La Paisible

The last few days I have been looking at different blogs on home decorating. I absolutely love doing crafty things, (does this tell you I am a very indoorsy person?) and I have become inspired to take action and decorate my house so I have a place I am proud of living in.

I have a beautiful early 20th century cottage, which has been very nicely painted and a cream picket fence. Some nice flowers, in the front and back. I want my home to be my La Paisible.

Sadly inside, it's a different ball game- it is just chaos- with clashing furniture.

I am a very chaotic person, I have never lived in a tidy house.
Clean yes, tidy no.
This morning I was thinking of my best friend and something he said to me years ago, he told me that I was "the most Organised Disorganised person" he had ever met (how you come up with a definition for that one is up to the you).
Yes, It does annoy me having to hunt around for items. But this is going to change, so bring on twenty eleven I say!

I should note down my sources of inspirations, so when I look back on this post; I can turn to things that have inspired me into action.
(and in case you would like to have a look)

• My best friends
• Young House Love
• Book- What would Audrey do? by Pamela Keogh
• Notebook Magazine (publication has now ceased- what a shame! It was the best magazine around. However, the website is still running)
• my Beautiful dog
• my new stainless steel dishwasher (out of all the appliances you buy for the kitchen, I think this is the most functional appliance- I absolutely adore it!! I highly recommend having a dishwasher, if you can!)

What has been helping me is that the last few weeks I have implemented 'a place for everything' for a few items. I cannot believe how much of a dream it was to find it, use it then put it away. It was effortless, I should do this wide scale and apply the principal to the whole house.

I haven't created a moodboard (or moodbook) of decorating styles I like and how I like certain decorations. This will help me to put everything together and see a recurring theme. Young House Love says not to make everything matchy-matchy but tie things in together.

Being a person of limited means with a budget of $1200 and no eye for decoration or style, I am going to decorate the whole house on the cheap, I undertake this monstrosity of a challenge with the best of my ability. I will be sticking to my budget for the whole year by;

• accepting freebies via freecyle or gumtree
• finding discounted or clearance items
• hunting around the house and find items that will make do and utilise them differently
• Anything that is useless, collecting dust and wasting space, I will either freecyle them or sell them online.

I have several rooms to cover;

• Bedroom
• Study room
• Hall way
• Lounge room
• Kitchen
• Laundry
• Bathroom

My garden will have a separate budget, so it will have a budget of about $150 dollars. Again the same rules apply when doing it up.

The next few posts will have more detail for each room.

Stay tuned.

Miracle Cleaner...

I am not one for commercially made cleaners for cleaning my house. As I worked as a cleaner many moons ago, for one year, commercially made cleaners make me choke and cough on the vapour. Ugh!

Now I can have my house smelling clean and fresh, like I scrubbed it within an inch of its life with bleach all day long. For very little outlay and effort, I introduce you to the Miracle Cleaner! I sourced this from the Simple Savings website. I can't tell you how much money this site has saved me over the years. The membership fee is well worth it's money, in my opinion.

Ingredients you need:

1.5L water
250mL vinegar
40mL dish washing liquid
40mL eucalyptus
4 teasp dish washing soda

Mix in a small bucket and decant into a spray bottle. Viola! Miracle cleaner!

Store the rest in an old used milk bottle.


I made some small changes:

• I used 20mL dish washing liquid has I had the concentrated one on hand.
• I also used 20mL eucalyptus as I found it very strong.

You can also use other oils like lavender instead. I am not a fan of lavendar but other people might like it. I would LOVE to have a vanilla smelling one.

DON'T use this on timber surfaces, it will strip the polish and shine off. I use use vinegar for timber surfaces and wipe.

Happy cleaning!

Designing....

Spent quite a bit of time this morning looking at backgrounds for blogs. So many are so pretty, I looked at so many, tested each one I liked.

I found a few with butterflies but decided against some of them. I picked this one, as I felt it was important to make sure the lines and colours were clean enough not to be distracted by all the pretty colours and pictures. So I kept it simple with black and white with added colours on fonts.

I found the background I chose from The Cutest Blog on the Block.

Goodbye 2009, Welcome 2010!

Visualise then Realise!

The year 2009 has been a pretty crap year for quite a few people I know, even more so for people overseas who have lost so much due to the Global Financial Crisis. I feel more for those that live in Third World countries, they suffer far more than people in Developed countries.

I went overseas a few years back, unfortunately I had to come back due to illness, but the upside of all the upheaval of the time.. Even though I went to countries that were far more wealthier than a Third World country, it struck and astounded me so much how much more visible poverty was outside of Australia. That is something I remember far more than anything else on my trip to the Northern Hemisphere.

Anyway, it's been a long two years for me, trying to get better physically and mentally. I have just spent the Christmas break lounging around, doing absolutely nothing (which was great by the way) and I've just realised exactly what my problem was! I had a negative mindset!

It is wrong on so many levels. I need to change my thinking, to the way it used to be. Get off my bum and be a happy and positive woman, or I'm never going to be one. I'm an Australian, for goodness sake- I have everything to be happy about! I AM living in the lucky country, there is no doubt about that. So little time, so much to do!

Last night, browsing on my favorite website, Simple Savings, and came across a thread that had a link to the book called, The Game of Life written by Florence Shinn. Well worth a read, if you have the time. Even though this book has strong Christian links and references (Please note that I am not a practising Christian nor I follow ANY religion, and never will), it does make an interesting reading about changing your mindset- 'ask and you will recieve' kind of stuff.

Sales tactics...

I got thinking while I was in the bath last evening, thinking about how I needed to purchase a new bottle of hairspray, and how I had to remember the brand name for it as it's convincingly the best hairspray I've come across for my hair. I have very fine hair, and using any supermarket hairspray makes my hair look like I haven't washed it for a week, or better yet, a dole bludger with bad roots from the back suburbs.

Anyway, I got thinking about sales people and their tactics they use to sell their wares. I was recalling the time the woman was advising me to buy this particular brand because it was so good "uses it personally" for her hair.

Is that the case when sales people are trying to sell something? Do they REALLY use it or are they just trying to make a sale?

I want

The best poem I've ever come across, read it in a magazine eons ago! (hah i'm so old not!)
It's so true through the hard times... when you want to hide, but want to stand tall and proud too.

*~*~**

I want.

I want to let go
Just be free,
So I am happy
Like I want to be.

I want to overcome
The pain I feel,
I want to run
'Til my heart can heal.

I want to forget
The problems on my mind,
Just turn my back
And forget what's behind.

I want to shield
My love away,
I want to ignore
What my heart has to say

I want to be me
I don't want to hide,
The person I really am
I want to decide.

**~*~*

First useless tester blog

Seeing how everything works.