How to… Do craft (even if you’re a needle novice)

When I was small, my grandma tried to teach me to crochet. The memory of the ensuing “can't-do-it!” tantrum remains embarrassingly vivid. If, like me, the idea of making your own appeals, but the sight of needles – or ‘Kirsty’s Home Made Home’ – make you sweat, read on…

Get booked Make Eames-y shelves via ReadyMade (Thames & Hudson) or speed reupholster a dull office chair chair in a flash with Design*Sponge – if you can grapple with basic ikea assembly, you can do this.

Cheat Well – a little bit. Clothkits fully-prepped tapestry or Rob Ryan cushions are peasy. Similarly, try Wool and the Gang, or Backstich.

Join the press gang Try a screen-printing class at The Papered Parlour (London) or Artison (Yorkshire) – and take home your own art.

Twinkle, twinkle little tealight My friend Holly’s candles really sparkle – thanks to a super simple craft trick. De-label empty food cans and pierce holes in the aluminum with a metal kebab skewer (or a thin bit on your drill – generally the gold coloured ones if, like me, you always forget which ones work on metal). Put a tealight inside. Repeat. If you're drilling not skewering, you'll love this great drillbit guide. Geek, moi?

Shoot ’em up Make friends with a staple-gun: fabulous fabric (LOVE love Seamstar) stretched over a canvas (Amazon is cheap) will look lovely.

Sprayed in full Picture framing can be so pricey. Often I'll find horrible artworks or horrible frames – or both – in charity shops. This isn't for every interior, but can look fantastic on one deliberate wall: replace the art with things you like, and spray the all the frames with the same colour aerosol paint (it avoids brush marks). Try Rustoleum.

Listen and learn If you're brave enough to grapple with more complex crafts (for me, that includes anything that involves a sewing machine or any kinds of needles) there are some inspiring classes all over the country. In Scotland Lovely Pigeon does sporadic but great looking lessons and in Sussex, West Dean offers residential courses in various homes-y crafts.

On a plate Stylish chef, Arno Maasdorp, does clever things on – and with – plates: take a charity shop patterned platter, lay an alphabet letter on top (steady hand? Alphabet Patterns), using aerosol paint, spray it. Matt black is striking. Now hang it.

Sit on it Revamp an old wooden chair with a collage. Pick a theme – torn up newspapers, maps, ornithology books… and, using PVA glue, cover the chair with them artfully, then varnish over and over for durability.


This is an extended version of my weekly column, The Insider, in the Independent on Sunday

Storage tips: my stint guest editing for Muji

A nice little thing I wrote for the monthly Mujimail... See more online

How to make your home smell good

In case you missed my little box of tips on this topic in last week's Independent on Sunday (part of a regular series), here is the extended version. 

Diptyque candles (above) smell divine. So do Jo Malone’s. These are the staples of the home scent arena – but, at £38 a pop, as a daily option and in more than one room (especially with festive credit card bills lurking) perhaps not the most realistic. What else is there? 

The base for every sweet smelling home is cleanliness and you can’t beat freshly polished furniture. But an all-time top tip comes via a documentary about slack cleaners tricking clients into thinking they’d been busy by spraying Mr Sheen behind the radiators in winter. Genius. 

On a less slovenly note, I have fond memories of my father buffing 70s pine floors with Johnson’s floor wax. The heavenly, comforting, smell lasted for days.

A Rebel Rebel creation (not one
of their most fragrant)

Flowers, of course, do the trick – the right ones. Mairead Curtin of celebrity-loved florist, Rebel Rebel, loves Scilly Isles scented narcissi. But “plain daffodils have a lovely fragrance,” she adds. “Try also mimosa, genista, lilac, scented roses.” Some scented plants can be grown indoors, too. 

She also suggests using herbs as part of a floral display. "Rosemary and Sage are particularly fragrant and available now. They are long lasting and inexpensive which is always a bonus! As the season progresses try Dill and Lavender." And for summer, Mairead says: "Stocks smell fantastic , English snapdragons have a totally unexpected and delightful scent, peonies smell of little old ladies gently dusted in talcum powder and sweet peas just smell gorgeous. You could also try Mock Orange Blossom and Wisteria."

Febreze is dreadful, dreadful stinking stuff. Buy, instead, fabric softener and dilute it in a water spray bottle for proper eau de fresh laundry. 

On that tip, while air freshener is generally vile, I was shocked to fall for Glade’s ‘Clean Linen’ after discovering why a friend’s bathroom was always so seductive.

Activate scents with heat: One friend drapes a perfume-doused cloth over radiators, while another is evangelical about dabbing spa-favoured Aromatherapy Associates oils onto lightbulbs (while cold). 

Bruce, meanwhile, swears by his food dehydrator: “do fruit in it: the house smells delicious all day”.

Man up. I had to be forcibly removed from a True Grace ‘Library’ candle last year – all beeswax and peppery leather-bound books. Most masculine. Invest in the pricey room diffuser version – lasts for ages. 

Chappier still, the afore-mentioned Bruce loves the smell of sailing and the sea. We worked out that hemp rope, yacht varnish and unwashed seashells could do the trick. 

A Demeter cologne was one of the best things I last left New York with. 

Their affordable fragrances – for body and home – come in weird but wonderful flavours including Rain, Bonfire and Dirt. Got friends visiting the US? Suck up.

Can’t kick the candle habit? As a general rule of thumb when going off the pricey piste, avoid anything sweet. Classy cheapies include Muji’s glass candles (£10.95) and St Eval’s lovely Victorian Herb range (£8.95), my favourite (out of the four I've tried) is Celery & Herb. My very discerning friend Vic also recommends Betty Jackson's candle trio for Debenhams: "three scents in neat box for £18". Burn generously.

New "how-to" spot in Independent on Sunday

Following on from the post below, I shall be covering the issue of large, empty walls and small budgets as an topic next week in my new little 'how-to' slot, 'The Insider' in the Independent on Sunday magazine. Do have a read...

This week's is on surprising ways to make your home smell sweet without blowing the budget on Jo Malone candles (though, just to be contrary, this option on the left which is included – the True Grace 'Library' room diffuser, which I discovered at the wonderful Brixton Market shop, Circus – costs more than a Malone, but it lasts forever and is the fragrance equivalent of crack. Can't get enough of it). I shall post up a few goodies I didn't have space for in the newspaper later in the week...

How to find inspiration

After moving from a flat to a house, I panicked: I had little furniture, no budget and zero direction. Inspiration was clouded by the threat of expensive mistakes and “blank canvas” panic. It is around this vulnerable state-of-mind that Ikea’s entire marketing strategy is built. Equally, interiors magazines are great, but can exacerbate the panic with their unattainable chic. Where else can one turn?

1. Inspiration is everywhere, if you’re tuned in. One friend took layout tips from the kitchens in Desperate Housewives, while a bachelor colleague made manly shelves after seeing Steve McQueen’s bedroom in Bullitt.
2. For cold, hard design tricks – from one-room living to how to arrange “things” on shelves and walls – Conran’s Seventies interiors bible The House Book (Mitchell Beazley; originals and reprints via Amazon) is invaluable and most comforting.
3. Make a mood board of photos, fabric scraps and magazine pages. A bit sixth-form media project, maybe, but when you’re overwhelmed it can provide focus. Broad themes should gradually emerge (vintage, minimal, lavish, practical, bright, muted, classic?). If not, ask a friend to edit.
4. Handy with the sticky-backed-plastic? Try the Design*Sponge blog. Even the DIY-shy can get ideas – the box file shelving is a personal favourite, and demonstrates innovative use for the results of a panicky Ikea binge.
5. Take a favourite picture, object or cushion and build a room around its colours, period detail, or simply a feeling it evokes – it’s easier than starting with infinite choice. Similarly, follow at least a loose theme through all rooms (also helpful for reducing blank-canvas-panic). I got boxy window pelmets from postcards of 1960s American motels, while my mum designed my entire childhood home around a Swedish 19^th century artist called Karl Larsson. And Tricia Guild’s book, A Certain Style (Quadrille), is full of clever ways to do this.
6. Clever storage can free up whole new chunks of room – so don’t underestimate the creative boost of a flick through the Lakeland catalogue. This above-sink shelf, £22.99, is surely absolute genius, no?
7. Kevin McCloud’s books on colour, divided into sections according to periods, styles and palettes, are immensely practical. Buy at Amazon
8. Fear of making mistakes can be paralysing. It’s often easier to know what works when faced with something that doesn’t (and that’s what eBay’s for). That said…
9. Don’t rush things – one stylish acquaintance swears by the picture-heavy Architectural Digest. Not as scary as it sounds, its ‘Inspired by You’ section, where designers answer questions, is fantastic. Soothing sample quote: “The best rooms evolve over time. It is better to have one fabulous chair or table or rug than a whole room of mediocre pieces.” Most comforting.
10. Tune into your reactions to a space – and that goes for the smallest and least glamorous details: my sitting room used to make me feel strangely on edge. It took months to work out the door opened the wrong way and made one feel claustrophobic whenever it was opened.
11. Go next door: if you’ve just moved – or even if you haven’t – knock on amenable neighbours’ doors, especially if you’re in a terrace or flat surrounded by similarly laid out homes. Someone will have done something you’d never thought of that may set off a whole room plan.
12. For major reconfigurations, and pointers on them, big changes, Architect Your Home is a useful service – a four-hour no-strings consultation costs from £599. Cheaper, is to offer dinner in return for your most creative friends’ tips. Get them over, walk them round, and ask everyone ‘what would you do?’ I doubled the size of a bedroom after a friend suggested I have a mezzanine built in the high ceiling.
13. Far more useful than the magazine, I think, is the LivingEtc.com gallery – libraries full of images, helpfully subdivided to death: the bathroom gallery has five themed mini galleries according to style/type of room.
14. And if you do get sucked into Ikea, at least try to stick by the 1-for-3 rule (for every three things you like, buy only one – list all the things you wanted to get, and hunt for them elsewhere). If all else fails, try Ikeahacker.blogspot.com

Last-minute Christmas decorating!

Been meaning to post this shoot of my festive-ed up house up since it was published, last Sunday, in the Independent's New Review magazine.

It's a piece about how to decorate your house for Christmas at the last minute. There are some seriously low-effort, time-poor suggestions in it - though not one of my favourites which there wasn't room for, as suggested by Sarah Dare, from John Lewis, who came to share her expertise and some lovely Nordic style festive furnishings:

No tree decorations? Cut up some tinsel in the same colour into little snippets, and simply chuck it at your fir. Genius.

Photos by the lovely Rachael Smith

Tricia Guild inspiration(and interview in today's Independent)

My mum used to take me to Tricia Guild's shop on the King's Road in the 1980s (I was the small child struggling to fulfill my brief of frightening off traffic wardens because I was too busy gawping in the window of this extraordinary emporium of colour while she was inside, shopping).

Last week I interviewed the owner and founder of the Designer's Guild and was inspired to build on my brewing urge for some vibrant colours in my house. She has a (huge) new book out, A Certain Style - also very inspiring, as it charts her magic-making interior design on an array of very different homes, from a country farmhouse with a mid-modern twist to a Norman manor house whose heavy dark panelling was lifted with her innovative palette.

I'm going to post up some pictures of my hall, which is currently half white, half bare plaster. I also need some bright cushions to make my kitchen bench seat work. I'll be canvassing for opinions... Meanwhile, read my interview with her in today's Independent.