about me

My love of Japanese wooden dolls and changing my spending habits

Honeymoon, Travel

So even though I love to travel and explore, I am not on the biggest wage so when it comes to spending money there are only a few things I like to invest in. Travel and experiences, I don’t mind, meals and nights out I think are memory makers, so if I blow my budget on a weekend then I don’t go out for the rest of the month and I am fine with that. I try not to live above my means but my credit card will definitely tell you a different story. I don’t have issues spending my money on food or skincare but that’s where it stops.


That is when I doubt myself and go no further.
I have had a look at my wardrobe in recent years and I am not really happy with it. Even though I didn’t spend hundreds I still indulged in fast fashion of Primark and although I actually have some nice pieces from there, I need to invest more in myself. I made a conscious effort to not be so frivolous and invest in better quality everything. Because I teach art I do get covered in paint and ink a lot so I do have a cheaper work wardrobe but I have started buying better jeans etc.


In Japan I bought a lot of skincare but that is a passion of mine. I also bough a fair few kimono jackets that I adore. They are all second hand and Gavin encouraged me as they are beautiful and I will have them forever. Because we were at the end of our holidays and because I hadn’t bought a souvenir Gavin (again) encouraged me to buy some wooden dolls.


These are frivolous, but I wont have the opportunity to buy them in Yamagata any time soon. So I took the plunge and bought three.
I love them.


In our vast and winding hotel in Yamagata we discovers Kokeshi dolls. They had cabinets full of them and I oved the display. These Wooden dolls that are hand painted with beautiful flowers and expressions. The original Kokeshi dolls were connected to the mountain gods and were said to bring fortune such as health recovery and good harvest to them. So what better reminder of my time on the mountain then 3 lovely wooden dolls.
I don’t mind if you don’t like them.


I spent ages selecting the ones I liked arranging them to see if they work together. I played around and selected my 3. The shop was empty so the man was delighted I was buying 3. I wanted more and if I had found them in Tokyo I would have bought more.


But I didn’t.


When I got home and put them in my red dining room Gavin produced a tiny doll. Then the next day he snuck another one in. I love them and I love him for being so thoughtful. They wont be to everyone’s taste but I think they are a wonderful reminder of our time in the slopes.


What strange item did you bring back from your holidays?


Or do you have any shopping regrets that you wished you bought?

I almost made my own wedding dress!

Advice, Wedding

Can you believe that two years ago I sat down and considered making my own wedding dress. I thought it would a, save me money and b, be an amazing achievement.

I can sew. I trained in theatre design and part of that was making costumes. I had a pretty in pink moment were I turned a 60s wedding dress into a Victorian wedding dress Mrs Havershem style. So I know I could do it.

Not that I have picked up my sewing machine to sew anything trickier than curtains.

But I considered it,

I started looking at material and trainings and I was even contemplating embroidery and bead work.

Because I know I can do it but would I.

I decided I didn’t want the pressure and although I was probably being ambitious with the whole idea I know that I probably wouldnt finish it.

So I googled how to buy a wedding dress.

The thing about wedding is normally you only plan one once!! So it’s not like you have any information or really know how to do things. Which is why it is so easy to miss something off.

But I didn’t go wedding dress shopping.

I bought one from the high street and I honestly wouldn’t have wanted anything else. It was perfect. Especially when Becky lent me her veil which just made it look even better!

I love my dress it didn’t need to be fitted or taken in.

I was a bit of a coward about wedding dress shopping but I was happy to cut costs where I could. £1000 on a dress still sounds like a waste of money to me. I am glad we spent that money on the guests instead.

I am also glad I didn’t try and make it. I didn’t want the stress even though I know my friend George would have helped me out in an instant as she is an amazing designer/seamstress and makes clothes for a living.

But cutting costs doesn’t mean taking advantage of people it means making the best of a situation!

Did you make your own wedding dress

Be Bold: feeling the insta-worthy pressure

confidence, Personal Experience

Be bold

Is the theme of today’s blog but today I am feeling beige not bold. I feel like I have taken on too much with this challenge. Its not that I don’t have enough time to write it just that I feel like my writing and content is suffering.

Taking on too much is not going to improve my blog it is just going to make it messy.

 I love interior design I do. But I feel like all the images I am putting up are just not good enough. The lights not right and I don’t have any time to fix that.

The writing of the blog is easy but the planning that goes into it and trust me there is a lot of planning.

So, I am not going to stop I am just going to write about what I really care about which isn’t my lovely slightly disheveled house at the moment.

We all know that I am completely obsessed with skincare. Cant stop wont stop. I really love it and I am my skincare regime has turned me into a crazy pharmaceutical scientist. This morning I put all my bottle I was using on the sink. A bit of this, a bit of that. Is that a scientist or a Witch? I don’t mind either comparison.

The wedding was the reason that I started the blog

My running which hasn’t been happening because I just got too freakin lazy! I have run once this week so I am okay with that but I need to start running for 6 miles soon!

Instagram is just so disheartening. I don’t understand what their point of view is any more. My friend told me that she felt like giving up/ disheartened because other account similar to hers where doing amazing and her beautiful account wants. So I gave her some advice and forgot to listen to myself. So I am going to stop.

It’s all too much

Facebook is just a waste of space, I don’t know why they mess with that either. I don’t know many friends who are still active on it. Some one needs to come up with a new Instagram idea where they don’t introduce a new algorithm every 5 minutes. I would join in a heartbeat.

So this blog is about being bold and my house is packed full of boldness. However the boldest thing about my home is me! Yes, I am saying it.

So I need to just be me and stop trying to juggle so many balls in the air.

At the moment my home will never be instaworthy for this 30 day challenge. I am going to work on being in a little Insta community and to be truthful I already have it with some of the girls I talk to on Insta.

So it’s back to me!

My happy place

interior design

Oh I have a few happy places.

My bed

So this was an easy one for me. I love sleeping. It’s my favourite thing to do is to put my pjs on. Wash my face and hop into bed. My bed is gorgeous and I love it. It’s slightly bigger than a king but not quite a super king.

Our bedroom

Our room is painted a lovely green it’s much softer in person and we need to give it the once over. We may even go darker. To me a bedroom is all about sleep and being cozy. I nice light bright bedroom feels fresh and lovely but it’s not somewhere I want to retreat to at the end of long day!

Me and Gav are not tiny people but this bed is big enough for us. I love a cushion but on our bed we just have our pillows and if Gav doesn’t through them out then I can sneak some larger grey cushions I bought from next. They are great reading cushions but we definitely don’t sleep in them.

Greys and greens

My blanket is a mermaid one I bought two years ago that I like to snuggle in when I read!

The prints above the bed re from Somerset house film 4 prints. The one in the left is the last Samurai by our favourite artist Joe Wilson we have a lot of his prints around the house. Gav has a ghost buster print which I don’t live as much but it’s his side so I don’t mind.

We found that we love prints especially film prints and Joe Wilson’s eye for detail is amazing!

The bedding is a mix of Sainsburies and Jigsaw. I struggled for ages trying to find green bedding I liked. I love palm prints but didn’t want anything too trend led. Then I discovered that I have always loved grey and white bedding so stuck with that. The Jigsaw bedding is also reversible so we can have light grey in summer and dark grey in winter. We love it!

Oh so I need another challenge do I? Interior blog challenge

Dreaming, Organising, Planning

So I have seen this account @mybousethismonth and those that run it and it is beautiful. Truly stunning all of them. I don’t even care if I don’t win I just want to try this challenge and see if anyone likes my style man!

Dream challenge really!

So this is it. Some of them are easy some of them will be tricky but it will get me writing everyday. Will get me inspired everyday and get me thinking about how my house looks.

Yes I know I have a lot on my plate but I loved the other blog challenge and now I can share it here.

Yes I also know that this maybe doesn’t help my blog that much because I don’t have a niche or a them that I stick to. But I write because I love it not because it’s a chore!

So join me if you want to. There will be a brief intro on my Instagram after all it is supposed to be a photo not a blog but I thought why not hu?

Join me if you want to!

Looking after me, skincare update

Advice, Beauty, confidence, skincare

My mum is proud of me because I know more about skincare or at least the latest skincare since getting engaged.

I have become a little obsessed with my skincare, I have mentioned that before. I don’t wear a lot of makeup. But I have started buying a wee bit more.

We went to SpaceNK on Kings road and I am so happy we did, there was a lot of staff ready to help and we did a sweep around the store trying the sample and planning the next purchases for my Nydulge card.

I can’t wait for payday I am out of B hydra and the CFirma serum. Or I could just buy the Elizabeth Arden serum oh I still don’t know.

Skin type: I have

  • Combination skin
  • Oily tzone
  • Large pores
  • Millia
  • Blocked pores
  • Broken veins
  • Dry patches on my eyelids

How sexy do I sound! You probably think that it’s strange that I don’t wear makeup. If I go out at night then I put eye makeup, a red lips and a wee bit of blusher. I have a Lancôme tinted moisturiser with SPF. Which doesn’t smother my skin.

So with all these issue I now have skincare staples.

Morning

After reading drunk elephants skincare routine from the littles I have learned that after cleansing at night I don’t really need to cleanse in the morning as I was my face in the shower. So afterwards I just use a vitamin serum and a moisturiser. Then after that has set into my skin I use an SPF.

At night

I cleanse my face. Then I use a serum and then a retinol and sometimes a moisturiser or a night oil if I think my skin needs it. I cant get along with sheet masks. Maybe I am the ones I am using the wrong ones but I don’t really understand them. I use a face mask once a week I would use it more but I don’t want flakey skin to add to all my other issues!

I do like to mix and match

My favourite products are

  • Elemis Rose balm cleanser
  • Indee Lee Toner
  • The Ordinary Matryxal 10% +HA
    Drunk Elephant Whip moisturiser
    Alpha H retinol
    Sunday Riley Luna Sleeping Oil
    Elemis night moisturiser
    Drunk Elephant BHydra
    Drunk Elephant C-Firma
    Drunk Elephant Babyfacial
    La Roche Posay Anthelios SPF 50+

I own a lot more products but these are my favourites.

I will go into more detail on what the products do for my skin in a later blog and will try not to repeat myself. If you want any information about Drunk Elephant click here but Baby Facial isn’t there because I hadn’t bought it yet. Plus it deserves its own blog, I love it so much.

My mum is proud of me because I care about what goes on my skin. I am worried about my makeup on my wedding day. I understand that preparation is key.

So I am looking after it now.

Confession time

Organising, Planning

Day29, a confession, 30 day blog challenge.

I have Destiny child Confession song going through my head.

Confessions

I have a few.

I never thought I would complete this challenge after all this is a goal I set for myself. I wanted to do it and I know that after the wedding I will do it again because I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will just need to find a different set of challenges to complete.

I know I said at the beginning that I never complete things but I mean like never!

This is actually an achievement for me.

Writing

I didn’t write all my blogs on the day. A few I wrote on one day and then went through them and corrected a few mistakes. I think that my grammar in general on this challenge is poor and I need to work on that.

Do I feel like I cheated?

Nope.

I still got them out every single day, I worked on them every day.

The trickiest part was the photographs. Sometimes it was easy picking them. Sometimes it was difficult and I had to travel through my photos and find them.

When I couldn’t do that I set up a mini studio in my dining room table. Bought some props and took the photos.

It was work but I enjoyed it! I had to plan it, if I had winged it then you wouldn’t have had a blog every day!

Organisation is key

I think this is going to be another short blog and I don’t really like them when they are too short. But we all have a few confessions to make.

Brief confessions

  • Gav I ate all the french chocolate
  • Manny I took you for granted
  • Trainers I don’t use you enough
  • I like to buy fitness clothes and sit on the couch
  • Gav I ate all the sour cherries
  • I wish I had more time before the wedding
  • I am glad of where I am