I’ve been thinking for a while that my gold mirror needs a change. As much as I love the look of gold, where the mirror sits in the hallway it’s a little too dark of a colour gold. My hallways is very dark with no direct light. All the light that gets there has to be reflected, so having a dark-framed mirror there wasn’t helping. I decided I was going to paint it at also experiment with a few different mediums and techniques and see how it turned out.
What I used:
Please note that any Amazon links are affiliate links.
Now that I’ve changed the mirror I think I need to bump up my plans to change the toilet door to a wooden one, there’s far too much white going on! A simple pine door will make all the difference and add a little warmth (not to mention a nice backdrop for ootd’s, but for now, it’s a step in the right direction. I’m sure some people will find the change to be ugly, but I love it!
Even though I have a few bigger projects I need to focus on this week, today I just needed something simple and pretty to do. I have a fairly simple cleaning system in my house; one cleaning caddy for upstairs and one for down. I absolutely hate having to drag cleaning supplies around the house and this way I can tweak each caddy to carry exactly what I need for each floor. It’s much simpler than keeping everything stashed under the sink, but I’m really not fond of how my upstairs cleaning caddy looks. So I thought I would change that.
Today’s video is going to be a long one, so you might want to grab a tea and make yourself comfortable.
Now that’s I’ve finished fixing our bedroom windowsill my next target is our wardrobe and a vanity area for myself. I spent quite a few hours a month ago measuring everything up, trying to figure out how I was going to build the wardrobe to be as practical, pretty, and multi-functional as possible. The original plan was to have a dresser/vanity area for myself inside the wardrobe, but the more I measured everything out the more I realized that either our clothes would have space, or my vanity would. There was no way for them to fit in the wardrobe together. So instead, I found a compromise with a beautiful ottoman seat I’m pretty happy with!
As much as I’m not enjoying the lockdown at the moment, I have to say, my list of projects to do has been shrinking very quickly! Since I bought the Alex drawers last year I’ve been wanting to make a tie display for my husband and a belt display for myself. I do have a excessive collection few more belts than Corazon has ties, so I wanted to focus on his drawer first.
What I used:
(Please note that Amazon links are affiliate links)
Also, the tie rickety organizer we currently have hanging in the wardrobe have drives me nuts! Ties are always falling off it and I was more than happy to do my husband’s drawer first if it got the bloomin’ “organizer” out of the house.
Two years ago we moved into our house. It was our first home and I was barely two weeks out from having given birth to my son. I was in a shit-load of pain and in the beginning of what would be seven months of hellish postpartum depression. I was so focused on trying to keep my head above water that I didn’t notice that some little fluffy bastard moth had started to munch on two of my favourite scarves.
Since then we’ve ripped out all the carpets, evicted the moths and done up the house, but I still hadn’t managed to fix the holes in my scarves yet. I love these scarves, I’d spent a fair amount of time and money collecting them, and the last thing I wanted to do was stop using them or have to cut them up to reuse on other projects, so I was determined to fix them. At first, I considered just weave stitching them to mend the hole, but my weave stitch is still not perfect, so it occurred to me; what if I embroidered moths over the holes as a kind of inside joke? So that’s what I did.
Today, we finished the polytunnel! Well, technically we finished it a week ago, but today is when the video goes up, so I’m going to pretend it’s today.
If you’ve been following this channel for a while you’ll know that our plan was to buy a home (check) start a garden (check) and work towards being as self-sufficient as possible. That last part will be a lifetime work-in-progress goal – it’s impossible to be entirely self-reliant – but especially with how the world is going at the moment, I’m incredibly glad that we decided to tackle the garden this year instead of waiting any longer.
Our herb garden was last year’s project; we have lavender, thyme, two types of oregano, Chinese chives, chives, peppermint, calendula, lemon balm, mint, rosemary, bay, and chamomile all growing in our herb garden. I also have chilis growing very nicely on my windowsill along with my old friend aloe-vera. I still need to add sage, parsley, saffron, basil, peppercorns, garlic, vanilla, and possibly lemongrass to the herb garden; but those will need to be added slowly over the rest of the year. The next plant on my list is nettles which will go directly behind the compost bin. They’ll be fantastic for supporting bees, butterflies and be a constant reliable source of food and tea for myself. I’m so excited to see them grow it’s not even funny!
Just before the lockdown started we decided to bite the bullet and get a polytunnel and build a propper composting area. I also had to clear out a large stump from the corner of the garden and dig up the decorative bushes that lined the garden when we bought it since we need a rain collection system and quite a few raised beds eventually. It took a month in total to assemble the polytunnel and compost-bin, and as of today our potatoes and tomatoes are going in the tunnel.
Over the rest of the year, our targets are to get the patio re-laid with a pergola above it so that we can harvest the rainwater, along with five raised beds and two fruit trees planted in the winter. I’ll also be building a large enclosure for our quail/chicken so that they have a large meadow grass area to enjoy, but with everything we need to do this year I think I’ll only be able to plant the seed-grasses for their enclosure. The last thing I want to do is get quail before I have the time to learn how to take care of them.
Despite how many times I have cut my own hair now, I still haven’t quite refined how I do it. I normally start with a plan, and then towards the end, I just start cutting indiscriminately. Somehow I haven’t yet done a haircut that makes me want to buzz cut everything, but honestly, if this quarantine continues for much longer I might do just that to manage the stress.
Thankfully I’m much better at cutting my husband’s hair, though the first time I cut it I didn’t tell him that I messed up at the back and that there was a tiny bald patch I’d cut out. Since I’m sure I’m going to get questions about what I use I’ve decided to list everything bellow and do a mini-review too.
Blue Avocado Scissors (Affiliate link): I bought these in 2016 and I have absolutely no complaints. They’re sharp as the day I bought them and I like that I have the option to take them apart and re-sharpen them if they ever get blunt.
Woner Hair Clippers: I’m a little less enthusiastic about these. I boguht them a year ago when we were looking at every little way we could cut our monthly expenses so that I ould cut my husband’s hair myself rather than go to a barber. I loved that it came in a hard case so I could keep everything together, and the reviews at the time were very good. But in the last two months it’s started to make this really awful buzzing sound when it’s turned on, even though it’s fully charged each time and thoroughly cleaned after each hair cut. While it hasn’t outright died on me yet, I doubt it’s going to last very long. So while it still saved us a lot of money, I’m annoyed at it wasn’t as good a purchase as I’d hoped.
I’m thinking that once these do bite the dust I might get one of the old fashioned manual hair clippers. At least that’s a metal item and if it doesn’t work I can put it in the recycling.
My last house project was the stairs, which if you’ve seen that video you know that it took me over a year to finish. Thankfully this project didn’t take so long, but it still took around 3-4 months from start to finish.
This window has been driving me nuts since we moved in (actually, all the windows have). I only noticed two months ago that none of the windows were sealed properly on the outside. Which is why over the last two winters we got water and mold building up on ALL the windowsills in the house. Every morning I would have to wipe away the small puddles pooling at the bottom of the frame. The enamel paint was seriously chipped because of this, and the wood underneath was starting to rot badly. As someone who is very allergic to mould, I was not happy. It had to be fixed.
Once I sealed the windows properly, I haven’t had a problem! And now that the window is done I can move onto my next target; making a built-in wardrobe vanity combo for our bedroom.
Please note that any Amazon links are affiliate links
Over Christmas, I was given two amazing books by my in-laws, The Wild Dyer and Wild Colour. Oddly enough natural dying was never something that had crossed my mind. We’re currently in the process of starting to grow a good amount of our own food, and my family is full of crafters and artisans who specialize in heritage crafts, but it never occurred to me that a lot of the plants, fruits and herbs around me can be used as a natural dye.
A few weeks ago my husband bought some avocados as a treat. I hate avocados with a passion, the texture is slug-like and the taste unappealing, but I’d read that you could use them as a dye on ‘s blog, so I saved the peels and stone as my husband ate them in the freezer till I was ready to use them.
Today I added the last makeup product to my limit of 15 products – a blue eyeliner. I have a few more blue-heavy looks coming up with it, but for the first video, I thought I’d only do a few subtle touches of blue and not go completely crazy with the new colour. If you’re new to the challenge the idea is simple; fifteen of the same products have to be used with each video to create a new look. I want to show that you don’t need a massive collection of makeup to have variety and fun with your looks. All you need is a carefully curated set of products that work for you and the rest is up to your imagination.
(Please note that any Amazon links are affiliate links)
Above I’ve linked the exact products I’m using on the right, and then dupe/budget versions on the left. Where I haven’t linked an alternative it’s because I haven’t tried a product that’s cheaper than the one I’ve used and that I think is also good quality.
