Thank You

Just popping in today to say a huge THANK YOU to Grace and Kate (another one, I'm not thanking myself, ha!) who have recently featured a couple of my projects:

Grace at Design Sponge who featured my super size cross stitch:

Kate at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating who is featuring my striped hallway today over on her blog.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to you both.

And if you're visiting for the first time, hello!  Thanks for stopping by.  Feel free to have a good poke around.  To make it easy to catch all of my updates you can follow along at Bloglovin right here:

 

 

Kate

xxx

Take the Tour

The first thing I do when I stumble across a new blog is to track down their house tour, anyone with me?  I love having a nosey round other peoples houses - and all from the comfort of my own sofa, perfect!  I'm constantly finding inspiration in other bloggers style and design.

These are a few of my favorite house tours - the perfect way to waste a few minutes:

Sarah M Dorsey Designs - love her colour choices and mixture of prints

Yellow Brick Home - amazing to think they packed this much style into just 650 sq feet

Making It Lovely - a fantastic sense of style

Tudors Down - a sea of mid-century, so 2 thumbs up from me (check out their latest tour at AP)

And with all the changes around here I've been busy updating our House Tour page - so feel free to have a look around.  I won't judge!

April is turning out to be a busy month for house poking aroundery (definitely a word!).  First up is the Birmingham Parade of Homes.  I've never been before, so am looking forward to seeing what decorating ideas I can shamelessly steal.  Then at the end of the month it's the Decorators Showhouse.  Each local designer gets a room in a huge house to decorate.

Here is this years house:

You can count on it being massively incohesive as the designers each try to cram as much of their style into their one room.  Some go subtle, some go neutral, some go bold.  It's guaranteed to be an interesting mix.

Kate

xxx

Sucker for Succulents

I'm ashamed to say we have absolutely no plants in our house.  Mainly because I'm a crazed plant killer.  Clearly if we were going to add plants, it needed to be something hardy that wouldn't shrivel up and die a day after I forget to water it (which I inevitably will). 

So this weekend I hot footed it to Lowes to jump on the succulent bandwagon.  I picked up 3 for $4 each.  I already had 3 little red buckets from the Target dollar section.  Our window sills are irritatingly narrow so they weren't going to fit there.  Instead, I decided to try and hang them.  Luckily I found a measuring cup hook at a local flea mall that worked perfectly.

There were lots to chose from.  Ultimately, I went for the ones that looked the weirdest.

I love the strange shapes.

If I was going to name this one it would be "the claw" - I'm sure it's actually called something like the "succulentomiticus clawstotensis".

They hang in our kitchen, right below our red retro clock.

I love the mixture of old wooden hook and crisp red buckets.

Fingers crossed I can keep these sweet little plants alive!

Kate

xxx

Red, white and blue

It's Friday and I couldn't be more ready for the weekend.  I'm looking forward to Easter and pottering round the house and flipping through my Orla Kiely Pattern book that just arrived (thank you very much credit card reward points).  It's going to take all my willpower not to rip out some of the pages to frame.

The half bath progress continues at a snails pace.  A snail that has stopped to catch his breath.  Then grabbed something to eat.  And finally decided to take a nap.  Aaaah, it's never going to be finished!!  Ok, I feel better after that.  Now for the progress.

We finally mounted the Target cabinet.  I love the crisp white against the navy.

It looks a little small on the wall, but I have a few ideas to bulk it up a bit.

I've also been squirreling away some accessories since I decided on the navy walls.  I'm not sure all of these will be making it into the room, but i suppose it's good to have too much rather than not enough.  It'll certainly put my editing skills to the test.

You can't beat a patriotic red, white and blue colour scheme.  Not an Easter pastel in sight, ha!

Kate

xxx

Striped!

When we purchased our house the hallway was a gloomy green - it somehow sucked all the light out of what should have been a bright space.

I knew we would be painting it, and we quickly updated it from the dark green to a bright cream. I loved the crisp clean look it gave, but even I have to admit it looked a little plain Jane - even with the introduction of the cute Loch Ness Monster print (more on that HERE) and a little Welcome sign (more on that HERE).

The wall by the stairs, in particular, was crying out for something.  Anything!!

I came up with the idea of adding stripes along all of the walls, but with 5 doorways it would have been very start stop, so I decided on one wide stripe on the main wall. Now for the color - I must have bought about 50 different paint chips home. I wanted something neutral, but enough of a contrast that you would actually notice it. In the end I went for Dust Bunny (oh the irony!) by Valspar.

 

I masked out my line with painters tape. I read a great tip on Emily Clarks amazing blog for painting stripes: paint along the outside with an almost dry brush as this seals the edges and prevents bleeding under the tape.  (Please ignore the hideous smoke detector - it's on the list to be replaced!)

 

I couldn't wait to whip the tape off. Sure enough, the lines were nice and sharp.

 

I picked up 4 frames from our local dollar store and framed some of my own photos (side note: Walmart is having a half price sale on Poster Prints, less than $3 for an 11x14.  Run, don't walk!).

 

 

This pic was taken on a trip to Tampa.  Sadly this is as close as we got to that yacht!

 

 

The colour was just what I wanted, and I love any excuse to get my photos out of a box and onto the wall.

 

At only $3 for the tester of paint and $4 for the frames the whole project came in under $10. Perfect if you're a renter and don't want the hassle of repainting a whole wall when you move out, or if you want to inject a bit of color but don't want to commit to a whole wall.

 

Kate

xxx

 

I Heart JCP

I was wandering round JCP this weekend and saw some great deals.  The housewares department was cloaked in plastic ready for the big Jonathan Adler, Martha Stewart, Conran reveal later this spring.  But I did manage to have a look round the lighting section, and couldn't believe the modern designs.

(oh yeah, check me and my new collage making skills!)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

 

Seriously though, how amazing are these lamps?  I ordered number 2 online (part of the new Jonathan Adler collection), and picked up number 4 in store.  They're just as nice in person.

I'm not ashamed to say, I'm a big JCP fan.  I think because I wasn't here for the "that's where my Gran shops" era (I've only been in the US 5 years).  And I love all of the new improvements and concessions they are bringing in. 

 

Kate

xxx

 

PS - this was 100% not a sponsored post, I just like shopping.......and JCP.

Making Plans

Happy Friday!  I hope you've all had a great week.  I've been busy laying the groundwork for a couple of bigger projects (bigger for me anyway) around here.  I've also caught the organizing bug in a big way (I can almost hear my mum gasp from the other side of the pond, ha!).  The yard sale was the catalyst in getting this place in some kind of order.  If we haven't used/worn/needed it since we moved in (nearly 12 months ago) it's out (said in your best Heidi, Project Runway voice).  Purge, purge and purge some more.

It's a little overwhelming to tackle the whole house at once, so I'm trying to do one space at a time.  First up is our sad little pantry.  I'm thinking stencils and plenty of shelving and some flexible storage options, and maybe a counter top?  Wish me luck!

In blog news, I made a BIG investment this weekend.  A new camera!  Up till now, all my photos have been taken with my little point and shoot Cypershot, and it's been great.  But I look at blogs like The Lettered Cottage and Yellow Brick Home and swoon at their amazing photos.  Of course, it helps that they have amazing things to take amazing photos of.  And I know having a good camera doesn't make a good photographer (cue lots of Googling), but I'm really excited to get out and about and try to improve.

I can already see the difference in picture quality just wandering around the house taking snaps of random stuff.  Of course first up was Murph, who looks thrilled at the prospect of having his picture taken.

 

This painting by numbers is my latest flea market find:

 

 

 Along with this faux old calendar:

So look out for some, hopefully, improved pics.  Have a fantastic weekend whatever you have planned.

Kate

xxx