Marking its centenary year, Chelsea Flower Show 2013 certainly didn’t disappoint. With the world’s eyes on this tiny 11 acre site in West London, our visit to Chelsea was an assault on the senses. With 150,000 visitors through the gates over 5 days, there was no doubt that it is still the mecca for plant and garden lovers! From heady scents to vivid blooms there was no end of inspiration for your home, surrounded by such fantastic colors. I came back to Suffolk full of plans for filling my rooms with floral patterns. Here are some of the highlights from this year’s show, and some choices for fabrics and soft furnishings that may help you bring a little bit of Chelsea magic home with you!

We have a winner !
We had some fantastic responses to our question of where would you put our Samworth Glass Oil Lamp.

Here’s a few of our spring favourites from our range to inspire you this Easter.

The lovely duck egg blue Barbican pendant is a wonderful spring colour. The soft tone of blue could really lighten the mood of a room and would look delicious hanging over the breakfast table or highlighting your favourite picture frame in the living room.

As soon as I saw the Cole and Son Birch wall paper I knew we had found a seriously stylish couple of local florists.

Lovely Jane (pictured here) and Libby listened to all my slightly mad thoughts for the spring mini brochure and then got to work suggesting some rather cool ideas.

One of my real favorites was definitely the gold fish bowl of tulips (brilliant Libby!)

With the plans for the shoot all in place, the following Thursday I took the trusty Volvo round to their shop in Ipswich and completely filled it to the gunnels with all manner of spring gorgeousness.

We headed down to the Design Centre at Chelsea harbour yesterday for the London Design Week. Full of ideas , trends for 2013 and a amazing style inspiration, Chelsea harbour is always a fantastic place to visit for anyone with an interest in interior design .

The harbour was looking particularly lovely this week bursting with of hyacinths and cheery blossom it really felt like spring had arrived.

We enjoyed a great masterclass in choosing the perfect capsule collection for your home, from some leading lights in design : the renowned Allegra Hicks (who was completely glamorous) , lovely Marianne Cotteral (who was v cool and stylish) and Elenoara Cunietti (who we all agreed would be a great person to go for a glass of wine with).

We then spent a very entertaining hour listening to the brilliant Shaun Clarkson, whose bold colours and design can be seen in many of London’s hottest bars and restaurants, as well as his work with for private clients. He has an infectious laugh and brought a real sense of fun to his talk about his work in design.

Wishing the Jim Lawrence team huge luck today as two of our team take their beautiful dogs to Crufts . They are champions to us already – lets hope the judges agree! Firstly huge luck to Julie Green , one of the talented team of seamstresses who is showing her stunning border terrier ’Stowthorney Swinging Sam’ (Sam).

When she’s not creating beautiful handmade lampshades here at Jim Lawrence, Julie has been working hard to get Sam to show standard.

Things have started well – he’s qualified every year he’s been entered for Crufts so far, but up against 307 other Borders today lets just hope he shows the judges his best side. This could be Sam’s year.

A great treat for any stylish mother this March,  from our range of handmade home furnishings that we think would make a rather sweet gift this Mother’s Day…

Top of the list has to be our new Samworth Oil Lamp. Released just this week, this beautiful little glass oil lamp is just the perfect Mother’s Day gift . The antiqued brass topper gives this oil lamp an old fashioned charm and the delicate hand-blown glass base is reminiscent of a vintage perfume bottle. It will certainly bring style and sparkle to your table this Sunday.

Congratulations to Mrs Jo Cholmeley, whose name Jim drew from the hat yesterday, the winner of our £100 voucher Christmas giveaway!!

Hopefully she’ll treat herself to something lovely for her home this spring from our range of lighting,curtain poles, soft furnishings or perhaps something from our new products.

Mrs Cholmeley viewed our Christmas Style Collection and correctly told us there were three glass pendants are featured in the ‘A Collection of our Glass Pendants’ image : the Holborn Pendant, the Orfila Pendant and the Ava Pendant.

A big thank you to everyone that entered our Christmas competition – watch this space for our next exciting competition in your Spring Newsletter . If you would like to receive our quarterly newsletter bursting with news of new products at Jim Lawrence, helpful styling tips, and of course great competitions, simply enter your email address here.

Moved by the incredible story of a local Cambridge resident, Julie Jones, Jim supplied four of our popular Harrington Wall Lights in Old Gold with Carlyle Shades in French Grey to the family.

The French Grey Carlyle half shades used in the show have a very similar look to the Frost Wardour velvet shade shown here. The Carlyle shade compliments the shape of the Harrington beautifully.

There’s no doubt Julie deserved her amazing make over – already a single mother of three boys, she bravely took on the upbringing of five orphaned children when her best friend, widow Caroline Atkins, tragically died in 2010.

The DIY SOS team set to work to create a beautiful new space that would find enough room for everyone and give Julie the beautifully designed, comfortable home she and her whole family so richly deserved. We can’t wait to see how they get on tonight at 9pm.

At this time of year everyone with an interest in interior design has one thing on their mind (apart from our new brochure of course!) , a trip to Decorex.

Held every year in London, Decorex features a fantastic array of designers with everything from lighting and wall papers to outdoor furniture and artificial flowers on display.

Vivian Westwood’s beautiful design for the show entrance was a great start to the day