A Shopping Gem Discovered

As a newbie to this blogging lark, it can be very difficult to know what to write about. My husband rattles off all these subjects and topics to me that he thinks I know about, and he might be right, but I wonder to myself who on earth would be interested in reading my opinion on it! Hopefully that will change a little as I gain confidence and write a few more posts. Apparently, according to the t’internet, I’m to write on a regular basis. Whether it’s every day (some bloggers do this; I have no idea how!) or once a fortnight, the advise is to commit to it and be consistent, or your readership levels might drop off. Well, considering I don’t have a readership yet, you’d think I wouldn’t be too bothered about this little nugget of information!! But no, I like to stick to my guns and I’d already made a decision weeks ago to post at least once a week if I could manage.

So I woke up this morning knowing that I had to write something; it had been over a week since my last post (I sound like I’m in a confessional box). The problem was that I still had no idea what to talk about. So, as I stared at my computer with my morning cuppa, with a staggeringly blank mind, I thought I’d distract myself by sourcing something I knew I wanted for my new office: some fabric covered lever arch files. Very exciting I know, but I hate the ugly black and fluorescent coloured ones you get at WH Smith, and ever since I saw this gorgeous blue one at Paperchase (below), I’ve had visions of my office being full of flower-clad files. Not only would they look pretty on the shelves, but surely with such a gorgeous storage solution, I would be encouraged to be more organised and tidy? Surely?!

So, as I did a bit of googling, I came across the loveliest little blog post giving a tutorial on how to cover a file in your own fabric.

This is the perfect solution for me. Instead of spending a fortune on a load of files from Paperchase (I have about 30 files!), I can spend a fortune on all my favourite fabrics from Sanderson’s new Vintage II Collection and cover them all myself. They’re not really a fortune, they’re very well priced prints but you know what I mean. I’ll get going on this little project next week. I’ll buy all the fabrics and then I’ll most likely pop them in the craft drawer along with all my other soon-to-be started/completed craft projects that I’m going to do very, very soon. I have a half-finished knitted throw that I started for my friend’s first daughter (I’m pretty sure she’s 10 years old now), there are the vintage cross-stitch kits that I’m going to upholster a chair in eventually, and the book on making paper flowers I bought a year ago that I just can’t wait to get started on. However, I do feel that these files are different! They really will make my working space a nicer place to be in. And I find that the nicer my surroundings are, the more creative and stimulated I feel. So I’m definitely going to do this project, and when I do, I’ll share the results with you. If you want to join me, the full tutorial can be found here.

The lovely blog I’d stumbled across is called ‘Mia Fleur’ and I became instantly intrigued when I read the words underneath the logo:
“Because life’s too short to be minimalist…..”
You’re completely right Miss Mia Fleur, I was thinking, my thoughts exactly.

And then, underneath:
“Interiors and Lifestyle Blog: For the eclectic and ever so slightly eccentric……”
Well, this was definitely a woman after my own heart! Gone were thoughts of what I should write for my blog, and instead I began to browse her site to see what more I could discover

I discovered that the woman after my own heart turned out to be three women, a mother and two daughter team, who have combined their obvious shared love of textiles and interiors, to go into business together and create a beautiful online boutique specialising in carefully curated interior products, some of which are made by the women themselves. It was an hour later that I raised my head for air, and realised that I’d mentally spent a month’s wages on all the things I’d pinpointed that I ‘needed’. I was so excited to have come across such a little gem of a shop, that I realised I had my blog topic. I could share my new-found source of goodies with you lot!

To be honest, it’s highly likely you know about them already. I can see on their website that they’ve been in oodles of magazines. But I’m just happy that, even late to the party as usual, I’ve found another favourite go-to shop that I can add to the usual suspects like Rockett St George and Graham & Green. You can never have too many sources of loveliness in my book.

I hope, if you visit their site, you enjoy browsing the shop as much I did. And I apologise in advance if, like me, you find too many things that you want to buy!

Here are the things I suddenly ‘need’:

Happy shopping and happy weekend everyone x