My craft room takes a step closer

You'll probably remember that when we put the finishing touches to our porch I was left with a "spare" set of pigeon shelves. I quickly thought they'd look great in our study and my plan to transform that room into my craft room started to take shape.  Of course I didn't mention this plan to MOH as I was certain he wouldn't agree, but what I did sell to him was that these shelves would be a great way to store some of my craft items and would free up some other space. He heard this as I wanted to hang these in the study and fill it with more of my junk!  

Which I guess is a loose interpretation of my idea. This is how they ended up.

LOADED, PRETTY AND FUNCTIONAL STORAGE

Not much junk there, hey?  Well I don't think so either, MOH has another view.

Despite making a template when we hung the first set of shelves, this was nowhere to be found. I'd probably cleared it out in a spring cleaning frenzy - that, or I've put it somewhere so safe I just haven't remembered where yet.  Please tell me I'm not the only one that does that?

A CARDBOARD TEMPLATE PATCHED TOGETHER WITH WASHI TAPE

With a new template made and hastily mended with some washi tape it wasn't long before the screws were in and we were trying to hook the shelves onto them. This time we'd hung it higher and it wasn't so easy to notch it into place, with a few scratches of the paintwork - thankfully we've not repainted yet, phew! - it was on the wall.

HUNG SUCCESSFULLY!

So it was time to fill it up. In the middle row I added boxes, twine, handmade cards, my pincushion, some notebooks, a pen pot and a fabric tray:

HANDMADE CARDS, TWINE, BOXES AND A PINCUSHION

A BOX OF WASHI, A FABRIC TRAY AND A MAGAZINE BOW

SOME NOTEBOOKS, POSTCARDS AND A POT FOR PENS

On the bottom there were storage boxes of ribbons, trimmings and bias binding, a pot of crochet hooks, some wool that I've promised to knit MOH some socks with and a photo frame waiting to be filled:

RIBBONS, BIAS BINDING AND TRIMMINGS

SPACE FOR A PHOTO, CROCHET HOOKS AND WOOL FOR SOCKS

Which left room on the top shelf for more functional storage of buttons and threads, card blanks, my letter stamps and another pretty box and a ball of wool that my plan was to crochet some coasters from.  I still need to learn to crochet, one day soon maybe!

THREAD AND PLENTY OF BUTTONS

MORE WOOL AND A PRETTY BOX

CARD BLANKS, ENVELOPES AND MY LETTER STAMPS

Stepping back I was quite pleased with how it looked, but surprised how quickly I'd filled it!  The one in the porch still has some empty spaces because I'm looking for the right things to fill them - I think I could have filled this one twice over, but don't tell MOH!

And you can see it's alongside my new rainbow board too, with these two additions it's given this wall a brand new lease of life. 

And my craft room is really starting to come together - and MOH is resigned to the fact too!

The remaining three show gardens from the Ideal Home Show

Last week I shared the first three show gardens from this year's Ideal Home Show and today I'm sharing the remaining three. These are just as inspirational, and you'll see today why I needed to split these into two posts - I've too many photos and couldn't choose between them!

4. Three Flow, Chichester College

This garden, the literature says, is designed to flow with varying levels and features laid out in a spiral pattern and the design is made up of geometric shapes. The most notable of these is the eye-catching rebar dome which acts as a central focal point for the garden. 

I loved the dome and think it'd be great to replicate in a future garden - not my current garden sadly but it's an idea I'm storing away for the future. It looks simple but I suspect it's not that simple to replicate, but wouldn't it be fab.

I liked the planting in this garden too - lots of greens again - but this time we spherical clipped bushes and the always beautiful alliums.

There was one element I wasn't so keen on and that was the raised beds, although beautifully done and made from lovely material I thought they looked a little old-fashioned and at odds with the more modern dome shape. MOH liked them and thought I was being too critical, but they won't be making it into one of our gardens. For me they look a little bit too much like that fake cladding you used to (and probably still can) get. What do you think?

That said, I did like the lights in the raised beds.

5. Wellbeing Yoga Retreat, Capel Manor College

This garden aims to recreate the feeling people get when they go on a yoga retreat and the garden is meant for a young couple in London, who both have a challenging work-life balance. And it was definitely a calm garden, and while I liked the ferns this was my least favourite garden.

The planting is dense - which I like - and the grasses and bamboos provide movement. This garden also had rusty corten steel elements, which we saw quite a bit of at the show, but even that didn't do it for me. I think the concept is just too simple for me. Sorry.

6. Salaam (Peace), Shuttleworth College

Now this garden is completely different to the others, and strikingly so. It's inspired by the courtyard gardens and colours of Marrakech, which I have fond memories of as that's where we honeymooned immediately after our wedding back in 2007.  The garden is set out as a mini Chahar Bagh, a Persian garden style which divides the space into four parts.

There's bold colours, tiled furnishings and light from solar and LED lamps. 

The planting is simple - and on reflection quite minimal - and uses lots of architectural plants like Trachycarpus and olive trees.

There's planters on castors which can be used around the garden, or even indoors.

So there you are, six very different gardens from this year's Ideal Home Show. Each had elements I either have or would have in my garden, or simply parts that I admire even if they're not for me.  The one thing I took from looking at these gardens, is that I wouldn't want to be without a garden, whatever size that might be.

Lots of inspiring garden projects

Today I've something a little different for you as I've joined with some other bloggers to share lots of inspiring garden projects. I'm sharing three of my what I think are inspiring posts. There's painting, sewing, some pottering and some scrubbing - so quite a mix and I hope you find something that appeals to you from my mosts and from the other blogger's posts which you'll find below the photos. 

1. Revamping some chairs from eBay

I bought the chairs on eBay with grand intentions, but then left them in the garden for quite a while before attacking them with some fantastic yellow paint.  With them painted I then decided to make some cushions for them, without a pattern and without too much sewing experience and with piping.  Well, let's just say there's nothing like learning on the job and if I can do this, so can you.

Read more about how I made some dull white garden chairs into these jazzy yellow ones here.

2. Potting on houseplants

This is a much more recent post but hopefully no less inspiring. Here I've taken my scraggy aloe veras and re-potted them into new compost and giving each of the babies their own pot. The result is I have a lot of pots of aloe veras now as my plant really does seem quite promiscuous.

And the best bit, the pottering in the greenhouse - it's the perfect way to escape and have some time to yourself.

3. Some elbow grease for wooden garden furniture

This post just goes to show how productive an afternoon with a scrubbing brush and a bottle of kitchen spray can be.  Ideally it's best done in the sun and after an afternoon scrubbing dirt and grime, not only are the results amazing but you've really deserved a G&T.

You can see in more detail just how I achieved these results here.

But that's not all, here's some more inspiring posts for you:

Catherine from Growing Family has three great family gardening projects, she has been sowing a mini wildflower meadow, growing vegetables in containers and making new plants for free. 

Becky has 3 lovely garden projects to share, a secret garden, making a herb planter and flower pressing.  

Over at Fresh Design Blog, Rachel has ideas for making your garden bird-friendly, planting sunflower seeds and essential spring weeding and pruning jobs to do now. 

Penny has three easy but great fun projects children will enjoy helping with, she has been making miniature gardens, creating a scarecrow and planting wild flowers. 

Cathy from Wishful Wonderings has been looking for inspiration and creating a herb box for her small garden.