Tinker Tailor - recycled design

Fresh from their debut in Selfridges “Bright Young Things' exhibition, where they re-created their studio space in the window, is design duo Tinker Tailor AKA Katy Gray Rosewarne and Adam Towner.

Now here is a couple after my own heart, as they too specialize in recyling and the re-working of old materials. From a discarded camera to a derelict building, these two can create exciting new products and spaces from virtually anything.

Here are two of their latest designs, The Handi light, and Vinyl Cake Stand.

Finally someone who can make good use of those old records.

Also take a look at their latest Interior project '£500 house.' They set themselves a budget of just £500 to create a stylish interior for this building...now thats creative recycling. More pictures on their site.

Tinker Tailors range of products lights and soft furnishings are available at The Dead dolls club London, which also houses creative studios, or via their website at www.thedeaddollsclub.com

Great Design Items

I wanted to share with you, a great gift I had at Christmas and those I bought for others. My husband likes to make my present a complete surprise so I usually have absolutely no idea whatsoever, which could be a bit worrying, like some random, on a whim present. He always pulls it off though! And it’s never what I think I might get! But I always really love it.

This was the gift of 2009, designed by Ramin Razani. Isn’t it great? Couldn’t have chosen better myself! You can see the site at:

www.officinacrea.it This one is part of the Zoo animals, wall collection.

Great Tins
I decided to shop more on-line this year as I’ve discovered so many gorgeous and talented designs out there and thought it would be interesting to get some things from other parts of the world.

Bought some great tins for my friend Carrey from an on-line shop called Blafre Design, in Norway. They also have a great blog here: http://blafre.blogspot.com/ for those of you who aren’t familiar with them.

The range has some wonderful stylised and colourful designs on tins, paper, cards and canvas, by the owners Ingrid and Remi, Perfect for children and for those of us who can never get enough tins, to fill with haberdashery items! The tins I ordered were very well made and the owners very thoughtfully gave me a booklet about their range and some free stickers, which are really nice. A fabric range is coming soon.

Recycled Card Toys
My other great finds were thanks to my Flickr friend Kay in Holland, whom I regularly swap style magazines with. She had sent a couple for me just before Christmas and there were some gifts featured which I liked, in Holland at www.kidsonroof.nl I bought this wonderful Totem Tree for Indigo, my son and the City collection. Made from recycled card and printed with colourful and intriguing designs, fun to make, fun to play with and they look great displayed.

The Kidsonroof ‘Totem’ was chosen as one of TIME Style and Design’s Green Design100, it was also nominated as speciality Toy 2009 by the American Toy association. Check them out; they also have some large play houses and insects.

In case you’re all wondering why my blog updates have become less frequent, I’m in the process of moving house and to another country, so very stressful! not enough hours in the day! Bear with me over the next 4 weeks as I may not have complete access to the internet and will be busy looking for a home and unpacking!

New Feature on Boboho
Welcome to new followers and thanks to all readers for continuing to show interest in my blog. I will soon have 200 followers so my next post will give details of a celebratory ‘giveaway’. In the meantime, for those of you who are not yet familiar with my interiors site, we have a new house on there, which is kitsch delicious! See http://www.boboho.com/

Recycled and Re-made

Hope you’re all enjoying the sunshine right now. I’m glad to say it has finally returned to Denmark after a very rainy June.

I have a couple of items of my own work to show you, thought I’d never get finished as I’ve been so far behind, but I’m happy with the results.

Chandelier
The chandelier will form part of a collaborative July exhibition at our Gallery. Most of the Artists exhibiting use vintage or recycle in some way; it’s very different from other stuff we’ve shown in the Gallery, so it may provoke some interesting reactions from the visiting Danes and foreign tourists.

I found this brass chandelier in a charity shop, looking like it had seen better days. I’ve used old quilt fabrics; I find that they have a lovely faded quality that I like. Went the whole hog on this one and decided to wrap the links of the chain with embroidery cotton and wool to tie the colours together. The only new item I’ve used are the wooden balls which again I wrapped to form decoration where you would normally have crystals on a glass chandelier. Added some paper mache flowers, some bias binding and some paint for the candlestick parts and ‘Voila’!

I secretly want to keep this one but I always feel like that when I finish a piece! I must get a grip, and sell it!

Lamp
The lamp I’ve made for my own home using vintage silks I’ve had for many years.

I think it’s quite a fun piece now with the ribbons and the wrapping, and the light has a really warm tone when it’s on, so will be nice for cosy evenings.

I’m still playing around with ideas for the trimming, hence the pinned lace doilies!

Bowls

Had some fun making some paper bowls last week, wanted a nostalgic feel so used vintage books and magazines with colours and text that was appropriate for the ‘feel’ of them.

Have just started a larger bowl to exhibit along with these and am experimenting with stitching some of them too.

Thanks everyone for continuing to follow my blog and for the lovely and sometimes funny comments you leave, they make me smile.

I’ll be back soon with some of my favourites in Art, Design and Vintage.