Homegirl London - Ghost Furniture For Curious Minds

The lovely Homegirl London has chosen, yet again, some of my Ghost Furniture pieces. Her Christmas Gifts For Curious Minds feature has our Hand and Framed Concrete Tassel showing. 2 out of 5 aint bad.

Concrete - So Versatile

I have long been a lover of concrete, evident in my collaboraton with Kathy Dalwood to create these concrete tassels for Ghost Furniture a couple of years ago.

My fireplace (above) is made of concrete but now there seems to be a massive amount of designers who are working with this material.

 I love this vintage fabric that has been cast in concrete

 and now you can even buy handbags made from concrete at Avanka. Whatever next?

For The Love of Concrete

I make no secret of my love of concrete, why I even have a range of Concrete Tassels on my Ghost Furniture website. I found these fabulous concrete items at Etsy today and particularly love the Concret Shelf (below). By At Stuart at Etsy

Concrete and Blackboards

I love concrete and I love blackboards both of which appear in my Ghost Furniture ranges. When the two are put together it seems like heaven to me. Images found at Living Agency

Concrete - Flavour of the Season

Seems concrete has come to everyone's attention. We had 2 major articles about Concrete Ghost this month in IDFX and the London Evening Standard

London Evening Standard

Go hardcore! Curtains and wallpaper made of concrete

Barbara Chandler
7 Mar 2011

Think concrete, think rough, grey, bleak and industrial. But that's just what appeals to a fresh clutch of clever creatives who see concrete as a marvellously modern medium for original design.

"I just love that raw quality," says London sculptor Kathy Dalwood, who actually manages to make concrete charming. Her figurines, cast in a Queen's Park studio, have moulds from vintage statuettes collected diligently from dealers in Europe and America.

The originals, in ceramic and plaster, were heavily painted. A rich source was the huge road-side antiques markets in America's southern states, selling figures that were fairground trophies in the Forties and Fifties.

Dalwood reduces an old and garish glory to elegant and sober monochrome, deliberately leaving mould marks and roughness. Pick up a concrete Marie Antoinette, a dainty shepherdess or bewigged violinist for a metropolitan mantelpiece or city patio at prices from around £120. Also in demand are her baroque concrete urns.

Peddling a new line in concrete curtain trimmings is Di Overton of Ghost Furniture, with a startling range of tassels and tiebacks that Dalwood skilfully casts from originals found at Paris flea markets and specialists in
"passementerie" (trimmings). Overton adds antique lace, cords and ribbons for tiebacks and trims snapped up by London interior decorators, though prices start from £80.

But concrete wallpaper? Yes, that too, thanks to the ingenuity of Eric Barrett of Concrete Blond, who's produced almost-silky damask effects with all the fine details of their period originals.

And now, working with inventor Mark Dale of Graphic Relief, he has a new technique for digitally printing onto concrete, making panels from photographs and other artwork.

Textile artists are also roughing it. Alessio Giardino (originally trained in Florence) makes panels like folded fabric in her Southgate studio. She has also used concrete for delicate screen printing. Yasemen Hussein in Sydenham lines her moulds for concrete table tops and wall panels with fabric, wallpaper, wood and more, and then adds inlays of resin, leather and vinyl.

Hazel Hewitt photographs her concrete creations and digitally prints them onto wallpaper - that's when she's not needling some concrete knitting.

"Not jumpers exactly but boxes and tiles." And no way will the moths get at them.

IDFX Magazine

Ghostly Glamour
Concrete Ghost, a range for Ghost Furniture, is a collaboration between Kathy Dalwood and Di Overton. Real vintage silk tassels have been cast in concrete to produce seemingly fossilized pieces that can be used as decoration on furniture, artwork or as curtain tiebacks.
www.ghostfurniture.co.uk

Little Future Heirlooms from Concrete Ghost

Every Christmas I bring out the decorations and find little pieces with memories. I think every family has at least one Christmas decoration with a story.

Ghost Furniture have come together with Kathy Dalwood to create these Little Future Heirlooms, cast from vintage originals and decorated with vintage passementerie from the brocantes of France. All for sale on the Ghost Furniture website.
Plaster Tree Decorations all £15 with free UK delivery and

little Concrete Christmas Wall Hangings £40 each with free UK delivery. Each and every one is totally unique.

Texas Tassels

A lovely package arrived on my doorstep the other day. Tassels from Texas.

My lovely blogging friend Constance Muller (Rochambeau) made me some fabulous strawberries

and cherries made from vintage sari fabric. I used these on two of my Ghost Furniture pieces, both sold now needless to say.

Constance has now turned her talents to tassels. Now I think everyone knows by now about my flirtation with tassels, the concrete versions which I love and adore.
Constance sent me these two fabulous tassels as a belated birthday present along with some more of those delicious cherries which I needed for a commission.

Constance being Constance wrapped them exquisitely as only Constance could.

It took me an age to choose my gifts from her fabulous range. How clever is this lady????

Birth Announcement and a Coup

Yesterday I awoke to find that our Concrete Tassels made it to Mocoloco, thank you guys we really appreciate it. Now I would like to announce the

birth of our baby tassels. Above are the proud parents and

here are the babies, waiting to be decorated and carefully placed as key tassels on

this new piece of Ghost Furniture. This will make a lovely home for someone's laptop.
If you want to see how these tassels are made then go on over to Kathy's blog and take a peek, she has done a fabulous post about the process.

Ghost Furniture - The Build Up

I can't believe it's done. After what seems an age the new website is out there and I am stunned with the response - in a good way. Rather than post lots of stuff that's for sale, I thought it would be nice to show you the process we go through to get there.

Starting with the shabby pieces found in the Flea Markets and Brocantes of France (that's the best bit).

Finding fabrics and in this case a big piece of Bright Red Patent Leather found in the alleyways of Montmatre, off goes a little spark in my brain and

wallah! we have the bones of a new piece. Repairs done, paint applied and ready to be upholstered.

More Flea Market finds,

putting it together.

This one was a dream it all came together in one visit to Paris and

this was the result.

Hauling various finds all the way from Paris to Northumberland is not a chore. Driving back I create stuff in my head then

bring them to life on my return

can you spot any of these items in the before pictures? You can be excused if not as even I have difficulty recognising some pieces.

more finds,



more results. But what I haven't mentioned is

the web design,

photography, copywriting, optimising,

creating the catalogue,

press releases,

newsletters and

all this whilst still working on commissions. Both Harvey and I do all this and no one else. No wonder it took a long time. Now it's done I can go back to the pleasures of hunting and creating and maybe, just maybe I will get my cottage in a clean and tidy state again.

Last but certainly not least Kathy Dalwood and I would like to thank you all for all your lovely comments and emails when we announced our Concrete Ghost collaboration the other day.