am only talking about eating the biscuits and the chocolates!!!

Wishing you all a lovely start to the new week!

Helena

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This year I'm saying it with...pears.

Autumn is here. The rain and the winds do not just whisper their seasonal message, they howl it across the fields, even though the temperature does its best to defy the September powers. Working from home, I find myself reaching for a thicker jumper or a blanket for my feet. But that is just our old stone house and my autumnal mind playing tricks on me... As I go to pick the boys up from school, I sweat buckets under too many layers (no, it's not my age!) and raise an eyebrow when I discover that the thermometer says 19 degrees...! 

But I am not fooled that easily. It is September and it is autumn. And so it was that today, in between several different work urgencies (all doing their best to out-howl each other and the weather screamers), I just had to greet autumn.

Properly. 

With any potential Scandinavian minimalist heritage thrown out the window, I looked around to see how I could welcome the new season into our garden along the lines of "More is More"... Last year I did it with apples, this year the bowl of pears from a kind neighbour was emptied into one of my beloved wooden trays...

... the grey day called out for some cosy candles...

A courgette from the garden, having met the same rejected fate as the peas 

in an earlier blog post, was invited to spread a little light and love...

(Last year's play with courgettes can be found here.)

Some new plants, replacing the brown, dry, sad contents 

of the pots that used to boast colourful summer plants...

Decorative cabbage - a clear favourite this time of the year, and, incidentally, 

the only type of cabbage that you will ever catch me trying to befriend...

Forever recycling twigs here and there...

... and for those of you who may have been holding your breath, wondering about the pea heart cliff hanger... What could have happened to it? Is it still "alive"? Well, a little dryer, a little shrunk, but there they are, the green little fellows, for a wee while longer."It is hip to be square"... 

After having carved a heart shape in the courgette, I found myself left with - surprise, surprise - a heart-shaped green heart. We could not let a splendid opportunity to spread some more green love go to waste, now could we?! Looking around, my eyes fell on a plain pot that seemed to request a little pimping...

If these walnuts ever wanted to appear at a costume party dressed as lime, 

I have no doubt they would bring home the "Best Look-Alike Award" of the evening. 

What do you think?

Another lovely plant to brighten the darker days is this one, whose English name I am not familiar with, but whose Swedish name I think is so fabulous: Love herb. Is not the name itself reason enough to want to surround oneself with a whole field of them?!

Thank you, 

dear new readers and old, 

anonymous readers and known, 

for your kind words and inspiring comments. 

I bow humbly and save all your words in special mental drawer, 

one that I can pull out on an unusually cloudy day 

and just drink all the goodness of your words, again and again. 

Thank you.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Helena

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