The Interior DIYer
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Project ‘Less 365’ update

I haven’t written about our Project Less 365 challenge for a while, but it is alive and well in our household. I’ve been holding strong to one of my favourite quotes from William Morris, which perfectly captures a less is more mantra – 


This week we did some serious downsizing. Our local Debra charity shop has a great service where you can organize a time for them to collect furniture from your home which = perfect for us as we don’t have a car.

The old chair in our bedroom was the first on my list. I had planned on revamping it years ago, but just never did. I hope by sending it to greener pastures it will force us to hang up our clothes, as opposed to what we’re currently doing; seeing just how much clothes we can pile onto it before it breaks. We’re also waving goodbye to our DVD and game shelves; I found a more discrete place to hide our favourite flicks, so we have no need for our shelves anymore.

For a couple of months we’ve been throwing our unwanted clothes into the spare bedroom setting aside clothes to give away. This pic does zero justice to the scale of clothes in those bags; it amounted to 25kg {aka, 55lbs / 4 stone} of clothes. Yeah, I’m still sore from carrying that down the stairs. And there’s still more to go.

Massive added bonus – we have our spare bedroom back! Our poor spare bedroom had been our dumping ground for years. For college it hid portfolios, architectural drawing boards, samples and college work. It’s been covered in teapots, teacups, dresses and hydrangeas in preparation for our wedding. And also stored everything we’ve planned on giving away to charity shops, so opening the door to our messy spare bedroom induced heart palpitations for a long time. That is, until this week. YES. 

For any of you looking to partake in the Project Less 365 challenge, it couldn’t be easier. I keep a dedicated charity shop bag in the cupboard and when I come across something we no longer use / is in need of a new home, I pop it in the bag. Once said bag is full / getting heavy, I drop it into the nearest charity shop I pass. The aim being to donate one item per day on average. Or, as I tend to do, binge-donate. You can see Laura Howard’s original 365 post here. Couldn’t be easier. Less is more, peeps. xx A
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Lately + ‘Less 365’ update

Last week I surrendered. I was in Marks & Spencer, nowhere near the home department, picking up something completely unrelated, when I found myself going up the escalator. I had to see if any Conran cloche‘s survived the sale. And there it was …

… and home it came {on the bus, meaning the most terrifying and awkward journey home}. All 52cm x 24cm of glassy clochy goodness. And if it means anything, this picture does it zero justice. I’m thinking some of the below action needs to be mashed into it {it’s temporarily housing one of our naff vintage vases} … 
Gold spray paint tutorial can be found right on over here. While on the topic of revamping,  I {with the help of parental unit male}, jazzercised our tie backs by replacing our existing ones {which were a bit meh} with some crystal door knobs. Much more lovlier me thinks, and for next to nothing, a smidgen of sophistication was added to our living room.

To balance out my cloche purchase, apartment got attacked over the past week or so thanks to my continued obsession that is Project Less 365. On Saturday I hawk-eyed our book collection and ruthlessly culled the unnecessary novels, all of which will be enjoyed by someone else. 

And our spare bedroom below, which now houses all my Project Less 365 items which are patiently waiting to be re-homed. It’s quite therapeutic the amount of relief you get from this de-cluttering process. We all have way too much shit, and this year {for me}, it’s all about back to basics. You’ve got to be cut-throat otherwise you’ll never get rid of anything. 
xx A

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Custom Christmas colours – part 2

In keeping with my project ‘less 365‘ purging, this year I decided to revamp our existing Christmas decorations in stead of buying in new sets and adding to the overall shower of shite in our apartment. Also contributing to the greater good of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle‘. 
I however, will warn you in advance – the pictures are a bit crap. Have you ever tried taking pictures of Christmas decorations, sans Christmas tree? It took me three attempts to arrange them, before shoving them into a crystal bowl . Onwards to my shitty kitchen pictures!

In keeping with our burgundy, aubergine and metallic decor, I wrapped, taped, sprayed and vajazzled our existing ornaments to give them a little holiday face lift. Nothing too strenuous. Something that could be tackled whilst in front of the TV and wine glass in hand. Well, I set it down at times.
Since I have a plethora of yarn at hand, the above was the easiest approach I took to my baubles. It works great on glittered baubles, as they have a bit of a sandpaper-esque texture, and the yarn stays on with no fuss. I have varying degrees of yarned balls, from completely covered, to bits of gold peeking through. 
I’m quite proud of this one as it gives the most impact for least amount of effort. I took a plain silver bauble, secured a piece of double-sided tape around the middle, and smooshed black glitter onto the tape. And voila! Instant glam, and no glue involved. Top that baby with some lovely ribbon, and there you have it.
I have a couple more ideas for our decorations, but I didn’t get around to making them all just yet. 
For the record, here’s what our decorations looked like before. Nothing wrong with them, and they’ve served us well for a number of years, but they’re your standard department store decorations and I wanted something new this year. Even old treasured Christmas teddy gets a new pink bow. 

More pictures and ideas to come once we decorate this weekend! Really looking forward to it as I heart Christmas so much. Classic tunes, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and a bit of mulled wine never hurt anyone. 
Happy Friday everyone! xx A

Custom Christmas – part 1, part 2, and part 3.