Kitchen gift

 This kitchen artwork was recently added to my Etsy shop. It's perfect as a house warming gift or for a kitchen-lover with its deep blue background and brightly-coloured utensils.

The kitchen artwork includes enamelware, kitchen utensils and crockery in a bright colour palette.

It's printed onto a thick watercolour paper, comes in a cellophane envelope and is gift wrapped in pink tissue paper. Each item can be sent straight to its recipient with an optional gift message included.

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Pot plant decor

 Pot plants are the perfect way of adding nature and life to the home and I've designed a few pot plant prints to enhance the home environment. The latest addition is this pot plant wallhanging that I designed for this week's Spoonflower Design Challenge. The challenge is called Indoor Garden Wallhangings where we are invited to bring the outdoors inside with our favourite house plants.

This wallhanging can be bought as a kit in my Spoonflower shop and comes with two wooden magnetic hangers and a hanging string. It can also be bought as a tea towel.

This print can also be bought by-the-metre in my Sooonflower shop on a variety of fabrics. I'm currently loving the thick cotton canvas fabric.

There is also a massive choice of ready-made items for the home. This scatter cushion is lovely and fresh.

If artwork is more your thing, you can buy this design as a print in my Etsy store. It's printed onto a lovely thick watercolour paper and comes gift wrapped so makes a great house warming gift.

Daruma delight

I'm delighted to say that my daruma doll now has his second eye!

This may sound slightly cryptic to many people, so let me explain. The daruma is a hollow, paper-mache doll that is regarded as a good luck talisman to the Japanese. The figure is typically red and gold and the dolls are often sold with blank white circles for eyes with the idea that the recipient of the doll fills in the pupil of one eye when setting a goal. They then fill in the pupil of the other eye once that goal has been fulfilled. I have now fulfilled my goal - I'm in a beautiful new flat and contented and happy with my life. What better way to mark that, than with this little chap!

New home

I finally feel like I am now happily settled into my new home after a few weeks of nesting! This included having the whole apartment repainted, in a fresh white, with a soft grey for the bedroom. I even got the kitchen cupboards repainted in a very light grey colour. They were a wood laminate before and had a slightly dated feel to them. It really lifts the feel of the kitchen and I'm so glad I chose to have it done.

In the living room I have a lovely charcoal grey three seater sofa and instead of getting a matching two seater sofa, I decided to use two armchairs in a light grey. These two were from Ikea! I love the symmetry, with the chair artwork above to match.

All the Japanese items I gathered over my time living in Tokyo have fitted into my new home very comfortably. The kokeshi dolls above sit on a red lacquer tray, and the Japanese chest below works wonderfully with my modern lamp. 

I managed to gather a small collection of fans when I was in Tokyo.

The red and white one below has been framed and fits beautifully above my white lamp.

I chose grey for the walls in the bedroom as it has a very calming feeling.

My pretty Japanese scenic print looks perfect above the bed.

I even have a spare bedroom! And it's all ready for guests, with a  fresh blue and white ikat-inspired duvet cover. I'm looking forward to covering the bedhead in a similar blue and white ikat fabric. Maybe a little project for when I have a bit more time?!

I haven't shown any pictures of my studio yet as it is in a bit of a state! I didn't quite realise how many fabrics I had until I had to schlep them into my new place.

They will all eventually find a home and then I will post some pictures.