Author: Vanessa

tuiss Love :: Crystal salt lamp

November 10, 2009 by Vanessa·0 Comment

I have never seen one of these before, but how beautiful. This salt lamp is available from Natural Collection and is handcrafted from the crystalline salt of the Northern Punjab mountains.

The mineral lamp freshens the air around it by neutralising the positively charged ions present in stale air. This can help people with asthma, allergies as well as promoting better sleep. As if that wasn’t enough the lamp can also work to combat lethargy in a similar way to fresh, salty sea air.

For more information see this blog post at Natural Cures.

tuiss Love :: Ghost Furniture

November 9, 2009 by Vanessa·0 Comment

Ghost takes furniture that has had a hard life and heaps tender loving care onto them. The results speak for themselves, items that may have ended up in a skip now make outstanding designer pieces.

Very cleverly Ghost have given the background to each of their unique pieces, I just had to include these happy ending stories!

This poor battered lady was found at a Flea Market in Paris. She had been knocked about a bit and was crying out for some TLC. Finished in Designer's Guild Kingfisher and treated with Ghost’s special smooth wax finish. A vintage collar has been stiffened and fixed to the bust. A beautiful vintage brooch with lily of the valley in the centre and a silver frame has been pinned to the collar.

We found this curvy and very sexy antique chair in an old barn in France. It had seen better days and was crying out for some TLC. Finished in a milk chocolate coloured paint it still needed a lift so we decided to wrap it in gold just like you would a chocolate. The seat has been upholstered in a delicious satin, striped in green/gold and chocolate and tied to the uprights at the back with the same fabric.

This fabulous farmhouse chair with a perfect rush seat was found in a cellar of a medieval house just outside Paris. The chair has been painted in Fired Earth Verde Antique and the ornate floral carvings in Fired Earth Rose Mallow Farrow and Ball Red Earth with the scroll details in Farrow and Ball Mouses Back.

Exactly what it says. This antique oak footstool was found in a large house clearance in Northumberland. Beautifully made with little turned legs. An old plaster cast of part of a gladiator's foot in a Roman sandal has been fixed to the top of the stool - yes that makes it a Foot Stool.

Just where do McDonald’s Happy Meal toys go?

November 6, 2009 by Vanessa·0 Comment

This has to be one of the strangest, slash creepy, yet weirdly beautiful things I have seen in a long time!

These white bud vases are made from a reclaimed sherry glass with an imprisoned toy animal trapped inside the heat-shrink skin. Made by Studiomold Design in Cambridgeshire.

The impression of the imprisoned animal is just visible, frozen in rubber forever!
Each vase is hand made using found animals so every one is totally unique.

Thursday thought by tuiss :: bars of soap

November 5, 2009 by Vanessa·0 Comment

What an easy way to reduce the amount of plastics that you need to recycle. Give dispenser soap a miss and go back to basics with a bar of soap. Forget horrific green carbolic though, today’s soaps smell good and feel good. Washing your hands becomes a luxurious and sensuous treat.

Maybe the only drawback of a bar a soap is sogginess. Fear no more though, solve it easily by buying a soap dish. Even the soap dishes are now gorgeous…

Pure Nuff Stuff soap with a revitalising blend of tea tree and stimulating peppermint

Fresh and uplifting scents of lemon, orange, tangerine and lemongrass

Vegan, organic and minimal packaging, pretty too, a great soap from Simply Soaps

Marino magnetic soap holder by Zach

Will last for years but will biodegrade in a matter of months!

Lasts for years but will biodegrade in months!

Soap dishes just got all masculine!

10 of the best reusable advent calendars

November 4, 2009 by Vanessa·1 Comment

Christmas is approaching! Why not forget disposable advent calendars this year and choose a calendar that you can use year after year? Children and adults alike can have just as much fun with reusable calendars. Delight in discovering little notes, sweets and gifts in the pockets, pouches, buckets and drawers of these calendars.

Christmas is also the perfect time for giving rooms a quick update. We are a little biased but hanging a new blind or set of curtains really is a fantastic way to create a fresh look! Who’s got time for painting and decorating so close to the beginning of the festivities? All our blinds and curtains are made to measure, superb quality and will look fantastic for many Christmases to come.

Create you own festive activities on each daily card!

Handmade in a small backstreet of Kathmandu

Very cute gingerbread man with red hanging ribbon

Gorgeous bright Nordic look, can be personalised too

Get creative! Make your own advent calendar

Made from felt by a small cooperative in Nepal.

Choose your own gifts with this stylish calendar

Just fantastic!

Rustic rusty tins on a string

Gorgeous pixie in advent dress

Save energy (and money) with NRG energy saving blinds

November 3, 2009 by Vanessa·2 Comments

As the temperature drops so our homes get chillier and the heating gets turned on or up. If we’re not careful though we fight a losing battle as precious heat escapes through ill-fitting doors and un-insulated cavity walls. Don’t be glum though, tuiss can help!

The tuiss range of ‘NRG’ energy saving roller blinds tackles the heat loss from your windows. Even the best performing windows lose five times as much heat as the same area of wall, reducing this loss is a very wise move.

An NRG blind has a special thermal coating on its rear that keeps the heat in and the elements out. All three ranges of NRG blinds offer significant environmental and cost benefits, just choose the blind that best suits your interiors scheme. The most thermally efficient blinds are from the NRG¹⁵ range, the energy saved is 15%, that’s £133 per year saved off your energy bill and in your pocket instead.

If you want to conserve energy, save money and lower your carbon footprint you may as well do it with style, click here to see the full range of tuiss NRG roller blinds.

(By the way investing in double glazing only offers a similar energy saving*. These blinds really are very impressive and for a fraction of the outlay.)*data from the Energy Saving Trust.

A selection of four blinds from the NRG range

Legno NRG12 Tortoise

Index NRG12 Storm

Eclat NRG12 Aluminium

Simple NRG11 Oatmeal

tuiss Love :: Reestore

November 2, 2009 by Vanessa·0 Comment

blog-true-love

I am loving the reestore website. It’s bright, breezy and fun. It was their silvana light that caught my eye, take one old washing machine drum, clean it up a bit and hey presto a pretty funky light. Other cunning ‘restores’ are supermarket trolleys, aeroplane wings and bits of old gearboxes.xx

Reestore’s most popular product bar none is silvana, producing a beautiful ambient glow and casting beams of light from her polished stainless steel body. Finished with a frosted glass surface for mug resting heaven.

Take one washing machine drum...

...and transform into funky side table...

...and lamp, 100% reestored eco style

This time take one oil drum and magic into a comfy seat

Take some waste pipe from your local building site

Oh go on then, take another oil drum

Reusable bags

October 30, 2009 by Vanessa·2 Comments

I like to think that for once I was at the very front of something, very much an early adopter. I’m talking reusable shopping bags, for years I dumb-founded shopping assistants by producing some canvas bag or other and rejecting their bag. Now of course it’s common place to see shoppers carrying a variety of reusable bags. There are huge environmental benefits* to using reusable bags, it’s a no-brainer thing that you can easily do that has a massively good impact.

It can take awhile to become accustomed to always having a bag on you so here’s my top tips:

Have some fold away bags (I love onyas for this) which you can easily keep in the smallest handbag or coat pocket
Have too many bags, that way there’s always a free one in your boot, bag or pocket when you need it
Keep one bag that’s just for putting clothes in (you don’t want your new items covered in bits of broccoli), my billy bag fits right into even the smartest shop
Have a selection of bags in both feminine and masculine colours, no more excuses!

Once you’re into it you’ll realise that there are other benefits besides the green ones. You’ll no longer have the ‘bag of bags’ in your house that grows and grows, spilling out errant plastic bags if you as much as glance at it. No more hands rubbed raw from plastic handles. Plus save a huge amount of time packing away your groceries in the supermarket.

I am now rarely without a bag and if I am caught short then I simply stuff the items into my handbag or carry said items in my arms while holding the receipt aloft!

*To become all knowing about the environmental issues around plastic bags go to Bag-ne-sia, Earth Resource Foundation or Plastic bag free.

Organic hemp cotton bag with coconut shell buttons

Fold out brushed cotton tote with leather bottom

4 polyester bags in a handy bag with trolley token

Polyester bag with integral strawberry pouch

Made from parachute material and stuffs into its own small pouch

Made from parachute material and stuffs into a pouch

Pretty bag packs away into a matching case

Lightweight polyester, portable and waterproof

Stuffs down small into its own pouch

Ethically produced jute bag from the Red Cross

Thursday thought by tuiss :: e cloths

October 29, 2009 by Vanessa·0 Comment

Forget the can of Mr Muscle or Pledge and discover e-cloths. These magic cloths work brilliantly without polish. The micro fibre has a unique surface (480,000 strands per square centimetre) which traps and absorbs minute particles of dust and dirt, leaving surfaces completely clean.

The cloths can be washed up to 300 times. Available from almost anywhere, including Eco Green Store, So Organic and Lakeland.

Getting ambient with candles

October 28, 2009 by Vanessa·0 Comment

The nights have drawn in here in the UK. Curtains are being closed across the land, throws are no longer laying decoratively on the back of the sofa but are warming up toes instead. There is light at the end of the tunnel though, we can all start lighting candles again!

I have found a selection of candles and candle holders, some are fairtraded, some made from recycled materials and some are made from soya oil and bees wax. There’s even an olive oil lamp.

For a light hearted take on the environmental issues surrounding candles go to New Scientist.