Urban Jungle Bloggers and Woven Wall Hangings

Im really quite excited at the moment by two elements of interior styling and the use of colour. One of these elements is the re-discovery of house plants through the network of Urban Jungle Bloggers and the other is woven wall hangings.

If you are wondering what Urban Jungle Bloggers is all about then let me give you an idea here.  Set up by two lovely souls, Igor and Judith, they have brought an online community together of people who love house plants.  At first I thought it was for people living in the city but now I've met Igor and Judith I realise its for everyone who likes plants in their home and who like to style with them. 

As I've mentioned before, I attended a blogging conference a few weeks ago, primarily to meet in person the people behind some of the most inspiring things on the internet.  Bloggers are people who often are working in complete isolation and this can become far too inward looking if you're not careful. So when you meet the creators of a cool online community and they are really nice with a great philosophy and attitude, its a bonus for sure.

Having travelled extensively when I was in the music business, to over 42 countries around the globe, you find that some nations have very cool attitudes to life and I think that this is exuded by Igor and Judith in bucket loads. Their 'no rules' approach and philosophy is so rare these days, the idea to facilitate the meeting (virtually) of like minded people for no financial reason is a Karma which will return to them Im sure. This is also something I would love to emulate in my #paintpassion community.

Setting a theme monthly to their house plant stylings Im delighted to say that in my first month they have chosen my area - colour - to be the topic, giving it the hashtag #plantcolorpop (and don't forget its the American spelling of color not the English spelling - Colour.

Since working with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint(tm)for Painters In Residence, Ive continued to explore this paints properties and abilities. Becoming more and more free with my approach I've been developing a technique of working with a wet brush and just dipping the same brush into different colours, then working it with water and so on, to blend and wash.  Ive chosen to do this on some back boards as a way to practice but Im intending to expand onto canvases too.

The backboards give me the possibilities to try out colour combinations and see how they work with different objects on and around them.  So to my third element here, the woven wall hanging.

I studied textile and embroidery for A level in the late 1970's, so the revival of the this type of wall hanging has amused me enormously. Its been a right trip (in the hippy sense of the word) to pick it up again and be able to play around with it for interior styling. 

Last weekend I went to Yarnspiration2015, a day of workshops and socialising for people who love their yarns, like alcoholics anonymous for wool hoarders - where do you keep your hidden stash?, did you secretly spend the housekeeping on cashmere and silk yarn, oh the confessions.  Hello my name is Janice and Im a yarnoholic.

It's Fibre East at the end of July, a big yarn related show which I shall be popping along to and reporting back on.  Its my nearest big wool show, in Ampthill. 

Anyway, back to the wall hangings, Ive tried two on the small basic hand loom and one utilising a tapestry frame.  I don't want to give a tutorial here yet until I feel Ive tried out a few things and can tell you the do's and don't from first hand experience. Like anything, practice makes perfect so I shall practice a bit more and let you know.  

You can find Urban Jungle Bloggers here and I'd put money on it that after looking you will be rushing off to the garden centre.

Im back off to do some more weaving and paint sploshing now, please tag me and #paintpassion so I can see what you have been up to. 

Blogtacular 2015

Blogtacular at The Royal Institution

It would be weird not to blog about a blogging conference, although Im not sure how interesting it is except to other bloggers. However there is always inspiration in colour and style to be found, especially when the hosts - Blogtacular - find such beautiful venues and sponsors.

Despite having worked on both Bond Street and Berkeley Square back in the 1980s for Polygram Records, I'd never set foot in the Royal Institution of Science. They have done wonders with the interior and surprised that is had such contemporary aspects.

it wasn't lost on me that it was Worldwide Knit In Public Day

A room full of blogging women (mostly) there was a lot of love. I actually wasn't surprised that there was so much support for each other in this community.  I find that women cut to the chase, it made it easy to network. So I found out lots of technical stuff about the layout of this thing and boring stuff like that. It was very useful to me and once its all instigated I hope it will make this blog more enjoyable to you the reader.

It was so comforting for me that one of the sponsors was Annie Sloan Chalk Paint as it gave me the chance to tell some of my fellow bloggers about it, we talked about paint quite a lot as a result and so Im starting my own hashtag photo community called #paintpassion.

Join me if you like, its anything thats painted - thats it, whatever has been changed due to the application of paint qualifies, from masterpieces in oils to old shed doors, pin it on pinterest (let me know if you want to join the board) tag it on instagram and maybe in the future lets do some blogs about it.

I was thrilled to meet many people, not least of all people behind Urban Jungle Bloggers.  Expect to see some posts and talk about plants, paint and colour.

And then we rounded off the day at West Elm on Tottenham Court Road, Ive bought some cute things to feature in my photos as well as some lovely cutlery. 

Prior to the conference we had a meal at a lovely restaurant called The Cha Cha Moon, just of Carnaby Street and behind Liberty. Another old hunting ground of mine and fond memories of lots of times spent with Metallica, whaaat, did you read that correctly, yes, I was their press officer and helped to break the band in Europe. If I did my job right then you might have heard of them.

My photos from Liberty London will be going on a blog I do for Love Stitch Heswall. A fabric shop with a cafe and studio, a place for my craft connections to collaborate. 

This part of London was a great trip down memory lane and looking back at those times from my new life, where I re-use my old skills but with different tools. The list of inspiring people at Blogtacular are too numerous to mention but I shall give them more time and proper links in forthcoming posts. 

Fellow Blogtaculars, please keep in touch.  Im hoping to move this blog onto its next level now that Im armed with all the info. 

Blogging its the future .... and the future is now. 

photo by Piers MacDonald for Blogtacular and Mollie Makes

Instagram photography and floral styling.

I've become such a mahoosive fan of Instagram of late, I guess because its more about pictures than words. My brain is clearly one which responds to visual stimulation, being obsessed with how my house looks, and by that I don't mean neat and tidy, quite the opposite.  I love colour, detail, interesting objects from every era, creating a visual story.  Taking photos and mood shots for myself and others gives me the excuse to hoard, what I call 'props' and have even managed to convince the other half that I need all these 'props' for photos.  Even shoes become props! Darling I need them for a photo idea ...

So maybe its time to talk about photography. My history with a camera goes back to 1978, so you could say that Ive been married to one most of my life, just upgrading now and then.  My first SLR was a Pentax Spotmatic F, fully manual.  I shot on film and printed in a darkroom, oh, how things have changed. 

Without going too far down memory lane, lets jump to now. My latest love is my Canon 5D Mkii. I have two lenses, one zoom and one fixed. This camera is great at shooting in low light and chosen because I hate studio lights and artificial lighting.  Using just a folding reflector to bounce and direct light at times. 

My most recent purchase was a 100mm fixed macro lens which I bought second hand on e-bay.  It is a bit risky buying on ebay, I did once buy a camera body for my step-daughter which totally didn't work, luckily e-bay refunded but it did spoil her birthday surprise. 

Its a shame that camera shops have disappeared, my nearest one is quite some distance.

One thing about Instagram is its format for square photos, having always arranged and shot for old school oblong format either portrait or landscape. Its taken me a few weeks but now Im finding that I arrange and set up for the square format as it works better on social media. 

My drive for taking photos almost daily has been set with Instagram challenges which I have talked about before. And sometimes when I think the subject is out of my comfort zone, I surprise myself. It really keeps you on your toes, plus there are so many brilliant photographers there to aspire too.  I have won some challenges and competitions recently and it is such a thrill to be featured by great taste makers and style setters. 

Next week Im off for a flower styling course I won, so will be bursting to tell you about that. 

  

Making mood boards is a great way to try colour and texture combinations. Flowers usually feature as the colours of nature are the most inspiring and often the most vivid. Move in closer to see the detail and you will see things you never noticed before, I never really liked Ranunculas until I started photographing them.

This Graphite chalk paint background is the perfect muse for pinks and purples.

A lot of my background colours are using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, some of them are left over pieces from my Painters In Residence project.  

Mobile phone cameras are now remarkably good and I believe that its this that has encouraged a lot of women to take up photography.  I would encourage anyone who finds themselves taking more photos on their phone to think about moving onto a basic DSLR like the Nikon D60 or D90.  

My other tip is don't be lazy, don't just snap from where you stand or sit, get up, bend down, move the right distance away.  Think about the angle and how it changes the perspective.  A table wont look like a table if you shoot it from a standing position, get it at eye level so the legs don't warp. The beauty about digital photography is that you can take hundreds of pics and then go through them on the computer to see which works, a good learning curve.  

Ive met a few interior photographers who say that when they go to shoot homes, whilst the homes look beautiful to the naked eye, they don't always look so great on camera.  Hence why every part of my house looks like its been set up for a photo or a shop display, I just can't help myself. What this has taught me as an interior designer is that you don't need an impressive mansion, my home is very modest small roomed house with no period features but you wouldn't notice that if you came round, with your eyes distracted every which way with crazy colours and objects.

To join in on challenges and competitions just look out for the hashtag # followed by subjects like - my still sunday - capturing colour - gathered style - by arrangement - floral friday - my monday moodboard - this joyful moment - styling the seasons.

I actually have my own one #farfromthemaddingcrowd  where you post a photo and tag me @janiceissitt_life_style with a pic that shows your interpretation of "Far From The Madding Crowd". Please do find me and join in, theres a paperback copy of the book for the winner. I should also mention what a wonderful community it is on Instagram.  If you follow the right people you will not be bombarded with pouting selfies, but lovely insights into creative souls who support each other. Find your likeminded doppelganger who is residing on the other side of the world, the girl in Amsterdam who shares your love of tattoos and clogs, the mum in America who also collects Dala Horses and Swedish folky stuff, they are all out there through this portal called an App.  Modern life eh, its not so bad.

See you next week after Ive been to London for my prize of Syling Spring At Mine.

Holy Cow !!! is H.O.M.E.

Recently I've been following my passion for Antique eastern furniture and sourcing with my friends for a new shop opening soon in Aylesbury Bucks. The shop will sell everything that is beautiful for your home, its fair trade, recycled and re-purposed with a super cool colonial scandi shabby edge. Its fusion man !

Hope you like my photos and styling and if you find Holy Cow Home on facebook you can arrange to purchase some of these items for yourself.  I shall be inviting you all to the shop opening as well.

Vintage Circus Costumes and Clowns

The best thing about my life is that no two days are the same, despite my best efforts to just hibernate in the warm and take photos in my home studio, the unusual offer seems to haunt me like a shadow... and here's just one such instance.

I met the wonderful Ruth from Admiral Costumes on a photo shoot which I helped to style, Ruth had just taken over an established costume hire company not far from me up the country roads.

Ruth had come across a fabulous selection of genuine vintage circus costumes, and thought I might like to have fun with them. When finally we found a young lady small enough to fit into them, I set about building a little set and rummaging around for props. The final part of the jigsaw was finding that our student model Charlotte was best friends with another young lady who is training to be a makeup artist, the girls were fabulous, they really entered into the spirit of it. 

Ruth has been looking into the different types of clowns and we took some ideas from these.

There are four types of clown, there's Auguste who is the fool or joker, he falls over with his big shoes on and has makeup with white round the mouth and eyes which is outlined in black.

Hobo clown is a happy go lucky fellow who is always looking for work, typically he wears a bowler hat and tramp clothing, he has a dirty face due to his constant travelling.

Harlequin clown originated in France and wears an outfit made from triangles of coloured fabric with a ruff at the neck. Harlequin is nimble and performs stunts and acrobatics.

The Pierrot clown wears distinctive black and white and is known for mime.  He is a melancholy dreamer and hides his pain from his audience but reveals only a single tear drop on his cheek, under his eye.

We combined some of these clown ideas to style the showgirl outfits, the sort a bear-back rider would wear and another like a Jeanie.

With the addition of a few feminine touches like ballet shoes and veils, we twisted the idea from a male image to a female performer, albeit a rather sinister one, but I can't help but feel that clowns are a bit scary anyway. 

You can hire any of these items or some just like it from Admiral Costumes. Kerri Victoria Pocknell our MUA can be found through facebook or myself.  Big thanks to Charlotte our model too. 

Send in the clowns, don't worry, they're here...

Far From the Madding Crowd

for this last month Ive been honing my skills in still life photography, something which I have to do a lot of when I work for others photographing their products.  Sometimes its just fun to play but as Im the sort of person who needs a nudge, the instagram challenges have proved just the sort of push I needed. 

So Im telling you here first about an Instagram challenge Im setting of my own, called #farfromthemaddingcrowd.

I read this book in the 1970s as it was on the curriculum at school for English O Level (gcse).  The books of Thomas Hardy had a big impression on me at age 14, I thought they were very tragic and they still leave me with a haunted feeling. 

This books title reminds me of my new life now in the countryside, getting away from the crowd in London.  But the idea and concept of being having some personal space, some moments of stillness and an escape corner of your house, can be beautifully captured in photos. 

So Im challenging over the next month for people to hashtag #farfromthemaddingcrowd and the entry I like the best will win a vintage copy of the book from me. 

Here are some of my favourite stills from the last few weeks ...

find me on Instagram janiceissitt_life_style

stacked for Kim Klassen

Moody Wednesday

Far From The Madding Crowd

floral for Lobster and Swan

from my kitchen

Silver for Capturing Colour with Capture By Lucy

Gathered Style for A Quiet Style