I am still here I promise!

Phew what a hectic few weeks I've had! Sorry I haven't posted in ages but I am back on it now. Firstly I got a job yay, a very proper job as a secretary in a bank! I'm so glad to be earning proper money again, finally feels like I can afford Christmas!

I'm sad that I have to leave the shop behind for a while and concentrate on the online side of the business, which I am hoping to do along side my proper job :-) I shall let you know how it all goes after they decide to keep me on permanently or not.

Secondly, I have moved house. My father in law is building us a new house, so in the meantime I'm living with the in laws in an old Georgian semi. It's quite nice but trying to make it my own, ill try to get some pictures up soon.

Finally my grandma hasn't been very well lately so any spare time I've had I've been visiting my mum and nan.

So all in all its been a busy couple of weeks, money has been tight but getting better, and will do some more product reviews soon.

Are you looking forward to Christmas this year? I know I am, I'll be so glad to have a break and relax with the family. I have started Christmas shopping and are going for more vintage and homemade bits this year.

Speak soon lovelies
Lauren xxx

House Move Eeek

On Friday we was told that we are likely to get an exchange date within the next couple of weeks for our old house that I live in with the in laws in the annex. All very exciting you may think but we have not packed anything yet, so I started freaking out slightly. I decided to tackle my wardrobe first of all as I knew many clothes were summer clothes and I would take some back to my parents house, hehe good parents!





Well when I got to my parents I failed to remember that my old wardrobe was full and my underneath of my bed also full of old clothes, shoes etc. Me and Mum spent all Monday on clearing out the wardrobe and bed and took 6, yes 6 black sacks down to the charity shop.

Finally, I could actually fit the majority of my summer clothes back into my old wardrobe for 6 months whilst the new house is being built.

We have decided to stay with the in-laws for 6 months whilst our new house is being built, 1 because we cant afford a house by ourselves and 2, actually we have such a great house to move into and my father in law is building me and Rocky an annex. Such great times!

I am a little nervous about living with the in laws for 6 months but I'm sure it'll be fine.

I will be blogging over the next few months pictures of how the house is progressing and im really excited about designing our annex and how I want it to look, cue utility room and CUPBOARDS :-D 

I haven't interior designed before but I am really looking forward to getting my creative juices going. 

This week has been pretty productive and we have packed 2 boxes away each day, now all we need to find is some storage places to store majority of our stuff for 6 months.

This is what I really want to be like...

but actually I feel like...

Have you ever interior designed or designed your house, do you have any tips?!

xxx

Happy Autumn Equinox (Mabon)

Autumn is my absolute favourite time of year.

As some of you may or may not know, as you can see I am very into everything vintage. But another big part of my life is my spiritual path which I am on, finding my inner goddess and worshipping many Eartly beings. This isn't in a religious way as I wouldn't consider myself religious but in more of a spiritual way. I just love this part of me equally as much as the vintage side of me as it really connects me to all living beings. I will promise to write more on this over the next few weeks.

Today in the Wicca calender is the Autumn Equinox or Mabon as it was traditionally known. This is the day when the light and dark are at equal lengths and this was celebrated in history traditionally as the end of the summer harvest. This is one of the main Wicca festivals to celebrate the wheel of the year.

The idea of the festival is to give thanks to the summers harvest and mark in some way the change of summer to autumn. Depending on your individual spiritual path, there are many different ways you can celebrate Mabon, but typically I like to go out for a walk, make a home-made soup and start thinking about how to wrap up warm in preparation for Halloween.

This time of year I like to give thanks to nature for giving us the crop which we have enjoyed during the summer months and I accept that the trees are loosing their leaves in preparation for the winter. The trees are in effect going to lie dormant for the winter months. Another example in nature is how some animals are starting to hibernate, collecting food stores and making up nice warm homes.

I believe that everybody is on their own spiritual path but you can adapt any of my personal rituals to suit your own beliefs :)

Follow my 5 top tips to have a great harvest festival......

1. Find balance in your life again- Summer can often feel a bit go-go-go and when we go back to school/normal life after holiday we can sometimes feel a bit down and out. One thing I really love to do at this time of year is take some time out in nature to re find my balance. Autumn equinox is a great time to do this as the light is balanced, you can meditate or take a few deep breaths out in nature and focus on this point for a while. I love to take the dog out for a walk this time of year, switch off the mobile phones and focus on being still and not worrying about what has or may happen over the coming months. Give thanks to the balance in your life with acknowledging that without darkness they can be no day and visa versa. Count your blessings by writing a list of all you are thankful for. Here is a couple of mine
- My fiancé, for being patient helping me start a business this year.
- My family for being healthy and supportive also
- My one remaining cat for keeping my mum happy
- My own health, no complaints yet

This is a really great way to help say thanks in your life and focus on the rest of the year and what is important.

2. Harvest Festival & Food - Harvest is a great time to give something back, have a look in your local area and community or school to see if they are holding a harvest festival. Give some cans of food to a food bank or think about how you can store some of your lovely food during the cold winter months. I always think as well that this is a good time to say thank you to our farmers for all the hard work they have done. I saw one farmer this week out till 8 o clock in the dark!

I would love to make some jam or marmalade this winter however my fiance made an amazing butternut squash soup this week.....

The soup was made using a butternut squash, onion, white wine, some herbs and a splash of double cream!

By giving food away or collecting and storing this is a great way to say thanks and give blessings for the food we have enjoyed during the summer, and feels really great too!

3. Start thinking about Halloween - Ok so it is over a month away but I love to think of Halloween early by planning a party or how to decorate the house. One thing I also like to do is pick apples and make a lovely apple crumble yum yum. Apples are also seen as a symbol of divination and goddess power. You can harness this by picking a few apples and preserving them or making some tasty treats :)

4. Clean up and Clear out - Like a spring clean I also love to have a clean up in the Autumn, this is because we need to prepare mentally for the cold months. I actually believe that some of us go into our own sense of hibernation during the winter months and really feel the cold. Dust off the curtains, get out the winter duvet and blankets and clear away the cob webs. I use this time to get rid of summer clothes that I didn't wear and either pack them away or take them down to charity shop. After you have done this light some orange coloured candles for light and warmth.

I think this is also a great ritual to bringing energy back into your home after the end of the summer dip.

5. Feeding wildlife - I haven't actually done much of this lately I am ashamed to say but another idea I have thought of is how to feed wildlife. Perhaps you have some squirrels in your garden or birds you could feed from a feeder. I think this is a great time of year to help out those in nature who need a little helping hand. So why not?

I hope you enjoyed this post and would love any comments, if you would like to read more I found this site particularly helpful - All about Mabon

Whatever you do this weekend I hope it is a happy healthy and balanced one :)

Happy Mabon!

Lots of warm blessings 

Lauren 

xx

Polishing Silver

Hello lovely followers,

I have this week been preparing bits and pieces for the shop and have been polishing silver to such a level that my Grandma would be proud. I do feel that this is a bit of a tradition polishing silver but I got a lot out of it and thought I would share some of the photos I took with you.

Ewll yuk before pictures of the fish set

Silvo In a can is the best to use - and its also British!

 So I start polishing...

 Spoons before, look at the cloth getting worse

 Spoons after!

 It is a really messy job this, you use the Silvo cloth initially to get off the top layer of dirt and then I used some kitchen roll to get it really shinny.

 This is a better picture I think, they show up more on the purple.

 I just love this amazing dressing table set!

 This cake slice turned out better than I thought.

Et Vois Lais, I am quite proud of the results actually and think that I did an ok job, was worth the elbow grease to get them looking lovely and sparkly and well worth a purchase I think.

All of items for sale can be found at my shop located at Bretts Farm, Essex. Do come and have a look :)

So my question this weekend is, what are your plans this weekend are you going to be doing any late spring cleaning? 

Scarlet aka Lauren :)

xxxxxxxxx

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

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

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

The House of my Dreams

So we've been looking for our first home...

We decided that the time was right to actually buy our own home and have been saving loooaddddsss for the past two years but the most we can afford is something like this....

But what I would love is something like this...

 or this!

 But what ill end up with is maybe something like this....

However, I insist on the rooms being decorated like this.... a la "Shabby Chic"

Well the search goes on. We have now reduced the location to be within an easy commuting distance :)

watch this space lovelies!

xxx