Cally Creates

I picked up these last week after a bit of a search for just the right buttons to go on an aqua piece I'm making. I especially like the top one which reminds me of retro crockery.

I'm a funny one about colour and pattern, I honestly love so many different colours, combinations, styles, periods, patterns etc. In my home it's all about white's and ivory colours with the occasional wall in a single different colour. I like the ivory as a backdrop to which I can bring in any of my fabrics to create totally different moods. I think I tend to be quite seasonal about it all. There is definitely a preference for reds and whites at Christmas, and in the summer all the pale icy blue and turquoises get to dominate (which is why I LOVE Camilla's photo's like this one of Morran on the stairwell).

Then again, it might be the more Mediterranean blues, all zingy and bright in multiple shades, combined with pattern and shots of lime or orange to create areas in my white home that look like bowls of exotic fruit. I just love how the feel of a room can completely change just by using a different piece of fabric over your furniture, or by hanging a piece of antique lace across the centre of a large room to create an airy partition.

Before all the house demolition I was the kind of person who loved nothing more than dressing the house for a themed party or even just for a friends visit. If I have a friend that likes retro I'll get out my 1950's curtains and my 3 leg wooden coffee table. If they like girly pinks then out come the florals and maybe some garlands, and if the have a thing for bright colour, well then I can just go wild!

I think my taste and personality is reflected in my home in a way that it isn't in my clothing. I like very specific clothes but it's pretty rare that what I want is actually available in my size in the charity shops or in the sales. So it follows that it's the house that gets to wear a new outfit for special occasions. In theory I like the idea of have a nice tidy house with a defined stlye that stays pretty consistent, but it's just not in my nature.

I'm a bit nomadic but since I stopped travelling around I have to change my home constantly so that I get the feeling of having moved to a different place. Sometimes I like the beach house look, other times something more urban and then maybe quite kitsch for a while. I hoard a lot of stuff. Really I just need more than one house, and each one can have it's own style and I wouldn't have to keep re-arranging. Anyone want to buy me a beach hut? Or a cedar cube in the woods with a glass walled courtyard in the middle.

I was talking to a nice woman called Tonia recently (who works in Concrete Butterfly, a great shop in Edinburgh) about how my blog might imply that I'm all about the pinks and flowers and that I was worried Anna might get a shock when we met up to discover I'd be all in black, beige and a mossy green. I'd wear more blues if I had the hint of a tan, but even when I was living in LA it took me months and months to pick up any colour, I'm just a pale Scottish lass.

For those of you who haven't witnessed it we have a thing here that girls have tartan legs in winter, which means they are so white and when they get really cold you can see blue and purple veins making a pattern across their legs! You don't see it so much these days because everyone seems to go to sunbeds through the winter now. In some ways it's a good thing because as a nation, we often looked pretty unwell in winter, not like the Swedes who look so healthy even when pale. But the problem is, all these ultra tanned folk are making me look even paler than before!

Now how did I get from floral buttons to pale legs and sunbeds? I never saw that one coming.