DIY Getting the home fires burning CHRISTMAS GIFTS Are you a ...

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8 November 2003 Online: www.thisisthenortheast.co.ukshoppingGLASS ACT:colourful designsfrom Serendipitywindow shoppingTHE WHITE STUFFWHATEVER your personal style,a palette of soft off-whites isideal for creating a comfortable,spacious look in your home.Now Arthouse, a leadingwallcovering design studio, haslaunched its minimalist MadisonCollection. Available in stylishwhite and cream, it has a subtletextural appearance with adelicate shimmering scrolleddesign element within.There are two ranges,Madison Block for the veryutmost in contemporaryminimalist design, and MadisonScroll, which has a slightly moreBRAIN GAMEWHAT do William Shakespeare,Elvis Presley, Marcel Marceauand Albert Einstein have incommon? Well, apart from beingrather famous, they would makethe best Cranium team ever.Voted Game of the Year,Cranium is the perfect way toget together with your friendsand have a roaring laugh. Thegame gives everyone the chanceto shine, with 14 fun-fuelledactivities ranging fromimpersonating celebrities,humming, miming, spellingbackwards and sculpting objectsclassical twist. Around £12.99per 10m roll, from Focus andother leading retailersnationwide. For stockistenquiries, call 01706 239600.with super-cool Cranium clay.Taking about an hour to play, theobject of Cranium is to get yourteam round the board,completing as many fun-packedtasks to reach Cranium Centralwhere you have to complete allof the activities to be crownedas winners.Cranium consists of fourgroups of activities: CreativeCat: can you sculpt beans ontoast? Word Worm: can you spell‘asparagus’ backwards? DataHead: who was the UK’s firstEurovision Song Contest winner?Star Performer: can youimpersonate the naked chef,Jamie Oliver?With more than one milliongames sold, Cranium is thefastest selling independentgame in history. £29.95 fromDebenhams, John Lewis, Toys RUs, Virgin Megastores,WH Smith and otherretailers nationwide,www.playcranium.comArt and food sit side-by-side in a new North-East gallery.CHRISTEN PEARS reports❛There is a real wealthof talent in the North-East but it isn’t easy forpeople to get recognised– artist and shop owner Maralyn O’KeefeSERENDIPITY – the gift ofmaking a fortunate discoveryby accident – or in this case, afabulous combination of artgallery and coffee shop in thecentre of Wolsingham. It’s difficult to tellwhich is more tempting: the home-madejams, chutneys and cakes or theglassware, silver jewellery and ceramics.The gallery is the brainchild of glassartist Maralyn O’Keefe and her husbandRon, who already own the successfulGlass and Art Gallery in Consett. Theyspotted their new premises quite byaccident, while having a meal at arestaurant across the street.“It wasn’t part of our plans but we sawit and thought, ‘Why not?’ People werealways saying to us at Consett that weshould have a coffee shop but we simplydidn’t have the room. This was perfect –too good an opportunity to miss,” saysMaralyn.Once the couple had decided to goahead, they spent weeks agonising overthe choice of name. The Glass and ArtGallery simply didn’t convey the coffeeshop aspect but then Maralyn came upwith the idea of Serendipity.“I was lying in bed one night and theword just popped into my head. I thoughtit meant pure good fortune. But I got upand looked it up in the dictionary to makesure. It fits perfectly.”Serendipity, a stone building right onthe Market Place, was a tea rooms beforethe O’Keefes took over, and a draper’sshop before that. An old-fashioned, glassfronted cabinet runs along the back of thecoffee shop, stacked with honey, chutneysand preserves. There is also a temptingselection of cakes, biscuits, flapjacks, icecream and fudge, even free range eggs.Everything is produced locally.“It’s all hand-made, nothing massproducedlike you can buy in asupermarket,” explains Maralyn.Woven baskets hang from hooks in theceiling, giving it a homely, cottagey feeland there is artwork throughout, even inthe loo.“It’s all part of the feel and theatmosphere I wanted to create,” saysMaralyn, who’s so interested in even thesmallest details she’s planning to makegingham lid covers for the jam jars.Running the coffee shop has been a newexperience for Maralyn, who confesses tobeing a complete amateur in the kitchen,but she has bought herself a library ofcookery books and plans to make her owncakes and soups.
HappyaccidentPictures: CHRIS TINSLEYwindow shoppingNovember 2003 Online: www.thisisthenortheast.co.ukWIN A WASHABLE DUVET SETYOU can now enjoy the luxury ofa natural duck down duvet withthe convenience of homewashability. Snuggledown haslaunched Wash & Dry Me, asumptuous range of duck down duvetsand pillows that can be washedand dried at home.The Wash & Dry Me range can besafely washed in a domestic machineat 60°C and can be dried on both aline and in a tumble dryer. This is thefirst product of its kind in the UK, andas washing at 60°C eliminates dustmites from your bedding, it’s a greatstep forward for people with allergies.Snuggledown Wash & Dry Me rangehas a recommended retail pricestarting from £130 for a 10.5 togdouble duvet and £60 for a pillow.The range is available in House ofFraser, Allders, Harrods, AIS, Fenwicksand all independent quality retailers.For more information log on towww.snuggledown.co.uk or call(01942) 402687.CHOCOLATE HEAVEN9HOW TO ENTERThe Northern Echo has teamed upwith Snuggledown to offer a Wash &Dry Me duvet and pillow set worth£250 to one lucky winner. Just tell uswhat temperature you can wash theSnuggledown range at. Answers, bythe end of the month, on a postcardor back of an envelope toSnuggledown Competition, NEMagazine, Features, The NorthernEcho, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF.GREEN & Black’s has launched two newlimited edition bars, which are 50 percent bigger and contain 50 per cent moreluxurious, organic ingredients. Those wholike a fruity tang to their chocolate shouldindulge in the cherry bar – a tempting mixof full flavoured whole cherries, smotheredin smooth dark chocolate with 60 per centcocoa solids. The hazelnut, almond andBrazil nut bar is made using the company’s darker shade of milkchocolate. Green & Black’s source the finest organic ingredients to makethe most luxurious, indulgent chocolate possible. Now available in majorsupermarkets, good health food stores and delicatessens, Kylie and JerryHall are both big fans of the range.Generally though, Maralyn will bespending most of her time at Consett,where she has her workshop and studio,while Ron looks after things inWolsingham, although she will be runningstained glass-making courses like the onesalready established at Consett.The walls of the gallery are covered withdrawings and paintings and the shelvesare packed with ceramics and glass work,wooden boxes and greetings cards – allmade by North-East artists. Regularvisitors to The Glass and Art Gallery willrecognise some of the names but Maralynhopes there will eventually be no overlapbetween the artists in the two galleries.There are already half a dozen Weardaleartists with work on show.“The two galleries have very differentatmospheres and I want the artwork to bedifferent as well. I don’t want it to be like asupermarket where it doesn’t matterwhich branch you go into because it’s allexactly the same,” she says.Some of the artists are professionals,including the internationally-renownedSheila Mackie, but many are amateurswhom Maralyn is keen to promote. Otherthan the occasional art and craft show,most have no outlet for their work. If theywant to show in a gallery, they usuallyhave to rent a space and pay commissionand can end up losing money – somethingMaralyn, who worked as a PA beforebecoming a full-time artist, knows fromfirst hand experience.Many of the artists who have showntheir work at the Consett gallery havegone on to become professional artists, likeex-miner Bill Hindmarsh, who turned upfour years ago with a carrier bag full ofpictures depicting life underground. Hehas since held exhibitions of his workacross the country.“There is a real wealth of talent in theNorth-East but it isn’t easy for people toget recognised,” says Maralyn. “We hopethat what we’re doing is changing that.”Serendipity, 10 Market Place,Wolsingham, (01388) 526800.The Glass and Art Gallery, 194Medomsley Road, Consett, (01207) 583353.Web site www.glassdesign.co.uk
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