CHRISTmas Ideas

Earlier on this week I took a trip to our local garden centre to take a look at their CHRISTmas display. Wow was I in for a visual feast, so much so that today I went back with Mr J , Ariane and my camera.

Whitehall is a family run garden centre with there being just 2 in the chain!! Today the head of the family business was in at work, nothing interesting I here you say apart from the fact that she is a  little 80 year old white haired lady. Quite easy to spot her amongst the green uniformed younger workers!!

At the entrance to the winter wonderland you are greeted by this display. The polar bears actually move. Very cute.

Then the rest of the displays are set up as room scenes or garden scenes for you to take inspiration from.Think I may have to paint my front door red for CHRISTmas.

Then the room scenes started !! Next to each scene they had shelves full of all the ornaments and more for you to achieve this in your own homes.

Each room or scene was named and every corner you turned there was a completely different look.

Shabby Chic

Traditional

Oh ,to have a fire place in the dining room.

This was my favourite room and actually reminded me of a friend of mines house. You can check out her blog at  chloescouture . I just love the chandelier.

They were using a glass beaded floral piece as their tree topper, looked amazing.

Then off to the garden displays.

Different shaped mirrors helped to make all of the displays look much fuller a great interiors tip.

Mirrors being used in the garden too.

Now for some bedroom decor. This was Arianes favorite.

A close up of the goodies that were on the dressing table which were for sale elsewhere in the store.

Now for the children's bedroom. There was also a pink bed in this scene but my camera was running out of batteries so we were limiting to one pic per scene from now on. Sorry for the quality on some of these pics I'm still not used to the way this camera works.

Another fab entrance way.

Another traditional scene to finish it off.

We will definitely making more trips to whitehall nearer to CHRISTmas to stock up on extra little bits of decor as you can never have to many CHRISTmas pieces, can you??

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and maybe got a little bit of inspiration.

God Bless You.xx

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint another addiction!

In between the sewing projects I decided that the vintage sewing box that was being used as a side table in Jasmines bedroom needed a make over. She will be pleased to see that I am still referring to it as her room as she has moved 'up north' for university and was convinced that I would either turn it into a full time guest room or auction it off to one of the other children!!

Good ole faithful   Annie Sloan to the rescue.

Loved the little draw pull so removed that before painting.

With  ASCP (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint) there is no need for sanding or priming so it was straight to the job, didn't even bother to remove it from her room! Hope Mr J doesn't read that bit!!

Decided to paint the draw front 'Louis blue' and then do a wash of 'Old white' over the top. So that when I did a little bit of distressing there would be hints of the blue showing through.

2 Hours later the job was complete.

Didn't need to use any of the dark wax on this one as for some reason there where bit of the old brown seeping through but I didn't mind this just gave it a more aged look. Much more in keeping with the rest of the room now.

God Bless You.x

This weeks makes.

A friend of mine is about to become a Grandma for the first time, we are all very excited and can't wait for a cuddle of the new arrival.

She had a Moses basket but wasn't happy with the lining so asked if I could help her out.

Not one to shy away from a sewing challenge I said yes of course.

Liner made and detachable bows added.

The Hood was next .

Then to finish it off a little quilted topper. This basket will stay at Grandma's house so she got to choose the colours.

I also finished off the baby blanket that I was knitting. Having seen the colours of the new babies nursery I chose wool that had the same tones in it. As we don't yet know if the baby is a boy or a girl  I thought I would be safe with these colours. 

Just waiting for this tiny blessing to arrive,  two weeks til due date so not to long to wait.

God Bless your day.x

Old Skool versus New Skool

I have to confess to a few addictions. Books and Pretty china are just a couple to start with. Yes on those two tops shelves there are books stacked in front of books! A big issue for all of you neat freaks I know.

On the opposite side to the couch you can just see in the previous picture we have another book case this one stores ' the special things'  Old books, a whole shelf of Bibles ,old ones,new ones and foreign ones. Some homemade blankets and a few just a few tea sets,  well not even tea sets more like pretty cups and saucers and odd plates. 

It doesn't end there either, in our bedroom there are an abundance of books too. In the Mum cave, OK it's not quite a cave more of a chair and footstool that has a tray full of books on it! It does sit in front of a window so when then sun is shining it is quite nice to sit there with a book and a cup of tea and sit in peace and read for a time.

Then we have beside the bed another stack. Oh my goodness I can see a Indian takeaway menu sticking out of the stack!!

Mr J being a neat freak thinks he has found the perfect solution to my addiction!! The Kindle!! what a genius piece of kit. It goes with me everywhere and with the ability to store three and a half thousand books on it you would think I was cured. We will have to wait and see. I plan on going through my book collection and maybe passing some on to friends or donating them to our local bookshop or even setting up a book swap at our church.

Must dash as looking at these picture really has made me think I need to sort out those shelves. Although  it may have to wait as I have painting and sewing jobs that need to be finished first and I can't see that the book shelves will be a quick task as all you book lovers will know that I will have to  read a few pages from each one of those books that is going just to remind me of the time we spent together.