PRETTY YOUNG THING

Spring is on its way, well, according to the calendar anyway, the weather seems to have other ideas. But whilst we wait for it to show its face in terms of sun and warmth, there are some small additions and chances you can make to your home to ensure it’s ready for spring.

These are the simple ways to update your home for spring this year.

Change your cushion covers and throws
Cushions and throws are easy ways to add some colours into your rooms, and whilst heavy jacquard and velvet fabrics work well through autumn/winter, changing them for linen materials and printed cottons makes them ideal for spring/summer.

Switch from deep and dark colours through winter to lighter and brighter shades in the summer months.

New bedding
Give your bedroom a new look with some printed bedding or a clean and crisp new set. Again choose something bright and light that will give the room a clean feeling that we associate with the brighter days of spring.

Flowers
Floras for spring might not seem revolutionary, but it works. As much as we love the idea of plants throughout the house, make your home spring-ready with the addition of flowers. Whilst it might not be cost effective to have fresh flowers in every room, add in some fake ones to the spaces that you don’t sit for hours.
Keep fresh flowers in your living room or kitchen, and then add in some fake ones to your bedroom, bathroom or dining room. This way you’ll add some instant colour to the space and won’t have to worry about replacing them regularly.

Colour
Add bright colours or pastels to your rooms in the forms of vases or other trinkets, perfect if your rooms are mainly neutral shades as this will definitely make them more spring ready.

Rearrange furniture
Give a room a new look by simply moving around the furniture if you can. It’ll take a little heavy lifting and effort, but it won’t cost you a thing and you’ll give the space a whole new look.

Solar garden lights
With the days getting longer, and hopefully the sun making a more regular appearance adding in some First Lighting solar garden lights will make your garden instantly more appealable. If you have some lights outside you’re more likely to utilise the space once the sun has gone down, and solar garden lights are easy to install and incredibly cost effective too.

New scents
Change the scent of your rooms and home by adding in some new room diffusers and candles. Keep things light and fresh which are perfect for spring and summer.

Remove clutter
If you’d prefer your home to be bright and clean for spring, you might prefer to pack things away like cushions, throws, vases etc. Remove bits of clutter from the rooms and keep things tidy this season.

Replace curtains
Change the curtains in your home from heavy fabrics, to lighter and thinner design which are great to let even more light into the rooms. Perfect for when the sun is shining the whole day.

Bring more light to your hallway
The hallway is the first place that guests will see, and if your hallway doesn’t get a lot of natural sunlight, it might be best to add some lights to the space so that it’s bright and light throughout summer. Interesting and fun table lamps will add novelty, or keep things fuss-free with wall lights.

Buy a new rug! You wouldn't believe how much difference a rug makes to a room. I'm actually on the lookout for a new rug for our living room as ours is just getting old and tired. I'm after something light and neutral so if I change the colours of the room that it will still fit in. By going for a nice light colour i'm hoping that the room will look fresher and bigger. We have carpet in our living room so i've used the infographic below to help pick out the perfect rug. We have quite thin carpets so I think a nice thick rug will add some texture to the room.







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We are hoping that in the next 5 years we will own our own house. Right now we rent and we plan on renting for a few more years. We have discussed mortgages but as i'm only working part-time we are better off waiting until I go back to work full time when Amelia starts School. I don't think it makes much sense for me to work full time as we would have to pay for childcare for Amelia and i'd rather spend this time with her. I thought i'd share a few ways in which we intend on saving money. We need to save money to pay for deposits and renting fee's and we currently live in a part furnished apartment so we will need to pay for furniture and other appliances.

First up is making cut backs.  Do I really need to buy that pair of boots? Going out for extravagant
meals. It's good to look at your statement and see how much you really spend on unnecessary purchases for example those £4 coffees twice a week add up, you can buy a whole jar of coffee and put it in your own to-go cup. I was spending £17 a month of a cinema car that I don't use and wasting £30 a month on my gym membership.  I know it's not the same but if you want to save money you have to make these simple changes. By making these little changes like parking a little further away from town or why not walk to the shops instead of driving?

Meal Planning - We waste so much food and it's because we never plan our meals. Plan your meals for the week and write a shopping list. Then go to the supermarket and just buy whats on your list, I find online shopping is a good way to save money too because you don't get tricked into buying those £1 offers at the end of the aisle. Also by doing a weekly shop you use less fuel going back and forth to the shops and you tend to eat what you have in rather than going to get something else for dinner.

Shopping around  - why pay more for something?  You can browse different websites online and find out what stores have the best prices and offers on those products that you need. Going to shops like Home Bargains or Savers for your household goods can save you loads compared to the supermarkets. As I mentioned above we rent a part-furnished apartment so when we move we are going to need to buy everything from a sofa, fridge-freezer, washing machine and tumble dryer. It's good to shop around online and there's websites like latestdeals.co.uk who have loads of really good deals on appliances. Another way to save money is to look for vouchers when shopping as you can save lots of money by looking to see if there is a voucher before you buy, even if it's just a free delivery code.

Buy secondhand - There are so many products that you can buy secondhand, one of my friends bought a secondhand sofa and its lovely. It's a huge grey corner sofa and I would never of guessed it was pre-owned. You can find some really good deals on furniture, I bought our Ikea dressing table second hand and it looked brand new and it cost me about £20 instead of the retail price of £120.

Even after following my money-saving tips we will still need to look at a service like Zippa Loans to buy some of the furniture and to put towards a deposit. This way we can manage the monthly repayments. I think we will buy a new fridge/freezer and then look into getting a second hand sofa and some wardrobes. I think we could bring our washing to our parents for a couple of months and then save up to buy a washing machine instead of paying out loads at the same time.














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Freddie's Flowers is an flower subscription service. It's £22 per box and you can sign up for weekly deliveries. No delivery charges and they take payment on the day of delivery so your not tied into a set number of deliveries. Use the flower calender to organise your deliveries

Freddie's Flowers deliver all over mainland UK and their vans choose routes to keep emissions down, they also make some deliveries by bike.

Why not treat your mom to a flower delivery this Mothers Day, you could pay for a few weeks and she would get a fresh delivery week after week.

The flowers come packed into a box which can be left so you don't have to stay in waiting for your delivery. Mine had actually been left in the side passage all day as I had them delivered to my mum's house and they still looked really good when I got them out of the box.

They arrived in a long cardboard box and the flowers were wrapped in brown paper and tied using string. The flowers were placed really well and there was brown paper at either end to reduce the risk of the flowers getting damaged.

Inside the box was a little booklet that told you some information about the brand and a little information about how to arrange flowers and what to do with your flowers.

I used this information to arrange the flowers and i'm super happy with how they have turned out. They look really unique and unusual, it's not just a bunch of Roses or Lillies. There are some gorgeous Pink and Purple Tulips, purple Iris, Crinkly leaf pittosporum and Birch twigs. This creates a beautiful arrangement of flowers. 

I love how bright the flowers are and they look amazing in my bright blue vase. I'm tempted to cut a few of the Tulips down and pop them in a smaller vase. There's loads of flowers, my vase is bursting with flowers!


I'm really impressed with the flowers, you get loads of flowers for £22! It's such a gorgeous bunch of flowers and honestly i've paid more for alot less flowers and flowers that were boring and bland from a much bigger brand but Freddie's Flowers are so different and such a lovely smaller brand who deserve your custom. It's a great price and I was really happy with how the flowers were packaged. It's a lovely brand and such a great idea. I'd love to recieve some gorgeous fresh flowers every week! 

I picked this bag up in Accessorize the other day, I went along to a blog event at the Bullring Birmingham store. Again i'm loving this gorgeous Blush Pink colour right now. I already have this bag in Mustard too, it's such a good size and a lovely everyday bag. Accessorize actually have £10 off if you spend £50 so have a look you could even treat yourself and your mum!

I love getting things personalised, I think it's really thoughtful and shows that a lot of thought and effort has gone into the gift. How lovely is this personalised wine glass from giftsonline4u.com, I think most moms love a glass of wine, mine does! So this personalised wine glass will be perfect.  I will get her a nice bottle of rosè to go with her lovely new glass, it's a really good size too which my mom will be pleased about!  The engraving is really nice and clear and the glass came in a box which makes it really easy to wrap. I think it's such a nice touch getting it personalised and if your mom isn't a fan of wine they also stock champagne flutes and other glasses. They also stock a personalised label that you can stick right onto any bottle. giftsonline4u.com have loads of personalised gifts to choose from so head over and check them out. They stock loads of lovely gifts such as frames, jewellery and mugs which can all be personalised. They offer free standard delivery so order now or pay just £5 for next day delivery to guarantee delivery before Sunday. They stock a huge range of gifts for everyone all year round so think of them for your next special occasion.   

I also picked out this Joules Mug from Amara.com again they stock other colours too. I'm loving the pink floral design. It's a great size, I like a big mug. The floral print is really pretty and would make a lovely gift, it comes in a nice box too.


I hope you got some lovely gift ideas from my gift guide, i'm very excited for my first Mothers Day!
I need to pick up a few bits for my mom to go with her wine glass and wine, I was thinking of booking us a spa day so we can have a nice chilled day together. What have you got your mom for Mothering Sunday?