Rosie's Fun Day Out & Some Ikea Inspiration :)

Disclaimer: I have not been paid to promote any products or Ikea themselves, all opinions are mine and I just wanted to share my day out.


Hi honeys
I'm back as promised with a post to share our trip this past weekend to Ikea.  As I've explained before, getting to Ikea is quite difficult for us, so each trip is planned weeks in advance, shopping list is made, time off work booked for both of us, and because of this, as well as the fact that I adore the place :) each trip always feels (to me anyway) like a special treat :)

This visit I thought I'd take along my camera so that I could share with you some of the pretty things I saw and smiles we had.  Apologies if my photographs could be better. In my defence the lighting inside Ikea is all artificial. You know I hadn't stopped to consider before, I don't suppose I ever had reason to, but the only area with windows and therefore natural light, is the customer restaurant upstairs. 

This does seem odd to me really. Surely if a company wants to show their products at their best, especially items like bedding, tableware and glassware etc, wouldn't they want to have lots of natural light flooding the place?  Only a minor niggle really and doesn't detract from my obsession fondness for all things Ikea :)

Well dear ones, take a moment to grab yourselves a cuppa and possibly a biscuit, and we'll begin our mini tour.....

A Busy Week, Lots of Smiles & Organizing Scarves With The Cutest Owl :)

Hi Honeys
I hope you had a fabulous weekend.  Hubby & I have been really busy this past week, so apologies for being a little quiet around here. We both booked a few days off work and used them to do some major de-cluttering.  We've started work on Hubby's home office/man cave, which has been used as a central store room for far too long while we've worked on other rooms in our home.

This room will take a while, but we're making progress. Still so many boxes, and a large cupboard to sort through & organize honeys, but we'll get there eventually.  On Saturday we delivered four bags of VHS movies to our local Oxfam Music store.  VHS films, much like vinyl records, still have their collectors apparently, which is cool. We also took another three large bags of clothes & household things to Barnardos.  I'm so loving this de-cluttering and if we can help good causes too, all the better.  

The Secret To Effortless Recycling!

Hi Honeys
I hope you're well and enjoying the gorgeous sunshine this week. Hubby & I had both booked this week off from work to carry on de-cluttering our home.  This week we're concentrating on finishing up our guest/craft room (now all but done yaaaay) and our front bedroom which is Hubby's den/man cave :)

There is such a lot to do in this room since it's been used as a storage room while we've been working on the rest of the house.  Now though I am determined that Hubby should have the man cave he so definitely deserves :) Now much as I would so love to be able to kit out a  proper man cave with luxuries like a full size juke box etc, well we just don't have the budget that would need, but that doesn't mean I can't make it look pretty cool and still be a cozy place for him to work in. 

I promise I'll share as we go along honeys but for today......

Hubby and I are not obsessed "save the planet" (collect the whole set :) people, but we do recycle. A lot. Every single bit of excess paper, cardboard, (suitable) plastic, tin cans & packaging finds its way into our blue wheelie bin, supplied by the local council.  Grass cuttings from the garden and food waste such as egg shells, fruit peels etc likewise all go into the brown wheelie bin.

We don't have glass recycling facilities here but Hubby bags any glass jars or bottles and takes them to work with him in the mornings because on the way to work he passes a huge glass recycling bin, again provided by the local council.

The key to turning recycling into a regular habit is incredibly simple. Just make it easier to recycle than not :) I'll show you what I mean. 

Organizing Bed Linens When You Don't Have A Linen Cupboard....

Disclaimer: I have not been paid to promote any products, just sharing our organizational journey, hugs x

Hi honeys

I hope you've had a fabulous weekend. It's been so lovely and sunny here. Birds are singing & building nests, and Jade is getting to play with her ball in the garden bless her :) She doesn't like rain at all and will stand at the back door looking out and then looking at me as if to say "turn it off Mum, I want to go out!" Oh that I had that power! It would never rain and laundry day would be every day :)

I had wanted to share this post with you on Friday but I didn't get it finished in time and having worked all weekend, I thought I'd share today how I finally managed to get our bed linen organised and sorted by size, colour etc.  It's such a daft thing to be so incredibly happy about but I really am :)

Have you ever gone to put something away and when you got there just thought "awww.... that's not right...." I should explain.  A while ago, not having an actual linen closet as such, we bought this....

Sunshine, Blue Skies, Furbaby Fun & Our Garden Awakes .... A perfect day!

Hi Honeys
I hope you're well and having fun in the beautiful sunshine we're being blessed with :) Yesterday was a wonderful, sunny day chock full of surprises and smiles and fun and I so wanted to share them with you :)

Of course my day started, as it always does, with hugs from our furbaby Jade :) I hadn't slept at all well but still smiled when I opened my eyes at a little after 6am to see Jade on the pillow next to me, staring at me and as soon as I opened my eyes I was set about with kisses and tail wags :) Now if that isn't a perfect start to a day I don't know what is :)  Bless our wee angel she always knows when her Mum is in need of cheering up :)

Why "Pocket" Storage Rocks...

Hi honeys,
In a recent post I mentioned that I was going to hang a "pocket storage" item in my new (much loved) closet, well things didn't really go to plan. I thought I'd share what went wrong and how we've fixed it, and while I was doing that, why not show you where else I use these wonderful little inventions :)

First then to the white canvas pocket hanger I had wanted to add to my new closet/cupboard.  It's exactly the same as this one, which currently hangs on the inside of our master bedroom door.
This hanger has been here for quite some time now and won't be going anywhere anytime soon.  As you can see from the photo below, it has two clear pockets at the top, followed by two deeper pockets underneath, with a further two full width pockets under those.

Rosie's Girly Dressing Table..

Hi honeys,
I'm grinning again today dear ones, guess what? I have a dressing table!  I know, nothing special, right? Oh but it so is to me :) Now, it's not that my dressing table is just back from a long trip or that I've just realised that I have one :) Till now though, till our recent huge de-clutter-athon, it was chock full and stacked high with albums of photos, storage boxes and all sorts of tat that just didn't belong there!

Having set about downsizing, purging and keeping only what absolutely belongs in our master bedroom, I found myself with a clear surface and oh my! Am I happy dear ones :)

There isn't even anything particularly special about my little dressing table, but I'm sitting here grinning while writing this :) Having re-discovered my little space, I've set about trying to girly-ize it :) This is what I've done so far.......

The Secret To Effective De-Cluttering!

Hi Honeys
I seem to have had some kind of an epiphany with regards to our home organization project dear ones. I'm not sure if I can explain it properly, but I'll give it a try.  We've been trying desperately to de-clutter our home, in one shape or another, for what feels like forever and while we'd get things done it never felt like we were getting anywhere. Whatever we did, it never seemed to make any real difference to how our home looked or felt.

Just the middle of last week I started to become aware of a change.  It was very subtle. I wasn't even sure if it was real or if I was imagining it, but I mentioned it to Hubby and he agreed. Our home was starting to feel... well, different.  It feels like it's taken such a long time, and so much work to reach this point, but I think we've "turned a corner" and even better, I think I might have figured out what's made the difference :)

It wasn't that we worked much harder on our home, although it has been work that's for sure, it's that we started to work smarter on it.  Before we started work on our kitchen makeover recently, we sat down and used pen & paper, we planned what we were going to do before we did it. One task just seemed to lead onto another quite seamlessly because .... and here it is! Here's what made the difference honeys, we stopped trying to de-clutter our whole house and started working on one room at a time!

That's it honeys, that's what made it all click. Concentrate on one room, start from the middle or pick a corner and start from there if you prefer.  Whatever you do though, plan it out and don't be tempted to start another project until that room is done.  Why not cut the task down into bullet points on a sheet of paper? Then tick off each one as they're done?

Focus is key.  It's that simple and I can't believe it's taken as long as it has for that particular penny to drop!  Creating homes for things as you go along is enormously helpful.  Then as you carry on in that room, or even after that room is done & dusted, things will have a designated space.  If, for instance, in the next room we tackle (when we eventually finish our master bedroom) I find, say a wandering hair clip or hand bag, I now have places set up to immediately take that item to and put it away. 

Honestly honeys, I feel a little like I've been muddling along in the dark and someone's just switched on a light.  It strikes me while writing this that this must be incredibly obvious and maybe I'm just a bit dense, in a "can't see the wood for the trees" kinda way,  not to have cottoned on before now :)  Still, I wanted to share my little "oh..... right...." moment with you in the hopes that it might help if anyone has been struggling along as I have been for ages, feeling a bit like they're wading through treacle.  I know that feeling all too well :)

Not any more though honeys :) We know exactly what we have left to do in our master bedroom (not much now yaaaay!) and have already planned out what needs done in our guest room.  This is the room I was planning on turning into a craft room & dressing room. Now that all of my clothes, shoes and accessories have been rounded up, purged & organized into our bedroom, the guest room will now only have to double as a craft room. The single bed in the guest room, (when it's not home to a guest :) and with the help of lots of cushions, has already become our little book nook.  I'll share our progress as we go honeys, promise.

For now though, enough of my waffling :) Till next time dear ones, keep smiling & hugging, it makes the world a brighter, sunnier place no matter what the weather :) Heaps of hugs always xx

How Decluttering Can Let Your Home Breathe...

Hi Honeys
I hope you had a wonderful Easter.  Like so many others, I worked over the holiday weekend but here in the UK we had a bank holiday on Monday so with the help of my dear Hubby who also had the day off, we did this.....

I know, wow right? It was a lot of work, mostly done by Hubby (thank you sweetheart x) This is our master bedroom. If you've been reading recently you'll know we've done a lot of work on that tiny corner cupboard/closet you can see on the far right hand side of the above photos, turning it into the most wonderful, useable closet..........

Teeny Tiny Closet Hacks! - Use That Space Till It Squeaks!

Hi Honeys
I'm sorry I've been away for a few days, I've been purging & organizing and I'm now exhausted but so, so happy :) I can't wait to share what I've been doing with you, with the help, as always, of my dear sweet Hubby (thank you sweetheart x)  Do you remember my closet adventures? You can read about it here & how I've stored my handbags here. 

Having settled on a far smaller closet than the originally intended two door closet in the guest room, we set out to turn this tiny space into the TARDIS of closets, and we're not done yet! Wanna see what we've done this week and why I'm grinning like the Cheshire cat?

Organizing clothes, like anything else, is only fun when you aren't feeling completely swamped.  So before I could get to the fun part of organizing my teeny tiny closet, I had to purge.  That was so not fun :(  However, I'd like to say I am beyond thankful that I had managed to acquire enough to feel swamped in the first place. I know how lucky I am, in the world we find ourselves in and every day I start my day by taking a minute to be grateful for what we have.  It took a lot, really a lot, of years to accumulate them and it took me a full day to whittle my clothes down to the point where I .....

1. ONLY kept what I can actually wear. That's now, not some point in the future when I'll magically become the same dress size I was in College.  You know what honeys, I've discovered I'm ok with that :) I like to think I'm a nice person. I have a wonderful Husband who loves me far too much and his opinion is the only one that really matters :)

2. ONLY kept what I can look in the mirror and feel happy seeing myself in. For example, I am overly conscious of the necklines of clothes. I developed early and, well,  you know Dumbo sneezed and his ears shot out? yep, kinda like that & I haven't seen my feet properly since! 

In my next life I hope to have collected enough good karma to have a teeny tiny bust and be able to wear pretty strappy dresses & tops without constantly tugging them up and feeling far too "exposed."  For this life though, the girls stay covered! Often though, you'll see a lovely top or dress and when you get it home, well what looked great in the shop just screams 1970s TV barmaid at home! I found a couple of tops just like this and into the donate bag they went.