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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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…
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This time of year is perfect for lighting a candle or two. I love candles and find they really add ambience to a room as well as eliminating nasty smells. With Christmas round the corner I’ve been stocking up on some seasonal scents from Febreze to help set the mood this Christmas. Filling the house with seasonal scents I’m expecting a house full so I want to make sure my house smells fabulous. The new range, which includes yummy sounding Vanilla Latte, Apple & Spice, Warm Cedarwood, Winter Garden and Festive Sprite, are beautifully packaged in vintage-inspired wrapping so are…
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I’ve gone all minimalist for November. This month my daughter turns 3 and we’re having a Frozen-themed birthday party to go with her Frozen-themed presents. It’s probably no surprise that some of the colours have crept into our living room and on my mantle. We have ice blue candles standing proud in my great-grandfather’s brass candlesticks. I’ve recycled our Halloween munchkins but spray painted them white to give a fresh new look. The bus blind has been moved to a different room and been replaced by my lovely Orla Kiely stem print vase, a favourite house-shaped tea light holder and…
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We were recently offered the chance to make a canvas by Wall Create. You know I love filling my house with paintings, posters and photographs but I’ve never made a canvas before. Instead of reproducing a photograph I thought it would be fun to use one of my sons’ recent drawings. He drew a picture for his nanny which I loved, so I Photoshopped out his writing (which said Happy Birthday!) and sent off his drawing. My 4 year loves to draw and write – in case you can’t tell, this is our family 🙂 A lovely canvas arrived a…