Lilac and Lace

I know that purple isn’t the most popular “shabby chic” colour. Whilst it's not my favourite colour, I think a little of it in the right setting can look very pretty and effective. After all, who doesn’t love lavender and lilacs and violets. I don’t care for the word purple though, it just sounds too modern to me, I shall refer to it instead as lilac. I had fun putting together this lilac-themed vignette, I wish I had enough room in the house to have this as a permanent feature.

In my previous house I was going to use lilac as an accent colour in my spare bedroom which was painted cream. I bought curtain fabric from Laura Ashley, a pretty lilac and green patchwork quilt and some lilac-coloured trinkets.

I didn't realize my plan and I still have about 8 yards of the fabric somewhere in the loft ( it's not the lovely vintage Laura Ashley fabric in the vignette - I only have a small piece of that). I shan’t use it in this house as I don't have an appropriate room - I think it needs a sunny room and our spare bedroom isn't. The quilt has been sold and the fabric will be going on EBay at some point. I kept most of the trinkets though.

Many of them are now sitting on this painted green shelf in my sewing room, this is just a little peak at it.

This frame was given a lilac-inspired makeover - I painted it cream and inside I have a vintage postcard mounted on some old Laura Ashley wallpaper, embellished with flower cut-outs and lace.

I also covered this box with the same wallpaper and trimmed with cream broderie anglaise lace.

It's useful for storing my sewing cottons.

I have a small teaset in the same design as the bowl in the picture below, unusual in lilac and white I think. The rest of the teaset it packed away - no room to display it!

Look what arrived in the post this week, I'd been waiting for it for what seemed like an age, though it was about 4 weeks. My fabric-covered drawers from Cath Kidston. They are actually bigger and nicer than I thought they would be, though they do smell a bit funny - the glue I think, but I'm sure that will fade with time.

Ruth at OhSoVintage mentioned being less than impressed with the customer service at CK. I must admit, I think they could do better, I would have expected some contact from them if an item was to be delayed for any length of time, in this day and age I think a month is a long time to wait for something. I also received the new CK catalogue this week and found myself not really caring to take a look at it. I think she's producing too much of the same now and I am becoming impartial to it all.

I hope you have all enjoyed the weekend, ours was quiet and mostly uneventful. We did take a drive our to a nearby village for the annual Women's Institute rummage sale yesterday afternoon. It sounded promising, I figured that since it was an annual sale, there would be a whole year's worth of rummage. When we got there there were already about 30 people in the queue before us. Once inside everyone rushed to the bric-a-brac stall and by the time I got to it the crowd was 3-deep. I couldn't even get a glimpse of what was there. Ah well, win some, lose some - at least it was a nice drive there and back!

Have a good week all,

Lucy x