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Black Friday is almost here and if you’re reading this post it’s probably because you like the bits I pick for my home, you’re interested in what big baby buys I recommend and you want to be as comfy as I am in my loungewear every day. So, that’s what I’ve done this year. I’ll be compiling the best picks, in my opinion, from all of the sales so that you can decipher the unnecessary splurges from the money saving purchases you were already planning to make. So many of the sales start early this year so I’ll just keep updating this post for you to check back between now and Friday!

MY TOP PICKS

Missoma Gold Mini Tunnel Hoops – 25% off their entire site. These are my most worn earrings from this year but also check the style edit below for more of my faves!

BB Hug Me pregnancy pillow – 25% off. If you’re pregnant and you’ve been toying with the idea of investing in the BB Hug Me pregnancy pillow. DO IT! Best product ever, it got me through my pregnancy and I used it postpartum too to help me feed and get comfortable. I promise it’s worth it.

Diptyque “Best of Baies” Set –£25 off! Space NK are offering £25 off every £100 and that includes this gorgeous Diptyque set in my all time favourite scent!

Cowshed ‘The Awake Bathing Set’ –  20% off! Hands down the most relaxing, luxurious bath and body products around. Cowshed is the ultimate treat.

The Steamery Pilo Fabric Shaver – 30% off! The most satisfying way to keep your knits looking fresh.

GIFTS

PREGNANCY & NEWBORN

STYLE PICKS

HOME

Here’s a list of some of the discount codes you won’t want to miss out on

West Elm have 20% off their entire site (no code needed)

Selfridges have up to 20% off with code SELFCCE

Cowshed have 20% off on orders under £70, 25% off on orders between £75 and £100, 30% off on orders over £100

Missoma have 25% off the entire site

Mango have up to 50% off

H&M Home have 20% off everything for members

& Other Stories have 20% off everything today

ARKET (coming soon)

Glossier have 25% off everything and 35% off sets

Beauty Bay have up to 30% off selected lines

Space NK have £25 off every £100

Whistles have 25% off all full price items

Topshop currently have 30% off brands

ASOS have up to 50% off on selected lines OR 15% off the entire site if it’s your first shop with code ASOSNEWBIE

GHDs have 20% off all stylers

Junique have 25% off everything with the code BLK2020

This is also a good time to shop small, and here are some of my favourite small brands .

Inside Store London
for trendy home accessories

Prick Ldn
for cacti, succulents and pots

Workshop Living
scandi minimalism at it’s finest 

Marloweville

for the cutest kids stripey name tees

Kan Kan London
refillable hand soap
20% off their “near perfect” starter sets and they’ll be planting a tree for every one sold

Nude Ethics
illustrative embroidered clothing and prints

HAYGEN
for gorgeous home accessories

Scandiborn
for pretty kids things

Me+Em
they don’t have discounts but will be donating £10 from every order to The Prince’s Trust 

Is anyone here? Sorry… it’s been a while. Hopefully those of you who used to read my blog back when I regularly posted will now be following me on Instagram and YouTube, the two platforms I find myself on most of the time these days. If you do you’ll know that I now have a one year old daughter! Wtf. I know.

The past year has been such a crazy experience and despite being an auntie five times over and thinking I knew what to expect, I was so wrong… I had no idea. I thought sleep deprivation would be the hardest part, but in reality I just adjusted and got used to having less sleep. I thought all the mum stuff would be tricky; like knowing how to soothe her or dealing with the constant crying, you know, like what you see in the films. She’s actually been a dream and has been a very calm baby since day one; she knew what she wanted and she totally taught us what to do, so it kind of came more naturally to us than I had expected.

But the parts I found the hardest were more to do with me and less about her. Beforehand I didn’t even worry about how I’d feel about my post-partum body because I really didn’t think it would bother me, but wow… it affected me more than I thought it would. I felt proud of what my body had achieved and I wanted to to let it heal and take it’s time, but equally I felt like I was living in someone else’s body and I genuinely felt uncomfortable. Not being able to wear clothes that felt like ‘me’ and not really being able to shop for new ones either, and at the beginning when breastfeeding that feeling that your body doesn’t even belong to you but to someone else is bizarre. Looking back at photos of the few first months, I don’t even look like me. Post-partum hair meant it was thicker, longer and so dark, everything about me just looks different. I also found the work/mum life balance very hard to deal with and I felt scared and worried about the career I’d worked so hard to create… would I be able to come back and work in the same way I did before? Will people wait for me? Will I even want to go back to work?! Without any maternity leave or example to lead by I felt alone in my worries despite the support and encouragement to take the time off. Before having a baby I just thought you could work from home with your baby in a rocker beside you, oh how wrong I was. I hadn’t considered the fact that your mum brain and your work brain are two very different things and they don’t work well alongside each other. I had one bad day when I first went back to work, I learnt from it and then never tried to work whilst looking after her at the same time ever again. Mum guilt is a real thing I’ll tell you that.

What shocked me the most from the past year was how much I enjoyed it. I always wanted to be a mum, it was never something I doubted but I was never obsessed with the idea of being a mum and I didn’t spend time dreaming about how it would be. I think I just spent years worrying about giving birth and the logistics of having a baby incorporated into our life… so it shocked and overwhelmed me when I realised how amazing it felt. And as quite a sarcastic and cynical person I was surprised at how gushy I had become and how positive I felt about the whole experience. For the first time I didn’t feel like pointing out the negative or warning people off the idea, I wanted everyone to know how happy I was. It was a brand new feeling to me, that’s for sure. I feel like people rarely talk about the ‘best bits’ when it comes to motherhood, maybe it’s an English thing? All you really hear about is how hard it is. Yes maybe there are days you’re exhausted or just want to cry, but I’m pretty sure there’s been a moment everyday where I’ve laughed too… and I didn’t laugh daily before having her. The feeling of love and pride is unlike anything you would have ever felt and it makes everything else seem irrelevant. Someone commented on my Instagram post today saying having a child felt like their heart was constantly outside their body – perfectly put.

I wish I hadn’t spent so many years scared of giving birth, or putting off the idea until I had certain things in place or had been to various places first. But also who knows if I would have had the same experience or felt the same way if the timings were different. I feel so grateful and I know that I’m so lucky, I don’t forget that for a minute. My life is different now, but so much better. I haven’t yet got the work balance thing right, but having her has put so many things in perspective and I no longer feel FOMO or jealousy of others. I’ve learnt to be more present and enjoy the moment and I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

Thanks for following along for the past year and for all your supportive comments. I’ll try not to wait another year to post on here again, no promises.

Despite being told left, right and centre that newborn babies really don’t need much stuff, it’s impossible not to get sucked into the world of baby shopping and it can be really quite overwhelming! On one hand I know that a newborn doesn’t need all the stuff, but on the other I feel like you only have your first baby once and there’s no harm enjoying that. So I feel like I’ve been somewhere in the middle when it comes to shopping. I’m letting myself enjoy the process and buy a few unnecessary bits just because they’re cute, but I’m also trying to be practical and not go too over the top. In fact one of my tactics has been, instead of asking friends and family what I should be buying, I’ve been asking what was the one thing they bought that they ended up not needing or using. Of course you have to factor in that every baby is totally different and what works for one might not work for another, and that’s something no-one knows until the time comes.

I think it’s quite common for people in the UK to start thinking about shopping after their 20 week scan, so that’s what we did and we didn’t jump in head first, we eased our way in. I started by researching online and chatting to friends and family. Compiling a Google list that Rich and I could both log into and edit helped me get my head around it and stopped me impulse buying every time I saw something cute. In fact we didn’t even go into a shop until I was maybe 23 weeks. I’m aware that a baby doesn’t go into it’s own bedroom right at the beginning, but we didn’t want to be decorating and sorting out a room with a newborn so that’s something we wanted to sort beforehand. I gave Rich some specific jobs so that he could be involved and know exactly how he could help, so he was in charge of researching things like baby monitors, cot mattress and baby slings.

*UPDATE*

Hello, Lily post-baby talking now… I was almost spot-on with all of my purchases, but since actually having a baby myself I’ve learnt so much and I thought I’d update this blog post and share a much more experience based checklist. Of course these are not essentials and everyone’s budget will be totally different, so feel free to adapt the list to what you need. This is just what I send my girlfriends when they ask me, and so I thought I’d make it public! As you’ll see on the checklist there’s an A and a B list, because not everything is needed for the first few weeks when a baby is a newborn. I found it really helpful to do all my research when pregnant and have all my links ready to go for when I needed to make the purchases, but to not buy the items until I needed them and it spread out the costs a bit too.

Click the link below to download my newborn “essentials” checklist. 

NEWBORN SHOPPING LIST

Watch the video where I talk in more detail about the specific products I used and liked below. 

NEWBORN ESSENTIALS VIDEO

SHOP SOME OF MY FAVOURITES HERE

Photos by Emma Croman

How was your weekend? Mine turned out to be pretty great actually. Saturday was the usual; a browse around Primrose Hill food market and a walk in the park, but on Sunday we had no plans. We spent Saturday night going through all the options of what to do in London but just didn’t fancy any of them, so we thought why not drive down to Brighton. It’s an easy enough drive and we know the place well enough to walk around some shops and have some lunch before driving back in time for a chilled Sunday evening. so that’s what we did… Sunday morning, we woke up at 8.30am, got ready and jumped in the car.

First stop was lunch and luckily Anna and Mark were around to join us, so we tried out something new. Baby Bao, a Taiwanese London based restaurant currently has a residence at The Pond in Brighton – and I love Bao. You can only book for parties over 8 during the week but it wasn’t actually that busy and because The Pond was originally a pub, it’s a really relaxed vibe where you order your food and drink up at the bar. We thought we had completely over ordered but actually we almost ate it all, so it’s very much a sharing vibe if you order a load of sides (and trust me you won’t be able to resist the sides!). Some of my favourite dishes included the aubergine, the pork bao, ramen noodle veggie spring rolls and the chicken wings.

It was so nice to catch up with Anna and Mark, as Rich said on the way back, our friendship is so easy. When you’ve known someone for a long time you can just totally be yourself and not worry about small talk. They had to head off so Rich and I went to the lanes. When we visit in the summer we always make sure to have a beach walk but it was freezing so we spent a couple of hours browsing the shops instead and Rich tried all the coffee.

 

Living in London I’m used to having all the options. Multiple different store locations to check stock and multiple branches of the same restaurant to pick from and Anna always laughs at me when I say I can’t imagine just having one to visit. But saying that, something I really love about Brighton is how small and close everything is to each other. I have a long list of cute, independent shops I love in London but I’d have to do some serious tube hopping to visit them all in one go. Whereas in Brighton, you can walk down one street and come across a handful of gorgeous, independent shops that are filled with unique and special items. I always find myself spending a small fortune, so let me tell you about my favourite finds.

We first stopped at Photomatic, which is a photo booth store. They obviously saw how popular the booth in Snooper’s Paradise was and decided to open a dedicated store. It’s really cool though and run by photo enthusiasts so the prints come out really well. They made the booths themselves and the idea is that they replicate the look of old film photography. There are two booths, a black and white and a colour and you simply buy tokens to use them beforehand. Once you’ve taken your snaps you can then choose if you want your photo blown up, or put onto a keyring/badge etc… It’s really fun and so nice to have the memories to look back on. We’ll be using our photos in the baby’s room as well as sticking them in her baby book to look back on when she’s older.

We carried on walking and went into some very sweet kids shops. Anna suggested we went into Junior Edition and Happyology which were both filled with the cutest kids clothes and accessories. We visited out friends at Workshop Living which will forever be my favourite shop in Brighton. The shop is gorgeous and perfect for finding a gift, although I always go in and treat myself. I love their kitchenware, candles and beauty picks. Rich actually picked up some really nice trousers from the brand Wax, I bought a print, a hand cream and the candle they were burning in the shop because it smelt so good!

Other shops we enjoyed popping into were Dowse, where I bought this print and ceramic pot and Papersmiths is always worth a visit if you’re as in love with stationery as I am!

We were back in the car and heading home by 4pm, but it was really such a lovely day. I hope you liked seeing some photos from the day.  If you’re interested, these are the maternity dungarees I was wearing – they’re amazing!

So where did we start? Well, we had around six months from moving into our house to moving out to start the renovation and in this time I knew I had to make a lot of decisions. As someone who gets easily stressed, forward planning is my best friend, so I wanted to have most of the larger decisions made before we started the work. My worst nightmare would be having to decide on a bathroom within a couple of days without being able to do proper research. Time is a luxury for sure, but if you have it, use it well!

I started by collecting images I liked, not worrying too much at that point about what is possible for us and what is not, this was more of a visual task. I saved images on Instagram, collecting them by room eg, ‘bedroom’, ‘kitchen’ etc. But I didn’t go overboard, I only saved a max of around 10 photos per collection. I personally find Pinterest to be too perfect and very US based, which I couldn’t relate to my own home, so I didn’t use it. I only really used Pinterest if I was looking for something specific, for example wardrobes built around a chimney breast. The two magazines I enjoyed most for inspiration were Living Etc and Elle Decor, so I occasionally flicked through and tore out any pages that interested me, this is included adverts for brands as well as interior ideas.

Phase two was to go through all of these and edit them down to something digestible. I went through the Instagram images to see if there was a pattern, for example most of my images for the lounge and kitchen had dark walls which inspired my paint choice. Spotting patterns and writing them down can really help get you to a decision, so I did that for most of the rooms. I then went through all the cuttings from the magazines, only keeping ones that seemed realistic for us and writing down on them with a sharpie what I specifically liked about the image. For example in one of the photos there was a built-in bench in the dining room, it wasn’t something we were able to do right away but having the photos as a reference will be really helpful to show the builder when we are able to do it.

My biggest piece of advice would be to not worry too much about making everything “Instagrammable” or perfect. It is easy to make things looks nice by styling pieces around it, but when investing in a home you need to also think practically about longevity and how you’ll actually live in the space. It’s easy to get sucked into the gorgeous images online and in magazines but I’d encourage you just to use them as inspiration and remember it’s not reality most of the time.

So good luck with your own renovation projects whether it’s just redecorating one room or

Photos by Emma Croman

Deep down I am a very organised person, but as well as being organised I am lazy and these two qualities spend a lot of time fighting against each other. If I don’t make an effort, my organisation skills start to slack and I then start to lack motivation and feel like a crap version of myself and it all spins out of control.  When I’m in the mood to organise and get my shit together I feel so much better in myself, literally like I’m winning at life. So I thought I’d tell you guys the small things I do to feel this way if you want to give them a try, as well as a reminder to myself to keep it up!

Keep that laptop clean
Literally inside and out. As well as giving it a good wipe down with laptop wipes, I like to try and remember to clear my desktop screen of clutter, removing any unwanted files and organising them into folders or onto hard drives. And if you’re an Apple user you’ll sympathise with the pain of those daily computer update notifications. I try to get it all done on one day; clear my desktop, back up my computer onto a hard drive and then update the system. It feels good when it’s eventually done.

Organise and print photos
This is something I’m trying to get my friends to do, mainly to get them off my back and stop them constantly saying how jealous they are that I have printed photos in albums. If it’s really something you feel passionate about it’s annoyingly one of those things you have to put the effort into. At first it’s super overwhelming but if you keep it up it becomes just part of your routine. I started by going back to 2016 on my phone, but you can start where you wish… I went though every photo and gave myself three actions to pick from; keep, delete or put into album.  I deleted any duplicates (you know how we all have 20 angles of the same photo) although I tend to do this at the time of taking the photos – top tip if you want to save time later! I made a few albums depending on what I wanted to print such as ‘2016 Phone Pics’ or ‘Home Renovation’ or ‘My 30th Birthday’, that part is totally up to you. Printing them is easy too, you can use an app like Free Prints or take them into somewhere like Boots to print them instantly. I like to use self-adhesive photo albums so I can print any size photo and arrange them as I wish. We live in such a digital age now that printing photos means so much to me, I don’t want all the memories to be lost and living in a cloud for no-one to ever see.

Clean, clean, clean
This time of year has me wanting everything clean and stripped back to how it was ‘before’. I go a bit cleaning mad, which ain’t no bad thing and rarely happens the rest of the year – although I’m hoping I get that nesting phase that so many pregnant women talk about. I start by cleaning my makeup brushes, something I think we all neglect but is so important especially if you want to have good skin, just think of the dirt that lives in there! I also like to give the inside of my wardrobe a good clean, which usually coincides with a wardrobe clear-out, you can see mine on Anna’s YouTube channel here. The most satisfying clean is the fridge/freezer which I like to completely empty, give a good wipe down and then re-stock with only non-expired, neatly piled food and drink (although it doesn’t last long let’s be honest).

Burn those candles
Now this one is hardly difficult, but I always find that I have half burnt candles lying around the house, especially festive Christmas candles. So at this time of year I like to make an effort to burn those candles that are almost finished, especially in the evenings when we are relaxing and watching TV. It means saying goodbye to the festive scents, but it also means I can get out any new and unused candles and actually feel like they’re not going to waste sitting in the cupboard.

Set up a Bullet Journal
I’m still such a huge advocate for the Bullet Journal, three years after starting my first ever one. I spoke about what a Bullet Journal is in this video and then went into more detail of how I set up my ‘blogger style’ Bullet Journal in this video. Whether you’re using it for work or for personal use (a lot fo people use it for food shopping lists, gratitude lists, the options are endless) I think it’s just such a brilliant way for getting what’s in your brain down on paper. It makes me feel less forgetful and more organised, I use mine mainly for to-do lists, planning out my video content and writing down detailed ideas. If you want to get really creative with it, it’s also a great outlet for that and can be really relaxing. If you’ve never heard of the Bullet Journal before, set some time aside to do some googling and watch some videos online, you’ll get sucked into a hole and before you know if you’ll be the proud owner of a dotted notebook and a tippex mouse – enjoy.

For me the new year is never about diets or exercise, but it does give me that motivation to get organised and sort of out the things I put off at the tail end of last year. So I hope this inspired you a bit to do the same! Good luck!