A sculpture in paper

March 30, 2016

We're back inside the London Design Centre again today, this time on the ground floor in the South Dome and it's about something special. It's something slightly unusual for my usual "month in paper" post and it's hard to believe this is made entirely from paper, but it is.

This sculpture in paper was commissioned by the Design Centre to celebrate London Design Week 2016 and this floral couture-inspired gown by Zoe Bradley is the result.

Isn't it fabulous?

The theme of the London Design Week show was blue so this fits that perfectly and the shape of the skirt also mimics the domes that I showed in yesterday's post. There's quite a bit of work in this sculpture too - and I think sculpture is the right word, don't you?

There's 400 handmade flowers on display here, and I bet you can't guess how many petals?

The wild roses are made up of 2,500 petals, chrysanthemums with 1,188 petals and there's 3,500 leaves. And there's 17,500 folds in the whole piece too. If I could make one flower that looked as good as this I think I'd be happy!

It really was something to see and something like I've not seen before, but something I'm glad I did.

Inside the London Design Centre

March 29, 2016

On a blue-skied day in March we headed off to the London Design Centre as part of the Spring London Design Week. I've some more to share from our visit but before that I wanted to share some shots of the building, because it was fab and it's not somewhere I'd been before.

The main building is formed of three domes, and on the day we visited the sun was catching the decorations and they were glistening away.

Take a look:

The central dome was decorated with these blue pipes and hydrangea-type flowers, which gave it an almost-wedding-like feel.

And the central staircase was just the sort to glide down, but from a distance looked quite like a helter skelter!

With the sun's first showing of the year, it was quite warm under the glass but we weren't complaining. We did though take some time out at the Nespresso bar and while taking some refreshments admired our surroundings.

The decorations in the outer domes were different and glistened beautifully in the sun, and yes they are fish hanging below the metallic spheres.

There were further places to rest, these ones a little more luxurious than before. I daren't rest here though as there was still much more to see and these looked oh so comfortable.

Heading outside we saw a green enclosed with a white picket fence, and were able to look back at the glass domes.

Back inside we headed to the temporary tented structure for what was billed as Gin O'Clock - well you would, wouldn't you? While we sipped our G&T I was snapping away at the interiors here too, quite something for a temporary structure connecting the buildings.

And yes, the gin was most welcome. Well, it always is...

More soon on what else I saw, I just need to finish that G&T. Hic.

Pottering in the greenhouse

March 24, 2016

So after being enthralled with the signs of Spring in the garden I made it to the greenhouse and enjoyed some pottering around - the first of the year. But for a change there wasn't aimless pottering as I set out to achieve one thing that'd been bothering me for a while. And that job was to tidy my Aloes.

I've mentioned before how promiscuous my succulents are and they're at it again. I have three pots in a row on my kitchen worktop and they've grown and grown and had lots of babies, and so it was time to sort them out.

*Stop sniggering, I'm being serious*

My backup plant had also had babies. And yes I have a backup plant on the off chance that any that I pot on don't survive. Truth is I can't bear to put any of them in the compost heap.

That purchase at a Dorset County Fair was one of our best investments ever, for a couple of quid I've been kept in Aloe Vera plants ever since. The mother plant is still going strong and I was surprised to see so many roots.

THE MOTHER PLANT WITH AN IMPRESSIVE ROOT SYSTEM

With all the baby plants separated, it was onto the potting up.

First there was one:

And then two:

And a third:

And then a few more, including the mother plant backup pot.

I had more roots than plant left when I'd finished with all the baby plants, so that pot with the label marker and seemingly nothing in has those roots, as I was interested to see if they'd continue growing.