How to: Make a Terrarium

I love plants, I really do, but they just don't seem to know it. The plants in our house are a tough crew - the survivors.  So, I've decided to play to my strengths, putting something pretty in a pot and then forgetting about it for a while. Cactus and succulents - they're the plants for me. And I get to say the word 'terrarium' a lot. Which is good.

So here's my quick guide to making a terrarium. It's all very obvious really!

 You will need:

• Catcus & succulent compost
• Gravel - finding this was the tricky bit! I took the girls to our local aquarium one rainy afternoon and bought aqua gravel for fish tanks. 
• selection of succulents and cacti (none of those I bought cost more than £1.99)
• An open or closed glass container - large kilner jars work well
• Spoon
• Small handed helpers (optional)

Step 1: Spoon the compost into the jar - you can also put a layer of gravel and charcoal at the bottom first for extra drainage if you are using plants that need more water than cacti

Step 2: Position your plants, starting with the largest. Settle them in nicely with a little more compost.

Step 3: Spoon a little gravel over the potting soil. You can stop here, or if your helpers have happened to gather moss for you...

 

 Step 4: Add a little moss, spritz with a little water, and your gorgeous terrarium is now complete!

Le weekend

Good stuff happened this weekend, including this..

Ken Law print from 60s of Hampsted High Street via H is for Home. Our new favourite bit of wall candy.

Squidgy yarn, tiny little going-to-take-ages-to-knit yarn, and tortoise fabric. If I was a tortoise, I would join this tortoise gang. For real.

Happy feet, and quilted work in progress. Already getting use even though it's not finished. A good sign!

Four special words: snack in a den!

Colour block

Our four walls have been through a tough time this summer. Well actually, it's the floor that had the worst of it. Way back in June a burst water mains pipe flooded our little row of houses resulting in all sorts of house-based shenanigans. Thankfully, the water was clean, and the damage was fairly minimal compared to what many others have had to contend with in the winter floods this year. We were working an "industrial chic" look for most of the summer, but finally, we have carpets, newly painted walls and a kitchen floor again.

Anyhoo, as a result of all this kerfuffle our little house has felt somewhat neglected, and now that we have cosy toes and pretty paint again, it's been great to fluff the cushions and titivate.

Some may call this a titivation too far... but, inspired by the shelves of my lovely friend Jo (recently featured in Crafty Magazine), I've been shuffling our books into colour theme. Mr Loulabelle, was somewhat disturbed at first, but has since grown to accept that he just has to remember the spine colour to find his books - easy peasy if you ask me!
 

Vintage Flea Market Finds

Last weekend was a real winner- Saturday was spent feeding ducks, waving at trains, playing in sand and eating icecreams the size of our heads.

 On Sunday, I made a solo voyage to Bethnal Green for the Vintage Furniture Flea market from Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair.

Ooh, what a haul!  I found the perfect 70s lamp that we've been wanting for ages - complete with original shade - a fab rug and a set of 3 italian mugs. Here they are, proudly displayed in our home after successfully surviving a trip across London on the tube and a bus ride back to Oxford!

On the textile front, my vintage fabric stock was boosted with these 3 little beauties... 

and lastly, Freya now has a funky "pinny" for playing, cooking and mealtime fun...

Some of the vendors that particularly caught my eye were (clockwise from top):

• E.W. Moore & Son Ltd who specialise in vintage wallpaper
• Oh so Retro! Some fab homewares
• Your Vintage Life - Gorgeous homewares and textiles - including my new blue fabric above which was being sold on the roll. I met the very helpful Kate.
• Etcetera - Based in Margate, the lovely Shelly and her partner have a frequent spot at Spitalfields market and were very kind to me! I bought the German lamp from them and was so pleased that  my fab new lamp came from such lovely people!

If you're close to London I'd really recommend a visit to the next market - just the right size, reasonable prices and lots of lovely vendors - not to mention some delicious homemade cakes!

The grand opening of... The Nursery!

Hurrah! The nursery is all ready!

Here is the before photo - it doesn't quite do justice to the truly terrifying lime green walls, navy carpet and egg yolk cutains, but believe me, it was quite a sight .....

And here are the after shots...

As we don't know what flavour The Bean will be, we had to stick to neutral colours - plus, it wasn't long ago that I'd initially decorated for spare room/sewing room purposes - hence the slightly grown-up wall paper choice, but I think it works okay for a little person too and am really pleased with how the woodland theme turned out. I was a bit worried there might be too many "eyes" in the room but I'm hoping the baby will feel looked after by his/her foresty friends rather than being watched!


Recognize the curtains? Yep, they're the ones from my 2nd ever post - okay, so they didn't make it to a bag, but they were the perfect mix of big, busy pattern and sunny colour to add a bit of fun and warmth to the window.

I'm not looking forward to the sleepless nights, but I am looking forward to wrapping myself and the baby up in the crochet blanket of camden squares that (finished last week) and snuggling back into the vintage fabric cushion. The v-shaped cushion was a kind donation which I re-covered in a pretty brushed cotton of little brown and beige flowers.



The hedgehog mobile is one of my favourite things about this room! It's from Flensted Mobiles and was a gift from the fabulous American Aunties (aka the Boston based ladies at work) and moves with such a lovely gentle glide. I re-lined the wicker baskets and am planning to use one for toys and one for nappies.

The hunt for woodland themed wall decals was a long one and involved a surprising number of scary looking creatures, guarenteed to give babies nightmares! Eventually I found two decals that I really liked - I used one as a main feature on the side wall opposite the window (see below) and the other as a cute accent next to the cupboard door. Both decals came from Holly on Etsy. Eventually I'll add some more pictures to the wall under the shelf to brighten things up a bit more.


The giclee prints were from a fabulous Etsian artist based in New Zealand called Sugarloop. These are the first prints I've bought from her, but have a feeling they won't be the last!


The heart-shaped cot decoration was another make from the Catherine Woram Gifts for Baby book. And you've already met Archie the bear!

Lastly, but by no means least - here are the cot bumper and quilt cover that started the whole woodland theme. These are extra special because they were mine when I was a baby! Mum has kept them all these years and I'm so pleased that I get to use them now.

So now the room is ready, we just need the baby to go with it! I'm due tomorrow so the wait is nearly over!

Shelves glorious shelves!

It's been a little while since my last post as we are now reaching the final countdown until the arrival of The Bean (only 1 more month to go!) and have been desperately trying to get things off our to-do list.

I've also been working on my first ever tutorial which I plan to post up in the next week or so, and have been searching through my bookmarks list to create a useful post about sourcing vintage fabrics. In the meantime, I wanted to share my new found appreciation of the beauty and wonder of shelving and storage space!

This is what the cupboard in the spare room - aka my sewing room soon to be the nursery - looked like previously:
(Actually that's a bit of a fib as this is what it looked like after I removed the chest of drawers and the extremely unstable stacks of cardboard boxes and Bags for Life overflowing with the jumble of my fabric and sewing supplies.)

And this is the cupboard after my Super Dad spent a day and a half waving his magic DIY screwdriver, and fitting made-to-measure shelves and a light. I then spent a week's worth of evenings sorting through the fabric stash and putting things into tidy boxes.

It's been nearly 2 weeks now and I still like to marvel at the wonder of my beautiful new cupboard! Eventually I'll get round to prettifying the walls a bit and painting it to look even more wonderous.

And still on the shelving theme... here is Paul's marvellous handiwork on the cupboard under the stairs:

Day of the dining room chairs

I'm feeling very pleased with myself as we made good progress with Operation Dining Room at the weekend. We're still a few finishing touches from completion, but we've come a long way!

Here's the before photos... (mmm, nice carpet - I love a good stain!)


We've now re-painted, carpeted and we've got some fab Eames era furniture, but the chairs needed recovering (honestly Paul, they really did!) so this was my big project of the weekend. Feeling in need of some adult supervision, I removed the cushion pads from the chair frames and took them over to Mum and Dad's where I knew I'd be safe if things started to go wrong!

The preparation took most of the time and I'm sure we removed enough staples to make chain mail for a battalion of guinea-pigs. I used the old chair covers as a pattern for making up the new ones and then attached to the pads with Dad's trusty staple gun and help from Mum with a few tricksy corners. Aren't parents great?

So here's the before photo...

And here are the after shots in all their glory...


(Let's gloss neatly over how I spent an hour painstakingly reattaching the cushion pads the wrong way round - suffice it to say that Paul wins a special bravery medal for pointing it out!)

Oh, and to top it all, after all their help, Dad also gave me this amazing harvest festival style box of home-grown fruit and veg to take back home!