katy – Page 97 – Apartment Apothecary

katy 18th March 2014

Liberty pillowcases

I’m very excited today to be presenting a little collaboration that I have been working on with the wondrous Hannah and Rosie of The New Craft Society. Hannah and Rosie are just as fanatic about Liberty prints as I am (I’ll be telling you all about their blog birthday event at the store soon!) so I thought of them first when I decided to make pillowcases in an attempt to rejuvenate my bedlinen, without having to spend a fortune on a whole new set. I chose the fabric for the pillowcases, made them and then sent off to the girls for their magic touch to add gorgeous trims to the cases to give them that ‘vintage touch’. This is a very simple project and does not take too long but makes all the difference to boring, white bedlinen.

So, stay with me for the pillowcase tutorial and then head over to The New Craft Society blog to find out how Hannah and Rosie added the trims…

You will need:

How to make Liberty print pillowcases www.apartmentapothecary.com

For each case you will need a back piece of 52 x 74cm and a front piece of 52 x 100cm. I used a ticking stripe fabric from John Lewis for the back of the cases and Pepper, Eloise and Phoebe Liberty prints for the front of the cases.

Tutorial:

1. Cut your front and back piece. Hem both these pieces at what will be the opening of the pillowcase. Press a 1cm hem.

2. Then you need to sew the hem.

3. Place the longer front piece on the bottom and the shorter back piece on top, right sides together. Fold the longer section of the front piece over the back piece and pin together.

4. Sew along the bottom of the case and then down each side, starting at the top where the flap has been turned over.

5. Turn the cases inside out and press carefully.

Pop over to The New Craft Society now to see how the girls added a vintage touch to the cases…

And here are the finished pillowcases!

They have added such a lovely touch of colour and pattern to my otherwise boring, white bedlinen.

I’m in love with my new pillowcases! I am definitely going to make some more of these – hope you like them too. Thank you so much to Hannah and Rosie for adding their touch too.

Katy x

katy 15th March 2014

Loaf giveaway!

Hi everyone! I am very excited to be teaming up with Loaf this month to give my wonderful readers a chance to win a beautiful lamp, which is part of the new Loaf collection, ‘The Whole Hog’ – check it out, if you haven’t already.

Lots of lovely Loafy products in the Whole Hog collection.

Our competition will combine two of my favourite things: Loaf and Pinterest. I get so much inspiration from Pinterest – in fact it was one of the reasons I started my blog in the first place – so I decided this should be the theme of the competition.

The lamp we would like to give away to a lucky reader is called the Apothecary lamp because while wandering around Jaipur last year the Loafers were inspired by a pile of glass apothecary jars in a chemist which – though pretty dusty – were stunning examples of brilliant old school Indian glass-blowing. It was decided they would make gorgeous lamps – and I hope you all agree that the end result is pretty gorgeous (I wish I could win it for myself!).

I couldn’t choose anything but this lamp for the prize because it matches the name of my blog, which was inspired by the first time I met Jules, my fiancé. We met in a bar whilst he was drinking from a bottle that looked like an apothecary jar. The bottle caught my attention before he did (sorry Jules!!).

What inspires you day to day? We would love to know.

To enter the giveaway:

1) Pin the image above of the Apothecary lamp onto your Pinterest account and follow @loafdotcom on Pinterest to gain one entry (if you don’t have a Pinterest account just sign up here).

Add this description to the picture:

I would like to win the @Loafdotcom #apothecarygiveaway from www.apartmentapothecary.com

To gain more entries…

2) Upload a picture to your Pinterest account of your daily inspiration (you will gain an entry for each day of the competition that you upload a picture – competition closes at midday on March 31st). This can be anything from places, to friends, to pets, to flowers, to books.

Add this description to your picture:

My #dailyinspiration for the @Loafdotcom and @aptapothecary #apothecarygiveaway

The winner will be picked at random from all the entries and only people who live in mainland UK can enter.

We will also be uploading daily pictures of what inspires us to our Pinterest accounts that you can find here and here. The competition closes at midday on March 31st so get PINNING!

Good luck, lovely readers x

And the winner is…

Congratulations, Lori! We will be in touch very soon and hope that you enjoy your new wondrous Apothecary lamp. Thank you so much for everyone else who entered and we have loved seeing your #dailyinspiration! x

katy 13th March 2014

DIY Liberty lampshade

I am so pleased today to be able to say that I am sharing a tutorial over on the beautiful At Home in Love blog. I love Aileen’s fresh style and and all her creative ideas for the home and I’m very excited that she will be doing a guest post for Apartment Apothecary very soon too! So, if you want to see how you can turn this little lot….

…into this beautiful bespoke Liberty print lampshade, then hop on over to At Home in Love right now!

Enjoy and thank you Aileen for hosting me today! Katy x

P.S. My tutorial is a modified version of a tutorial from The Liberty Book of Home Sewing (best book ever!).

katy 9th March 2014

Painted white floor

I thought I’d give you a little floor update today (this may excite me more than you!). When I decided to do my hallway makeover (t’s going to be ready so soon – I will explain to you then why it has taken so long) it quickly became apparent that I needed a new floor covering as the fresh paint made the carpet look awful,which is not helped by having a very muddy dog. So, I wrote a post about how I chose a new floor and I finally decided, after getting a quote of £3500 for a beautiful oak floor, that I needed to go cheap as my nice salary will no longer exist soon.

We pulled up the carpet in just the hallway last weekend and found MDF boards. We are going to seal these and use a Farrow and Ball floor paint to paint them white and then invest in some beautiful rugs. This floor will continue into the kitchen and sitting room, which I hope will give the flat a more modern feel, as beige carpet never seemed quite right with our white walls and huge windows. Anyhoo, I want to share my inspiration with you and then I promise to get it done soon and share how we did it…

Inspiration for my painted white floor www.apartmentapothecary.com

Image from Auroran Henkarit.

Image found on Seen and Said Tumblr.

Image from House to Home. Photograph by Polly Wreford.

Image found here.

Image from Min Lilla Veranda

Have a wonderful, sunny Sunday (definitely not a day for painting floors!).

Katy x

katy 4th March 2014

Jadeite

Ever wondered what people did before the invention of tupperware? The answer is jadeite.

This early twentieth-century invention that was used to store precious supplies during the Depression in America and designed to stack in mid-century refrigerators has come full circle and reproductions seem to be cropping up everywhere. However, it’s the original, vintage collections that are in high demand. The glass is thick and heavy and made to last, which it has; whole collections have survived without even a chip as it is so sturdy.

I love the colour, which became popular in contrast to the Victorian florals. It would make a lovely accent colour for any kitchen or dresser. I’m thinking of starting me a collection. What do you think?

Start a Jadeite collection www.apartmentapothecary.com

Image from Country Living.

Image from Style Me Pretty. Styling by Pearl and Godiva. Photography by Half a Dream Away.

Image from Martha Stewart. Photograph by Paul Costello.

If you fancy picking up some reproductions, a good place to start is at RE-found objects or Borrowed Blue (see featured image).

Katy x