the envelope angel comes to the rescue

I'm sure we all have padded envelopes and other packaging filling our cupboards at home that we've kept to re-use but never have. Maybe it's looking a bit scruffy to send that present for your favourite auntie or you just can never find a label that would cover up the previous address. The boys at Blue Marmalade have the perfect solution to stylishly extend the life of that jiffy bag with their envelope angel which houses a roll of 100 sets of address & sender labels. Send a set of labels with your package and you'll make the chances of it being re-used again even higher.
You can buy your envelope angel here at boo vake now.
£5

more from lovely pigeon

Kirsty from Lovely Pigeon has come up trumps once more with a new batch of her vintage button jewellery here in the shop. Lots of lovely hairclips, necklaces, & brooches in red, pink, green, blue and monochrome mixes.

I've seen a lot of jewellery made out of buttons in my time but I don't think any as nicely done and put together as Kirsty's.

prices start at £8 for a pair of hairclips, £12 for necklaces, & £10, £20 & £30 for brooches in various sizes.

float.....

Yesterday a package arrived from Edinburgh designers Blue Marmalade, so last night was spent putting together one of their wonderfully graceful 'float' mobiles to display in the shop. Estimated time to assemble: 20-30 mins - actual time: 1hr and ehm..the rest! I am now, of course, an expert - so if you would like to come in and buy a 'float' mobile from boo vake you can also get my 'top tips'- which mostly comprise of what not to do! The one I put together was a rather lovely black and white one, and once finished it looked pretty darn good at home so I was a bit reluctant to take it back to the shop. Anyway you can now see it hanging in the shop.

I left it to my partner Ken to 'pop' up a fabulous orange Blue Marmalade polyrap wastepaper bin and this he did in not much time at all. It's all in the folding you see - which is what I love about all Blue Marmalade' s products - beautifully simple, every aspect so well thought out, and absolutely nothing there that needn't be.

float mobiles in white or black/white £24

polyrap wastepaper bins in red or orange £18

the clootie well

A few pictures from the Clootie Well on the Black Isle last weekend. I've passed this many times but this was the first time I've stopped for a proper look. A clootie well in Celtic tradition was/is where people would come to tie a 'cloot' (a rag or a piece of cloth or clothing) from a sick person to the trees surrounding a holy well in the hope of curing their illness. As the cloot rotted the illness was believed to leave the person. This clootie well is very much still in use and there certainly is an 'atmosphere' to this place - albeit somewhat interfered with by the abundance of socks, jay cloths, and synthetic materials hung amongst the branches. If you could ignore that it could almost be quite beautiful. Maybe best not to look too closely.

donna wilson scarves & cushions

Mitten Kitten 'resting' on top of some new scarves we have from textile supremo Donna Wilson (now hanging in our window!).

....and some of Donna's cushions we have at boo vake now.

scarves £37-£39, owl & robin cushions £59

laurie hastings - illustrator

These fabulous little purses come from Edinburgh illustrator and printmaker Laurie Hastings. Inspired by burlesque theatre, these little beauties are printed on both sides with Laurie's 'Suki dances' illustration and lined in either hot pink or lime green - perfect for keeping your make-up, coins, or other treasure in.

And for books, shopping, or anything else you fancy, we have some of Laurie's 'Suki dances' cotton tote bags, all tied up with a contrasting ribbon and a 'Suki dances' label - a perfect gift.

'Suki dances' purses and bags £12 each

stolen thunder jewellery

So many new things to post......! These are the new wooden earrings and necklaces we have in from jewellery designers Stolen Thunder (aka Alice Burlinson & Joy Frost from Derbyshire).
prices range from £11-£30

lovely breagha!

It's so good to see so many designers using beautiful Harris Tweed in their work and we have many of them here at boo vake - such as Katherine Emtage, Roobedo, Joan Macleod, Càdadh - and now....Breagha! Breagha is Glasgow based and South Uist born & bred designer Mairead MacAulay and she makes the most stunning bags (a few of which you can see above and below).
breagha bags from £65-£75

And if that wasn't enough - also just in are some more Harris Tweed bags (below) from Poolewe based Mary Buchanan of Càdadh.

Càdadh bags from £62-£66

Harris Tweed is such a fabulous unique material and something which we should be very proud of here in Scotland. When we were in Stockholm recently we spent a day at a place called Skansen, which is a large 'folk' park where traditional buildings from all over Sweden have been brought and re-assembled. Many of the buildings are 'inhabited' to show how life would have been and in one of the traditional farm buildings there was a young woman weaving on a loom by hand. My partner Ken had his Harris Tweed cap in his bag and he brought this out to show her. She was quite amazed that hand woven tweed was still being produced in Scotland and that it was unsubsidised. Certainly made me think that maybe we don't quite appreciate what we do have here in Scotland and perhaps we should shout about it a bit louder.

more gemma

Some new work we have in by the hugely talented Norwich based illustrator Gemma Correll. We have an assortment of cards, colouring books, notebooks, prints and her brand new 'let's ride' cotton tote bag.

We also have a few of these very snazzy postcard books from a collective of illustrators (including Gemma) known as 'girls who draw' .

prices from £2.50 - £8.50

a good days cycling

On Sunday myself & partner Ken went cycling in Rob Roy country around Loch Katrine. We took the bikes on the Steamship Sir Walter Scott from Trossachs pier to Stronachlachar, then cycled across to Inversnaid on Loch Lomond, back to Stronachlachar for a cuppa (+ chips), before cycling around the rest of Loch Katrine and back to Trossachs pier. Lovely weather, lovely scenery, lovely chips, lovely day!

On the way home we took a wee diversion to Aberfoyle to have a look at the Cabin Collective - a new shop (in a cabin) opened by glass artist and boo vake supplier Alicia MacInnes. If you're in the area it's next to the Wool Centre and well worth a visit. Snapdragon has a picture on her blog here.

the british design awards

Scottish textile designer (and favourite here at boo vake) Donna Wilson has had her mabel sofa, which she designed for SCP, shortlisted for the British Design of the Year. All the shortlisted designs are in this month's Elle Decoration and if you would like to vote for Donna's design (or anybody else's) you can vote online here .

more stockholm

If you've never been to Stockholm here are a few pics to show some of it's watery lovliness.

' "Fika" in Södermalm; Eating our pieces (sandwiches if your not in Scotland) outside The Grand Hotel.

There's some great shops in Stockholm for the design/retro/secondhand lover. Above is the fabulous Retro etc. A dream of a shop. Other great shops we came across whilst wandering in the Södermalm area were Oma Vintage & Retro , Design Torget, Södra Skattkammaren, Wigerdals Värld (only gazed on through large windows on our last night). There were a number of well stocked charity shops such as Myrorna (run by the Salvation army), Stadsmissionen and Emmaus.

We travelled with hand-luggage only so there was no room to take advantage of the fabulous light shades and lamps on offer without incurring a rather hefty penalty. Plus Stockholm is a bit pricey on all fronts and if we were to continue to feed ourselves and have the odd £7.50 pint of beer then sacrifices had to be made.

blossom & bill are back!

Speaking of Sweden we now have some more blue (& red) Blossom & Bill birchwood trays in stock from the lovely Isak - designed by English based Swedish designer Sandra Isaksson.

And for the first time they are joined by some smaller trays in the leaf and lovebirds designs (we also have lidded cups/jars which will match or complement these). All the trays come in 100% cotton re-useable tote bags. Great gifts!

blossom & bill trays £25, small trays £15