Your cigar is safe with me....

Your cigar is safe with me....

I wake up to another grey day in June, my heart sinks a little, then I suddenly remember I have a brand new piece to Blog about, and so the smile on my face is resumed!

This piece is rather special to me. Its been made for my Step Dad, for his 60th birthday. The cabinet was hand build by my great grandfather, and had been kept by my Mum for years. It was found buried among bits and bobs in the garden shed-it had been unused or untouched for some time. 

I set to work in restoring the cabinet. After a lot of TLC, the wood was looking great. The glass windows were set behind sections of wood, which I had to remove in order to take the glass out and give them a good clean. To my surprise, when I took out these wood panels, written on the back of them was 

'These hands were fitted May 24th 1939 by J E Torr'

This was the hand writing of my great grandfather. The unit had been constructed by him only a few years before he died. What a discovery. In order to show these off I have replaced the glass in the cabinet and then turned the wood panels around to show off this discovery. When My grandma sees it, she'll be over the moon. 

                                                    

Between me and Mum, we decided that the cabinet would become a cigar cabinet as my step dad love a good cigar!

I got thinking and came up with a design-a personalised cigar label which wraps around the entire unit. 

I chose to use classic red, deep blue and gold leaf trim. The interior is in a rich navy blue which ties in well with the rest of the colour scheme. Steves surname is Sasanow and as you can see from the picture of the cabinet below, the writing says

'Cigar Seleccion de Habana SENOR SASANOW'

I think this is a nice touch.

I'm really pleased with the final piece, and just hope that Steve likes it too. My boyfriend, Rich, has bought a selection of cigars for Steve to smoke and we're just trying to figure out how we display them in the unit........any suggestions greatly received.

Its all kicked off....

Its all kicked off....

hello my lovelies! Yep, I'm officially BAD at this blogging lark. I do have the small excuse of MY WEBSITE GOING LIVE-yes yes yes. If you can't tell, this was a pretty momentus thing to happen for me as it has been a loooooong time coming! The picture below is the Home page-to see the rest, go to :

www.baroqueandrolldesign.co.uk

As I said, this has been an incredibly long journey for me and a test of my design skills. As a Photoshop amateur, I certaintly was a learning curve. At times I wanted to chuck the computer out of the window, but a majority of the time I thoroughly enjoyed designing the website. 

A few issues arose with the build of the site, although these were resolved as soon as I got in touch with Dee at www.rootscreative.co.uk. He was absolutely fantastic and was seriously patient with me. My good friend Benny boy put me in touch with Dee, so I'd like to give him a big up-check out his site www.bkcreative.co.uk.

So, so, so.....moving on. Things have been busy. Since the website has gone live I have been working on pieces for my the Open Studios Exhibition which has been taking place over the last week. Last Saturday saw the opening of both mine, and my mums exhibitions in Cheltenham. Mum works with screen printing and enamelling. The exhibition took place at Turtle Gallery on Suffolk Road in Cheltenham. People came, wine was drunk, and pieces were sold-overall, a roaring success!

That evening saw the opening of my exhibition. In was in conjunction with a fab artist called Fran Leach (as I mentioned in my previous post). It was a busy evening and I had lots of promising interest in my work. In fact, this week has seen even more interest. Above are the pieces I exhibited.

Please, please, PLEASE go and check out the website for all the other design goodies at Baroque&Roll. Not only is there furniture to look at, but paintings, murals and lots of other beautiful things. 

Thanks for all your continuing support

Take 2!

Take 2!

I've been slak-it's taken me over a week to post again, but I promise it will be much more often from now on!

I have however, been taking lots of lovely photos to add to the blog. Just random bits from the last few weeks that have caught my eye.

Firstly, I wanted to show you how lucky I am to do what I do. In this glorious weather we've been having, I've made myself an
outside office. Here I have been able to work on my MacBook whilst basking in the April sunshine.

Wednesday last week was the day I went to see my new friend Fran. Through the upholsterers I use, I have been lucky enough to meet a wonderful artist. Fran has had an amazing life and lived all over the world. We sat for hours chatting about our lives and how we've reached to where we are. The photo here shows her amazing studio. The studio sits at the top of a Cheltenham town house which means the light in the studio is fabulous-any artist would be lucky to have this. The purpose of my visit, was to discuss the Open House Studios exhibition which I am getting involved in.

After seeing my pieces of furniture in the window of the upholsterers, she asked me if I would be interested in taking part and I of course said I would delighted to. We will both be exhibiting in this wonderful studio for a week starting 4th June 11. Its very exciting and some great exposure to get me started.

On Thursday I visited my Dad in Birmingham. I was lucky enough to have a guided tour of his unbelievably great garden. Not only that, but I have a preview of Dad's new work-nautical style clocks. Im not doing the pieces justice in my explanation as they are truly gorgeous and can't wait to see the final products-I will post pics as soon as I can. We went for a boozy lunch and had a good old father-daughter catch up! After lunch we went back to Dad's house and I got to have a chat with his girlfriend, Sarah. Sarah is Head of Textile Design and Surface Pattern at Stoke University and is a fantastic person to know for some seriously good contacts. I now have another handful of people in the industry to get in touch with who could just put me on the 'interiors' map!


 Fridsaw the coming of the Royal Wedding of Will to Kate. I never realised the enormity of this day and the media coverage it would generate. I stayed home and worked whilst watching the day unfold. Im not a Royalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I must say I was pretty emotional throughout the ceremony. Weddings tend to do that to me. The Suffolks put on The Royal T street party which I wandered down to for a cup of coffee and to have a nosey at the celebrations.