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The writing’s on the wall.

I think a space doesn’t feel yours or feel homely until you have stuff on the walls. This could be anything from photos to a painting or a piece of art it can really bring a room together. If you don’t own much furniture hanging a piece on the wall can help fill a space which would other wise be bare and impersonal. Adding something with colour can bring a theme together or lift a space will lots of dark furniture.  In my eyes a space isn’t mine until I’ve hung something on the wall. But if like me your renting and banging nails into a pristine wall isn’t an option don’t you worry I will show you some great ideas.

4185caWkOWL._SX522_ (2)Command Brand Damage-free Hanging are an amazing damage free hanging system perfect for renters or anyone. Its an inexpensive sticky back velcro system. You stick them to the frame of a picture and stick them to the wall. You can then remove the picture easy and as many times as you like and put it back in exactly the same place by lining up the velcro and then to remove the strip completely from the wall you simply pull the sticky tab downwards and it comes straight off. It leaves no mark or residue on the wall and it’s the ideal system for hanging anything.

Another alternative is to rest frames against the wall either on the floor or on furniture or shelves. This creates a really minimal modern finish and it’s non damaging and a great way to display art.

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Framed Quotes At the moment I am really loving framed quotes. I think they look super minimal, super classy and they are a great way to fill you mind with positivity and really make a space yours. I am in love with this piece I saw on Pintrest. It’s such a gorgeous print that would look so lovely in a hallway near the front door. 15250e2d6669d2d115c20f5a58182fcd

A framed quote is also a super easy DIY project you can do yourself. In word simply type out a quote, phase or anything you like. Chose a font and increase the font size until you are happy with the composition. Print and put in a frame. Homebase, B&Q, Matalan, Asda and more all sell cheap minimal frames that look great.

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Minimal Abstract Art When it comes to Art abstract is where I am drawn to. It’s the style I like to paint in myself and the types of pieces I like to have around me. Something that plays with texture and shape in a limited often muted palette. At the moment I absolutely adore dusty muted pinks and neutrals mixed in with blacks and whites.

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For more inspiration check out my Pintrest board.

Our London Bedroom Tour

Hello everyone, I know I haven’t done a post in absolutely forever but today I wanted to talk about our bedroom. We will be moving in July and I wanted to do a post on our room, how we decorated it and made the space work for us before we move.
So we are currently renting a 4 Bedroom Victorian Terraced House in Greenwich I have been living here for 3 years and Zac moving in with me last year.  Our room is on the top floor, we have the whole floor to our selves as it’s an attic conversion. It is large but it is a bit of an irregular shape and it has sloping ceilings which limits the wall space and head room (but we are both short so its fine for us).

When renting, you are limited with what you can do, so work with what’s there. When I moved, this bedroom was part furnished. It had a large bed with a massive headboard which was taller than the wall which meant the bed was away from the wall and kind of abandoned in the middle of the floor, there was a chest of drawers which matched the bed, a wicker arm chair and a side table. We moved the arm chair into the living room down stairs. I put the chest of doors and side table into one of the other bedrooms but the bed was too big to dismantle so I decided to keep it in the room and make it work.

I took the headboard out of the posts to open it up and turned it round to use the foot board as the headboard; this allowed me to push the bed up against the wall maximizing the floor space. When Zac moving in we needed more storage space. So we looked on Gumtree.com. Gumtree is perfect if you want a furnish a room when your renting as you don’t want to be investing loads of money if you are going to be moving in the near future. There is so much Ikea furniture on Grumtree for under £20 most of it barely used and in perfect condition and its already put together so no flat pack disasters.

So here’s our room.

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The room is light and bright as there are two sky lights in the bedroom and one in the en suite. We chose white bedding as it makes the room seem even brighter and therefore bigger. We also hung an over the door mirror over the door to the en suite to maximize the space. We have gone for mostly dark furniture with a few warm beach wood pieces to tie the sky light frames with the bed we added a light wood washing basket and tv stand to bring it together. We also chose to ascent the room with coppers and metallics to add different textures and sophistication to the room.

We wanted the room to be tidy but livable so we kept a lot of things open like the cube storage in dark wood which we keep in the cubby hole (as we call it) we have filled it with photos, books, our initials and special things. We also keep the products that we use every day out on top of the dresser to make things easier in the mornings.

And this is my desk -I am very proud of it, I love how its all black and this desk lamp with wood and copper details (from George at Asda!) goes so well with everything. Before I put the desk in, this space was unused and it just looked messy but this Ikea Micke Desk fits perfectly between the dresser and the wall giving my enough headroom to sit comfortably and work and it has plenty of storage. I keep my hair dryer, straighteners and curlers in the cupboard on the left, paperwork in the to drawer and stationary in the smaller drawer.

Moving on now to our en suite. It’s neutrally decorated with a cream tiled floor cream walls, glass walk in shower and glass sink. To tie it in with our bedroom with have some black and beach wood ascents and grey towels.

Next to the bathroom in a large build in cupboard. It has a sloping ceiling again but we use it as our wardrobe where we store our hung clothes, shoes and our extra bits and pieces. It’s not that exciting but here you go …

Everything in our room is inexpensive and can easily to taken with us when we move. Like I said before Gumtree is amazing for getting cheap furniture. I picked up this 5 drawer Ikea Kullen chest of drawers for £15, Two 3 drawer Ikea Kullen dressers sold as a pair for £25 and this Ikeas Micke Desk for £10.

ikea gumtree furniture

Primark candles smell so good and are so cheap. I have the Cedarwood & Myrrh glass candle on our bedside as well as in the bathroom. I also have their vanilla defuser in the bathroom, a vanilla column candle in the lantern, a vanilla and coconut jar candle on the side and vanilla tea lights in everything else 🙂 I love to lite candles at night and it keeps the room smelling amazing.  All the other ascents in the room are  from the highstreet, the copper bowl and gold tea light holder is from George Asda and the black wire basket is from H&M.

I hope you enjoyed having a look round our bedroom. If you have an questions or comments leave them bellow. Have a lovely day.

What’s in my handbag.

I try not to carry too much around with me, but like every girl after a busy week I always seam to end up collecting a bundler of useless clutter: screwed up memos, pens, lipsticks and old tickets. Its always good to keep on top of it and have a good clear out when ever you can.
I think the best thing to remember is to pack light -Keep your hand bag organised and tidy. Its always better to have room for the odd extra thing than carry around a full heavy bag every day. In my bag I have my purse, phone, headphones and sunglasses and then purfume, lipstick and nail polish to keep my touched up and fresh. I hardly ever carry around makeup with me- its heavy for one and I don’t feel the urge to keep touching it up, I think I look worse by the end of the day when I’ve piled layer on to layer so I just leave my makeup when I’m out and about.

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Handbag Asos.  £30
Purse new look.   £12.99
Lipstick Revlon in nude.  £7.99
Perfume Miss Dior.   £40
Sunglasses h&m.   £4.99
Nail polish Barry m in matte mocha.   £3.99
Headphones Betron noise cancelling in gold.  £19.99
Phone case Amazon matte burgundy case.   £2.99

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If I had to pick only one item to be in my bag forever it would have to be my headphones, life is always better with some tunes to keep you going.
I hoped this has been helpful and I’d love to hear what your couldn’t live without, handbag essential is? Feel free to leave it in the comments below 🙂
Lots of love x

Tropical.

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With summer heating up nicely and our holiday coming ever closer. It’s time to talk bikinis. This summer its all about tropical prints- the bolder the better. They are garish but fun and are screaming out to be taken on a tropical beach holiday and I just can’t get enough.

fruit saladThese are my favorites on the high street: First up we have Tropical Fruit bikini- Tesco Clothing. Top: £8 Briefs: £6. You may be surprised but Tesco Clothing has really pulled out the sizzlers for their swimwear this year . This bikini is so much fun and not gonna break the bank, the bright warm colours really complement each other and the print is the perfect scale, another nice touch is the briefs come high waisted or regular so you can really get the fit you are after. This is such an amazing bikini and will look so good against your golden tan.
http://www.clothingattesco.com/swimwear/f+f-tropical-fruit-print-bandeau-bikini-top/invt/jo511348&bklist=icat,4,shop,catgwomens,womens-swimwear

See what I'm loving on Topshop for iOS

There we have moved to Topshop with this pastel floral bikini: £34 for the set it is a lot more pricey but the print is a little more subtle in mint green with pink flowers. The bikini is a classic shape with padded under wired cups and high waisted briefs. This bikini will look perfect on any skin tone but will work particularly on the first couple of days of holiday before your tan has set in.
http://www.topshop.com/en/tsuk/product/clothing-427/swimwear-beachwear-3163078/tropical-print-bikini-set-4326138?bi=1&ps=200

Next has also brought us some amazing swimwear this year. This swimsuit really stood out to me. Navy Floral swimsuit with frill: £25 I really like the low back paired with this neck line and the colour combination is stunning. http://www.next.co.uk/g2d64s4#976991g52

And finally -if only I had the money. This large palm print plunge swimsuit is £123 by Revolve Clothing but it is absolutely gorgeous and I am going to keep my eyes peeled for a similar high street copy. http://www.revolveclothing.com/beach-riot-stone_cold_fox-gally-cook-one-piece-in-palm-print/dp/BRIO-WX5/?aliasURL=beach-riot-stone_cold_fox-gally-cook-one-piece-in-palm-print/dp/BRIO-WX5&product=BRIO-WX5&hasCTL=false

You may be a little hesitant to brave such bold patterns but the bolder the better- as long as the print is busy it distracts the eye and can be more forgiving than a block colour piece and they are simply so much fun. For me the fruit salad bikini set from Tesco Clothing is an absolute must have and I will be ordering my set very soon.

If you want to keep an eye on my favorite summer essentials why not follow my summer Pintrest board.

Bream on the Barbie.

It’s been an absolutely glorious weekend here in London. When the weather is this nice what can you do but buy three crates of beer and whip out the BBQ. We invited some friends round yesterday and had the classic barbie: sausages, burgers, chicken and everything meaty and macho washed down with plenty of bottles of Bud. The food and company was perfect, that and the sun made it such a lovely Saturday in the garden.

bbqWe brought the cutest little BBQ from ASDA the other day- just in time for the lovely weather. It was only £10! and I 100% recommend it to anyone after a small and easy portable BBQ. It comes in a few different colours, we chose this little red number.It’s the classic round style with a lid on a small stand its perfect for anyone with a small outdoor space, for us it works particularly well in our split level garden.

Today with bellies still full after one too many burgers we decided to do a lighter, fresher BBQ. We whipped ourselves up some chili king prawns to start followed by Sea Bream stuffed with lemon and garlic butter rubbed in chili oil, served with grilled pak choi and tomatoes -Oh my god it was the most delicious thing I have every tasted and so proud we cooked it ourselves. I know some people are funny about fish especially if it still has a head but there is nothing to be scared of when it comes to cooking a whole fish. It’s moist and so so simply to cook.

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Sea Bream is a delicious choice, at approximately £1.80 per fish its pretty cheap and a perfect substitute for the usual chicken and beef on the BBQ. Simply season and stuff with lemon butter and garlic and then grill over hot coals for 5-7 mins on each side until the skin is crispy and the flesh cooked through, rubbing butter on the inside will ensure for perfectly succulent flesh and a melt in the mouth butteriness. You can serve fish with so many things but here we went for a Thai feel and grilled sliced Pak Choi with cherry tomatoes- but you could easily have rice, salad or Mediterranean vegetables.

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It was absolutely delicious. We sat outside with a glass of wine by the warmth from the bbq enjoying the perfect end to our lovely weekend in the sun. I hope you too have had a great weekend. And lets hope the weather stays nice for more weekend BBQs to come.

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Small Red BBQ: ASDA http://m.direct.asda.com/george/george-home/portable-kettle-bbq-in-red-34cm/001679167,default,pd.html?cgid=D26M09G09C02S01