I'm not exaggerating: I would not have a business if it weren't for Martha Stewart. Pregnant, I pored over every single page of every MS Baby issue in 2002. Those ice-cream colours. That buttery photography. Those bebes. Pure sweetness. The fall issue (I still see the cover: grey-blue background, dark-haired cherub wearing a white cotton-eared hat. Sigh.) featured a menagerie of ceramic flower planters from the 1950s- lambs, scottie dogs, puppies - holding Q-tips, cotton balls, a tiny hair brush. Darling.
Inspired, at last! I had a theme! Decorating ennui gone (everything I loved was too expensive. everything else was hideous) I set off to kit-out baby's room with authentic vintage finds. First stop Aberfoyle. And would you believe within five minutes I'm staring at a table full of the very planters featured in MS Baby? The Gods were with me that day people, the Gods were with me. I bought every one for $5 a pop. Next I found a hand-stitched teddy bear wearing a pork-pie hat, spectacles and leather spats. Spats! $10. A child's lamp from the 1950s with a pom-pom-trimmed shade was $15. For $3 a piece I picked up sheets of paper dolls from the 1940s and framed them simply in painted wood frames. The room was simple, peaceful and adorable. Neither of us tired of it. The whole thing cost less than $500, including the crib.
I loved that magazine and now it's gone. I'll miss it.
Mr. Scottie, above, lives on today in Henry's room.
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