Country Cottage Mood Boards

Country cottage style is something I've always loved but never had a property that would match.  This is a scheme that I would use if I had a county cottage.

This is a bright and fairly neutral take on a country cottage, since cottages are typically quite dark, keeping the decor light and bright is important.  It has clean lines with rustic accents.

Autumn Accents

I am loving this season change from Summer to Autumn and feel ready to change up my decor to reflect it.  Obviously I'm not going to make major changes for every season but it occurred to me a few years ago that we have decorations that we bring out for December, but why only December?!  I'm not talking about anything so major as Christmas trees but a few changes to make the decor feel new are always nice.

For me, Autumn is about getting the candles and snuggly blankets out and getting ready for winter.  It's a time for eating home made soup by the fire.  I just love it!

Thinking about how few autumn decorations I have (by now I am usually fully focussed on Christmas) I thought I'd put together a few ideas for Autumn Accents.

This is just a selection of items from a wander around the internet.  I feel like October time is a good time to introduce a few gold cushions - they can stay right through to Christmas (or all year if you don't get easily bored of decor like me) and keep you safe from of terracotta and orange overload.

Of course with Autumn comes harvest and Halloween so I like this reference to a pumpkin (available on etsy).  As I said before I love candles and blankets.  I also think that changing up the artwork would be fun and a good chance to get the kids involved.

I fell in love with Autumnal wreaths but I'm not sure the UK is on board with wreaths for anything other than Christmas.  I might be standing a wreath up beside my fireplace rather than on my front door!!

Disney Snow White themed home office

Heigh-ho-heigh-ho it's off to work we go so it might as well be reminded of Snow White. 

Halloween - Disney Style

Yes, it's still September and Halloween is over a month away but the Parks have started Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Parties, which means the decorations are up and I just love them.

If you follow me on Twitter you'll know that I've love all the seasons but I've been longing for crunchy leaves and chunky jumpers for a few weeks now, so I'm ready to embrace Autumn and Halloween.

I only decorate my own house for Halloween on the day. I know in other parts of the world decorations for Halloween are more like decorations for Christmas and go up weeks in advance but my neighbours would just think I was confused or really strange.

On this basis, I don't want to spend too much money on something that only comes out once a year although I found these lights on the Disney Store (US) website and I love them. Plus, I've just found a way to get them shipped to the UK - this is dangerous and certainly going to mean a lot of online shopping. 

I especially like these because they look so friendly, having a small child, I don't want Halloween to be too scary. 

Another favourite activity to Disneyfy (is that a word??) is pumpkin carving.  There are lots of fab templates and stencils out there and I've tried a few.  This one is definitely my favourite.  This was last years effort.  I also did Mickey and Minnie but they didn't turn out too well.

I also have a bit of a cheat which is a Jack Skellington tea light holder.  It comes out every year (about 5 years now) and it so much less time, effort and mess than a pumpkin.  

A little flower arranging weekend

This past weekend was the local village fair and I like to support it by entering a couple of flower arrangements.  So, I thought I'd share some photos of them here.

The first category was arrangement for a wedding, this was mine, a rose topiary ball mounted on a champagne bottle.  I won't do a full tutorial but I'll go through it quickly.  

This is a 16cm topiary oasis, I found the bottle I wanted to use, but for stability I had to mount the ball on sticks which went into the bottle. (Special thanks to my dad for drinking the contents of the bottle so that I could use it - what a hero!!!).  I added the foliage (and I should know what it is, but it was just a plant in the garden) I added roses all over mixing the colours and then filled the gaps with a little gypsophila.  I stuck labels over the bottle to show a table number and date.

The slight shock was how many roses it required - 60 small rose heads went into this one ball! 

A few people asked me about the costs to make at the show so I'll try to break that down.
Oasis - £5 (think this was discounted)
Roses - £12 (6 packs from supermarket)
Gypsophila £1.50 but only used about half
Foliage - free from the garden
Sticks - £1
Bottle - had already but I know you can buy empty bottles online or buy a drink you happen to like
TOTAL: £17.50 excluding bottle, which isn't bad as DIY for a wedding.

The next category I chose to enter was a flower arrangement depicting a song.  Here is mine.....guess the song.

 Got it?  Here is a little close up that might help!

It's "We're Off to See the Wizard" more commonly known as "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" from the Wizard of Oz (helpfully the category was depict a song, not song title, so I got away with it).  

The yellow roses to depict the yellow road, the foliage at the back (with leaf shine although that doesn't really show in the photo) to represent the emerald city and red shoes as an extra clue that Dorothy might be visiting.

My favourite part of this, of course, is the red shoes.  Although they were by far the most difficult part.  My daughter refused to donate any of her dolls shoes, so I bought a doll (shhhh, daughter will be getting a shoeless doll from Christmas) and tried to coat them in PVA ready for glitter.  This is where I learnt that plastic doll shoes are totally repellant to PVA glue. Even after thorough soapy washing and even after submerging in glue, it just ran straight off.  So being the girl that I am, got some hairspray from my bag and that stuck the glitter on.  Hairspray worked brilliantly and I did a couple of coats to make sure it was truly covered.  I used a hot glue gun to stick cocktail sticks to the shoes to secure them to the arrangement.

I was super pleased that these both won first prize in their category and the Yellow Brick Road one won Best in Show. It's only a small village show but it's still always nice to win something.

Disney Mickey and Minnie Wedding Cake Topper

This isn't related to construction or interiors. but it is Disney and cake.  What better for a Friday afternoon??  This is a Mickey and Minnie Wedding Cake Topper and I adore it.

It is a customised replica of this photo frame holder that came from Disneyland Paris (not sure if it is still available but similar items with the characters in wedding attire are still online).  The bakery took the photo holder and made this amazing topper.  Changing just a few details like the colour of the dress and recreating the back without the large heart.

I think the cake is a balance of Disney (I mean the mice are pretty obvious) but not too OTT with the simple ivory icing below rather than trying to over-theme it with carriages and castles.  Im not sure if the detail is really clear on the photo I have but the top and bottom tiers are plain and the middle one has the delicate lace detail from the brides dress.

                 

 




If you are interested to know where this was made please feel free to message me.

Choosing new flooring

To set the scene, this house is a 4 year old new build with new build carpets (in case you haven't ever experienced this delight.....it is cheap carpet thrown on top of whatever surface was left - in this case, it was cracked, plaster splashed dusty and dirty concrete).  4 years of prams, dogs, visitors and the joys of dirt from the building site outside on poor quality carpet wasn't great.  

It's a shame I can't show how it started out, even if I had a photo, it would never be a fair side by side comparison so just imagine showhouse cream carpet - after 4 years and countless attempts at cleaning, this was the very sad result.  

Stained, bubbled, awful.  It had to go, it was unsafe and unhygienic.

The final decision after months of samples and discussion was vinyl tiles.  

I know the price is high, and ridiculously high depending where you go (but more of that later) but it also comes with a 15 year guarantee for commercial use and I believe a lifetime guarantee for domestic use so it's clearly robust.  I know from experience that any freak damage can be rectified by removing and replacing tiles - not easy, but possible.  When you compare the initial cost with the cost of probably replacing the other types of flooring over 15 or more years, the figures are easier to handle.

In the end, the decision between Amtico and Karndean came down to colour, I wanted something a bit darker in a wood effect and the one that suited the best was Karndean Rubra (WP316 if you are interested).

The cost....this was an adventure!  I went to several suppliers and the costs varied by £2000.  In the end, I was lucky enough to have worked with a flooring contractor in the past who was able to do it for a sensible price.  Although I had a previous connection, this wasn't 'mates rates', it just wasn't the ridiculous mark up that the shops added.

The result -  It's a bit controversial in that the direction is technically wrong, the main living room should run away from the door and not across it and unlike most vinyl tile floors it doesn't have a border.  This is purely because I wanted the flooring to flow through the whole ground floor, which it does.  Plus, with such wide planks (36"x6") the border would either have to be cut down (extra labour costs) or make the hall really narrow.

Some more photos to show the flow between rooms and the detail.  It's been down for a few weeks now and so far so good.  I'll come back with an update if I fall anymore in love or if any problems crop up.