Toiling with doilies

First, take an age to decide what kind of vibe you want to give your very bare mini-hallway. Take into account the only element of decor: the black and white family photos of yore.

What else can be added? Oh yes: light. 

Think back to your yeti shade project.

Think about how long it took and decide on something faster and cozier with a vintage feel. Think doilies. Tea-stained doilies.

Go to Ikea. Change your mind and go for the pear-shaped shade instead of the round paper shade. Such extravagance.

Oh yes, I forgot, this stage is essential: take a bunch of photos of the before, during, materials, etc., then accidentally delete them. Resort to using the official Ikea website photo that stinks. 

Whip out your vintage rose-coloured masking tape and start taping doilies onto the shade. Go into the kitchen to make some tea. Come back: doilies are all on the floor. Give up on masking tape. Whip out the liquid glue and paintbrush. Go doily-crazy.

Halfway through: run out of doilies. Pass second order to Singapore and pay double postage. Notice after paying that the price of the doilies has skyrocketed. Too late. Wait two weeks. Upon arrival, doilies are a slightly different colour and texture than the first batch. Pray that nobody will notice. Spend Sunday evening arranging doilies that are reluctant to stick while listening to old and embarrassing tunes of yore (like this).

The room looks pretty dark in this picture, but really it just gives the small space a nice and warm feel.

I think I quite like it.

I will call him Andre.

Snip snip

Another post about flowers, you're thinking?

Is it my fault that I am so charming and lovely that people keep buying me flowers?

Is it my fault that I somehow ended up with this?

Exactly. They deserved a more flattering setup. A couple of snips later, I had three happy little arrangements.

And to prove to you that I'm not completely OCD, I put two different flowers in the same vase. It's a miracle!

Looks like getting a non-blurry photo would have been too much of a miracle...

What do you do....

...when your employer selfishly refuses to agree to a mutual termination of contract, meaning you are forced to resign and give up your right to the safety net of unemployment benefits? What do you do when you know you will never be happy where you are and feel the urge to make changes, every day, on every level?

First, spend a day or two overloading on cheesy pinterest pep-talk posters

 

 

      
Then, go into cuteoverload mode

Get back your sense of humour. Get ready for subtle and satisfying revenge. Actually not revenge. More like karma. 

Look on the bright side

I've got my love, now all we need is a ticket. Well, and a tan, but that's not about to happen in Yorkshire now is it?

Ugh...

I'm getting tired of waiting for the next step up... and I can't seem to focus on anything else... going. into. bunny-zombie. mode.

Transformation complete. Over and out.

Tray table before & almost after

So I finally decided to just go ahead and write this post because it's very very late and, even more embarassing, I haven't quite finished the project.

Those have got to be two good reasons, yes?

Last June (yikes!), we went to the famous Emmaüs sale in Paris (read the whole story here) and bought a €10 tray table that looked like this:

Then I went over to Wallpaperdirect and ordered a few samples for a few Euros (more info here).

6 months later, I finally got round to doing something about the guilt I felt everytime I walked past that sad little table folded up in the hallway.

It's far from perfect because I ended up using only three of the samples and there wasn't really enough to go around and I had to cut little slivers of paper and stick them here and there to cover up my shoddy work.

But let's just pretend I never said that and that you didn't notice. We used the table loads over Christmas for our snack fuelled Miranda-thons but it doesn't go in the living room at all colour-wise. I was originally planning on selling it as we really didn't need it, so I just went with random colours that I liked for once. The other day I got a bit sick of seing it in the living room and had a mad weekend switcheroo session that involved 3 lamps and 2 tables.

This is what I ended up with: a bigger nightstand in the guest room!

It all looks very yellow in these pics, but really it's nice and cosy and just right. Now all I need to do is get a pane of glass cut to fit over the wallpaper for protection. Let's see how long it takes... I already tried a DIY shop down the road but they stopped cutting glass 10 years ago (maybe update your website to save people a bit of time??) so who knows where I'll go or how long it will take. 

In the meantime we're trying to be careful not to damage the paper. The paint is already a little scratched in places and it really needs another (4th!!) coat and a coat of varnish... can you tell I can't be bothered?

So there you have it: undeniable proof that I'm not some kind of perfectionist maniac. And that I have a slightly pointless obsession with tray tables.

Pining for...faith

And I'm going to need it if I want to be able to make my big announcement next week...

In the meantime, here are some people who have buckets of faith.

 I want to be her

This reminds me of a trip to Yellowstone when a similar little beast decided to saunter along the road in the black of night while we were driving back to our hotel. We drove behind it for a bit, it didn't hurry, just carried on walking...full of faith.

Soon...

Brussels sweet little sprout

First of all, sorry for the very bad photos that will follow. I don't know why they turned out like this really. I had to edit lots of them, I must have been using a weird setting without realising...oh well, cuteness prevails so who cares!
 

We did a lot of very yummy food eating...

 

 




A lot of cuddling and smiling...

which involved lots of exploring...

We even had our own little adventure day with Sophie that included a looooong walk to the park (Seb pushing the pram and Sophie pushing her mini pram, stopping every couple of metres to show us the orange peel, dog poop, etc. that she came across... cute and disgusting at the same time)

A loooong go on the swings

Followed by a quick walk home as we were all frozen (this is when my flu started showing its ugly face). See that white building in the distance? See the top three windows? That's home!

Time for a bottle and a cuddle session while watching our favourite show: Winnie the Pooh (or "winnie poo", as someone says)

Some gift giving (my little heart is melting!)

Playing the weekend's most popular game: putting all the flowers in the wooden saucepan and then shaking it about wildly to create a flower explosion!! Such fun! Then Maurice the giant bear would help Sophie to pick the flowers up and put them back in the saucepan for another round of flower explosions!

Some cheeky attempt to flee the toilet

And more cuddles to finish off the day. All in all a great adventure! Thank you Val, Steve & Sophie!