“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea” ~ Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
All posts in a little DECORATING
vinyl cutting lettering
Dr Suess stories have a wonderful power, they are written so that as an adult I feel like I am six again. My boys love the wild stories and ridiculous rhymes. Our favourite at the moment is a close tie between the Lorax and Oh, the places you’ll go.
Read more…
vintage toy love
I’ve met a kindred spirit. Someone who loves thrifting as much or even more than I do. She has collected so many beautiful vintage toys for her boy that she has built a shelf to display them all on in his room. I had to take some photos to share. I think i’ll have to make some of those little toadstools, they’re soooo cute.
A little organising – the sewing space
It feels a little ironic that I am writing a post about being organised. I told a couple of people who know me well that I intended to do a series of blog posts about how I keep organised and they literally laughed in my face. (Yes, I’m talking about you parents and husband). If you were to describe me, organised wouldn’t be in the top ten ten words on the list, maybe not even the top twenty. I am constantly searching for my reading glasses, my car keys, my phone. I can’t leave the house without having to return for something I left behind, often three, four or five times!
With precious little ‘me time’ at my disposal, I wanted to be a bit more organised. So there is less time looking for things and more time making and doing things. I spend a lot of time reading home decorating magazines and poring over pinterest and I have gathered a few ideas that have revolutionised my life. There is nothing particularly original or unique about these tips but I thought I would share them in case like me, you need start somewhere to calm the domestic chaos.
Over the last few days I have tidied up my sewing space. I always had my fabric stored in a huge basket, it was all folded fairly neat but it was still a pain to find anything and I had no idea what was in there. I saw this and it is nothing short of brilliant. Use rectangle pieces of stiff cardboard to wrap fabric around and store it on the shelf. It’s so clear to see what fabric I have and to take it out and pack away is easy. I chopped up an old packing box for the cardboard so it cost me nothing.
For the smaller pieces I wrapped them around little lengths of cardboard and tucked them into a basket.
And for the tiny scrappy bits, they’re in this big glass jar on my desk.
I have my vintage wooden spools stored in this beautiful old typesetters tray.
I’m lucky enough to have a table where I can have my sewing machine out all the time.
I think my next post will be how I keep all my stationery and crafty bits in order, stay tuned…
Gingerbread Christmas
A few weeks ago I put the question out there ‘what is the earliest socially acceptable date to put up my Christmas tree?’. I had a few really adamant responses and it was pretty much a fifty-fifty split. With half saying I should put it up early November to enjoy Christmas and get into the spirit for a few extra weeks. The others said, I MUST wait until December first or I will be in for a year of bad luck. Yikes. At the risk of tempting fate, this weekend the Christmas tree is out of the box and now sits in all its twinkling glory in the living room.
The best part about decorating the tree is the gingerbread cookies. They smell so, well, Christmassy! I was so determined to have the gingerbread hearts and stars on the tree right away I braved a trip to IKEA on a Saturday with baby and toddler. Let’s just say I was tempted to consume the two bottles of mulled wine I bought then and there. I barely got out with my sanity intact. But look at the results, worth it, no?
Incase you’re wondering, here is my recipe for the icing;
250g icing sugar
1 egg white
tablespoon warm water
Beat the eggwhite and sugar until well combined and then gradually add water until it it the consistency of thick whipped cream.
Embracing Spring blooms
Flowers in jars, hanging in my kitchen make me smile every time I look at them. So easy to do, all you need is a couple of jars, some string and a few hooks to hang them from. The perfect excuse to go buy yourself some flowers. Or pinch some from around your neighbourhood, there are pretty blooms popping up everywhere at the moment. Yay! It’s Springtime.
they did it with style in the 50s
Looking for inspiration for my bathroom I spied this beauty in one of my vintage Pins and Needles magazines. A genuine 1959 home renovation idea, to turn your bathroom from drab to pink-and-ribbons fab.
What’s not to love about white lace plastic shower curtains that frame your bathtub as pretty as a picture? And is that a chandelier I spy hanging daintily in the foreground?
The vogue bath (available in eight colours) would have set you back a modest 27 pounds. You could have had the whole bathroom for 36 monthly payments of 1 pound and 5 shillings.
Beautiful.
Mister E’s new room
After many months of dreaming about redecorating Mister E’s room it’s finally done! I think I love his chalkboard more than he does at the moment, it was so much fun to draw on his wall. He had a little scribble time too but I think it something he’ll get more into when he’s older. In the meantime I’ll enjoy it!
Here is a of pic of his new space…
redecorating the kids’ room
I have to feel for my poor Hubby, I think I am driving him up the wall with my nesting demands. I have so many things I want to get done before bubba arrives and I am constantly on about the to-do list. Of course the majority of the things I have on my list are things that Hubby ends up doing. Being seven months pregnant makes it harder to climb ladders to spring clean or to dig holes in the garden for new plants.
One of the major tasks I want to accomplish before bubba arrives is repainting the kid’s room. So after nagging about it for months we finally started on it this weekend. Halfway through prepping the room and I wish we had more days left of the weekend. We’ve created a monster, the entire contents of Mister E’s room is currently in our dining and lounge rooms, (which means Mister E is sleeping in our room until it is all done). That wouldn’t be too problematic except my poor little man has gastro and is miserable and won’t sleep or eat or leave mummy’s side. We’ve started now so we have no choice but to slog away until it’s done!
I want to paint over three walls with dulux whisper white and the other wall make into a huge chalkboard to draw on. I found this website where you can get good quality paint for much cheaper than regular retail prices. We got all our white and chalkboard paint for less than half the price of the hardware store. If you need paint check them out at paint recyclers.
I found this gorgeous nursery with a chalkboard wall at Hanna Mac’s website. I’m so excited to go out and get a stack of bright coloured chalks and scribble drawings on Mister E’s new wall when it’s all done.
gorgeous nursery – i'm inspired to do a chalkboard
I also really want to have a bookcase that displays his lovely books like this one I saw at country living. So he can see all the cover artworks and choose his books for storytime. Storytime is a big part of our evenings, we sit for half an hour before bed on a little makeshift sofa and read oodles of books before bedtime.
lovely book rack display from Country Living
Here are our efforts so far, I hope that this time next week I can post photos of the finished room!
painting