I just lost half an hour of my life perusing this lovely blog by San Fransisco artist / illustrator Lisa Congdon. She photographs, draws and sometimes paints a collection a day, mostly of stuff you immediately wish was on a shelf or wall in your own house (just me?). Unlike the photographed items, which belong to her, the drawn ones are imagined, which strikes me as a particularly good form of therapy for shopping addicts. If only I could draw.

Lisa started the project in January this year and intends to end it on 31 December. Knowing what a bunch of big voyeurs we are, she’s even included links to a tour of her amazing house and studio. Both full of those collections and enough to make you ball your fists with envy (just me?).

Clerkenwell design week

Hey, I know I promised you highlights from Made in Clerkenwell, but your roving reporter came down with a chest infection and missed it, so I urge you to nip over to Stylist’s Own for her picks. I did drag my recovering ass – one deaf ear and all – over to Clerkenwell design week […]

Art in a box

Lovely new products at Aram, here are Alison Smithson’s Cornell Boxes. Cute storage and display units, available with or without the post, or in a revolving version (for easily-bored people in tiny flats). The boxes are so named for the artist Joseph Cornell, who’s work consisted of precise collections and arrangements of found objects in […]

If you like it then you should stick a pin in it

Is it just me who thinks these pin cushions are ace? Quite the antidote to Cath Kidston’s sewing kit, anyway. Spotted yesterday at the Barbican pop-up shop at Clerkenwell Design week, they’ll be available from the 10 June in the  permanent shop in conjunction with The Surreal House exhibition. I’m afraid my journalistic skills went awol […]

Trend or travesty?

I’m afraid I already know what side of the parrot perch I’m sitting on with this one and it’s… Trend! It’s from a new range called Parrot Party, by kitsch shifters Lladro, they of the porcelain ballerinas and horses. I can’t help but find it rather lovely. I just went for a look on the […]