Six Things Sunday

Hello lovelies :)

Happy Sunday! You're WORKING that bed-hair today.

Before we get to the good stuff, I've got an important life announcement; I've decided to change my surname to "Shotgun". Not only does that mean that one day I'll genuinely be able to invite people to my Shotgun Wedding, it'll also make me seem posher because it's double-barrelled. Bahaha....

Assuming you're still reading (congrats on making it past those puns!), here's a list of things currently contributing to my eye twinkle:

1. Breaking Hearts
I see no reason why Valentine's chocolate can only be shared with someone you love in a naked kind of way. Especially when it's full of peanut butter.

2. Clock Watching
Well, watch-watching; but that sounds weird. I recently decided I needed a watch in my life, so I could start doing not-so-subtle wrist-check in boring meetings. I couldn't decide which one was my favourite, so I chose three. Story of my life.

3. Growing Up
You know you've made a friend for life when they add you to their door frame height chart. Don't even try to pretend you aren't aching to do this in your own house too now!

4. Flights of fancy
As my new watch will attest, there's always time to go travelling if you really want to, and today I'm meeting some friends to plan my first international adventure of 2016; Paris followed by Copenhagen. 



I'm most excited about visiting this bakery, because they appear to offer SPOUSES MADE OF CAKE. What do you mean "You're going to leave Copenhagen as a widow"?!?

5. Wish you were here...
My Parisian postcards won't be the first I've sent this year. Postcards from day trips are also totally legit, you know. 

6. Rawrsomely comfortable
Shortly before Christmas, I received a surprise parcel that was literally full of glitter and magic. And not just any old magic, either - DINOSAUR MAGIC. It turned out Kezzie had sent me several incredible Christmas presents, including a dinosaur duvet cover(!!!) specifically for me to cut up and play with! This discovery preceded a significant amount of squealing, because I knew exactly what I was going to make...

Since moving into my new house last November I'd been trying (and failing) to track down my Dream Dressing Gown. Mostly for my housemates' sake as, having thrown out my old one in the move, I'd been forced to wander round the house in a barely long enough jumper. Yes, forced, I tell you. 

After a wholly fruitless search, I'd decided to try and make one myself. It turns out making a dressing gown by eye is much harder than a shift dress, but it just about does the job. 

Ironically, it's turned out about the same length as the jumper. But, as my housemates pointed out, at least now it's my stegosaur-arse hanging out instead....

What's been making you smile recently? 

Katie xxx

Six Things Saturday

Hello lovelies!

How've you been? 

Please excuse the under-eye bags, which I'm pretty sure are visible from space; I've had a rather full-on few weeks. Working 10+ hour days (including weekends) and waking up with the lark for no good reason has really taken its toll. In fact, I think I've actually been waking up earlier than the lark; giving him the chance to appreciate my own version of the dawn chorus: off-key, shower-based pop music mash-ups. Needless to say, I'm BEYOND excited to have a whole nine days off work stretching ahead of me like a sun-drenched summer meadow. With a several picnic blankets covered in cream tea scattered in strategic places, of course...

It's the first proper break I've had since starting my new job last September(!), so today I'm sharing six of the things I'm looking forward to doing during my time off.

1. Reading
Despite being busier than Queen Bey of late, I've still managed to find some time for reading good books. Uprooted, a recommendation from a girlfriend, is a fantastic tale of an enchanted forest (the trees eat children...), weirdly sexy wizards, and a fair bit of magic. 

I devoured it like a child-eating tree, but still not as quickly as I wolfed down The Book of a Thousand Days; a spontaneous library selection which lasted me all of 8 hours over a single afternoon. I read it in rotation between the local park, the comfy sofa in Cafe Nero (complete with a giant hot chocolate, naturally) and the sunny pub garden of my favourite (soon to be no longer) local. 

I have to admit, as I'm tending to read in public at the moment, I've been more discerning (read: snobby) about my literary choices. I'm currently reading "The Edible Woman" by Margaret Atwood (the first of her novels that I've read), and I'm planning to work my way through some of her others this week too. That said, I was sorely tempted to take out this one from the library...

I was thinking I could pair it with more chick-lit entitled something along the lines of "Cindy Lu Gets Married", the approach lone gentlemen brandishing them both and crying... What do you think? 

2. Relaxing
After finding an amazing last minute deal last week, my holiday has kicked off in the most blissful way I could imagine; I jumped straight in the car after work yesterday, picked up a girlfriend, and headed to a spa. We've swum, sauna-d, slept tangled in whiter-than-white bedding, and consumed far too much food for dinner AND breakfast - all for the bargain price of £55. We also decided to get Stress Busting Massages this afternoon; it looks like I'm going to have to pour myself into the car to get home....

How many calories does 20 minutes of sauna-ing burn off? At least this many, right? 

3. Snuggling
I don't have to dress super smart in my job (or at least, no-one's ever said anything about my Lego jewellery...) but I'm still going to make the most of being able to throw on huge, cosy jumpers and get down to the serious business of drinking tea and watching the world go by. 

Apparently, these are called "selfies", and they are all the rage with today's yoof.

4. Adventuring
I'm off on all kinds of adventures next week, including a trip to the seaside, charity shopping, brunching, a visit to the Big Smoke (and my first time at London Zoo!) and a Hen Do. Ooh - and I'm getting a (long overdue) hair cut, where I'm hoping the trainee hairdresser will be able to give me the hair AND face of Hilary Duff for the princely sum of £15.

Hell, I might see if they can give me a matching body for an extra fiver...

Haircuts can work miracles, right?

5. Recharging
Being forced to grab food on the go has resulted in some less-than-healthy meal decisions of late. I'm feeling the need for some proper home cooking, and making sure I get my 5 a day (along with plenty of rest). Although, in my defence, there's no way I could've left this little guy behind. I mean, he was marked down to 15p literally broken hearted:

Turns out broken hearts are surprisingly delicious. And taste like strawberries. 

6. Planning
Things seem to be (thankfully!) progressing well with my whole finally-having-somewhere-to-live thing, but aren't quite there yet. I'm planning to spend any free time I have left camped out in my solicitor's office, alternating between adding pretty pictures to my New House Pinterest Board and asking "Are we nearly there yet?" more often than children on their way to Disneyland. 

What have you been up to recently?

Love Katie xxx

Kitchen Makeover

Hey m'dears! 

As promised on Sunday, today I'm sharing the before/after shots from my kitchen makeover. Kitchen makeovers are one of my favourite things in the whole wide world, so I'm particularly excited about finally having one of my own to share :) 

I never actually intended to paint our kitchen, because we're planning to build a country style kitchen-diner extension at some point in the distant future when we can afford it. Then we decided to get floorboards laid on our ground floor, which meant I either had to paint the hideous pine cupboards or be OK with the kitchen looking like a sauna. 

I can hear you thinking "Enough already with setting the context- show me some photographs!", so let's get this party started with some photos of the "before":

Delightful, wasn't it? I don't know which bit I loved most - the peaches-and-mustard wallpaper, dated floral motifs, or fake-tan-orange and brown colour scheme. I started off by painting the walls white, then did the same with the tiles. I also changed the ugly blind for something a little less traditional, and gave our whiteboard a mini-makeover. That just left the cupboards, carcasses, skirting boards, door frames, trim and handles... Simple, eh? 

So that's what I did last week:

The new handles were a mini DIY project on their own, after I realised the handles I wanted would cost £250(!) due to having 22 doors/ drawers in our kitchen. I bought some plain wooden discs and a piece of dowel from ebay, Tom cut and screwed them together to make the handles, and I painted them all in different colours. 

I love that the handles have become the main feature of the kitchen due to everything else being white like a regular, grown-up kitchen. Well, almost everything... Remember this wallpaper?

I've lined the backs of all the top cupboards with it, and the inside panels of every door. Teehee. 

I also decided to treat us to a new kitchen bin, replacing the rather revolting swing-top office bin we've been using since moving in four years ago. I found this beauty at Dunelm Mill:

I reckon one final reminder of the before/after comparison is in order to finish this off:

What do you think?

Katie xxx

P.S. If you want a peep at some other rooms in our house you can find them in my House Tour posts.

Shire Hotel and Spa Review

Hello lovelies!

How are you? 

Today I'm going to tell you guys more about the spa break I mentioned on Sunday. Before I start gushing about how gosh darn relaxing it was, I want to say this isn't a paid/requested review- I just had an awesome time and wanted to share it with y'all! 

Last weekend my two oldest girlfriends and I went on a road-trip to the Solent Hotel and Spa in Hampshire, for a well-deserved hen do/mini break with their Girls' Night Out package. Before we arrived, my inner cynic was expecting the offer to turn out to be a scam. It seemed far too good to be true, so I prepared myself for being told something like "Yes, the offer included use of the facilities, but only between 2 and 4am". How wrong I was!

The break surpassed our wildest dreams, and we spent the whole time feeling like PRINCESSES. In my case, a very, very drunk Princess. Unfortunately, due to leaving my phone in our room all weekend to escape technology, I didn't take any photos; so I've pinched the ones below from the bride-to-be (thanks, Lu!) 

We were treated to free drinks while our suite (fancy, eh?) was set up, and settled ourselves very happily in the plush lounge area which vaguely resembled an Italian castle, with an added all-glass wine storage room lit with pink neon, like the world's booziest disco. In our suite we found goodies bags filled with treats including face masks, nail polish, and bags of Malteasers, along with pairs of slippers and freshly-laundered dressing gowns that were so fluffy they felt like being hugged by a bunny. 

We spent the afternoon turning ourselves into smiley, clean-pored prunes thanks to the pool, jacuzzi, sauna, and steam room, before settling down on the seriously comfortable loungers in the Treatment Centre with big mugs of delicious (and complimentary!) fruit tea. 

When booking the hotel, we'd opted to pay another £30 between us for one hour's use of a private outdoor hot tub, which we all agreed afterwards was an excellent decision. The hot tub overlooks a miniature meadow of wild flowers, and we made the most of the privacy by giggling to our hearts' content; fuelled by free flutes of orange juice, which transformed into several cheeky glasses of Bucks Fizz after we discovered my co-bridesmaid had sneakily ordered a bottle of Prosecco!

After getting dressed up for dinner, we headed down to the reception desk to choose which DVDs to borrow for later that night (also included in the deal). The incredibly sweet receptionist helped us to narrow down our choices, and even told us the top-secret information that they'd recently procured a copy of Frozen, which was yet to be added to the list. She also gave us the cocktail list so we could choose our pre-dinner cocktails. Naturally, we'd assumed that the inclusive pre-dinner cocktail would be one glass each. Fair to say our jaws dropped when we saw the waiter approaching our table with these:

If you look very closely at my eyes, you can see the fear

Given that I was already rather merry totally smashed from the prosecco in the hot tub, being presented with a whole jug of spiced apple cocktail to myself was terrifying! I only managed one glass but it was utterly incredible, due to the awesome combination of apple juice, elderflower cordial, and spiced rum. And then, when I was already expecting my liver to pack its bags and run at any moment, we were approached by the sommelier to take our orders for the half bottle of wine we were owed. EACH. 

Thankfully, we also had £35 each to spend on anything we wanted from the menu. With mains coming in at around £15, and starters/desserts at £5-8, we had more than enough credit for sufficient carbs to counteract all the booze. And my fellow hens had main courses of HALF-LOBSTERS(!), so it's not exactly MacDonald's. I opted for some handmade veggie tortellini, followed by a mushroom and goats' cheese burger which turned out to be the size of my face:

Once we'd eaten so much we thought we might burst, the restaurant staff took our dessert order to be brought up to our room later on. This meant that, by 9.30pm, we were in our pyjamas and working our way through 1/3 of each of these while watching 27 Dresses:

Sticky Toffee Pudding, Raspberry and White Chocolate Crème brûlée, and Salted Chocolate Caramel Tart with Chocolate Sorbet. It was all as disgusting as it sounds...

After an amazing night's sleep, possibly thanks to all the wine, we spent a lazy morning sprawled on our beds and chatting before heading down for a huge, hangover-fighting, two-course breakfast, and setting off home. 

Sorry for waffling on so much, but I honestly can't recommend this deal enough. At £117 each it's not exactly cheap, but for the amount of goodies and food/drink you get, it's an absolute BARGAIN. Oh, and you also get a £20 voucher to spend on ESPA products online, with no "minimal spend" nonsense :)

Have you ever been on a spa break? Would you recommend it? 

Katie xxx

Floral Suitcase DIY

Hey m'dears 

Today I'm sharing a wee craft project I tackled at the weekend, after being inspired by the packaging from one of our deliveries:

Anyone shabby chic lover worth their chalk paint has probably lusted after a Sass and Belle floral suitcase, and I decided to use the leftover decoupage paper I was given last Christmas for a patchwork reindeer project to try and make my own version. I didn't have enough to cover the whole box in one colour, so I combined this blue one with this white one, and wrapped the handle in polkadot tape. Here's the work in progress:

I long ago accepted the fact that it's impossible for human beings to decoupage stuff without getting wrinkles in it, so here's the finished product, wrinkles and all:

It's not as pretty as Sass and Belle's, but I don't think it's too bad for a free version. 

What do you reckon? 

Katie xxx

Geometric Vase DIY

Hello lovelies!

How's tricks? 

On Saturday I got busy in the garden with a can of shiny copper spray paint and anything I could find in the house that wasn't nailed down (or already painted...). I've shown you this "vase" (aka light fitting) before but here's a reminder of what it looked like before I got my mitts on it:

I love the multi-faceted gem-like design of flush glass light fittings, but don't really like them as lights. I'd always intended to paint this one because I wanted to emphasise the gorgeous geometric shape of the pyramid spikes. So here's the after, complete with gerberas (what else?!):

I treated myself to two bunches of flowers (both yellow-stickered, obviously) because I wanted to combine the yellow from the firey-coloured bunch with the bright pink from the Barbie-tastic bunch in my geometric vase. The remaining flowers are now sitting pretty in a big glass jar on our living room hearth. 

Fresh flowers really do make me happy :) I'm really pleased with the results of this makeover; I reckon the finished vase looks much more expensive than the cost of a can of spray paint. 

What's been floating your boat so far this week? 

Katie xxx

Three Things Thursday

What up, sweetcheeks! 

Happy Friday Eve to you :)

Here are three things which have recently caused me to do a Kitchen Dance Of Joy. Although, to be honest, it doesn't take much. 

1. Fantastic Plastic
After spotting a hefty 40% off(!) discount code for Designosaur on twitter (in celebration of them hitting 1,000 sales, and rightly so) I treated myself to some sparkle. This guy had been on my wishlist for ages, so I decided to grant my own wish (it's a good thing I wasn't Cinderella's fairy godmother, or she'd still be scrubbing floors...):

The second one is just funny. No, I'm not engaged (but I would TOTALLY marry Designosaur if it asked me). Our wedding would basically be Jurassic Park with a wedding cake.

2. New phone
Since my phone broke a few months ago I've been making do with several of Tom's old smartphones (I know- first world problems!), all of which were on their last legs, moving from one to the next as each one died; like the Android Grim Reaper. The main problem (a SERIOUS first world problem) was that the phones were too old to support twitter, instagram, or take photographs of a higher quality than a toddler's drawing, done in the dark, with a blunt pencil.

I decided it was time to rejoin the modern phone world, and get myself one of those fancy floating-screens-with-special-gloves things Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report. Sadly, those apparently aren't real, so instead I bought a new phone from Tesco. Due to a pretty impressive combination of an already reduced price, a Tesco discount code, and the vast number of clubcard vouchers we had saved (due to being greedy fatties) I only ended up paying £34 for a phone some places are charging £160 for! 

The best part (well, the almost best part; a £34 smartphone is hard to beat) is that I can use social media again during the day. I know how much you've all missed the photos of every hot chocolate I drink. I basically did this for you.

3. Free Fancy Food
I've previously had a good ol' waffle about how much I love discounted food (being a bargain makes it taste much better) but free food has to be the king of edible bargains. Free food, you say? Well, I'll explain...

Waitrose, the sustenance-providing Mecca of the middle-classes (three kinds of tahini and counting!), still applies the financial discount for its multi-buy offers, even if you're buying reduced food!! Yup. For example, yesterday I bought two packets of sausages with an RRP of £3.29, one of which was reduced to £1.49. The sausages were part of a two-packs-for-£5 offer, so the till removed the difference between the cost of two RRP packs and a fiver; charging me £3.20 for both packs. This essentially means I saved 9p on the full-priced pack, and the reduced ones were FREE!!! Which means they'll be the tastiest sausages of all time (I can only assume, given that they'll all be scoffed by Tom, our resident carnivore). 

Katie xxx

P.S. If you've managed to read all the way to the bottom of what is essentially an itemised list of my recent shopping/maths lesson, I reckon you deserve a prize. Reduced sausages all round! 

Three Things Thursday

Hey m'dears!

Happy Friday Eve :) 

Have you got nice plans for the weekend? I've got a birthday party, with dancing no less, then I'm seeing my two oldest friends to talk all things wedding-related and probably eat too many biscuits, and then a meet-up with some fellow bloggers in Brighton for tea and chatting and probably eating too much cake. I'd better make sure I do plenty of dancing on Friday!!

Here are three things which have floated my boat today:

1. This article by Stylist magazine about an amazing dome home. It's looks so cheery and cosy, and it was built for under £6,500! I'm trying to figure out if we've got space for one in the garden so we can sell our house and pay off the mortgage... I love the idea of having to source curved furniture!

How adorable is that windowseat? And the amazing hammock on the roof!
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I love the idea of diving through that oval doorway onto the bed, like a lion jumping through hoops in the circus.
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2. Finding a box of amazing Tom Frost postcards, which contains all of his prints that I've been lusting after for ages. It was an an absolute bargain too, compared to the price of the official full-sized prints (£6.50 for 12!)

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Aren't they gorgeous? I just can't pick a favourite!

3. Adding lots of birthday present ideas to my Amazon Wishlist, because I'm a totally selfless person and don't want people stressing about what to buy me. *polishes halo* There's some pretty awesome stuff out there on the internet at the moment...

This drink dispenser would definitely make summer party cocktails a breeze

Who WOULDN'T want to fall asleep on a tiger's face?! 

Vase, shampoo bottle, salad dressing container...
Is there anything this pretty bottle couldn't be?!

What time is it, you say? I can't believe you even have to ask.

I've been lusting after this fun top since I saw it on Hannah's blog months ago

Ok, I'd better stop there, or I'm going to end up buying everything off my wishlist myself!!

What have you got lined up for the weekend? 

Katie xxx