{Halloween Fun}

My kids are at the age now where Halloween is lots of fun. We've been busy deciding what to dress up as for the school disco and I think we'll try and visit a few of the neighbours too whilst we're at it!

I thought I'd share with you a few of my Halloween finds...

First up is an event in Glasgow being held this weekend by Rowdy Roddy Vintage at The Sparkle Horse, 16 Dowanhill Street. It's a free event with Halloween games, pumpkin carving, home decor, costumes and more.

There's also a Baby Loves Disco 'Boogie Halloween' event at Hummingbird on 2nd November, 1-3pm and a Pop Lock-In at the same venue, same date for 4-11 year olds at 4-6pm. Have a peek here for more details.

I've also come across some tasteful Halloween decor... we're not having a party so I'm not going to go crazy, but I might put up a couple of garlands and try and carve a pumpkin. My cousin Scott creates the most amazing pumpkins each year, and hopefully he won't mind me sharing the one he made last year...

Tinkerbell! Isn't this so cool!! I'll be attempting a more straight forward design!

John Lewis is one of my favourite department stores, and they have loads of Halloween goodies. This tissue paper garland is great value at just £2.50:

Tissue Paper Pumpkin Garland from John Lewis

I also love this felt ball garland from Violet and Percy:

Halloween Felt Ball Garland, £8

These bat garlands and tassel garlands are also amazing:

Velveteen Babies Bat Garland from Molly Meg, £17.50

My Little Day Black Tassel Garland, £12.50

If we don't get time to bake any Halloween inspired cakes for the neighbours (I've ordered some bat shaped sugar sprinkles and edible wafer cake toppers!), then these Hotel Chocolat treats from John Lewis are ideal as a wee favour.

Yikes Milk Chocolate Treats, £2.50

I've got some other Halloween ideas over on this old post and there's also some ideas on my Halloween Pinterest board, which you will find here.

Halloween - do you love it or hate it?

{New House - The Kitchen}

I thought I'd share with you some of the work that's been going on in my bijou kitchen in my new house.

I've not done very much other than change the kitchen door knobs (from bronze star ones that weren't my taste to some smaller simpler silver ones that I found on eBay), change the linoleum, my dad fitted some shelves and a new induction hob and I painted the walls. Oh, and I had an electrician fit a new light into the alcove. I have some material to make a Roman blind but I've yet to get around to that.

Before

Changed the linoleum... making good progress!

Started painting! That's more like me now!!

Painting some more!

The shelves as they are today... the basket is full of crisps, Mini Cheddars, yoghurt raisins... the star tins are full of cookie cutters (and possibly the odd chocolate treat - I still have some chocolate coins from Christmas!)... then you can see an elephant tin of tea on the bottom shelf next to the kids marble reward jars... followed by an assortment of containers!

The kitchen is small, and as such all my plates and glasses are stored elsewhere in a display cabinet. Which isn't very handy, but I'm getting used to it.

1. Some kitchen equipment - Magimix accessories, barware etc

2. A broken extractor fan :-(

3. Tea, coffee, sugar plus mugs!

4. Tea towels

5. Some more kitchen equipment

6. A broken dishwasher :-(

7. Cleaning products and a leaking stop cock which is yet to be fully sorted :-(

8. Storecupboard essentials

9. Cutlery

10. Pots and pans

The cooker is also full of baking trays as I just have such limited space!!

There is a small alcove with my fridge/freezer and I think I could probably organise this better to make more use of the space available.

This cupboard (number 8 in the photo above) is a total disaster and I know that I need to organise this better. I think I could make much better use of the space if I had it planned right.

With a broken dishwasher, and limited counter space, I need to be careful because most days the kitchen worktop looks like this... a total bomb site!

Trying to resolve some storage issues! These little hanging pots can be detached from their hooks... so when the kids are setting the table for dinner, I just take their cutlery pot down for them. Likewise, if we're baking - the other pot comes down :-)

One of my other major issues is what to do with my recycling. It normally ends up all over the floor... more on this later as I'm on the hunt for the best solution!

{New House - The Bathroom}

The bathroom of my new house needed a bit of TLC.

The ceiling height is very low & as a result the shower over the bath isn't high enough for me (I'm just under 6 foot). The shower is also pathetic compared to the powerful ones I'm used to. But for now the shower is the least of my worries (I've had a variety of house problems since moving in... the roof, sewage, leaking pipes....).

Anyway, when I moved in there was horrific green linoleum and a horrible looking mirror on the wall. Thankfully the suite is white and the wall tiles are cream. So it's not taken too much to get it looking nice :)

I had some new lino put down from Vallance Discount Carpets on Clarkston Road (a recommendation from a friend of mine, and they were excellent). What a difference that made!!

Since then I've now changed the mirror to an Art Deco style bevelled mirror from Homebase and added a few shelves and an additional mirror (the one above the sink is too low for me to stand in front of!).

Before!

Before!

The bathroom now :-)

Much better!

Another new mirror & shelving

My mum collected shells, and so you'll find a number of them in my bathroom!

Some luxuries that have been gifted to me along with some more shells!

Yet another shell!

I still need to sort out my storage, or lack thereof. In my head I would love a wooden vintage style display cabinet but I'm yet to find one that has the correct dimensions.

I also plan to paint the teal coloured mosaic tiles a bright lime green... just so they match the colour scheme a bit better.

Isn't amazing though what a couple of little touches can do!

Glasgow Mummy on Instagram :-)

{#ShareAdvent - gingerbread day}

Today's #ShareAdvent prompt is 'Gingerbread day' and I have to admit, I've never made a gingerbread man or house before...!

If I have enough time, then today the kids and I will bake some biscuits for the neighbours - it's about time I practiced my biscuit decorating skills. I've posted all our Christmas cards now, except the neighbours ones because I wanted to hand deliver them with some festive goodies to say Hello, especially to the ones we're yet to meet in our new street!

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I'm hoping one of the other #ShareAdvent participants will be sharing a good recipe? x

There are so many beautiful Christmas biscuit designs... I better get practicing!!

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Watch this space to see what ours turn out like!!

{New House: Home Office Inspiration}

In my old house, which was considerably bigger than the new one, I had a spare bedroom that was a dedicated office. 

I now have a small desk and some shelving at the landing on my upper floor. Don't get me wrong, it's perfect for what I need... I just need to declutter it (some more!) and make it a bit more stylish.

Micke desk in white from Ikea, £40

Expedit shelving unit in white from Ikea, £55

Looking rather empty before the area was swamped with my belongings!

I've been scouring Pinterest for ideas. Here goes:

I love the idea of framing the space with fairy lights {image source}

Some more shelving to display some pretty things? {image source}

Add some inspiring prints {image source}

Polka dots on the wall {image source}

More fairy lights... {image source}

Do let me know if you have any suggestions for inspiring prints or accessories to pretty up the space :-)

{My New House - Son's Bedroom}

I'm in two minds as to whether or not I put my son & daughter into the same bedroom in the new house or keep them separate. I'm lucky enough that my new house has three bedrooms, and as I'm short on storage, it might be useful to have the third bedroom as an office / dumping ground rather than utilise all bedrooms as actual bedrooms.

Anyway, my son has been talking about his new room and he's rather keen on a superhero bedroom. Which you probably could have guessed on the basis of his recent birthday party theme!

I've been doing some research and collecting my ideas over on Pinterest. I'm seriously addicted to this site!!

The carpets for the bedrooms are likely to be grey. I'm thinking that they are less likely to get stained by my messy toddlers!

My son's room is going to be big enough that it can take a colour on the walls (whereas the littlest's room is rather small & dark and I think it will have to be white/cream). I quite like the idea of blue walls and then I'll bring in the superhero theme with some artwork and accessories. This means that the theme can be changed as he gets older... here are my thoughts at the moment:

I love this vinyl sticker from dinosaurdecals which I spotted on Etsy:

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I also rather like these superhero posters, again from Etsy - this time PosterEmpire:

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And isn't this personalised comic book Pow! name print brilliant?

By Wordplay Design at notonthehighstreet.com

We already own this poster which will be great in a superhero room!

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I've just done a quick search for superhero bedding, and found this fab duvet from Next:

Superman bed set

I have a toy box at the moment in my back porch area, and I'm thinking that this might look quite good in my son's bedroom if I painted it red or yellow to give the room another pop of colour.

The toy box, currently painted turquoise

So, what do you think? Any other ideas for accessories for a superhero bedroom?

{Fabulous Finds - Safari Bedroom}

I thought I'd share another one of the rooms in my house as part of my Fabulous Finds series... this time my toddler son's bedroom which is safari themed. I'm a big fan of Etsy, which is where I found a lot of the artwork and vinyl stickers that I used to decorate the walls. The walls are Dulux Natural Calico with the woodwork painted white. My thoughts were that the theme could then be changed fairly easily as he grows up. You can find the post on my daughter's bedroom here. I've just realised that I didn't photograph his bed (probably because it wasn't made!) but it is the Nantucket Bunk Bed from Aspace, but we're using it as a single bed for just now.

Sonoma 10-drawer wide chest from Marks and Spencer. I featured the fairy lights in a previous post and the jelly mould night light is from Mathmos.

Monkey wall graphic from Solana Graphics Studio

Safari animal print from Smiley Walls Art Studio

Giraffe vinyl sticker height chart from Single Stone Studios

Storage baskets from JoJo Maman Bebe

Cloud B ladybug night light from Amazon.co.uk, thanks to a recommendation from a friend. Tonight is the first night that my son has gone to bed, and stayed in bed, until he fell asleep. This is night two with the ladybug, and it seems to be working a treat! The light projects stars all round his room and he can pick to have red, blue (his favourite) or green stars. They automatically go off after 45 minutes.

What would spiderman do? print by Peter and Janes at notonthehighstreet.com

Roar - Natural fabric which my mother-in-law kindly made into curtains for us.

More animal prints from Smiley Walls Art Studio

Washing machine laundry basket from Vertbaudet

Book storage on wheels from Vertbaudet