Last month we went to Berlin for the week of my Birthday. I thought I'd write a quick blog post and share a few of my favourite photos as I took a break from social media while we were away for a change!

When we were planning our trip we were mostly excited about food as Berlin is known for being super vegan friendly. We had found loads of places that we hoped to go including Veganz (the vegan supermarkets) and Brammibals doughnuts. 

We were very lucky with the weather as it was mild and dry the whole week, which was perfect for exploring the city. It's definitely somewhere you need to make the most of public transport as Berlin is giant! We managed to find a few flea markets, lots of vintage shops and so many lovely cafe/bars with vegan cake. There are so many different areas which are great to wander around as there's such a mix of things to see that you never know what will be around the next corner.

I'm taking part in Fun A Day Dundee this January! Organised by the fab Sam Baxter Art, the idea is that you choose a fun project to work on every day throughout the month. For mine, I've decided to get organised with my Bullet Journal - not everyone's idea of fun but I find the process super relaxing. I didn't have much time for it on the run up to Christmas so it's nice to get back into it. Each day I've been working on new spreads, or continuing pages from last year (like this bookshelf and films to watch). I might even try some timelapse videos of drawing them!

I've had quite a lot of people on Instagram asking where I got my journal/if it's available to buy (it's not) so I've decided to make some printable downloads of my favourite pages. I've just finished creating this bookshelf printable that you can download for free now! The way I use this is to colour a book in and write the details each time I finish reading a book but you could equally use it by filling it with all the books you'd like to read then colouring them in as you've finished them. I'm sure there are other ways too! 

Download here > Bookshelf Printable
Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear any feedback and see it in use! If you share on Instagram make sure to tag me @jillyjillydesign

I've included multiple versions - black and white, colour, dotted background, plain white background, title, no title. This should print best at A5 size.

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​Happy new year! It's been a while but since we've just finished our mini kitchen makeover I thought it would be a nice post to start the year. It's now been over 15 months since we moved into our house, the kitchen wasn't top of the DIY list as it wasn't too bad, just a bit plain. We wanted to give it a cheap and cheerful revamp and since David had time off after new year, what better time to go for it than the holidays??

The original kitchen was in good shape (apart from a couple of wee joinery bits that David fixed) so after a deep clean and light sand we were ready to paint. The paint we used is Autentico Versante Matt in Antique Rose which was £26.95 for 1L - we had leftover after 2/3 coats. Autentico says it's ideal for kitchen cupboards and that its 'built-in moisture membrane and UV filter makes it water resistant and prevent colours from fading'. It's only been on a few days but I love the finish so hopefully it stays that way!

To finish them off I chose some ceramic cream and gold drawer knobs which were from TK Maxx, I think they were £5.99 for 6. Of course, we have 13 kitchen cupboard handles but luckily I had a spare from another piece of furniture we upcycled last year!

I spent a while looking at various options for the tiles and couldn't decide, so opted for tile stickers which are a much more affordable and less permanent solution if I change my mind anytime soon. These were from Wall Genie on Etsy and were just under £40 for three packs of 30 so I could have the mix of colours I wanted and some spares. I ordered a sample at the start of October and stuck it on to see how durable it was, and found no issues at all. They were a little fiddly to apply perfectly, especially around the sockets, but real tiles would've been much worse!

Finally, we added to our vintage plates wall by hanging some diagonally up from the ones we hung when we moved in. I'm so pleased with the end result and it feels like such a happy space now.

After months of hard work, our first Etsy Made Local Dundee took place on Saturday. What a day!! It was amazing from start to finish, the team really came together on the Friday to transform the venue with all of our handmade decorations. Then all we could do was wait and hope that all of the hours we put in to promote and organise would pay off.

On the morning of the market we found there were people queueing to come in at opening time and we ended up with almost 1000 visitors throughout the day! This was a fantastic number for our first market, especially for the size and location of our venue - we wouldn't have had room for many more. It was so lovely to see our photobooth being used, and the Christmas jumper decoration workshop was busy from start to finish. There was a wonderful festive atmosphere, it felt so friendly and welcoming and we had such fab feedback from stallholders and customers alike. 

Thanks so much to everyone who made this market happen, especially Jen (SPILTHdesign), James (Penguiniverse) and Leighan (Daftpup), and to everyone who came along. We're all going into Etsy team hibernation for now but look out for future plans come January.

We've been spending a lovely relaxing week off on the Isle of Lewis. It's been an interesting mix of weather, to say the least, but with a wood burning stove in a wonderful cottage with panoramic views, it's certainly been cosy! Lots of beaches, amazing (rainy, windswept) walks and hygge time for books. I picked up a cute wee book about Sheds in Ullapool before we caught the ferry which has gorgeous photos of cabins and studios and reminds me of a project I did back at art school.

I've also taken a little of the time off to think about Christmas plans for JillyJilly, do a bit of work on our upcoming Etsy Made Local market and get a couple of odd jobs ticked off the list. We have new eco-packaging starting next month so have had to adjust our prices a little to reflect this but it's been something that's bugged me for a while and I know it's worth fixing so hope you'll all understand.

I've been waiting ages to share this news... Our house has been featured in the October issue of Your Home magazine!!

This started way back when we moved and Alison of the Great Scottish Indoors got in touch after Rachel Henderson recommended our wee cottage. Of course, we had moved to a new house at this point and hadn't even unpacked properly, let alone made it our own, so I thought we'd have to pass up on the opportunity! Lucky for me Alison said to send over some pics once we'd finished part of the house and so the photoshoot was organised for March.

It's so strange to see our house in a magazine, especially with it being so budget and a mish-mash of DIY and hand-me-downs. I'm so glad I'm able to show an affordable alternative for interiors, making the most of old furniture, freebies, charity shop finds and upcycling. 

Thank you so much to Alison and Douglas Gibb photography!

I've been bullet journalling for over a year now which I'm quite surprised at really. I'm sure most of you have seen pictures on social media and beautifully detailed journals on Pinterest and thought the same as me - it looks like a lot of work! It turns out that it's only as much work as you want it to be and that's the thing I love about it. The basic bullet journal concept is just a simple analog organisation system, how far you go with 'spreads' and decoration is personal to you.

I started mine in May last year and spent a while getting to grips with a system that suited me, at first I tried to do too much and it became (ironically) another thing on the to-do list. David bought me a Leuchtturm1917 in Emerald for Christmas so I started afresh for 2018 with a better plan of how to tackle it. Now I have a simple colour palette and weekly spread which is my go-to for everyday use. Alongside this, I have monthly overviews and some fun tracker type pages such as the books and films ones above. I should add that the 100 films to watch is a list from IMDB and we have watched much more than coloured in - we're just rewatching this year!

I find it such a great way to keep organised now and don't know where I'd be without it! One of the things which really works for me, which is the issue I usually have with regular diaries, is that if I don't have a lot on I can just take a break from it. Likewise, if it's a very busy time I can adjust my calendars to match!

If you'd like to see more of my bullet journal or journalling tips then let me know! I've actually filled in the whole of my 'books I've read' page which was meant to last the year.
​

My lovely friend and vegan-blogging-partner-in-crime, Falda, has set up a social media management business! Mafalda Media is the place to go for bespoke digital marketing and social media growth strategy. In other words, an amazing service for busy people who want to dedicate more time to other aspects of business and leave social media to the experts.

Although a little different from my usual branding and photography projects (much more minimal and sophisticated) I've created an identity and images for Mafalda Media which you can see a little of above but you can head over to Mafaldamedia.co.uk for more. This photoshoot was a lot of fun, working with a mix of simple textures and colour palette to soften the stark look of Apple products and create a balanced look of personal and professional. For more of my product and lifestyle photography, you can click here.

After setting up the Dundee Etsy Team I was delighted to be able to attend my first Etsy Team Captains' Summit last weekend! I know I've been to Etsy HQ in London before, but this time it was a completely different atmosphere as the team put so much work in to make it an inspirational weekend for all of the guests. 

We were all booked into the same hotel near HQ so it made it feel a bit like a school trip or something! On the Friday evening, some of us got together for dinner then bright and early on Monday the weekend itinerary began. We had so much amazing food, including breakfasts each day at 'Eatsy' and everyone was well catered for. We all had lovely goody bags and a summit notebook to help process all of the talks and panels, there were lots of opportunities for discussion and idea sharing so those who have been running their teams for a while could share their experiences for us newbies to learn from. The Saturday night was a fab Captains' dinner at the postal museum with a ride on the underground 'Mail Rail' and cocktails. Wow!

I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the of the information and activities and people I met but I'm also so excited to get started on working out how to make things happen with the Dundee team to build a lovely community here.