We're Hitched!

After months of planning and agonising over whether our big day will actually go ahead, we can finally shout from the rooftops that we are hitched! 

Announcing Mr and Mrs Tilley!

It may not have been quite the wedding day we had originally planned but it turned out magical in the end and a lovely celebration spent with those closest to us! A huge thank you to everyone who supported us in our decision to go ahead rather than postpone any longer. Also massive thank yous to my mum and sister for all their hard work leading up to the big day and making sure it felt special.

We can't wait to share some of the creative makes involved in the wedding, so stay tuned next month for the start of a new Wedding Series on the blog...

Craft Room Reveal

I am finally excited to reveal my new craft room, and it has been a long time in the making! Since me and Conor moved into our house in 2018, I knew I wanted to convert the smallest bedroom into a craft room/ office for me. With other areas of the house needing to be prioritised first, this room had to sit on the back bench until we had the time and the money to invest in it. This room wasn't in the best condition when we moved in and the room also had a stairs bulkhead that we needed to get converted to maximise space in the room.

I have included a couple of before photos below...

The walls were in poor condition when we moved in and the skirting boards were very high and coming away from the wall. Therefore we needed to take those off and get the room replastered.

Once we had taken down the majority of the cupboard from the stairs bulkhead, we were left with a basic bulkhead structure that needed to be covered up and made into something useful.

I decided that building a cupboard over the top of the bulkhead will be the most practical solution so that I could store a lot of craft/office supplies. For this job we needed to find a local carpentry company - unfortunately the company we chose were not the best and we did have quite a few problems along the way. 

However we did finally get a cupboard that had the look of what I had initially planned...

As you can see, the cupboard fills the entire space up to the ceiling to maximise the total storage space I could achieve in this area. 

There are three shelves inside the cupboard which are very deep and enables me to double up on storage space. As you can see from the picture above I have started to organise my supplies and used my Silhouette die cutting machine and some vinyl to label the boxes.

Product Links:

11L Silver Plastic Storage Box

32L Silver Plastic Underbed Storage Box

Deep Fridge Storage Tray

Weston Boxes A4 Box Stak including A4 Storage Boxes and Lids

The doors are very wide which gives me plenty of room to manoeuvre boxes in and out of the cupboard and they have a magnetic catch on the doors for easy opening and closing.

Alongside the cupboard, we also had new skirting boards fitted in the room as well. Once this cupboard was complete we were able to give the room a fresh coat of paint and then got some new carpet fitted as well to freshen it up.

So moving onto the rest of the room...

As you can see from above, the room is fairly small and the cupboard we had built is on the left as you walk into the room, situated behind the door. On the right hand side I have a couple of storage units and a table.

The tall unit is an Ikea Kallax unit. Initially I thought I wanted to put this unit on the wall above my desk but once built, this unit is very heavy and therefore it would have been too difficult to mount on the wall. I'm using this unit to store my Project Life albums and also extra albums and notebooks. I also have some 12x12 plastic storage for my scrapbooking papers and plain 12x12 card stock. There is also a shredder at the bottom of the unit.

Alongside the Ikea Kallax unit, I have another storage shelf and drawer unit which I bought off Amazon.

This unit was a great find and as soon as I saw it I knew it would be perfect for storing my craft machines. I have my Silhouette die cutting machine on the top of the unit, followed by two printers underneath (one laser, one inkjet). I then have my Heidi Swapp Minc machine and I have some CDs stored at the bottom - these will likely move if I get any new machines! These are all plugged in on an extension lead so that I can easily use these machines in situ. The drawers next to the shelves have some Silhouette and Minc accessories.

Product Links:

Ikea Kallax Shelving Unit

Amazon Brand - Movian Arga 4 Drawer Cabinet with Shelves

Next to these units I have a desk which I have set up with a ring LED light for taking pictures and also my laptop which features my Craft Artist design software. The wall is very plain at the moment but I hope to jazz this up with either some art work or decorations - maybe paper fans.

On the other side of the room (next to the cupboard) I have my main desk which I keep my essential tools on and die cutting machine. I have some Ikea peg boards on the wall just above my desk which keeps my paper trimmers and scoring board handy, as well as some kitchen roll, ruler and scissors. When I next go to Ikea I want to pick up some more peg board accessories and add a few extra bits.

Above the peg boards I have two shelves which I am using to display some of the projects I have made and also some photos and journals.

Product Links:

Ikea SKADIS Peg Board

Ikea SKADIS Shelf

Ikea SKADIS Roll Holder

Ikea SKADIS Letter Holder

Ikea SKADIS Hooks

Ikea LINNMON Table Top - White/Stained Oak Effect

Ikea LERBERG Trestle Table Legs

Homebase Floating Shelves in Matt White

On the side of my cupboard, next to my desk, I have stuck a wipe clean calendar, which I can change very easily and keep track of what I am doing each month. Below the calendar is a magnetic board which I am using to display my favourite photos and some keyrings. I can also pin up anything that inspires me or any reminders I need to keep close to hand.

So that sums up my craft room reveal. I have included links throughout the blog post to any of the items I bought and are currently still available. The one thing I am still in need of is an Ikea Alex drawer unit which they have just recently got back in stock. So once we take another trip to Ikea I will update the room with that for storage of my inks, pens, paints, adhesives and more! The other finishing touch is to install some venetian blinds as I currently have no curtains!

Card-io Fun

If you've just tuned into this blog post hoping to find a piece about cardio fitness fun then I'm afraid you are mistaken. As much as I find cardio exercise fun, I would rather talk about the stamp making craft company called Card-io!

Last weekend we had a morning of crafting and chose to experiment with some new Card-io stamp sets that mum had ordered from The Craft Store ( Hochanda - must prefer this name!). The sets of stamps we used are as follows:-

Vines and Verdure

Waters Edge

Still Waters

New Beginnings

Dragonfly Haven

Dogwood Daydreams

These stamp sets (apart from Still Waters) come in a bundle called the Riverside collection if you fancy having a go at creating some beautiful stamped scenes.

We also used a selection of VersaColor ink pads, as well as some dew drop ink pads including Brilliance, Memento and VersaMagic.

This Card-io session didn't really have a real purpose, other than mainly to have some fun and experiment with techniques and stamps. If you've ever watched a Card-io demonstration on the TV or at a trade show, you will know how talented Wendy is when it comes to demonstrating the application of colour and also her beautiful compositions. To make things easy for ourselves we started off by using some design inspiration from their Facebook page and also rewatched their shows on The Craft Store (Hochanda) to pick up some tips and techniques.

To start with, I used a piece of paper to create a hills border and used some reposition-able adhesive to keep this in place. Using a dry wet wipe, I carefully started adding some yellow ink to create a sunny glow and then went in with my first stamp to create a branch arch.

As you can see from above I used a range of stamps and colours to add some foliage and flowers. I then added the mice and the birds to bring the scene to life.

Mum also experimented with a branch arch scene and used some beautiful blue tones to create a lovely background, before building her scene using brown ink with her stamps.

For my next design, I created another hills border that was a slightly different shape to the previous design and added some green ink for the grass as my background.

I then used a selection of the stamps to add some greenery and flowers and brought the scene to life with the fox and the birds. 

For the fox, I layered a combination of three brown inks to create a shading effect.

We also used this effect to create a different design using the otter stamp.

We finished by having a play with some of the smaller floral stamp sets to create some border designs.

So that sums up our little play around with Card-io stamps. It was lovely to just sit down and craft without any real purpose to what we were making. We just sat down and got everything out (there was a lot!!!) and  then created whatever we felt like. It did take us a while to get going but once we had got into the swing of things and started to pick up a technique, it became quite therapeutic.

We highly recommend Card-io stamps and we definitely suggest watching Wendy at a trade show or when she is next on the TV as you will definitely pick up some great techniques and some handy hints and tips.

Life Update and Resolutions Review

We are a quarter of the way through the year already and I thought it was time we had a quarterly review and life update about what's going on in our world...

Wedding bells are ringing...

So anyone who has been following our blog for the past year will know that I am due to get married at the end of this month and I am happy to announce that we are still going ahead with it. Obviously it isn't going to be quite the day me and Conor had originally planned, with fewer numbers and options available to us, however we just wanted to take this opportunity while we have it to get married. We will still be hosting a celebratory party later in the year when we hope Covid restrictions will have eased even further. I am planning to write another Wedding series on the blog to showcase our creative makes, however this will now be in two halves, with some posts in May and the rest in November (after our wedding party).

Garden Transformation

So over the past couple of months we have finally managed to put the final touches to our back garden transformation. This has almost taken a year to complete, after we started the process last summer during the first lockdown! We have listed some photos below to show you our progress timeline...

Before: April 2020

May 2020

June 2020

October 2020

March 2021

After: April 2021

We still need to add some flowers to the back border and we also want a few more planters near the front of the garden but the main bulk of the transformation is finally complete!

Crafty Makes and Workshop Projects

Over the past couple of months we have enjoyed working on seasonal projects to celebrate Valentine's Day and Easter and also released an Easter project kit at the end of February for some of you to complete at home, alongside our instructions and video. We are continuing to work on new ideas and craft projects to share with you and hope to potentially have another craft kit available in May/June. Fingers crossed towards the end of summer we may be able to consider hosting our workshops in person once again but that is all to be confirmed as lockdown restrictions ease even further.

New Craft Room!

Another project I have been working on since November last year, is the transformation of a small bedroom into a craft room. This has been a fairly long winded process, especially in the light of Covid restrictions and lockdowns, however I am almost ready to reveal the room transformation and share with you some pictures and video of my craft room and how I have started to organise my craft tools and accessories. This will all be revealed in a separate blog post which I hope to share with you later this month!

Resolution Review

If we rewind back to the beginning of the year, some of you may remember I wrote a post about my resolutions for 2021 and I thought now would be a good time to review how I've been getting on with them and if I've given up on any!!

Start selling on Etsy

So at the moment this resolution is still a work in progress. I have been working on designs for invitations and samples for other products. I have a plan in place to hopefully launch an Etsy store in June as I wanted to get the wedding (well part of it) out of the way so I could focus on this venture. So hopefully by the next quarterly update I will have more to share on this resolution.

Paint my nails once a week

So for this resolution I started off very positive and energised and was enjoying painting my nails once a week. However as we started getting into February I began to get a bit more forgetful to paint my nails and also due to home improvements we were doing around the house I wasn't willing to put in the effort for my nails to be destroyed within a few hours! I have had some occasional weeks where I decided that my nails needed some colour and I'm hoping that I will become more inspired to paint my nails over the next 3 months!

Write a daily diary

This resolution has been a great success! I'm so chuffed that 3 months down the line I am still writing a diary and I often use it to make myself To Do Lists for the day, writing ideas down for craft projects and blog posts. I often write down things that I have done during the day, how I'm feeling etc which is helpful to read back so I can look back on what I've done.

Write down one positive thought everyday

So this resolution was suppose to go hand in hand with writing my daily diary, however about a week into January I started finding this resolution hard to keep up! I don't want to say that it was hard to come up with something positive to write down, but it was more that I was thinking of the same sort of things and it felt like I was just repeating myself just for the sake of writing something down. To some extent some might say that it is worth continuing even if it is the same thing as it is just to act as a positive reinforcement for the day but I just found this difficult and it felt like I was pressurising myself to write something positive which in turn was having a negative effect on me. Therefore I decided to write positive things/ thoughts down as and when I felt like it and maybe practising being positive rather than writing it down is actually more effective!

Go for 3 walks per week

This is another resolution that started to peter out around mid February. Throughout January and the beginning of February I was hitting my target of three walks per week, even more sometimes and during a mixture of weathers. However when the weather got very cold towards the end of February I started doing more Joe Wicks work outs most mornings and I think I took to this a bit more during the colder weather rather then going out for my walks. I have lately been out on a few odd walks and I want to try and increase this over the next few months again as it is such a great activity for mindfulness and I just love being outside!

Write 4 blog posts each month

I am happy to say I am achieving this target every month and I have enjoyed planning my posts, especially for the recent seasonal holidays of Valentine's Day and Easter. I have considered writing more blog posts in certain months but I don't want to burn out and then lose motivation or inspiration for new blog posts. I hope everyone has been enjoying them so far and it's nice to bring some consistency each month.

Donate to one charity every month

This is another resolution that I am proud to say I have kept up and so far I have donated to MIND, The British Heart Foundation and The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. I'm looking forward to donating to more charities throughout the year and even though it's only a small contribution, it will all help to make a difference.

Try one new recipe per month

This resolution has been successful as well and for the past 3 months these are the new recipes I have tried:-

Nadiya's Chicken Teriyaki Noodles - also make this with salmon

Nadiya's Fruit Cobbler

Nadiya's Chocolate Brownies 

Blueberry and Lemon Loaf Cake

All these recipes have worked really well and it's been lovely trying some different dishes. As you will have noticed, three out of the four are sweet dishes! Maybe need to focus more effort on some savoury dishes!

Spend More Think Less

I think this resolution is one that I will continue to work on. I feel like I have been a bit more relaxed with spending money over the past 3 months, however this is probably due to the fact that due to the current pandemic we have not been needing to save money for day trips and holidays. We have also been working on some home improvements, especially around the garden and the want to get those things finished has motivated me to spend some money and get what we need.

Enjoy Life

I think this will be a resolution that I will always try to improve on and since we have been in a lockdown for the past 3 months, some might say that the start of the year could have made this resolution a write off! Even though it has been a difficult few months, I can look back and say that I think I have made the most of life and used this as an opportunity to be creative and do things around the house and enjoy being off work. This has been a once in a lifetime (fingers crossed!!) opportunity to catch up on things we may normally have no time for and I have appreciated that. Hopefully this month onwards will allow us to get out more and enjoy life in more ways to make the most of everything we have!

So that's it for our first quarterly review of the year so far! I am motivated to keep up with my resolutions and am looking forward to what the rest of the year has in store for us. With lockdown restrictions easing there is much to look forward to, especially my journey into married life!