Wedding week: The honeymoon – romance on wheels

Wedding week: The honeymoon – romance on wheels

Just forty miles from Edinburgh, deep in the Scottish Borders, is Roulotte Retreat, a collection of colourful, sumptuously furnished romany caravans encircling a little loch in a wildflower meadow. Yes really. The pretty town of Melrose is nearby but this feels like another world.   Avril and Alan Berry first dreamt up the idea of a gypsy caravan retreat in 2008.  From then it was a long quest to realise their vision of exquisite, quality holiday accommodation. 'We

Wedding week: do yourself a favour

Beyond the plastic horseshoe… Available exclusively from Cox and Cox these badges are designed to be a wedding party icebreaker. They feature phrases such as 'my shoes are killing me' and 'I love the groom' which are funnier the truer they are, especially if the latter isn't worn by the bride. They are available in black, white and pink and cost £10.50 for 12. Glasgow based designers Showpony have come up with

Wedding week: the invitation – get off to a stylish start

This great mixtape design is by Minneapolis letterpress printers Studio on Fire who seem to approach their work with a degree of wit not always in evidence when it comes to weddings. Hello Lucky, run by sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle, is well established in the wedding invite field with bases in London and San Francisco. Clients include Anthropologie, Kate's Paperie and Liberty of London.   These simple designs are part of a range of

Tales from Allotment 65 – No 1

  by Nicki Slater, owner of The Imagination Workshop, Edinburgh   After being on the waiting list for six years I’m so happy to finally have an allotment, two minutes from my house and in a beautiful sunny spot. Frustratingly I can’t start work in it until the current tenants leave on 30 April, but I’ve started planning and planting seeds in pots. Veggie gardening is a totally new experience

Sally Pring – Illustrator

Here are some examples of the hugely appealing, unfussy work of London based illustrator Sally Pring. A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Sally has taken on many editorial and advertising commissions for clients such as Time Out, Scottish Arts Council, Nokia and The Guardian. You can buy Sally’s work from her website with signed silk screen prints starting at £120 unframed and £190 framed and digital prints starting at

Deeply felt dogs … by Domenica More Gordon

Brad Pitt has phoned about them, Pete Townsend owns them and their first exhibition was an instant sell out.   These brilliant felt wool dogs are the creation of Domenica More Gordon, an East Lothian artist who trained at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London and used to be the american west coast editor for British Elle Decoration. It all started when Domenica and a group of friends

New York, Paris, Scotland: photography exclusive

We are great admirers of Scottish photographer Kevin McCollum’s work and are delighted to announce that a collection of his prints are now available exclusively through Avocado Sweet. Kevin has created a series of beautiful photographs called Around the World.  Four images which complement each other in terms of subject and composition have been curated to give the visual impact seen in galleries.  Above, left to right are Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Chrysler

Germany: time to forgive and forget Blue Nun

  By Shane Dunning, of WoodWinters wine merchant and wholesaler based in Bridge of Allan and Edinburgh.   I think it is fair to say that in the UK a large percentage of the wine buying public have issues with German wine. Most people, when quizzed, would admit to having preconceptions about German wine mainly based on bad experiences with semi-sweet supermarket whites like Liebfraumilch, Black Tower and Blue Nun.

Germany: Soho Architektur – simple and effective

Some great looking work here from award winning architectural practice Soho Architektur. Based in Memmingen in Germany,  the firm specialises in simple, sustainable designs which sit well in their environments. The house below is particularly pleasing in that  it looks entirely livable and practical while being attractive and contemporary – the ideal new build. Perhaps the next generation of Wimpey houses will look like this. Great to see a fresh take on