Happy New Year! Can I still say that? Probably a bit late, but since it's my first blog of 2021 I think I will.

After having a wee break from social media, I returned in January with a new focus for my Fun A Day project - vegan baking! It wasn't what I'd originally planned, but after David was given some cake decorating tools for Christmas we were looking for an excuse to practice some techniques. Neither of us had tried any 'proper' cake decorating before, though I am guilty of sitting watching videos of cookies being iced - it's so relaxing! David seemed to think that his landscaping skills would be transferrable and has since referred to crumb coating as cake rendering.

What I loved about this project was that it really gave me a reason to make time to try out recipes I'd had saved for ages, and I'd get to work on my project with David. There was the added challenge of adapting some recipes to be vegan but we had a lot of success, and it was nice timing with Veganuary which also runs for the duration of January. 

I think my favourite part was having pretty cakes and bakes to photograph, I was able to set up some cute scenes and try out some fun styling. If anyone would like to commission some recipe book photography I'd be delighted to help!

Also, a really lovely bonus was that we were able to box up bakes for friends and neighbours, inspire others to bake and even post some treats for family birthdays! 

I've made a highlight on my Instagram if you'd like to see some behind the scenes and more of the project - here.

*Lick gifted me a Colour Consultation, Decorating Kit and paint in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

When Lick got in touch asking if I'd like to try their Video Colourist Session to help makeover a room in my home I thought it would be a fab opportunity to change up our bedroom a little. 

My appointment was booked with Sam and held via WhatsApp. We had a lovely chat about interiors including my likes and dislikes, details of the space I wanted advice on (how we use it, what would be staying the same etc), my interiors style and any other requirements. It was a really relaxed chat and Sam gave me the encouragement I needed to go bold as I told her I loved the arch murals I'd been seeing on Instagram recently. After the session I was sent a bespoke mood board with details of Lick paint colours to complete the makeover.

Lick then sent me one of their super handy Decorating Kits and a tin of Yellow 01 which is a soft creamy yellow, perfect for adding a cosy pop of colour to our otherwise white bedroom. I'm just going to take a moment here to say how much I love Lick's branding - from the little messages on the packaging to the logo engraved wooden handles and gorgeous tin - there are so many little touches that make them stand out. The decorating kit I received is the single room painting kit which includes a roller and handle, 2" flat brush, metal roller tray and yellow masking tape.

We measured out the space behind the bed, taped up the straight sides and floor, then used a pencil with some string and a pin (as a compass) to draw the arch. David did the rollering while I did the arch edge - I was so surprised at how easy it was as a wee DIY project! The paint went on so nice and smooth, it only needed one coat as the wall underneath was white. It's a really thick, well pigmented paint and a little definitely goes a long way.

We finished off our mini bedroom makeover with some wee pops of yellow and other cute accessories. First, a few thrifty ones - the cushions were spare ones my Mum had sitting around, I made some pompoms to add to my fairylights (you can see how I did this using a fork here), I added a couple of yellow/gold items to my accessories box frame, and I put one of my great grandmother's vintage doilies in an embroidery hoop as a wall decoration. The beautiful wall hanging is from Letti and Low on Etsy and I found the rattan mirror on eBay. I also couldn't resist taking a pic of one of Cushy Knit's squishy blankets on the bed as it just looks so snuggly with the new colour scheme. Then, last but not least, we got a big yellow mirror ball! I absolutely love it, it's so twinkly in the sun and just makes it feel like a really cheerful space to wake up in, especially on these gloomier mornings. 

If you're thinking about having a home makeover, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Lick. The colourist sessions are such a great tool for helping inspire you to try something different in your home with confidence. You can find out more here and also be sure to follow Lick on Instagram as there's so many beautiful real homes featured. I keep spotting more colours I'd like to try elsewhere in the house!

Our garden makeover has been a lot slower than the interiors - turns out plants take quite a bit of time to grow! It's an ongoing project, especially now that I'm studying garden design and have lots more elaborate ideas. We've been working on bits and pieces in stages with a couple more big changes planned, I thought I would share where we're up to now as I've had so many lovely messages when I post snippets on Instagram stories. 

Last year David started by digging out a border along the wall on the lefthand side with old wooden sleepers as edging. Our garden sloped down to a weird triangle point which was previously just mushy lawn, so the soil which was dug out for the border was used to level this out a bit. My Nanny is a keen gardener and so took cuttings of their lovely plants for us to get started. One year on, and they are looking beautiful! The bees seem to think so too.

We left it like this for a while as we were deciding what our best quick fixes would be. Then, one weekend last July, we transformed it all! David began by doubling up the fence slats which gives us much more privacy and stops Daisy peeking through to bark at the neighbours. We painted this in Cuprinol 'Coastal Mist' which made such a difference. Though it did take three coats! This was used for the trellis too. Next up was painting the concrete block wall - if we weren't trying to do this quickly and on a tiny budget David would have rendered the wall first. 

After that we just added a selection of solar string lights (eBay), hooks and hanging baskets. It's quite strange accessorising a garden really. The metal wall decorations belonged to my late uncle, as well as the ceramic plant pots, mini bird table and wooden chairs. David cut a palette in half which we painted with leftover fence paint, it's really handy as a wee drinks table for if you're lying on the picnic blanket or in the hammock. Our hammock (also eBay) was a gift to ourselves at the start of lockdown and honestly it's one of the best things we've ever bought. So comfy and relaxing, it fits both of us in and the stand can be taken apart to fit in the shed.

Since then we got a second hand gazebo which has made a lovely sheltered seating area for the evenings, decorated with my vintage fabric scrap bunting. Of course we then made a cocktail bar which was a lot of fun! Now we just need some more sunshine to enjoy it all. 

Next on our list is French doors. David is keen to get them fitted before winter as the back door has seen better days. After that he wants to patio the area which is currently gravel but that will probably be next year. Oh, and I've still got to paint the wall behind the bar which is the back of the garage and goes around to the side.

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​I hadn't planned on creating a new workspace, it kind of just happened. One day, during lockdown, I mentioned how I'd like to work in our small guest bedroom as it's at the front so gets more sun, and wondered if we could swap them round. David wasn't overly keen and it did seem like a hassle/some top procrastination, but a week or so later we were looking for things to do and it suddenly seemed like a great idea!

This definitely marked the end of an era. Moving to a much smaller room meant packing up the side of my business I'd been falling out of love with to make sure there was room for all of the important stuff for moving forward. It was absolute chaos. I had instant regrets when both rooms were filled with piles of disorganised EVERYTHING. Why did I have so much stuff??

A day of work later and we had the layout of my new workspace! At this stage I decided I wanted to paint everything a muted green so I ordered a tin of Rust-Oleum Bramwell which we used on the desk, shelf and wicker chair. The chair was actually in the garage from when my parents were clearing out - it used to be in my nursery/bedroom growing up and has constantly changed colour. I covered the cushion with a fat quarter of gorgeous liberty fabric from eBay. I also found half a can of matte gold spray paint from a previous project in the garage, which David used to spray my old bright pink IKEA file shelves with. I love how they turned out! 

My favourite mini DIY that happened was the clock. This vintage frame was used for displaying brooches and the hands were taken off an old clock which didn't suit the new space. Those, combined with some floral fabric, make a fun but practical addition to my wee gallery wall. The botanical prints are all from CowParsleyCo on Etsy. Keeping to the botanical theme, I treated myself to some custom coasters from Flower Resin - they are made with daisies, ferns, pink petals and gold leaf. So perfect! My desk candle is from The Candle Bothy, I love the cucumber, ginger and mint scent, plus it's a bonus that the label matches perfectly!

Last but not least, is my lovely new pink velvet desk chair. I wanted to have a comfier space to sit as I'm so bad for going downstairs to work from the sofa in the living room. I can safely say it has increased productivity by 100%. It's my focus zone, but I can sit with my legs crossed and draw or cosy up with Daisy. I'd seen these in TK Maxx years ago and always wanted an excuse to buy one, but because it was during lockdown I managed to find a similar one on eBay.

Everything else we already had, it just needed a bit of reorganisation. I really love it and it's become a place I'm excited to spend time in. So cosy and inviting! As for the old studio, it's now a guest bedroom/gym/games room which makes for a much better use of space.

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If you've seen any of my interiors posts before, you'll know we love to challenge ourselves to DIY, upcycle and thrift as much as possible. This has meant most of our makeovers were done on tiny budgets, but this is the first where we admitted defeat and paid to get the stair carpet fitted! Other than that, this was a classic team Jilly and David job - I did most of the tedious banister painting (Autentico Versante Matt in Menta) whilst David was in charge of tiling the floor. David also removed the old shelf/clunky storage heater that didn't do much, and put up our beautiful floating sleeper shelf (eBay £30). This turned out to be a much bigger job than expected as he wanted it to be super secure, but it's so worth it as it really opens up the space and adds character. 

Meanwhile, I was rummaging through the house and garage to see what I could use to accessorise. I love this old spindly chair, but I'm not sure where it came from! We already had the drawers in the hall but they look much more at home in the new colour scheme, which is actually pretty neutral for us. I wanted the space to feel as light and airy as possible, so knew all the brown woodwork needed to be painted. The floor tiles were a big part of the inspiration for keeping it a more natural colour palette (£25.63m2 from Tiles Direct). 

Originally we were going to stick with just mint and greens to add colour but the pink snuck in through some of the accessories as I felt it added more warmth when paired with cosy lighting and touches of gold. The frames were mostly from charity shops and feature a mix of my own illustrations and photos, with some Etsy prints mixed in. (Let's Dance from PrintPunkStudio / Elton John from CarrissaTanton / Blah Blah Blah from StelleDesignStudio / Work Hard & Be Kind from mboldnstudio).

The beautiful Weaver Green rug was an early birthday present, it's made entirely from recycled plastic bottles! The mirrors are vintage - the one above the chair belonged to my great grandmother and the other was only £10 from Fancy That?. The glass light shades also have a vintage look but are actually just cheap ones from eBay. I also found the seagrass baskets on there which add a nice contrasting texture. Finally, we wanted to add some plants but I've tried keeping them alive in the hall before with no luck - there's just not enough sunlight sadly. So I've cheated and got a few lovely artificial plants from IKEA which definitely bring some life to the space.

It's quite hard to write a post like this without it becoming a list of products sometimes! I hope you've enjoyed seeing our hallway makeover, I'd love to know what your favourite part is?

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​I'd had some bar ideas on my Garden Inspiration Pinterest board for ages now, but it just seemed like one of those never-going-to-happen projects. We've had this empty, unused corner of the garden which I decided would be the perfect spot for one so it was time to convince David. I showed him lots of examples and he said if I did a sketch of how I wanted it to look, mainly using the scrap materials we already had, we could do it. Yesss!!

I can't believe how it's turned out! It's just so real. I initially thought I'd just be getting a fold down pallet shelf or something tiny. In the end we used a bunch of stuff from our garage junk collection - 3 pallets from materials deliveries, trellis for the roof (from a bin store David made), osb countertop (leftover from a garage repair), and the roof posts and monoblocks were salvaged from a skip trip.

Of course, with David being a landscape gardener he was able to magic up a lovely patio base, then he constructed the bar using my drawing as a guide. I was in charge of the stools and all of the painting (so much painting). The stools were £12 because of a lucky voucher situation, and I already had foam to use for the tops leftover from another project. I covered the tops with  this tropical leaf tablecloth (£6.99) which inspired the colour scheme. The paint cost £24 with lots leftover. The colours are Paradise Petals by Johnstone's and Seagrass by Cuprinol.

We did most of the work in a weekend, then I was just waiting for my solar lights to arrive to have fun with the styling. They look so pretty but sadly aren't working, so I've got to return them or I'd have taken a twinkly night-time photo. The other accessories were mostly just things we already had - the chalkboard frames are repurposed from my old tradeshow display. I did buy the floral garland on eBay though. Amazingly, in total we spent around £60! 

I hope you like our DIY bar! We can't wait to have some friends and family round for cocktail nights! I'll share the rest of our garden makeover soon.

JillyJilly turned 6 in May. I didn't have any business Birthday celebrations as, truth be told, I'd fallen out of love with my business some time ago. I had been wanting to make some big changes but wasn't sure where to start or what I was actually aiming for, so it all seemed incredibly overwhelming and much easier to just ignore it. Despite business mentoring in the past, I'm rubbish when it comes to listening to my own advice! 

I closed my shop at the start of lockdown. I was worried about sending parcels which were non-essential when the postal service was struggling. I was becoming very aware of making 'stuff' and the whole process - from supplies arriving in unnecessary plastic packaging, wasteful seconds etc. I was making more sustainable choices in other aspects of my life so I wanted my business to match up to this too.

After taking some time to reflect I decided to start over - rebuild, refresh, rebrand. So let me introduce you to the new JillyJilly! My new branding was actually inspired by my new workspace, we created this using existing bits and pieces with the help of some leftover paint. My old branding was pink, mint and lilac so it felt like a nice transition to a softer, nature inspired palette. The hand drawn typography feels a bit vintage, and I liked the playfulness of a reversible logo.

Since you're here, you've probably already noticed this is a whole new website. There's no longer a shop, though there will be a shop for the digital download products I'm working on. One of the main focuses now is design and photography services for indie businesses. I've spent time putting together examples of some of my favourite past projects, along with pre-priced packages for these services. 

I'll be using the blog a little more as I've already got a few DIY projects to share - these were always the most popular in the past! I want to be able to share more personal content featuring the things I'm most passionate about. A mix of thrifty finds, upcycling, home interiors, adventures and my favourite small businesses. 

I'm feeling so excited about my wee business for the first time in ages! It's so nice to be back.

What a strange year it's been, and we're not even half way! I'm not going to dwell on any of the details of the madness that's unfolded with this whole pandemic. Instead, now that David's returning to work, I wanted to make a gallery which shows a snapshot of our lockdown highlights. I took an extended break from social media and tried to stop watching the news, instead picking up my camera and bullet journal for some offline time.

Obviously there were lots of ups and downs, but we tried to make the best of the situation and enjoy the time that we could, even when things were scary and uncertain. By nature we're both quite bad at 'time off' so I made some bullet journal lists of jobs and activities to work through when we felt like it which definitely made it feel less overwhelming.

Luckily our garage was filled with lots of half used DIY materials (as it usually is) so we were able to tick off our list of wee jobs in the house and garden. One big job was switching around the guest room and studio, so I now have a new, cosier workspace (more on that later). I've been studying garden design to help with the future of Noble Landscapes, but this time meant David was able to get involved too. He did lots of cooking, including the *must do* lockdown bread making (we inherited a bread machine in March!) but also lots of seitan recipes. As for me, I've been learning to sew, beginning with pants of all things, which is something I've always wanted the time to get into. 

We took turns to plan surprise date nights - a spa night and a speakeasy - definitely a highlight of the last few months. David had a lockdown Birthday so I organised a treasure hunt which got a little bit elaborate at 40 clues mixed with mini games. All of his presents and cards were hidden along the way - ending with delicious Doughnut Family treats.

Of course, we had lots of video calls with family and friends - including a weekly quiz Skype with my grandparents which is a lot of fun and something we'll make sure to do more in future.

I hope that lots of the good from this time will last, it certainly makes you think about what's important.

It's nearly here! The Fun A Day Dundee 2019 exhibition starts next Friday, the 5th of April. If you saw my previous post, you'll know that my project was to spend more time having fun with bullet journalling. I'll have a copied version of my journal on display along with some free blank pages you can take away to fill in yourself. I've also designed the poster for the exhibition and will be there helping out. You can find out more about the exhibition below and at the Facebook event page here.
"This exhibition will feature around 70 people local and outwith of Dundee, in a wide and wonderful variety of mediums. We have crochet, photography, songwriting, performance, photography, painting, sculpture, mixed media, stitching, collage, knitting, film making and much more! Participants ages range from under 10 years old to over 60 years. 

This year we have live music by Mark Urban on the opening night, including our usual 'sweet shop' stand, and art workshops over the weekend to fix that crafty itch once viewing the exhibition!"

Hope to see you there!