My Mantle is looking a little pared back this month, completely by design. We’ve had Mother’s Day and two birthdays which has meant lots of new toys around the house. I love having a little space to curate and with Spring in the air I’m definitely channelling Spring indoors too. Earlier this month I made a really easy DIY Pom pom tree. It was so simple but pretty and we’ve all enjoyed looking at it. It was looking a little squished in the glass jar so I moved it to my Orla Kiely vase and it has really spread out…
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What child doesn’t love playing with Lego? My 4 year old was recently sent some lovely new Lego sets from George at Asda. Like any boy he loves his vehicles, and if they have moving parts, even better. He’s not at the stage when he can build them independently but he really enjoys making them with his Daddy. George at Asda have a huge range of Lego and Construction toys and he loves his Lego Technic Bulldozer. This was a 2 in 1 set so rebuilds into a powerful Trench Digger. He’s had a lot of fun with this set.…
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Last week my husband celebrated his birthday. I won’t tell you how old he is but it was a big birthday and our celebrations are lasting longer than usual. We’re all a little Minion obsessed at the moment so we held a Minion inspired birthday party. First we had to decorate and used a fun kit from Balloon Time to help us. The Balloon Time Helium Kit contained a portable helium tank, 30 latex balloons and ribbon for £22 which I thought was very reasonable. We bought the kit from Asda and the children couldn’t wait to see how it…
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The weather was so sunny yesterday I really wanted to make something equally cheerful to decorate our mantle. This is the simplest craft and I feel a little silly writing about it on my blog. However, the results are so pretty I had to share. Materials needed to make a DIY pom pom tree: Pastel Pom Pom Value Pack from Baker Ross Twigs Old jam jar (washed with the label removed) Bostik Sticky Dots How to make a DIY pom pom tree: I had a bag of pom poms from Baker Ross which had a selection of blue, green, orange,…
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February has been a busy month and my mantle has changed several times to reflect Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year and my husband’s 40th birthday. So what’s on my mantle this month? The one constant has been a bunch of daffodils. I’ve really enjoyed watching them bloom. Can you see my beautiful vintage tea cup and saucer? I spotted it when out charity shopping with my mum and had to have it. I love vintage china and this was produced to celebrate the Treaty of Versailles on 28th June 1919. The motif features a map of the world and the…
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It has taken me a while to sort our living room out after the festive period. Would you believe I’m still finding Christmas decorations and have a big box of things to go back up in the loft this weekend? This week we finally watched the Advent candles burn down too. We had lit them a couple of times during December but they still had a good few hours left in them. This week I also took down the children’s New Year decorations, I just needed to reclaim a little space for me. If you saw the rest of the…
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My one luxury in life (apart from a good cup of tea) is my subscription to Reloved magazine. I love to recycle and upcycle and this is a great read, packed full of inspiration. I’ve been looking for some ideas for our living room. 2015 is the year it will be decorated and I was excited to read an article about warehouse style. Warehouse style fits really well with our vintage home vibe. We have some key pieces of furniture which will be staying, such as my beloved vintage kitchen cupboard which houses my fabric stash. There are some lovely…
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Did you watch any episodes of the Great Interior Design Challenge? I love that programme and watched every episode. I love seeing how the different designers met the brief and how they transformed the different styles of houses. I was waiting for them to design a 1990s house but funnily enough that didn’t happen. We are really struggling with ideas for our house. I’m not sure if these programmes are a good idea or not. On the one hand they inspire me to want to have a beautiful home. On the other hand, they make me feel inadequate that I…
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Greetings and welcome to the festive edition of what’s on my mantle. My house is looking quite pretty. We have strings of lights everywhere to protect us from the gloom that seems to descend by the time we get back from the school run. As well as sharing my mantle I thought I would also write about some of our Christmas decorations. For the first time we are experimenting with a large light feature. Yes. We have our very own reindeer. We’ve managed to position it between our wooden shutters and our huge bay window in our lounge. The children…