1960's to 1970's looks and vibes

Wake up, its the swinging sixties and the groovy seventies and ORANGE has arrived!

There's so much that could be said about these two decades but I'm here to talk about colour and interior ideas so I shall try not to get side tracked and wander off down memory lane.

In 1964 Habitat was born and this was to shape the style of our interiors and create trends and desires for objects that were new and cool. Conran bought us the Duvet, paper lantern lampshades, the wok and the chicken brick. Here in the UK we now had our own trend leaders; Mary Quant gave us legs with her hot pants and mini skirts, modeled by Twiggy, Vidal Sassoon supplied the wedge bob hair style and everyone wanted to drive around in a new Mini car. The Brits were fashion leaders with The Beatles flying the flag for Brit style.

The patterns in wallpapers and fabrics were verging on the psychedelic, large rounded motifs in shades of orange, yellow, mustard and brown. During the 60's the department store Heals were commissioning some iconic designers like Peter Hall and Barbara Brown to produce fabrics with big stylised shapes in rich deep teals and emeralds. But it was orange that really hit big and if you want to replicate this era then its an absolute must to include. 

Habitat, not surprising considering its history, still do the best hues of orange, mustard and green in paint to replicate the sixties to seventies time. And they also still sell beautiful lampshades made of paper and have even reintroduced the chicken brick.

Another great place for getting items that fit the look is IKEA. During the sixties and seventies we began to see Scandinavian influences appear more and more, these shapes can still be found at our favourite Swedish superstore who have built their name on affordable design, primarily using wood which is a large resource in Sweden.   

There were some other colours apart from orange and brown, a sage green, olive is the best description and it was frequently used in excess, almost in saturation in some homes. If you find yourself some vintage Hornsea ware (kitchen jars and cups) then these colours give you the right idea.

A few years ago a friend and I made-over a bachelor pad in north London. The flat was in a building that was a design icon, the architect being Peter Tabori and built in the early seventies. So taking that as an influence we wanted to bring a bit of cosy and warmth to the owners rooms, adding fur rugs, pampas grass and voile curtains in cream and brown, while keeping to the building's era.

As we move into the seventies things tone down a bit, the colours become more muted and a reaction to all the plastic was a fashion for more natural materials like wicker and rattan. Brown and corduroy on clothes and furniture and a back to the earth approach came along with lots of house plants. Hessian even featured as a wall covering, and it was murder to remove!

I've made a pinterest board that features both authentic photos and current products that will help you pull this fab look together (double click for the link direct to the product). Homebase stock Habitat paint and their products are all available on line, some of their furniture is influenced by 70's designs like the Tisno chair. 

Other touches that will help you create an authentic look would be to add macrame either in wall hangings or plant holders. House plants took a real upturn in the seventies, possibly because now the exotic was traveling across borders. Ferns hanging from macrame holders, large Swiss Cheese plants were all essentials in the homes of that era.

As I mentioned before, the seventies also had some revival styles happening, Art Nouveau became popular, with Mucha's ladies appearing on mirrors.  

I shall be back to normal next week with the Styling The Seasons and Urban Jungle Bloggers photos, have a lovely week and keep your fingers crossed for me in the Amara Interior Blog Awards. 

Peace.

Get the Art Deco look

Over the next few weeks I'm going to feature some ideas about how to style in different decades using colour to bring the look together.

Im starting with the 1920s/1930s, and focusing on Art Deco, I will move onto the 40s/50s, 60s and 70s  in the coming weeks. My mission is to find things that you can buy from high street or online stores if you don't have the time and cash to find the original vintage item. While Im all for buying second hand, antique and original, it's not always possible to find those things and whether you have the original or a modern copy, you will still need to hone the style with your colour choices. Certain decades speak in specific colours and it's my aim here to condense these looks for you.

So, starting with Art Deco, we are looking at Black with either gold, pink or green as seen below. Its always Black and something, lots of black ..

This first moodboard is featuring pink and black combinations, here we have a selection of original Deco fabrics and bathroom mixed with items from the House Of Fraser Biba range and the Linea Lustre set of Martini glasses. Farrow and Ball Calamine is in the right hue for this period pink, its slightly salmon and dusky.

This pink seems to work particularly well in bathrooms, although I don't suppose you are lucky enough to still have an original Art Deco bathroom in your home. Adding the pink black and gold with touches of green can help you get that feel of decadence while you sip martinis in the bath. Biba have a good selection of towels for your Deco bathroom as well as perfume and toiletry bottles.

The second board features the green and black combination which I feel sums up the Art Deco look completely.

This board features a classic Deco ceiling Lamp from House Of Fraser called Tiffany New York Ceiling Pendant.  They also have black glasses (Linea Black Ghost glassware), and the gold mirror (Biba). This black and green combination works well in a dining room. The clock is from Wayfair (I shall be featuring this online store with my retro fifties look) their website is here.

glassware from
http://www.houseoffraser.co.uk/Wine+Glasses/80373,default,sc.html 

The Art Deco period ran from the mid 1920's, the term is attributed to Le Corbusier, he of the iconic chaise in black leather and chrome, and he used it describe an exhibition of 'art and industrial' in 1925.

To get you in the mood, think about what was happening around this time, it was the great age of shipping. Ocean Liners were the big thing and if you look at Deco buildings you will see that they resemble ships, with port hole windows and railings in tiers.

The latest Great Gatsby film by Baz Luhrmann will certainly get you in the right spirit of that age, Liberated ladies free from the shackles of corsets, smoking, cocktails, stylish fast cars and hedonism for those wealthy enough to be the beautiful people. 

Farrow and Ball make two colours which closely resemble the hue of pink and green synonymous with that age. Calamine Pink and Arsenic Green, they also have several shades of Black. 

Last year as part of my Painters In Residence season for Chalk Paint maker Annie Sloan I did my take on Art Deco when I made over this original piece of furniture. Can you believe I bought this cupboard and chair for 11 pounds! The Chalk Paint colour Graphite is ideal for your black wall or furniture and Annie Sloan also sells Brass Leaf for adding those Gold highlights. On this cupboard the green was Florence with dark wax. I used a crackle glaze on the doors to age the colour Florence and try to tone it to the right hue for the period. 

I added a twist to the chair with this Van Asch fabric

There was a great revival for the Art Deco period in the seventies, I can't quite find where exactly this stemmed from. There was 'Bonnie and Clyde' the film in 68 featuring the acheingly beautiful Faye Dunnaway and the not too shabby Warren Beaty. In 1976 we had a brilliant child version of the gangster and moll story in "Bugsy Malone" with a fabulous performance by the 13 year old Jodie Foster. 1974 also brought us the first film of The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow

But for me the most important thing was the move of Biba to the Big Biba store in an old department store building on Kensington High Street in 1974. This was the most amazing shop of all time, it would take me all year to explain how every detail was perfect from the ground floor right up to the roof garden with flamingos. I visited the store by bunking off school with a friend and using our dinner money saved up for the train fare. A major influence on me was not only the awareness of style and styling but the images produced to advertise the shop by my hero Sarah Moon, still an influential photographer. It may have been 1975 ish but I can close my eyes and feel how it was to be in that shop, I would give anything to be transported back to that time but with more money in my purse.

More recently the originator of Biba, Barbara Hulanicki has put her Biba brand-name to a range of products for House of Fraser. Lots of items from clothes to homeware. You could literally decorate yourself and your house with all the items from her range, so if Hollywood glamour is for you then head down to House Of Fraser.  

Art Deco is a great style to refer to if you are decorating for a man who doesn't like floral but does like antiques and vintage. The shapes are more masculine and the colour range is pretty sexy and bachelor style, much like Gatsby himself. 

This style mixes well with industrial as it brings gloss to this rough beaten style. Thinking about textures and keeping them in balance, all shiny and hard or all wooly and furry, neither is particularly appealing, but mix them up in equal portions and you are onto something. 

For the House Of Fraser glassware please click here for the link. They sell everything from the Biba range too, from clothes to towels. Perfect for party styling with a theme, maybe have a Gatsby style Christmas party, how very chic that would be.

For all things Farrow & Ball click here where you can find stockists or order online.

For the complete Biba range click here and for Annie Sloan Chalk Paints click here 

All the above can also be found on my Pinterest board and the links on there will also take you to the source.  

Weaving Navajo Style

You may remember a while back I tried my hand at weaving. It's something I tried way way back in the mist of time (cough, whisper, sshhh it was the 1970's).  That and macrame, both of which I never thought I would see a recurrence of appreciation for. But like everything, things come back in fashion. 

I must admit, I never thought I would see G-Plan furniture coming back in style but saying that publicly just makes me look like a right old codger haha.  There are so many schools of thought on decorating, it's as personal as your clothes. I'm all in favour of revivals in styles, so whether you were born before the 70's or way after, you can either re-live your youth or play with ideas from the past. 

So with the return of retro, teak sideboards, Trechikoff paintings, browns, teals and mustards, comes the macrame plant pot holder and the woven wall hanging, and I love it.

But you don't have to go the whole hog with the look, replicating every element, if you are clever with colour you can mix it in with pieces from other time periods.  Placement is also key, and because weaving is a textural thing it can work as a way to soften a more minimal harder surrounding.

The first few little weavings I did were just to get my hand in, with anything crafty one does need to practice the technique a bit to get the tension right and also to the design that appeals to you most. 

I started with some freeform lines, seeing how different thicknesses of yarn would sit together and while its much neater to use the same size yarn all the way through you can create a more three dimensional piece with fringes and variations in weft.

So what to use as a frame, well if you look on pinterest you can see that almost anything can be adapted as a frame, old picture frames, branches etc.  Here's where my adaptation for a frame comes in, I bought a tapestry stretcher frame on ebay with the idea that such a thing might come in handy one day (oh the hoarding mentality). 

This large tapestry frame has given me the chance to make a larger piece although it is really tricky trying to keep the warp threads at an equal distance.  As my intentions were to use up some of the yarn stash it seemed a bit counter productive to buy an expensive purpose made weaving loom, and I can just imagine the reaction from the other half at spending loads of money on four bits of wood with notches in. I think if he was better at d.i.y. I would have asked if he could make a loom, perhaps you will have better luck with your spouses abilities in the wood working department, (probably not if he or she is a musician though)! I think that when this piece is finished I will decide if I like the 'handmade' look or whether to get a professional frame for a neater look.

Now I've looked at designs a bit more I'm gravitating towards the American Native Indian style of geometric, you can see these on my pinterest boards too. This week I am definitely channeling my inner Navajo.  

Textile artist Maryanne Moodie does fantastic things with fringes, I wish I could go to one of her classes as I'm not getting on well with the fringe aspect, I can't get it to sit smoothly, so for now Im giving it a miss. 

So that's my progress so far and I will show you the finished results fairly soon.  I'm also weaving beads on a small bead loom but that will have to wait until this is finished, one thing at a time. 

Seaside colours - DIY Kitchen ideas

Where I live in Buckinghamshire is about as far from the coast as anywhere you can get. Is it any wonder then, that during August I long for the seaside, maybe because as a youngster my Dad would pack me and Mum off to Broadstairs for the school holidays to stay in his Uncle Toms guest house, right next door to Oliver Postgate's house on Chandos Square.  Yes, it was the sixties, ice cream parlours in shades of pastel, donkey rides, sand castles and the gift shops, with things made from shells.

So this week, when it seems like the world and his wife have gone to Cornwall, or some other cool resort in the UK or abroad, I've been hankering for the colours of the seaside.

This is also my birthday month and so often August treats are trips to the coast and a few extravagant purchases. These often take the form of something for the home, the first time I did this was my fridge freezer ..... the pale blue SMEG

When we moved to this house a lot needed doing to update it. As Im not much of a cook and neither is the other half, the kitchen was a dilema, I didn't want to spend lots of money on it, also the units were wood and it seemed a shame to rip them out. The kitchen isn't very big but for us its totally sufficient, and, at the end of the day, it really is just a home for pretty kitchenalia.  Oh yes, not being able to cook doesn't damper the spirit for collecting associated objects.

Actually, I think that the lack of ability to create gourmet food can be balanced with presentation, its smoke and mirrors at my dinner parties.

Last month my kettle broke, and I was getting fed up with our cheapish toaster which looked nice, but took forever to toast the bread for some reason. 

I had a look around for a nice kettle only to discover that SMEG do beautiful ones, and, of course, I also learnt they do gorgeous toasters too.  

Why is it that whenever you get something new and shiny it shows up how tired its surroundings are.  We had painted the kitchen cupboards in a few different colours, quite muted but with different coloured knobs on each cupboard. The top cupboards in a classic Farrow and Ball white (Pointing I think), still looked good and throws the light around the room but the bottom units were a bit dull in comparison to the new appliances so I mixed up a few different paints to zshusch them up.

Since working with Annie Sloan Chalk Paints as a Painter In Residence, I find that barely a day goes by without me painting something.  Often a backdrop for photos where I like to see how different colours work together, and sometimes on walls and furniture.

On one side of the kitchen where I now have my swanky new Nutribullet in purple, I have painted the bottom units with red details and stencils for a folk look. Choosing some different knobs from Anthropolgie to add the finishing details.

On the other side of the kitchen where the new SMEG kettle and toaster sit, I brightened up the units with a variation of paints that I mixed myself. Using up leftovers and tester pots. 

While I was painting the kitchen one morning over breakfast, I was taken to thinking about Vanessa Bell, having just watched the new tv show about the Bloomsbury Set "Life In Squares". 

I spend a lot of time on instagram, posting photos of colourful inspiration, and as it has a square format I started to think that my life is in squares too. Annie Sloan was kind enough to say that my style was reminiscent of The Bloomsbury Painters, in that every surface of my home is painted and decorated. As these were the first true bohemians I can see why my style is considered Bohemian Chic.

I snapped this through the window at Charleston House, home of Vanessa Bell

The other half bought me a Nutribullet and I started to use it this week.  I was sceptical but a few friends raved about it so, Im giving it a go and so far so good, I feel slimmer, less bloated and have a bit more energy.  

Nothing adds a splash of colour to the kitchen like a fruit bowl full to the brim. 

I may try to post a few of my favourite nutribullet drink combinations, so far I definitely like to add almond milk in the morning with some porridge oats and dates. 

If your kitchen needs a spruce up and the kitchen cupboard doors are wood, or wood veneer, then perhaps think about painting them. I find that Farrow & Ball paint lasts very well and can be wiped down, but you will need to prime and undercoat well before using it. 

Chalk Paint is a quicker fix but has to be well waxed to protect it from splashes and spills. If you clean a lot then the chalk paint may not be the best if you want to scrub it regularly.

I'm now looking at the Amara site for ideas about what else would look good, perhaps a Delonghi Espresso maker in pale blue ... mmm
also some new linens like the animal prints from Thornback & Peel.

I have a pinterest board for Bloomsbury Painters and styles over at https://www.pinterest.com/JaniceIssitt/bloomsbury-art-styles/

Here you can see the work of Vanessa Bell and the home where she lived called Charleston House. 

Next week I may not be blogging as its my birthday and Im going to Amsterdam.  I will of course be taking lots of photos there and Im keeping an open mind about what I will find to report back on, but I have a suspicion there will be some tattoos and flea markets covered.

Pinterest

This week I watched an amazing tutorial about Pinterest (by Melanie Duncan), It's something I don't do very often but I particularly wanted to know more about the this particular site as it has become such a valuable tool for me.

If you haven't signed up for Pinterest it really is worth doing. There is so much that can be done and so much inspiration there. 

Without going into a too long winded ramble I will try to give some examples here of how I use it. 

Planning a project, whether its a room in your own home or something like a photo shoot you are doing with a few other people you can use a board as a reminder of things you would like. So whether you are planning a new kitchen or a photo shoot or a wedding, you can make a mood board of all the elements you would like to include. I even do mood boards with my tattooist TracyD.

Information ; there are lots of tutorial photos with links to the sites they came from, also recipes for food and drink.  I have just learnt to weave so Im searching for both inspiration from weavers and some photos of techniques I can use. 

My most pinned photo is of my lounge wall which was seen by Annie Sloan and has become my most recognised image.

You can easily install a 'pin it' button to your bookmarks so that when you are researching or browsing you can pin images.  Sometimes its just like making a visual shopping list.

So now onto collaborations.  Many of us are sole traders, bloggers, photographers and stylists and could do with a bit of networking support. So I have a cunning plan.....

I would like to form a Pinterest group with you lot, so whether you are doing it for personal or business you can still give a leg up to your friends.  Its a bit like shopping locally, its about supporting the people you know and like.

Pinterest is bigger in the States than Europe I do believe. They are having enormous success with Pinterest as a buying and linking platform.  So if you need traffic to your blog, shop, website or business then its worth linking up with others.  This could work in two ways, either pinning directly from the site you want to support or by pinning from the boards on Pinterest. By double clicking on a pin it will take you to the source immediately.  

You don't all need to be fans of the same style. Actually by mixing the group and making boards which crossover you are likely to see things you would never have searched for originally.  Heres an example ; you like black and white and minimal in your home, so you search in all your usual places for a cushion.  But heres the thing, Van Asch the designer (who became famous for her skulls and roses) has a new collection of black and white cushions which fit your ethos perfectly. 

Let's be honest, great interior design is about mixing it up, if you just buy from one place all the time you will simply be emulating their catalogue photos. So this, I hope, will be a group that helps each other to expand their knowledge and taste.  Its a win win situation to benefit everyone who joins.

To join up you need to follow me Janice Issitt Life Style and the others in the group on Pinterest as we can't invite you to pin otherwise. Ive created a board on my own page called Collaborate so if you want to be in the group then pin something there, like a picture of your shop or face so we know where to find each other, the link is https://www.pinterest.com/JaniceIssitt/collaborate/

So far participating members are Van Asch, Holy Cow Home, myself, Serendipity Reclamation, The Cabinet Makers Love Tale, Wanderlust Wares

Now that we all work from our laptops at home its vital to find some connections, hey, Im sitting here in bed with coffee stained pj's on, who would want to meet me?!!

Please message me if you have any questions, we want this to be a like minded group and not too many rules, so let's all be cool and spread some love around.  

Blog shop sweet things and luvocrazy

I discovered a sweet blog called ´´Shop sweet things´´ the author Jeanne Chan is a pretty gal with amazing taste. I like her post about: sweet things under 20 (dollars) and her post about 10 tips for first year bloggers. She has also a luvocrazy site, It´s a bit like Pinterest, you collect all products you love ( and want), they are linked to the websites where you can buy them and you earn rewards when people buy what you reccomend. About the rewards, I am not so interested, what I find more interesting is that you can directly go to the website or shop where to get it. Sometimes in Pinterest you can´t find the source of something you really really like and that is quite frustrating.

I just requested an invite for Luvocrazy

 Go and visit Jeanne her blog!