I LOVE MARKETS

So many good things to look forward to this coming weekend. Here in the UK we get an extra day's holiday to celebrate May Day and now that the warm weather and sunshine have put in an appearance here's hoping we'll get good weather too.

On Sunday 5th May we will be at Shoreditch Town Hall in London. There will be live music, artisan food and a huge variety of stalls selling handmade and one-off pieces. Visit the I Love Markets website to find out all the details, it's sure to be a great day so do come along and say hello!

PULSE

With 2013 being our year to 'think big and say yes' we decided to sign ourselves up to showcase our collection in the Launchpad area of Pulse. The trade show runs from 12th-14th April at Earl's Court, London and if any of our readers are exhibiting or just visiting stop by stand LP64a and say hi!

There's just 20 days to go until the show opens and all that's left on our 'to do' list is our press packs. Once again Clementine & Bloom are feeling calm and organised! 

GOOD NEWS - GOOD HOMES

We're really pleased to announce our appearance on the news page of May's edition of Good Homes magazine. As regular readers of this magazine and general appreciators of all interior loveliness we are really chuffed.

This edition is full of gorgeous colour beginning with the hot orange and pink front cover so our turquoise, burnt orange and violet Archive tea towels are in good company here!

NOTES FROM THE NORTH

This week Clementine & Bloom headed north to the British Craft Trade Fair to showcase our lovely Entomology collection to lots of different buyers and press. Feeling like seasoned pro's (even though it's only our 2nd trade show) we arrived, set up and unpacked like true professionals leaving us a few hours spare to explore the town of Harrogate.

It was a gloriously sunny day (definitely the start of spring!) and we walked with our noses pointed to the sky looking at all the wonderful old buildings - we could definitely see ourselves living here.

Day dreaming over and it was time to get back to the real reason we were in Yorkshire, to work.

We decided on a new display for BCTF and we hope you all agree that it was very successful. We had so much positive feedback about it at the show with everyone agreeing that it was an excellent idea to create a room environment to showcase the collection. Of course we had to restrain ourselves from upholstering the sofa in one of our own vibrant prints as even we can appreciate that everything looks good displayed against a neutral background. Would be good though... 

Our lovely neighbouring stands, Death by Tea and Zalisander, made the days fly by. 

Best of all we made sure we had some time for a little mother and daughter rest and relaxation. After three days on our feet there was no better treat than indulging in Harrogate's Turkish Baths. A steam room followed by three increasingly hotter saunas and then finally a dip in the ice cold plunge pool, we couldn't recommend it enough. And perhaps the best bit is that it's so richly decorated in the most wonderful Victorian tiles in vivid hues of mustard and turquoise. Gosh we love colour!

A QUICK UPDATE

It may seem that all has been quiet over here on the blog but if any of you have visited our website recently you will have noticed there's been a bit of maintenance going on. We are in the process of altering the site, sharpening it up a little and making it a bit more user friendly. This is no mean feat. One of us in particular is walking around a touch cross-eyed right now and I will admit to the occasional expletive being muttered now and then!

The end is now in sight though so we can get back to the more enjoyable aspects of the business such as our imminent visit to the BCTF show in Harrogate on 7th April. Our stock is packed and ready and the stand display is organised. We've booked ourselves into a lovely hotel and plan to include some rest and relaxation into our time away (a bit of sight seeing and pampering spa treatments) so photos to follow next week.

In the meantime we thought we'd share with you some pictures of our fabric being put to a new use. At the moment we have no plans to sell our fabric by the metre but family members get special privileges so here are the Beetle Stripe and Dancing Beetle cottons made into roman window blinds. Now we know we designed them so we are naturally biased but even we were blown away by how effective the prints were used in this way. We love nothing more than adding colour and pattern to a room, so much so that it makes us want to redecorate just so that we can have vibrant blinds in our home!

THE ART OF BESPOKE

Everyday in the Clementine & Bloom studio is spent making, whether that's making a cake, making a blog post or our favourite making a bespoke lampshade.

We had recently been commissioned to make our Papilio lampshade in colours that would compliment a smoked glass lamp base. With this in mind we opted for the lovely olive green silk (used for our archive cushions) and kept the individually hand made butterflies in the aubergine and violet silk.

The best bit about working to order is that it forces us to think outside the box, look at new colour combinations that perhaps we hadn't considered and although these colours came directly from our Entomology collection we loved the final lampshade so much we are thinking of adding it to our range!

Even better still the shade was perfect for the base as you can see in these pictures sent in by our customer. If any of our readers wish to share their Clementine & Bloom products in their homes we would love to see them, why not email us at info@clementineandbloom.com

LIGHT FROM THE MIDDLE EAST

On Friday evening I travelled up to London with Collage Magazine and spent a few enjoyable hours at the V&A Museum to view the Light from the Middle East exhibition. I have never visited a museum or gallery at night and it felt childishly pleasing to roam the near empty corridors after dark ( a bit like being in your school when everyone else has gone home!)

This photographic exhibition brings together new images from various countries in the region and addresses the cultural and political perceptions which tend to go hand in hand with their society. In the early 1980's I lived in Cairo for six months and the sights, sounds and way of life there are very close to my heart. Photography is a powerful medium used to record events as they take place but many of the artists have manipulated their images requiring the viewer to consider what is reality and what is staged.

Among my favourites were the series of work by Shadi Gadirian and are based on traditional portraits from the Qajar period of 1700-1900's. The subjects are all women modestly clothed each with a trophy of modern day society - a Pepsi can, electrical equipment, a mountain bike - and addresses the challenges faced by women in that society today. Interestingly our guide pointed out that the original Qajar subjects were often dressed more freely with bare legs or arms than those of today.

image courtesy of the V&A

I also liked Watchtowers, West Bank/Palestine by Taysir Batniji which were inspired by the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher. The photographs were taken by a local photographer and not the artist as the area is out of jurisdiction to Gaza born Palestestinians. The shots were taken quickly and presumably surreptitiously which I think add to their quality - the watchers are also being watched.

image courtesy of V&A

The second part of the evening was spent at a seminar hosted by Avril Horsford called Rising Talent Pecha Kucha and Panel. Five young women creatives showcased their current work and the audience was invited to question them and suggest ways they could take their work forward. The words Pecha Kucha come from Japan and embody the concept of an exchange of ideas. There was a variety of work - film, photography, poetry and design and all the women were articulate and talented. Sadly the event was limited to one hour but I think we all would have liked to have been able to continue for longer.

The exhibition finishes on the 7th April and I definitely recommend you go and take a look.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Here at Clementine & Bloom it feels like we've have spent the past week making non-stop bird references. Currently Mum is 'finding her feathers' as she gets to grips with Twitter (sincere apologies in advance if anything random appears in our feed!) and as for me, I have 'flown the nest' so to speak.

This is not the first time I have lived away from home (various stints in London, Manchester and New York) but then my partner and I made the descision to batton down the hatches and save like crazy for our own slice of real estate. Fast forward a year and I am now the proud co-director of Clementine & Bloom, the only problem is running a small business is not 'mortgage friendly'. So a girl does what she has to and moves in to rented accomodation.

My new piece of rented real estate happens to be a beautiful top floor flat in a Georgian town house in Islington. As I write this I realise I may sound slightly smug (and believe me I am pleased as punch with our new home) but my intention is to give our readers a peek inside our new home 'cause lets face it everyone loves a nosey!

Starting with the "before's" today hopefully in a few weeks time I should have all my furniture sorted and of course a few well chosen accessories to bring the place to life. So stayed tuned because the best is yet to come...
 

MOTHERING SUNDAY

As Mother's Day was fast approaching, we thought last week would be the perfect opportunity to try out a tutorial we found that showed how to make your own sugar cubes.

 

These were super easy; sugar, egg and food colouring yet they look so effective. We are always oohing and aahing over the fancy sugar cubes you can buy in good food stores and now we know how to make are own. Of course in true Clementine & Bloom style we skipped the sugary pastel shades and leapt straight in to full on colour!

We used the smallest cookie cutter we had to hand, which luckily was a heart, to make these but maybe next time we would try and find an even smaller cutter as our sugar cubes are the equivalent of two teaspoons. And they have of course been tried and tested, but be warned your tea will turn an interesting colour! It's worth it though when you see how pretty they look on a plate and it's definitely something we will be making again when we want to impress our guests.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day

BCTF

What do the letters B C T F mean?

Bold Colourful Tactile and Fun, a wonderful description of our current Entomology collection or in fact British Craft Trade Fair.

Or maybe both because we are going to be attending the British Craft Trade Fair in the lovely town of Harrogate in Yorkshire from 7th to 9th April with all our cushions and lampshades in tow. We haven't attended this event before (or visited this part of Yorkshire) so we are very excited to be able to combine two 'firsts'.

The show is attended by trade buyers and gallery owners from around the globe and hopefully will prove to be a great opportunity to open up some new avenues for Clementine & Bloom. As an added bonus we will get to meet up with some of the other exhibitors who we have met along the way and as we are showing in the designGAP area I'm certain we will make lots of new friends.

Not that we can yet call ourselves seasoned professionals but behind the scenes in Clementine & Bloom's studio things appear to be quite calm. Our hotel is booked, our rental van is organised, all that's left to do is run up a few new samples and plan our display. If your exhibiting or coming to the event as a buyer why not say hello now, we very much look forward to meeting you all!

We would love to hear from you if you have any suggestions on places for us to visit...

BLOG OF THE MONTH

We are very pleased to announce our inclusion in March's edition of the wonderful magazine Sew.

We have been selected as their Blog of the Month and they have done us proud with their images of our work. Featured in the article are our silk Archive cushions and burnt orange Papilio lampshade plus the olive green Papilio cushion and Polka Dot Beetle cotton cushion.

It's always great to be able to reach out to a new audience and this is a great opportunity for us.

(We would like to point out to any of our readers that have met us at past shows and exhibitions that we have not recently had a makeover. We're not sure who the two lovely ladies in the picture are but we do know it isn't us! We've been assured that there will be a correction for this in the April issue of Sew magazine so regular readers stay tuned.)