[Disclaimer] - This is a guest post.
At the Airport
Trainers are the ideal footwear for travelling as they are comfortable, suitable for walking long distances and also ideal for running in to catch that flight! The best style of trainers to choose for travelling is a slip-on pair, as these can be removed easily on long flights and when passing through security. They also don’t require you to stop and re-tie them if they come loose. Slip-on trainers are available in a variety of patterns and colours and can be paired with joggers, denim, shorts and even dresses or skirts.Fancy Nights Out
Fancy nights out don’t always require you to wear heels and in fact; there are a lot of fashionable trainers that would work perfectly. If you’re planning on wearing a midi-dress, the designer range at Sensse have trainers are available in numerous styles and can really help your personality to shine through. If you would prefer something more understated, then a pair of black canvas trainers are a good choice. These are a timeless classic that look especially good with cropped jeans or gym pants.
Short Weekend Getaways
If you plan on taking a short weekend getaway any time soon, you’ll want to pack a pair of trainers that will be comfortable in enough to wear while you’re on your feet all day long; whilst also looking fashionable in any photographs you take. A pair of high-top trainers are a top choice here, but you could also invest in a more sporty style if you want to. Another good option are a pair of Skechers. These are known for their comfort, but also for their bright colours and patterns. So long as you plan your outfits in advance, these could be a top choice.Formal Occasions
Trainers are not usually the go-to choice for many when it comes to formal occasions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t wear them - it just requires a bit of extra thought. A basic trainer in black or white can give a fashionable edge to a suit. Classic navy low tops can provide the little something extra that you may need when worn with a pair of grey pants. Of course, you probably won’t want to wear trainers to work, but if you’re attending a conference, exhibition or commuting into the city, trainers can be a top choice to wear.Can you think of any more ways to use trainers in your look?
Disclaimer: Guest post.
If I hadn't of blown that money, I could have used for driving lessons, to buy a car or as part of a deposit for a future house. However, when you are 16, broke one day and then blessed with the access to a few grand in a account that is all yours, it can be hard to listen to your parents and leave the money untouched.
Ricky and I will definitely be saving for our son's future with a Junior ISA. I would love to see him buy his first car when he's 17, get his University acceptance letter and put money towards a deposit to buy his own house one day. However, it's a tough world out there and it's not easy to do any of these things at such a young age.
Building up a nest egg for our child when he turns 18 is so important to us and something we plan to set up very soon... as soon as he is here and has a name! However, it can be easy to feel like you are putting away money from birthdays and holidays and getting no real benefits from opening up a bank account than you would keeping it in a large money box at home.
Having looked further into investing into our son's future, I came across Stocks and Share Junior ISA. Not only are you putting money away for your child's future, but you're investing it too and gaining something back. How it works is by investing funds into things like bonds, property and commodities. It allows you to build up a giant pot of money over 18 years, with as much or as little monthly investments as you like. Even better, the parent(s) can withdraw the money at anytime, so if you really do need the cash back for something, then you know it is not locked for 18 years.
Affordable investing is what I am all about and it is something that I am seriously considering for our son's financial future. Having looked further into it, I cannot believe how affordable and more beneficial it seems than regular junior ISAs. However, it can be pretty confusing and overwhelming at first, so it is recommended to do some research before anything else.
With some Junior ISAs, there are plans for you to read and decide what you fit into most. Some plans are for minimising loss, with small movements but with the aim to beat inflation. Some plans progress to minimise losses with making gains just as important. Finally, you may have a lot of steady income and want to invest a little more for your child, so you can go for a higher plan which maximises returns as a priority and results in the highest growth possible. It all depends on what you want!
Personally, I think we will set up a Stocks and Shares Junior ISA for our son pretty soon and invest a couple of hundred pounds per month - sometimes maybe more, maybe less. I have also seen the option to open the account up to family/friends for them to add money into too, which is perfect for when it comes to Christmas and birthdays.
Disclaimer: Sponsored post, all words, opinions my own.
With a little over 8 weeks to go until baby's due date, we are so pleased that the nursery is finished and ready for one very lucky boy. I have joked that Ricky and I are a great team, with Ricky seeing to the decorating and DIY bits and me being a bit like Linda Barker (if you know, you know) and doing the decision making.
Our second bedroom in the house is such a lovely size and has allowed us the freedom to choose pretty much anything that we wanted for our baby boy's nursery. It's the brightest room in the house too; overlooking the back of the house. I can already see our grown up boy having a lovely room when he's older; with the space to have a double bed and a huge wardrobe on the other side of the room.
Like the rest of the house, we chose to stick to our scandinavian and ethical style that is featured in pretty much every room. We started by choosing Valspar Paint wall colours that went nicely together to create a bold and striking abstract feature wall. We collaborated with them for most of the rooms in the house (which I am still yet to share some other rooms!), so chose a gorgeous grey shade called Rocky Mountain Mist for one abstract triangle. For the other, we did pick out a few different blue/green shades, but felt something wasn't quite right. In the end, we used the in-store at B&Q colour scanner to scan the colour on a cushion I bought for the nursery, which was the perfect slate grey meets teal blue.
We was lucky to be able to get away with buying tester paint pots. So in actual fact, the paint on the walls only cost us £6, because the white was already freshly painted when we moved in! We only had to go over the odd mark here and there.
Shall we take a look around at the room? Yessssssssssss.
Starting with the prints on the wall, I have teamed up to collaborate with Desenio again and am super happy with the four A4 size prints we chose. This time, we went for the oak wooden frames which are an amazing quality and match the furniture in the room.
From left to right: Exploring Poster | Footprints Poster
As always, the quality of Desenio prints is amazing and they always have so many on offer. It is handy signing up to their emails too, as they often send out inspiration for different rooms, which can really get the creative juices in your brain flowing. Being able to buy the frames (with many different options to also choose from) that fit the prints perfectly, makes it much more easier to shop in one place. And did I mention how affordable Desenio is?! You can easily shop around on a tight budget!
My code “ASHLEIGH25” gives 25% off prints* on all of our websites between 2 and 4 April. Follow @desenio for more inspiration!
*Except for frames and handpicked-/collaboration/personalised prints.
If you think I have the time or patience to stencil individual triangles across a large wall, you're quite wrong. The super cool triangles on the wall are insane wall stickers are from a brand I discovered on Instagram called Happy Decs. They have so many lovely designs and a pack of 220 stickers is just £19.99 - which even allows you to choose up to 4 different colours at the checkout!
I chose this beautiful crochet ceiling light from Ikea, which is part of the IKEA INDUSTRIELL collection and priced at just £25. It takes away the bright white light and keeps the room warm and cosy; perfect for a baby's room.
I headed straight to Wayfair for the cot, which has so many Scandinavian style cots for a fraction of the price. We went for the Wayfair Zaire cot bed, made from a solid wood with white furnishings and suitable from birth up to 5 years as it turns into a cot bed.
It is such a lovely quality and goes perfectly with the Wayfair Hartley clothes rail that I also bought. I figured it will be so much easier with a clothes rail than a wardrobe for the first few years and this nordic style one has a cool teepee style to it; matching the room lovely! We will be using it to show his very best clothes as we have another storage system for other clothes. To finish, I picked up some super cute bear themed clothes dividers from Belo and Me; making it much more organised.
The Tutti Bambini Nursing Chair is something I think finishes the room off nicely. It is super comfortable and actually, I was using it as a computer desk chair before we put the nursery together! It reclines quite far back, has plenty of pockets on the side to keep things (I imagine I will be storing biscuits in these, ha!) and comes with a matching foot stool. I already can't wait to feed baby at 4am, rocking away in this.
The animal wall heads are my favourite bargain this year. I had been searching high and low for handmade animal wall heads, but they can put you out of pocket by a fair bit! However, a quick look in H&M, I saw this giraffe and rhino sitting in the H&M home kids section on the top shelf. Looking rather lonely, I pulled them down and could not believe it when I saw they had a flat back and a hoop for hanging on the walls.... and only £12.99 each! Sold!
I had been looking around for a large enough chest of drawers that matched the Scandi style of the rest of the nursery furniture. However, they are either really expensive or affordable but not big enough. I didn't see the point in buying a separate changing table and so looked for a chest of drawers that was big enough to have a large changing area on top.
I figured I wouldn't get much better than the IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers, which have 8 drawers and is 160cm wide. Now we have separate drawers for different things, different sizes; and a more than generous sized area for all baby's changing needs. To personalise it to the room a little, I bought some grey porcelain bear head drawer knobs online - and so really, you would never know the unit was from IKEA! I am chuffed with it!
We have quite a large space on the wall on this side of the room, so I will probably fill it with more prints or maybe some shelves in the future.
I have dressed it with an abstract printed changing mat, a wicker skincare basket packed full of nappy creams and baby massage oils, a nappy waste bin from Angel Care and of course, a baby scan photo which makes me smile every time I look at it.
We also picked up the RASKOG trolley from IKEA, which makes for the perfect nappy and wipes station! We chose it in blue which matches the room amazingly. We already have all our newborn size nappies in it, ready and waiting for poop explosions!
We are so pleased with the outcome of the nursery. I honestly cannot stop chilling out in here and just taking everything in. I cannot believe how fast pregnancy is going and that a little baby will be in here soon (well after 6 months of co-sleeping in his Tutti Bambini Cozee!), so just a nappy changing and dressing room for now.
I have well and truly had to give up the second bedroom which was previously used as an extra clothes storage and dressing room. However, I couldn't think of a better reason to give it up!
Disclaimer: In collaboration with Desenio. Any other brand collaborations are always disclaimed, otherwise products are purchased with our own money. All words, opinions and photographs are my own.
I chose this beautiful crochet ceiling light from Ikea, which is part of the IKEA INDUSTRIELL collection and priced at just £25. It takes away the bright white light and keeps the room warm and cosy; perfect for a baby's room.
I headed straight to Wayfair for the cot, which has so many Scandinavian style cots for a fraction of the price. We went for the Wayfair Zaire cot bed, made from a solid wood with white furnishings and suitable from birth up to 5 years as it turns into a cot bed.
It is such a lovely quality and goes perfectly with the Wayfair Hartley clothes rail that I also bought. I figured it will be so much easier with a clothes rail than a wardrobe for the first few years and this nordic style one has a cool teepee style to it; matching the room lovely! We will be using it to show his very best clothes as we have another storage system for other clothes. To finish, I picked up some super cute bear themed clothes dividers from Belo and Me; making it much more organised.
The Tutti Bambini Nursing Chair is something I think finishes the room off nicely. It is super comfortable and actually, I was using it as a computer desk chair before we put the nursery together! It reclines quite far back, has plenty of pockets on the side to keep things (I imagine I will be storing biscuits in these, ha!) and comes with a matching foot stool. I already can't wait to feed baby at 4am, rocking away in this.
The animal wall heads are my favourite bargain this year. I had been searching high and low for handmade animal wall heads, but they can put you out of pocket by a fair bit! However, a quick look in H&M, I saw this giraffe and rhino sitting in the H&M home kids section on the top shelf. Looking rather lonely, I pulled them down and could not believe it when I saw they had a flat back and a hoop for hanging on the walls.... and only £12.99 each! Sold!
I figured I wouldn't get much better than the IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers, which have 8 drawers and is 160cm wide. Now we have separate drawers for different things, different sizes; and a more than generous sized area for all baby's changing needs. To personalise it to the room a little, I bought some grey porcelain bear head drawer knobs online - and so really, you would never know the unit was from IKEA! I am chuffed with it!
We have quite a large space on the wall on this side of the room, so I will probably fill it with more prints or maybe some shelves in the future.
I have dressed it with an abstract printed changing mat, a wicker skincare basket packed full of nappy creams and baby massage oils, a nappy waste bin from Angel Care and of course, a baby scan photo which makes me smile every time I look at it.
We also picked up the RASKOG trolley from IKEA, which makes for the perfect nappy and wipes station! We chose it in blue which matches the room amazingly. We already have all our newborn size nappies in it, ready and waiting for poop explosions!
We are so pleased with the outcome of the nursery. I honestly cannot stop chilling out in here and just taking everything in. I cannot believe how fast pregnancy is going and that a little baby will be in here soon (well after 6 months of co-sleeping in his Tutti Bambini Cozee!), so just a nappy changing and dressing room for now.
I have well and truly had to give up the second bedroom which was previously used as an extra clothes storage and dressing room. However, I couldn't think of a better reason to give it up!
Disclaimer: In collaboration with Desenio. Any other brand collaborations are always disclaimed, otherwise products are purchased with our own money. All words, opinions and photographs are my own.
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