I Love...Moodboards

I've always loved putting moodboards together. I used to cut pictures out of magazines as a child to come up with a scheme for a new bedroom or fantasy holiday. The moodboards continued through my Art College days where we had to learn all about colour theory and into my textile degree where we had to pick complementary colours for our woven fabrics. 

I then spent a few years working in a textile studio which I thoroughly enjoyed as part of my job was putting moodboards together and then mixing the exact shades of paint to match the chosen colours. 

I continued to make my own moodboards for room schemes and most recently for some wedding inspiration for when our big day eventually comes around! 

Image from my Wedding Inspiration board on Pinterest

I was overjoyed with the invention of Pinterest...online moodboards for me to play with! So easy to navigate and pin beautiful images..I have lost hours and hours on the site.

Another fabulous site I have discovered through Pinterest is Design Seeds. The site has the most beautiful colour palettes and I find it really inspiring. It takes me back to my Art College projects and paint mixing days of picking a painting or colourful image and matching up the colours. 

Berry Blues

Sweet Tones

Shell Tones

There are so many themes and colourways - a fabulous source for any new decorating scheme or project. I've already added some to my Pinterest boards for most rooms in my house. Just need someone to pop round and decorate now...

How does your garden grow?

 We've been in our new house for just over a year now and with the house came a lovely garden. It's not quite as we'd like it - there is a lot of work to do but after an incredibly full year of work and babies we've finally had a little bit of time for some gardening.

the garden in February snow

I love being outside and having all this new space is wonderful - I never thought I would enjoy the gardening but I've surprised myself! I've been enjoying getting my hands dirty digging around in the border and filling plant pots with new seedlings.

surrounded by trees

the honeysuckle has gone mad!

monster blackberry bush

chives and a huge sage plant behind

finally some sunshine!

Over the last month we've been growing seeds and planting all sorts of different flowers and plants. We got some free seeds from Innocent in their packs of smoothies - sunflower basil and violets and Alfie was given a packet of peas to plant from his school. He has been helping me at every step and he loves to go and check to see if anything has made an appearance. 

seeds from Innocent

easy to plant

waiting for some growth...

the seedlings make an appearance

the basil grew really well!

..and so did the violets 

He also loved the fact that he got to try our first strawberry (actually a pesky bird took the very first one...I blame Mr Blackbird for being the stealth strawberry stealer...it had his beak marks all over it.) 

Last week we had the most enormous thunderstorms and flooding and I really thought this rain would never stop. It was also the day the Olympic Torch came through our town!! 

massive amounts of rain

Thursday 28th June..a new river in the town!

Thankfully as I write this post the back door is wide open and our eldest son is playing on the grass (resembles a small jungle at the moment...trying to get a fine day for mowing has been near impossible!!)

We've also been growing strawberries, foxgloves and californian poppies. Yesterday we also potted some pumpkin seeds and another sunflower...as the first one was gobbled by a slug overnight!

peas

foxgloves from my Dad

California Poppies

Charlie in the sage plant

So far we've had quite a success with most of the plants and we can't wait to see all the flowers appear so we get a flourish of colour. 

I'm just hoping that the month's-rainfall-in-two-days prediction for tomorrow doesn't come true or we may wake up to a boating lake rather than a lovely garden! 

peas continue to grow

lovely strawberries

A Mother's Choice

Apologies in advance for this slightly ranty post. As usual time has slipped away and the blog posts have been erratic but today I felt compelled to take to the laptop in full-on Mummy mode. It was triggered by a conversation this morning with a very lovely friend of mine who also writes a fabulous blog as a self-employed designer mum to a baby boy. Since admitting to making the choice to bottle feed her son she has been subjected to totally uncalled for nasty comments by a woman who calls herself a 'lactivist'. At first I wasn't exactly sure what one of these was but had a sneaking suspicion I knew where this was leading...my hackles were already up.
If you want to breast-feed, fine. If you can't or don't want to breast-feed, that's also fine...it's a choice. The 'lactivists' don't seem to get this at all and to me it's all a bit, well, odd. I even saw a cartoon on a lactivist page that said 'Breastfeeding - because in the Zombie Apocalypse you won't make it to the store for Formula" 
There's also a website selling 'lactivist' merchandise...I was quite taken aback. After seeing all the pro-breastfeeding products I was half expecting to also see a 'formula fed' section....'Failure To Launch' perhaps...

Don't get me wrong I have the utmost respect for breastfeeding mums BUT I also have the same respect for formula or bottle feeding mums. The important factor being that your baby is fed...that's all. We all know the 'breast is best' mantra but for some this is definitely not the best option or in other cases (like myself) totally impossible. I just don't understand this forced attitude towards breast feeding and basically making all other mums feel like complete failures. As I've said in other posts what new mums need most is support irrespective of their feeding choices. Every woman has already been through the birth which can be traumatic enough and even if all things go smoothly it takes a huge toll on the body. After that experience the last thing any mum needs to feel is a failure for simply trying to feed her baby.
My first son almost starved after his first week with me in hospital when we were told the feeding was all going well. He cried constantly and I knew something was wrong but the nurse insisted he was getting plenty of milk when in fact he'd hardly had a drop...there was no milk. I also had to deal with the fact that my massive row of stitches made it impossible for me to hold my baby anywhere near me so trying to breast feed whilst holding him backwards like a rugby ball was not easy to say the least!

Those pesky stitches...

After more tears, being manhandled by midwives at home and pumped like a prize cow, my other half took things into his own hands as he couldn't bear to see me or our son suffering and bought bottles and formula. Finally our baby was properly fed, calm and he slept! The relief was immense...but that feeling of failure remained.
Fast forward to son number 2 and I stood my ground. Apart from the first 5 hours after his birth when I was unconscious and the nurses tried to get him to feed, I was adamant I was not going to go through that horrendous experience again. I asked for a bottle of milk for him and anyone would have thought I'd asked for a bottle of bleach from the look on the nurse's face.

Evil formula-feeding mummy

The sad thing is that I was treated totally differently by some of the ward staff once I'd decided to bottle feed but at least I knew exactly how much milk my baby was getting and this time I felt strong enough to make my own choice...it didn't matter what anyone else thought.
I wonder how this 'lactivist' would feel if they found themselves in mine or my friend's position...what then? As with giving birth and life in general not everything goes to plan! My water birth quite frankly sank without trace.
Babies need to be fed and as long as they are healthy that's all that matters. What mums don't need is being subjected to abuse for doing their best for their baby.

Happy healthy little boys