Pretend Play And My Dream Kitchen.

Continuing my blog in a similar nostalgic theme, I can't help finding inspiration from my own childhood. Whether it be the novelty cakes we ate, to the tent cubby houses that we hid in with all the stuffed animals or the pretend shopping and tea parties. Pretending to be a grown-up was a popular past-time.

There was always tea to be poured, dollies to be bathed or given haircuts (or massacred as mine all were!), to making mud cakes and eating pretend plastic food. Pretend play is part of childhood. For a child such as myself with a vivid imagination, my parents encouraged it and helped us build elaborate cubby houses.

I've tried to create similar play spaces in my house for the children. Our boys were running between each other's rooms so much that we decided to cut a hole/secret door in the wall and gyprock it up to make it into a secret passage way. This has been a huge hit with our boys and other children who visit.

Some parents who have visited are shocked we made the opening in the wall, but also pleasantly surprised at how such a simple idea created such a fun play space. And in any case, it can be simply gyprocked up and painted back over once they are older (and sick of each other!), others none the wiser.

Therefore what about a porthole in a sailors mock bedroom. Or a little raised platform/stage for a budding little thespian to hold a show. A bedroom or playroom can be as simple or elaborate as your imagination takes you.

One of the things most parents lament is the lack of pretend play in children today. They would rather play playstation or Wii to pretending to have a tea party. Or watch TV rather than planning a trip to the moon in their rocketship.

A teacher once told me that they are now having to teach pretend play!

It is wonderful to see designers incorporating pretend play into their furniture and decor. Even garden landscapers are now creating "garden rooms" for children to play and explore. It may be more sophisticated now but it is still heartening to see.

Which brings me to my dream kitchen. This would have been my perfect play room. For someone who loves her kitchen and also running a store, I can imagine myself playing as a child in this kitchen. To be honest, I would love this mini-version for myself even now! I don't know quite what I'd do with it but it is so adorable.

Pictures from Pottery Barn US

I hope you've gained some inspiration from this blog. Think back to when you were a child and the ideas will flow!

My Favourite Find Today...

My favourite finds today are actually new items in my store. Be prepared to "ooh" and "ahh" at their cuteness. I am loving red, white and blue at the moment. I will call it my Tommy Hilfiger phase.

My Bed Is My Boat...

I'm always asked where my inspiration comes from. It comes from everywhere.

What I see, experience and memories from my childhood. Some of my current artworks are Pirates and Pirate maps. When I was decorating my son's bedroom I remembered how I loved Robert Louis Stevenson as a child. Here is one of my favourite poems and it is one I read to my boys when they were small. I always had a similar way of seeing the world and was a bit of a dreamer too.

My Bed is a Boat

by Robert Louis Stevenson

My bed is like a little boat

Nurse helps me in when I embark;

She girds me in my sailor's coat

And starts me in the dark.

At night I go on board and say

Good-night to all my friends on shore;

I shut my eyes and sail away

And see and hear no more.

And sometimes things to bed I take,

As prudent sailors have to do;

Perhaps a slice of wedding-cake,

Perhaps a toy or two.

All night across the dark we steer;

But when the day returns at last,

Safe in my room beside the pier,

I find my vessel fast.

From "A Child's Garden of Verses" (1885)

By Robert Louis Stevenson

Picture from "Pottery Barn" in the US.

As a child of Scottish parents, Robert Louis Stevenson was well known to me. Not only was he a famous author, but he was also a poet. A Child’s Garden of Verses is a book of poetry for children. Stevenson dedicated the poems to his nurse Cummy (Alison Cunningham), who cared for him during his many childhood illnesses. As a very sick child (most biographies state he had TB as a child), he dreamed of his bed being a boat that would take him away. Considering that Stevenson spent many years in his bed, it is a very personal poem.

Another beautiful poem is "The Land of Nod" where only children can visit when they are asleep. In "Pirate Story" the garden becomes the setting for pirate adventures.

Here is some fascinating information which will give you a background to the inspiration for my artworks. It is from http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/ (the official Robert Louis Stevenson site in Scotland)

A fortuitous turning-point in Stevenson’s life occurred when on holiday in Scotland in the summer of 1881. The cold rainy weather forced the family to amuse themselves indoors, and one day Stevenson and his twelve-year-old stepson, Llyod (Fanny’s son by her first marriage), drew, coloured and annotated the map of an imaginary "Treasure Island". The map stimulated Stevenson’s imagination and, "On a chill September morning, by the cheek of a brisk fire" he began to write a story based on it as an entertainment for the rest of the family.

Treasure Island (published in book form in 1883) marks the beginning of his popularity and his career as a profitable writer, it was his first volume-length fictional narrative, and the first of his writings "for children"(or rather, the first of writings manipulating the genres associated with children). Later works that fit into this category are A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), The Black Arrow (1883), Kidnapped (1886) and its continuation Catriona (1893).


This is my Pirate Map artwork and I can imagine Stevenson sitting down with children and designing one. My boys have this artwork in their rooms as the fascination with pirates, secret lands and treasure still remains today.