I have a weakness for bright things and back in the 70’s everything was bright be it clothes or homeware , there was something about that time that really made you forget about being seen as tacky with something so bright. This Olive colured and Olive shaped jar is the perfect example of this the design is bright funky and desirable, measuring at about 10 inches high this jar can be used for anything really even just decor. It would look great in a minimalist two tone kitchen , might even add a little spark to the place.

You can find this and lots of other vintage homewares at Oxford Tea Party , who are based on Oxford (no surprises there).

Want to spruce up your home? Add a splash of colour with new curtains from The Natural Curtain Company. They offer custom curtains, roman blinds, ready made curtains and matching fabric.

Custom Curtains

If you live in London, a representative can come and measure your windows for free, and help you decide which products are right for you. But you can easily do this on your own. To determine the width, simply measure between the finials of the pole you’ll be hanging your curtains on. For the width, check their website for easy directions to measure, based on inside recess, outside recess or fixed-to-frame curtain styles.
Once you’ve got the correct size, you’ll need to decide on the fabric and liner. There are 15 colours in cotton, 28 in linen, five in silk, velvet, and many more designs in cotton / linen mix.

Roman Blinds

Roman blinds are a popular and attractive alternative to curtains. These gather into gentle pleats when raised, and look softer than common vinyl mini-blinds. The Roman Blinds offered by The Natural Curtain Company are available in custom widths and lengths to fit your windows perfectly. And you can choose from all the fabrics offered in the custom curtain line, including cotton, linen, silk and velvet, in a wide variety of colours and patterns.

Ready Made Curtains

The Natural Curtain Company offers ready made curtains in cotton. Just pick the colour and they will finish them off in the length you specify at no additional charge! They are offered in three standard sizes, with three different lining choices: cotton, thermal and blackout.

Fabric

To complete your room design, purchase matching fabric to make pillow covers or other décor. You can purchase lengths of fabric in all the colours and patterns offered in their custom curtain line.

Has there been an easier way to chop garlic then just rolling the Garlic Zoom over the top of your kitchen counter a bit like a toy car? I think not! The simplicity of this little device is perfect for easily chopping garlic on demand and it looks great too.

Simply load it with garlic and pull it back and forward a few times and you have an end product with very little fuss and no extra mess.

You can lay your hands on one of these from the colloco.co.uk website for £7.95. It was a really hard decision to pick this out from the site as there were so many other great products for sale, colloco.co.uk is a bright, funky yet functional website worth  definite look.

There has to be a mention to the designers of the product chef’n who’s mantra of Tasteful Ingenuity comes through on this product, some other great designs on the site too.

This is not the first time we have featured Salt and Pepper shakers on homecheeq, before you think it we are not obsessed by them.  This set is handmade in Stoke-on-Trent , and in keeping with Stoke’s past the outcome is a beautiful ceramic product.

The graphics are applied by hand, and they look brilliant giving a little taste of England to anyone that uses them.  The design is both functional and aesthetically pleasing, designd to fit togther side by side each pot has it’s own image.

If you want one of these then you will need to look online somewhere , a site like Bouf will sell you the set for £18.00  The actual design comes from Liverpool based designers drpd

Doing the washing is always a chore  , drying is worse and then there is all the putting things away business. Well this pan rack from ProCook can solve the last problem quite easily. If you have pans lying around with nowhere to go just hang them on this lovely pan rack and hey presto, you have a place for your pans and focal point for your kitchen too.

If you quick enough you can get it in the half price sale for £50.00.

Michelle Mason has designed these simple but elegant candle holders, they give a real sturdy feel to the whole candle holding business (if there is such as thing). What I mean is there is no sense of the candles being delicately balanced, and the design is great too, slightly space aged (because they remind me of the eggs from the Aliens films) .

The website says you can watch the candles drip like egg yolk , you would of course need yellow candles but I get the idea now , quite clever really.

Sold as a pair: Large Egg 15cm (h,) Medium Egg 12 cm (h) – £69.75 , more info here

Take more then just apples for your lunch in this unique and stylish lunch box, Apples on the outside but yuo can stote more then just Apples on the inside.

£6.50 from Colloco

It’s hot . it’s summer and we all gotta drink and that includes the kids. So to keep the little people happy and keep their drinks cool , log onto The Conran Shop and get your hands on one of these wheel barrow coolers, you as shown above (photo taken from Living Ect).

Outdoor or Indoor dining this simple chip ‘n dip plate will be a versatile and stylish addition to your tableware. Great for dinner parties and some nibbles with a little dip, even better for a sitting on the patio with some nibbles on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

It’s summer (I’m sure i started one of my other posts with these words before) so why not switch off the idiot box and get outside in the garden. Grab a table cloth , a throw or something, plonk it down on the grass and have a picnic. invite the neighbors, the kids friends and anyone else you can find.

Before you do all that get down to Next (not 100% sure you can get them in store) and this set of pitcher and Hi balls (ok so it’s just a new name for a glass) , £10 for the Pitcher , £8 for the Hi balls would go great with some Robinson’s Orange and Pineapple Squash.