A fresh perspective for spring

I'm sitting in my lovely living room with a punnet of strawberries and a cup of hot water with lemon, watching the birds on the bird feeder in the blossom tree outside my window, and it felt like a good time to write a blog post. I have consciously tried to take a little step away from my social media and blog recently because I felt like it was beginning to take me away from the moment if you know what I mean. I don't like seeing every breakfast, craft project or special moment with my kids  as a potential instagram moment. It's all too easy to get lost In a virtual world that way, and forget to really savour what is happening at that moment in your life. I think this was one thing in a long list of things I have inadvertently got caught up in that has taken away a bit of my sparkle in recent weeks. So I've spent this week making a few changes to help me get back on track. This is the first day I've felt a little more like myself, and I wanted to get it all down in words, partly as a reminder to myself if I start to slip back down that path , and partly because I am pretty certain I'm not the only mum out there who feels this way from time to time, and it's good to share and let each other know it's ok to get low points and that you will be able to pick yourself up and get back on it.

I think as busy mums it is all too easy to get caught up in putting everyone else's needs first, caring for everyone around you and in the process forgetting to care for oneself, but you can't pour from an empty cup, and ultimately trying to keep on giving without stopping to fill up your cup so to speak is not going to benefit anyone in your life. I think this can apply even more so in some respects to a home educating mother. There is never a time during the day when you are able to switch off, as your every waking moment is spent with your children and focused around them. I had started to feel almost a little resentful this past few weeks that this is the case, but I had to remind myself that I chose this way of life and that I love this way of life. My children are just living the life we have created for them, they are not consciously depriving me of 'me time'. And nor was my very lovely husband demanding anything of me or asking me to go without time for myself. The only person putting pressure on me to accomplish all my responsibilities perfectly and never pause to replenish my energy was ME. I was feeling guilty because I didn't feel I had done enough housework/played with the kids enough/ cooked healthy enough meals/ created interesting learning opportunities.....the list goes on. I was even worrying about tidying up the garden and walking the dog. Ironically I was spending so much time worrying about my perceived failures that I was creating a negative atmosphere in our home and making myself unwell in the process, so far from making things better by putting so much pressure on myself, I was actually making it far worse for everyone around me.But when I stop and actually look at the reality, my children are happy and well fed, have a busy social life and are learning all day every day without my intervention , my home is clean and (mostly) tidy.....what am I worrying about?!  I am pretty certain all mums beat themselves up like this from time to time. But as my husband always says, worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere! I think part of the problem is that 'self care' is still sometimes perceived as selfish or indulgent. But in reality it is so essential, I mean how can we function properly in our role as care givers if we are running on empty?! Anyway, I do get this way from time to time but this time I really hit rock bottom, I feel like I burned myself out. My skin broke out so badly that I felt embarrassed to go out, in spite of me drinking tons of water and having a really healthy plant based diet without sugar or dairy. I felt fatigued all the time and grumpy. I cry a lot anyway as I'm an emotional person but my crying got ridiculous, I feel like I spent most of my days crying. Despite feeling constantly exhausted, I couldn't sleep.

 So what have I done about this situation? First off, I went to my homeopath. She is really great and I have great confidence in her as she has helped my children with a number of ailments that the doctor was unable to sort out. She helped me to see that I need to slow down and take some time to relax and reenergise each day. She gave me some remedies to help balance my hormones. After taking the remedies I felt so so awful, my lymph glands swelled up and I had a constant ear ache, my skin got much worse overnight. But I know this is just a build up of toxins flushing itself out of my body. It never ceases to amaze me how connected our emotional health and our physical health are. I also went and got myself some Epsom salts and lavender oil, and I've been making time every other evening to run myself an Epsom salt bath with oils and rather than my usual look at Pinterest while I soak, I've been listening to Ludovico Einaudi and reading some of the classics. I was actually quite amazed by how long it took me to switch off and really relax without my I pad, it scared me a bit how dependent I am on my devices, I kept wanting to pick up my I pad to check various things and it was a real conscious effort not to use it. So I have decided that I will only use my devices during the day, evenings before bed is switch off and wind down time. I also make some time to do a little gentle Pilates before I go to sleep. And during each day I have given myself just half an hour after lunch to sit down with a drink and relax. I am taking a course of milk thistle to cleanse my liver and help with the detoxing process. I can't tell you how much these small changes have made a difference to me. I'm sleeping better and just feel so much more relaxed and positive in general. I'm still not 100% but I'm on my way.

Today was a good day. Without putting pressure on myself, I got all my housework and grocery shopping done, did a bit of work in the garden, sat and read with the girls and learned about the skeletal system from their fabulous human body book their Grampy got for them, and watched them create the most incredible natural history watercolours and write their own poems related to their illustrations, completely off their own backs just because they wanted to. There's a healthy dinner in the oven and I've found time to sit down and write this blog post. The funny thing is, the only thing that has really changed is my perspective. Because I feel so much more positive, positive things happened. And the reason my perspective has changed is mainly because I've taken some time to look after myself.  So that's it, from now on self care is something I am going to make a priority, and I'm not going to feel guilty about it. It benefits my family ultimately, and I hope it will give the girls an example to follow in terms of looking after their body and mind properly. I have never done this before in my life, so I'm looking forward to seeing what a difference it can make.  All you tired mum's out there....I really urge you to make some time for yourself and don't feel bad about it, it's not selfish, it's just good sense.

Steph xx

Hello again

Hello! I haven't blogged for a long time now, mainly because I have been crazy busy, but partly because I lost confidence a little that anyone would actually want to read what I have to say. However, I follow quite a number of bloggers via bloglovin' and also through social media, and seeing their creativity and enjoying sharing their lives from day to day is so inspiring it just motivated me to want to write in my blog again. Besides which I realised that even if no one really reads my blog, that is beside the point...blogging is a wonderful creative outlet and almost like keeping a diary in its therapeutic nature. So here I am again.

The first thing I want to share with you is our newly decorated living room, which I am completely in love with. In my last post I shared pictures of my living room and shared with you my reasons for our choice of decor.  Since then one major change took place, and that was a definite decision to stay in this home indefinitely.  As you know, moving into social housing wasn't the easiest thing for me, mainly because the house is so very tiny and I had to get rid of so many things that were meaninful to me, which, for a hoarder like myself was quite a wrench. But it was also difficult because I value character and history in a home, and these homes are really just featureless boxes, all designed to be low maintenance and identical. So many of the homes I love on instagram or Pinterest are period properties, and being bombarded with such beautiful homes so full of personality and quirkiness made me hanker for the same. Have you felt that way? Well, I moved into this house believing that it was a temporary means to an end, and that my beautiful stone cottage would one day soon become a reality. But in the past couple of years, our perspective on our home and lifestyle has changed so completely that even though a little cottage is now completely possible for us to attain, we have decided that's not what we want. Why?! I hear you cry......well, although I still love that dream of a cosy little stone building nestled on its own in a woodland somewhere, there are other things I have come to value more.  Chief among them is time. If we were to move we would have to get a mortgage, which would mean hubby could no longer continue to work part time. We have come to value our time with him so much, especially while the children are so young, and we realise it's a priveledge not many people have in today's world. Living in a smaller and relatively featureless home also gives me more time as a mum because it means so much less cleaning and maintenance, honestly I cannot believe how much easier my housework routine is here. All in all, since moving we feel as if the pace of our life has slowed right down and we feel more able to savour each bit of precious time with our kids. It has also meant that for the first time in a long time, our living expenses are so low that we have spare cash to actually enjoy ourselves a little. We had our first holiday abroad in seven years this year and it was wonderful. The reason I am sharing all this is because I'm sure there are some people out there who might feel as I did, that they covet that beautiful big period property that everyone else seems to have and enjoy, but for a change I want to say that I've had every kind of home you can imagine, and can honestly say that home really is wherever your heart is. It doesn't matter what type of property you live in, you can make it feel like your dream home. I really believe that.

As we are going to be here for some time, I wanted hubby to love our sitting room as much as I do, and pink and floral is not really his style! Also, the room felt a little like we had just brought a load of mismatched furniture in and attempted to squeeze it in wherever there was space, which is actually exactly what we did! We wanted to use the limited space a little better and make it feel more co-ordinated and 'intentional' if you catch my drift. Hubby likes lots of natural materials like oak and stone, and he favours a stronger, darker palette than I do. As a compromise we chose farrow and ball 'light grey' for the walls.

I was slightly concerned it may make the room feel even smaller to put a strong colour on the walls, but it actually just makes the room feel cosy. We got rid of our large armchair,sofa bed and larger pieces of storage furniture, which housed our collection of 600 DVD's. I have filed these in a large cd wallet instead and put the cases in the loft, which just saved tons of space. The living room doubled as our guest room with the sofa bed, but we decided that making the room useful for our daily family life had to be our priority, so we swapped to a gorgeous dfs/ sofa workshop corner sofa which has as much seating as the armchair and sofa put together, but takes up less floor space.


I reupholstered my precious tub chair which originally lived in my dads bachelor pad as a young chap, and was a favourite chair when I was a child.



I got an end of roll piece of fabric on eBay for £25 and used my staple gun and glue gun to replace the old pink fabric. Bit of a bargain I think! I decided to keep my little bureau as it is really a useful piece of furniture and I use it as our office, and decided to pick out the aqua colours of the drawers as an accent to the grey. I also created some new artwork for the walls, incorporating the accent colours ...more about my artwork in another post.

 But my favourite part of the room is hubby's handy work in the corner; previously our enormous 55 inch TV was the main focal point in the room which I really do not like, so hubby created a false 'inglenook' style fireplace for my little Dimplex stove complete with a beam that falls down to reveal all our media neatly tucked away out of sight.



I sewed a wall hanging with some fabulous map fabric we found and that hangs over the TV when it's not in use. Because the fireplace is in the corner of the room it just gives it that lovely quirkiness that I love so much rather than the generic, featureless room we started with.Finally, I made cushion covers in our accent colours from some remnants of beautiful Melin Tregwynt wool (it's a fabulous Welsh woolen mill just up the road from us) that I bought in the Mill shop, and crocheted a large cushion cover from some wool remnants I picked up.  What I love so much about our new living room is that it is a joint creative effort between hubby and I, filled with handmade items we collaborated on and created ourselves, it really feels like a piece of us and a meeting of our tastes. And when I sit on my ridiculously comfy sofa and look out the window at the birds in the cherry tree, fire going and fairy lights twinkling, I could easiliy be sat in the cottage of my dreams.

I read somewhere that the key to contentment is learning to want what you have rather than have what you want, and I believe this to be true. I hope you have enjoyed reading about our journey to making what we already have into something we really love. We have lots of plans for the rest of the house, I will keep you posted!

Steph xx

Living Room tour

Check me out, another blog post already! I wanted to show you my new living room which has been almost done for a while but now is pretty much finished. I do have plans to paint one wall in a very pale, blue grey wash, but who knows how long it will take me to get around to that so I am showing you the room as it is and will post an update when I get round to painting.

I would describe my decorating style as cozy, and very 'country'. I have always put a lot of thought into colours and furniture placement, and the styling of surfaces. But somehow moving into this place for such 'grown up' reasons made those things seem somehow a little silly and insignificant. At the time my main consideration was simply to fit all the truly 'necessary' items into this tiny space. But gradually as I have relaxed and begun to enjoy this place as our home, I have just naturally begun to enjoy putting those little touches to the place that fill the house with your personality and make it feel like an extension of yourself, a place of comfort and happiness...'home'.

William Morris said that we should have nothing in our home "that we do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful", and I always try to follow that rule. I like to sit in a room and as I look around, be met with happy memories. The starting point for this living room was , as with the rest of the house, simple white walls, as the room was covered in grubby smears and marks so I just wanted it to feel clean. We chose to put oak effect laminate throughout our downstairs mainly for practicality (with two little girls being schooled at home and our little dog in and out of the garden our floors are in need of very regular mopping! ). Our sofa is actually a sofa - bed so the room doubles as a guest room. As it's bright red that more or less dictated the colours we would be using!

On the back of the sofa you can see a memory quilt I made out of the girls pram blankets they used as babies.  I did actually write a post about this quilt a while back. I love it because every time we snuggle up on the sofa together all those happy memories come flooding back. A memory quilt or blanket is such a great way to save those little baby things and use then rather than just keeping them in a bag in the attic. In this picture you can also see the wire chandelier I made and covered with fairy lights in the corner. In my opinion you can never have too many fairy lights! 

I had to get rid of a lot of my books when we moved, along with the actual bookcases. To make a home for my remaining books without intruding on the room too much we added a shelf that runs the whole length of the room above the sofa, which actually gives the illusion of extra length to the room. Being extremely nerdy I had to arrange the books according to colour which again just makes it look a lot more 'fluid' and gentle on the eye. I added a few of my favourite prints at eye level, I chose prints with a similar theme, all featuring roses as I wanted to tie them in with the prints on the soft furnishings and the colours on the sofa. 

I also used a couple of large mirrors in this room to try and bring in as much light as possible and that old trick of mirrors to try and make the illusion of size. 

In a small house storage is of paramount importance, so we have 2 good pieces of furniture from Laura Ashley which we intend to keep forever and which both provide lots of extra storage. One is a coffee table but we placed it against the wall under the tv as we wanted to keep the floorspace free. The lid lifts at the back with tons of storage inside and it has lots of tiny drawers at the front as well. The second is a large sideboard which I love as it also provides a lovely surface for styling with my precious nik naks....

I love to sit on the sofa and look at my treasures in this little corner. The square frame propped on top was found at a tip by my youngest brother,  who appreciates items because of their story, as I do. It contained a rather hideous painting which I immediately loved because at the back was the artists name and address dated 1954, along with a paper ticket from an exhibition the painting had been part of, and you could also see another painting that the artist had covered with the new hideous offering. I like to rescue things that were once loved and precious to someone but now they are gone or getting old are no longer of worth to anyone. It makes me happy that it is of value to another person again. Inside the frame I have hung some vintage lace and used little craft pegs to hang my own memories...pictures of grandparents, my children's first shoes, a rose from my husbands wedding buttonhole, a card from my mother and a label from a gift a close friend gave me after I threw her a 25th anniversary dinner. Such lovely memories. A memory frame like this is easy to make and a lovely way to decorate with things that otherwise might be tucked in a drawer somewhere. I also like the fact that you can ring in the changes and switch out the items depending on how you feel at the time.

The foxgloves painting above the sideboard is one of my own. I wanted to bring some colour to this corner as with all white walls you are sometimes in danger of it looking a little bland. But bright warm colours against a white backdrop really pop and can have more impact than colour used on the walls themselves. You can also see in this picture a beautiful Tiffany lamp made from scratch by my grandad. He was a clever chap and taught himself to lead glass and I just will treasure this lamp forever until it's time to pass it to my kids. Such a special thing to have in my home. 

You will notice in the corner of the picture a largish glass box on top of the sideboard. This houses 2 fire toads which are pets given to my daughters by one of my brothers. It does niggle me that I have to have this messing up my little vignette but this is a lived in home and I have to always remind myself that it can't look like a page from a magazine...its little things like this that make it ours and make it unique. 

I managed to squeeze my little electric 'log burner' in the corner, it's honestly the most realistic looking electric fire and an open fire is something I really miss so at least this gives us that cozy feeling in winter. I picked it up for £50 on ebay. Most of my furniture is second hand, I figure it's silly to pay more when you can pick up things that have so much life left in them for so cheap or for free. In fact the white armchair you just see the arm of in the previous picture is part of a set of two that I picked up for free on www.freecycle.org and they are in immaculate condition! Much less wasteful. You would not believe the stuff people throw away.  The print in this picture is Soul of the Rose by John William Waterhouse who is my absolute favourite artist. I love the pre Raphaelite brotherhood (not that he was a member but he was closely associated with it) and the arts and crafts movement and I love what they stood for, everything handmade and beautifully crafted with utmost care. I really try to emulate that in my home.

This ornament on the windowsill was made by me, it's rather 'rustic' ahem......but it represents our little family and I love it. It's made from air dry clay which is just the best thing ever and a great little activity with the kids.

So that's it, my tiny living room. I totally love it. I can't believe I found quite so much to say about it! Hope you enjoyed having a nose and I will post another room soon.  I hope it shows that no matter what your actual house is like, with a little thought you can make a home.

Stephanie xx

Styling the seasons, August

Well yes, I realise I'm absolutely pants at this blogging lark.....I have been silent for a good couple of months without even noticing. I've just been busy as always with schooling the girls and my many and varied hobbies! But I suddenly came over all creative this week and felt the need to write everything down, so here I am.


August is a special month to me so I wanted to reflect that in my 'Styling the Seasons' post. First, it is special because it is the month I got married. Next Friday the 14th is our wedding anniversary, it will be 11 years since we tied the knot. We always try to make an effort to do something lovely as a family and as a couple to remember that day, because at the risk of sounding cheesy, it truly was the best day of my life. Joe has been the best friend anyone could ask for and it's been the happiest 11 years. I included a little wooden heart he carved for me in my styled surface to represent our special day.

 Incidentally, the surface I chose to style is a little kitchen cart that the clever chap made for me out of scraps of wood he had in the garage (to me it's thoughtful acts of kindness like this that are the most romantic thing), and it has proved invaluable in my new, very tiny, kitchen as an extra work surface and storage space. Kitchen carts are a great idea if you are short of space, I added castors to mine so it could be moved out of the way when not needed. Anyway, I digress. ...


The second reason August will always be a memorable month for me is a sad one. On Tuesday, my lovely nan passed away quite suddenly. It was a shock as she was so full of life and I just imagined her going on forever. She died peacefully in her sleep. I feel overwhelming sadness, but at the same time I just feel so blessed that I was lucky enough to have a really close relationship with her and with my grandad, and as I get older I realise more and more how my grandparents played a real part in shaping who I am. I just felt that this month's post should be about my grandparents and what amazing people they all were. The tablecloth in the picture is particularly precious to me now as my nan embroidered half of it and then gave it to me to finish.

She is the one who taught me to sew and I used to love going to her little bungalow and sewing and knitting and crafting together. Everything in her and my grandad's bungalow was handmade by the two of them, from the furniture to the ornaments to the tools in grandad's shed. I try to take the same approach to my own home and fill it with things that have meaning because of the love and effort that went into them, or for the memories that are attached to them. The painting that you see in the corner of the photograph is actually one that grandad painted, it's a painting of the road to the Garth mountain in South Wales where I grew up, and I have many happy memories of walking to the top and flying my kite with my grandparents and my mum and dad and brothers as a child.

Grandad's ashes were scattered there and nan's will be too.

I added the little red teapot as it belonged to my other grandmother and she absolutely loved it. She got it in when living in Germany as a young woman and it was always a focal point in her kitchen. She and I had very similar taste and it's from her I get my love of nature and all things floral. The posy of flowers in the teapot are all from my garden, and i'm so thrilled that after only six months of work out there I have so many flowers for cutting already. None of my grandparents got to see this garden but I know if they had they would have loved it and been proud of my hard work. My knowledge of plants comes from my grandmother too, she loved her garden and a frothy, cottagey style of planting, which is what I always gravitate to.


So that's it. I hope my post this month has not seemed depressing to you but rather, as I intended, full of happy memories. I will be posting some pics of my new living room on Monday so be sure to come back then for a nose.


Stephanie xx

Our new bedroom

Hello! I've been wanting to show you around our new home for a while now so I thought I would start with our bedroom as it's really the only room that's 100% finished. Moving to this house has been such an experience for us and has actually really taught us a lot about what we actually need for our family happiness. I thought moving here that I would 'tolerate' it and make the best of it until things improved, but the biggest surprise for me has been how much I really love it. The house is very small, and storage could be a problem, but I'm actually really enjoying finding ways to make the space work for us. And I have come to realise that a room is just a room;whether it has sash windows or deep skirting or real wood floors, or whether it has artex ceilings, cheap hollow doors and plasticky windows, it feels like a lovely home if it's filled with the people you love and treasures that have meaning to you. So....I do have some 'before' pictures of the house, but the pictures of our bedroom are pretty pointless to show you as you can't see much in them except me looking despondent ;-) . I expect you know the sort of room it was; just a featureless box, with dirty board floors that appeared to have been carpet less for the time the previous occupant lived here, and grubby magnolia walls covered in stains from goodness knows what.  There was also a strong aroma of cat accompanied by large quantities of cat hair stuck to the radiators and floors.  But on a plus side, the room has really great light from two decent sized windows and looks out at a beautiful cherry tree at the front of the house, and distant views of the mountains. And there was a largish built in wardrobe which was brilliant as it's a small room so it was great not to have to find a space for wardrobes. When we moved in we decided to paint the whole place white as it makes it look lovely and clean and fresh and makes every room look bigger and brighter. I also love the way white can look completely different depending on the time of day and the light in the room,or the accent colours that you choose.

A good tip if you have a very small room to try and fit lots of stuff into is to plot the room to scale  on graph paper and do the same with your furniture, then cut out the furniture and try different arrangements on paper....yes I know it's totally nerdy and over the top but it really helps you to decide what to keep and what to get rid of, and how to make the best use of the space. I wanted our bedroom to be calm and serene, so we stuck with white bedding and mostly white furniture, which also helps to add to the feeling of space.

I added a yellow bedspread to our bed which just makes the whole room glow when the evening light streams in. I got it from a friend who was throwing it out....I feel really strongly about up cycling and recycling whenever possible.  Not only do pre loved items have more character in my opinion but it minimises your carbon footprint as a consumer when you do not subscribe to the throwaway attitude people have today. Plus it's easier on your bank account which can't be bad!!!  Here are a few of my favourite items in our bedroom: all are either pre loved or have special significance to me.

This mirror is one of the first items I ever upcycled.  I found it in the back room of a small fabric shop and haggled with the owner to buy it for £3.  It lived in my bathroom in my first ever flat when I left home.  I painted it off white (it was long before chalk paint became popular and my boyfriend, who is now my husband, thought I was nuts 'ruining' a perfectly good mirror!).  I love the shabby chic style and it sort of helped define my taste for the future.

I decorate everywhere with memories of my children and these little shoes belonged to my youngest daughter, I couldn't bring myself to give these away so I keep them in my room and every night and see them and smile thinking of the tiny toes that once filled them.  I love to fill the corners of our home with things that evoke happy memories...I've never been one to go out and buy an ornament just because it matches my room, and to me it's the memories that make it feel like home. 

I absolutely LOVE my dressing table. A lovely friend gave it to me years ago; she bought it at auction for £3.00 as nobody wanted it so they had to get rid, and she painted it.  It's chipped and battered and the mirror is foxed but I love to imagine who might have sat at it in times past when it was new and looked at their reflection in the mirror.  It's also a great bit of extra storage!  Auctions are a great place to pick up a bargain, and seeing the potential in something nobody else wants is so exciting.

I hang this little walnut baby on one of the barley twists, it was a gift from my uncle to my nan when he was a child in Germany and she kept it always. My girls are fascinated by it.  

I use an old chipped teacup and a glass cake plate to store my jewelry, I like to use things for a purpose other than their intended one, I think it's much more interesting and beautiful than an ordinary jewelry box.

And finally, my beloved camphor wood chest.  My grandmother brought it back from Hong Kong where my grandad was stationed in the army and the receipt is still inside. Nan used to keep all her ballgowns in it from her time as a forces wife, and I loved rifling through and trying them on as a child. It still smells of camphor inside.  Above it hangs two prints that belonged to my great grandmother which she got from Germany.  I just love the style of them.  I like to own something that was valued by a loved one in the past, it makes me feel connected to my history. I have loads of precious things that were loved by my my nan and I love to be reminded of her. I'm very fortunate in that.

So that's our bedroom.  It's a real haven and I love it. Hope you like it too! Will post another room soon xxx

Vegan Lasagne recipe

Hiya folks, just a quick post tonight to give you a new vegan recipe.... We love lasagne in this house and I have tried numerous vegan lasagne recipes involving sauces made from cashews or coconut milk or pureed squash, but nothing ever compares to the real thing. It seems to me that the problem is mainly the substitute 'cheese ' sauce. It occurred to me that there is no need to faff around with all sorts of weird and wonderful vegetables when there are lots of lovely milk substitutes out there that could be used to make a bechamel type sauce. So I gave it a shot and....

Voila! A seriously delicious lasagne which we thought was every bit as good as the real thing.  So here's the recipe...I will definitely be making this again!

For the bolognais sauce:

1 red onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped into small cubes

1 courgette, chopped into small cubes

1/2 a small aubergine, chopped into small cubes

5 sweet bite peppers, chopped

Handful of chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped

2 dozen cherry tomatoes, halved

1 tin chopped tomatoes

3 Tablespoons vegan sun dried tomato paste

Good glug of balsamic vinegar

1 tsp oregano

handful of red lentils

1 tsp coconut oil for frying

For the bechamel sauce:

3 Tablespoons plain flour (use rice flour if you're gluten free)

Good glug of olive oil

800 ml unsweetened almond milk

2 large tsp dijon mustard

3 large tablespoons nutritional yeast

Scant tsp apple cider vinegar

1 packet of lasagne sheets (use rice lasagne if gluten free)

Method: in a heavy based pan, heat the coconut oil and sauté the onion, garlic and carrot gently till softening. Add the remainder of the chopped veg apart from the cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. After 10 mins or so sautéing the veg add the mushrooms and tomatoes and cook the lot till the tomatoes are nice and soft and the juices begin to come out. Add your tomato paste, sauté for a few minutes, then add the tinned tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, oregano and lentils. Cover and simmer till the lentils are soft, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, make the bechamel sauce. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, then add the flour and remove from the heat, stirring constantly. Begin adding the almond milk a drop at a time, stirring constantly to make a smooth paste. Once all the milk is added, return to a gentle heat and stir until the sauce begins to thicken. Add the mustard, nutritional yeast and vinegar and stir to combine. 

Assemble your lasagne. In a lasagne dish, add a layer of the bolognais,  then a layer of lasagne (check the pack first to see if it needs to be precooked...The stuff I use can go straight in), then a layer of bechamel sauce. Continue till all the ingredients are used up, finishing with a layer of bechamel sauce.  Cook on 160° till golden brown on top.

Easy! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did xxx

April

Hello everyone

I have left it till the very last minute to do my April styling the seasons post, the reason being that I wanted to include some corners of my home that are completely finished and looking beautiful. The problem is, I have tons of craft projects lined up, but I get very easily distracted, and end up with every room almost, but not quite, finished! So I have resolved to now concentrate on one room at a time and get things completely done so that I can share my home with you. 

In the end I just chose to use some items that are meaningful to me.  I have wanted to use this chair in a styling the seasons picture for a while; I am the world's worst hoarder and this chair comes from a set of four that my parents had when I was a child, so it evokes all sorts of happy memories of sitting around the dinner table with my noisy rabble of 3 younger brothers. My parents got rid of the other chairs and table that went with them but even as a youngster I was terribly sentimental and had a love for all things aged and shabby, so I managed to rescue this one and used it as a bedside table in my room for many years. It has stayed with me through 7 house moves, leaving home, getting married and having babies,  so I think it's here to stay!  The cloth draped over the back of the chair belonged to my nan and was hand embroidered in a leper colony in Asia where she lived many years ago...she and I had very similar taste and I love to have these little items around my home that remind me of her and make me feel connected with her still.  The heartshaped box was hand carved for me by my gorgeous husband on our 7th anniversary, we always give eachother a handmade card and mine can never compare to his incredible creations. He never gives me a card really but usually it is something wonderful that I can use in the home and the amount of time and effort he put into this box makes it so very precious to me. The blossom in the box is what makes this picture representative of what this April means to me. All of this month we have been making the most of the sunshine and working hard trying to make the garden look more loved and not just a wasteland full of rubbish. We are lucky enough to have a number of trees around the property and at the front of the house there is a particularly large and beautiful tree that can be seen through our bedroom window when I lie in bed. This week the tree revealed itself to be an ornamental cherry when it broke out in the most beautiful fluffy white blossom.  I was thrilled to say the least as I'm romantic in my style of garden and I have always loved cherry trees for their blossom, but on top of that, our previous home had a small orchard and at this time of year it was such a delight to look out and see the boughs laden with frothy little pom poms of pink and white; I miss it very much, so it was such a treat to discover that we have a little slice of that here in our new home. It felt like a blessing for all the hard work we have put in to this garden so far.

So that's my styling the seasons post for April. I can't believe we are heading into May already! I have been super busy these past few months but I'm hoping I have time now to blog a little more. In fact, I intend to share one of my more  finished rooms with you in the next couple of days. Our home is full of handmade, upcycled and recycled items so I hope there will be something of interest to share from every room. 

Hope you have all had a lovely April and have lots to look forward to in the month ahead

Stephanie xxx