Helarious

Happy Easter guys!

Today, I’m breaking ‘routine’ in my usual blogging schedule to bring you all some big (and slightly sad, but also exciting) news.

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about where I’m taking the direction of this blog and also the business, Lime Tree Bower. This has been on my mind since late last year when I realised I was essentially splitting myself online in two and I wasn’t sure if it would make sense in the long run. Some harder thinking was had this past week, plus reaching out to friends and the awesome community. 

I know it’s now time to finally make the (hard) call. 

I’m moving house guys!

I’m merging Helarious together with Lime Tree Bower, and putting it all under the same LTB roof!

I love blogging to pieces and I plan to continue doing so. I’ll still be creating content related to all things floral, craft and creativity, with the usual touch of personal, life and business thrown in. Not much is changing around that neck of the woods. After all, it’s still me :)

What will change will be the more technical and visual things - the Helarious name will be going away and the website will transition to be www.limetreebower.com/blog. I’ll also be updating my Instagram handle (or rather switching it).

This has steadily become a natural transition and I think it’s the right time to merge everything into one. I think I’ve mainly been a bit scared of doing it and also a little bit uncertain about it all, as I hadn’t thought hard enough about it or asked around enough. For me, the real trigger was when I realised over the two weeks that every time I was about to post on Instagram, I couldn’t work out whether a photo should be posted on the Helarious or the LTB account. In fact, I truly wanted to post the same one to both, but that didn’t make any sense!

So over the next 48 hours, I will be transitioning things to the new space. I’d love for you to come join me! 

This will be my last post under this name... See you on the other side of the fence guys!

xo Helen

"A monthly capture of my feelings and doings, in the raw"

With the unfolding of a brand new month, comes a new edition of Head & Heart! This is where I take pause once a month, reflect on the passing of the past 30 days and reveal a more personal side of myself on your own blog.

If this is your kind of thing, jump right in and join me by doing your own take on it! 

Simply add a link to your own post at the bottom of this one, so we can read each others. So here goes….

I'm grateful for:

The support of friends. It's touching to receive a surprising 'good on ya', or a 'you're stuff is beautiful' comment from friends outside of my posse of creative super gal friends. Lime Tree Bower is something I'm really excited about and I'm even more excited when people I don't know that well share their excitement!

Gareth being an uber boyfriend! Now guess who's jumped on board the Lime Tree Bower ship as a co-captain?? Yes that's right! Gareth has and I'm so jazzed about this, like ridiculously so. He's going to be help out with social media, research and marketing, financials, strategy and all things admin. Now I just need to teach him how assemble a pretty bouquet ;)

I've been thinking a lot about:

Whether to keep separate or merge Helarious with Lime Tree Bower? I've thought about this so many times over the past 4-6 months and I still haven't quite made up my mind. One day I lean towards one extreme, then the next the other! I just sent out a plea of help on Instagram so I'm excited to hear what you guys have to say. The key things that I need to figure out are: (1) do I combine both the Helarious & LTB into one? Or keep them separate? (2) Do I evolve this blog into the Lime Tree Bower blog? Or keep one as is and not have a LTB blog, or create a mini LTB blog version? Questions, questions! I hope I have things figured out by the time the next edition of Head & Heart is out - here's hoping. I would love to hear your thoughts on this one if have any!

I'm terribly excited for:

Returning to Europe in September. This was completely not on our agenda for the year, as we thought our friend's wedding would be in 2016 but huzzah, surprise! Our friends will be getting married in Cannes, France so we'll be hanging out in the French Riviera for about a week and then a week in Croatia. I KNOW. I can not wait!!!

Visiting another flower farm. I've got in my calendar to visit another NSW flower farm this month and I'm super excited. Apparently it's going to be a wonderful time to visit too, so I'll have my camera ready for this! Can't wait to share this all soon with you here :)

What I've been doing:

Enjoying Canberra and eating too much Canberra was seriously a lot of fun. We caught up with some blogger and Instagram friends in real life for the first time, that was so cool and they were all so lovely as I thought they would be in person :) Canberra has become a foodie's haven too so we pleased our tummies by eating at some delicious places!

Doing markets at Kirribilli again! I think I'm going to make Kirribilli my thing now. I really like doing markets there when I can, the vibe is laidback and nice, the people are so lovely and there's an interesting mix of stallholders. I don't think we'll be able to do a stall in April due to events, but late May... count me in!

I've been reading:

The Secret Life of Bees is a beautifully written novel by Sue Monk Kidd. It's set in the early 1960s in America, there's a lot of racial issues still going in between 'blacks' and 'whites' and it's focussed on this young girl trying to find her mother. I highly recommend it!

Surprisingly, I've gotten back on the Game of Thrones train and have picked up reading the second edition of the series: A Clash of Kings. So far, I'm finding the second to be a more enticing read than the first novel. Has anyone else read all the books in the series so far?

I hope you enjoyed reading my Head & Heart. It’s a chance for you to get to know me a bit better, and a way for me to reflect on the previous month.

Thank you guys so much for all the lovely feedback from my latest Urban Jungle Bloggers post - I'm so glad you loved the idea!

As promised, today I'm taking you through how I put it all together so you can recreate it yourself :)

What you'll need: plastic egg moulds (from a toy or crafts store, ALDI etc), white spray paint, mini succulent cuttings, soil, thin rope.

Begin by spray painting the outside of your egg moulds white.

Leave to dry for about 15 minutes at least.

Cut 3 long pieces of rope of roughly the same size. The length you cut depends on how long you want the hanging to be. I cut each of mine at about 35-40cm long.

Place each rope over one another to create a triangle in the middle. Make a knot at the intersect of each pair of ropes.

Just before you secure the very last knot, I recommend fitting one of the egg shapes into the triangular hole so you're aware at where the knot should be. Securing the knot whilst the egg shape is fitted in actually makes it easier too and less prone to error.

Now make one large knot with all the ropes together, at about 15-20cm from where your first knots were made. Snip off the loose ends evenly, leaving one single thread so it can be used to hang it up somewhere.

So I came up with this idea early last week and couldn't wait to turn it into reality on the weekend!

Introducing nifty, teeny weeny easter egg-themed hanging rope succulent planters!

I try to participate monthly in the Urban Jungle Bloggers challenge, and this month it's all about Easter so I knew I had to do something eggy. Obviously.

Turns out ALDI had these plastic egg moulds. I'm pretty sure they're meant to be used for making egg-shaped chocolate, but they were just perfect for this idea of mine.

How cute is it? They were a touch fiddly in trying to get the rope strung in a way that would support the egg cup, but I eventually got it working and then it all flowed from there!

So I made three, each with a different succulent and they're all hanging out on this dried eucalyptus branch.

Gosh, so now I just want to start making teeny weeny versions of everything and hang them around the home like a decorative arts museum!

P.S. Come back next week for the DIY breakdown of how I put this all together!

P.P.S. I'll be at the Kirribilli Markets this Saturday with Lime Tree Bower 8.30am-3pm - do come check our stall out if you can and say hi!

I first came across 'Styling the Seasons' via its hashtag on Instagram and was taken away by all the beautiful, creative images being posted.

After following for a few months, I realised it was a monthly ritual (created by Katy from Apartment Apothecary and Charlotte from Lotts and Lots) that anyone could join in - so here's my first!

Here's my lovely mini timber coffee table that I've styled - I love this table so much. The summer season is coming to a close and with that, flowers like local hydrangeas and tulips will be no longer. I'm a bit sad by that but also quite excited by the prospect (and challenge) of winter florals! This pair of hydrangea is dried two weeks old - isn't it ageing beautifully?

We've also got Easter around the corner, so I've started taking out my small family of colourful chicks to display around the home. Gareth hates them, which makes me love them even more :)

Hey there, it’s nearly the end of another week, time goes fast hey?

First up, thanks to all of you that took the time to leave a comment on social media about my latest post about refocus. I really appreciated it and I’m feeling like I can breathe a bit more clearly now compared to the past few weeks, where it’s been a constant go-go-go mode.

I wanted to share some shots of an arrangement I created for one of the markets I did in February. Remember my trip to Sri Lanka over the Christmas holidays? (Which reminds me, I still need to go through those photos!) I took home with me a small collection of beautiful brassware, including this lovely small water jug.

Using a pink and purple-toned collection of dahlias, carnations, roses, lisianthus, gomphrena and asparagus bush, I created this wildflower-inspired arrangement to accompany my market stall.

I’ve certainly grown a soft spot for gomphrena, aka globe amaranth. Isn’t it such an amazing flower - they look like colourful versions of billy buttons and dry really nicely too!

Hey there! I do hope that you all had a lovely weekend and are settling into this week well... It's certainly been a mixed bag for me.

My original intention for this post was actually to share a diy, but after more mulling in addition to the past background mulling I've been having over the past month... I've finally made a decision.

No don't worry, I'm not shutting down the blog! So you can breathe a bit better now.... Instead, I'll be re-focussing and slowing down on here.

I want to make sure I'm prioritising and allocating my time correctly, as well as not burning out. Over the past few months, I've found it really hard to juggle my time across everything. So I'm finally taking control and making a few (hard) calls. As much as I'd love to be super woman, it's just not sustainable in the long run.

So what does this all mean? Well, a few things...

The biggest "change" for the blog is that I'll be decreasing my blogging cadence from three to two times a week. My posts will be published on Tuesdays and Thursdays going forwards. A big thing that has been playing on my mind recently is quality over quantity. Less is more and it definitely applies to the blogging world too. If you've heard of the 'slow blogging' movement, (Decor8 has a great post on it for the unacquainted), I guess I've definitely taken some inspiriation from that too.

What it also means is that I'll be dedicating some more time to focus on growing Lime Tree Bower. There's a lot to do there and we've got some big goals to hit over the next year. Did I mention that Gareth has officially hopped on board this ship? He'll be working with me more and starting by focussing on the social media front, yay!

And lastly, I've got some big, creative projects like collaborations and guest posts that I want to deliver on this year. Sadly I haven't spent as much time on them as I would have liked to so far. It's always time heh? I'm really, really excited about some stuff I've got planned so now with the re-focusing of time, I will hopefully be able to fire up on this front too. Watch this space!

So that's my news today. I know it's probably not what you expected, sorry :( Making hard decisions like these is never easy but often inevitable, and I wanted to be open, honest and let you guys know what's up and why I've decided to change some things.

I'm off to bed now, so hammered from today. But by the way, in case you didn't realise, if you'd prefer to follow my blog by receiving each post straight in your inbox - you can! There's a little yelllow box on the sidebar right there that you can fill in. Just scroll up and you'll see it!

PS. Thanks so much for reading, I'm so grateful! Please don't ever be afraid to say hello if you never have before! I love getting to know my readers :)

I’m in the weekend mood already so I’ve got an awesome, fun DIY to share with you guys today!

Seriously, are you guys ready for it? Ice cream + flowers = floral ice cream!!

This was a concept I’d had a few months ago and finally, one weekend I made it a mission to source some pom pom chrysanthemums at the flower markets for this tutorial! Pom pom mums have always resembled scoops of ice cream in my opinion, so they were perfect.

Wouldn’t it be a super cute wedding favour or thank you gift for a friend? For this DIY’s cones, I created two patterns, one with abstract overlapping circles and the other with ‘i scream for ice cream’ on repeat, written out using my hand calligraphy chops that I picked up last year.

So much fun and meditative. You could totally write “a thank you from mr + mrs “whatever” if you decided to do something like this for a wedding, or just little love hearts drawn about… the possibilities are endless!

Once the ink is dry, you can begin folding the paper into a cone shape.

It took me a little while to figure out how to fold it into a perfect cone - it looks like it should be easy but there is a little technique to it. It’s all about where you start the fold and the angle you start it on. So I’ve put together this step by step visual, which should hopefully help you out

Pro tip: make sure to leave a teeny hole at the pointy end of the cone if you want part of the flower’s stem to be in the open. This would be useful, for example, if you needed to place it in some water during the day.

Once you’ve folded it to the size cone you want, secure it with some sticky tape or a nice sticker. I used a Lime Tree Bower branded sticker!

Now you’re just about done. Fill it with some pretty flowers, like pom pom mums (for that special realistic ‘ice cream’ effect), or maybe your favourite flower? Mine are tulips so I did that too - so fun, so simple and super cute!

Did you know that my very first creative love was fine art? Ever since I could pick up a pencil, I was drawing and painting - I loved it to pieces.

Once upon a time, I actually wanted to be an artist. When I was in primary school, my favourite time every week was ‘drawing time’ and I’d practise portraits, gosh they were my absolute favourite. Art Attack was also a daily ritual - who remembers that show with Neil Buchanan? Seriously, that guy was my hero.

So it’s not too surprising that every time I go travelling, one of my fave things to do is to visit an art gallery. (Which is exactly what I did last weekend in Canberra!)

I’ll be super frank though: I’m not a big fan of contemporary, modern art. I’m your old world girl at heart. Impressionism takes my breath away. One of my aspirations is to fill my dream home with a collage of artwork all over the walls. This will happen. Eventually.

But in the meantime, what better way to aspire towards this dream than to share some wall art inspiration, featuring artwork with a particular common theme?

So today, I bring you an art collection featuring tulips of course. What else? ;)

I’m never going to be able to own an original Monet or Renoir, so the next best thing that I recommend? Getting art prints of those original masterpieces framed! One of my favourite places to go is Art.com - it has a wonderful collection and the prints are relatively affordable.

It was so much fun picking out this curated collection, there were so many to choose from… but I settled at these six: (from left to right, top to bottom)

Tulip Fields with the Rijnsburg Windmill, 1886 - Monet

Single Tulip in Black and White - Albert Koetsier

Tulip Splendour - Amanda J. Brooks

Vase of Tulips and Anemones, Circa 1895 - Renoir

Poppies, Peonies and Other Assorted Flowers in a Terracotta Vase on a Stone Plinth with a Bird’s Nest - Jan van Os

Young Girl Holding a Bouquet of Tulips, circa 1878 - Renoir

Hey guys! I've just come back from a mini long weekend in Canberra. It was wonderful, meeting with some blogger/instagram friends in the flesh for the first time, eating at some delicious foood spots and taking in the beauty of the natural surroundings.

I adored the National Botanic Gardens, I personally think they are nicer than Sydney's - really! Stand outs for me were their 'rainforest' and also 'red centre' which was an amazing sight to behold and filled with natives and drought-loving plants.

So with this theme in mind, I've got a special table floral arrangement for you today!

Instead of the typical flowers in vase look, I'll be showing you a floral basket/hamper look. It's similar to what I styled for that Creatives Picnic I did last year... remember that?

Here's all you need for this floral arrangement, with the feature here really being the red waratahs nestled in with the hydrangea:

Now here's the trick to recreate this basket look: you'll also need some chicken wire and a square ice cream container that will just fit into your basket.

Begin by placing the ice cream container into your basket and folding some wire two or three times over each other so they overlap. Place the wire into the container. Fill the container with water just below the half way point.

Starting with bits of hydrangea, begin slotting them into the wire, making sure it sits all the way down so the stem end is under water.

Add in the banksia and lisianthus, and then fill any gaps with queen anne's lace or left over hydrangea bits. Don't be afraid to move things around to experiment with the look until you're happy with the end result!

For something a bit different to a usual tall vase with flowers, make this for your next dinner party or when you want to pretty up your home! And don't forget to decorate the rest of the table surroundings with some left over leaves, petals, garlic... to create more of an ambience!

So who else felt that February just flew right by? Hope I'm not the only one...

"A monthly capture of my feelings and doings, in the raw"

With the unfolding of a brand new month, comes a new edition of Head & Heart! This is where I take pause once a month, reflect on the passing of the past 30 days and reveal a more personal side of myself on your own blog.

If this is your kind of thing, jump right in and join me by doing your own take on it! 

Simply add a link to your own post at the bottom of this one, so we can read each others. So here goes….

I'm grateful for:

Being able to go on a mini vacation when I feel like it! I know it's not always as easy as.... hey let's go on a road trip on this particular weekend, and actually do it. Luckily, I can pretty much just do that most of the time. Do a little research, book some place to stay that's reasonable and drive away! It's the little things like these that make me super happy too, I like to think of them as mini escapes from reality.

Receiving feedback about Lime Tree Bower. I am always surprised when someone I haven't talked to in a long, long time, suddenly pops up with a direct message on Facebook. Turns out they're just hi and exclaiming how much they love my work. That's one of those ultimate day-makers. Whenever I get something like this, I feel awed and grateful that they've taken the time out to write me a little message like that. So thank you if you're one of them, it's so motivating!

I've been thinking a lot about:

Weddings and weddings. I've got a few leads and also a few other friends who have recently become engaged, so there is a lot of stuff happening this year in the wedding world. With it comes a lot of research, brainstorming, collaborating... looking forward to some busy times ahead!

How to mount our television to the wall. No idea on this one. I will probably need to spend some time Googling this, but I do wish I just *knew* how to do it!

I'm terribly excited for:

Canberra. As I'm writing this, I'm just about packed and ready to hit the road. Canberra, we're coming for ya and it just so happens that this weekend coincides with the Enlighten festival, so there's a bunch of fun stuff happening over there. I'll have my Instagram and camera ready :)

Football season. It's begun. Well, okay only the rugby league, but still, better than nothing and the usual boring tv! My weeks instantly brighten up and I stay excited week after week, when both the AFL + NRL are in season. It means a lot of football game watching, cheering, yelling and passion, along with usual life. Fun, right? 

What I've been doing:

Setting up at The Makery. I'm now renting some space at this amazing boutique in Darlinghurst and selling some of Lime Tree Bower wares there. Flower crowns, planters and some terrariums can be found there. I'm right inside the store and have got the top shelf and wall of one section. The last week saw me visit twice to set up all the things, so now it's finally ready. Yay!

Editing lots of photos. I have a ridiculous backlog on my computer of photos that I have to edit. Technically, it spans back to 2013 but I think I've just dismissed those ones indefinitely. More importantly, all the shots I took from Sri Lanka haven't been touched yet and I'm aching to go through them all and also get some printed out. Definitely a goal for March!

I've been reading:

A lot of actual books!

I think I'm nearly finished with my current obsession with Lisa See's oriental fiction. Upon finishing Shanghai Girls, I learned that there was a sequel Dreams of Joy, which I've just finished and adored!

Another obsession currently is Tim Ferriss' four-hour series of books, so I've just started The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman. I know. The title is so lengthy and err, interesting, but hey, if his other book is anything to go by, this should be interesting and packed full of useful tidbits!

I hope you enjoyed reading my Head & Heart. It’s a chance for you to get to know me a bit better, and a way for me to reflect on the previous month.

I can't believe it's already March. So much to do and so little time. Who else feels like time is slapping us in the face?! Argh, well there's not much else to do but hustle, so here's an update on what's been going on!

Come to think of it, this has organically grown into a monthly thing now, which is great. Being able to regularly share snapshots of how things are going in the Lime Tree Bower world... news, updates and what exciting things I've got planned, helps me feel that I'm not alone in all this and also enables me to be more accountable for my own goals.

So February. Now that was a crazy month. I did two markets in one month (a first for me), at the Kirribilli markets and Picnic markets. A little secret for you readers: make sure to pencil in March 28th, the plan is to do Kirribilli again!

The online shop has also been updated - you'll find it filled with a variety of flower crown designs I currently have for this season. 

All handmade, air dried from fresh flowers and can be worn time and time again. Perfect for a night out, festival, wedding or just because.... plus, they smell divine!

And the biggest news of all? We're now selling in a shop - you can find some of our goods at The Makery, which are the same guys behind Work-Shop. An awesome concept, it's a retail store on Oxford Street, Darlinghurst (about 15mins walk from Town Hall station) that allows local makers, artists and designers to sell their creations. 

You'll find candles, tea, clothing, jewellery, kitchen linen.... and now Lime Tree Bower flower crowns there! 

Whilst terrariums are no longer something that I focus on, there'll be a limited range available for sale at The Makery. Just because I love making them and a lot of you are still asking for them, so I haven't quite completely parted with them ;)

And lastly, a couple of weeks ago was also when finally picked up the social game. There's now dedicated social media accounts for Lime Tree bower on:

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

It's been a while since we've hosted a dinner party ourselves. Given the current state of our living room redesign, our place isn't exactly ready to greet guests for a little while longer... But that doesn't mean I can't share a table decoration idea with you guys!

I'm excited about this one, it's SUPER easy. Seriously, anyone can do this to dress up a table for their next occasion. 

As you might know already, tulips are my favourite of all and they work absolutely perfectly for this idea. You can also use any other flower that has a study and open bloom, like frangipani, anemone, rose, gerbera, orchid...

You'll need several small sauce dishes. Fill each one up with some water, just over half way. 

Place these dishes all around the table in a scattered fashion. 

Now take each flower and begin by cutting most of the stem off, as close to the head as possible.

Place each cut flower head straight into the dish, facing up.

Repeat with each dish, varying the flower colours if you can. That's it!

Now if you want to get super creative, you can also place a floral dish on each guest's plate, along with some leaves stripped off the cut stem. 

It recreates the look of a flower growing on each plate! 

Happy Friday folks! :)

So I thought I'd finish off the week by sharing a recent guest post I put together for Clear the Way! 

Mixing two of my fave topics together was heaps of fun: plants and interior design. I showcase five unique ways to style up your space with living plants - a bit more refreshing than your typical "place a pot on a table" look.

Why not add some plants and kokedama within your bathroom near the window? Or place a huge feature within the corner of your living area?

I hope you guys enjoy it - make sure to visit Kate's blog to check it out!

And I hope you all have a lovely weekend :)

x

Do you know where all the flower growers, florists and floral stylists/freelancers around the Sydney region meet in the outrageously early mornings to buy and sell their trade? The Sydney Flower Market of course!

Luckily for the rest of the public, it's also accessible, that is if you can get up in the morning. So for floral enthusiasts, addicts and wannabe DIYers - the flower markets is a haven, a slice of paradise where you won't believe your eyes when you go for the first time. You'll be blinded by all the flora!

The market trades every morning except Sundays, officially from 5-11am but really, sellers are starting to pack from around 8.30am and the good stock would have been sold by typically 6.30am.

Flower growers from all around the NSW region come to sell here, as it is the primary avenue between those that grow flowers and those that sell flowers as a product or service, to make a living. 

You may have heard people exclaim how "cheap" the flowers are at the market. Well they have to be. It's one of the first few stages of the supply chain in the industry. This is literally the "raw material" being supplied to the rest of the industry.

Think about it this way: say hypothetically that a bunch of roses at the market cost $30 - do you think you'd be able to pay for a bunch of roses at your local florist for $30? Of course not! Not only would the florist need to have driven to the market to source his/her roses, travel back to their shop, prepare the rose stems (as the flowers sold at the market have not been properly prepped), package it up nicely or mix it up with other floral varieties to make a varied bouquet.... and that's not to mention rent costs, petrol, labour costs, branding costs... There's a lot going on there, just like any other profession. 

An important thing to keep in mind whilst visiting the flower markets, is that it's the cornerstone to the local floral industry and its related professions. Be mindful that this is THE place where everyone in a floral-related business goes, There will be madness as you see people dart here and there buying trolley loads of flowers, and yes, prices will be cheaper compared to your local florist because it's pretty much the beginning of the supply chain.

To pay a visit to the flower market, I recommend driving and going on a Saturday if you just want to go for fun. The parking is free on Saturdays (vs $10 during the week days) and it's a much more relaxed ambience.

Here are my 7 top tips in visiting the Sydney Flower Market - or any other flower market for that matter:

Do some research if you have particular flowers in mind that you're after, to know if they are in season or not. You'll find that some flowers are imported, but buying fresh locally grown seasonal blooms is much better and highly recommend. For example, it's not natural to find peonies in winter so don't even bother trying...

Drive to the markets and bring some buckets, bags or boxes so you can transport your flowers easily. If you don't have any of these or forget one morning, simply ask one of the sellers if they wouldn't mind giving you a box to put your flowers in. I've never been refused!

Take your time with picking out your flowers. I recommend doing a walk through the entire floor first thing to scope out what's in stock that morning and who's got the best prices or colours of a particular variety.

Ask the flower growers plenty of questions. Like what the name of a particular flower is that's caught your eye, how to care for it if you're unsure, how long it's in season for. You'll learn a lot about flora this way and it's also a great way to test their floral knowledge bright and early in the morning!

Bring small cash with you. Most sellers prefer to deal only with cash, and a lot of the time don't have a lot of change to break a $50 so come prepared. 

Timing of arrival is important. For a real floral bargain, buy your flowers between 8-9am where prices will start dropping ridiculously, as growers try to part with as much stock as they can before they pack up for the day. Otherwise if you want the freshest and the most variety available, arrive at the market as early as possible.

Once you've taken your purchased flowers home, make sure to go through the prep process: strip leaves off the bottom half of each stem and recut the stem at an angle. Do all this to all your flowers before popping them into water. I'll have a visual DIY soon on how to prep your flowers if you're unsure about this - watch this space!

Everyone always wants to extend the life of fresh flowers, I mean it's obvious why, they are so beautiful when in bloom! In fact, if you just do a search online, you'll come across a heap of "tips" on how you can make fresh flowers last longer. I've even googled this myself in the past.

I've never really tried any of the suggestions before so I thought it would be a great idea to give it a go. I'll run an experiment just to see if any of them really worked. Or are they just old wive's tales that simply gets passed around and around?

Introducing the results of my first experiment! I must say I was quite surprised... so let's take you through what I did and how each day fared.

Day 0

I purchased a bunch of purply pink chrysanthemums and placed one stem in each glass bottle. 

One contained just tap water, so this would be my control. Another had a mixture of a few drops of bleach & a sprinkle of caster sugar. The last bottle contained half a tablet of aspirin and a sprinkle of caster sugar.

They say that adding bleach helps keep bacteria at bay, adding aspirin increases the water's acidity and thereby helping it move up the stem, whilst sugar's carbohydrates act as food for the stems. So let's see how this goes.... 

As always, I removed all leaves along the bottom half of each stem and snipped the stem end at an angle.

Day 1

Not much of a change, the blooms are still quite nice apart from one that has dropped from the upper stem (in bottle no. 3 containing the aspirin + sugar), but that could just be an outlier. An unlucky one.

Overall, everyone's pretty even steven!

Day 2

Woweee, now it's getting interesting! 

The control is still relatively perky and nice. The bleach & sugar edition is faring quite well, perhaps a little more worn out the day before but generally fine.

The most surprising has been the aspirin + sugar mix. You can see that more than half the stem has browned and actually all the flowers on that stem have drooped. Wow, what a change over night. Not good!

Day 3

The control is still kind of okay, with no droopy blooms.

Bleach & sugar are starting to droop just a bit more so that's not a great sign. Meanwhile, the aspirin & sugar combo is definitely a goner. Look at how sad it is! 

Here's a close up shot of the control: not too bad after 3 days and no help!

With the bleach and sugar combo, they're doing quite well too but you'll notice that one bloom right at the very back towards the right has started to droop...

And lastly, the definitive loser: the aspirin + sugar combo. Sorry folks, don't try that one at home!

Conclusion?

Based on this experiment run on its own, it would seem that going fully natural with just tap water worked best. 

However I don't like making sweeping statements after just a single test so I'm going to run this again and use a different floral variety. I wonder how it will fare the second time around - stay tuned!

As an aside, as I really want to let you know that...

Ever since I'd finished reading Amy Stewart's Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful, I've gained a new outlook and appreciation of the beauty of flowers. I think flowers are just as beautiful when they are wilting, just in a different fragile way. 

Think about it: by the time fresh flowers arrive at your front door or appear at your local florist, they've already been cut at least a day or two. So really, it's only natural that they've begun to wilt, don't you think?

You may have seen my super ecstatic announcement on Instagram last weekend.... Our sofa has FINALLY arrived, woohoo!

I cannot begin to tell you how excited we are about this. 

It's been practically a month and a half since we last owned a couch of any kind. Our living room has been completely bare (it was rather exhilarating and I've been using it so much as "studio space") but it has been a little annoying when you just want to lounge about. 

We've made do over this sofa-less period by sitting on the staircase, the carpet floor, my desk chair and also on the dinner table chairs, but it's just not the same! 

So now that we have one, the next key thing on our living room hit list is a tv/storage bench for the wall directly opposite the couch.

The intention is to mount our TV on the wall. As we live in such a small space, decorating the wall with the tv and clearing the area so there's no need for a large and clunky tv unit makes a lot of sense. 

Imaging a beautiful, medium height but narrow in width tv bench. That's exactly what we're looking for now. This way, we can use the bench top as decorative storage - think a vase collection, pot plants and travel trinkets - and still have the tv above it against the wall.

I've pulled together four of my favourite photo inspirations to give you guys an idea of what I'm aiming for. Hopefully it will also provide some inspiration for your own space too!

This space and wall makes me cheerful instantly! It's minimalist but has some edge and colour to it - the perfect combo. 

The shade of green isn't right for me, but a bench of that similar height and width would be great to go along with the mounted tv and wall art I have in mind!

I simply adore this wooden tv bench. Beautifully finished timber makes me all giddy and this one, amidst the clean white and creamy textures is just wonderful. 

This bench is very close to what I'm looking for - so if you know where to find one that's not too exxy, please let me know! 

I'd also prefer having the tv here mounted against the wall instead of on the bench top, that way there's more space for decorative elements!

Can you see a preference for tv + wall art here? :)

Similarly, I'd change this up just a little and have the tv mounted and look a part of the wall art. I quite like this tv bench, it's a great height but perhaps a touch too dark for our space. 

The overall look really does it for me though, it would be spot on in a brightly lit, clean space!

...I'd love to hear about how you decorate your living room and tv area, particularly if you live in an apartment or small home! And what do you think about the wall art + tv look.... great or hate?