Sunday Inspiration

 Ok, I just wrote, and abandoned, a post moaning about it being halfway through the holidays, feeling unspecifically frazzled, and generally getting all glass half empty, so instead there's going to be some Lovely Pictures.

I was looking at this magazine on the train and just gawped at this photo

The colours, the stuff, the dark grey, the white mirror...

Love old tile patterns. Even though this one's decided to be the wrong way round

Opera wallpaper, Cole & Son 

We're getting a bit of a purple'n'blue theme going on here.

Purple tumbler by Evitavonni.

It's only £82.21...

And I'd quite like the stairs too

 Hayworth sofa, John Lewis

And this velvet one

Ackroyd sofa for Marks and Spencer by Conran

I'm going to have to make do with a velvet cushion I have in this colour

It was from Woolworths...

 Another variation on the Royal stamps theme

By Annie Little

And I love this light fitting

RGB pendant lamp, Fredrik Mattson at InForm

Very naughtily working out how to make a tribute version...

I sort of like this table-bench idea

Very space-saving

So much that I've been wasting a bit too much time 

working out if I could do something like it

Now these two images are for Kim and her Eiffel Towers

Have a look at her fabulous European kitchen here:

http://kimmy-randomness.blogspot.com/

Conran Shop

Kate Thornton Design - "We Love Paris"*

And these are just because they are sooooo cute...

No one would notice if I sneaked them into my kitchen, right?

All images from September's Living etc, except for *

Trouble At The Supermarket

After the awful news about Sian O'Callaghan being abducted and killed by a taxi driver, I had a bizarre dream about my debit card being stolen, and that taxi driver getting hold of it and using the pin number because the bank hadn't cancelled it.... Later that day I went to pay at the supermarket, by card, and the keypad had a wonky button and was putting one of the numbers on twice... Of course, my card got refused and I had to whizz up the road for some good old-fashioned proper cash, and go back and pay for my now-melting Ben'n'Jerrys.

This morning Living Etc arrived, with its usual delicious eye-candy, and some especially lovely homes on pages 66 and 134. Pink cushions and textiles - totally gorgeous, which got me well and truly in magpie-mode for today's trip to The Bigger Town With Better Shops Than Here. Funnily enough, all I ended up with house-wise was some funky Habitat notice board magnets. Though I finally found The Perfume! I am now wearing Sanctuary's Wild Rose and Violet (with sandalwood, silver tea and magnolia). Delish.

Aside from the perfume, a close second as Highlight Of The Day had to be spotting a little boy in Wimpy who was a dead-ringer for the blond Charlie in the first Charlie & The Chocolate Factory film. He was wearing the red polo neck too. Which I imagine was some kind of post-ironic statement by the child's parents. Obviously, I was in Wimpy purely to imbue the 12 year old with social history vis a vis how high street eateries used to be once upon a time.

Diy chez Trashsparkle is having to be pretty quiet at the moment - there is a new baby on one side of us, and a not-very-well old lady on the other. So I have self-imposed a no-drilling-and-not-much-hammering rule. This led on to a decision on what to do with the wall going up to the loftroom. I was planning a montage of old family snaps, but hadn't found any thin black square frames. Am now going to go a moodboard instead, which is a fab excuse to dig out some Liz Taylor postcards...

Au sujet de Liz, I went to bed dog-tired last night but ended up reading the James Christopher photographic biography for an hour, right up to the  4th marriage. I'd bought it years ago because of the fabulous pics, but had never got round to reading it. Rivetting. She was the last of a kind.


* Guardian weekend mag