Friday Fripperies - Picture Paradise

I have a blank grey wall in my living room which is crying out for some decoration. I was initially thinking one large print but the adjoining wall already has 3 large prints and I think this wall needs a little less uniformity.

So here are some of my "pictures on walls" inspiration. As soon as I have the ones I want collected up and put on my wall I will post a pic of that as well. At the moment it's just grey, a lovely shade of grey, but blank and grey nonetheless. Poor wall...

This is lovely, so neat even though the frames are all different sizes. (from thecottageapartment.blogspot.com)

Different frames and sizes pulled together by a common colour theme. (suzannekasler.com)

Lovely idea for a nursery, the colours are so fresh and pretty. (modernchictots.com)

This I love! I think I am going to aim for a look like this but with different coloured frames, do love the B&W though! (houzz.com)

Love the mix of different frames with the mirror and lettering over the simple white chest. (nattybydesign.blogspot.com)

I don't have any stairs but if I did I'd do this! (inspirationfordecoration.blogspot.com)

And finally... Pictures on trees!! I know this isn't indoors but came across this on greenweddingshoes.com and think it looks amazing! 

So there you go, some pretty pictures of... ummm... pictures for you to enjoy :o) 

Have a lovely weekend x

Sprinklings of (Vintage) Pixie dust!

So, I thought I'd write a little post about some of what we do. Specifically our Makeover service!

We offer this service because I passionately believe that wherever possible furniture should be saved from landfill.
People often don't realise the potential an old piece of furniture they've lived and put up with for a long time can have. They want a new look for their room and as furniture is such a huge part of the "look" of a room the logical thing is to start afresh with a new bedroom suite/table and chairs set etc. So often though that boring old pine/dark/undesirable in some way furniture can be transformed into exactly what you want at a fraction of the expense of starting all over again!

I always feel so sad when I see perfectly useful, but unattractive, piece of furniture broken at the bottom of a skip but I do realise that people often lack the time and confidence to do these kind of makeovers themselves, which is why we offer this service.
We can work with any colour scheme, fixing anything that needs fixing, replacing ugly handles with lovely new ones if necessary and generally transforming pieces that looked fit for the skip into pieces you'll want to keep for a long time.

Whether your furniture is antique, vintage or modern, our techniques will work. We use high quality paints in any colour you like and are happy to suggest colours to compliment your decor if you don't know exactly what you'd like. We are completely honest if we ever do come across a piece of furniture that can't be helped and would never leave a client with anything we wouldn't be happy to have in our own house.

The images in the post are just a (very) few examples from makeovers we completed last year. You can see some more on our Facebook page too. I hope that if I can blog more regularly I can do full makeover posts as they happen so you can see the process and progress.

Our ethos as a company is to re-use as much as possible, all the furniture we sell are "upcycled" antique or vintage pieces, our accessories are made from reclaimed and vintage materials wherever possible and so it makes sense to us that we offer a service to help other people upcycle and save money at the same time.

If you are interested in having a piece of your own furniture "made over" do please get in touch, we can travel within a reasonable distance of Surrey/Sussex and are always happy to give a no obligation quote, just send me an email to emily@vintagepixie.co.uk and I'll be happy to help.

Obviously those of you who are able to do this yourself... well I'm preaching to the converted and yay for you!! :) I'd love to see some of your real life makeovers too so feel free to share! :)

xx

Happy 2012 and a little think about 2011

Wow! We are two whole days into 2012! I have a very good feeling about this year, whatever the doom and gloomers may say about the state of the world! :)

SO.. Happy New Year to everyone, wishing you all luck, health and happiness in 2012!

2011 was a fantastic year for us here at Vintage Pixie. We have learned a lot of valuable lessons about business, what works for us and what doesn't and hopefully have a good idea how to take Vintage Pixie on to a bigger and brighter future.

Some of my personal highlights have been:

- How well received the idea of our furniture makeover service has been received and used. I LOVE being able to help people save money and help the environment by keeping their old furniture and giving it a new lease of life!
You can see some of our bigger projects here: Horley Makeover album
and here: Berkhamsted makeover album

- Our first bit of magazine coverage! Just a small feature of one of our Willow Hearts in Perfect Wedding magazine, but still mucho exciting for us media coverage virgins! ;)

- Our first vintage/handmade fairs. The fairs we organised in Shalford in June and December were fantastic and a great success. It has been amazing meeting so many fantastic sellers and customers through this, we hope to carry on the fairs into 2012 so if any of you vintage/handmade sellers out there fancy it do get in touch! :)

There have been many, many more highlights this year, but I won't bore you with them all. We've had a fantastic year and I hope that Vintage Pixie will only grow stronger in 2012 as we really find our feet in this crazy world of self-employment!

It hasn't all been wonderful and glorious, we've made some mistakes and learned some lessons too. The most valuable one being that sometimes no matter what you do, or how well you mean, some people will never be a positive influence and there's nothing you can do to change that. You can only control your own behaviour, no one else's.

But... Onwards and Upwards! Here's to 2012!

My New Year's Resolution for Vintage Pixie is really to push the furniture side of things a lot more this year - the makeovers, the finder service and hopefully getting more of our stock items out to new marketplaces. 2011 has taught me that that is really where our strengths lie and we should play to them.

I also want VP to really be a supportive voice for other small businesses. I've witnessed so much bitchiness that just feels so unnecessary, I truly believe there is room for a diverse range of players whatever your industry, us small businesses are all in the same boat at the end of the day - trying to make it in a hard economic environment and doing amazing things with our creativity and talents! :)

I have my own personal resolutions too.. As well as the usual lose weight, drink less, spend less etc. I want to make some big changes at home, learn some new skills and be a LOT more organised. I will keep you posted on those as soon as they're more concrete!

Thank you to all of you who have supported Vintage Pixie in the last year, it's beyond appreciated!

Did you make any New Year's resolutions? I'd love to hear about them! :)