Decorating with Multistem.

While looking at my desk tidy the other day, it occured to me that the colour scheme for every room in my house can be created by using colours in groups of three, from Orla Kiely's multistem pattern.

Image from here.

For example, in my living room and dining room I've used olive green, red and brown. Although the walls in our bedroom are meant to be a mocha colour, they often look quite pink, and we've also used grey and brown in there. Our bathroom is grey with some brown furniture and blue accessories. In Torin's room the walls that were meant to be Dulux's Nude Glow, are quite pink in some light, and I've also used blue and green in there.

You get the picture. Once I realised that this seemed to be the case, it struck me that it was actually quite a good way to use colour in our house and to also get a cohesive look overall - I've always thought the colours in the multistem pattern go together wonderfully.

Carrying on this idea for the new nursery then, I think I've decided to keep the walls their existing colour (a little bit pink), and use chartreuse and orange (in the form of perhaps a shade of apricot) accents. What do you think? Do you think that combination would make a good room for a little girl?

My son kiely has good taste.

Sorry that my ability to post has been a bit patchy of late - I'm still painting the living room and dining room and it's taking a while! Plus, Torin has a heavy cold and is taking longer to settle at bedtime, so evenings are flying by at the moment. We're slowly getting there though, so I'll hopefully be able to post some before and after pictures soon.

In the meantime, at the bottom of this post, there's a little peak at the colour of the chimney breast in the living room - cosy huh?

I also wanted to show you the lovely presents that Torin gave me on Sunday for Mothers' Day. David helped him to make me a card (how cute!), and Torin gave me the bag of presents on Sunday morning. As you know, I really like Orla Kiely, so this present was a big hit. The Multicoloured Car Print gift bag contained a set of Multi Scribble Stem Print Postcards and a Multicoloured Stem Print mug.

I think I'll frame some of the postcards and display them in our bedroom (and, probably around the rest of the house!).

My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Dining room

Our living room and dining room are really one room. They would originally have been two rooms, but have since been opened up by knocking through and installing a square archway. The result is a large room, but with two very separate areas. 

This week, I've chosen to show you a few of my most loved things from our dining room. They are:

Our large clock

The clock is on the wall that faces the living room, and is therefore visible from both rooms. The sheer size of this clock (50cm diameter) means that we can see it from the other end of the living room, and therefore don't need a clock in that room. We bought it a few years ago - it was a bargain from TK Maxx and I carried it all the way home from town to our house!

Torin's footprints

I made this print of Torin's feet for David for Fathers' Day 2009, when Torin was 5 weeks old. His feet were so tiny! I bought the frame and mount and then printed his feet onto plain card using a large ink pad like this, from Hobbycraft. I did several prints of his right foot on different pieces of card, printed his left foot onto each one, and then picked the best one. Looking at him now (he's 20 months), I can't believe he was ever that small!

Torin's highchair

There are so many high-tec and expensive highchairs to choose from when you have a small child. We managed to escape that hassle because we were given this highchair from my parents:

My grandfather (the same one who drew these) made it for me when I was a baby 28 years ago! It was also used for my brother and sister, plus numerous other visiting cousins, and still looks great today. Using nothing but a staple gun, I recovered the seat in the same fabric as I used for the table cloth - a much cheaper version of this by Cath Kidston from here.

He was a clever man, my grandfather.

It's Orla bit beautiful . . .

I was so excited to open this on Christmas Day! My sister and her partner gave me Pattern by Orla Kiely! 

Although it would look great on any coffee table, it really has more to offer than just its aesthetics. It's a really inspirational read - Kiely writes about how she started her business, what inspires her and her love of colour and pattern, as well as advice on how to mix and match pattern and how to create displays in your own home. 

One of my favourite sections of the book is the "Print Gallery" - 36 glossy pages showing a selection of her prints from the last 10 years - lovely!

Image from here.

There is also a section dedicated to blogs! She writes, "It's a powerful medium where directness and honesty override all else. Genuine and endlessly creative, the blogger's voice is loud and clear." This was just the thing I needed to read, to spur me on to get this thing started!

Thanks Jo and Melanie x