Castles, Antiques & Auctions

I went for a  very exciting adventure a couple of days ago...well exciting if you love weird old things, and you know I do!
I was going a few hours drive outside Stockholm to visit a castle as a possible location for my next catalogue photoshoot. Now, when most Swedes say 'castle' what they really mean is a nice big old house and I'm usually pretty underwhelmed. Not so when I saw this!

This is a private castle and quite fascinating, the ghost stories are brilliant! Anyway, it had all the attendant things you expect with a large castle including big dogs, smelly and very friendly...

and the obvious Knights Armour and treasure chest

What wasn't quite so expected was a full sized stuffed reindeer pulling a sleigh, in what I hesitate to call the 'livingroom', but I can't show you that, you just have to let your imagination run wild!

This pic is from the Library and I think will be one of the locations we shoot for the catalogue. I loved these old books, the colours and texture, just rich with history...actually they are probably really boring to read, best just to look at them I think!

We also stopped off at a fantastic auction house called Lauritz so Isabelle could pick up some furniture she won at auction...destined to be covered in Van Asch fabrics. It was such a fantastic place, and really good prices, definitely a bargain can be had from that place... I took a few snaps of some of the things that caught my eye...

A Night of Fashion, Jewellery & Interiors Shopping & Boozing!

I went to a very lovely shopping party a couple of days ago hosted by the beautiful Katharina Nikolitzi who makes cool jewels, check out her Nikolitzi Facebook Page and here she is in her studio (cheekily modelling a Van Asch notebook there!)

and here are some of her pretty and wearable jewels...

I spent a long time lingering over the Annie Sloan chalk paints from Shabby Home and bought a few pots to play with.

Here is Carolina from Shabby Home...and if I haven't said it before, then I say it now...Annie Sloan chalk paints are brilliant! I paint my skulls with them and we use lots on our furniture too. The finish, after waxing, is so nice, it really gives things a 3D rich soulful look...

There was also a display of very interesting fashions and jewellery by the fascinating globe trotter Intidhar Saleh 

The pictures don't do her things justice but my poor iPhone was struggling in the dark and I had perhaps had the odd drink or 2 by this point!

There was another lady displaying stuff from PIP studio and some other home wares but I never managed to get over to that corner as there was booze and snacks distracting me at every turn! Plus I was having a hysterical conversation with Lu Lu from Nordic Design Hub so the PIP muffin cases and tea towels went unmolested by my curious fingers.

I also saw something quite unexpected and lovely in Katarinas studio of twinkly delights, a beautiful old ship made in solid silver by her very clever daddy! It reminded me of the sorts of things artisans used to make centuries ago...

so, to sum up...shoppin' and a boozing'...yep. That worked rather well!