Small Primark Haul

Just a quick one today, what I have for you is a small Primark haul, as you will know the store either has absolutely nothing or some bits you're really loving, all at the price of battling through the crowds and scanning through the maze of rails for something worth while. This time I was quite impressed with what I managed to find.

Whenever making the pilgrimage to Primark I have to visit the home wear section, especially now I have my own place to decorate. Spurred on by ThePersianbabe recent haul I headed out with hope for something up my alley and to much avail I came away with this little beauty, a lace trimmed and cut out patterned scatter cushion, so in LOVE  and brightens up my love sofa perfectly.

Also in the home wear section I checked out the candles. I've recently seen some reviews raving about the sweet vanilla & coconut scented version which first sparked my interest, is this really true... a candle at such a low cost that actually leaves a scent in your room further than the distance of having your nose burnt off and at a burning time of 30 hours. I decided to be different and went for the Fresh Citrus & Ginger scent, lighter in hand and high expectations it sure didn't disappoint, over all a huge price drop compared to your usual candle splurge, it does what it's supposed to and smells great, a really good one for summer!

Now who doesn't love the Simpsons? I couldn't leave this uber cool set of pj's behind, look at them they are screaming awesomeness or is that just my opinion, anyway they are my new favourite pair. Along side them being amazing they are really comfortable and cool for these summer nights, a must have in my opinion.

Something you should know is I have lived on only one pair of sunny's for the past two years now which I bought from Primark and yet hadn't found anything to better them until recently, coming across the blue tinted Ray Ban clubmaster's. In fear of them looking awful on me and waisting my cash I never got around to taking the plunge and purchasing such item, thanks to good old Primark for saving the day and my bank balance!

Candle - £3.50
Pillow - £5
Pj's - £5
Sun Glasses - £3.50

See you soon

Beth x

Kitchen Accessories Haul.

This is the start of what will be a series of room hauls starting with the heart of the house, the kitchen! I'm going to share with you my recent purchases from around my home, as over the past 2 months I've being slowly gathering up some of the unnecessary essentials that make your house a home and give it an identity. 

If you haven't already read my previous post you can get a general idea what style I'm heading towards achieving.

If you're one of my lovely followers from Instagram, you may have already had the chance to a sneak peek to some of the items as I get too excited to keep them to myself until now. All the stores the items where purchased from will be listed below.

SPATULAS - TESCO

MASION CASH BAKERY TRAYS - BOYES

SUGAR CONTAINER - SAINSBURYS

VINTAGE HORNSEA POTTERY - CHARITY SHOP

GLASSES- JOHN LEWIS

TUNISIAN BOWL - TK MAXX

MOROCCAN STONEWARE BOWL & PLATE - JOHN LEWIS

SILVER & PEARLISED CUTLERY - CHARITY SHOP

WHITE ACCESSORY BUCKET - POUND LAND

Also Ive recently joined Depop, so add me @staircasetostyle !

Beth x

Apartment Inspiration & Design Style Ideas - Making It Your Own!

Hi guys, as you may already know if you keep updated with my blog entries I've moved into my own place. The first thing about making somewhere your own and the most exciting part in my case is the design and theme that runs through your house / rooms showing off your design skills.. if any, and enables you to express your personality and style through chosen inanimate objects.

A personal hobby of mine influenced by my love for interior design has been scouring through the internet and magazines collecting images into a folder on my desktop for inspiration, (is there only me who does this?) something I love doing, and always will and is to lust over amazing interiors, furnishings which I will possibly never come across or afford. 

Heres a few images I've collected as inspiration for my home and aim to eventually achieve. As you can see I'm drawn to rustic coastal interiors because of the natural colours, textures and materials that compliment one another creating a calming vibe. By having such interior it is easy to interpret a warm or cool setting by adding small details of colour with decorative objects.

Talking about decretive objects I'm a sucker for anything with a 'boho' pattern, particularly if it includes white and blue its in.

My first design style idea, is a clean, nordic, pretty home sort of style, very light and bright. My only fear is it becoming too pretty, girly and quite Cath Kidston-ish, so I will be working on bringing in more organic natural textures to roughen it up.

Here on the other hand I am also drawn towards a very natural boho style as you can see from the two pictures collages  my favourite colour is blue in any shade, shape or form it comes in. Still wanting to keep a costal theme with natural woods and touches of white furnishing I hope to pull this off and put together these styles making them sit together, looking pretty! Check back for more post as the journey continues.


Thanks for reading guys, please let me know of any artists, designers or stores I may be interested in by following/subscribing to any of my social networking medias and to keep updated with my day to day life.

Beth x

Moving House

Finally I have time to sit down and write this long awaited blog post, if you haven't guessed by the title I've just moved out from my family home into my own place with Oakley, my boyfriend, and boy-o boy it has taken longer than I thought.

I've never lived away from home before but the time had come to move out and have a place to call my own, express myself,  grow and move up a level in my life and after months of looking up properties, options and viewing places we took the plunge and sided with a small, well decorated place with private parking, great view and in a good area. There's a few cons which come with a small place such as lack of storage and no private garden but nothing we can't live without for now and a lot more space than I had living at home.

 It has been an experience which has a mixture of emotions, some I've found really exciting and some rather stressful as you can expect with sorting out suppliers, packing and unpacking ect. One of the many exciting point of having your own place in my opinion is being able to express my own style beyond the four walls of my bedroom. Something I have bought into and collected over the years to the point of having to store boxes in my parents loft and cram into my own bedroom while I lived at home minimising the space I had left and built up quite a collection of home decor. We are slowly building up our collection of items needed for the flat and nothing a few more shopping trips can't fix! :D

So far we have been living at our new apartment for five days and can honestly say we love having our own space to do what we want when we want and how we want its great to have our own space and freedom . All is well except my need for things to always be tidy and neat which is beginning to annoy myself but thats my new found house proud making a show and revealing its self. This is deeming quite difficult living with a barista whose addiction to caffeine needs feeding 2-3 times a day consisting of coffee grounds all over the worktops, floor and sink… Such challenges arise while living with a messy person but does make up for it in cup of tea making duties and looking after me while I nurse a cold which I am seriously sick of blowing my nose every other minute.

From now on you will be seeing a few more home decor and DIY post from myself and possibly home hauls? 

To keep updated with my daily activities make sure to follow me on twitter and Instagram.

Thanks for reading!

Beth x 

New Year new you, eat clean, train mean.

Entering the second month of year and yet another month closer to warmer weather, YES! As New Years resolutions go many of us promise to ourselves to achieve some sort of health or fitness goal for the year or even just to make it through the first month to achieve that bikini body, hopefully. 

Last year my health and fitness goal was to eat healthier and gain tone to my body which I can say has been successfully achieved and is now part of my everyday routine.

Each and every meal I consume in the week in and out is made from scratch and I usually make it to the gym 3-4 times a week to weight train and run 2-3 miles each day I go. 

I start each morning off with 50 jumping jacks, 50-60 squats and 60 intercepting dog leg raises befor work.

Breakfast is always soya yoghurt with berries, dry mango and sometimes flax seed or cinnamon, I used to always hate breakfast and got bored of cereal, toast ect which had to change when I became gluten intolorent and discovered my favourite breakfast which I have consistently had for the past year! 

 For lunch I usually have an array of casseroles and curries or steamed vegetables, rice and either Quorn or chicken throughout the week and a banana or apple around 4pm then head to the gym and have my dinner after Which is usually a light meal like soup with nothing extra to ensure I have my smallest meal last.On a weekend I relax a bit from my stricked meal regime but still ensure my 3 main meals are somewhat healthy and made from scratch.

I'm completely transformed starting last year off at 9 stone 10 pounds and am now currently 8 stone 7 from loosing weight yet gaining muscle. Once believing that weight training would make me look all macho man to now living proof that's not the truth at all and realising it's my most favourite part of going to the gym and something I've really enjoyed doing and in seeing the changes in my body. A fun fact for weight training is that for every pound of muscle you gain your burn an extra 50 calories off while at resting! What's not to love.

I've never being happier or more confident with how I look in my life and it's just down to eating clean, exercising and realising  if you want it, you've gotta work for it, sitting watching mindless tv and eating processed foods aren't going to help you reach them goals. Yes it will take a long time to see all the hard work you've put in but it's well worth it. 

This year my New Years resolution is to control my meal portion sizes and to push myself harder at the gym to continue seeing my gains. Hope this helps convince yet inspire you at least to make a change towards a happier you.

For more follow my social networking sites in the header bar above, thanks for reading guys!

Beth x 

When In Bruges

Just before Christmas myself, my boyfriend, my sister and her boyfriend took it upon ourselves to take advantage of the P&O mini cruise 2 for 1 offer and visit Bruges, a city none of us had ever been before yet had only heard good things about. Well known in the family for over packing to the point of taking my own pillow away, I managed to squeeze my belongings into one bag,  well maybe two… but you always need a good amount of food, better to have too much than be hungry! Taking our own food also made the trip even more of a bargain weekend away and with my dietary requirements it made sense.

So off we set from Hull docks on an extremely windy evening with moderate to bad weather, no fun when you get motion sickness which didn't kick in until 3 hours after we left the docks so at least I could enjoy the duty free shopping and spending way too much time in the onboard shops with my sister as company leaving the boys to play cards and have a drink.

The next morning feeling not so bright eyed and bushy tailed as I'd only managed to get 5 hours sleep, a considerable amount compared to what my boyfriend managed a total of 2 hours as he was up looking after me, then became sick also as we entered deeper and rougher waters, we where literally moving up and down the bed with the motion of the waves. All this a long with a staff member knocking on the door telling us it was time to leave the ship as we had slept through the announcement only with 5 minutes to spare, never mind needing to pack up all our bags, take them 2 floors up to my sisters cabin as we had upgraded to Club Cabin and had to change room on the returning trip. In my opinion if you can get your hands on a Club Cabbin it is well worth the price for all the extras you get including an actual shower, double bed, tv, tea and coffee facilities, fridge, towels, dressing gowns, wardrobe,  basically it's a hotel room with everything you need and ensures you can keep your luggage to a minimum. 

Eventually we where on the coach into Bruges which takes about 20 minutes from the ferry. Arriving in Bruges you can instantly see why it is such a beautiful city, the architecture is amazing,  the sound of church bells chiming, the horse carts passing by and horse hooves clapping against the cobbled streets and the sun rising reflecting in the still city rivers, you literally feel like you're in a fairy tale.

We arrived on a Sunday morning which gave us time to seek out the city before it got busy as most shops don't open until 11:00am which was rather nice as we could take in what Bruges had to offer us and find where we wanted to return to later on in the day which became very useful to us as Bruges becomes suddenly very busy when the shops open.

 In the main square there is a outdoor ice rink and a big christmas market, on our way around Bruges we actually came across 3 different christmas markets.

One thing Bruges is known for is its delicious chocolate shops where you can watch the chocolateers putting their skill to use, these seem to be the best shops as you at least know they aren't just bought in.

Next we wanted to visit the ice sculpture festival which we had being advised to visit and this year was the disney film 'Frozen' themed and actually had more adults waiting to go inside than children. We ate our lunch while in the queue not to waste anytime and when going inside we where told it would be -6 and my lord it was painfully cold and if you don't have any gloves your going to wish you did. The skill gone into the sculptures was mind blowing, they even had an ice slide and yes I did go down the ice slide, I had to, it was a once in a life experience and why not it was extremely fun!

After all that excitement we stopped off for a warm drink then headed back into the centre to catch a river tour before having to head back to the ferry which was well worth going on as we got to see parts of the city we didn't manage to get around to while finding out a bit of history. You'll be happy to know on the return journey we got a much better sleep as it was a slightly less choppy sea and a handy tip from the captain that a glass of rum and port settles the stomach really worked a treat as you can see from these two happy chaps.

All in all we absolutely loved Bruges and everything about it but really needed an extra day at least to do everything we wanted and hope to return once again some time, possibly when the seas a little calmer.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to subscribe and follow all my social networking sites!

Beth x

DIY December #2 - Beach Inspired Shell Wreath

I have finally finished my last and most exciting DIY December project which I must say I am very proud of and even though Christmas day has past this project is great to start after christmas whilst you go on your seaside and beach walks you can be collecting shells as you go. 
As i love the beach and happen to live right by the sea I manage to witness the beautiful sunsets quite often and it's that which inspired me to create this wreath as I wanted to capture the sunsets soft golden hour tones and in a way bring them in doors.  
The thing I love most about the 'golden hour'  is how perfect everything looks, hence its name given by photographer 'the golden hour', everything compliments eachother so perfectly, so what better way to combine shells both beautiful and natural into a none typical Christmas design. I wanted to do something completely different to your usual wreath and incorporate my own personal touch to my home made decoration.  

So if you're lucky enough to live by the beach this project is super cheap to create as the main item you will need are shells and lots of. I've used limpet shells because of the warm colours on them but you can use whatever shell you wish. After you have collected your shells of various sizes you will also need the following; 
- a polystyrene hoop - available online and most craft stores. 

- glue gun and glue

- rope 

- screw hook

To begin with organise your shells into size piles then it's easier to arrange your wreath. You want to start with your most largest shells by using the hot glue gun to glue the edges of the shell to the outer side of the polystyrene wreath. When you have finished your first round of shells choose the next size down for your next round of shells using the same technique for each round working your way inwards.

Once you have completed all the rounds of shells you may want to add some extra dots of glue to support and ensure your shells stays in place.

You may notice a few gaps where you can see the polystyrene hoop and in these spaces I chose to place some smaller shells to cover the gaps, which I thought brought the whole wreath together. Still using the same glueing technique, glue around the edge of the shell and place on top of the previously placed shell above the gaps (shown in the above picture).

The last part of creating your wreath is  adding your screw in loop to the top of your polystyrene wreath by simply finding a gap between your first round of shells.  Screw it in to create the hole and carefully unscrew it ensuring not to make the hole too big. Then apply a blob of glue into the hole and screw back in the loop. You will want to leave this a good 10 minutes to dry, leave to sit to ensure it doesn't pop out when hung later, while the glue is drying you can prepair the rope to the desired length you want to hang it at and thread through the loop when the glue is set. 

Remember a sea shell wreath is not just for Christmas but can be incorporated into a year round decoration and even a table piece. 

Hope you liked my DIY December piece and make sure to follow and subscribe to my Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages.

Thanks for visiting!

Beth x