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Vegetable Growing: A Money-saving Guide
by Jonathan StevensA brief, invaluable guide to the art of growing vegetables around the year and saving money in the process.Vegetable Growing is a practical guide to frugal allotmenteering, including planning your plot, looking after the plants and practical tips for keeping your costs down, such as clever ways of making freebie alternatives to common growing tools.An additional handy section offers advice on which fruit and veg will save you the most money, as well as a season-by-season guide and ideas for boosting your savings with foraged and wild food.Written by Jonathan Stevens of the Real Men Sow blog, who recently embarked on a mission to find out how much he could save by growing his own fruit and vegetables on a half-sized allotment plot.
Outwitting Housework: 101 Cunning Stratagems to Reduce Your Housework to a Minimum
by Barty PhillipsEntertaining and packed full of time-saving tips, Outwitting Housework is an essential guide to making your house gleam without breaking a sweat. Household expert Barty Phillips shares her clever tips for avoiding chores wherever possible, revealing her sanity-saving shortcuts and creative advice for keeping those boring tasks to a minimum.Discover what basic tools of the trade you need and how to use them to bring sparkle, shine and a sense of calm to your home. Learn how to do effective minimal tidying, train errant family members and engage technology to help save you even more effort. Armed with these cunning and creative stratagems, you’ll soon be drying off those rubber gloves and doing something much more fun instead.
Grow Your Own Vegetables in Pots: 35 ideas for growing vegetables, fruits and herbs in containers
by Deborah Schneebeli-MorrellGet the best out of any type of garden without spending a fortune, whether it's a small window box or a hard patio, with Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell's brilliant guide to growing crops in pots. Using containers or pots as a base for your gardening is so versatile - try making an eye-catching design feature by growing nasturtiums in a galvanized mop bucket, or grow parsley and basil on your window ledge in a kitchen colander. Growing your own crops is not only rewarding and fun, but you'll be doing your bit for the environment too, as well as being able to ensure that all your crops are produced organically, whilst saving money at the same time. This book is packed with tips and techniques, from companion planting to deter pests to choosing the right container for the right crop, along with a wealth of other gardening advice. Grow Your Own Vegetables in Pots tempts the novice gardener to get growing and the more experienced gardener to grow organically, producing crops that are a pleasure to grow, harvest and eat.Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell grows crops on her city roof terrace and has created an eclectic allotment on a spectacular site in London. She also works a large garden in Wiltshire, where she practises the complementary craft of bee-keeping. She is dedicated to both flowers and vegetables, and grows all her produce organically. Deborah's other passions include art and craft; she originally trained in fine art and is an award-winning artist. She has written over 20 practical craft books, including Grow Your Own Herbs in Pots and Decorating Pumpkins and Gourds (both published by CICO Books).
Teeny Tiny Gardening: 35 step-by-step projects and inspirational ideas for gardening in tiny spaces
by Emma HardyTeeny Tiny Gardening is horticulture on the smallest of scales. No matter how tiny your space - indoor or outdoor, garden, yard, balcony or even just a windowsill or tabletop - here you will find original, fun and inspiring ideas. The 35 projects range from an elegant fern terrarium and a scented spring bulb basket to colourful woven bags and hessian sacks filled with cheerful summer blooms. There are edible gardens, including fruit bushes planted in catering-sized kitchen pans and a vertical garden of herbs grown on a wooden stepladder. You will find lots of ideas for using recycled and salvaged containers, such as a metal bathtub filled with vegetable plants, metal food tins used for an indoor garden of wildflowers and a stack of wooden drawers filled with trailing plants. And at the teeniest end of the scale, there are even miniature tabletop gardens created in eggshells and bottle tops! Children can learn basic gardening skills, too, by following the step-by-step photos to make their own magical fairy garden or a mysterious dinosaur den. Whether you are looking for ideas for all-year foliage or for a summer display of flowers, wanting to grow your own veggies and herbs, or needing to revamp your balcony, Teeny Tiny Gardening will provide you with all the inspiration and practical knowledge you need.
Colour Recipes for Painted Furniture: 42 step-by-step projects to transform your home
by Annie SloanWith this book in one hand and a brush in the other, you can learn how to transform everyday furniture into something special, all for the price of a pot of paint. Annie Sloan is a paint legend and one of the world’s most popular experts in the field of decorative painting. In Colour Recipes for Painted Furniture and more, Annie presents 40 new projects and ideas, showing you the easy way to update tired furniture and transform your home. Working with her own range of chalk paints, Annie shows how to mix colours and how to achieve certain looks. Whether your taste is for colourful boho chic or restrained Swedish hues, cosy and comforting rustic shades, a modern and contemporary approach or an elegant French look, here you will find a project to suit you. Start off by mastering the simple art of colourwashing, and work your way up to transfer printing, gilding, stencilling and glazing. There are even instructions for dyeing fabric using paint. As well as painting furniture, the projects range from a staircase painted in a rainbow of colours to stencilled walls, transforming floors with a coat of paint to dyeing linen curtains and even painting a vintage chandelier. Throughout the book, Annie offers expert tips, techniques, shortcuts and guidance, showing you the easy way to create a stylish home.
Creating the French Look: Inspirational ideas and 25 step-by-step projects
by Annie SloanThe French interior evokes a way of life to aspire to, with its good food, unhurried pace and, above all, its past for which many people feel nostalgia. Developed over hundreds of years, the French look reflects all tastes, from the cultivated grandeur of the chateau to the simplicity of rural living, and can be adapted to every home. Creating the French Look is divided into four styles: ‘Chateau’, ‘Country’, ‘Provençal’ and ‘Parisian’, and each “look” is applied to living rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms plus outdoor living spaces. As well as describing each overall style, focusing on colours and fabrics, Annie Sloan emphasizes the details and accents required by each one, and, aided by 25 clearly explained step-by-step projects, shows how to achieve it. Among other things, she explains how to paint and distress furniture, and describes how to cover an armoire door with embroidered voile. Whatever interior you desire, this book will guide your choices from the grand statement of the painted armoire to the finishing touch of a little posy of lavender.
Annie Sloan Paints Everything: Step-by-step projects for your entire home, from walls, floors, and furniture, to curtains, blinds, pillows, and shades
by Annie SloanDecorative paint expert Annie Sloan shows how paint can transform any surface in your house.
Annie Sloan's Room Recipes for Style and Colour: World renowned paint effects guru and colour expert Annie Sloan considers what makes a successful interior
by Annie SloanFind the right interiors recipe for your ideal home with Annie Sloan.
Wild at Home: How to style and care for beautiful plants
by Hilton Carter"Hilton Carter's love for plants is infectious... His lush and exuberant displays are inspiring reminders that plants can be so much more than neat little containers on a window sill."Grace Bonney, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Design*SpongeTake a tour through Hilton’s own apartment and other lush spaces, filled with a huge array of thriving plants, and learn all you need to know to create your own urban jungle. As the owner of over 200 plants, Hilton feels strongly about the role of plants in one’s home – not just for the beauty they add, but for health benefits as well: ‘having plants in your home not only adds life, but changes the airflow throughout. It’s also a key design element when styling your place. For me, it wasn’t about just having greenery, but having the right variety of greenery. I like to see the different textures of foliage all grouped together. You take a fiddle leaf fig and sandwich it between a birds of paradise and a monstera and…. yes!’ You will be armed with the know-how you need to care for your plants, where to place them, how to propagate, how to find the right pot, and much more, and most importantly, how to arrange them so that they look their best. Combine sizes and leaf shapes to stunning effect, grow your own succulents from leaf cuttings, create your own air plant display, and more.
Perfect Pots for Small Spaces: 20 creative container gardening projects
by George CarterCombining inspiration with practicality, Perfect Pots for Small Spaces offers 20 exciting projects, each simple enough to complete in a weekend.Containers come in all sorts of materials, sizes and shapes, and can be used to enhance any outdoor space, from a small terrace to a large garden. In this highly informative and superbly illustrated book, award-winning gardener George Carter explains how to make the most of them. Divided into four sections – on terra cotta, masonry, metal and wood – it has step-by-step instructions and ideas for seasonal planting plans that make container gardening accessible to all. Among the imaginative projects are painted pots, a wirework hanging basket, a rustic window box, a trough with trellis screen, a wooden obelisk and a painted galvanised washtub. The projects are complemented by a plant directory, information on care and maintenance of containers and plants and an extensive list of resources.
Get Knooking: 35 quick and easy patterns to “knit” with a crochet hook
by Laura StruttEverything you need to know to create 35 fantastic knitted projects using a crochet hook. Get Knooking also includes a free bamboo knooking hook (size 4mm) and a cord so you can start right away.A great introduction to the new trend in yarn craft, Get Knooking is perfect for beginners, as well as crocheters who want to expand their skills. You’ll have fun with this innovative method for knitting using a specially adapted crochet hook, and will soon be on your way to making Laura Strutt’s amazing designs for items to wear, gifts and home decorations. Start small with a zipped purse, a headband and armwarmers, then move on to a block-colour cushion, a nautical rope-handle bag and knitted storage boxes. For something a bit more challenging, try making an on-trend kimono cardigan, a rainbow throw, or a dip-dye effect shawl. There is a comprehensive techniques section with detailed step-by-step illustrations so you have everything you need to begin.
Crocheted Wreaths and Garlands: 35 floral and festive designs to decorate your home all year round
by Kate EastwoodCrochet beautiful home decorations in a contemporary style with these 35 patterns for every season, special occasions, Christmas, and all year round.Kate Eastwood has designed 35 colourful and natural-looking wreaths and garlands just for you, with something to suit every occasion and every place. There are garlands with flowers and foliage that won't fade after a few days, and wreaths that can be kept on display all year round, not just for Christmas. You can crochet a Heart Garland for Valentine’s Day, or an Easter Egg Wreath full of the colors of spring. In summer, a wreath covered in bright strawberries will brighten up your hallway. For the autumn, a ring of crocheted pumpkins will look great on your front door, and for Christmas there’s everything from a Mistletoe Wreath to a Gingerbread Garland. If you want a make that will look good all year round, try the Bobble Bunting in strong pastels, or the Shaker Birdhouse Garland in soft, neutral shades to suit any room.
Crocheted Wreaths and Garlands: 35 floral and festive designs to decorate your home all year round
by Kate EastwoodCrochet beautiful home decorations in a contemporary style with these 35 patterns for every season, special occasions, holidays, and all year round.Kate Eastwood was taught to knit as a child, by her mother, but seven years ago she decided to teach herself how to crochet. Since then she has shared her love of all things crochet on her blog, justpootling.blogspot.co.uk. This is her first book, but Kate has also designed projects for lovecrochet.com and Simply Crochet magazine. Kate lives near Bath, UK, with her husband and their two Weimeraners.
Mindful Crochet: 35 creative and colorful projects to help you be in the moment, relieve stress, and manage pain
by Emma LeithThe 35 patterns in Mindful Crochet include specially designed elements of repetition, color and texture, which will help you relax, refocus and unwind.Anyone who’s ever tried to master a new stitch or work out which granny squares should go where on an afghan will appreciate how crochet can totally engage your attention and harness your creativity. Being “in the moment” is an essential part of following a pattern, keeping your yarn on the hook, counting stitches, and remembering which color to use next. Emma Leith shows how these qualities can become a form of mindfulness practice, bringing you peace, calm, and a greater sense of well-being. There are projects you can make for yourself or your home, and others designed to be given as gifts. The satisfaction you’ll get from creating these lovely makes and seeing others appreciate them is another important way in which crochet can encourage a positive outlook and bring happiness.
Mindful Crochet: 35 creative and colourful projects to help you be in the moment, relieve stress and manage pain
by Emma LeithThe 35 patterns in Mindful Crochet include specially designed elements of repetition, colour and texture, which will help you relax, refocus and unwind.Anyone who’s ever tried to master a new stitch or work out which granny squares should go where on a blanket will appreciate how crochet can totally engage your attention and harness your creativity. Being “in the moment” is an essential part of following a pattern, keeping your yarn on the hook, counting stitches and remembering which colour to use next. Emma Leith shows how these qualities can become a form of mindfulness practice, bringing you peace, calm and a greater sense of well-being. There are projects you can make for yourself or your home, and others designed to be given as gifts. The satisfaction you’ll get from creating these lovely makes and seeing others appreciate them is another important way in which crochet can encourage a positive outlook and bring happiness.
Small Summer Gardens: 35 bright and beautiful gardening projects to bring color and scent to your garden
by Emma HardyTurn your garden into a bright summer paradise with a collection of 35 projects to create stylish, fragrant and abundant displays. There are gorgeous flowering plants, lush foliage, special occasion displays, and edible fruit and vegetable harvests. The projects in Small Summer Gardens include hanging baskets, window boxes, beautiful flower beds, large and small pots, and pretty recycled containers. Create a display of foxgloves and woodland plants in a rusty trunk, scented sweet peas in a tub, a mini water garden with flowering water lilies, a wreath made from alpine flowers, fruit bushes in pots and much more. With Emma Hardy’s expert advice, you will learn everything you need to know about growing annuals from seed, growing bulbs, using inexpensive bedding plants in interesting ways, combining perennials and small shrubs and growing and maintaining fruit and vegetable plants.
Holistic Spaces: 108 ways to create a mindful and peaceful home
by Anjie ChoTransform your home into a calm, balanced and harmonious oasis using architect Anjie Cho’s helpful advice, drawing on her background in green design and feng shui.You don’t have to get rid of all your possessions and become an ascetic to change your space and discover the benefits that living in a considered, organic way can bring. The easy suggestions in Holistic Spaces show you how to implement the principles of feng shui and green design in your home. Written for the way we live today, as we move toward a more mindful approach to health, diet and the way that we choose the objects in our homes, this is the perfect guide to help you to clear and refresh your living environment. Learn how to make every room in your home serve its highest purpose, create eco-friendly spaces, bring nature indoors, choose colours for maximum impact, select a space for meditation practice, and overall, create a peaceful and organic home. From the bedroom to the home office, these intuitive, straightforward tips will teach you to how improve your spaces to boost the flow of energy through your life.
Green Housekeeping: Recipes and solutions for a cleaner, more sustainable home
by Christina StruttChristina Strutt of Cabbages & Roses reveals how to have a calmer, healthier, eco-friendly home.Saving the planet for future generations is a laudable aim, but what about the current populace? Why wait when even quite small lifestyle changes can make a big difference now? Green Housekeeping is full of advice and information to help you take a more sustainable path. Recycling, reusing and shopping at farmers’ markets are a good start, but cutting down on the use of poisonous chemicals is just as important – it’s perfectly possible to clean a house using nothing more than lemons, bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and plain water. Here old-fashioned methods are complemented by newer ideas and innovations, and applied not only to cleaning but also to caring for clothes, furniture, and even silver and glassware. Growing some of your own vegetables, fruit and herbs can be very satisfying, and you can use any extras to make jams, oils and chutneys using the handy tips and delicious recipes. Make beauty preparations and bath oils, too, for soothing, effective treatments to enhance everyday health and wellbeing. To become eco-friendly doesn’t require self-sacrifice – just some readjustment; and by following the advice in this invaluable guide you will find yourself living a calmer, greener life.
The Joy of Living with Less: How to downsize to 100 items and liberate your life
by Mary LambertFollow this unique programme to discover the joy of living with less items and discover how liberating and fulfilling life becomes when you learn to live with less.The premise of this book is simple: if you don’t love it, lose it! Many people think that the more they own, the more contented and happy they will be – their lives become defined by their possessions. In fact, the opposite is often true: the more we have, the less happy and contented we are in mind, body and spirit. Decluttering expert Mary Lambert explains how having too much clutter can stop you moving forward in life, and how learning to let go of items we neither love or need is liberating and fulfilling. The challenge starts with an inventory of your personal possessions, then you begin the process of clearing out your items, addressing each area at a time, from clothes, to jewellery, to hobby items. Once you've tackled your personal items, you can get started on the rest of your household goods.
Happy Starts at Home: Change your space, transform your life
by Rebecca WestUse your home as a tool to make better changes happen in your life. Through aligning your heart, home, and health, experience first-hand how small changes make a big difference.What does it take to be happy at home? It’s not about buying or not buying a new sofa. It’s about whether your home is working for you in the best way. Your home can directly improve your well-being and contentment with better health, sleep, and relationships, and ultimately decrease your stress levels to increase your all-round happiness. Design expert Rebecca West helps you to learn how to achieve a geographical cure without actually relocating and how to redecorate so you can feel best in your space. Along with beautiful photographs, there are a variety of self-assessment activities to connect your financial, emotional and physical health to your space to ensure it nurtures your vision – and while doing so, investing your time and money more effectively too. With the valuable advice in Happy Starts at Home, you can commit to a philosophy of buying fewer things and doing more to discover what’s holding you back, in order to find joy and create a home that makes you smile.
#shelfie: How to style and display your collections
by Geraldine JamesUse your shelves to display your collections and create ever-evolving works of art with Geraldine James’s inspirational ideas.Find out how you can use what you already have in a stylish and unexpected way to revitalise a room. Whether you want to group a collection of colourful vases against a dark wall, use picture rails to line up a selection of prints, or organise plants and treasured finds from the natural world, any shelf can be a stage for artful arrangements with this innovative guide. You can find a home for all your prized possessions, and the best thing about shelves is that you can change a display whenever the mood takes you. Chapter by chapter, discover ideas for how to arrange virtually anything and begin a journey into colour, textures and themes to create elegant focal points that give a home character and charm.
Wild Interiors: Beautiful plants in beautiful spaces
by Hilton Carter“We work with Hilton because he’s both a plant stylist and an incredible plant-care wizard. Hilton doesn’t just teach you how to get your plants to thrive – he teaches you how to bond with them.” - Apartment TherapyBestselling author Hilton Carter brings his unique eye and love of plants to show you how to create luscious interiors that not only look amazing but are good for your well-being, too. Hilton first guides you through his own plant journey, his inspirations, and his top ten favourite house plants. He then takes you on a Journey in Greenery where he showcases the homes of 12 inspiring plant parents that demonstrate the versatility of decorating with plants. From a tiny house in Venice, California and a light-filled loft in New York City, to a Berlin apartment decorated with vintage finds, and the Barcelona home of a ceramic artist, there are ideas for all types of spaces and budgets. Hilton then sets you off on your very own plant journey, taking you room by room, profiling the plants that are most suited to each: those that thrive in the tropical humidity of bathrooms, the erratic heat changes of kitchens and plants that can live happily in the indirect light of an entryway or bedroom. Packed full of interior design advice such as using ‘statement plants’ like Fiddle-leaf figs to create a focal point, how to layer your greenery by using hanging baskets, and how to assemble the perfect plant shelf, Hilton shows you how bringing houseplants into your home creates instant impact. Be inspired to create your own Wild Interiors with Hilton’s expert styling advice, plus his hints and tips on plant care that take the mystery out of looking after your green friends.
Why Cleaning Has Meaning: Bringing Wellbeing Into Your Home
by Linda ThomasFew of us enjoy cleaning: it often feels like a thankless, repetitive task which we force ourselves to do. Linda Thomas is an expert, professional cleaner who ran her own ecological cleaning company for over twenty years. In this unique book, she explores her passion for cleaning, and argues that cleaning can have a profound effect not just on the spaces we care for, but on our own wellbeing and personal development. This lively and readable book is full of anecdotes, practical examples and ecological cleaning tips from Linda's decades of cleaning experience. Ultimately she argues that if we raise our understanding of cleaning, we might even begin to enjoy it!
Companion Plants and How to Use Them: And How To Use Them
by Helen PhilbrickIt has long been observed, by farmers, gardeners and botanists alike, that from time to time certain plants seem to affect certain other plants growing their near them – both favourably and unfavourably. By taking account of these relationships, farmers and gardeners can improve the quality of food and flowers, reduce losses from pests and disease, drought and frost, and enhance both satisfaction and pleasure in their work and financial profit. Years of experimentation by Richard Gregg and subsequently Helen Philbrick and others resulted in this unique reference book. It offers a detailed and comprehensive A-Z of plants and how they affect each other and their surrounding environment, including the soil, insects and birds.
Weeds and What They Tell Us
by Ehrenfried E. PfeifferThis wonderful little book covers everything you need to know about the types of plants known as weeds. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer discusses the different varieties of weeds, how they grow and what they can tell us about soil health. The process of combatting weeds is discussed in principle as well as in practice, so that it can be applied to any situation. First written in the 1950s, this is still one of the best overviews of the subject available.