Lights!

Within the meandering stretch of Poole Harbour's beautiful shores, lies a little beach called Baiter Park.

Baiter Park, Poole, Dorset

The beach isn't much to look at, but there are some treasures to be found. A long time ago, Poole and Purbeck pottery used to throw out their rejects onto the beach; antique glass bottles and gaudily painted pottery can be discovered in little fragments if you catch the beach at low tide.

I loved the variations in colour of the glass pieces, so I collected some over a couple of beach combing trips.

I then used some galvanized silver wire and assembled the light shade above. The top layer is made of shredded recycled packaging.

My friend's dog Milly once spent a good 15 mins growling at it as she was freaked out by the pendants swaying inexplicably.

What to do with old dining room chairs...?

I had some hand-me-down dining chairs knocking around for a while. Someone back in the day had thought it might be a good idea to varnish them with the kind of wood varnish that looks almost black. They were a bit battered and looking sorry for themselves. Dull, drab, dreary.


My friend's kid came round to do some crafts, and I thought it might be fun to do some chair painting- the kind of thing you're not really allowed to do at home when you're a kid!
Here are the results...

The second chair above started off as an off white colour. On a different day when some friends kids came round to do some screen-printing some dark blue paint was spilled on it. As I was wiping it off with a cloth I thought it actually looked quite good, so we adapted it and gave it a bit of a colour wash! A happy accident.

(After I did this one of my friends commented that my flat was starting to turn into a gypsy caravan.)