First of all, I must say a massive massive massive thanks to all of you who voted for my little splodge on the interwebs in the Amara Interior Blog Awards because I made it to the Top 5 Shortlist! ERMAHGAWD!!! I’m am absolutely over the moon and so honoured to be a finalist.

Not only that, but it was a double awesome amazingness because as you can see, not only did Swoon Worthy shortlist in the Best DIY Blog category but AO at Home also shortlisted in the Best Organisation Blog category. I am feeling very very proud and so excited for the upcoming event in November where the winners are announced.

But truly, if neither Swoon Worthy or AO at Home win in their categories, it wouldn’t matter. Just getting to those spots alongside some fantastic blogs are enough of an amazing privilege that I am so grateful for. And I have to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for giving that to me with your votes. So thank you, thank you, deeply, really, seriously – thank you.

Ok, on with today’s post! Last month, I introduced this new little feature. It’s just to keep you updated on some of the things I’ve been talking  about around the interwebs the last month and as there were quite a few who said they enjoyed the post, I thought I’d continue! There’s no obligation to read if you don’t fancy it but for those that do, welcome to the Internet. I’ll be your host today.

First off, I was interviewed on Yale Door’s blog for their new series “7 Questions with…” which aims to bring valuable expert advice on all aspects of home improvement from “the most influential figures who know most about it”. (Me? Are they talking about me? WTF? ;)) You can read the entire interview here.

I was also quoted in #Bright Ideas, an online resource from Web Blinds which aims to bring you the “secrets every interior lover knows about styling the home with colour”. Along with a good number of interior design experts and bloggers, there are lots of tips and tricks to using colour successfully in your home.

On AO at Home, I shared my 12 Tips to Preparing Your House for Sale. October is one of the most popular times for selling and buying homes and with multiple sales of homes in the past under my belt (my most recent being the sale of my flat in Kent to move up to Manchester as well as a couple of homes sold in the US), there are a number of things you can do to maximise and speed up your sale – one of them being cleaning your cupboards and getting organised! You can read more here.

I also talked about how to give your home an Autumn overhaul with a few things you can do to get your home ready for the new season. It’s not a full blown winter makeover just yet but like adding opaque tights and a jacket to a floral dress, there are few little things you can do to warm up your surroundings. You can read my Autumn Looks You’ll Love post here.

We’re also running a competition on AO at Home that I wanted to mention because it’s a good one! We’re giving away a free Smeg Fridge freezer (I know!!) to a food blogger that shares with us their ‘show stopper’ recipe (#aoshowstopper). You don’t even have to do a brand new post – if you are a food blogger or include recipes in your blog, you can enter just by sharing it on Twitter. You can find out all the details of the competition here.

And finally, over on Oak Furnitureland’s blog, I talked about the 5 Items in Your Home Worth Investing In. We all have limited budgets but if you are going to spend a little extra on certain things, then these are the items I think are worth the money – your sofa being one of them. Find out what the others are by clicking on over here.

One last thing! I wanted to mention that I’ve recently swapped over my RSS from Feedburner to Mailchimp so if you subscribe via email, you may have noticed a slight change in the look and feel of the email. I had a comment recently with someone saying they are no longer receiving the RSS feed – if you are having any problems, will you please let me know? I’m not a coding expert by any means so if there are issues with the feed, I would love to know so I can fix it! If you can tell me how you subscribe and what RSS reader you are using, I can make sure that it’s all working correctly. And if you don’t already subscribe and would like to, you can do so just by popping your email in the little box in my sidebar. Any feedback is gratefully received.

Whew! It’s been a busy month! How’s your month been? Up to anything exciting? Do tell…