This months Open Call showcase

A very good Monday morning - before I kick off today's post a big thank you to everyone who attended the masterclass on Friday - fabulous day. We spent the weekend tied up in the bedroom which sounds way more exciting than I mean it to. With the warmest weekend of the year and the desperate urge to get out into the garden and plant - we filled, sanded, painted and spent the whole two days in the bedroom. On deadline (an extremely cool magazine is flying in to shoot the house on Wednesday) there was actually little choice. I have to say (although its not finished) it’s the coolest bedroom I have ever done, its simple its beautiful and it rocks! Considering where I was this time last week, pulling my hair out frustrated at the saga of it not working it now totally works. I will of course post pictures as soon as we've finished off the finishing touches which should be by the end of the week. The lesson that was learnt - its OK to make mistakes from mistakes great things happen - as the saying goes there is no success without failure. If you fear making mistakes it will prevent you from trying anything new. The trick is to learn from them. Look at it in a different way - don't even think of them as mistakes - think of it like you've just learned that you need a different strategy.  Whatever you did didn't work so you had to re think the situation - which is not a mistake simply exploration and discovery! Thomas Edison once remarked 'I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work'. I understand why when it comes to interiors not so many people want to push boundaries - if it goes wrong its a big waste of time and money which most of us don't have bundles of. Understand that - but that fear of things going wrong prevents us from doing nothing at all and putting up with bland. Who wants bland - plus you don't need oodles of money paint is the cheapest, quickest and most transformative thing you can do to any room in your house. I sound like a preacher - I'm stopping its Monday morning 6am after all. Throughout the day I am posting on here and all my other social media channels some of the amazing work that has been submitted for Open Call. Hope you guys like - from art to ceramics there are a lot of very creative people in the world. Please forgive me if I haven't gotten back to everyone with comments and advice we have had hundreds of submissions. The first submission I want to start with isn't a product as such, its actually from a designer - Kathryn Reid who wrote that my blog and musings have inspired her to set up her own interior design business - AMAZING (have to say I was incredibly touched).  Kathryn also wrote that she isn't good at self promotion, I think alot of women suffer from that, alot of creative people suffer from that also, me included and it holds us back so much. So I'm going to do a bit of self promotion for Kathryn and wish her the best best of luck (not that she needs luck) with her newly launched interior design business. The image below is a corner of Kathryn's kitchen and the holding page on her website. I hope you like me agree it’s pretty fabulous - I wish you the hugest success Kathryn. Back later with two more submissions x