The Beat That My Heart Skipped - A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

Villa Augustus

Rohini — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:00:12 +0000

Villa Augustus in the Netherlands is a self sustained fairytale environment of a hotel, a restaurant, a market cafe and a vegetable garden. The garden supplies food to the hotel, restaurant, market cafe and for sale.

The Prince of Mist

Rohini — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:20:14 +0000

Has the sunshine gone? Perhaps now the freckles (I’ll pretend they aren’t sun damage) will fade away and I can return to my British pale and lovely complexion that plagues me most of the year. I think, due to the number of small people hovering around the streets, that schools have broken up. It now makes the tube impossible to get anywhere without have to step over these said small people en route.

You are especially doomed if like me you live or work within a tube stop for something that these people might actually want to visit in their holidays (Tooting Lido – come on it’s just a big pool, you don’t really want to go there do you?) it’s a nightmare and it makes my head want to implode. This is coupled with the fact that London Underground have decided that every few weekends they will just shut down South London by closing the Northern line – but it’s ok you can take a replacement bus – which takes 45mins. 45 mins to add to any journey – great! What exactly do I pay for in my Oyster card these days? Small people and buses stuck in traffic apparently.

Well good riddance for rain – maybe now they will stay at home and read a book or maybe which is more likely I will stay at home and read a book. This week we have something for all ages ‘The Prince of Mist’ by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A chilling horror tale that will scare you nicely into submission to never leave the house again, just incase you should encounter anything like this yourself.

The story’s hero is Max Carver a nine year old the son of a watchmaker and inventor who due to the war has moved to the seaside with his family. The house once belonged to a highly regarded surgeon Dr Richard Fleischmann and within the overgrown garden of the house Max finds something sinister. A group of statues which sit within a metal fence crowned by a pointed star. On closer inspection these statues turn out to be a circus troop (turn away now if you have a fear a clowns) and the central figure is a huge clown.

As the tale unravels we have the mystery of a wardrobe speaking to his sister and beckoning her to come to it. There is the discovery of the wreck of a boat that sank many years ago where everyone perished except one man an engineer. You may never want to go diving again after you read this book so perhaps if you have a fear of open water and clowns steer clear. Nothing however is ‘hammed up’ the story is exciting and thrilling and Zafron’s skill shines through to create a book perfect for the young adult range but to be loved by adult readers alike. It has all the main ingredients of thrilling read but twists it into something new and powerful. The book is pure magic and takes pride of place in the school holiday read section.

DIY Tin Cans

Rohini — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:00:11 +0000

My boyfriend made me these for Christmas last year, but actually they are pretty neat for summer time so I’m giving it a go myself – the plan is to put them out on the windowsill (the closest I’ll be getting to a garden in my London flat) while the nights are still warm enough to go to bed with the window open. If you get the patterns right you’ll find you can stare at them flickering away for hours.

You’ll need a bit of patience, as there’s a lot of waiting around for water to freeze (best bet is overnight), and paint to dry. And then also a bit of skill depending on how complicated you want the patterns to be (notice I’ve kept it pretty simple but the patterns can get as elaborate as you wish!).

You will need

Tin cans
Hammer and nails/screwdriver
Metal paint
Paint brush
Turps (to wash the brush)
Sticky tape (optional)

Step One – Clean up Cans
Remove labels and clean up the empty cans. When you remove the label, try and take off in one piece. It might help to score/cut it with a knife to do this.

Step Two – Fill with water and freeze
Fill the cans with water and leave to freeze overnight

Step Three – Create Design

If you feel confident then you can punch the holes into the can freehand. But if you’re worried about how the pattern is going to come out, it’s a good idea to draw it out on paper first and stick it onto the can. I think the best way to do this is to use the label from the can and draw on the back, as it’ll be the perfect size. Otherwise you can use greaseproof paper as you can cut it from the roll to fit the size of the can. Then draw out your pattern and stick it around the can to use as a template.

Step four – Make Holes

Now for the fiddly bit. You need to hold the tin cans one at a time (I suggest using a cloth) and then hammer the holes in. Depending how big you want to make the holes (obviously the bigger the holes the more light’s going to come through) you can use nails of different sizes or a screwdriver. If you have screwdrivers with different ends, this can be useful for making different shapes of hole which can look sweet.

You will have realised by now what the ice is for – it’s much easier and safer to hammer the nails/screwdrivers into something solid behind the can.

Step Five – Paint

Once you’ve finished making the holes and all the ice has melted it’s time to get painting. Make sure the whole tin can is dry. Metail paint is oil-based and it’s hard to get out of things so make sure you cover the area you are working.

It is also slow to dry, and you’ll probably need about two or three coats, so be patient!

Sprouted Kitchen

Rohini — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:00:03 +0000

I haven’t posted any food for a while… but just when I’m working on a summer detox I stumble across this wonderful food blog, Sprouted Kitchen. So much yum!

Quick Scarf Cushion Cover

Rohini — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:00:26 +0000

A few weeks ago I popped into Yalla Yalla, a sweet little Lebanese café in Soho to pick up some lunch. As we waited for our food to take away, we were invited to wait on a bench which was scattered with cushions made from scarves:

Sorry about the rubbish picture (I had to take is surreptitiously on my phone) but I promise, in real life they look great and what’s more they looked really easy to make. I decided to try my own take on it, using this (Indian, I think?) scarf that I picked up for a couple of pounds from the charity shop at the end of my road. The point is you could do this with any old scarf or loose fabric from any far off land to add a bit of an exotic feel to your living room, garden furniture, or even to picnic in style and comfort!

By the way, I stitched mine by hand just to prove how quick and easy it is to do this without any fancy equipment, but of course if you have a sewing machine it might be a little neater. Here goes. Cat x

You will need:

Cushion
Scarf
Needle and thread
Pins
Tape measure
Scissors

Step 1 Wrap the fabric over the cushion and line up the edge (the edge with tassles if you have one) with the seam of the cushion

Step 2 Once it’s lined up, measure 7 inches or so (depending on how bit your cushion is – basically this needs to be about a third the length of your cushion) of extra fabric from the edge of the cushion.

Step 3 Cut off the remaining fabric.

Step 4 Wrap the extra fabric up and over the cushion. This will become the fold that means you can take the cushion out of the cover later on.

Step 5 Now stitch together the two edges of that folded part, but just on the one side.

Step 6 Now pull the rest of the fabric back over the top – exactly as you did in step one, so the tasselled edge is lined up with the bottom of the cushion. Pin the right hand edge of the cushion cover in place, so that it overlaps the stitching you’ve just done with the extra fold of fabric.

Now sew along the whole edge, stitching the front and the back of the cushion cover together

Step 7 You should now have the right hand side of the cover looking finished, and a whole load of extra fabric on the left. So trim off the fabric you don’t need from the left hand side so the remainder just covers the cushion. Now you can take the cushion out from the inside and turn the whole thing inside out.

Step 8 Pin along the opposite side of the cushion cover to the one you already sewed. As with the other side, there should be an extra fold of fabric, but this time we’ll stitch it in place all at once.

Now stitch along the whole edge

Basically, that’s it! all you have to do now it turn it the right way in. As you can see, the extra fold of material is there so that when you put the cushion back in it can sit inside the fold with no need for a zip or buttons.