Cocktail cups

These funky glasses by Icelandic designer Hrafnkell Birgisson are a novel way to serve Christmas punch. Adding a tall stem to Grandma's fine china is a little bit whacky and certainly catches the eye as do many of the household items sold by Birkiland, a site dedicated to the sale and promotion of Icelandic designers on the web.

Re-using is re-cycling!

Tucked away in the Highlands, but now selling across the UK (including at Selfridges!) Pedlars offer a fabulous range of clothing, home furnishings, gifts and toys. I love the collection of vintage London bus signs and innovative recyling of vinyl records as book ends.


The old school and factory lamps too are icons of industrial design and look great when juxtaposed with a more homely decor.

Elegant technology

Combining renewable resources with elegant design, Versaudio have produced a range of iPod / iPhone accesories that are beautifully decorative objects in themselves. Using natural woods such as Cherry, Walnut and Bamboo and with a consciously green ethic pervading every aspect of their creation, their iPod cases and docks gurarntee excellent sound quality and are aesthetically streamlined. It just goes to show that technolody and ecology are not necessarily mutually exclusive!

Bring on the bugs!

Glasgow based designers Alistair McAuly and Paul Simmons set up their beautiful wallpaper and textile design studio, "Timorous Beasties" in 1990 and produce some of the most exquisite wall covering imaginable. Bugs and insects in contemporary pinks, golds and greens creep in neo-Gothic webs across beautifully finished papers to create striking yet elegant designs.
Timorousbeasties.com

Ready made curtains Japanese style

Japanese "Noren" make bright wall-hangings or curtains to cover a messy shelf or corner. Madame Mo has a gorgeous range of bright, humorous designs that are play on traditional themes. Using organic cotton, the collection of bags make fun accessories but in fact the whole range of posters and stationary is worth a look as the designs are really original and eye-catching!
(Off-cuts and faulty printed fabrics are recycled to make toggle bags, so its an ethical enterprise too!)

Divas and Darlings - legends on the wall

A crafty play on the more typical wall sticker, Méchant Vinyl include mopeds, shoppers, Martial Arts heros and Hollywood Starlets in their collection. Neat florals figure too, but the vespa parked in the front room has a certain "je ne sai quoi" that I quite like...