Don’t you love this distressed wood?I could try for days to get this effect at a wood-painting workshop and I’d still fail. But, aha! This is wallpaper.

  I guess fashion designers must get bored with skirt lengths and model fittings and colour forecasting, as increasingly they seem to be branching into other creative areas. Karl Lagerfeld’s photography. Tom Ford’s film making. But I think Eley Kishimoto …

• My first V-log, featuring *titter* The Dreamboys
• The Half Term Muddy Guide Part 1
• Can Muddy get even better? (Er, yes)
• Beauty hot spot

Hot off the viral presses, here’s the new John Lewis Christmas ad. I love it – makes a welcome change from ads with product shots every two seconds and it’s clever and quirky and *sniff* kind of heartwarming too. But that’s …

• Christmas at Waddesdon Manor – a sight worth seeing

Had a great afternoon yesterday at Out of the Dark, a High Wycombe-based charity that helps young people learn a trade, find some self-respect and recycle some damn good furniture while they’re at it. They sell lots of their stuff …

• While it shines – head to the Wycombe Rye Lido

One of the reasons I went freelance after a decade in newspapers and magazines was to escape those deathly management meetings where you’d sit around a large table, pretending to have ‘input’ whilst being bored out of your head, doodling ferociously …

• My first V-log, featuring *titter* The Dreamboys
• The Half Term Muddy Guide Part 1
• Can Muddy get even better? (Er, yes)
• Beauty hot spot

Sometimes you hear an idea and you just know it’s going to work. I came across the website for 10 Little Birds the other week and immediately fell in love with the concept. It  just chimes perfectly with our times. The …

• My first V-log, featuring *titter* The Dreamboys
• The Half Term Muddy Guide Part 1
• Can Muddy get even better? (Er, yes)
• Beauty hot spot

Finally, it’s here. Olympic Friday. Hurray for the opening ceremony (come on Danny Boyle, you can do it) and the prospect of a lycra-heavy August. Sod the double dip recession, let’s get behind our national triceps – I mean team …

• Wouldn’t you though?
• Wouldn’t you though?
• LASSCO – lunch and shopping. What’s not to like?

OK, I know I featured knitted coral the other week but these are too brilliant not to show you. You  can’t help but wonder what inspires someone to give over their free time to knitting woollen monster masks.  Tracy Widess, the …

• My first V-log, featuring *titter* The Dreamboys
• The Half Term Muddy Guide Part 1
• Can Muddy get even better? (Er, yes)
• Beauty hot spot

When the Little Italy espresso bar opened in Haddenham a few years ago it really transformed the village, immediately making it a much more inclusive place, because the glorious thing about a coffee shop is that everyone can enjoy a brew and a slice …

• WIN! A gorgeous Illuminated Canvas for your wall
• Velvet Brown posh polo rug winner – last call!
• Well hellooooo, Amersham!
• Stop press: Aspace store opening in Marlow

This brilliant exhibit – knitted coral no less! – was part of the inaugural Birmingham Made Me Design expo, a showcase for the best of midlands design that finished on Friday. It’s totally batty and entirely useless and totally wonderful. …

• My first V-log, featuring *titter* The Dreamboys
• The Half Term Muddy Guide Part 1
• Can Muddy get even better? (Er, yes)
• Beauty hot spot