Sometimes Life is unfair...But you just got to get on with it!

I feel embarrassed that I have left my blog without posts for so long! Since October a lot has happened and I've found it a struggle to get any time to do anything for myself and to be honest my blog didn't even come into my mind until a couple of days ago! I forgot about it!!!

I have had a rocky few months which I could not do anything to help, I had some personal things to deal with on top of my nan being taken into hospital, then my post got stolen which were valuable items, then on top of sorting that out I was supposed to visit family in Scotland, so off I trot and then when I come back my uncle is admitted to hospital. So 2 members of my very small family of 5 weren't with us, and we weren't even sure if they would be home for Christmas. I was sat by nans bedside every evening until they kicked me out. You see my nan is probably the closest person to me! She's not just my nan, shes a best friend of mine. She has lived with me since 1994, until I moved out in 2012. She had a nasty fall, which scared us all a LOT!! and being 93 years old I wasn't sure how well she'd cope with it. It turns out that she is doing well now and will hopefully be home soon but this year my priorities have changed and family is my main one, which is why I'm not on my blog that much right now. I hope you can bare with me for a while until I can get myself back on track. I'm not entirely sure why I have written this but sometimes I think others views can put your own into perspective. It's not that bad after all!

I do hope that you are having a lovely Christmas, hopefully spent with the ones you love most in life! Have a very happy new year, and speak to you soon! :)

xx

Something I did a little earlier on in the year! Copyrighted to Leanne Carpentier. Please not copy!



Roller Blind Commission

About a Month or two ago, I finally finished the design for the roller blind fabric. It took a little longer than I expected but that's because I used an American company to print it and had to wait for printing/delivery times. The fabric is now with the client and they are very happy with the result.

Before I printed the final piece, I needed to make a few amendments since the last blog post about it, as the sample that I got back in the post wasn't how I wanted it to look. The scale needed changing as it was way too small to been seen when sat down. So this was scaled up by 50%. I also needed to change a few colours as the blue and yellow didn't show very well. I'm definitely glad I ordered a sample piece. I always get samples before I print, I don't think it's worth the risk if it does happen to go wrong, and as I hadn't used this printing company before it was a must!! So here are some photos...

This was the first sample that came back to me, As you can see the colours are a little too light and the scale is pretty small.

And these photos were of the final print. I'm pretty happy with the way it looks. The colours are more vibrant and the scale is much better! You can't really tell the scale from the photographs but trust me on this, it's a massive difference.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my little journey with this project and hopefully it has inspired you to create something from scratch too. If you want any advice or information about this project, then please get in touch and I will get back to you.

 

Hopefully I will get some photos of the blind up in the window soon, and when I do I'll post them up on this blog.

Autumn Accessory Finds

When I was doing some research for my last blog post I came across some great Accessories for the Home, All from Marks & Spencer. Most of these were prints or wall art, here are a few that I thought I would share...

'4 Owls', £15

'Bird postcard', £9.50

'Home Sweet Home', £17.50

'Linen Stag Canvas', £9.50

'Owl Print and Frame', £35

'Peacock Wall Art', £17.50

'Fox Frame', £25

'Stag Framed', £35

 

What do you think about these? Have you found any other interesting Autumnal Prints lately, please feel free to share below if you want!

 

Or if you would like to purchase any here's the link.



Autumn Wallpaper Finds

When I was over my mums on the weekend I picked up her Ideal Home magazine and found some really interesting wallpaper designs. I thought I would share this with you...

 

Lets start with Next

Bricks wallpaper £15pr.   Wooden Plank £15pr.

Limestone Tiles £15pr.     Grey Slate £15pr.

          

Black & Silver Trees £18pr.   Ava Gold £25pr.

French Script £15pr.      Postcards £18pr.

Victorian Bottles £18pr.  Ornate Frames £15pr.

Chocolate London £18pr.

 

B&Q

Colours, Travel £14.98pr

Holden Calligraphy £12.98pr

 Muriva, Brick £19.98pr

Statement, Bookcase £19.98pr

Muriva, Big Apple £12.98pr

Muriva, Britannia £12.98pr



Muriva, Camper Van £12.98pr

 

The natural looking wallpapers (from Next) are my favourite right now. I'm loving this style especially for the Autumn leading up to a rustic Christmas. What do you think?

 

If you would like to purchase any items from Next then click here, and for B&Q items click here.

Thank You Cards

My boyfriend has an event called 'Appreciation week' in his workplace and this event basically puts on team building exercises and likes to Thank people for their efforts in work. They take part in fun activities and get to eat cake all day!!
I really like this idea, I think it's pretty cool to be rewarded and acknowledged for your hard work, It's a very good moral boost! So he came to me with some ideas of what to do and I offered to design and make some Thank you cards for his staff, he agreed this would be a nice idea and something a little more personal. So this is what I came up with...

In the end my boyfriend chose option 2. He wanted something suitable for all ages and this seemed a little more fun looking.

 

This is what the final outcome looked like...

 

Please note that all design work is copyrighted to Leanne Carpentier. Please do not copy!

MINI - Not Normal

Ok so most of my close friends know that I am completely obsessed with MINI. I love MINI's. They are just the best!!! I think my obsession started when I was in high school (about 14years old) and I used to plaster my bedroom wall with brochures and images of my dream mini. Back then it was a Yellow Mini Cooper Sport with fog lamps and a checkered roof - I always thought it would be so cool to have a game of backgammon on the roof if ever you got stuck in a traffic jam - anyways, I grew up a little and then fancied a Burnt Orange Mini Cooper Sport. Little did I realise that One day I will get my Mini. That day was a Year ago today. And I have a gorgeous little blue Mini Cooper Convertible. I am in love!! Well and truly! So enough about my fascination, I wanted to feature some of the new mini campaign images on here as this campaign really is cool!

My little beauty!

Here are a few of my favourite images, enjoy!

Haha! Looks a bit like the one I wanted when I was 14! 

I should definitely try this sometime! 

Love this! Genius.

I will one day own a house like this! and I've always said if I win the lottery I am going to have my own little MINI museum!  

Stunning! 

Please note that I do not own these images and all images belong to MINI.

Ooh la la! Sweet Paris!

I really should have posted this earlier but I haven't really had time to catch up with everything since I got back, so now I'm finally sorting it out. 
I loved my trip to Paris! I took my boyfriend for his birthday present and we celebrated his Birthday over there, which was really nice. We had a jam packed itinerary and made most of everyday (Although I was pretty exhausted after day 1!).

We decided to start the holiday by going to Disneyland, neither of us had been before so we were really excited to see what it was like. I honestly felt like the biggest kid! I loved every second although a word of advice for anyone deciding to go there - wear comfortable shoes!!! I had blisters on my feet just from walking around all day. Also take a bottle of water with you, it was boiling the day we went and I'm just glad that they had taps around the park to fill my bottle up, to stop me from passing out!

Obviously myself and my boyfriend were attracted to the big rides first, so this is what we did. We found out when we were there that you can 'fastpass' rides, which I found to be worth it. Basically this means you can scan your park ticket at the ride and get a token/ticket to use at a specific time. This then allows you to go and wander the park, get food etc. I thought it was a brilliant idea, but make sure you don't double book times as you will still have to queue but it wont be as long (it's basically like a queue jump). 

These are a few photos of Disneyland Paris.

Our second day in Paris, we decided to go to the Sacre Coeur, which was lovely but beware of the men trying to sell you things at the entrance gates. We also went to the Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, and to Jardin du Luxembourg. My favourite part about that day was most definitely going to Jardin du Luxembourg and eating some tarts from an amazing Patisserie called Dalloyau. Oh my Gosh! They were Divine, the best strawberry Tart I have ever tasted (and I've had a few! - Slightly obsessed with Strawberry Tarts) and the Boyfriend tried a cherry one. It was such a lovely afternoon, the sun was shining bright, it was lovely and warm and you could see the Eiffel Tower in the Distance from where we were sat, It was a really nice chill spot. 

Day 3, was the Boyfriends Birthday. So we went to the Eiffel Tower in the morning and spent the day walking around the Saint Germain area. We did quite a bit that day, we wandered around the Military museum, went to Place de la Concorde, walked the Champs Elysee (which is where we were staying) and then did the Arc de Triomphe in the night after food. I really enjoyed this day as I felt a little less like a tourist and actually absorbed the culture in more. When we were looking for a nice restaurant to eat in, it was so strangely quiet, quite eerie in fact, not that many people were around in the back streets, this was because it was that time of year when the Parisians take a month off for their holidays. It was quite difficult to find a french restaurant open, but we managed to find one eventually, and to be honest it was a lovely meal.

Our last full day in Paris was a bit of a let down as we had planned to do all the museums this day, but when we got there the queues were out of this world. I mean seriously a 3/4 hour wait for the Lourve! I thought that there was more I wanted to see and worth spending my time on. So unfortunately we didn't end up going into the Lourve, but that's something we can do next time, Same goes for the Musee D'Orsay and Les Catacombes. So instead we went for a drink and thought up our next plan, which was to walk around and enjoy the City! We went back to the Eiffel Tower and found the Liberty Statue, We also saw the Joan of Ark statue, and went to see what their financial district was like - Massive!

The Boyfriend now has it in his mind that he would like to move here and live a happy life, I'm not so sure at the moment but it maybe a possibility in the future! We'll just have to wait and see.

Please note that all photos in this post are copyrighted to Leanne Carpentier. Please do not copy.