My perfect bouquet - rainbow flowers!

Although I do always love the flowers Nik picks out for me, this year, I really wanted to create my own rainbow bouquet!  I love flowers, learning names of the ones I love and arranging them.  I sometimes think in another life I would have loved being a florist!  Maybe one day, maybe when I retire I could get a job in a pretty little flower shop.  Anyway, for now, I make do with being creative with my own flowers and this year I went to both of Uckfield's lovely florists, The Flower Shop and Miss Bloomsbury.  It helps that they're just a few doors apart on the High Street so I was able to pick and choose my stems from each to create my perfect colourful arrangement which looks beautiful on our new bar cart in the dining room!

Baking with Hemina - Cheese & mustard scones recipe

As I mentioned in my Fuego Lounge review, my friend Hemina kept us occupied one weekend when I was feeling very down.  On the Saturday she came over to bake with me and the kids, Priya especially had a blast and the scones were so easy to make and tasted amazing!  We had them hot for lunch with some truffle salami from Aldi (highly recommended by the way).

Saal Digital wall decor review

I was recently offered the chance to review a wall decor product from Saal Digital and had fun going through the various options available.  They offer the usual traditional canvas prints as well as more modern looking aluminium and acrylic print options.  I decided I wanted to print a recent photo of the twins enjoying bathtime to hang in the bathroom so I opted for the weather resistant option of PVC foamboard.  I wasn't sure how this would feel but as a light, easy hanging option which I could print larger for the same price as other options, I decided to go for it and was pleasantly surprised with the feel and quality of it.

Ordering was easy, I just uploaded my image and checked the crop after choosing my dimensions and material as well as the hanging mount option.  Mine is the 40 x 60 cm which costs £41.95 plus £5.95 shipping.  They currently have an offer for £15 off when you spend £30 though so you could nab a bargain before the end of September.

It arrived quickly and very well packaged.  There was no chance of damage with the thick cardboard protecting it and tight plastic wrap holding it in place for transport.

The print quality was very good too, the only issue I had was the shadows printed a little greener than the original image appeared.  It shows up fine in my photos but the tiles have a green tone compared to the actual bathroom tiles the print is hanging above.

It looks fab on the wall though...

Summer fun in the garden!

Sometimes we just want to stay home, especially when it's been SO hot.  I just can't bear the thought of being stuck out in the sun somewhere or even getting into the roasting hot car before it cools down with the air-con.  Luckily we have a decent sized garden with a paddling pool and playhouse to keep the kids entertained and plenty of shade in the form of porches and brollies too!  Plus - free fun days at home are always good, we can't afford to be going out every day, especially when I'm barely ever organised enough to make packed lunches.

I took a few photos on one such day and I love them so I thought I'd share them here as a bit of inspiration and as a little intro to my revamped Bexphoto site too!

Of course, a hot day in the garden isn't complete without a Mini Twister or two (and a Nobbly Bobbly for me)!  The twins adore these treats and were more than happy to get up on their playhouse porch for me to capture them eating their lollies.  (Kalyan is looking exceptionally pale due to the usual Factor 50 Fight!  His is not rubbed in very well!)

Downstairs Loo - Before & After

It's been months since this room was finished and I took photos back in January but have only just gotten around to blogging it since I wrote about the plans and before photos here.  I adore the new wallpaper and I'm so glad we decided to splash out on the F&B Lotus pattern.  In the end though, we couldn't justify the cost of doing all the walls in such a small room so opted for just the back wall in paper and actually I'm so glad we did, it looks fab with the other walls in the dark grey background colour, Plummet.  The amazing Matt and his mum from MRJ Services did a fantastic job hanging the wallpaper and painting the room.

Cable & Cotton rainbow lights in the kids' bedroom

You may remember my excitement at getting these rainbow lights for the kids for Christmas.  They're now up and we love them!  They were pretty popular on Instagram so I thought I'd share a bit more info here as I had a few people asking about them.  

You can now buy a ready made rainbow set on the cotton & cable website (after they saw how popular my set was!) but it has a more pastel tone so if you're after one more intensely coloured like mine, see the list below.

Going for gold - top tips for DIY spray painting!

The guest room is coming along nicely now, I've managed to get rid of all the furniture we no longer wanted, all donated to a local furniture charity shop.  It's a brilliant way to get rid of furniture you no longer want, saved us more wasted time trying to sell it ourselves and benefits the local hospice, plus they collect it free of charge, check out the Hospice in the Weald website.

Priya waving goodbye to the truck carrying away our old furniture.

As for the fun stuff, you may have noticed on Instagram that I've been going mad with the spray paint over Christmas.  I decided some gold touches with the Hague Blue walls in the room would look nice and started with this gorgeous hexagon mirror from Oliver Bonas.  I had hoped to get both the small and large sizes to hang together but they sold out of the larger one and although I found plenty of other ones, none were much larger in size to go with the small one.  In the end I opted for a circular one to hang with it and actually think it'll look nice having the two different shapes.  While on the Oliver Bonas website, I also found this gold edged tray which is perfect in the room.

Guest room shopping list - home interiors redesign

Probably should have finished and posted this before my other post about the spare room furniture - that's just how busy and disorganised I really am!

We finally have our guest room painted.  In the end we went for Hague Blue by Farrow & Ball and I LOVE it!  Definitely the right choice and I'm so glad I convinced Nik it should cover the whole room, it looks amazing and he has now conceded that it is awesome and wouldn't have looked as good with just one wall.

Now it's time for the other fun stuff, shopping!  I've made a little shopping list of things we'd like to replace/add to the room to complete the redesign.

The big Christmas clearout!

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas!  We've thoroughly enjoyed our quiet Christmas at home, just what was needed after such a busy year and it was so much fun seeing the twins really getting excited this year.  Other than the general excitement, one of my favourite things about Christmas Day and that weird limbo time before New Year, is sorting stuff!  Even as a child, I remember the joy in finding homes for all my new things, sorting out old stuff, having a clear out and tidying everything away.  Yep, always a nerd me.  Lots of that stuff was stationery.  Always loved some good stationery.

I actually started the big clear out before Christmas as we are finally getting some bits of the house sorted after we inherited a little money recently.  I've already managed to get a lot of the spare room sorted and after trying to give stuff away with no success (and FAR too many time wasters stressing me out and making me grumpy), we've organised a furniture collection by a local charity shop.  It's so close to being finished but I need your help on that below, we're stuck on some replacement furniture choices!

Our Christmas Tree & other decorations 2017

Every year I've planned to post about our decorations and I don't think I've managed it once since having the twins!  I struggle to keep up with everything at this time of year and end up thinking I'll take the photos and write it ready for next year!  Happened once in 2015.  So I'm surprised at myself for getting this year's decorations photographed and on the blog before Christmas!

Cable & Cotton lights - Brighton store experience

If you love colour like I do, you must visit the Cable & Cotton shop in Brighton!  I already have a set of their lights in green and grey (our wedding colours) from 2011 but now they do LED ones and after seeing their window display for Brighton Pride, I knew we needed a new set for the twins' room in rainbow colours.  When Ma asked what she could get the twins for Christmas this year, I knew just the thing!  

Into Mills 20% discount code

As promised to those of you who didn't win our recent giveaway of Into Mill's gorgeous mugs.  Sally has kindly offered Olive Dragonfly readers a whopping 20% off! 

Photos by www.bexphoto.com

Guest Room makeover plans - Home Inspiration in East Sussex

This post contains some affiliate links.

Our spare room has been largely left since we moved in.  It's well used as Nik's parent currently stay over every Sunday night to look after the twins while I work on Mondays, or when my parents visit from Malaysia or any other guests like when Gems and Aldo come to visit (and on the odd occasion of snoring/illnesses meaning Nik or I use it)!

I made a little collage which shows a few products I like (some of which I've already bought).

Top L-R: Human print - £28 - Violet & Thistle, "Stiffkey Blue" Paint - £43.50 - Farrow & Ball, 

Archie Table Lamp - £49 - M&S, Zzz LED Lightbox - £27.50 - John Lewis

Bottom L-R: Hexagon Gold Mirror - £25 Oliver Bonas, Irving Bedside Table - £29 - Asda, 

Designer's Guild "Quill" Wallpaper in Cobalt - £59 - John Lewis, 3 Cactus Ornaments - £39 - Love Frankie

GIVEAWAY! Mug gift set from Into Mills homewares in Lewes.

Just in time for Christmas, you could win a gorgeous colourful gift set of mugs worth £24.95 for a loved one (or keep it for yourself) from Into Mills!

Raindrop cushion - Pin It Do It & Tutorial

Well, here's a post I started writing in November 2014.  I'm sure you can imagine why that was such a busy month (what with the twins being born!) and it never got finished.  But, we have the return of #pinitdoit, I was reminded to finish this one and I recently shared a pic of the cushion on Instagram too.

Downstairs Loo Redesign

This post contains affiliate links.

It's a while since we updated anything in our house but there are quite a few things I'd like to do to it.  As our house was pretty much liveable when we moved in, we concentrated on one major thing (ripping down a wall), one fairly major thing (designing and preparing the twins' nursery), a quick redecoration and then all the minor stuff like organising our things, an obligatory Ikea trip, framing photos...

The thing is, although it was liveable and we did redecorate the main rooms (and even those are still a work in progress with quite a few temporary features like a bookcase I hate), we didn't really sort out any of the other rooms.

I'm starting small and doing the downstairs loo first.  Mainly because Nik and I had a look around Farrow & Ball in Tunbridge Wells recently and fell in love with a wall paper design.  Rather than looking for a wall paper for a room, we found a wall paper and had to think of where we might be able to put it!  We both agreed it would look fab in our WC along one side (as we think it would be too much on all the walls in such a small space) and would really spruce up a very plain room which is used a lot by both us and visitors.  It's also Kalyan's favourite place to wash his hands.

Bright prints for the twins' bedroom gallery wall

This post contains affiliate links.  

You may remember the gallery wall I made above the twins' cots in their nursery.  I filled lots of white frames with various brightly coloured prints as well as a few of my maternity photos.

Photo by Laura Aziz {baby, picture this}

My House in August - Instagram challenge

In August I took part in an Instagram challenge and I wanted to share my entries here as I really enjoyed it and I'm now doing September's version too.  It's a daily hashtag challenge in the same vein as Style Me September by Hilary which I did way back when.  This one isn't about fashion though, it's about home style.  #MyHouseInAugust had daily prompts of ideas to share and combined it with a giveaway too!

Hosted by A Little House in London and On a Wing and a Chair, the prompts can be interpreted however you like.  They gave away a neon light in August and September's prize is a stunning blanket which I'd love to win.  Here's August's list and the rest of my entries last month...

Survey results - a personal post ;)

Thank you SO much to everyone who's taken my survey so far!  I wasn't sure how many people would actually take the time to do it but I have found it so interesting and definitely helpful, I'm so grateful.  (It's still open so if you fancy adding your tuppence worth, here's the link!)

The information I've received so far has been along the lines I expected but there have been some surprising and lovely comments.  There's only been one slight negative so far and that was something I had expected might be an issue anyway (hence including it in the ticky boxes to make it easy for people to confirm any thoughts), the fact I use too many photos and some posts are too long as a result.  Something I've been trying to work on as I'm my own worst editor!  Clare has helped me with that along with my general photography skills which I've also been working on recently over at Bexphoto.  I'm hoping it will make the blog look even better too as I think I am taking better photos now and thinking more about what I choose to include.  Downloading BlogStomp has certainly helped in being more strict on which photos to use and presenting them better but I will continue to try being stricter and keep more photos for albums on the Olive Dragonfly Facebook Page instead.  So if you are a fan of lots of photos, I suggest liking the page ;)

Before and after coffee faces (it was hot milk not coffee don't worry!)

Sneak Peek of Into Mills - Home Wares

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking photos and helping to style products for a new website launching soon.  Sally Ashen runs a home wares business, INto Mills, from her home in Lewes and after we met at Joy Festival in June, she asked me to take some photos of her beautiful products.

Sally has such great taste and this is one kind of photography I wanted to gain more experience in so I gladly accepted.  As well as the benefits of gaining experience and building a more commercial style portfolio, Sally also agreed to a collaboration on the blog too so we will be running a little giveaway promotion when she is ready to launch her new website so watch this space!