How to spruce up some flowers

Well as you know I left my job and was given a couple of bunches of flowers, two weeks ago. Some of them were starting to die this week so I wanted to combine the remaining of the best of the two bunches and added in some wild flowers which I picked from our walk at the weekend - http://scarletrealm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/a-lovely-summertime-walk.html


Walking around I picked a variety of wild flowers in all different colours....

A bumble bee enjoying this flower

  And gathered them into a glass....

I used the remaining of these flowers from the two bunches. I cut off the ends of the good to use flowers and made up some fresh water in the vase.

A few white and purple flowers which have lasted over 2 weeks!

Two remaining pretty peach roses to use

And combined them together to make this. I haven't ever done flower arranging before but I don't think I did a bad job!

Pretty-shabby chic vase :)

And I added a pretty gingham ribbon.

 And there you go, re-used nearly good flowers mixed with wild flowers :) 

Hope you like them! xxx

A lovely summertime walk

Tomorrow is Lughnasadh - this is an ancient Gaelic festival to celebrate the harvest of the year and is celebrated on the 1st August. It isn't a commonly celebrated festival but I believe it is still celebrated in Ireland in some places. 

Lovely purple field

To celebrate and give thanks to this years harvest, on Saturday me and Rocky decided to go walking and we had a really great time. The fields around Thaxted are just gorgeous at the moment. This field is a field of lovely purple and white flowers. I am not sure exactly what type of crop this is and I have tried to Google it. Ill have to ask a farmer next time I see one.

Close up image

The rape seed fields look lovely at the start of the summer when they are the luscious yellow colour but they turn a nasty brown before they are harvested. They are currently being harvested and are really smelly, and being ploughed for the next season. But, have you used rape seed oil for cooking? This can be found in most supermarkets and makes a lovely alternative to vegetable oil and it feels good to know we are keeping our farmers in work!


So we walked for about 2 and a half hours and I picked some lovely wild flowers. See next post where I got creative with them :)


Have you been walking lately? It is really lovely to get outside when the weather is fine and make use of the great British countryside. What I love about being a country girl is that the landscape is constantly changing. Last summer the fields were beans and this year they have been rape seed oil. 


Hope you enjoy :)
xxxx

An insight into.... my wardrobe

So I decided, in preparation for us moving house, I should clear out my wardrobe and give a bag to charity. What I seemed to forget was the extent of my clothes and decided to be ruthless in clearing out, only to find I could only make a small bag to take to the charity shop. 


Well I made the decision to organise every type of item into colour order and as you will see below I have a lot to sort out......


This is my wardrobe before the clear out = lots of shoes on top and below and a miss- match of clothing

Wardrobe before

 So I organised my dresses into colour order, a couple of vintage gems!

Dresses light to medium

Dresses medium to black

 I had 17 dresses in all - how many dresses do you have? 
I did the same for my skirts as well... and counted 14 skirts. This is just some of them.

Skirts!

I was going to do the same for the tops but I would have been there literally all day. This took me 2 hours. I also had 17 cardigans, one for each dress clearly!

Anyway, my question this week is, have you cleared out your wardrobe recently and got rid of some unwanted items? Its a very powerful thing to do and can really spring clean your wardrobe. 

Next week I will make a promise to tackle the shoes and then show you a final picture of the wardrobe. 

I am looking to update a few bits and pieces from my wardrobe and am realllyyy looking forward to the Autumn/Winter collections. Miss Selfridge is one of my particular favourites and I am loving the preview of the new collection - http://www.missselfridge.com with words like "Ladylike" and "Peplum" in the same sentence I am going "geeeeeeee" in excitement! Also, I am loving the Oasis Autumn/Winter collection - http://www.oasis-stores.com the "Modern Army" collection sounds very exciting. 

p.s. sorry for talking about Autumn/Winter already but I do love a change over season :D

mucho love xxxxxxx

Vintage Posters

So I got Googling today for some images that I would like to either sell/display in my shop and look at these beauties. I just had to share them! I also thought that what with all of the hype about the Olympics and the use of our troops it was about time that someone stood up and said - Support Our Troops! 


These posters from WWI and WWII really capture that spirit of the patriotic time and I genuinely believe that is what is missing from people's opinions of using troops in the Olympics. For heaven's sake these men (and women) give their lives to protect our country and your moaning that some large company cant put enough staff on to protect our games. Quite frankly we should be ashamed, I personally would feel safer having troops there anyway! 


OK rant over, back to the posters. Feast your eyes on these, if they don't make you feel proud to be British right now then I don't know what else can. Some of these are American but I have added them in as well. I apologise for the spacing and the quality, I am still trying to get the hang of this :)

This came from rationing, people had to start to can food. Id love to try it one day!

 

I love how they tried to make sure everyone kept smiling! A real trooper!

One of the classics :)

This is great, can you imagine how girls felt, probably a mixture of excitement and scare

I just love this one.

This is one of my favourites

 

This is an Underground poster, they wanted to make sure the troops could get home and so wanted to ensure people weren't making unnecessary journeys 

Well guys I hope you liked them, feel free to comment if you like :)


xxxxx

Another Underground poster.

So the shop so far....

Well I have now officially left the corporate world and throwing my all into running my own business and starting my vintage shop - Scarlet Realm. I have been a busy bee and I thank you for all supporting me so far. So as you saw before my shop needs some work and have been deciding on colours. I have gone for one wall in a greeny colour and 3 walls in cream. It really needs brightening up so I think this will do the trick. 


I love these colours...

I love the mixture of green and cream here

Vintage Bike

Just a bathroom with the colours I'd like

Shabby chic furniture

  Me and my mum have an obsession to say the least with the colour green, but I think it can work really well in my shop. So I have taken some paint testers and so far I have...

Dulux Ocean Ripple - I think this is too pale

Dulux Willow Tree - the one on the right hand wall

I have also got Crown "Flagon" - http://www.crownpaint.co.uk/colour/447/flagon.htm?rt=2&cn=flagon

I am very torn but I don't actually think any of them are perfect. I just love Farrow and Ball colours...

Farrow & Ball Vert De Terre

Farrow & Ball Saxon Green

So guys that's it for today but I will be keeping you updated with the progress 

xxx

Shop Designs

So I am in the middle of designing the shop that I am now renting and wondering how and where on earth should I start. Whilst I like the thrown together look I also want to hold readings/circles in the shop so need some form of consistency. The issue is that I need to stand out from the rest, and the "shabby chic" look is just sooooo boring! So here are a few inspiring ideas....




    




  


The shop definitely has to be shabby/chic/rustic rather thank junk shop....


So with that I have picked a few colours out from b&q and will be posting them later :)

 

My Poster!

Well I have been working lots on the planning for my shop and having the help of my wonderful fiance have finally designed a poster for my shop. I love the colour combination as its different from the usual roses, pink/red designs and as its my shop I can do what I want! 


So I handed my notice in at the dredged current job at a bank that shall not be named and have my leaving date of Friday the 20th July! Whahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! Ok so now the hard work starts! 


Have been thinking lots about my first spiritual walk and am planning this for Saturday 18th August. I have tonnes and tonnes of ideas surrounding the changing seasons, some meditations to do and how to change negative into positive energy. I can't wait to do it now! And fingers crossed it goes well I intend to do one roughly each month!


I have also been buying tonnes from charity and boot sales recently. I have been intending to upload photos but I literally have not found the time, but come two weeks time I will be posting everyday if i can - I promise! :)


So my question to you this week is - if you had one chance in life to make one change, what would that be?


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx