Day out to the Big City

As my husband Tom is running the London Marathon on Sunday and had to pick up his race number in person at the Expo at Excel, we decided to make a day of it. Our first port of call was the V&A for the British Design 1948-2012 exhibition.

Image from V&A

I'm really glad I got to see this, as I think it might be my last trip to London before the baba makes an appearance, also it reminded me of how innovative we British are. I'm very proud to think that some of the biggest design revolutions have started here on this small island. The exhibition covers everything from town planning to fashion and furniture design from some of the most significant moments in British history and is well worth a see if you get a chance. It's also very nice to browse the shelves of the V&A shop, even if just for inspiration.

We then met a couple of friends for a bite to eat, and headed to Liberty for a spot of window shopping. As the Olympics is not far away, apparently less than 100 days to go! Liberty and Nike have done a collaboration to produce some awesome sports wear. I particularly liked the sport red liberty print free 5.0 trainers. I have a pair of Nike free trainers that are like gloves to wear but you wouldn't want to actually wear these, they look too pretty and white to mess up.

Image from Liberty

They also had as part of their display some origami cranes made from Liberty prints. I asked an assistant if they sold the paper so I could recreate them at home but unfortunately not, they had ingeniously photocopied fabrics to make them. Still they were great inspiration for a future project.

Our last stop before the Marathon expo was Anthropologie. I always like to pop into the Regent Street store, and as always I didn't come out empty handed. I bought this very cute ceramic chalkboard storage jar, I made myself feel better by saying it was just a small purchase. I've no idea what I'll put in it, but I just couldn't resist it. Maybe it could hold the chalk for the big chalkboard we plan to have on one wall in the dining room, see I knew there was a legitimate reason for buying it!

Image from Anthropologie