Bottle top hyacinths

I'm really loving all the little signs of spring which are appearing around The Heathers at the moment. When every new season comes around, I'm always convinced it's my favourite. I think it's important to embrace everything, rather than complain about how cold or hot it is or that you've got to de-ice the car or you can't so much as step out of the back door without lathering on your sun-cream. I love winter as much as I love Summer for completely different reasons. What I love about Spring is the way everything seems to be waking up, its beauty and its colours.

We've been a little slow in starting our Easter/Spring crafts this year. No sooner do you seem to be doing Christmassy things, than you're whipping out the plastic Easter eggs and the pastel bunting. It all happens rather too quickly for my liking. Where does the time go? Our first Spring-themed crafting attempt was this cute little hyacinth craft using bottle-tops.

We started by cutting out some paper stems and leaves and then mixed some pastel-coloured paint to make our hyacinths. Tommy then dipped a bottle-top into the paint and pressed it on the paper in a vertical arrangement, creating the shape of the flower. I was really impressed with the overall effect of using a bottle-top. It was really effective!

 

 Even Isla had fun making some bottle-top prints!

 

 

A Superhero Bedroom!

Before we moved into The Heathers, we knew we could have quite a lot to do decorating-wise. I think wherever you move to, no matter how 'perfect' the house is, there will always be that urge to put your own stamp on it - to make it your own. We knew right from the start there wasn't a single room we wouldn't want to change. That's not to say the house wasn't already lovely to start with (it absolutely was) but things just weren't done to our taste. Because we didn't have the budget to do everything straight after moving in, we decided to prioritise those rooms we wanted to change the most first. Plus, to me it doesn't really make sense to decorate a whole load of rooms at the same time - they'll all need doing again at exactly the same point anyway and, as much as I enjoy decorating, I don't quite fancy spending an entire year doing it, as it has seemed since we moved in!

The children's bedrooms and playroom were the priority for us, as these rooms would house most of the huge number of toys we'd managed to accumulate over the last five years. What annoyed me most about our old house was the lack of storage space and the fact that the children's stuff literally took over every room. So we figured if we found a home for all the children's belongings first then we'd easily be able to crack organising the living spaces and make them free from clutter. That was the plan anyway.

We have started the process of decorating both children's rooms and have done the large majority of the decorating. So now we're just down to the nitty-gritty as to the furniture and accessories we want to buy. Tommy is superhero-mad at the moment so we have opted for a Marvel-themed bedroom.  Although we're going along with a theme, we'd also like to incorporate some of his other interests too  - like his passion for Lego and his cars.

Spider-Man is probably Tommy's favourite Superhero character, so with that in mind we've chosen a Spider-Man mural wallpaper for one of his walls (middle right). This one is by Walltastic purchased through Amazon. It was reasonably-priced, surprisingly easy to paste onto the wall and definitely gives his bedroom the wow factor!

To match this, we've bought a stripy rug from Dunelm (top left), a Spider-Man duvet set from Home Bargains, which was something ridiculous like £10 and I've also got my eye on a small circular rug (top middle) to go near Tommy's bed. We also intend to decorate the remaining walls of Tommy's room with a few Spider-Man wall stickers (bottom middle).

We have a ridiculous amount of Lego in our house already and I can only see it increasing, so high on my list was some kind of storage system for his Lego - those pesky little pieces just wind up everywhere, don't they?! So we've ordered some Lego brick storage boxes which are so handy, come in different sizes and slot together like real Lego pieces. I've begun organising Tommy's Lego and putting individual sets into plastic zip-loc bags and hopefully this will avoid the seemingly-inevitable 'mixed up box of Lego where you cannot for the life in you find the tiny little piece you need to complete a model.' Every. Time. That's the theory, anyway.

I never used to be a fan of IKEA (the nearest one is about 100 miles away from where we live) so  I've never really considered it as an option as a place to even browse for furniture and (at the risk of sounding snobbish) I always dismissed it as cheap, poorly-made tat. However, we've bought quite a few pieces from IKEA recently and I've been so impressed with everything, both in terms of its quality and price. We found these white storage boxes (bottom right), which are part of the STUVA children's range and they are brilliant for storing the children's bulkier toys. The draw pulls out from underneath on wheels which is a great additional bonus.

As for the remaining furniture we need for Tommy's room, I think this will have to evolve more over time as opposed to us thinking getting everything at this stage. In the very near future Tommy will probably be needing a desk or table to do his schoolwork on. I love this desk and pinboard from GLTC (middle), which will be big enough to see Tommy through at least a few years but isn't bulky enough to take up too much space in his room.

I would like some sort of dressing up corner in Tommy's bedroom, as he loves nothing more than to don his Superhero costumes. I found a lady who makes personalised signs (you can find her here) and something like this Superhero sign would be just perfect. We will also need to consider how we are going to display Tommy's Lego models and car collection. There will also be a dedicated space for some sort of bookshelf/book display too.

I can't wait to see all of my ideas come to fruition - I'll keep you posted and show you the finished room once it's finally completed. Best get cracking!

Playroom Inspiration

Having a playroom in our house has long since been the dream, since we never had the space in our previous house. When we were going the process of finding our "forever" family home, one of the things that was an absolute must on our list, was a space we could use as a playroom. We were delighted when we came to view The Heathers as it offered a large bedroom we could use for the children to store the large majority of their toys and a space in which to generally have lots of fun, make a mess and leave it that way. For a short while at least...

I am not usually one to be so optimistic about decorating or thinking about how to design a room but because we are so happy with our new house, it's something I am all of a sudden so excited about and loving getting my teeth into. Any time I have spare at the moment I am searching Pinterest browsing for ideas as to how to decorate our already lovely home, putting our own stamp on it and improving it. I also want to get things right, unlike we did in our first home together, bodging every job, making snap decisions and then realising perhaps in our haste that we hadn't chosen items and colour schemes wisely enough. So I'm taking my time this time and making sure we get things right the first time.

A playroom for us will be one of the main rooms we use in the house, the "heart of our home if you like. Up until recently, we've been so busy unpacking, sorting and carrying out the "desperate" jobs, we've had little time spare to do the things we love to do - play and craft! With this in mind, the playroom we design will need a designated corner for crafting, with somewhere to house all of our craft materials, paper, pens, paints and the like and perhaps a small table for working on. Our playroom has also for me got to have a cosy corner for reading and chilling out in - perhaps a tepee or some sort of canopy. Bookshelves are also a must for us - we literally have hundreds of books that need somewhere to live. They filled every room in our old house. It will be nice to have an area where books are displayed an attractive way and an area where both children have easy access to them. Ideally we'd also like an area reserved for role play - perhaps a kitchen/shop area where the children can play together.

The theme
When we were thinking about colour schemes and/or a theme for the playroom, we settled upon a bright colour scheme. I really like all the modern-looking monochrome playrooms/bedrooms that pop up everywhere on Instagram and Pinterest but I wanted something a little less cold and sparse than this. I wanted a space that was a lot warmer, somewhere that oozed fun, warmth and life. So we've settled on a primary colour scheme, with a rainbow, sun, cloud (I guess, weather-related) theme, along with the odd hot-air balloon thrown in. Is this all even a thing? I don't know! It seems to you right now that it's probably a really quickly thrown-together idea, that I have little direction but I promise you, a LOT of thought has gone into this and if it ends up looking like the image I have in my head, it'll end up being a beautiful room. You'll just have to take my word for this for now. I'll go into more detail as to why we've chosen the theme in a later post, perhaps when the room's finished.

We've chosen only the paint so far ('Bonjour' by Valspar) which is a really bright - perhaps too bright - shade of yellow. The walls are already a similar colour but a more orangey-yellow than we want to go for. The rest of it we still need to decide on.

Here are some elements I'm thinking of incorporating into the room:

1. IKEA Kallax shelving unit - we're going to organise most of the children's toys/craft items into one of these shelving units - they are super cheap and sturdy and the cubes come in all sorts of combinations and sizes to suit the shape and design of your room.

2. GLTC Fabric Storage Cubes - these will fit neatly inside the Kallax unit and house our more unsightly craft items, Lego pieces, train tracks, Schleich animals, those sorts of things that can look untidy if left on a shelf. Hopefully then everything will have a place to live, the children will know where to find everything and everything will be kept (relatively) tidy and in some sort of order. that's the theory, anyway...

3. GLTC play shop/theatre - we bought this for Tommy for either his birthday or Christmas a couple of years ago and he absolutely loves it but it's something I would like both children to have access to so I'm making sure I reserve a little corner for this.

4. Farg and Form fabric - I am intending to buy some of this gorgeous fabric to make some curtains and cushions that will complement the whole theme.

5. Pablo Picasso wall sticker/plaque (Etsy) - It is really important for me to be able to celebrate all of the lovely pieces of artwork our children create at home or at nursery and school, so I'd like an area somewhere in the playroom to display their masterpieces. I found this wall sticker on Etsy and I'm thinking of buying something like this or a plaque with the same quote on, along with empty brightly-coloured frames to hang their artwork in.

6. IKEA Smila Sol Ceiling Lamp - this was the only ceiling light I could find of its type, unless I was willing to either fork out a ridiculous amount of money or get one shipped from China. I think this will tie in beautifully with the rest of the room and it's a bargain at just £14!

7. Ava Sofa bed (Argos)  - Although having a space in which the children can play is crucial, it is also important that the playroom can be multi-functional. My parents live two hours away from us and it's important for me now we've got a much bigger house that we've also got somewhere for people to sleep if they stay over. I like this sofa bed from Argos because it's a reasonable price, won't take up too much of the room and it's a great colour.

8. Kidikraft Pastel Play Kitchen - we bought this play kitchen for Isla at Christmas and she has played with it a lot since. Again, it's a toy I would like both children to have access to and it's something they can play with together so it will be going in the playroom too.

9. GLTC Wigwam in Red Star - we love the GLTC wigwams, which cannot only be used inside, but also outside in the garden too. They're a generous size and can be squished up in order to make them take up less space in a room. They are beautifully made and are such magical spaces for children to hide, read and sleep in. It'll certainly help create a cosy corner for ours to curl up and chill out in.

And that's it, so far. I'll be posting an update and showing you the finished room soon, so watch this space!