Seats for sun-seekers

Intermittent sunshine, sporadic rain showers - what's the British weather if not unpredictable? 

As we race towards the end of summer, many, if not all of us will be clutching onto the last bits of warmth with all our might. So when the sun does beam it's last few rays upon us, we're thinking about grabbing light, portable furniture and heading to the garden - move over shade! Here are our top five grab-and-go seats for sun-seekers.

1. The Deck chair - a hard to beat classic.

2. Habitat's adorable fold-down Rosso table (a snip with nearly 50% off in the sale). 

3. Quite the modern chairs to match - shhh, they're from Ikea!

4. French-inspired vintage love seat - arrives flat and can be easily flattened again to store.

5. Remember these? A kid's-classic and an utter steal at 99p from eBay, too.

Make your own vintage bunting

With a summer of celebrations upon us (first The Queen’s Jubilee, and soon, the Olympics), now couldn’t be a better time to festoon your home with decorations – vintage, lace-laden ones of course!

All you need to make your own vintage bunting is a selection of old doilies (fabric ones, though paper ones would work too – just use glue instead of sewing them). You can often buy a bundle on eBay, or if you’re lucky, someone in your family may have an stash simply waiting for a use.

Once you’ve got your doilies – big or small, the more variety the better – all you need to do is cut each one in half.  Find, or buy, a length of cream-hued bias binding that’s wide enough to slip cut doilies in-between the fold.

Arrange your cut doilies as you’d like them to sit on the finished bunting, slipping them into the bias binding and pinning them in place. Once ready, stitch the entire length of the binding down on a sewing machine and voila - your very own vintage bunting.