Customise and Embellish.

Every now and then a girl has to re-arrange things a bit.

A certain amount of re-shabbying goes on, this time inspired by a day in bed reading lovely books.

It's almost worth feeling poorly to have the excuse to just indulge, sleep and indulge again.

Rachel Ashwell's new book is just a pure confection.

The Granny has vowed to strew lilacs across her feet in the manner of Rachel on the front cover.

Never mind that we don't actually have any lilacs.

We have climbing hydrangeas that are equally frothy.

All the text across my photos is from a gorgeous book I got from the library

called Boudoir, by Hilary Robertson.

She categorises the many styles of romantic and vintage glamorising of the boudoir in the most resounding way.

I find I am strongly inclined toward the "material girl", with a strong influence of "vintage girl" and a dash of "boho".

She says, "the danger of vintage is that the whole thing can become madly busy and "Grannyish", but the vintage girl avoids this by balancing pattern with plenty of white paint on the walls."

"...a collection of mismatched rosy china cups is infinitely more charming than a conventional tea set."

Material girl has "magpie instincts" which draw her toward anything decorative or glittery.

"...Material girl is more likely to hang a particularly delicious frock on the wall than tuck it away in a wardrobe..."

"She likes nothing better than to scour flea markets and thrift shops for crepe de chine slips or floral tea dresses."

"...fondant shades of pistachio, lilac, duck-egg blue and sugared almond pink are mixed and matched with abandon".

...no -one can tell you how to be eccentric, but if you follow your heart you will inevitably get the "boho" look..."

...Material girl has never graduated from childhood's dressing up phase..."

I just love the text in this book. It's spontaneous and insightful and not in any way cliched.

Rachel tends to be a little bit NOT these things sometimes.

Have a lovely weekend Blog Chics.