Springtime inspiration

Oh I love Spring. The anticipation of longer, warmer days and the sight of fresh blossom lifts the spirits, doesn't it? This time last year I was pretty darn pregnant and full of excitement of both Spring and a new baby. Now I can't wait to take my little man to the park to play on the swings and see the spring blooms. The shops are full of gardening gear at the moment and yesterday we bought some Ready Steady Grow pots- everything you need in the plastic tub to grow courgettes, chillies, wild flowers and wild rocket on the windowsill! How exciting. Can't wait to see our window ledge allotment grow.

  And here spread across the table is my springtime inspiration. I love the covers- so much colour!

I'm in a dreamy mood this weekend. We have accepted an offer on Inverleith and now we have the task of house hunting ahead. There is sadly very little about in the way of similar properties to ours, not in our price range anyway. So I indulge in the magazines and catalogues to fuel my imagination of how lovely I could make a house, should we soon buy one.

The above spread is from this month's Country Homes & Interiors. Lovely- very girly. I'm not sure D would be thrilled about that, but the styling is so beautiful. I prefer homes to be a little more eclectic perhaps than this, as by nature everyone's home is different. I suppose that's why I haven't been blown away by the new Laura Ashley catalogue. It's all very coordinated and clean.

This next spread is from Homes & Antiques and this feature is taken from a book called Rediscovered Treasures. Which I am very tempted by. All about recycling old treasures into useful things!

 

The next spread is from Country Living, styled by Atlanta Bartlett. I always love her styling, the photography has such light and life. I love the use of colour on off-white backgrounds: this is a look I Am Very Much Into. I would love a kitchen like this! The heart of the home.

 

All the spring magazines have inspired a little colour round the dining area here. D suggested we use the flower coasters for the tea lights on the windowsill, and they look great! Such fab spring-like colours.

I bought some glorious tulips from Tesco, they were in the yellow sticker section for only £1.50 a bunch. I gave them a lovely home in this enamel jug, and took good care of the rescued blooms.

 I feel so sad for the yellow sticker flowers, all trampled and brown. But these were still lovely and fresh!

 

And here is some crafting I indulged in this afternoon. I bought a jumper from the charity shop for £3.50 and I have made the foundations of a very special cushion. So far it's a cable knit envelope cushion but it's going to be much, much better than that. A couple of hours measuring, cutting and hand stitching has produced something that Laura Ashley sells for £40!

I have some wonderful charity shop purchases and some more crafting results to share soon, I just hope today's persistent drizzle eases off tomorrow so I can take some more sunny pictures. And I will try and learn how to use Hipstamatic as I've been inspired by Beth Retro's blog and Selina Lake's gorgeous styling to create something pretty. 

Hope you're all full of the joys of Spring and getting stuck into your crafts too.