Granny Chic - Crafty Inspiration My Way

Granny Chic? That's not the term that immediately springs to mind when I look at the interior of our home. 

But when I flicked through this gorgeous book my friend Lynn sent me I could hardly believe my eyes, it's like it was written with our house in mind.

Even the sewing machine they use is the identical model of the Jones' vintage machine we found dumped in a hedge a couple of months ago (HERE). Spooky! 

A staple gun can become your best friend in no time at all, they write. Be sure to keep stocked up on staples for you never know when a fabby piece of fabric will find you and you'll be rushing home to spend five quality minutes making a chair look peachy with nothing more than your new fabric find, your handy dandy staple gun and a cup of tea by your side.

That's exactly what I did when I snaffled this Afghan war rug for £2 from a charity shop last year. Out came the staple gun and in minutes my £1 threadbare bentwood chair was transformed. Not sure if there's many grannies out there who'd approve of a rug featuring AK-47s, rocket launchers and tanks.

Transforming worse for wear lampshades into patchwork covered art forms?

  

Yep, been there, done that! You'll find my tutorial HERE.

Dearest readers, writes the author, I am rather fond of garlands, bunting or happy strings around our nest. Call them what you will, at the end of the day they all amount to the same thing, making life and the granny chic home a little jollier. I'm rather partial to making them from scraps of leftover fabrics, old postcards and book pages, along with any other blingy things that may catch my magpie eye.

I agree. This is some bunting I made for our festival trading tent using leftover scraps of wired hairband fabric, Wilko pom-poms & felt from the market sewn on to the longest pair of neon shoe laces in the world (25p in a charity shop).

Giving a new lease of life to tatty vintage bath towels?

Snap! Our patchwork bathmat made from chopped up vintage towels sewn onto another towel and trimmed with fringing chopped off an old bedspread. 

 Old vintage suitcases can be found relatively easily at charity shops, thrift shops and rummage sales. Sometimes its hard to think what you might do with such a thing when stumbling across it out and about browsing the shelves of despair, but if you ever find one in peachy perfect condition, snap it up, for there are many uses for this fine example of a bygone era and the wonder of its aesthetics for even everyday things. You're not wrong there.

Mine contain handbags, scarves, hair accessories and vintage dressmaking patterns.

Cheery coloured clogs and vintage clothes too pretty to hide away in the wardrobe? 

Keep them out on show (pom poms optional!)

As well as nodding along in agreement, there's also plenty to inspire me in Granny Chic. 

It's too gloomy to have a dividing door between our kitchen and dining room so I loved this chain stitched screen weighted down with vintage buttons. I'd made a mental note to get some wool when I popped into town yesterday but guess what? When I passed our local hospice chazza I spotted this retro beaded curtain for £1.29 in the window, cheaper than a couple of balls of wool from the cheap shop.

Once up the curtain looked a bit sparse so Jon broke up some 1980s beaded necklaces from the stockroom and I threaded some Wilko pom-poms on to fishing wire and hey presto, a bespoke door curtain that sums up our style perfectly.

Take several of your favourite sheets, cut them into strips and sew them back together, giving a striped patchwork effect, perfect for laying across tables at parties, the book suggests.

Great idea! I decided to do something similar. Using our well passed its best vintage bed cover and a couple of 1970s St Michael single covers given to me by a friend, I removed the fringe, cut all three into wide strips and sewed them back together, trimming the completed bed cover with some 50p a metre pink pom pom trim from off the market. 

In this space, the book goes on to say, Every piece of furniture, some in view (and others sneakily hiding from you), started life in different decades. This is a perfect example of how a mish-mash of styles, when placed all together, become one big happy family, thus highlighting the wonder of granny chic and its embracing ways.

Those words of wisdom could apply to both the dining room (vintage Afghan rug, Arts & Crafts bench, 1970s cushions, the framed programme from Queen Victoria's coronation in 1837 and the limestone skirting board from when the house was built in 1760) and my outfit (1970s maxi remade into a Afghan style dress using a contemporary Indian bag I chopped up to make into a bodice & homemade pom pom earrings).

If you don't want to line Amazon's pockets you can find Granny Chic HERE (free worldwide delivery and 5% off your first order).

See you soon!