bedroom decor goodness

I'm a bit obsessed with bedrooms and looking for decorating inspiration at the moment as I've been giving our bedroom a bit of an overhaul and trying to re-decorate on the cheap. In my online travels I found this gorgeous new little Australian online store, oh mabel. They do organic bed linen that is inspired by the patterns and prints of yesteryear. I love it. So simple and stylish and exactly the kind of thing I have been going for of late. I might have to visit here again later though, as I've already bought some cute vintage print pillowcases for our room from here.

Am also totally loving this pillowcase set from Beneath the Sun.

And what about this gorgeous cushion as well? Love. The print also comes on a tea towel.

I like to change things up every now and then to breathe a bit of new life into things, so I've bookmarked these sites for later. What's your favourite style at the moment?

produce from the garden

Our garden bed for our vege patch isn't quite ready yet, but in the meantime we have a few other things growing around the place, and one of those things is a passion fruit vine that we have been growing since last year. A few months ago, we noticed some green fruit on it, and finally this week we noticed a few had fallen off the vine as well as there being another on the vine ready to pick! Here they are on the kitchen window sill ripening a little more. I'm just waiting for a batch of homemade vanilla ice-cream to arrive this week from a work colleague's wife so I can enjoy my first home grown passion fruit! Yum!

it's raining it's pouring

What do you when it rains?

We are really fortunate to have an outdoor covered balcony. So our sanity is saved from being stuck indoors totally to being able to escape outside for a little. Josh has his little car he likes to drive and Zoe loves to push her babies in a pram around. I love that the kids think they are still getting outside but we are still protected by even the most torrential of rain - that's if we can brave the cold!

point and shoot at my house

With all this rain lately, we've been spending lots of time indoors. The other thing I'm getting used to, is that now Zoe is walking and running everywhere, I often don't know where she has disappeared to in the house, and I get a little laugh when I see what she's up to after I find her.

This is an example of the cute little moments I stumble across when I walk into a room at the moment in our house.

This post is part of point + shoot and at my house.

the art of being organised

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Are you naturally neat or untidy at home? I'm not especially one or the other. In fact, I always used to sway from one to the other. I was the kind of teenager that would accumulate mess over a time, until it would really get to me and then I'd have a massive clean up and throw lots of things out and get tidy and then the whole cycle would start again.

The older I get, though, the more I'm getting very particular about the house being and staying tidy and not messy. I can't relax if our house is too out of control. It really affects my mood and gets me down. I wish it didn't.....I think it stems partly from having children and knowing that I can't let things get too out of control otherwise the task of cleaning becomes too big and unachievable. The other part I think is from exposing myself to lots of inspirational people and houses in blogs and magazines and aspiring to have a space myself that is similar. 

I'm always at war with myself though because I'm not a 'naturally' neat/tidy/organised person, I really have to push myself to get my house looking the way I need/want it.

What about you? Do you 'need' your living space to be organised or are you happy in a more relaxed environment?

so what do you think?

I was supposed to post this a long time ago, but I've only just had the chance to take a photo. Here are my ebay chairs, painted and finally around my dining table! 

So what do you think? I quite like the white with wood. I had been looking for dining chairs for so long and was so sick of a naked dining table that when I saw these chairs I just knew they would go well with my existing chairs and could look great albeit a little quirky with my table. And they were such a bargain that even if it didn't work out I had forked out too much cash for them.....

I think I just need to work on the brightening up the walls now with some art to break up all that white.

hellooooooooooo

Yes, I'm still here. I've just been super busy!

Today I'm feeling really motivated to get organised in my household. I'm one of those people that LOVE being and feeling organised and tidy but it never lasts too long since life {read 'kids'} get in the way! {Ok, well maybe it's my fault a little too....}

I really want one of those households that seem to run well because a little bit gets done everyday, rather than leaving things and waiting for two laundry hampers to fill up before doing the washing. Know what I mean? It's a nice theory! I just have to make it happen.

I'm feeling a little bit motivated as my Sunny Mummy magnet charts arrived today and I can't wait to get them out and start using them. If I can organise things a little better from week to week then maybe my days will flow better and I'll get less frustrated along the way.

While I've been a little MIA I've been working on some plans for a little 'on the side' business idea......not much to report just yet. I've got to wait for hubby to put together a website/logo for me now and then hopefully I will have lots to share with you. Until then, don't let the suspense kill you!

{PS. My bookshelves don't look like those ones. I've seen some super organised people do this and it looks great, but I'm yet to give it a go. We certainly have enough books here for it to work but I just don't have the time for this little exercise yet!}

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i'm lusting after

suzani from Table Tonic

Do you think it's too late to change the decor in the bedroom now? 

Mmm might have to save up for this one when I want a change of scenery. Go to Table Tonic and check out the lovely Moroccan wedding blankets too.

my new art collection

With my little three year old a preschooler now, I've become one of those mums who collects delightful little artworks each week. I've been pondering what to do with them. Each week when Josh gets home from preschool I've been taking these little artistic impressions and pegging them on our fridge. I'm sure the 'good' stuff is staying at school and being collated in his journal that we have heard about. However, not sure I have the heart to part with the pieces that make it home yet. I bought one of these delightful little Fiona Kate artwork folders today where I will put them away for now and decide later their fate. 

I heard a fabulous idea the other day that you can use them as wrapping paper. I think this is a great idea! Especially since it fits right in with my little goal for this year to try may hand at more creatively wrapping my gifts for others.

What do you do with your little one's masterpieces?

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bedroom makeover part 1

It's here, it's here! Our new king size bed arrived today! Stage 1 of the bedroom makeover done. The day I ordered it I also bought all the linen to match. I'm a white kind of girl usually, but I decided to venture out a little and went for a neutral coloured set from Freedom this time. Not as sterile as white but still understated and will allow me to dress things up with other decor so I can change it from time to time without too much expense.

I wasn't going to do this post yet, as my bed didn't look too good after a certain three year old napped in it today, but my gorgeous mum dropped in this afternoon and styled it up for me!! The set is a linen finish so unfortunately it doesn't take much for them to take on the crushed look, hence my pillow cases looking a little sad. Did I forget to mention ironing is my all time hated chore? Oops....

Anyway, I'm really happy with the enormous size of our bed (bliss!) and it doesn't even overwhelm our room which is great. I'm pleased with how it has all come together so far. Next step is to decide what to do on the wall above our bed now. I've been browsing for prints on Etsy and have a few ideas, but have to see what hubby thinks too. Might share my ideas with your too in another post, another day!

What do you think so far?

ebay love

So I've done a spot of shopping on Ebay of late....

I bought a coffee table a few weeks ago , and just recently I nabbed these old chairs for $40! For all of them. I actually missed out on bidding but since nobody had bid I emailed the seller with the lowest bid and it was accepted.

These chairs, well, I felt like they were destined to be mine, even though they are an odd bunch of chairs in some ways. I currently have three wooden chairs painted white in a similar, but less stylised type as the ones above. When I saw this group of five chairs I thought they would be perfect to make up eight chairs to go around our dining table. One of the above chairs is already white, so if I wanted to I could have half natural, half white chairs. And in the set above there are two carvers which is also perfect as I don't have any and think they will look great.

I'm yet to pick these lovely chairs up but my plan now is to paint them all white. We have lots of white touches in our dining room and I think they will complete the look nicely.

I promise I to share pics when I finish off this next little project!

my revamped little workspace

As you know I've been spring cleaning and as part of the dining/front room spring clean which included putting up our new bookshelves I revamped my little workspace in the corner, which included framing and hanging some of the prints I have won in giveaways over the blogosphere recently.

I love my little work space now. And I especially love the scent of gardenia coming from the vase. My gardenia plant in the garden is finally blooming!

ETA: My gorgeous print on the wall is from bellalucephotography which I won from a giveaway at fat.mum.slim.

i'm really loving......

...the view from our back balcony at the moment. We haven't been here for a full year yet, and so this is our first spring/summer here. All we see out our back windows are the beautiful bush and our spectacular (though messy!) Illawarra Flame tree. I still marvel at our view and am so thankful every day for it.

I love living in this house. It's peaceful most of the time. And we are woken by kookaburras and serenaded (ie. laughed at) to sleep each night by them too!

what else is on the shelf?

Earlier this week I participated in a meme which involved showing you what was on a shelf. The shelf was in Josh's room and contains all the childrens books we have. Here are a few more pics of our collection. There are lots of favourites there.........recognise any more?

Don't forget to enter the giveaway here.

{my place and yours} on the shelf

On Josh's shelf.....we are a family of book fanatics!

What's on your shelf?