Image: Design Soda
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The clocks have gone back and today is Halloween, my goodness where has all the time gone? We’ve had the odd day with a crispness in the air and a whole lot of mellow fruitfulness (some of the flowers that keep going in the garden continue to amaze me) but next weekend will be bonfire night (and our sons second birthday) and after that, as far as I’m concerned, gloves are off in relation to Christmas! With this in mind, I’ve begun to get the house ready for the holidays (by which I mean I’ve started the deep clean and sending things to charity to make room for the immense collection of presents that accompanies a little person at this time of year). We are already hygge-d up for winter (see post here) but I’m also starting to think about how I want our home to look during our first proper Christmas in the new house (no storage boxes or grotty decor for us this year, no sir!).
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Image: Design Soda
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If there’s one store that I always, always look to for festive ideas it has to be Cox & Cox, they are a winter staple and institution for me and I always find that come September I am perusing their new ranges and choosing my favourites to buy. I’ve bought many things from them over the last decade from vases to antlers, chairs and soap dispensers to towels, pictures and trinkets to wall features. But it’s in the winter that I seem to pick up most, from Christmas wreaths and garlands to decorations, trees and lights, Cox & Cox produce an outstanding array of Nordic inspired Christmas pieces that are super stylish and can be brought out year after year. Of the four posts I’ve done on Christmas decorating since the blog started, three out of four have included Cox & Cox pieces in their central image, which goes some way towards illustrating just how much of a winter staple this company are for me.
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Image: Design Soda
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So you can imagine my delight when Cox & Cox recently invited me to pick some wares from their latest range to sample – yes a bit like a child at Christmas! I have chosen a selection of smaller items to test out within winter styling ideas for the home and I’m really happy with all the pieces. This is a great company to go to for finishing touches in the home, they are pretty well guaranteed to be both stylish and well made and entirely able to be styled to kitsch effect if that’s your leaning (definitely mine). The decorative miniature fir tree that you see in both of the two images above is a really cute little piece that tickled me. It’s classier than traditional cake toppers and takes heavy inspiration from Scandinavian-winter-white-style where it could be placed on window sills amongst so many twinkley lights (either candles or fairy) and look super stunning. As I lean slightly nearer to the unsophisticated at this time of year I have other plans for them! There was a craze of sticking them on toy cars a few years back which looked really cool, but I rather like them amongst the old-school pinecones and the kitsch Christmas deer which I bought from Amsterdam a few years ago. I just love fir trees, in fact we have the deer and tree combination on permanent display in our bedroom under a cloche (I told you I was Christmas mad). This particular tree from Cox & Cox is both pretty and lifelike (but in miniature if you see what I mean!) and I’m sorely tempted to buy more of them, apart from anything else our little person is quite obsessed with the one we have and I don’t fancy my chances in the battle of wills coming out the victor of ownership. You can buy a similar deer from Cox & Cox’s new collection here, the fir tree is £10.50 available here.
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Image: Design Soda
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Of all the items I asked the company to send me, this storage basket (above), which comes as a set of three, was the piece I was most excited about. They had been on my wish-list for a little while so it was without hesitation that they were the first item I chose. I find that as the toddler-to-toy-chaos ratio increases around here ad-hoc changeable storage solutions are the thing we most need to keep the home looking stylish (and to stop me tripping on a miniature red truck after an evening of gin!). However finding stylish baskets that work in adult spaces and that aren’t really boring or super pedestrian can be a bit of a mission. We have a few nice ones with geometric prints and some patterned wicker ones from Africa & Scandinavia but I am always on the look for the perfect set. I love everything about the design of these understated beauties, they are truly minimal and neutral but not in the least boring, I love the diamonds, the fabric, the colour, the Scandinavian feel, the leather straps and their shape-holding-sturdiness!
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Image: Design Soda
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One of the (many) things that’s really nice about these baskets is that you can either have them for disparate uses in different spaces (as I have chosen) or cluster them together really stylishly within one area to hold a range of items. I am definitely keeping the one in the top image for the bedroom as it’s the perfect size for my magazine hoarde. But the second image, styled with pinecones, is a great winter addition, especially for homes like ours that have Victorian fireplaces but none of them in working order yet. Of course when we finally get around to restoring the living room fireplace it would work perfectly as a chic log store. They are really well made, so I can’t see them bowing to wear and tear in the way that a lot of less sturdy storage solutions do. You can buy all three for £60 here.
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Image: Design Soda
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This blush mink velvet cushion in the shot above was a bit of a no-brainer choice for me, it’s so plush and of course the colour of 2016 (as named by me, Pantone may have got close with rose quartz and Dulux completely wrong with cherished gold, but hindsight is a great position to trend forecast from!). Happily blush pink has been one of my staple favourites to accent with forever so I’ve been in great luck this year. It’s also in velvet which is another big trend coming your way next year (thank you 1970’s) but the other reason I chose it was because of its purse friendly price point, for something so pretty made of both good quality velvet and linen and complete with its own cushion liner this is a pretty great item in exchange for a £20 note, take a look here. And look at those caneles on the marble board, so yummy, if you haven’t tried them you must, I could write a whole other post about those, no I really could!
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Image: Design Soda
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These stars are just so lovely, I bought some similar scatter stars from Cox & Cox several years ago that we use for festive dining in our home, they really cheer a table setting and I love them. These new ones come in three different designs, some are plain wood (my favourite) some are brushed with copper and some with gold in a distressed leaf effect. They are actually hanging stars and would look great on a tree, especially in the metallics when they catch the light, but the string they come hung on can easily be detached, I think they would look super pretty scattered on a coffee table over an evening of winter cocktails. You can buy them here. Im thrilled with all of my pieces, what would you choose from the latest Cox & Cox collection, do you have your eye on anything and how would you work them within your home for winter? There is currently 20% off all orders until 20 November using the code “CHRISTMAS16“.
This post is a collaboration with Cox & Cox, as always, opinions are my own (honest) thoughts and I only work with brands that I find interesting and think that you will too.
