Remember that time in school where you got the drawing of yourself on the class tea towel, no? Neither do I, missed that boat, so instead I seek nostalgia in these wonderful tea towels from Keep Calm..

I have a collection of pretty awful tea towels inherited from my Nana:  A Wimbledon one, one with silly cartoon elephants reminiscent of what a plastic fairground elephant might look like and a garish red 70’s floral print, but I do love them. There is something about a tea towel that is integral to a home and I’m sure everyone has once shouted “where’s the tea towel?” It’s something you can keep for years but almost better than a picture in a frame or a poster as you constantly use it.

It’s also a major factor in the “you wash, I’ll dry” which, back in the days of washing-up it was a way of bonding and possibly the most equal task in the home. You don’t see two people using the vacuum at the same time and holding a conversation over the hum. I digress…

I have seen these tea towels around Brighton in many of the local boutique and kitchen shops. They’re very funky and humorous with too many that I like, all very tongue in cheek and the kinds of jokes your dad might come out with which aren’t that funny, but the impulse is to laugh.

As I live with an illustrator she has many of her drawings and prints around the house, my favourite has to be the one that says “keep on being you” with a picture of a cartoon girl. It always makes me feel slightly better about the day ahead!

There are five collections for different tastes, styles and humour to suit. Keep calm gallery also does prints, cards and mugs.

Feature by Elizabeth Danon

Last weekend, myself and a few other Bloggers were invited on a Little Break press trip to Brussels with Eurostar.

It was an eventful day starting at an eye watering 5.30am in order to catch the 6am Eurostar from a very cold St Pancras.  Once we had all tucked into the breakfast and got to know each other a little better, we had arrived.  It seemed so quick.

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Hurray!! We have launched our new online shopping facility with our Christmas Gift Guide.   We have split the shop into four handy price brackets starting with the under £20.  This has some fantastic items on offer including some beautiful silver tea light holders for the center of the table as well as some stunning purple wine glasses.

For the under £50 you can choose from a pretty red table runner and a sophisticated wreath for your front door.

Then we have the under £100 with a very cool red capsule bin with a retro feel.  Finally, we thought it would be fun to create a ‘blow the budget‘ option with a variety of high end gift ideas.  My absolute favourite is the cow hide rug from John Lewis.  Just click the link to the left of the page and take a look…

Over the next few months we will be creating more style shopping pages for every room in the home.  The idea is to create a styled look that you can recreate without the hassle of trying to source all the items yourself.  So, thank you to Liz and all the design team at By The Scruff for working so hard on this and happy shopping to all of our readers!