Brick Dust & Glitter

Thursday 28 April 2016

Mamas Blooms Newsletter Edition 5: My Picture Edit

First off, I am so sorry that this post is not at the beginning of the month. What happened to April? I had such ideas of easily just getting this post up but it has taken all month to do! Also, due to work commitments I didn't even share my favourites last week on Instagram. Sad face!

But here we are, still in April which means I have made it, I haven't missed the month! What a crazy month it has been though. Very busy but I have managed to spend a few hours outside sorting our garden. I know it seemed the right thing to do in the glorious weather we had at the start of the month but now I am thinking my new Hydrangea and wax flower plants will not have benefited from the recent frost, hail and snow!

We have a really good local Lidl store and on one of my visits I spotted that they had Wax Flower plants. I love wax flower and not actually ever having seen it in plant form, I got myself one for the grand price of £5.99. It was really bushy as well so I am hoping it survives this mad weather we are having. I also got myself two new hydrangea plants. Now, I love Hydrangea, I really do and already have 5 plants in my boarder, but 3 of them which are placed together just haven't grown much and they have been there three years now, so I bought an extra 2 to just fill them out a bit. In northern France so many houses have Hydrangea bushes and they just look fantastic so that is the look I am going for. With some of our home grown Tulips I have enjoyed a couple of the Hydrangea heads in our home.

It is usually now that it is a great point to start sorting out the garden. I have loved getting out there a bit seeing our new plant life sprouting up. I am not an avid gardener but it really is nice to pick your own blooms from the garden. I need a few more years to perfect it though, I would love a full boarder to have my own cutting garden!

Also in the house I have very much been enjoying spring flowers like Stocks, Ranunculus and Tulips, There hasn't been one week this month that I haven't had Tulips in the house. I have really abused them this year, just love them!

(Our home grown Tulips and Summer Snowdrops!)

It has all been so pretty. As I am sat writing this I am already thinking about what flowers I need to get tomorrow to help celebrate Rob's birthday. Flowers are so perfect for making a house look party ready!

As always you lovely followers on Instagram have been joining in amazingly by Tagging #mamasblooms on your flower pictures. Here are some of my favourites from this month!

From top left to right; @amyhayden23, @zivotvzahrade.ce, @littlemaldod, @midlifemummy, @lisa_jking, @bonnieandbumble, @east_unique, @capturebylucy, @ruby_and_ivy.

Their will be a new post up next week, yep only one week wait this time due to my tardiness, to celebrate the month of May!

Emily

If you follow me on social media you would have seen that last week my sister Ella and I were whisked off to Bath to do some work for Joules.

We were primarily visiting the Bath Joules store to partake in a VIP event they were hosting as part of Bath In Fashion week. It was an all day event where Joules had one of their in-house print artists creating pictures and sharing her knowledge and experience with working on design. There was also the opportunity to get your Joules leather products personalised and there was plenty of wonderful food and flowers in store, lending itself very much to the beautiful old building that this gorgeous brand is housed in.

We found out that the store used to be a huge music shop before it was sold and divided up for retail. The building itself had some beautiful features, like its gorgeous ceiling windows but as expected this was just the beginning of my appreciation as to how beautiful the architecture is in Bath. Having not been since I was a child and having no recollection of it whatsoever, it is safe to say I was blown away but I will be writing more about that in another post!

Whilst there working with Joules, we had a bit of time to get out and explore one of the most beautiful roads I have ever walked down, Great Pultney Street which was just stunning, for no other reason than the beauty of the Bath Stone houses which lined the street perfectly. It was just amazing!

Having the chance to also sample some of the new season Joules clothes also allowed us to really put a couple of items to the test. As it is with Joules, they offer a great amount of colourful, practical clothing which ready for the practical person to put to the test. I have always found that their stuff wears well and they are the ones to go to when looking for something bold and bright! Thinking about bold and bright, the most important feature to bring up our mine and Ella's footwear. I mean, these sneakers kept our feet comfy, as we walked for hours. As we ran up and down streets and stood around in them at the event the just looked fantastic. Ella wore the silver petal pattern and I had the vibrantly contrasting ditsy blue with orange laces.

Personally I love this neon orange feature that Joules have got going on at the moment. Let's be real, everyone loves a touch of neon heading into summer, so the laces on the trainers, my fab handbag and the lining of Ella's coat all had that bold colour complementing the outfits amazingly.

That is the great thing with joules; all their collections can be interlinked and worn with other items. I just love how their colour combinations always work. Ella's blue coat looks amazing with the bright splatter top and her grey leather bag, and aged at only 16, it shows the amazing versatility and diversity the Joules clothes suit!

For me, their classic Herringbone jersey blazer and a white t-shirt with some blue jeans was my salute to the everyday woman. With my bag and trainers to add the va-va-voom effect, I found that I was able to use classic tailoring with ease.

Our first walk into Bath was somewhat colourful as you can see. It was an amazing evening and over the weekend I am going to share a couple more posts of us exploring this beautiful city.

Emily

*In collaboration with Joules

Getting a Good Welcome Home

One of the best jobs we have had so far from working on this blog is to be part of the Great Little Trading Co testing team. What a dream; having the opportunity to look at any of their products, try them in our home and give our honest opinion on what they are like, how well they work and what we would, if anything, change about them. It is hard picking out faults with a company which has been crowned Britain's best children's retailer for the last 6 years. If anything I am always trying to be objective, but when products are beautiful and perfect it is hard to not be uber enthusiastic.

Great Little Trading Co opened its doors to its first ever showroom on Saturday and we were fortunate enough to be included in the VIP viewing along with the GLTC team and their families. What a wonderful invitation and how fortunate I feel to have met the team and be part of this fantastic celebration of hard work.

GLTC will be allowing the public to shop their entire range at their new Showroom in Wandsworth, London from Friday 29th April. They have built this fantastic store which showcases all their products for you to view and either take away or have delivered to your home the very next day! If you have been lucky enough to be on their mailing list and had their gorgeous catalogue of colour and happiness drop through your letter box, I can only say that going to their showroom is like stepping into their catalogue. With crisp white walls all around and the classic GLTC splashes of colour, it is like being given a picture perfect photo view but you can touch and feel what everything is really like.

As soon as I stepped onto that gorgeously tiled floor I felt like I was home, which is exactly how GLTC wants you to feel. This project welcomes you home. It welcomes you into a place where homes can be created, where parents can find those meaningful furniture pieces that will stay with their children for years and years and it is here where it happens.

If you are a parent you will know the excitement you get when you are first decorating a nursery. That picking out of each individual item making a safe happy place for your precious child to be. As your baby grows to a toddler, then to a school age child, young teen you will find that their wants, needs and tastes change. The beauty of GLTC is that they have got looks that will encompass the whole of childhood in a way that won't date, look shabby and will just bring happiness into a room.

We spent a fantastic afternoon at the showroom where the children were just allowed to play and explore the whole time we were there. I mean, that's the dream right? It was like getting locked in a toy store. The wonderful brightly coloured wooden toys were there to be enjoyed and boy were they. Our two had a fantastic time playing and exploring each display and layout of bedrooms.

Looking round each layout and colour scheme it was hard to not want to redesign so much of our home. GLTC prides itself on clever storage systems and they really are. Neat lines, clever boxes and solid shapes help make them pioneers in children interiors giving the customers quality products which will suit most homes.

With the option of being able to talk to professional designers who will be there to help you with all your bedroom or home needs, GLTC hopes to offer an experience which will allow you to really enjoy creating special places in your home.

Our experience of the showroom was very special. That is because of our personal work connection to the brand but I need to say, this is not just a recent infatuation, but one that even my parents instilled in me as I remember the GLTC catalogue dropping through the letterbox when I was a child and it would be what we would look at and circle with pen excitedly when writing birthday and Christmas lists.

If you haven't heard of this homegrown brand I urge you to explore its products. I am sure you won't be disappointed.

Between cheeky cocktails in teacups and delicious food, Rob and I chatted with other bloggers, the GLTC team and played until we were the last ones left!

Here are some more pictures of our trip. Thank you so much GLTC for having us!