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

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

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

Styling the seasons

Afternoon peeps, just a quick post as I have decided with much trepidation to join in with the #stylingtheseasons project on instagram which was started by @lottsandlots and @aptapothecary.   Silly I know but I'm dead nervous about joining in as it means lots of people are likely to see my feeble attempts at styling a surface to reflect how I feel about each month but it's just such a lovely little project I couldn't resist having a go. And I'm hoping it will help me to improve my photography skills and to switch things up a little in my home from month to month as I'm actually terribly sentimental and tend to keep things just as they are because I get so attached to things! Last month I was terribly obvious and used autumn leaves, books and pumpkins.

 This month I've gone for something more simple...here's my reasoning behind the items I chose to represent this month.  I chose to use cooler colours this month as I've felt a definite shift toward winter these past couple of weeks, whereas last month it was still decidedly autumnal and everywhere seemed to have a golden glow to me.  I have used dried lavender as a focal point. Lavender is my absolute fave plant, the smell reminds me of my late grandmother whose garden and home was always filled with the stuff, and at the end of every summer I would go and strip her lavender bushes bare to hang and dry in bunches in my room. I like to make little lavender pillows to pop into draws and on top of radiators over winter as a little reminder of the summer. And of course, lavender has such calming and relaxing properties so I keep this little pot from the picture next to my bed to help me sleep. It just evokes such a lovely cozy feeling to me. I used the pebble candle because all winter long I light candles every night, I  just love the soft warm glow of a candle when it's cold and rainy outside. My candle is sitting on a piece of slate shaped like a heart, a found item that my hubby gave to me (he's such an old romantic). I use slate everywhere in my home and there are lots of lovely pieces to be found on the pembrokeshire beaches as it's a very slate rich area.  The candle snuffer is precious to me because it was a gift from my youngest brother when he was very little and I think one of the first spontaneous gifts he chose for me because he knew I would love it. Being the hopeless romantic that I am I like to use it to snuff my candles out at night rather than just blowing them out as I can imagine I'm in a Jane Austen novel ha ha! Finally the little glazed green bowl contains dried petals from a summer rose. At this time of year all the flowers I collected and dried over the summer come into their own as a home just isn't the same to me without a little bit of the outdoors brought indoors and it's lovely to fill the spaces that were occupied by fresh bouquets from the garden with delicate papery blooms I have dried and kept. So that's my styling the seasons post for December....I am looking forward to getting stuck in again come January!

Can't wait to see what everyone else uses.  

Stephanie xx