Make it: Marble Effect Leatherette Cushion

I don't know about you but we are still loving all things marble. I have seen a few marble print cushions in the shops but they all seem to be a little out of my price range, so I did what I always do in this situation, DIY! Here is how I made these little beauties for a bargain price.

Whats on my desk

We shared our desks way back in January and so we thought we would come back this time with our different desks as we have day jobs alongside blogging.  Last time Sammy showed us her home space and H showed off what was going on at work. This time we have had a swap, so first up Sammy.

Last time I shared my home office desk, this time you get to see my desk at Sew Crafty HQ. I'm sure you can see that my set up is pretty similar but most of the work I do here is planning, admin and photo editing so it is a little more business-like than my home office. The thing that is on my desk most of the time at work is my planner, it is my daily to do list so I have it at hand to make sure I haven't forgotten anything important. I have a few trinkets under my monitor as well as a bunch of sewing supplies to use as photo props when taking photos for our website. To the left of the picture out of shot, is where I do most of the small photography for Sew Crafty so it is handy to have bits and bobs to hand.

Now, for H's home desk.  My desk at home has various duties from work desk, to dining room table and sewing space and sometimes just a dumping ground.  So it can go from looking nice and tidy to messy in a matter of hours.  It is a useful space though to keep many things that I use alot from my many notebooks, diary and for some reason I have my ipad on at the same time as my laptop most of the time!  The rest of my desk around this is a mass of photos, business cards, bills, pen and pencils, things I have made for tutorials - no need to water plants anyone and some bits from HEMA that they recently sent us for some Easter treats, you may even be able to spy the Easter chicks in this picture.  They just epitomise Easter to me!

Any familiar items on your desks?  I think we clearly like just having stuff around us if these pictures are anything to go by.  If you would like to show us and our readers what's on your desk then just send us an email and we can show off other peoples desks too!  Just out of nosiness probably!  ha ha.

H & Sammy, xxx

Bloglovin / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Google+ / Instagram

Cosy January Wishlist

H  & M cushion  /  Primark Throw  /   Asda hot water bottle  /  Homebase House lamp  /  Newlook photo frame  /  Mug Cake book  /  Sainsbury's mug

It is definitely starting to feel a bit more like winter round here I don't know about you but everyone I know seems to be coming down with something nasty... including myself! The best remedy I can think of is to stay at home snuggled up cosy and warm.  These are my winter picks for staying warm all winter long, and on a budget too.

Sammy xxx


Bloglovin / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Google+ / Instagram

Autumn Wishlist Home Edition

Lamp / Throw / Clock / Cushion / Mug / Basket / Cushion / Fox / Lamp

I love changing up my wardrobe for the Autumn but I also love making our home cosy and comfy for snugly evenings in. I have been making notes of some little bits that I have found to make our living space more autumnal. For me H&M are rocking it in the home department right now! They have some really affordable pieces that make an easy finishing touch to any room. What pieces have you bought lately to get your home ready for the colder weather?

Sammy x

 Live, Love, Make, Like, Share, Follow, Tweet, Pin, Add, Enjoy. 

Bloglovin / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Google+ / Instagram

Make it: Primark Style Heart Cushion

Happy Wednesday everyone, it's DIY day here and this is one that I have had a lot of requests for from friends of mine to make.  Every blogger and vlogger from here to eternity has been 'Primark hauling' the fluffy white heart cushion that is the seasons must have. When I told my girls how easy they were to make I was inundated with requests for these cushions in lots of different colour ways. They are so easy and you can even do what I did and use your old velour pyjama bottoms to make them.  I thought I would share this DIY Primark style Heart cushion with you so you can make your own too.

You will need: 1/2 metre of velour (short-pile fur, fleece fabric or an old pair of tracksuit or pyjama bottoms will also work), a cushion pad or loose stuffing, scissors, a sewing machine, fabric marker pen, pins, a needle and thread.

If you are using your tracksuit bottoms you will need to cut up the inside seam and open out the legs, place the legs with right-sides together.  Draw yourself a large heart shape with your fabric marker.  I just freehand drew mine, but you can make a simple template with newspaper if your unsure of the shape.  Then pop your pins around the edge of your shape in towards the centre with the heads of your pins on your pen line.

Cut around the edge of your heart leaving a 1.5cm seam allowance.  Hop over to your sewing machine and stitch, following your pen line as a guide, around your heart shape, leaving a 10-15cm gap at the end.  I usually start at the point, so that when I am stitching up the last bit it is easier than stitching on the curve.  Turn your cushion right side out and stuff with the loose fibre from inside your cushion pad.  Stitch the gap closed you left open at the end and you are all done.

I loved the first one I made so much that I made another one and kept these ones for myself. I have added them to my bed cushion collection.  They are so cosy and comfy to snuggle in on these chilly Autumn evenings and read my book. These are so sweet, and you could make them in any fabric, how cute would they look make in some ditsy floral fabric or Liberty prints, the possibility's are endless.

How cute do they look with my star cushion and my gorgeous 'Good Night' cloud cushion from the amazing Fox in the Attic. Who, by the way, are featured in our Who's Who later this month, so keep an eye out for that.

Which home furnishings are you loving at the moment, are you swapping up your décor for the Winter months to come? Let us know your Autumn favourites in the comments.

As usual let us know if you have a go #livelovemake

Sammy xxx

 Live, Love, Make, Like, Share, Follow, Tweet, Pin, Add, Enjoy. 

Bloglovin / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Google+ / Instagram

Love it. Sammy's Art Wall

I am not the first and I wont be the last to install a art/photo wall in my home, just check out Pinterest, but I love it so much I just had to share. It may not be the straightest, or the most thought out, but having all these memories on my wall for me to be reminded of everyday is one of the best home improvements I have ever made. It makes me happy every time I look at, even if some of the frames are a little wonky and it features our old heating control that is welded to the wall, that's just how I roll. Also, yes I store my pink fluffy headphones on the surround sound speaker, Who doesn't?

Our wall is a mix of photographs and artwork. This gold print is by Jen of Stationary Boutique on Etsy.com and makes a gorgeous centre piece.

The top frame is made up of number photos that is the date of our wedding. I was so chuffed when I found a frame in the charity shop that it fitted in perfectly. It was pine originally so I just painted it black to fit in with the scheme I had. Nearly all of the frames are charity shop finds, re-painted to match.

I have a little felt ball garland surrounding some sketches I bought a few years ago from an artist I met on deviantart.com, Francesca aka Vampire Doll was selling off some of her originals, and I couldn't resist. I have been waiting to put these 'dark ladies' up for the longest time. In the middle of those is a piece I made with my Silhouette Cameo, a paper-cut of the word 'wonderful' inspired by a shop window display I saw in London.

The photos are a mix of family, friends and our cats. As well as a photo from every wedding that we have photographed, one of our own wedding of course, and a couple of gigs Steve and I have been photographers at too. There are a couple of special pictures of My Grandpa, one of me and him when I was little and one that I took of him a few years ago.

If you are thinking of putting up your own photo/art wall and have been putting it off, do it. I love ours and am so happy that we bit the bullet and just got on with it. I can't wait to add a couple more photos to our collection this year with two of our friends asking us to photograph their weddings, it is always such an honour to be asked to do that.

I hope this has inspired you to have a go at putting up some of your favourite art and photos. Have you got a photo wall already? I would love to see, tag it #livelovemake on twitter or Instagram so we can see yours too!

Sammy xxx

Live it: Sammy's Christmas Tree 2013

I can't help it, I am a Christmas person, any excuse to put a truck load of sparkly stuff in my home!

I always love posting pictures of my tree, to me it means it's officially Christmas in the Claridge household. 

This year my theme is black, white and gold, I have my white tree from last year, but I limited my colour pallet, re-used a lot of decorations from my collection and added a few new home-made ones too. I made theses sparkly diamonds out of 5 gold pipe cleaners at 10p each, cheap and cheerful. 

I bought some rustic wooden hearts from Hobbycraft and painted them white with a different black pattern on each one, they make a great addition to the tree, and a bargain at around £1.75 each (including ribbon and paint)

The only ornaments I splashed out on this year was these little ceramic owls, they were £3 each from our local Shaw Trust charity shop, so they made me feel good as the money was for charity and how cute are they! The stars are another home-made addition to the tree, I used air drying clay and a cookie cutter. Then painted them white, with gold liquid leaf paint on the edges.

I am so happy with how my tree turned out this year, I love the way it glows in our lounge and I can't wait to put all our family and friends gifts under it on Christmas eve. Here is a quick look at some of the other decorations I have put up too. We have some paper snowflakes in the kitchen, as well as glitter stars over the mirror with a tinsel bauble garland. I made some extra clay stars and strung them up to make a garland over the doors in our lounge, I used some letter stamps to emboss 'wish upon a star' onto the middle, this may be my favourite decoration, I think I may make it a permanent feature.

This Christmas is going to be different for us this year as it will be the first one without my Grandpa who passed away in March. He was such a huge part of our celebrations and we will miss him loads, but I know he will be with us in our memories. He wouldn't have wanted us to be sad and miss him, so we are scheduling lots of games and movies to keep us entertained. In honour of G'pa there may even be some very bad carol singing. 

I hope you enjoyed that little peek at our decorations for this year, I would love to hear about your decorations, If you have posted any pictures, pop a link in the comments so we can head over and take a look. 

Have a magical, festive weekend

Sammy xxx

Don't forget to follow us on bloglovin' and come chat to us on Facebook and twitter. 

Keep up with our Christmas antics on our instagrams... Sammy's and H's.

Dreaming of my very own...Reading nook

I can only dream of one day having a house that would be home to a reading nook.

As the autumn nights draw in there is nothing nicer than cuddling up with a good book.

I Love the idea of dedicating a small area of your home to a place to just relax with your favourite read.  Making it all comfy and cosy with lots of cushions and blankets, surrounded by your favourite reading materials. 

I have a Pinterest board where as per usual you can check out my favourites.

Do you have a special place to go and read, relax or hide away from the weather? A favourite cushion or blanket to keep you cosy?

Have a lovely weekend.

Sammy xxx

Sammy's Bedroom Makeover Moodboard

I hope you all had a really lovely bank holiday weekend, I spent yesterday sorting out and de-cluttering our bedroom because I have been planning a mini makeover.  When we moved in to our house five years ago, It was pretty well decorated so we just moved our furniture in and left it.  I obviously share my bedroom with my husband Steve so I have to bear him in mind when I am thinking about refreshing our room. I am also trying to save money for a very exciting trip next year so I am trying to makeover our space on a budget. Now that I have tidied up, it is much easier to see what changes I can make. I have been pinning some ideas to a Pinterest board so that I could make a mood board to work from and here it is...

 I have chosen colours that compliment the already neutral paint job/ wallpaper in our room, as I don't really want to be stripping wallpaper because as I said  it's pretty neutral. My favourite colour is purple and a few months ago we bought new bedding in shades of purple so I knew I wanted to include that in my scheme. The addition I am most excited about is the aqua/ turquoise shade. It fits in really well into the existing scheme, but will give it a lift and is not too girlie for Steve. 

 I will be able to give you a few updates as bits get done and a few before and afters. I hope you liked the little sneak peak into my plans for the next few weekends. 

What did you get up to over the bank holiday weekend?? 

Sammy xxx

Love it: Sammy's Home

Last year I took the 'Life is Beautiful' E-course from the girls over at 'A Beautiful Mess' (my favourite blog like ever) in an effort to get back into real life documenting, i.e. not just shoving all my photos on Facebook. So for the last six months I have been putting together a scrapbook/photo journal of 'My 30th Year' It's coming along really well and I will share once I have finished it. I have included alot of photo collages, which I put together using Picassa. One of my favourite pages so far is the one dedicated to our Home, so I thought I would share it with you, like a sneak peak.

Love it: Wilko's New Homewares

 1.Storage boxes  /  2.Mercury Vase  /  3.Lamp Shade  /  4.Chevron Bedding  /   5.WoodenAmpersand  /   6.Table Lamp  /  7.Lace Bowl  /  8.Faceted Vase  /  9.Camera Print

Spring is well on it's way and spring means one thing, Spring cleaning and with spring cleaning comes a yearning to buy new goodies to place around my newly sparkling home. As I was wondering around Wilkinson's the other day buying some storage boxes for the shop I spotted the new batch of home-wears and found my self grabbing a basket (oops!) Here are my pick of their surprisingly stylish accessories.

So will I see you in Wilkinson's this weekend?

Have a good one 

Sammy xxx

Friday Favourite: Staircase Art

This week, like we all do in January I'm sure, I have been looking for home inspiration. Whilst surfing on Pinterest I came across a great selection of staircase art, our stairs are boring and covered in beige carpet, this has given me some ideas to run past the Hubby! 

Some of these beauties are so colourful and very creative. 

1.(above) I love the soft colour pallet used in this one and the free hand painting style

2. This mosaic staircase reminds me of Gaudi one of my favourite Architects

3. So bright and colourful http://www.streetartutopia.com/?p=9914

4. This one is so cute, I love the little phrases on each of the risers

5. If I was more of a book worm, these would be great http://imgur.com/gallery/SlYZF

6. PANTONE Stairs, Yes Please! http://indulgy.com/post/qOC6a7jJM1/pantone-stairs

Are you planning any home renovations this year? 

Loving it 

Sammy xxx