Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.

Cover Stories

Look what my husband made for me:

He said that the teaser should have read 'The Height of Cheek'.  Regular readers may recognise the photograph from a 'how to' that I wrote last January about stencilling clothes.  I was wearing a skirt stencilled with LTL Wisteria.  It's in our projects section.  Chips took the photo and secretly morphed it into a pastiche of a mid-fifties Vogue cover for my Christmas gift.  Rachel collects Vogues from the 1950's and together they dissected typefaces and layouts from them.  If they had owned a copy of Vogue Covers by Robin Derrick and Robin Muir, it may have made their job easier ...but the book did not appear in our home until Christmas day.   My 'cover' was a total suprise and will be treasured.

 

I forgot to tell you that last month Chips and I appeared on the cover of a glossy.  No, not Vogue or Vanity Fair, but North East Contact!

NEC is the magazine for the North East Chamber of Commerce.  I was amazed that the photographer managed to get Chips to take part as very few succeed.  Here are other pages from the article. Click on the pictures to make them larger. Photos by David Walker at Picturefarm.

 

Two covers in two months, am I a supermodel yet???

Helen    

More from The Midland

Design Inspiration had a request from Lynne Rutter of the Ornamentalist blog.  She would like to see more of the Eric Gill ceiling from the Midland Hotel that I wrote about last week.  Seeing as she asked so nicely and I am an obliging blogger, here it is.

The design was by Eric Gill who contributed other artworks in the Midland Hotel.  Lynne is also a talented muralist.  She works from San Francisco, USA. Click here to see more of her work.

Helen.

Alison Best and The Angel

In March last year, I introduced you to the work of Alison Best.  She was having her first gallery show and some of you sent her emails and comments of encouragment.  Last week, she sent The Stencil Library this Christmas card.
 
I am glad to report that she is still creating her stencils and art.  Alison does not sell stencils in the way that I do (for others to create with).  Her stencils are the art.  She draws and cuts by hand then fills in the design with a variety of media.  Each stencil is used for a limited amount of times then it is 'retired' to become an art work in it's own right.  The card shows a circle of people gathering at the feet of the Angel of the North.  The angel of the what??  You may ask.

The angel is a massive sculpture by Antony Gormley which stands wings outstretched to welcome the traveller to the Newcastle-Gateshead area in the northeast of England.  It's a  welcome site when I've have driven hundreds of miles.  On seeing the angel, I know there is only thirty miles to go and I'm home.  I have found you a link from Gateshead Council that gives a template to make an origami angel, paper decorations and even an angel knitting pattern!  A woolly angel....what more could a person possibly desire??

I'm away for a few days now. I intend to mull wine, fill the house in greenery and make beds up for guests.  Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope that you enjoy peace over the holiday. 

Helen & The Stencil Library

A Golden moment

I received this greetings card from Golden Paints and am sharing because I think it's fab.  It shows ladies at Golden Paint performing synchronised painting of their colour charts.  Rachel and I particulary like the swimming caps.  My own Golden colourchart is several years old, it was handpainted and signed by Kelly.

Golden is a lovely paint and a lovely company.  They sponsor parts of the stenciling and decorative arts expo in America that I've mentioned on Design Inspiration in the past.  They also help me out with my paint supplies when I'm teaching there. 

One year my holiday 'card' from them was a pot of gold paint named after me.  The same paint was named for all the different recipients so please don't think I'm getting above myself.    As well as paint, Golden manfacture gels, pastes and all sorts of serious art mediums.  They run workshops, make custom products and do all sorts of things to encourage the artist within us.  Do check out their web site to find a supplier near you.

Helen.

It's a wrap

My husband has an office next to mine.  The door between is always open.  Yesterday it was closed and a weird thumping noise could be heard behind it.... he was stencilling gift wrap for my mother's Christmas present.  I think he was well cheesed off to be disturbed and even more so when I grabbed my camera and photographed the process.

 

He formed one of our sponge squares into a ball shape and dabbed it into some white acrylic paint that he'd poured onto a plate.  Next, the excess paint was pounced away onto another plate until the sponge was moist rather than wet.  Then it was applied to the stencil.

Registration marks are drawn all the way around the design for easy alignment of pattern repeats.

Voila, isn't that pretty?

The design is part of our forthcoming series of vintage inspired stencils.  Need one now?  Contact us for more details.  Helen

Decorating the decorations

Rachel has been working with a customer who wanted a tiny stencil to personalise festive tree baubles.  Intrigued by the idea, I set off to Ikea and bought some baubles. 

Armed with an alphabet stencil from the seconds and special offers section of our web site, I tried to form a monogram of TSL (The Stencil Library).  What a monster!! I have stencilled walls in less time than it took to put three separate initials on a shiny bauble.  The first letter was easy to apply.  The problem was placing the other two without scraping the paint from the first.  I did four then gave up.  I do have a life, honest I do.  Hours later, I realised that I could have easily stencilled one letter on each bauble and spelled out a welcoming message to suspend above my fire place.  Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?  Yes, but it can wait until next year. 

I also bought a pair of large baubles and masked a stripe around their middle with tape.

I painted the stripe black then stencilled the company name around them.  That project took less than twenty minutes and combined with the mongram baubles they made a striking and simple focal point above the hearth.

Seeing as I was having a festive themed morning I set about making some cards.  I used the same bauble stencil that I used for my cards last year.  This year the baubles are stencilled on red felt.  It was pale blue last time.  

 

The felt is stencilled on both sides and sewn onto the card with a couple of loose stiches so that it swings a little when handled.  The felt shapes can be detached and the recipient can use them for coasters or recycle them in other decorative ways.  A quick and simple way to finish a card is to stencil a plain border onto it.  This takes about ten seconds per card and is worth the effort.

 

  I position the straight edge of the stencil near the edges of the card and apply paint to the exposed area. 

Did you recognise the spotty reindeer from our previous project?  Helen

Art Deco By The Sea

I felt that it was about time that we had a day out together, so I am taking you on a virtual trip around the Midland Hotel in Morecambe.  The Midland project has been hailed by worthy bodies in the UK as the best restoration job of 2008.  My mother and I put our posh frocks on and went to investigate.  The plan was capuccino and a good look around.  Finding the hotel was easy enough.  We just drove along the sea front and could not miss it.

The hotel rescue was undertaken by Urban Splash and started in 2003.  Photos of the restoration feature on the Midland website and so does this tidbit: "Back in the 30s, the Midland was a wonder of the modern age. The first Art Deco hotel on these shores designed in the style of the finest continental hotels. Celebrated by celebrities worldwide, millionaires and socialites flocked there. (Including Coco Chanel, Mrs Simpson, Noel Coward, or so the story goes)."

Before I go any further, I pose a  question. What do you think this is?

I thought it was a sculpture of a sea flower.  Mum thought that someone had dumped a lampshade in the corridor and would be returning to hang it.  I can't believe that she admitted that!  I'll reveal the answer later.

In the grand foyer we checked out the giant chairs.  I think they were designed by Marian Dorn, but I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong. 

They were designed for ladies to accomodate conversation, handbags and  cocktails.   A couple of gents dressed for a Sunday stroll walked into the foyer.  One played the piano and the other tap danced.

Don't you love the oversized anglepoise lamp?  I do.

Influential 20th Century sculptor Eric Gill produced several works of art for the hotel when it first opened.  His famous seahorses have been restored and one of his largest surviving works, a Portland Stone relief, has been returned to its original position in the hotel lobby.  It shows hospitality, food, drink, best clothes and manners!

The staircase was built to resemble a shell.  I photographed it from the foyer looking upwards...

from the side...

and from the top looking down.

I am not sure whether the visitors are clog dancing or taking a soccer penalty down there.

We checked out the restaurant which was lovely, but we were advised that the Rotunda lounge was a warmer option that morning (yes, the weather was vile).  Before we leave the restaurant look at the paper.

you can easily get the look with our Big and Bold stripe mask. 

The masks can be used vertically as well as horizontally.  Chevrons similar to our B&B masks can just be seen on the restaurant walls.  The same pattern appeared in the toilets.  Doesn't this look civilised?

  And you can stencil your own version!! Just flip the masks sideways.

We loved the Rotunda.  If we did not live more than one hundred and fifty miles away we would adopt it as a regular coffee spot to meet our friends in. 

The seating would accommodate quite a bunch of us. 

My husband thought this room looked like a bouncy castle.  It did not, but there was something very playful about the place.  We ordered frothy coffees which were lovely.  I chose biscuits with local cheeses to snack on.  The cheese selection was delicious and it was enough to do both of us for lunch.  At a cost of six pounds something, we thought it excellent value.

From our table in the rotunda we looked onto the bar and beyond that was the beach.

The Midland does a mid week deal and has a spa.  Mum and I thought we might return to explore Morecambe and the surrounding area.  If you fancy doing the same you will find more information on the Midland's site.

Thank you to Brian from the hotel for escorting me to areas closed to non residents so that I could take pictures for Design Inspiration.  Did you guess the mystery object?  It was another chair and was very, very comfortable.

  The Midland featured in the Agatha Christie Poirot episode called "Double Sin". I watched it last night.  Actually, if you fancied an entertaining fix of murder mystery with art deco interiors you could treat yourself to a box set of Poirots.   Of course you could also create your own deco-fest with the many stencils in our art deco collection.  This junk shop table a was 'deco-fied' with a shell repeat and would not have looked out of place by the Morecambe coast. 

It just needs a cocktail and a hand bag.

If you have a spare five minutes you may enjoy this BBC film clip of the Midland's opening night. I did.

Helen. 

The Guardian feature revisited

Last month, The Guardian Weekend wrote about Rachel, Chips and I.  The article was published on line but without pictures and some of you asked to see it with pics.  Well here you are.

The feature was written by Hannah Booth

and the photos are the work of Michael Franke.  I think the feature was originally intended to be a page longer because one of the captions relates to an unseen photo.  Click on the pics to make them larger.   Michael's picture of Rachel's bathroom would not fit on my scanner, so here is one that I took of the same view.

  My frock was arty too.  It was hand dyed by clothing designer Jasmine Hixson. 

She weaves her cloth on giant looms in the turret of a castle near Durham.  I used to model for her many years ago and was often paid in clothes, something I have never regretted.  This dress was given me recently by another of Jasmine's ex-models (thanks, Margaret).  Jasmine does not have a web site or you bet I'd provide a link.  Whilst testing the link to photographer Michael Franke's site I found myself on it.  I'm in some very illustrious company in the portrait section. There are some wonderful portraits there, full of life.  In my picture, I look pregnant and medieval.... but in a good way.

All stencils shown are in our catalogue, just ask if further information is needed.

Helen

Sweeten your morning

Last week we hosted a Christmas themed tour around our stencilled home. 

After the tour, I gave a demonstration showing many festive applications of stencilling.  Whilst extolling the virtues of our cappuccino stencils for applying decoration to foamy drinks, cards, gift wrap, cakes and other common usages, I was struck with sudden inspiration.  "One could stencil porridge", I exclaimed.  "Wouldn't that look lovely to serve bowls of piping hot porridge with snowflakes of muscavado sugar slowly melting on their surface?".  A short discussion ensued amongst our visitors as to whether sugar or edible gold dust might be preferable.  During our chat  I noticed a guest shaking with uncontrollable mirth.  She almost had tears rolling down her face. "Stencilling porridge?", she said.  "I could just imagine what my husband would say if I tried to stencil his porridge!".  I could too and I bet it was rude, but I couldn't really blame her for wondering  what  planet I came from.
Sometimes I wonder if I go a little too far.  The funny thing is that my husband finds stencilled food stuff to be a normal occurance in our home.  I bet she's still laughing at me.  I am.

By the way, my camera batteries packed up so I was unable to show the finished result but it looked and tasted fab.  Another tip for festive porridge which I got from a cook book many years ago was to serve it with double cream, a few raspberries and a nip of scotch whiskey floating on top.  Just the thing for a cold winter's morning.

Helen

Coming to a Tv near you

Our Stencilled Home Video is now available on DVD. 

So far it is only in the USA format, but if demand is there we will have Europe and Asia versions made. We can still supply videos in all formats for a while longer.  What is the Stencilled Home DVD or video?  Simply, it is a tour with commentary around fourteen of the stencilled rooms in our home.  There are panorama shots and lots of detail.  When the tour is over, I give tutorials on different decorative techniques and projects used in our home.  It is just like coming on one of our organised monthly house tours only you can do it from the comfort of your armchair. 

Because the decoration of our home is constantly changing, you will find some of the rooms that you see in The Stencilled Home Dvd are different from the ones shown in The Stencilled Home book and different from the ones that are presently featuring on our house tours.  So between the three of them, there is a wealth of stencilling information and inspiration.

Here are a few of the rooms featured in it:

The Vintage Kitchen,

 Ottoman Bedroom,
 Gustavian Bedroom

 Rachel's Lounge

 Rachel's Bathroom

 Arts & Crafts style dining room.

The DVD may make a good gift for someone with an interest in stencilling.  Remember that so far, I only have the USA version, but will get other formats if there is sufficient demand.

Helen.