Green retro coffee pots

How fabulous are these two green retro coffee pots that arrived for my birthday!  I love the textured pattern detail on the emerald green pot, and the rather squat shape of the spout and handle on the olive coloured coffee pot. 

Nobody uses coffee pots these days, which is a shame really.  I don't use mine either, they stand together competing for admiration and proudly collecting dust!

I often wonder what children growing up today will collect in the future - most of the tabletop products produced and consumed today are white boring teapots, plain white plates, standard metal coffee pots, and coloured IKEA tableware.  All very practical and economical to purchase - but they hold no beauty or surface interest.  The appeal to me of older tableware is the fabulous colours, textures, glaze effects and patterns available - many were made during a time of exploration and discovery of new techniques and a desire for surface pattern and interesting shapes.  I somehow can't see a current tea or coffee pot lasting 50 or 60 years - let alone being placed on a shelf to be admired.  

Packing, organising & sorting....

Piles of magazines to sort through!

              My beloved reference folders - full of magazine tears and inspiration

Magazine tears sorted into floral reference..... 

 traditional and damask reference.....

children's reference...... 

and house inspiration & ideas.  

         The Jolly cat wants to make sure she'll be packed up and taken to the new house!

Life has been pretty hectic here for the past few weeks, with packing up the house and sorting our belongings ready for the big house move (soooo many china teacups, coffee pots and plates to pack!).  I've also had some last minute freelance design work, so I've been busily creating some bedlinen designs amongst the house chaos and between frequent cups of tea.

I'm trying to be quite organised and sort out my piles of magazines before we move.  I love collecting magazines for ideas and inspiration and I have piles of them in my studio - some of which date back to 2004!  With the up-coming house move it's been a really good excuse to sit down at night and go through the older ones, tearing out pages for my reference folders.

My reference folders are my designer bibles, they are full of inspiration material which I turn to for almost all of my design projects and freelance work.  I have about 14 folders divided into categories such as traditional floral, contemporary floral, stripes and geometrics, tableware, children's and miscellaneous reference - and I'm constantly adding new material to them.  I can't flick through a mag without going on a tearing frenzy - pulling out anything that catches my eye and that I think will be useful reference material, so it's been great having a stash of old mags to rip into! 

I'm quite partial to a particular folder for my reference collection, with these ones being from Muji.  The folders are full of clear plastic sleeves, perfect for slipping in torn out magazine images.  Ahhh, it makes me happy just thinking about them. 

My poor little studio is now being taken over by empty boxes ready to be filled with our precious belongings.  I came in the other night to find the Jolly cat snuggled in the bottom of one of the precariously stacked pile of boxes - I guess she doesn't want to be forgotten!