Chase and Wonder… Brits, balloons & dreamy draughtsmanship.

Whilst trying to hunt down a Birmingham-based screen printers the other day I came across Mission Print and, in turn, found Chase and Wonder : a company aiming to produce “fine examples of design and creativity”, set up by two childhood friends who fell in love (cue awwwww) and converted a cow shed in Worcestershire into the Chase and Wonder studio. A lot of the products appear a little Anthropologie, or Paperchase-esque, which is partly because the couple like to collaborate and partly because this sort of cutesy, slightly quirky style of illustration has become so popular recently – but I’m not complaining. I’d quite happily live in an Anthropologie showroom.

Chase and Wonder work with all sorts of people but also have an online shop for their pieces alone. Here are a few bits and pieces I picked out, all ready to send out to special people… or to add to my wish list.

First up, beautifully drawn and printed cards. With all that ‘naive illustration’ rubbish going about, I’m nearly salivating when I see decent stuff like this!

Above are the wise lime green words of Mr Oscar Wilde.

Nautical prints

I must have a Victorian hot air ballooning bicyclist on my wall….

…flying dandies on my bed…

…and thousands more to dry my dishes with. This is one tea towel that I will not use to soak up red wine. Tut tut tut.

There, have some nice bits and bobs to look at on a sunny day.

Green fingers…

I’m terrible at keeping things alive; I own one plant and that’s only because it’s at my Mum’s house, being watered regularly. I try, I really do – once I grew a bonsai from a seed, from a seed I tell you! That was, until my cat decided to use it as a toilet. We gave that cat away…

Anyway. If my house was clad with a Patrick Blanc vertical garden then I couldn’t miss it, it would thrive! No weeding required either.

Add to this a Paula Hayes Terranium – they can’t be so difficult…? However they do slightly resemble fish bowls – I once had a traditional glass fish bowl, so beautiful that I didn’t want to ruin it with a pump, so fishy died. Buried him with the cat…

Actually, the one thing I have proudly kept alive is my cactus. It’s been in a plastic pot for about hrmmm six years. That’s quite impressive I think (ok so they don’t require water and I haven’t looked at it in years, but still..).

So I reckon I could definitely keep one of these alive, living necklaces on Etsy by Gemsprouts. I have developed a penchant for interesting pendants.

Take a bit of green with you wherever you go, goodness knows we need that in this drizzly city today.

Driving home for Christmas…

A couple of days ago I did sit on a train while a very nice man drove us all home for Christmas, and this is what I came home to!

I can’t even describe how lovely it is to be back in a real house without a mouse infestation, where the carpets are actually fitted to the floors, we have hot water and not only central heating but a fire too. Oh I am spoiled!

Posts filled with glowing photos of pretty things aren’t not really my forte, I leave that to the fashion lot, however I am now back at Mum’s House and my gosh Mum’s House deserves photos.

I’m also currently waiting on Father Christmas to get around to fixing my poor camera who recently lost a lens during a gig, he’s only just hobbling along so I do apologise for the blur – I did say this wasn’t my forte.

Anyway, thanks to Mummy Hodge for making my Christmas twinkly and bright (apart from the tree, this year I did it aaallll byyyy myyyself)!

 

 

Whenever I’m back at my Mum’s baking becomes my primary procrastination technique…and blogging oops… So I’ve been making tiny mince pies and taking photos of the house, dissertation…? What’s that again…?

Now I’m off to make Hazelnut stars! At least I’ll always have a career as a 1950′s housewife to fall back on if the whole degree thing falls through…