Bringing gold accents to your space with gold and white pillows

Danielle's charming classic walk up via Apartment Therapy

Adding metallic gold accents to your home is a great way to bring in warmth and visual texture. And gold can be remarkably versatile too: it brings a hint of luxury and glam but it also complements perfectly natural elements like wood or wicker.

Elle Decor, via Apartment Therapy

Gold also works beautifully with a variety of colours: think bright red, rich green, aqua or hot pink.

Modern Bedroom via Houzz

It can become a focal point to offset the simplest of designs.

Contemporary Living Room by Seattle Interior Designers & Decorators Beth Dotolo, RID, ASID via Houzz

Or part of a layering of rich textures and patterns.

Earthlab's gold and cream pillows
Pillows of course are a great way to experiment with colour and design trends without making a the kind of commitment involved in buying new furniture or repainting your walls. I love the combination of gold on cream, and when I  found this beautiful nubbly ivory silk noile I thought it cried out for some gold. On silk it seemed natural to print my Indian inspired tile design.
Indian inspired gold print on ivory silk pillow

My second gold and cream pillow is printed on slightly more robust organic cotton twill with a playful star design. This really is a pillow that will fit in just about anywhere, I have a sage green sofa which is rather fussy about the pillows it mixes with and this pillow looks great on it, although at the moment it's hanging out on a burgundy art deco chair from the 30s.


Gold on cream star print pillow by Earthlab

Cosy sofa

It's always fun to show off my cushions in their natural habitat, in this case my living room!

I tried my best this winter to have the soft furnishings compensate for the heating system's lack of oopmh, which meant pulling out  the wooly throws and rugs. The velvet stripes in these two organic cotton cushions add to the warm cosy vibe of the sofa, and the neutral palette works well with the woolen rug and the African kuba cloth wall hanging.

The neutral stripes pillow is one of my best sellers and a personal favourite, I have several in my living room, as it is so versatile and easy to live with.

Kid's craft project: underwater habitat in a box

Underwater habitat in a box. Great kids craft project, the secret was to do a bit at a time and assemble at the end.

It even involved a trip to the beach to collect sand and shells. The jellyfish are made from plastic egg cartons and strips of bubble wrap.

Note from the artist:

How to make a Habitat Box

First choose a habitat you want to make in your box. Round up things that you can use e.g. scrap paper and card, plastic egg boxes, das or clay and toy animals. You may also need  paint, glue and scissors. Now you are ready to make your habitat box! To make a background you could cover the back with paper or paint it.

Ideas for different boxes

For a forest or a jungle habitat box, you can glue some toy animals to the bottom of the box or make animals out of das or clay. 

If you are making a underground habitat you could collect soil, dried leaves and twigs to glue on to make a special background.

A desert or a beach habitat could have real sand and shells that could be collected from any beach.

New metallic fabrics

I'm very pleased with my latest haul of designer fabrics. As usual they come from ends of rolls used by the fashion house Max Mara, high quality Italian textiles.

Three of them use gold metallic elements, I love how they combine with the other textures, creating a sort of rustic but luxurious feel. The bottom fabric is a hemp/linen weave which I couldn't resist for its natural, textural qualities.

I can't wait to use these fabrics for some pillows, my collection for spring and summer 2013 will be featuring a lot of metallic elements so these fit right in.

Etsy Holiday Shop

Back in october I was contacted by Etsy to take part in an amazing project, the Etsy Holiday Shop in New York, a pop-up shopping experience combining workshops, performances, art and of course a selection of items from Etsy sellers, including mine. I only wish they could've fedexed me to New York along with my pillows, as I would've loved to have been there, especially to see the great Reggie Watts!

There's my rainbow houses pillow at the right end of the couch.

You can read more about the shop in the Etsy Blog or check out their flickr photos of the event

Earthlab on Miss Moss

So, how thrilled was I exactly to dicover one of my pillows on Miss Moss? Well, very thrilled actually. If you don't know Miss Moss, her blog is described as a compendium of radness. I. Am. Officially. Rad.

Her guest blogger Elise of Pennyweight chose my modern neutral pillow as one of her "ten things".  Thanks Diana and Elise : )

Monday moodboard: Recycled cool

My first Monday moodboard. Recycled cool.

Decorative pillow made from vintage Kimono silk, from Kaftansarafan
Recycled tetrapak earrings by Manufactapaper
Recycled circuit board key ring by Recomputing
Recycled leather journal by BrotherWorks

You can check out all the other Monday moodboards at Star of the East's Blog

Thanks Jenny!

Many thanks to Jenny, who featured EarthLab on her blog, today. Jenny has a shop on Etsy, as well as a blog, Jenny the Artist where she features the work of various Etsy artists and crafters, she has a great selection!

Today it was the turn of my blush pink pillow with a houses print.

Thanks Jenny!

Indian inspired printed pillows

Last week I wrote about my African inspired pillows, made using printing blocks carved in Namibia. This week it's the turn of my Indian pillows.

When I began making my own printng blocks I happened to be at my parent's house and my Mum pulled some old Indian printing blocks out of her lifetime's accumulation of arts and crafts supplies, and asked if I could do anything with them. I'm not sure how or when she aquired them, or how old they are!

Originally these blocks were used for applying wax in batik work, as well as for printing. They include some lovely circle designs as well as some birds and plant motifs.

I love the simple charm of these designs, and I've used them to produce my range of Indian inspired pillows, in bright happy colours.

Although I'm not usually a great fan of pink I love the combination of raspberry  and lighter pink used in the Indian birds and circles pillow and again in the Indian pink throw pillow. The other pillow features the same circle design: Indian blue and green print pillow.

All of these designs are printed on fairtrade organic cotton produced by Indian artisans. Check my Etsy pillow shop for future variations on these designs.

African inspired printed pillows

I've always been inspired by African art, and I own a number of beautiful examples, from sculpture to cloth. I love the boldness and simplicity of it, and I think it complements modern design perfectly.

So when I was getting into block printing and saw the beautiful Oshiwa printing blocks I was immediatly hooked. The Oshiwa designs were produced at their workshop in Namibia by three local craftsmen, and you can buy their hand carved wooden printing blocks from the Oshiwa shop on Etsy.

I have used my blocks to produce African inspired pillows, the first pillow is a bird and lizard design on natural linen, and the second features lizards and turtles, it's printed on fairtrade organic cotton from India.

I'm kind of proud of the fact that these pillows combine the skills of craftspeople from three continents, African woodcarvers, Indian weavers, and myself!

Earthlab is the featured designer on Boxed!

 

Since January some of my print designs have also been available on Boxed, a great site that focuses on independent furniture and home decor designers. I'm really pleased to have been chosen as one of this month's featured designers,  in my interview I share some behind the scenes info on inspiration, creativity and how to work on the beach! You can read the article here

Earthlab's starfish pillow featured in Etsy's blog

What a great surprise to see my starfish pillow featured in the Get the Look Decor section of Etsy's blog.
You can read the full article here

Earthlab on Parsimonia

I was delighted today to discover I've been featured on the fabulous Parsimonia blog. It's owner is a woman after my own heart, a veteran thrifter and rummager in second hand shops. Her blog is well worth checking out for tips on sustainable and vintage style, and she has a great online vintage store too. Thanks Parsimonia!

Earthlab on Facebook

Announcing my new Facebook page, it's here you'll find up to the minute info on special offers and deals in my shop, as well as other news, Earthlabdesign

Earthlab featured on Babyology

I'm thrilled that one of my cushions was featured on the Australian blog Babyology, as part of their "12 Days of Christmas" feature.

Organic cotton collection

I seem to have been so busy making cushions this autumn that I've had no time to talk about it! So here it is, my new organic cotton collection, using fairtrade organic cotton made in India.

I've had a lot of fun combining the different fabrics in my pillow / cushion designs, I love the interplay of textures and the natural, rustic feel given by the small imperfections in the fabric.

These are just two of the designs which use natural earth tones in geometric patterns which fit well into just about any interior. They all use the same range of fabrics, meaning you can mix and match between them and be sure of getting a coordinated look. To see the full range visit my shop

The Oakleaf Pillow

I think the Oakleaf pillow may be one of my favourite designs, I really love the shape and texture of the oakleaves against the white cotton, as well as their mossy green colour. The appliques  actually take me ages to do because I machine stitch all the veins in the leaves, and sewing round the edge to attatch them to the pillow is pretty fiddly!

The result is worth it though.I gave a version of this pillow to my sister in law, her house in Tuscany is called "Querciatello". Quercia in Italian means oak tree, so I thought it was pretty appropriate!

Upgrading to Organic Cotton

I've always wanted to make my business as eco-friendly as possible, and up til now I've used a lot of eco felt made from recycled bottles, a material I love to work with for it's bright colours and
sustainability, people are always surprised and delighted to hear where the felt came from.

But I love the natural look and feel of cotton too, so I am taking a further step towards eco friendliness by introducing organic cotton for the designs which will be in my shop from September.

A statistic you hear a lot is that a massive 25% of the world's pesticides are used on cotton crops. That's truly staggering. These chemicals are extremely nasty, dangerous for the health of the workers who use them and for the environment as a whole. I want to do my part in changing this and I really believe that given a wider range of choices consumers will opt for alternatives too.

After a little research I found a supplier with a good range of organic fairtrade cottons, produced in India, many of them on handlooms. Whenever I've had a spare moment in the last few weeks I've been pulling out my little bundle of fabric samples and poring over them. I particularly love the crossweaves which you can see in the photo, made using two different colours of yarn woven together to make a beautiful grainy texture.

So far the process has been very exciting, and just looking at and touching the fabrics has been a great inspiration. Now I just have to wait for them to arrive so I can begin work, watch this space!

Question Mark Pillow

This question mark pillow is among my favourite designs, and one of the first I made. It's done entirely in recycled eco felt, with a touch of hand embroidery, it's loosely based on the idea of dividing cells.

I dedicated this pillow to my daughter, who asks a lot of questions, such as “can we keep this one, Mummy?”
Her curiosity is endless!

So it’s kind of a question about life (and in the words of the late great Douglas Adams, the universe, and everything). Profound or what?

A future without plastic water bottles?

I've blogged already about the eco felt I use, which is derived from recycled plastic drinks bottles. But it would take an awful lot of pillows to acount for the number of bottles we use.

A quick Google tells me that Italy, where I live, is the world's number one per capita consumer of plastic water bottles, amounting to a staggering 10 billion litres! Italians generally distrust tap water supplies and have a liking for bottled mineral water, it's not uncommon to hear a conversation on the merits of various waters here.

Plastic bottles represent a huge waste in terms of resources to produce them, not to mention the energy involved in transporting the water. They have also been found to leach harmful chemicals into the water itself. Italy does have recycling bins for plastic, but not everyone uses them and the recycling itself requires energy.

I have to confess to having added to this problem in my time, I developed a taste for sparkling water and got hooked. But a couple of years ago we took the decision to try and eliminate plastic water bottles as much as possible, and began getting our water from Egeria, a spring on the outskirts of Rome. Egeria sells bottled water but you can also go and fill for yourself at a fraction of the price. It's popular with the Romans and there is also a small park there with a playground and bar. The water is fantastic but it did take up a valuable chunk of weekend to go and fetch it, as well as a car journey.

Then a year ago a bunch of unassuming sheds like the one in the picture above began popping up all over the Sabina area north east of Rome, where we used to live and now spend our weekends. They take mains water and filter it to make great drinking water, which you can choose as sparkling or still. The cost is 5 eurocents for 1.5 litres, in other words next to nothing, and way way cheaper than bottles. The machines were an immediate hit, there are almost always people waiting to fill up their bottles. The municipalities involved have surely saved huge amounts in waste disposal too. So, people get cheap, delicious water, taxes are saved, there are a few less plastic bottles on the planet, in short a win win win situation. I really hope this solution gets adopted more widely.