Can't stop looking at . . .

Each week, I'll be sharing with you something that has caught my eye. It may be a picture, blog, product or website.

I went into my local Next home shop yesterday to look for a gift for my great aunt's birthday, and was really pleasantly surprised with their new range of accessories. As usual, everything was available in several colourways, but what really impressed me was the range of 100% recycled glass vases that were on display. My favourite was this red one - I really love the shape:

Image from here.

This green vase also caught my eye:

I really like how the recycled aspect of the glass makes the vases look older they are. Also, at only £5, they're complete bargains!

Under the stairs . . .

I've finally managed to do some more decorating in our dining room! The area under the stairs is now nearly finished - still need to paint the woodwork, but I'll do all of this in one go when I've finished with the emulsion.

Initially I wasn't sure whether to use the darker shade of green on both walls, but I'm really glad I did as it makes the area feel quite cosy.

I also love my new red cushion (it's quite a light red but looks more of a coral colour in this picture) - it was a birthday present from our lovely friends Andy and Anna (thank you guys).  I really like the way the red sits against the olive green.

Here's a little close up of what's on the shelf above the sofa:

I've got a few more walls to go (the ones with lots of shelves with lots of books on them) before I'll have finished in here, but it's slowly coming together. Hopefully I'll be able to share "after" pictures with you before too much longer.

A big bed for a little boy.

I mentioned here that I have been thinking a lot about which bed to get Torin, as he's reaching the stage where he really should be in a bigger bed. Well, after a lot of browsing the internet and several visits to various shops, I've finally decided on the one. In fact, I've ordered it and it should be arriving in mid-August!

It's the Hastings single bed from Marks and Spencer:

I think this picture is actually of the double version of the bed.

Here's the bed laid bare so you can see all of the headboard (again, I think it's the double):

Images from here.

I chose this bed as it is pretty timeless, good quality (it's not just any bed . . . etc.) and it was in the sale with a 20% discount - not bad! It's also a full-sized adult single bed, so it will hopefully last him until he's an adult.

Our plan at the moment is to keep Torin in his room for the time being and get the M and S delivery people to assemble the bed in there - I was really impressed with this service - there's no deliver charge, and installation and assembly is included in the price of the bed! They even take away all their rubbish with them!

Now all we have to do is find a mattress, and then figure out a way of keeping him in it all night!

Can't stop looking at . . .

Each week, I'll be sharing with you something that has caught my eye. It may be a picture, blog, product or website.

As I sit here looking out of the window in our back door at the rain hammering down into our garden, I feel I'm really in need of something to remind me that it is in fact July and not October! This beautiful plate from Pedlars has done the trick.

Image from here.

At £65, it's not cheap, but the Italian design and pretty colour are a great way to brighten up a table on a day like today!

Can't stop looking at . . .

Each week, I'll be sharing with you something that has caught my eye. It may be a picture, blog, product or website.

While I was at my parents' house last week, my mum tole me that she wanted to re-decorate their downstairs cloakroom. Currently, the room has a pale blue suite, pale blue and white tiles and blue walls and my mum wants to change it to a white suite with dark wooden accessories and dark tiles. 

An image of a bathroom that I had cut out of Ideal Home magazine a few years ago sprung into my mind, and I tried to describe it to my mum, although I don't really think I managed to do it justice. It was this picture of Nicola Gill and John Ces' bathroom from their 1840s terraced house in Hastings, Sussex:

Images from here.

I think that the couple are very brave to use a dark colour so completely in this room, but those tiles work beautifully with the white suite and lime accents. So incredibly opulent!

As a lovely coincidence, when I got back to Cardiff, the August issue of Ideal Home was waiting for me, and inside was a complete feature of Nicola and John's house, along with this more recent picture of their bathroom:

Sorry for the quite poor quality of the picture - it was the only one I could find. I really like the fact that the couple still have the same bathroom, but that it now looks a little more relaxed (something I imagine that has happened as the result of their two children being born).

An elephant, cupcakes and a picnic in the park.

I had a lovely birthday yesterday - David took the day off and we spent a relaxing day in the park with Torin. After a lovely lie-in (a massive treat in itself), I opened my cards and presents over breakfast. David bought my present back with him from his recent trip to Denmark. It's a 15cm unique elephant from the Elephant Parade project. Mine is number 82 out of only 250 made, so it's a really special gift. It's currently sitting on the shelf above our television, and I love the pop of colour it gives to the alcove:

My mum had told me that she had arranged a surprise to be delivered to our house during the morning, so we waited for the delivery to be made before we packed up our picnic and headed for the park. When the doorbell rang, I was met by a lovely lady from a bakery in Cardiff, who gave me a box containing these delicious looking (and tasting!) cupcakes:

We split one of these between the 3 of us straight away, added some of the others to our picnic hamper and then set off for Bute park in the city centre. The park was really quiet, and they'd just cut the grass, so we had a really lovely time just by ourselves - messing around taking photos, playing football and pointing at aeroplanes (Torin mainly!):

Now a whole year to wait until it's my birthday again, and it's a big one next time - gosh, that's going to be strange!

Make do and mend: bears for a baby.

Back from a lovely spell in Kent with my family - lots of delicious food, beautiful weather and lots of time splashing in a paddling pool in my parents' garden. We spent a lot of time at the beach, visiting local attractions like Leeds castle, and seeing extended family, so I'm really sorry that my promise that I was going to post every day proved a little too ambitious.

As I said, I'm back in Cardiff now and I spent this afternoon visiting my lovely friend Mary who has just had a baby girl. Baby Sophia had such a mop of black hair and was a real sweetie. It was funny for me to compare Sophia at nearly 4 weeks, with Torin - a newborn suddenly seems very easy to deal with - feed, wind, sleep, feed wind sleep . . . Of course, I'm sure the reality of actually having a newborn with a two and a half year old will be a lot of hard work!

I made Sophia's gift myself:

Her room is green and white, so I chose paper with different patterns in those colours to fit in with the room scheme.

Here's a little how-to if you want to try your own:

I began by buying a small white RIBBA frame from IKEA - they are great for this type of project as they come with a mount that is just about the right depth for what I needed.

I also used a teddy bear shaped hole punch to cut out loads of little teddy bears out of green and white paper.

I then cut out a piece of plain white card and fixed it to the back of the mount with tape, to form the background to the picture.

By eye, I then laid out the teddy shapes on the white card and moved them around a bit until I was happy with where they were - I didn't want the layout to be too strict, so I avoided creating a sequence of patterns by punching out different amounts of bears from each type of paper.

Once I was happy with the layout, I stuck the shapes onto the white background using tweezers and sticky pads - you can see from this picture how the shapes stand away from the backing card.

And that was that! Once the shapes were all stuck in place, I popped the mount back in the frame and the gift was finished.

I then wrapped the picture in brown paper and finished it off with some green curling ribbon and a green flower on which I wrote Sophia's name.

I was really pleased that Mary liked the present - she'd had a bit of a clothing overload, and was also relieved that there was no pink in sight!