The garden makeover continues...

Im thoroughly enjoying decorating my garden and treating it as a room outside. I've been inspired by a fee books, such as selina lakes outdoor living and a book called handmade glamping. 

As well as decorating our summer house and indulging in my love of all plants bright and beautiful, I've been making over things we already have. This is my passion, taking something and reloving it, using items I already have. 

I've painted the side gate this lovely shade of sea blue, it's a cuprinol garden shade called coastal mist. Two coats required, but I love this paint and it goes really far! Add the obligatory hanging heart (although I'm a bit worried it looks like something out of the Blair witch project) and...

I do love this colour! I've also painted an old garden bench with wrought iron sides I rescued from a skip in the same colour, but can't show you that as I have absolutely no idea how to put it back together!!! Have to ask the hubby about that one! 

I also had a love seat which was fine, sturdy and practical but oh so boring. So an afternoon of painting has resulted in this;

This is another cuprinol shade as you can see called willow. I love these paints, they are brilliant and such good value for money! They do need a few coats as because they're weather proof they soak into the wood but I've only used a third of a small tin on this. 

I had a single quilt cover in my fabric stash which cost me a quid from the good old chazza shop, and I've cut it up to make cushion covers, voila...

I don't know why the green looks so awful in the top pic, David Bailey I am not!! Anyway, I already had the foam squares in the garage (don't ask) but you can purchase them fairly cheaply from diy or craft shops, and have fun cutting them to size with an electric carving knife (sounds like the opening scene of casualty...) 

So cut your fabric to size and sew up three edges, leaving he too open. Insert foam, hand sew the open edge (my hand sewing is absolute pants but I figure if I put that bit of the cushion to the back no one will know!) and done. 

I'm pretty chuffed with the garden makeover so far and as a bonus I have a wicked tan!! 

Happy painting all,

Love, Sian 💕💕

Ta dah!!!!!

Well our summer house is finally almost finished, just a bit of turf and paving to go round the edge and voila!!! 

I absolutely love it!! My husband (god love him) has built the step part and the flower bed using old timber that was lying around. I've planted some of my favourite plants in it such as daisies and hydrangea and my two olive trees (named Thelma and louise, it's surely not just me who names their trees, my two bay trees out the front of my house are called terry and June)....

The black and white tiles are self adhesive vinyl tiles from b&q very easy to apply and cut, just get yourself a good Stanley blade. 

I also have a pot of lavender outside because...well just because it's pretty and smells nice! I now would like some shelves putting up inside to put some knick knacks on (hard to believe I have any, I know). 

Considering it looked like this when it was first installed....

...I'm pretty chuffed!! As it's the six weeks holidays, I may spend the afternoon in here tomorrow reading my book!! 

So what do you think?! And what would your dream garden have in it??

Happy Sunday all,

Love, Sian 💕💕

Waste not want not...

At the moment, I'm on my high horse about people buying everything new and turning their nose up at charity shops and 'old things'. Eventually we will run out of stuff and all those wonderful old things with a story to tell will be in landfill, gone forever.

Anyway, enough with the lecture! If you follow me on Instagram, you will know I can often be found dragging my poor husband around car boots, charity shops and vintage fairs. I've also taken to asking 'do you want that?' When I'm round various relatives houses.....

I love nothing more than finding something with a history, and knowing that someone once loved it. 

Here are some of my favourite charity shop and car boot buys...

Some of these things have had a makeover, and some of them have been left in their glory. The man who sold me the spinning wheel is saving the chair for me!

My latest fave find from the deep dark recesses of oxfam are these 1940's annuals

So have a rummage, don't be afraid to elbow people out of your way and always, always haggle!! 

Happy treasure hunting, 

Sian 💕💕

Yet another tea related upcycle!

So I picked up a tea trolley from the car boot for a fiver. Yes it nearly cost me my marriage (cue much rolling of eyes from husband and ignored cries of 'where are you going to put that?') 

I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like in my head, and really,hoped it would turn out like that!!! So, spraypaint was purchased and opened with some trepidation, as I hadn't used it before. After shaking it for an hour, it was time to apply the primer, then when that dried the main event. This shade is called 'pastel green' 

Now another domestic ensued when hubby (who isn't a natural teacher) tried to teach me (who isn't a natural listener) how to apply it. Apparently the trick is to move the can left and right and not apply too much. Once my 'supervisor' had got bored and wandered off I got into a zone with it. It's quite tricky but good lord is it fun (and it smells great! Although not sure I'm meant to say that). 

Once the frame had dried, I applied wallpaper to the top (merely some samples I had lying around). I used wallpaper paste, but I think I'll go over the top with pva as it's curling a bit in the corners. 

So here is the finished article, and I've got to tell you I was so happy with it I went and fetched my neighbour to have a look. And that makes me realise what a saddo I actually am......

Anyway, here it is dressed and in all it's splendour;

What do you think?? Well worth a couple of domestics I reckon! 

Have a great week all,

Love, Sian 💕💕

Cath kidston...

They say you only get two great loves in your life. That I believe to be untrue; I have my husband, my two dogs, my home and cath kidston. 
Cath is a British designer who established her brand in 1993. She started to design things to make the home more fun after being uninspired by her ironing board! 
I have loved her bags and purses for years, but have recently fell in love with her fashion particularly. 

Buses and teacups, flowers and farmyards...these are a few of my favourite things! 

Her clothes are so well designed, the prints are so unique and whenever I wear one (which is most days!) I get lots of compliments. 

The dresses retail at £55-£65 and the skirts £35-£45 and they wash brilliantly and are so cute! If you pop into a store, the staff are so friendly and helpful and the online delivery is super quick and efficient too (although you do have to spend over £50 to get free delivery). 

So as you can see I own quite a few pieces from old and new seasons and I love them all! 

Go and check out www.cathkidston.co.uk and I ga ranted if you like vintage and shabby chic, you won't be disappointed! 

Love, Sian 💕💕

Stairs!!

As we have two rather mucky dogs, we decided to take py the carpet on our stairs. It had seen better days so the hubby got out his chisel and up it came!! 

So then it was deciding what to do next. We toyed with the idea of a striped carpet, but they were ridiculously expensive. Our floorboards upstairs are painted white, so we thought that would tie in nicely. However, we didn't want the whole lot painted white. 

Looking on Pinterest gave me a great idea, to use paper to decorate the 'up' part of the stairs. I found this roll of wallpaper in the range for a bargain price of £7.99 a roll. 

The next job was to paint the tread part of the stairs white. I already had the floor paint left over from the floorboards so that was free!! I simply used a brush and away I went! 

The wallpapering part was extremely tricky. The cutting out takes time, and I made loads of mistakes, I used almost a whole roll for this!! 

I used solvite wallpaper paste and extremely sharp scissors to measure and fit the paper. It was hard, the air was blue and my knees ar in agony but I'm so pleased with the result!! For less than  a tenner I now have a brand new staircase! It's not for the faint hearted, but go for it, it's truly unique to our house and I love it! 

Ta dah!!!! 

Love, Sian 💕💕

Making progress...

So it's been a week or so since our little hideaway was placed at the top of our garden. I'm the type who wants everything done yesterday (ask my husband!!) but work has been so busy that we've not been able to finish things as quickly as we'd (ok, I'd) like! 

So far we've painted the outside using the cuprinol shade of jasmine white and the ronseal shade of cornflower. 

We are really pleased with it so far!! I'm thinking it looks very nautical in these shades so that may give me some inspiration for the decor. 

Today I have also made some curtains using laura Ashley fabric which I got from eBay for a steal. 

So the next job is to paint the inside, and then source the flooring that we want. We're going for black and white tiles like a 50's diner but are finding them hard to source so watch this space!!! 

Have a great weekend all, 

Love Sian 💕💕