Corner of my kitchen

So last night the Queen of Clean taught me how to use the SLR.  There was some muttering about apertures, shutter speeds and ambient light - but I took *none* of it in.

But I did take the pictures above.

I wanted to show you this corner of my kitchen.  It's a little breakfast nook, but we don't actually really eat there.  The Queen of Clean uses it to work on his laptop mainly, and I use it when unloading the shopping.

We set up the little 'inspiration' wire on the advice of the Creative Family book.  It's a place for us to store kids pictures, tearouts from magazines, paint samples etc that we like.  It also attracts the usual school newsletters but I try hard to keep them off there.  The wire itself is a curtain hanging system from Ikea - just a few pounds.

The fruit bowl/cake stand I have already bored you with here.
 

Just because.....

Hands up - I have nothing relevant or pertinent to say about the above picture of my littlest one.

It just makes me smile every time I see it so I thought I'd share.

On a more sober note - I have today lost my phone which I also use as a camera, so to keep up with the blog I will need to either find said phone or learn how to use the Queen of Clean's digital SLR camera. 

Trouble is he takes a *long* time explaining things.

Something out of nothing

This tin was a container for fudge in a former life (see below) - I love how it looks like a minature milk churn.  The label soaked off really easily.  Truly a stylish item (well I think so anyway) that was ready to be thrown away......something out of nothing. 

The conker 'issue' and tree inspiration

To note the change in season I wanted to post some tree images that have been inspiring me.....

These two wall decals made from vintage wallpaper and are by Inke, available at Supernice.  The price hurts somewhat though - so I'm thinking with a little planning I could try and recreate this myself.

This fantastic bookcase via Ohdeedoh.  Unfortunately it is a one off I think, but again with a little perseverence....(and some green paint?)

This lovely print from a favourite Etsy seller who I've mentioned here before Caramtaback - she is a Norwegian artist who draws on vintage pages - I just love how you can see the print through the image.

And finally, onto the conkers.  My Dad collected these for my youngest son last week on a walk back from the station.  My son calls them his 'coconuts' (he is 3 after all).  So now my boy has lost interest a little (sorry Dad!), I have taken to displaying them in a basket.  I don't know why I like them, I just *do*.  They won't be around for ever, so for the moment I want them in this basket in the living room.

I, (aka the Queen of Clean) feels differently.  He thinks I don't notice but every evening for the past week he has moved them into the playroom.  And so every morning I move them back (even those mornings when I can't find my hair straighteners and need to get 3 children ready for school, yes even those).  A silent battle if you will - a genuine conker 'issue'.  Let's hope we resolve it soon.

The stairs

I can't believe that we (obviously I'm using the royal 'we' term here) got the stairs painted this weekend.  They could do with another coat or two of paint but I am really pleased with the end result.

I was thinking about being all adventurous with some feature wallpaper on the risers, but probably on this occasion 'less is more'.

This is how we (sorry I mean he) did it.

First he filled all the gaps and sanded - this bit took the longest.

Then he painted using 'Diamond Hard' white floor paint which is really fast drying - took about 2 hours.  The two coats that went on today had to be timed carefully with the kids going to bed etc - funny that as soon as they realised they couldn't come down the stairs as the paint was wet they suddenly just *had* to.

The end result (again!)

I also wanted to show you these pictures below, this is how the tooth fairy gets into our house (apparently she doesn't mind the tradesman's entrance via our understairs cupboard).  This was a Christmas decoration that I thought deserved to be out all year round.

And lastly a picture of my cat Jasper - who was incredibly fed up that he, too, couldn't go upstairs whilst the paint was drying.

Idea

'I've got an idea' is a common phrase around these parts. Sometimes if it's exclaimed by my children, I'll be honest, I feel a sense of panic about what they may be about to announce. Usually it involves a long list of items to gather, a trip out, a lot of thinking and *a lot* of participation.

But today, a Saturday with nothing planned I woke up and thought that we should all have the chance to follow through on our ideas.


Yoyo (I assure you this is not her real name) had an idea to make this delightful sock puppet.



Then she had another idea (is there no stopping my daughter?)to make pizza - I cheated with a ready packet mix. Come on, I'm not superwoman.

I had an idea to colour co-ordinate the children's books. My husband, I , thinks I have lost the plot.
My youngest had an idea to decorate my bedroom walls with his sister's fairy stickers. Shame he didn't share it with me first...I think this is one idea we wouldn't have followed through with.

I now have an idea that I will spend the rest of the evening on the sofa with a bottle of wine.

School chairs and stairs envy

I bought this chair (along with three others) from our local primary school last christmas. They were selling them for £5 each - I use the other 3 as bedside tables for the kids.

I love them because they are exactly what I had at school too.

The basket of plastic animals is a regular feature round here.



I am also having a major case of stairs envy here. Just loving these from Domino magazine. But not sure if we could carry off the unfinished look like this in our home - it would be a brave move......