How to get creative

It's amazing what you can do with a vase, gravel, string and a fake flower. I saw a vase in Sainsburys at the weekend - I can't find it online now - and it gave me the inspiration to make my own for less than half the price!

It's the first accessory for my new bedroom, and it's happily sitting in the window sill. I should get creative more often - I love it when a plan works! The whole thing cost me about £6.50, which is a bargain.

Dans x

How to create a pig sty

...by deciding to get carpets fitted a year after you've moved in. You're all settled, everything is in its place, the furniture took hours to take down / rebuild / carry up the stairs / fit through doors and ahhh relax... for 12 months until deciding to upheave your whole house once more!

This was our lounge...

And it took a while to clear our bedrooms and rip up the cheap laminate flooring...

But then the carpets finally came and we could finally start putting things back to normal.

When we moved in we decided to have the front bedroom but then we changed our mind, so when the carpet fitter left we started on swapping the furniture to set it up in our freshly painted room. I love the end result - our bedroom is now much lighter and I can't wait to furnish it with lots of accessories that make the room feel homely - I never spend any time relaxing or watching tv in our bedroom so hopefully that will change.

Finally our house is back to normal and we can relax - the full weekends of working on it was worth it!

Dans x

5 things I didn't tell you while I was gone...

1. After a much moaned about failed purchase and mega long time to put my order through, PLUS a wait much over the standard 30 days, my Zatchel from their half price birthday bonanza has finally arrived. I love it, it's beautiful, and it completely cheered me up arriving at work on a mega stressful day. I have to admit though that it's much more over on the yellow side than I was expecting, as it is classed as cream and looked much different on the website, but it doesn't make me love it any less. It's arrived just in time for summer, and I've used it every day since it arrived. It's perfect.

2. I was officially made a Personal Assistant at work. I was always officially a Directors Secretary and I was never happy with doing the same job as everyone else and being classed differently. So this small change made a massive difference in my confidence. Next stop: payrise! (Kidding, just in case my boss finds my blog).

3. One of my closest friends had a birthday house party and it was one of the best nights ever, nothing like the confidence crisis I had when out back in March. I even saw my old college friend there and we had a good catch up. There's nothing like a good party with good friends, and I prefer it being in a house than in a club, which I'm just not that in to any more.

4. Talking of clubs, DC enjoyed a day in the dog house. He was out in town with friends and asked me to pick him up at 11.45pm, by Whatsapp. Did he respond to my 7 messages asking him where he was and wanted picking up from? No. Did he answer his phone when I called him 5 times? You guessed it. Then what happened? My battery died. So I waited in town for him at the place I messaged him. With no phone. And I waited. And waited. And 45 minutes later, I happened to spot him stumbling down the street with his friend... on his way to another club. Yes, hot water indeed. I even made him watch the Notebook as punishment (he didn't cry. I did.)

5. We decorated our house, which was the main reason for my absence. We re-painted our downstairs bathroom, and ripped the wardrobes out in our spare room. We had a plasterer in to smooth out the walls, before we got to work painting. Our neighbours made it better by shouting up to me from their garden when I was hanging out of my window painting the sill, asking us over for a BBQ. It was yum. This was after we emptied said fitted wardrobes and since then have been dressing ourselves from temporary Argos rails. This part, not so fun.

Dans x