Styling the seasons: January

Taking down the Christmas tree at the beginning of January was the perfect opportunity to begin the Styling the Seasons project, hosted by Katy at Apartment Apothecary and Charlotte at Lotts and Lots. The project involves styling a surface in your home each month to reflect the season and express what it means to you.

I wanted to create a mixture of a fresh, hopeful, springtime feel, but not hide the fact that it is still winter and Christmas isn't a distant memory just yet. January can be so dark and gloomy, all the glitter and sparkle of Christmas packed away but months to go until sunshine and abundance. I wanted an antidote to the January blues and a fresh start for me personally in our new home.

To begin I took the opportunity for a big clear-out and declutter of some spaces we hadn't yet organised around the house, and pulled out a ladder shelf which had been gathering dust and clutter in the cupboard under the stairs. I originally bought the shelf for the porch in our old house and hadn't thought until now how to incorporate it here.

These berries and glittery pine cones were part of a gorgeous bouquet of Christmas flowers. I also bought these beautiful gold birch twigs for Christmas this year. This part of the display is the remnants of Christmas, just a tiny bit of magic and glitter and sparkle that I'm not ready to let go of yet.

The second shelf is a bit of greenery, a couple of blooms that are still going from the Christmas bouquet and a big dark green leafy fern. This glass bottle is so cute, it's actually from the diffusers my sister-in-law used in the toilets before they moved away.

Next up I wanted more of a springtime feel, for a bit of colour and a reminder that light and new growth aren't far away. This rose reminded me of the beautiful cream and pink roses I used to admire in gardens as a child. The way the blush pink tipped the soft cream petals just captivated me every time, they made me think of ice cream and I couldn't decide if I wanted to smell the flowers or eat them! I popped it in this cute glass decanter I found in a charity shop.
To make the display practical as well as beautiful I added the pleasingly distressed watering can I use for the houseplants I manage not to kill off.

For the final shelf I wanted something quite robust and sturdy in case V in particular got her mitts on it. I spied these vintage keys in a gorgeous interiors shop near Cherry's pre-school before Christmas and couldn't resist popping back for them. I'm not sure they represent anything in particular at the moment - perhaps they will in future - but for now I think it's enough to just like the way they look!

I really love how the whole shelf looks now - a big improvement from holding Noel's sweaty cycling helmet and assorted bundles of precariously-balanced crap. I like how neatly it fits into the corner, and on a practical level I can put the phone and wifi router on the top shelf to keep them out of small mitts.

I also love having a part of the house that feels like it's just for me. As a full-time stay at home mum I spend a lot of time in the house and most of the time it's covered in Lego and blocks and the usual kiddy clutter. Being able to glance over to the corner and see this little display has really lifted my mood on the traditionally dark and gloomy first week 'back to normal' post-Christmas.

What I also love is how easy this display was to create using mainly things we already owned. I've never considered myself 'into' interiors or decor and as I've said before on this blog, our rented houses have always just been where we put our stuff. The last house we lived in did start to feel like a home, but this house is really inspiring and motivating me, it's such a beautifully blank canvas and so irresistibly light and bright. It doesn't take much, just odds and ends kicking about, to create a lovely display that makes you happy every time you look at it.

Of course first and foremost it's a family home, not a show home, and in the spirt of keeping it real I have to add the most of the time the bottom half of my lovely display is all but hidden by the guinea pigs, who have to live indoors most of the time at this chilly time of year.

The light in the bottom three photographs isn't great, and that's something I want to work on in future posts. I'm quite keen to keep any editing or filtering of my photos to a minimum at the moment, for various reasons, so I look forward to it getting lighter, brighter and easier to photograph my home in a way that does it justice.