The new stencil related venture is almost ready to launch.
Sabina has been stencilling our swing tickets and I have been photographing the products that we have made. We have nearly got an online shop!
I think we are just days away from launching For Queen and Corgi cool, contemporary products with a vintage vibe. I hope that you will like them.
Helen.
In October 2005 I composed the first Stencil Library newsletter... No one ever saw it. If my effort had resembled the newsletter that Ghost Furniture sends I would have been much, much keener to get it to you.
Trawl through the back copies as well as the current edition. Its short, sweet eye candy from Di Overton, the writer of DesignersBlock blog and the creator of Ghost Furniture. My peacock stencil got a mention this month...which was an unexpected surprise.
Helen.
Artists Michael Chippendale and Helen Morris welcome you to their new venture.
The Art Tour 2011 is rapidly approaching and I need to set up a blog/web site to show and sell our paintings. Visitors to the new Chippendale & Morris blog will be able to view, commission and purchase our artworks. Chips (husband and the Chippendale half of Chippendale and Morris) has been working for the past couple of months on these four paintings. They are large canvases. When viewed up close the paintings appear to be an abstract pattern of dots. When viewed from a distance the dots disappear and become recognisable faces or scenes. I took some 'work in progress' pics.
I'll show more soon.
Helen
The golden touch is very promising new blog with some lovely arty touches. It is the work of Cat Golden
I have featured Cat on an earlier occasion when she won Domino Magazine's decoration competition.
Her room featured one of our Chinoiserie stencils amongst many other lovely things. She has the most fabulous dressing table, you will see it on the 'about me' section of her blog. She has a good eye for colour and an entertaining way with words.
Anyway, Cat wrote about The Stencil Library in the most glowing of terms and put together a post with pictures that had me totally wanting to visit my own site. Do take a look, she wrote a much more exciting post about our new site than I did.
Thanks Catherine, your enthusiasm more than compensated for the unpleasant email from someone signing themselves as The Hooper Family. I'm still not sure whether the complaint was genuine. I'd have put his comments on this blog for discussion but the language was a tad fruity.
Helen.
I have been so busy recently trying to meet the publishers deadline for the stencil book that my new website launched quietly, yes even I did not know it had gone live.
The web manager has trialled it on stencil-library.co.uk and if successful it will be rolled onto our usual.com address.
The old faithful site is still at stencil-library.com for the moment but please visit the new and hopefully improved one, it is very different and although it is not fully complete yet you can buy from it. I think the new ordering system is much easier. Even more stencil collections are featured on this new site.
Yes, the Vintage Range which so many of you have been waiting to see is finally on line.
We have a delicious new collection of special effect paints. So please visit, explore and hopefully enjoy. If you have a moment please come back and tell me what you like or dislike about the new site.
Helen.
Actually I am not talking about dramatic decoration of parlours or any other room. I'm talking comedy. The Stocksfield Players will be performing Drama in the Parlour...in my living room again.
Click on poster to enlarge.
It's an entertaining evening built around characters performing a good, old fashioned comedy in the guise of a spoof radio show. It is performed in the parlour at Stocksfield Hall and tea is served in our dining room. Drama in the Parlour has now got a blog and web site You may be able to follow the life and times of the productions, the actors and their characters.
The blog, web site and the facebook page are all written by Marie Swan actor,singer and wife of the playwrite Alex Swan. That's her in the blue frock next to me and Alex is on my other side. If you are into unusual theatre pop over and give her your support. I'll be acting (and singing) in the next production.
Auntie Beryl has to be one of most enjoyable characters that I have ever played and she makes a return to this episode. The guest star will be singer, actor, dancer and writer Margaret Frayne, yep all that talent bundled into one slim package.
Margaret Frayne. If you are near enough to Stocksfield why not book a ticket and see the show? They are available from the Stencil Library and shops in Stocksfield . Tickets can be bought online using Paypal contact Drama in the Parlour (or me).
Read what The Journal newspaper and the Hexham Courant wrote about The Stocksfield Players earlier this year.
Helen
The wonderful Living Etc magazine has a new blog called Lifestyle Etc. The Living Etc team have used stencils from The Stencil Library many times in their magazine and I hope that they might be inspired to feature us on line too. Their new blog promises much of the popular format from the magazine pages but delivered daily to our screens. Then there is still a yummy glossy magazine at the end of the month.
This was Living Etc's interpretation of our Klimtomania stencil featured in March this year.
They showed number stencils from us in June
and February showed the Crown Paint Antler stencil.
The 'things that make us go ah' and 'style steals' sections are there and colour abounds. Go take a peek.
I think you'll like it.
Helen.
The Stencil Library got a very nice mention in Reclaimed Home this week. Whilst checking it out I found my self lost in the world of 'renovation options for thrifty New Yorkers' and enjoying the humour of it's author. Reclaimed Home is a blog, store and FSBO listing service (I don't know what the last one is).
I laughed out loud several times and not just at their portrait. I noticed that Reclaimed Home had a link to Shedworking. 'A lifesyle guide for shed workers' They had also featured Stencil Library and my blog.
Shedworking is another blog that I could spend ages in.
It is full of beautiful, varied and interesting 'sheds' operating as mini homes, workshops and offices. They appear in trees, on beaches, in gardens and many other places. Thank you to both blogs, you've been marked for future visits.
Helen
When I introduce you to new blogs they are usually written by other decorative artists. PinkBow is an exception. She describes her blog as 'Musings on...
Art, Beauty, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Interior, Literature, Music, Photography, Travel, Vintage' .
The author lives near me. I don't know her. PinkBow goes to a lot of the same places that I do and recently wrote about them in her city guide to Newcastle.
I've been working on a similar post, most of her destinations would be in my top twenty so I'll wait for now, read hers in the meantime. PinkBow is a book and film fiend, our collections of both are similar. We frequent the same stores and share the same favourite cinema. She definitely shops more than I do,
takes a lot more care on her appearance
and is a good deal younger than I. Maybe I used to be like her...something keeps pulling me back to Pink Bow's world and it's a glamorous yet comforting place to be.
It helps that her writing style is short and clear and her photography can be quite beautiful.
She appears to be winning many blog awards so I am not alone in my huge enjoyment of it. Take a trip to Pink Bow's world and see if you like it there.
Oh, since I wrote this post she has been nominated for a Lovelies award for best fashion blog. Do vote if you like hers best. There's a category called Design Inspiration...no, I'm not in it. I shall have to pull my socks up as we Brits say. All photos in this post by Pinkbow
Helen
