Getting into the festive spirit: Alastair Hendy's Christmas House in Hastings

Food writer and stylist Alastair Hendy has created a Tudor escape in the middle of Hastings' Old Town. The Christmas House, or 135 All Saints Street, is one of the most complete Tudor houses in Hastings. Hendy has meticulously stripped it back to its original form, transforming the former town mortuary into a cosy haven of open log fireplaces and traditional enclosed wooden beds. Stepping into the low door, you really are taken back in time. For fives pounds entry fee, you get to see this lovingly restored project, plus a little tumbler of spiced mulled wine in the kitchen.

The house is also the setting of Hendy's fairytale, The Elves & The Baker, which is beautifully illustrated in an accompanying Christmas House storybook given on entry. The best bit being the delicious recipes in the back- mulled fruit and nut christmas chocolate bar, almond and cherry sugar hearts, flowerpot baked ginger cakes and advent pretzels.

This is the second venture of Hendy, the first is his Home Store on the High Street in Hastings Old Town (most of the images below are of the Home Store). AG Hendy & Co Home Store is a purveyor of candle sticks, vintage kitchen ware, linen tea towels and traditional tools. The back room also serves as a little kitchen or impromtu restaurant, where you can eat seaside delights such as cod fish stew, soused cucumber, fennel and black pepper, and crab bisque.

Images: Alastair Hendy

Vintage Amusement Arcade in Brighton

How cute are these old penny arcade games? If you want a change from the screaming rollercoasters or the games with a chance of winning a giant cuddly toy– which you never really want when you get home– then head to this little gem tucked underneath the King's Road arches. Here you'll find a small range of old-school games– the weird, wacky and wonderful– from the late Victorians to the mid Twentieth Century. 

Images my own

Artist Ben Giles collages, an apt post after Stella McCartney's Spring 2012 Campaign below

Images: Ben Giles, via Amateur Couture

Union Jacks by Blacksheep for Jamie Oliver

London-based design agency Blacksheep have recently completed this British-inspired pizza and flatbread restaurant for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Located in the Lego building by Renzo Piano in Central St Giles, the restaurant has a nostalgic vintage feeling, almost like that of an old American diner. Visitors can watch the chefs at work on vintage television sets, whilst beralware-inspired plates have a cheeky message when turned over, stating "stop looking at my bottom". A large neon sign is balanced atop a cinema style menu board that reads the wood-fired pizzas and toppings, created both by Jamie Oliver and US 'pizza master' Chris Bianco. Thought has gone down to every last detail, including objects collected by Jamie on his travels and knitted 1970's style tea cosies on the cafe tables outside. 

Images: Dezeen

Oliver Peoples glasses

I have recently been lusting and swooning after a chic pair of Oliver Peoples glasses ever since I tried on a tortoise-shell pair in a Brighton optician. A few months later I saw a shop assistant in a fashionable Old Street boutique wearing a similar pair, and knew it was time to for-goe the contact lenses and go back to old-school chunky eyewear. 

Above is a melancholic and brooding illustration by artist Paul X Johnson, titled Behold a Pale Horse. His images depict classic beauties in a greyed-out world, brooding into the distance with the obligatory ebony slicked back hair and venomous lips. Below that is an image of actor Gregory Peck, as Atticus Finch in the classic film of To Kill A Mockingbird, which has inspired a new vintage style for Oliver Peoples to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the literary novel. 

Images: Oliver Peoples

Vintage Vogue Covers

 Images: myvintagevogue

Today I Discovered...

Anna Malmberg Photography.

These beautifully vintage and nostalgic photographs of interiors are by Swedish Anna Malmberg.