My Happy Place

So I made a garden centre visit t'other day - the same one, in fact, where I got all my last goodies.. just in case anyone has read my last blog post and thinks I make daily pilgrimages ;)

Out at the front was a display of garden furniture, and in among them was a rather sweet little park bench!

It was only £29.99, and since it's summer & I'm out in the garden as much as possible at the moment, I couldn't resist buying it.

Initially, I was heartbroken to find out that it came in a flat pack :(

My assembling skills were relatively virgin, but luckily I did at least know one end of a hammer from the other.

So, with a little (lot) of help from my Ma & Pa, the assembling of the park bench could commence!

And let us not forget the help of my dog. He oversaw the project like a true boss, except a really pesky one who thrusts a tuggy toy at you when you're trying to hold a screw in place.

An hour later... TA DA!

I'm incredibly lucky that my parents work so hard to make my garden as nice as it is, so my new favourite thing to do is take a book & a cushion outside and settle myself on the bench for the afternoon :)

If I'm feeling especially jazzy, I lay down and hold my book up to read so I can see the sky behind the pages (which sounds fabulously romantic and lovely.. for the 10 minutes until my arms start to ache)

I think this will do me quite nicely for the rest of the summer!

It's also pretty beastly when you take out a home made ice lolly.. except it does mean you make some insect friends.

Does anyone else have a happy place for summer? :)

Home goodies... from a garden centre?!

Last week I tagged along with my Dad to our local garden centre.

I thought garden centres were just for weedkiller & watering cans, maybe a picnic table if you were at a particularly exotic one.

But, I actually ended up stumbling across loooads of goodies for my room!

First, I stumbled across these framed prints, at £5.99 each :)
I walked past them a few times without them catching my eye, but when I looked closely I saw they have teeny tiny cartoon pictures from various films of each decade. I loved looking at them so much and trying to guess what film they were I decided I should probably buy one and continue guessing at home ;)
Problem is, I couldn't decide which one to buy... so I might have got a bit carried away and got them all!
Only problem is, they didn't have a 1980's one.. so my strip of pictures will be a bit lopsided :(
I'll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled for it!

In amongst the pictures, I also happened to spot this framed "Romeo and Juliet" print.

Being a bit of a literary geek, I couldn't resist adding it to the basket, as it was always my absolute favourite by Billy Shakes.
I thought it'd look really nice propped up on my bookshelf (disguising all my less-intellectual books, like 50 Shades of Grey ;] )

Next I spotted this in a little bargain bin, going for 99p!

I'm a sucker for a reduced price anyway, and I thought it would be very cute to hang outside my bedroom door.

In keeping with the white wrought iron appearance, I saw this bad boy, which I think was about £8.99.
It was displayed in the kitchen section with a cookery book propped open on it which looked really sweet. However, since I don't have full reign of a kitchen yet I thought I'd alter it and put some of my books on it on top of my bookshelf.
For now I put on my illustrated copy of "Alice in Wonderland" on it, so I have the Cheshire cat keeping an eye on me.

I then spied these rather useful little wicker baskets. They were reduced from £10 to just £5.99. At just 2 pounds a basket, I couldn't very well resist. I'm very VERY disorganised with my various beauty products, so I thought these would be a neat way to organise my bits and bobs.

I had a little sort out of my beauty, and decided to put my skin care travel size/testers/smaller bottles in the smallest basket...

 ...Then all my daily moisturisers/ cleansers/ zit fighting instruments in the middle sized ones.
This is perfect to keep on my bedside table :) and will hopefully encourage me to be a bit more organised with my skincare routine!

Finally, in my biggest basket I put all my hair products/ body bits. 

I thought I'd keep this on my dressing table along with my hairbrush, to encourage myself to make a bit more effort with my hair rather than giving it a buzz with the dryer and putting it into a rough ponytail as I do usually *smacks wrist*.

Anyone who knows me knows I am OBSESSED with clocks. So naturally, I needed a new one to brighten up my room!

I wasn't sure about this clock to begin with, but when I saw it at a distance it was actually really striking, and I figured it would be particularly eye catching on my white walls (and it looked vaguely Jack Daniels esque! Never a bad thing ;] )

I spotted this bottle & it was just too cute to leave.

I wasn't entirely sure what to use it for at first, but as I walked around the store I spotted a HUGE display of fake flowers! I thought this little array made for an eye-catching bunch and might brighten up my windowsill :)

I think the bottle was £3.99 and the flowers around £1.50 each!

Finally, I bought this little box, which I believe was £4.99 :)

It looks a bit like a book from the side so makes it quite versatile as to how you display it which I thought was handy. I decided I would use it as a "memories" box, and keep anything and everything that has sentimental value to me in it :) 

So far I have a "Good luck" card from my parents from my high school exams, and a little teddy that I had in with me when I had my first operation aged 8 (he has a little hospital wristband around him that says he belongs to me - my nurse was lovely!)

So, purse strings considerably lighter, that concluded my purchases for the time being!

I had no idea garden centres could be full of so many cute things for the home, I will DEFINITELY be looking into more quirky places to buy little bits :)