So I had intended to share a little tour of the Manchester Craft Centre with you today. But I got distracted last night looking at old holiday photos, and this got me thinking.

I love making art for our Nest. I know you can just head out to Ikea and pick up some pretty nice prints for practically nothing, but I still prefer making my own. In particular I like playing around with photos, and Photoshop.

For example, I have a set of blue and red photos in the kitchen (all taken while on holiday in the Greek islands especially for this purpose) - we bought the copyright to our wedding photos (natch) and I used some of them to make a huge multi-window for our bedroom - and one of my Christmas presents to Andre a few weeks ago was a large printed photo of a beautiful view in Provence (where we are intending to move permanently in a few years).

If Manchester is ever again blessed with some sunlight instead of drizzly snow, I'll go round and take some photos of the various 'artworks' I've created, and share them with you all.

My next project is to make some art for our staircase, which is currently looking rather bare. But that's OK - I'm perfectly happy to live with some blank spaces in our Nest while we wait for the perfect accessory, picture or item of furniture to find us.

I saw this photo in Design*Sponge on Monday and thought it was awesome:

Our dinky little staircase is exactly the same shape, and I think I'm going to totally copy this idea. I love that although the pictures are a mix of photos and frames, they still feel cohesive thanks to the dark, angular surrounds and light mounts.

The photos in the D*S staircase mostly seem to be of people. But as I'm already planning a wall of family photos for our home office, I think I'll do a wall of travel photos on the staircase.

Check out these snaps of Venice, which are just begging to be taken off the PC and hung on the wall:

Damn, Venice is one fine city. If you haven't been, go there immediately (if not sooner). It's incredible. You walk around, thinking 'any minute now, I'll find the ugly bit'. People, there is no ugly bit. The entire city centre is like a film-set. Just amazing. And ignore the rumours that it smells - it doesn't. At least, it doesn't in spring and autumn. Oh, and stay in Cannaregio. That's where the locals live. San Marco is strictly for turisticos. And the best thing about Venice? There's nothing to do. Once you've been on a gondola, that's pretty much it. So you're compelled to spend all day wandering happily along the canals from cafe to restaurant to bar. Sigh. It's a tough life.

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Travel: A perfect Paris bistro

Garden: The magical Nest by night

Family: Some things I'm thankful to have in my life