Shifting Corners

I don't have the luxury of being able to shift furniture around my large sitting room, because, well, I don't HAVE a large sitting room, and pretty much the way the furniture works now is due to necessity rather than aesthetics. And don't you get just a little fed up of seeing people furnish their house with just one. more. chair. for the heck of it? I know I do - because, goodness, how I love to re-arrange a room with the best of them!

Not to be outdone I do the next best thing - I rearrange corners. Yes, I can just about manage a corner or two in this tiny two bedroom mid-terrace. A new picture in a frame, an ornament moved from there to there, perhaps a new cushion or a rearranging of the blankets if I want to go all-out crazy.

I dream of bigger - of having ALL the couches of my dreams in one room, just so (I do love me a good couch and daydream a lot about them). But until then, corners will suffice.

Yes, as we move into the season of being indoors, a few new corners feels just right.

Leaves as decor

It's almost irresistible - the urge to decorate the inside with the beauty found outside. Those reds! Those amazing watercolours on leaves - if these were captured on canvas they would be declared masterpieces, yet here they are - dazzling for a few short days before crumbling to dust.

We deck the sitting room with their beauty and wait for replacements until they all have to give way to a more trying season.









Reminders of where we are on our journey round the sun.

The Mod Podge Diaries.... 1

Organisation is something I like doing. It feels like I'm achieving something tangible. Folded, tidied, put away, everything with a little home of its own, perhaps even a folder, or wallet, or box. Yes, that's me. I like everything to have a home.

What I do *not* like is spending money on other peoples' ideas of how to get organised - gosh there are some ugly creations out there - plastic tubs stacked on another (I have my fair share of these before you say anything), drawers for paper which take up too much room, filing systems that are expensive. My idea of organisation has to square perfectly with being a) compact and put-away-able and b) dirt cheap bordering on free. And yes, if we're honest, c) homemade.






And d) 'beautiful'. Recently I needed a place to put all the worksheets and work the boys get through - filing systems, under the bed, in a bag, left near the printer - all these options had been tried and tested, and I couldn't ignore the mass of work any longer. These free cardboard boxes suited me - they are the right size, strong and stackable. Alas, they lacked the quality of 'beauty'.

Enter Mod Podge to the rescue. Again.

With just a little piece of Penguin Classic wrapping paper from our department store I pasted the sides of the boxes with this faux bookshelf, and ta-da! instant granny chic camoflage for an ugly box!















I can place these on a shelf out of the way and they instantly blend in with the aesthetic of the decor. Granny Chic camoflage for sure. I like it. I may be doing it again. I may even attempt to cover the children in it. Watch this space.



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There's No Place Like it....

Being greatly inspired by Ms. D. Angel and having turned my little work space into a most productive niche the past few days, I took the time to make a little something for our home that has been rolling around my noggin sporadically for a good few months.

Using a lovely vintage tray linen as my frame I happily spent a good while in front of Inspector Morse and DI Jack Frost first picking out lovely vintage fabrics, then ironing the bondaweb interfacing and finally sewing and hand stitching the words "Lord, Bless this HOME, sweet HOME". Which Granny never had a 'bless this home' thing going on somewhere in her hallway? A philistine Granny, that's who. Honouring the granny and giving it a modern twist, this linen fabric whatnot garland has a sentiment that means a lot to me. Having a peaceful and God-conscious home, and having HOME at the centre of everything.









Moving on.

Still giddy with the success of my bondaweb prowess on the table linen, I spied, at the very, very bottom of my fabric shelves a sad little piece of forlorn fabric that once shone as a beautiful woollen shawl that kept me warm when I were a lass at Cambridge. Many a winter morn spent scurrying over Parker's Piece past Reality Checkpoint was made bearable by swaddling myself in this woollen shawl - wrapping me up and keeping the bitterest winds at bay.

Sadly, we had a little accident with the washing machine, and for years her crumpled, discarded body lay retired and forgotten, waiting for an idea to grab me so that I could repurpose her into a new career of usefulness.

And this weekend it so happened that an idea of unbearable brilliance, probably instigated by hours in front of Pinterest, hit me. Cutting up vintage (of course) scraps of fabric I made my own bias, cut the shawl into a rectangle and sewed the bias on. Ta da! Instant blanket. Yes. Another one.

But it was missing something.... it needed a little va-va-voom. And that is where the idea of HOME made its second appearance - a few more minutes with bondaweb and some lovely modern fabric, a little bit of stitchery what-have-you and I present you with a useful throw to keep the babes warm...



















Heart warming chintzy schmultz. No place like it...


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If ever...

If ever I redecorate, or by some miracle, get the Farm of My Dreams, I think these prints by Roddy & Ginger will have to make their way onto a wall or two...





Check out the blog too for more inspiration. {Thanks to Manda for link love there.}

For more house & home dreaming you can see what is making me smile these days by checking out my Pinterest boards House & Home and Farm Life. Dreams at least are free, right?


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