happy new year...

happy new year everyone...

the party was a little bit stiff...

and then the 'mc custards' landed...

and that was the end of 2010...and lots of champagne...

personally for me and mc wife, 2010 is going to be hard to top...but here's to a happy and healthy 2011...

adh mor oraibh...

thanks to all my custabulous followers and commentators for giving me the drive to keep my blog alive...

happy christmas...

well folks...

this christmas i'm thinking about all the lovelyness and newness and romanceyness that goes along with our first christmas as mr and mrs mc husband and mc wife...

all self indulgent there for a few lines...

not forgetting our first christmas with herpoochyness too...

and i'm also thinking about those no longer with us this christmas, those in hospitals, people who didn't quite make it home for christmas and are stuck in airports or trainstations...

be careful on the roads this christmas season...

have fun. be merry and i shall see y'all in 2011...

thanks for all the commentating throughout the year...

something totally irish...

ah folks...i love the irish culture of 'taking the mick'...

not only do i love these prints but i love the context of the entire site...

screen printed in ireland by a big irish man...

possibly my favourite...

heh heh...someones very clever...check out more on the site for yourself...

the holly and the ivy and the party invite on the fridge door...

its beginning to look a lot like christmas...

party invites on the fridge door...

reindeer prancing through the kitchen...

our little trad corner has gone all festive too...

baubles everywhere...

ho ho ho to you farmers market trio...

believe...whatever you believe in be glad that you believe...

this is mc wifes first wee christmas ornament from mc husband...

this is possibly the biggest ornament ever...

ah would you look at the poodle obsessed mc wife and mc husband putting poodle christmas ornaments on their tree...their not wise...

picture perfect...thats us...thanks lucy...

i think i might miss those wonderful christmassy snowy dublin inspired guinness ads this year...as well as fairy tale of new york being played to death...

this is a vignette...don't mind the lampshade...we don't really like it but we love the lamp base and we just haven't found the perfect lampshade for the room or had time to make one...

i'm done...mc wife and i had a great time on saturday decorating our wee gaff...we threw on grooveshark, listened to some christmas music, and cracked open a nice bottle of red wine while we decked out our living room for christmas...annie lennox has a christmas album out and it's brilliant...the holly and the ivy is awesome...she rocks in a non-elvis way and certainly not as much as mc wife...

(annie lennox - not the holly and the ivy...that would just be absurd....)

just thought i'd share this with y'all today...

philippe...

you just rock...

its black...

its black friday here in the states...

which is a big deal...i guess its like our boxing day/st stephens day sales at homes...no doubt at 4am this morning there was widespread pandemonium as retailers opened their doors...madness...pure madness...

anyway...horses for courses and all that...

we are in kansas city, missouri for the long weekend thats in it...so i'm looking forward to checking out a few spots in this city and hopefully sharing it with you via a few posts next week...

happy thanksgiving...

happy thanksgiving...

just so y'all know to use the correct knife and fork...

na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na...(name that song...)

i'm spending thanksgiving with mc wifes family in kansas city. missouri... wherever your spending yours i hope you have a great day...

jaboopee and st brigid and the installation...

i'm not sure if all of my readers know who jaboopee is...jaboopee is blogtopian friend and possibly the most uberfunkychicshabbyavantgardebohemian mosaic artist i have ever come across...you can visit her blogspot here...

over a series of a few months jaboopee has teased us with sneek peaks at an installation in a school, based on the legends of st brigid and her cloak...she posted the final pics last week and i clearly have to share...

all the quotes below taken from jaboopee's blogspot...except the last one which is what i said on her blogspot...

...or elvis...???!!!

"The shape of the mosaic is cruciform and mirrors the shape of a St. Brigid’s cross"...

"St. Brigid is wearing a beautiful magical cloak. It’s intricate design is a magnificently decorative and elaborate patchwork that shimmers and sparkles"...

"and extends out to envelope the floor before her''...

"the magical cloak"...

this is one of my favourite scenes from the installation...

"The tree is a representation of the oak tree beside which St. Brigid sited her monastery"...

"The imaginary mythical vegetation surrounding her represents spring flowers and the healing herbalism she is associated with"...

i really hope you were as taken by this project as much as i was...please do hop over to jaboopee's blogspot and check out more of her work...and tell her how much you love this installation...this is what i had to say on her blogspot...

"jaboopee...

what a wonderful piece of work...

i love how she steps out of the wall and across the school corridor...there is also something wonderful about the trees and the birds that jumps out to me, is it the irridescent of the tile or something - i don't exactly know...

i really like the shape of the flower stems and that the children made the magical flowers themselves...it holds an almost 1960's wallpaper connotation for me...

and then her cloak...wowsers...wonderful piece of work...

i'm a big fan of your st brigid installation..."

come on in...

everything about this front door just says hello...come on in...

what a brilliant colour...i even love the text font used for the numbers and the lamp shades on each side...

courtesy of your man will at bright bazaar who saw it somewhere else...

a what now...

a rustic romp...

that's a bit random...none-the-less very cool...

but seriously a what now...

nonblogging...

here's me caught up in a world of nonblogging bloggerness...

but then i saw this little milk jug thats actually a cow and then i had my coffee and all seemed right with the world and i returned to blogville fully charged...

buzzwords...

fun

edgy

sustainable

cool

mc wife and custardbydesign and friends and white...

mc wife and i met with some friends last night who are considering buying a new house in our neighbourhood...

anyway...we went to look at ideas for remodeling their kitchen and we got to talking about other ideas for other areas of the house and we discussed clean white classic interiors...

then i saw these pics today and i clearly had to share...

from i.o. metro in tulsa...in tulsa above all places...

i dunno why i say 'above all places'...well i do actually...i think of tulsa and i think of friends and chandler and shark porn but sure thats neither here nor there...

simply fantastic interiors...love the pops of colour in the andy warhol inspired prints...

i must share our own madonna, elvis and marilyn monroe prints with y'all soon...

moving colour...

what about this for new and innovative technology taking glass tiles to new levels...

these temperature sensitive textured glass tiles change colour with the ambient, body of water temperature...when someone touches them or if warm water form a shower hits them, the tiles simply burst with colour...

"Clients can also choose the activation temperature of the tiles which will then go through 3 shimmering phases, each with a 6 – 10° rise in temperature. ”Once the temperature peak is passed, the base color returns and remains the same until the temperature drops...”

with this product range in your shower...washing your bits will never be the same again...these are actually so cool they're hot...

alphabet soup...not exactly...

i love this idea from finnish designer lincoln kayiwa...

a room divider thats not soup but it is a wall storage unit also...

adaptable...yes...

i love how it conforms to hold almost anything...books, magazines, cd's, bric-a-bracs etc...very clever...

it's called the aakkoset and it comes in loadsa colours so it's nearly perfect for any space...

as usual i want one...

like...

i was checking my emails today and i found one that made my day...

i received a nice short little email from a designer telling me they "just wanted to drop a line and let you know how much i enjoyed the post on the dishes - very cool plates - it was a nice break from designing''...

now that made my day...

weekend wanting...

we're off to eureka springs again this weekend to hang out with the mc-in laws...

looking forward to a nice weekend...

a visit to a haunted hotel is on the cards...

the picture above isn't haunted at all - or at least not that i know off - yet the colour palette's provide an eery theme with a phunky, vibrant and fresh vibe...

more to come on this hotel relaunch on monday...

belly...

gluttony is one the 7 deadly sins....but when you spend an hour and a half eating pancakes on a team lunch it's kinda hard to forget thinking about food for the rest of the day...

thoughts of food led me to thoughts of things to put food on and those thoughts led me to anthropologie because they've recently opened a store in littlerock, ar, which beats a drive to kansas city, mo, by like an hour...

7 boxes...

7 boxes to commemorate my guest post here...

thank you ronan for the invitation...