Well here we are, end of September and rushing towards winter and Christmas and that whole crazy season at some speed. I’m trying to make the most of autumn at the moment. I have a very love/hate relationship with winter and the cold rainy miserable-ness it brings. I need warmth and sunlight to feel alive and the lack of it gets to me after a while. Saying that, I do love the whole coziness of the season – dressing in jeans and knee high boots, faux leather, faux fur – love it all. And candles. Always lots of candles. So it’s not all bad.

In fact the last month has been a pretty good one and this post is kind of wordy because so much happened! I have had a few fun days out so I just wanted to share that first!

Earlier this month, I attended a class to make your own light fixtures with Factory Lux and Sian Astley of Morgeous in Manchester.

They pulled up their mobile van outside of Sian’s amazing home (currently undergoing construction for a new addition but you can already tell how fab it’s going to be) and a group of us were taught by a very capable Sophie how to correctly make a working light fixture from scratch.

Look how proud I am of my plug?!

It was really good fun and I felt an immense pride when my fixture was tested to ensure it passed all those regulations with flying colours.

I also attended a flower workshop in London with Bloomon, the flower subscription service, sponsored by the mega homes site, Houzz. Lots of tips were provided for arranging flowers and how to make your flowers last longer so I’ll be sharing that with you in a post next week!

And just in case you missed it, I visited OBJECT’s Chorlton shop and I’m already creating my Christmas gift list so don’t forget to visit the site (which has just been relaunched!) or pop by if you’re local!

So a big thanks to Factory Lux and Sian, Bloomon and Houzz as well as OBJECT for a couple of fun days out!

This month has also been rather exciting because as you probably know from my celebrating all over social media and my newsletter, I made the Amara Interior Blog Awards shortlist for the 3rd year running.

YOU GUYS!! I just wanted to say a massive thank  you to all of you who voted for my little blog. I really does mean so much to me to have such amazing support and I could not have gotten this far without that. I never ever forget that without you (yes, I’m talking to you personally, my dear) I couldn’t do what I do and this blog would not exist. I feel incredibly privileged to have gotten this far because I have such amazing people behind me. The awards take place later in October so of course, I have everything firmly crossed!

I was also incredibly surprised to have been included in Vuelio’s very prestigious list of Top 10 Interior Design Bloggers. For those unfamiliar with Vuelio, they are basically the main PR hub for the industry and are incredibly well respected. I’ve never made their top 10 list in the past so to find myself there with some pretty big name bloggers in the UK, well, I was stunned and chuffed to bits. It’s genuinely such an honour!

Obviously, we’ve also been working away on our kitchen remodel this month and we’re making progress. We repaired the brick work this week on the outside of the house so we can finally get on with painting and then it’s just the wallpaper that needs to go up and the kickstands before we can stamp a ‘DONE’ on this bad boy.

It’s been a damn fine month as months go.

Of course, as I always do on these posts, I wanted to also thank the sites that featured me over the last month!

• If you want to have a sneak peek into a bunch of great blogger homes, check out Industville’s post on 20 Interior Bloggers Who Have Homes We All Want. It was so nice to see my name on that list!
• I was also included in Marie Claire’s article on 9 Ways to Create Your Own Indoor Garden. Lots of gorgeous plant-y inspiration on that one so do check that out!
• Mairi Helena included my blog amongst her 4 Top Awe Inspiring Interior Blogs and Design Bloggers. It’s a lovely post where she talks about her journey with blogging and it was an honour to see the other three blogs were all amongst my favourites as well! Thank you Mairi!
• Seasons In Colour, one of my fellow Amara nominees also chatted about the awards and included my thoughts about networking with her post My Thoughts on Blog Awards.
• Over on Style Made Simple, also up for the Amara Best DIY Blog, Vicky gave all of us that share the category a little shoutout with some of her favourite crafty creations from each of us (which I thought was super sweet!) in her post 4 DIY and Craft Blogs You Need to Follow.
• And finally, Antonia included my front door in her round up of Amazing Doors to Inspire You on #TidyLife. There are some beautiful doors included so do check that out if you are looking to give your front patio a bit of a makeover!

As per usual, I’ve been chatting about interiors for various websites over the past month and so I’m rounding them up to make it easy for you to have a look when you get some time this weekend and fancy a bit of light reading! Of course, I wouldn’t expect anyone to read ALL of these but if something catches your eye, then I’d love for you to have a little look. Each link opens in a new window so you can just click the ones you like the look of and go back to it later!

Inspiration

7 Ways to Style Your Bed (Oak Furnitureland)

Inspiration for Styling Open Kitchen Shelves (Tile Mountain)

How to Use Neutral Colours in Your Home (Avant)

Advice

How to Style Your Home Office (Oak Furnitureland)

10 Ways to Update Your Room in a Weekend (AO Life)

Storage Ideas for Small Bathrooms (Tile Mountain)

Trends and DIY

7 Things Every Stylish Living Room Needs (Oak Furnitureland)

2017 Tile Trends – The Experts Predict What’s Next! (Tile Mountain)

DIY Gold Graphic Pattern Tray (AO Life)

So that’s my wrap up for September!

I do apologise for the lack of post on Wednesday by the way! I haven’t been pushing myself quite as hard lately with my 3 x a week regimen and it kind of feels good to relax the pace every once in a while when I really need it. Wayne has had the week off and he’s been pottering around, getting odd jobs done like the mortise work that needed repointing at the side of the house so we could finally paint the kitchen! It just seems with him at home, I find it more difficult to concentrate on my own work! So yeah, it’s just been a bit more chilled this week than normal which isn’t really a bad thing. This weekend is our anniversary too (8 years!!) so we’re hitting up a few Manchester hot spots to celebrate.

How has your September been treating you? I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to! Let me know in the comments ;)

 

Image sources: All my own with the exception of the Advice image which is Studio McGee via Style Me Pretty and photo by Lindsay Salazar