May Styling the Seasons - Vintage tea party.....

This isn't the post I thought that I would do for May, Oh no, I was going to be posting about cocktails and pineapples!  But that will have to wait until June because when I saw this vintage crate in an antique shop today I knew what I was going to do with it.

For the last month I have been obsessed with the garden, as you know from my last post. Because of my rekindled love for plants and flowers I have found myself basically stealing and foraging them from everywhere! I can be driving along when I have this urge to pull over and grab armfuls of cow parsley and those lovely little purple flowers that you see on the side of the road. My lovely husband never really knows what I am going to come home with next. 

Whilst out today I came across the beautiful mauve flowers that you can see in my pictures and no I didn't steal them from anyones garden they were just in a grass verge (finders keepers yes?) I knew I wanted to style them on my dining room table as a centre piece in my new/old crate. 

May to me means being out in the garden, drinking tea and listening to the birds. I love going out there after work and checking to see what new flowers have come up and which ones I can pick for the house. I love the way that this very impromptu styling the seasons has enabled me to bring the garden into the house. Hope you like it too xx

Why not get involved in #StylingTheSeasons with Katy @aptapothecary and Charlotte @lottsandlots and style a surface in your home to show what that month means to you xx

Garden days........

I have been feeling sorry for the garden for ages now, because of our wedding last year it didn't even get a look in and every morning whilst brushing my teeth I would look out and feel sad that while the house was getting all the love the garden was neglected!!

The bottom end of the garden was an unused space, there was a step down with gravel which not only became full of weeds but also was a pretty nasty space to sit in. I had the idea to deck the whole area and I really liked the idea of having some kind of a pergola for the wisteria to wind its way around.

My lovely husband and brother in law made all of this vision possible and I love the results.

Now then the colour of said decking and pergola was a big source of confusion and brain ache. I knew I didn't want a traditional colour that many of the decking paint comes in and my new found love of grey had me thinking. I did a lot of Pinteresting which you can see on my Garden Days board and I was convinced that 2 colours of grey would be the way to go. So we went with Cuprinol Urban Slate for the fences and Cuprinol decking paint in Silver birch for deck and pergola. I love it.

After all the hard work was done ( and there was a lot of painting ) it was my favourite part - styling the decking with all my best garden bits and bobs. The step ladder was bought last year for the wedding and makes a great feature for planters. The Belfast sink has amazingly been sitting in my 

in -laws garden for years!! Can't believe I didn't steal it sooner. The crates were bought from an antiques fair last year, again they were part of my wedding styling. 

The piste de resistance I think is my new lovely potting bench from Homebase http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/timber-potting-bench-872214

A bargain and after a lick of paint, gorgeous blue, I flippin love it!!! Not sure I will actually pot on it but nevermind....

OH and my other little treat to myself for my birthday was the beautiful COX and COX outdoor lampshade. http://www.coxandcox.co.uk/battery-powered-lacy-lampshade-rose-border

I have other lights to put up but the weather has stopped play for a while. 

You have probably noticed that I will plant in anything so I like the eclectic look! 

SUNSHINE we need you!! Can't wait to get out there with a cocktail in my hand and some friends around. Hope you like it xx

Tire of London tire of life....

I have had a ridiculous love affair with London since my first trip back when I was 9. Since then I have visited countless times to visit my lovely friend Zoe.  Zoe has lived in various places from New Cross Gate to Muswell Hill to Highbury to Battersea so we have done a bit of exploring over the years and had many an adventure. She now lives in Crystal Palace.

When she text me before this trip and said what do you fancy doing I said "a bit of flea market/vintage hunting please" and we have certainly done that but little did I know that the entire weekend would have a retro vintage vibe. 

We have been to some amazing venues and I wanted to share them with you. 

On Saturday morning we headed to Kings Cross. They are really spending a lot of money rejuvenating the area and a really nice spot is Granary Square. Large old factory buildings being used for various ventures. We went to the Mac Conner illustration exhibition which was lovely to see. Amazing illustrations from the 50s, a very talented man. There are also some really nice places to eat and sit ( if it is sunny ) 

We then headed to Stoke Newington where we went to a vintage fair and then had lunch. Stokey is a lovely London village with lots of little independent shops and cafes. We took a walk up to Dalston  got a little thirsty and needed a refreshment stop! This is where we discovered Farr's School of Dancing which I have since learnt used to be a dance school in the late 30s and now has been transformed into a fab bar. Gorgeous old fixtures, theatre seats, original dance pictures and amazing wallpaper in the toilet...

Our friend Emma said we should go to Forest Hill next to go into Sylvan Post. This is another cool place which used to be the local post office. This is where you can sit in the vaults and have a drink, grab some food and look at all of the old Post Office fixtures which adorn the walls. We stayed in here for ages because it was just so chilled and friendly. Sorry I didn't take more pictures. 

Next stop over the road in Forest Hill was The Dartmouth Arms. Cosy and full of more retro finds

So after quite a heavy night and not to mention an even heavier night on Friday we needed a good breakfast inside us and no better than The Crystal Palace Market. Beautifully styled, great food and tea. What more could you want? Highly recommended. 

Oh and trip to London wouldn't be complete without the obigatory house shot. If this is your house opposite the indoor flea market in Crystal Palace then you are very lucky and I love your house! 

Did I say that I LOVE LONDON?

April Styling the Seasons = Birthdays & Blossom....

April is a really important month for me, not only is it my birthday but it's the birthday month of many of my closest friends too. They say birds of a feather flock together well we certainly have. I have been dying to do this post for days now since #stylingtheseasons announced  the #stylingspringatmine competition. The Theme is 'what does April mean to you' and in my case thats easy - Birthdays and Blossom. 

You see on my 1st birthday my lovely mum and dad decided to buy me a cherry blossom tree and plant it in the garden. That beautiful cherry blossom has now been flowering for 38 years this month and it always waits just until the 27th to completely bloom. This is why my post had to wait as long as possible because I wanted to be able to have some of my special tree in my styled surface. I stole some but its still not happy to blossom fully just yet! I also grabbed some other pink flowers from the garden too. I mean if you can't have frothy pinks and pastels at your birthday when can you?

The other thing is - my mum decided that I would have to pose for a photograph every year next to my tree, believe me this brings back some memories of standing next to a tree in the rain, in the wind and with no blossom on it at all because the sun hadn't shone enough. I went up my mum's today and routed through the attic to find some of these photographs, not easy when there are around 7000 photographs not in albums!!!! I did find some and I have included these on the wall. I do still do this every year by the way, now with my own children in the picture. 

So thank you #stylingspringatmine for making me reminisce and having a lovely afternoon gathering together my favourite April things. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. 

Oh and Happy Birthday to all you April beauties out there xxx

Age 4 & Age 7

Age 10

xxx

De-cluttering Good for the Soul....

The dining room has always been a bit of a nemesis of mine, its been used as a dumping ground, shoe room, bike shed and every now and again we eat in there! Although I love my little house there are times when I look around in despair and wish we could move and wish I could get rid of some of my stuff. There was essentially nothing wrong with the room but I realised yesterday that some of it has been the same for years and it was time for a change. 

I can't believe I have just put this picture on here! I hate mess but I kept thinking it has to get worse before it can get better.... If you keep telling yourself something it must be right yes? So I de cluttered and pretty much everything you can see on the table has now gone to the charity shop, so I did good for others as well as my sanity. 

The other big frustration for me in the room is the amount of brown. As you may have seen on my previous posts I have painted most of my floors in the house white but I left this one because a. its original and b. it matches the dark wood floor in the living room. So the other option was to paint the table and my lovely friend suggested I dip paint it. I had pinned some of these and thought I would give it a go. Here are the results of my hard work on Easter Sunday and not a bunny in sight! 

Pretty chuffed to be honest!