For the love of maps

I LOVE maps. I mean LOVE them. I love to stare at them, work out where i am, how to get to another place, remember it all and give it a go in real life. Then i like to stare at old maps and think how unbelievable it is that people were able to get it so wrong and yet so right at times with regards to where places are.

My love for maps means that I am one of those who still loves to check out the London A-Z before i need to go somewhere new. I dont really like google maps, it just feels wrong relying on a little dot to tell me im going in the right direction.

Why am i telling you this?

Well, last weekend i was in heaven pouring over my new london cycling guide maps i got in the post, check them out....amazing!You can order the free guides here. Adam had to forcefully remove them from my hands so that i would actually leave the flat and do something with my weekend but he also came up with a clever solution to indulge in my map love.

The answer? Maps Coasters.

Now, these are no new idea. In fact im sure there's a million of them floating around etsy and everywhere else but Adam has no idea of that world so we decided to do it ourselves with some trial and error.

How did we do it?
We headed to lewisham hoping that the charity shops would have some old maps. They didn't. Then i thought we should chance having a look in the pound shops, you never know what they have. Well lucky us. We got a 2012 version of the Collins British road map, along with four coasters and some book covering in the 99p store....that 1 penny means everything!

For some reason, this map includes Ireland in it.....not part of Britain but I was happy because it meant i got to include my lovely hometown as one of the coasters.

 We cut out sections of the map to size. Before we could stick the cutouts on to the coasters we peeled the thin film of plastic off the top of the coasters.
We then stuck the map cutouts on with PVA glue...lots of it. I think each coaster took 3-4 coats of the glue.
I was hoping that the glue would be enough to seal them but it wasn't so we stuck some clear book covering on top and it seems to have worked a treat.

Adam has decided though that if we make them again, or if you guys would like to try it out, sticking the book covering onto the map cutouts first and then sticking the whole map cover onto the coaster would work better. Why? As the maps were quite then paper the glue soaked right through and made them wrinkle up a little bit when drying.
Overall thought I'm pretty happy with them, for £1.98 we have four new coasters that our more our style than the originals!

Am I th only one who loves maps? Chloe x

Knitted cushion cover

The quest continues.

I've been trying to keep going with knitting and learn new techniques and stitches.

If you've looked at my knitting pinterest board you'll have seen there a quite a few knitted cushion covers on there. I couldn't control myself during December.....all i wanted was more cushions everywhere!

I took inspiration from this pin.

Knitting the cover was easy peesy....just knit the whole way. I had a small cushion insert lying around and used it. It's more on the rectangle side of square. For the life of me i can't remember how many stitches i cast on or how many rows a knit...bit of a shame but not a complete disaster....it's finished now so if i ever make another one ill just make it up as i go along as i did on this one.

The only bad bit that happened with this project was the mattress stitching.

I got a lovely knitting book for Christmas and it looks like it has the answer to everything. All the abbreviations and how to stitch them. Unfortunately I'm not so good at reading knitting instructions.

Hello Youtube. What a life saver. I spent ages trying to figure it out by myself but why bother.....there's tonnes of helpful videos out there that take no time to watch and are way easier than trying to mentally work out what written directions are trying to tell you to do.

One side

Then the other

My favourite one i came across was Nancy's video.

In no time at all i had all the side stitched up and the cushion looking semi respectable.

Sadly i did make a mistake (as always) and stitched up one of the sides on the wrong side and then when it came to turning the cover the right way round it looks ridiculous.....but i hide that side from myself now so it's all good.

It's nice to have something easy to knit that then also has a little challenge to it. I'm getting ready to mattress stitch everything now!!

What's your preference, videos or written instructions?

Chloe x

Winter nests

Red heart cushion, love cushion, cable knit cushion
Three hearts, 

As it steadily gets colder I am steadily getting more and more desperate to create a cosy nest that will be my bed. When i was in town getting some bits and bobs at the weekend i noticed that BHS has a sale on. So in i popped to have a peek around. I was not dissappointed. The sale is on nearly everything that is lovely. I nabbed a brushed cotton (or flannel as i would like to call it) red check duvet set and stared at all the lovely cushions and throws that they have to offer. This then started my spiral into winter heaven. Above are the four cushions that i like most that will now go with our new duvet set, maybe ill buy them one by one and eventually our bedroom will be a cosy paradise.....unlikely but one can wish!
Do you have a need to snap up cosy homewares the second you see them??
Chloe x

Debenhams Dream Bedroom

I haven't done a snazzy little collage like this before but there's a reason behind my new endeavour. 

Debenhams are hosting a competition at the moment to let bloggers create their dream bedroom with the hope of winning £500 worth of Debenhams vouchers. All you need to do it create your dream bedroom, choosing items from their home and furniture department, not exceeding £5000. The really good thing about this competition is that not only is the chance of winning vouchers exciting, creating the dream bedroom is really fun. If you want to give it a try why not pop over to Debenhams' blog to  find out all the details about this fun competition.

My dream bedroom is based on the idea of a big light bedroom that has lots of space and ideally maybe a nook or two to put the chest of drawers into.

So whats in my Dream Bedroom?

• Debenhams antique metal alice bed (king) - £342.00
• Accessorize home- Blue and pink fable folksy duvet cover set (king) - £52
• Butterfly by Matthew Williamson- Designer pink floral heart - £4.80
• Debenhams Dark rose 'Hoxton' chair - £594.00
• Butterfly by Matthew Williamson white bird and branch table lamp - £78.00
• Debenhams walnut lyon six drawer chest - £666.00
• Gisela Graham wooden four heart hooks - £16.00
• Debenhams blue 'Antoinette' two drawer wide chest - £378.00
• Butterfly by Matthew Williamson- Designer yellow bird candle holder - £4.80
• Debenhams wood pink oval mirror - £16.00

Total spend = £2,151.60

Wow, i really did think i would spend a lot more than that while i was collecting all my items, what a treat it is to shop without worrying about having to spend the money!If only real bedroom shopping was easy as this (sigh). 

What do you think of online window shopping? Do you think my dream bedroom is dreamy? 

Chloe x