* I LOVE ROSES *

I just thought you may like to see some more of my Christmas presents... I really love them all and when ever item is practical yet so pretty how can you say no.

This will be for the bathroom (when finished) I intend to line it with this fabric.

I have had my eye on these Greengate cake tine for a while now and was so pleased I finally bought them.

Storage tins for my work room and a Cath Kidston tea towel which may become a bag for my knitting.

Don't you just love pretty things, they really do make me smile every time I look at them.

Oh before I forget to ask, does anybody know where I can buy some pale blue and white polka dot fabric (good quality cotton), I know Cath Kidston does it but the spots are too big for what I need it for, any advice would be of great help as I have about given up hope of finding any...

x Faye x

Decorating.. yes please

Well the Christmas decorations have now been taken down and the house feels rather bare but this is good. I cant wait to get started on projects for the home. The first one will be the bathroom... currently it is in a severe state, back in October we started... erm make that Jeremy started to rip out the old bathroom suite but sadly after ripping the whole shower unit out and hacking nearly all the horrid tiles from the walls he discovered that a lot more work was in store. Some lovely person had decided to put cork tiles all over the wall under the tiles, now this may of been a good idea at some time but not for us. Well to cut a long story short we decided to wait until the new year to tackle the project again, Fortunately I have the best bit designing it :) Currently we have decided to tong and groove the bottom half all the way around, then plaster the top part. We are just having a hard time choosing which Farrow and Ball paint colour to choose, we have tried over six tester pots but none are quite right so the hunt will go on. Other than that we have the bathroom suite, taps shower well the list goes on... all waiting in the dinning room, this also means that once they have gone and the bathroom is done I can re decorate the Dinning room... this bit I am really excited about (Jeremy doesn't know that bit yet though..he he).

This is one of my Christmas presents! A Cath Kidston Handbag... I love it, and its the perfect size too, well a girl can never have too many bags.

Sadly the light is too poor to take a picture so I used the Cath Kidston one.

I am currently in the process of going through all my interior magazines and ripping out ideas/styles to inspire... I hope it's not just me but does any body keep every copy of every magazine, well new year and new start so I have organised them all and I'm currently in the process of ripping them up then recycling the bits I don't want.

Has any one else started planning to re decorate?

Bye for now, I'm off to sort yet more magazines.
xFaye

Happy New Year

We have had a lovely relaxing Christmas, thank you for all your get well wishes for Ella she was back to her normal self just before Christmas began, sadly I had got the dreaded cold from her for Christmas but I'm back to normal now... On a personal note, this year I decided to have money for Christmas. Boring I know and not much fun on Christmas day but the pleasure kicked in shortly, well that was as soon as the sales started. I have been a little naughty and gone a little shopping mad but will have lots of lovely pictures to show you all in the coming weeks that is when it's all delivered.

This new year has filled me with optimism and excitement and I have even started 'Spring Cleaning'... eager I know but it just has to happen when you get a new interior books.

Personally our lives are doing well and Ella is growing in to a fantastic little person who I am extremely proud of. All the new little things she tells me are so lovely to hear.

Another great pleasure is that my business is going from strength to strength and The Chic Country Home will also be joining the lovely Not On The High Street website in January 2008. I have been very lucky to have had some fantastic feedback from various people and customers and it really fills me with pleasure that I am doing something I really love.

We are planning on doing a lot to the house this year so I will have to get busy taking photographs to show you all how we get on.

My main aim for 2008 is to live in the moment and enjoy life!

I hope you have all had a happy relaxing Christmas and will have a great 2008. I'm also planning on doing shorter post more often so fingers crossed and I will be back soon.

Bye for now,

xFaye

Christmas is nearly here...

So why am I not ready yet???

My poor little Ella is sadly very ill with a horrid cough, cold and high temp so any Christmas crafting/outings are out until she is well again... lots of cuddles and rest should do us all the world of good.



As usual the business has been taking over ever spare minute of the day so sadly no time for any blogging, thank you every one who left a lovely comment on my last post :)

I will be writing yet another list of things I want to do before Christmas.



I thought it would be nice to show you a few pictures of our home, Ella and I had a fantastic time dressing our trees, she has such a creative eye, I was amazed at how well she dressed both trees, in fact only a couple of adjustments were needed.

Every year we have two trees, one in the dinning room that is filled with all of our 'delicate' crystal and glass Christmas decorations all white, silver and pale blue, lovely... plus they also co-ordinate beautifully with all my vintage glass that I display in the dinning room.

The second tree in our lounge is filled with only handmade decorations which all follow a traditional colour scheme, both rooms are a complete contrast but so special (sadly I've not yet got around to photographing that room as the light is so drab at the moment).

I decided last year to keep one of these Nativity sets back for Ella, which she loves and re arranges constantly.

I couldn't quite bring myself to cut up these lovely vintage necklaces so decided to dress them on one of my vintage glass cake stands, they catch the light beautifully when the votive is lit.





I still have lots of glass chandelier droplets that I'm going to attach to ribbons then hang at the window.





I hope you are all having a lovely time getting ready for Christmas.




*** Wishing you all a lovely relaxing Christmas ***

xFaye

*** Getting ready for Christmas ***

Hello again...

It has been such a long time since my last blog but it wasn't my choice I'm afraid, blame my business...

We have had lots of gorgeous stock delivered ready for the run up to Christmas, hence my lack of contact with the blogging world. Instead I have been busy photographing, listing, designing and making things for the website, we have just launched our Christmas range too which I really love this year...




Now that I have nearly thankfully finished the huge amount of 'things to do' regarding the business I can start to enjoy the run up to Christmas. The weather is starting to get really cold now and I find this always helps me to get in the Christmas mood, lots of cosy evenings planned in front of the fire getting the home ready for Christmas. Ella has already started crossing off the days to December in eager anticipation for when the tree will go up, she's gets really excited every time we see Christmas lights and decorations in the shops:)

Since having Ella I have really started to embrace the whole run up to Christmas... and this includes putting the tree up on the 1st December. We started our own family traditions when Ella was born, so we are all starting to get excited about all the fun things we will be making and baking... plus a trip to our local Library will be in store this week so week can get some of the fantastic children's Christmas craft books to give us yet more ideas. I will be adding a few new traditions this year now that Ella is that little bit older (31/2). I have been on the look out for a ginger bread house kit, so if anyone has any suggestions on where I can buy one or even a recipe for the ginger bread (that works), please add a message :)






I'm currently turning my creative side to the gifts I will make, I hope my lovely sister doesn't read this but I have a few ideas on what I will make her... I think it will be a large cosmetic bag/roll that she can use on holiday, then fill it with some lovely bathing products. For once I can't decide what to make for my mum, last year I made a lovely sewing box, using a box file which I covered in fabric, then made sections inside which I filled with lots more handmade sewing paraphernalia including a embroidered felt case for the embroidery scissors, button box, needle case and a cupcake pin cushion. She loved it so much that she cried with happiness when she saw it.

I'm really looking forward to looking at every ones blogs this Christmas, it will be lovely to see what all you creative people are busy making, I especially love to see peoples homes during Christmas too :)

I hope I'm not the only one who is suffering from a serious case of 'I cant wait for Christmas.'
How are all your Christmas preparations going???

xFaye

Cosy

This is one of my favourite things to do... I just love to sit and stare at our fire in the dinning room.
We actually only made this into a working fire place last Christmas. Strangely I wasn't keen to have a real... working fire until we re organised the dinning room. We have an original fireplace in the lounge too, but for some reason we actually paid a lot of money to have a ' looks like a real fire' gas coal one put in, I don't know what we were thinking, ah yes I remember... white walls... fire = smoke= mess lol.

Sorry I will take a picture of the lounge fire place tomorrow.


When we bought our house both fire places were covered by nasty wooden boards with what I now know were lethal gas fires... one had a minuscule hole in the pipe. The mantle was also covered in around ten layers of gloss paint. We had no idea of what we would find behind the boards but we didn't care, it was one of the first things we did, I couldn't believe it when we managed to remove the gas fire and boards to reveal a gorgeous original Victorian fire place, complete with tiles and hearth. The whole fire had been painted in a horrid cream gloss but after what felt like ages (two weeks) of pain staking removal with a fantastic product... similar to covering the whole fire place with putty then covering it with cling film. We revealed the original fire tiles. They were in perfect condition, much to do we suspected with the horrid paint keeping them preserved for years. Our house was built in 1850 so it really was a lovely surprise to find them.


The dinning room was not so exciting.... only a blank space where once there would of been a lovely cast iron insert. We were lucky to find an insert in lour local antiques center and with a little hard work we have created our fire... it makes the dinning room the heart of our home during winter. We also moved our old sofa into the dinning room... so this afternoon Ella and I have been enjoying the warmth of the fire. Ella loves to sit at the table and draw while I sit and knit on the sofa and the best bit is there is no TV so only relaxing, reading and crafting occurs when the fire is lit. . . ah I love it :)





Please excuse the quality of the photographs, my camera doesn't like taking pictures with poor light.

My current project... knitting a cosy scarf

and reading these books from the library...

I hope you are all feeling cosy too...

xFaye

Treasures

I really must post more often, in fact once I have finished updating the website (mammoth job, made only worse by being a perfectionist) oh and got the new products and then the Christmas stock listed I really will post more, may be I should just do lots of tiny posts... um I will have a think on that one.

I love these!

Well here are the photographs of some of my lovely car boot treasures that I have promised to post, the candle sticks are among the best finds, we think they are pewter, and they are so French in style... I just love them.

Love the old bathroom cabinet, it was hidden by a ridiculous painting, but my keen eye spotted it and for a mere £5.00 it had to be mine, perfect for when we fit the new bathroom.

Here are a couple of pictures of our new Handmade section...

I'm off to get on with the website now...

xFaye

P.s

Oh I just remembered, here is that letter I wrote, it turned into a card as I actually don't have any writing paper, I may have to get some for Christmas :) I really enjoyed making the card, I nearly always make cards for my family at Christmas and Birthdays.