Ideas

Ideas is the ultimate guide to fresh, modern living for women with creative flair and a passion for life. These women care for their families and the people around them and cherish them by expressing their own individuality in everything they do. They love to entertain and decorate their home with their unique style. The magazine provides an outlet for creativity and offers readers practical, creative content that transforms the mundane into the extraordinary. It’s a source of inspiration for craft, decor, entertainment and food. Ideas readers are stylish, sophisticated, modern, educated, balanced, creative, warm, caring and passionate.

FROM THE EDITOR

Words to live by

Ideas

WHAT’S NEW • HERE IS OUR LINE-UP OF WHAT'S NEW ON THE BLOCK AND ON THE SHELF.

Words to live by

BEAUTIFUL BAKERY • Bring together an artist and a charming former bakery and baker’s house built in 1625 and you have the recipe for a gorgeous home with loads of character and lots of special corners to discover.

GET TO WORK • Working from home is the new normal, but how do we set up an office in today’s open-plan spaces, and how do we keep it professional and private?

Words to live by

FROZEN FAVOURITES • Cool down this summer with these fruity ice lollies. Treat the kids, and the adults, to their favourite flavours.

CATCH OF THE DAY • RELAX AND ENJOY THE SUNNY SUMMER DAYS WITH ONE OF THESE EASY-TO-PREPARE SEAFOOD MEALS.

FISHY FRIENDS • Keep your knitting needles and pencils neatly together in these cute bags.

SHIBORI STYLE • Use the Japanese shibori dyeing technique to colour your own fabric and make this special dress for the summer.

how to • Shibori is a lot like the tie-dye technique that was so popular in the 1960s: The fabric is knotted or folded before it is dipped into the dye. The sections where the knots and folds are remain uncoloured. Indigo is the traditional dye used, but you can use any colour of your choice. There are lots of knot-and-fold methods, but we’re showing just two of them here, both fairly simple.

FLOWERS IN TURQUOISE • This little cross-over crochet top is ideal for summer.

HERON LOVE • Agnes the Heron is just one of 12 cute birds of Christmas featured in A Partridge in a Pear Tree. At one a month for the rest of this year, you could have them all done by December.

STITCH IT PRETTY • Have fun with this easy embroidery project.

MUSSEL BOWLS • Decorate mussel shells with patterned paper and a touch of gold and use them at your next dinner party as salt and pepper pots.

GOOD CATCH • Make these cute fish by cutting basic shapes from polymer clay and decorating them with coloured designs.

FLOWER POWER COW • Get some flowers onto the wall and smiles onto everyone’s faces with this cute cow wall vase.

STAY SAFE • Give the solitary bees in your garden a safe nesting site by adding this gorgeous bee hotel to your garden plans.

PICTURE PERFECT • Carve pretty stamps from linoleum and use them to organise your home.

CONNECT THE DOTS • When we look back at our life, we can use dots and lines, much as we did in childhood, to connect events and experiences. Apple founder Steve Jobs’s ‘connecting the dots’ theory has become a life philosophy for many; a way to find meaning again and to move on.

Words to live by

STITCH, CRAFT, REPEAT • Feeling a little stressed, anxious, or frantic? Try one of these repetitive crafts to help you refocus.

stitchcraft • Take your time making an embroidered birthday calendar.

NATURAL STENCIL • Do plant-inspired printing with leaves, twigs and flowers from your garden. We used this technique to add a personal touch to a plain white top.

MAKE YOUR OWN STENCIL • There is...