Saturday 7 April 2012

Break Time

Today is baby Briggs' due date, and I am tired! Apart from making some shortbread to celebrate a good friends upcoming wedding I have made nothing. Creativity seems to have completely left me.
So for now I am going to have a break from this blog as I am not doing anything interesting to write about. Once baby has arrived and we have settled into our new life together I am sure creativity will return and I will be able to start this up again. See you soon....


Saturday 31 March 2012

Poorly

This week I've had a really nasty cold so spent most of my time in bed feeling sorry for myself and hoping that Baby Briggs wouldn't make an appearance. Excitingly this chair went up to the shop in Stonehaven but that is all the news for this week.
Of course, my most creative project has been going on for 9 months now. If these two photos of me, in the same dress, are anything to go by there has been a lot of creativity going on! Exactly one week till our due date...

December

March

Sunday 25 March 2012

Bonus Anniversary Post

Today Mr Briggs and I have been married for one year and I just had to put up a post to tell you all about his very own creative, and incredibly thoughtful, project. When we were looking at readings for our wedding last year we came across the sweetest quote from one of my favourite books, which instantly reminded me of us. We didn't use the quote on the day but Mr Briggs remembered it and had an original print made up especially for me. Such a thoughtful present. There were tears!


Saturday 24 March 2012

My new favourite decorations

This week we added some finishing touches to Baby Briggs' room. We had bought some bunting wall stickers from a fabulous website called Ferm Living. I was really impressed by the huge choice they had (we got ours in their sale), their promptness in posting our order out from Denmark, and the fact that the kids collection is not just blue and pink babyish stuff. I would quite happily have any of their kids wallpaper in my home. We then bought some bird stickers to liven it up a bit more (from a website I wasn't so impressed with so I won't mention them here, but the stickers are lovely!).









The beauty of these stickers is that you can arrange them any way you like depending on the space you have (the above picture shows a tree made out of left over bunting strips), they are really easy to put up, and they can be taken down without leaving a big mess on your walls. Perfect.

Sunday 18 March 2012

Winding Down

I spent most of the past week relaxing with a dear friend. She kept me company on the sofa in my hugely pregnant state, helped me bake triple chocolate brownies, she even walked the dog for me and made my dinner! Truly the perfect pregnancy companion.
The rest of the week was spent celebrating the upcoming wedding of another good friend. We had a wonderfully creative afternoon taking part in a fascinator class, making our own fascinators to wear to the wedding. Here is my colourful creation. Now I just need to find a dress to match!



We were also asked to take a memento of our friend so I made a brooch using material that I had used on a previous project for her, and an acorn shaped button to symbolise her own furniture company. The instructions came from a great book called The Crafty Minx by Kelly Doust, which includes all sorts of handmade treasures from doorstops to tepees, and brooches to nappy bags. I forgot to take a photo of the brooch though, so instead here is a photo of Henny, and one of my huge bump taken over a week ago - I'm even bigger now!



Saturday 10 March 2012

A Colourful Week

As I have now officially started my maternity leave, and even had a leaving party with my four favourite Edinburgh girls, there has not been much creativity going on. There has been some shopping though and I am not sure which of my two colourful purchases is more exciting!
First up came this beautiful piece of machinery...



Though as I have made shortbread and lemon polenta cake with the KitchenAid in the past 24 hours I suppose there has been a fair amount of creativity! It really is a classic piece of kitchen equipment. Not only does it look beautiful but it is so easy to use, and amazingly quiet. As we are expecting many visitors after the arrival of Baby Briggs, at least I know it will be easy for me to bake something yummy to feed them all!

Next up was another colourful beauty...




Our orange and grey pram came from the Costorphine Pram Centre, where all the ladies were wonderfully helpful and a pleasure to deal with. Now we just have to practice putting this up and down!

And just to prove I haven't been totally lazy this week, here is my hospital bag all packed and ready to go...


And a very cute photo of Henny...


Sunday 4 March 2012

The Kitchen Project - Part II

The kitchen is finished - mostly!



As you can see we still have the horrible retro floor tiles, the splashbacks haven't been fitted yet and the blind for the window hasn't arrived, but wow what a difference! It is now such a bright, spacious room and we love being in it. The gloss units reflect all the light, the cupboards are so well designed for space that there are even cupboards with nothing in (yet!), and I love the little things like having space under the sink for our bins to fit in. Admittedly, if you spill anything on a white worktop it needs mopping up straight away, but actually I suppose you should really do that anyway?!

And if you're worried that it is all a bit too white, check out the fabulous wallpaper by BorasTapeter from wallpaperdirect.co.uk






On a recent trip to John Lewis we got 4 ex-display Eames dining chairs that finish it all perfectly.

And is it wrong that my favourite part is having a utility room?! Not only does it keep the washing machine, and tumble dryer, out the way, it houses all my cleaning and laundry products (on high shelves away from little hands), the dog food, towels for the dog, wellies, and our new milton steriliser!!