Fairy Project #3 The Rocking Chair

Let me start by saying - who doesn't want a rocking chair?! When we went on the search in our local and very beautiful vintage furniture shop (I 'oooo' and 'aaaah' the ENTIRE time I'm in there) for a simple little wicker chair to sit in the bare corner in the living room, I didn't expect to be spending the rest of the evening re-upholstering a vintage rocking chair!

You know when you walk in to a shop and see THOSE shoes, or in to a cake shop and see THAT cake that you know you just aren't going to leave without, well this was the case for the Rocking Chair and I. Despite it being a little over budget at £60 for what we had planned, I knew it would end up being one of those pieces of furniture which will end up staying with me and therefore be worth every penny and more! And you can't deny that it will fit perfectly in a baby's room in the future for late night feeds! :-)

The original upholstery on the seat wasn't awful...but the material was like linoleum and not what we were looking for to go in our cosy living room. A trip to Dunelm Mill for half a metre of fabric (around £5), a staple gun and an old white pillowcase to stop the old material from showing through, and a Sunday night of re-upholstering commenced!

Original shiny material - cute but too kitcheny

 With a little help! Unscrewed the seat

Stretched white pillowcase stapled as an underlayer

Stretch the fabric tightly and staple then cut to neaten up

 Screw back on and pop in little corner with some more contrasting flowery prints

I'm happy to say that the chair even made it through the flat party without turning to kindling!
What do you think of my first piece of re-upholstery? :-)

Collars and Roses

You have probably guessed by now that I am a big fan of flowers! I love to have flowers in the flat all the time and I am a lucky lady to have someone who is quite partial to coming home with some for me, but I do like to buy them for myself too! You would be shocked at how many bunches of gorgeous flowers are reduced and then thrown out if not sold by the supermarkets. A sell-by date on flowers, why?! I once got a MASSIVE bouquet of flowers for 99p which were reduced from £10.99, they lasted in my vases looking beautiful for over a week! I find it so sad to think about poor little pretty flowers lying in a bin :-(

I love flower prints and this orange and cream rose cardi reminds me of the summer. It's from Tesco would you believe, but is great material and I can't wait to wear it thrown over a sun dress on my summer holiday. 5 months and counting...!

I promise I didn't coordinate my clothes with my flowers!

Cardigan: F+F at Tesco; Top: Primark

Fairy Project #2 Homemade Seat Covers

Bye bye January! Hello February! After a very long month of weekends in and no vino passing my lips, tonight I am coming out of my hermit hole and having all my friends round to the flat for drinks and some good ol' party tunes. Seating is always a problem at house parties, especially when you have a little 1 bedroom flat, and so last weekend I managed to rope my boyfriend in to helping me make some cute and very comfy seat covers for our kitchen seats (I made white chocolate and raspberry blondies in return!).

We found some brand new, thick thick cream cotton seat covers in a charity shop recently and I thought it would be the perfect little project to spruce them up for the kitchen. After a trip to the material shop in town to pick up a couple of scraps of kitchen-y fabric (red checks and green checks, one for each seat), a good few hours of sewing and stuffed with a couple of squishy feather cushions, we now have some cheerier looking (and less bum numbing) kitchen seats! 

A metre of checked fabric

Boyfriend's cover

Folded neatly and a wee running stitch all the way round

The finished product

Stuffed with some feather cushions from Dunelm Mill

Perfect party seats?!

Homemade gluten free white chocolate and raspberry blondies and tea from Cath Kidston and Laura Ashley mugs

I'm thinking about buying a sewing machine but have no idea where to start. Anyone have any recommendations? Obviously all I want is a vintage Singer sewing machine but maybe that would be better for decoration!

Happy Saturday...!

Dreaming of lands far away

I must say I am looking forward to seeing the back of January! Although it hasn't been too long a month for me and I've been busy getting stuck in to work and the dreaded fitness regime, I'm oh-so ready (probably prematurely, given that I live in Scotland and it could well snow for the next 3 months solid!) for the nights to get lighter, the daffodils to start springing up and for people to start coming out of hibernation.

So! Today I give you an insight in to what is currently keeping me cheerful until spring does finally descend. My boyfriend and I booked our summer holiday for 2014 in December and haven't stopped talking and planning it since. The original plan was to jet off somewhere far, far away like the Dominican Republic, but, upon giving myself a hard reality check and remembering how much I am NOT a creature made for lying on a beach for 14 days on the trot (I salute you who are!), we decided to book a couple of weeks railing it around Eastern Europe!

This is the loosely scheduled agenda of places we are desperate to visit, but so far the only things booked are flights out to Croatia, flights home from Prague 2 weeks later and a 5 star spa hotel in Budapest for the weekend!

"We should all start to live before we get too old"

All I can think about as I sit here in the pouring rain is sitting on a veranda at 8am, sandals and sun dress on, drinking coffee and feeling the morning sun on my face. Not too much to ask is it?!
Here is a pinterest haven of some places penciled in on the map...

Has anyone been travelling around Eastern Europe and have any recommendations?

Happy Monday :-)

Home is where the heart is

'Home is where the heart is' is probably the most apt cliched saying for how I feel about my little flat! My boyfriend found this flat last year - he went to the flat viewing by himself because I couldn't get the time off work, he hummed and hawed about it to me, but in the end we went for it...and the first time I saw it was the moment I stepped in with my life packed into suitcases and boxes. THANKFULLY, the boy did good! Unbelievably good actually, because I haven't loved living somewhere so much since my childhood house. 

The flat is nestled right in the top of an old building and is amazingly quirky, from our very own staircase outside the front door (covered with crepe pastel roses now, of course), to the fireplace and bay window, and the special feature wall in the bedroom.Our fabulous landlady has gone off travelling and told us that, so long as we don't paint any walls black or with football murals (glad she said it before I did!), then we pretty much have full reign of the place. So, by the end of the first weekend the fuschia pink walls were vintage white and the 7 million bookcases were dismantled, and we were on our way to having our own little restoration project! 

Over 3 months have gone by and we are still adding plenty of touches, but here is a look at some of my favourite bits at no18...

Fireplace with bottle candles and fluffy sheepskin rug

Bedroom feature wall

I love this wall so much - I'd never seen anything like it before! The landlady used to have wicker baskets on every shelf but after hunting for two months and not being able to find the right size for the middle and bottom shelves, we decided to take one shelf out and have put some mismatched boxes from TK Maxx and a vintage lamp in instead. And I think I actually prefer it! (Photos taken before the white jug became red and spotty...as described in my post here)

One of the storage chests from TK Maxx

Lamp also from TK Maxx..I love how old school it is!

I wanted the bedroom to have a lovely vintage-y, shabby chic feel, so all walls are white with added touches of all different prints of blues and whites. And plenty of hearts...

Bedding

Moroccan lamp

Bunting!! I love bunting!

My gorgeous christmas present jewellery box

A wash bag makes a nice door decoration!

I know my choice of flat isn't everyone's style, but I don't know what's better than fluffy rugs, cosy couches and plenty of flowers!