Glass Jars, Mondays and Motivation

As you may have noticed, I'm a massive fan of glass jars and bottles. We have quite the collection in our house and I'm often looking for new ideas, tips and tricks as to what to do with them.

The dresser in our open-plan kitchen area in the last house, with recipe books and jars containing all sorts of useful things, from rice and sea salt to pasta, dried chillies, almonds and chick peas

I certainly don't think that this is the first time I've mentioned glass jars on my blog - and it probably won't be the last. I hope these pics inspire you as much as they do me.

I found a wonderful post on Iuliana's site, Procraftination Station this morning and it's just totally re-inspired me to get my a into g and get creative with the hundreds of jars we have floating around our house just begging to be re-purposed...

Hanging baby food jars with ribbon and flowers

So organised and efficient! I think I might need to rethink my current jar-strategy! How tidy and cute is this?

Love this centre-piece! Classically elegant, recycled, gorgeous! And the name tags in the jars are a cute touch too.

Uh-dorable! I want goldfish!

Perfect decoration for an office desk. Going to need some on my desk when this season rolls around...

Home-made terrariums in Consol or Mason jars.

How to get your jars ready for hanging. Twisted wire (although I think I'd put it right at the base of the neck), some sand and candles. So easy.

Love this centre-piece for a coffee table! Martha Stewart, of course:) So cute, so fresh! The rest of one's house would have to be so very tidy to pull this off as a centre-piece, so I think I'll skip this idea, as much as I do like it...

Painted jars as vases

Fairy lights in large glass jars. So pretty! And love the antique books as part of the table display, along with the paint brushes.

This actually kind of reminds me of the table decoration for the birthday brunch that I threw for my family.

Centre-piece of mismatched jars used as vases. Made extra-cute by the mismatched flowers - gave the table a bohemian, casual feel.

Left just two on when the food came out - still cute and quite striking though.

And now that I've done my post for today, I've got no excuse to keep procrastinating... I need to sort this apartment out for once and for all! And this week is the week. There is so much still to be donated, put into storage, taken out of storage, sanded, painted, made. And I have a sneaky suspicion that commercials season is just around the corner and this will be the last of my time off... Fingers crossed!

She's baaaack! A.k.a "Who ever said unpacking would be easy?"

After an almost unforgivable absence I'm happy to announce that as of this morning I'm back online:) Over 2 weeks in the new apartment and finally Telkom has reconnected us!

I have to admit something: I completely overestimated the size of the apartment! On the day we moved in, I came ahead to open up and I tell you, my jaw nearly dropped when I saw how small it really was! OK granted, places do generally look smaller when they're empty, but I think that in my mind I'd built the place up so much that it was quite a shock. From a 4-bedroom house to a 2-bedroom apartment... Ouch!

However, I am still totally in love with the place although I've had to put a lot more into storage than my over-active imagination expected to. And I've thinned out my wardrobe with such a compulsion that I started to get worried that I was renouncing materialism or something, Hare Krishna-style. Here's a sneak-peak of what the place looked like the evening that we moved in...

I'm not entirely sure that I should be allowing the general public to see that, but what the hectic! One thing I can be super-proud of showing off is our new emporium king-size extra-length extra-height bed:) Yay! I can't tell you how awesome it is! Even my favourite insomniac has been averaging 6 or 7 hours a night on this baby! It's phenomenal! The only other pic that I have of the bed was taken a few hours later - room still a complete mess, but at least you get an idea as to the size of the bed - 2m x 2m:

Ok now I'm hoping to get some advice from the readers regarding some furniture that I want to fix up and change. Please let me know if you've had any experience with anything similar.

My first concern is my white-washed coffee table that I want to sand and stain dark wood in keeping with the rest of the furniture in the lounge. Is it safe to even consider attempting doing this inside? Even if I sand it by hand? How long would it take to sand a table like this by hand? Am I crazy to even consider doing it inside and by hand? Even if I cover everything in sheeting, am I looking at a dust-disaster? Should I already be turning my garage into my little workshop? Pic of the table below...

Once I've figured out how I'm going to do this particular piece, I have a few more pieces that need work - from bookshelves to dressing tables and mirrors - but they all require some sanding to get things started...

Will be posting more regularly for the next little while. The end of my winter holiday is drawing near, so I'm going to be making the most of the last few weeks. You might also start noticing some changes to my blog - I've bought and downloaded a 'study guide' from The Blog Guidebook which I'll be working my way through in the next few days.

Xxx
Belle

Get packing, girl!

So here it begins... The Great, Big Packing Operation.

1 house full of EVERYTHING from the separate lives of 2 adults - about to be sifted, sorted, thrown out, recycled, given away, repurposed, disposed of, etc etc etc until only the bare shell of necessity is left - and only just enough for our new 2-bed apartment! And although there's a big job ahead of us, I can't tell you how it excites me.

I know that I have been dragging so much - for lack of a better word - crap with me. From Ballito, the London years, 7 years in Cape Town as a single girl right up until now. And I can't tell you what a liberating feeling it is:) In an earlier post HERE I detailed my plan to minimise my wardrobe - well, I started on that project yesterday and let me tell you it felt amazing shedding so much dead weight.I have 4 huge boxes of stuff that I've cleared out from my wardrobe. I reckon I only have about 30% of my original wardrobe left - but it is 30% of stuff that I love, that I wear, that actually fits me and that suits my age (yeah, ok, I'm 29 and 1 week today! I have to start growing up at some point).  And I still feel like i could be more ruthless!!!

Anyhow, I will keep you posted on my progress and I think some pics will be very necessary shortly - words just don't do it justice. I'm off to gym then to tackle either the garage or the downstairs storeroom! In the meantime, here is some great advice that I found on 320 Sycamore:

Tips & Tricks to make moving out - and moving in - easier...

Surely consolidation never hurt?

In keeping with yesterday’s theme and this wintery introspection that I find myself knee-deep in, I’m going to share a little bit about my next big project... I've had a lot of time to think this winter and reflect on my life and my lifestyle, and I've realised that I'm doing it ALL WRONG!

Ok, picture this: 

A spare room being used as my dressing room, built-in closets literally bulging with clothing - half of which I never wear, overflow of boots under the dressing table, excess of t-shirts living on the book shelf because there's just no other space! 

And when I tell you that I never have anything to wear, I mean it! I've spoken to a number of people about this phenomenon and we've put it down to this: dilution. I simply have too much and this dilutes any decisions and selections that I may make, I have chosen quantity over quality and the result is that I've been sacrificing my own sense of style.

So I've come up with a plan: a spring clean and consolidation of proportions never before known to me! I'm going to be so incredibly ruthless that I will whittle my wardrobe down to the bare essentials (hmmm... pun intended) and find myself left with the start of a very fine capsule wardrobe! 

To be honest, I am so incredibly bored with the clothing that I currently have that I can't wait to streamline it - will get my mom and / or some friends 'round for some serious wardrobe-culling! 

Luckily my lovely and very creative friend, Janice, has picked up on a great trend for all of our extra, soon-to-be-shed clothing (I'm not the only one in need of some sorting out!): she'll be hosting a 'style swap' sometime next month in CT - I'll post more details closer to the time. I love this article I found on hosting the perfect clothing swap party: here!

Ok, so back to basics it is.  As much as I have loved my over-indulgence in clothing and the dream of having a wardrobe that looks like this:

The truth is that unless you have help 7 days a week or an obsessive-compulsive disorder, a cupboard this neat can't possibly exist! Can it? 

Do quite like this scantily-clad little clothing rail. Less is more, right? Oh yes, and pics of these cupboards are courtesy of the ever-wonderful {this is glamorous}.

And while on the subject of clothing and creativity, I've fallen in love with this lace Kimono that I saw on the BurdaStyle website.

So, in the name of Quality over Quantity, yeehah! Here's to finding a new style for the older, wiser, more elegant me:)