My Dressing Table

Here's a little corner of my house. I thought I'd show you my little corner in our bedroom, I say little corner, but really I think my bits and bobs end up all over the place. I'm afraid I do like 'my stuff' and I can also be a bit of a clutter bug, no minimalist clear surfaces in this house!

The trouble with having lots of bit and pieces is that it means there's more to clean, more to dust and wipe over. So as I put everything back after a good wipe down, I took some photos.

My little musical box, it plays 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'

Handy for my hair slides and grips.

Simple and pretty, makes me smile when it plays.

I only bought this last year and I love it. It means I can see all my ear rings at once. A gentle spin and it's easy to choose which pair I want. You can see my little Chihuahua ear rings that my husband bought me last Christmas, they look just like our little Gary.

It means I don't keep just wearing the same few over and over, and looks pretty too.

My radio with it's handy docking station for my iPod.

A cute little Dachshund to look after my rings

He looks a bit laden down, I tend to wear chunky jewellery when I wear it.

I use this to store my tubes and bottles in, foundations, BB creams, mascaras.

It's a pretty and functional item, looks much nicer than seeing my half used bottles and potions laying around.

Another ring holder, I've had this one quite a while, it came from a charity shop originally.

Oh dear, more things going back on the dressing table. Everything has it's own use though

It isn't a big space, but I have everything to hand and everything on it gives me cause to smile.

A drawer for more creams and lotions.

This little cutie pie sits (or crawls) on the shelf above the dressing table, don't you just love that little kiss curl!

The cross stitch picture behind is one I did nearly 20 years ago.

This is the top if a narrow chest of drawers next to my dressing table

My storage for nail varnish and other paraphernalia that goes with them. It's a cake stand I found in Laura Ashley and is such a practical way to keep nail polish.

Especially when you have quite a few! I used to keep them in a box, but I think this looks so much nicer.

So there you go,a little glimpse into my bedroom and my dressing table corner. As a self confessed clutter bug, I'm sure you can imagine there's much more in our bedroom. It's had a good tidy this afternoon and I now need to get the hoover out, perhaps I can show you another corner of the house another time. I love to have a nosey round other people's homes, I'm always looking for new ideas, inspiration for storage too and I hope you enjoyed your peep into ours.

Take care
xxx

Lazy Saturday

What a blissful afternoon I'm having. Columbo, disaster movies, a potter in the garden and lots of crochet.

I've just made a small rug for the dining room. It's space that needs a rug and we've already had one there, but unfortunately the cat decided to use it.... yuck, cat pee is not the smell I want to greet people who come into our house! The rug itself was beyond saving and we really didn't want to buy another to end up with the same predicament. I wanted something I could throw into the washing machine if needed so I dug out my stash of t shirt yarn and set to with the hook.

It hooked up quickly, but also ate the yarn very quickly. Ideally I'd like it to be a bit larger so may add to it in the future.

It was surprising how quickly it started to weigh down and get quite heavy. As you can see it's a large Granny Rectangle (as opposed to a Granny Square).

Our front garden is a constant bug bare of mine. It's not a very big space and we use it to park the car. We haven't had it paved for a couple of reasons, the expense being one and the lack of drainage that's been caused by so many people paving their gardens being another. I'm forever trying to find ways to tidy it up and one of the things I like to do is have a few pots just outside. We have a Hydrangea and an Evergreen bush in a couple of the pots, but one had lots of trailing Petunias which were starting to look quite scruffy.

I picked up these lovely little Cyclamens from Aldi yesterday, there was even a pot left over for me to have some inside.

While talking of flowers, look at the beautiful Roses my darling husband bought me. They don't last long, but are rather stunning while they're there.

So back to my lazy Saturday afternoon. My feet are up, the box is on, cup of tea at my side and I've started crocheting a Christmas present...

Have a lovely weekend

Take care
xxx

Jazzing it Up!

Had a really productive day today. Even though the weather hasn't been brilliant, it was dry enough to work in the garden and do jobs inside when the rain started to spit.

I'm so happy with my dresser. It's been on my 'to do' list for a while, I wanted to paint it to hide the rather orange coloured pine and also to make the room brighter and lighter. Here it is...

I painted it with Annie Sloan chalk paint, original and buffed with her clear wax afterwards to give it more permanent and hard wearing finish.

We already had some pretty drawer knobs to use. The only problem was that I couldn't find any draw handles to match, or even that I liked. It wasn't really a problem though as we filled the holes from the previous handles with wood filler and Andrew drilled new holes for me to put the new ones in.

I don't think the photos show how pretty it looks. I took the back off and lined it with wallpaper rather than painting it and I think it sets it off beautifully.

 I love it and thoroughly enjoyed dressing it with my lovely china and bits and pieces.

So between the light showers (and they weren't too bad, I still managed to dry a machine load of washing outside) I popped into the garden to do a bit of tidying up. Emptied some old tubs with bedding plants that were past their best and planted a few new things.

I do love miniature Cyclamens, I like to have some in the house too.

Geranium is hanging on in there...

Covered in lots of tiny buds ready to bring more life into the garden

I'm amazed at my Dahlia, it's covered with flower buds again, beautiful.

There was lots of weeding to do and the patio needed a good, stiff brush.

Perhaps not perfect, but beautiful all the same.

It was lovely to spend some time sitting outside when we'd finished just soaking up the fresh air and appreciating what we'd done.

Made a quiche for tea, so nothing else to do, but relax and enjoy the evening. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Take care
xxx