OUR NEW MATTRESS FROM WAYFAIR

WAYFAIR INTRODUCES NORA

The all new and affordable premium mattress-in-a-box. 

& I'm so excited that we got to try one out!

We all know how important a good nights sleep is. Therefore can we really skimp on quality when it comes to our mattresses. Thats exactly what I did when we first moved into our new build.

I figured go cheap on the mattress and it'll allow us to have more money for other aspects of our home.

ohhh I was wrong. The first thing we had to do was go out and buy a topper just to make it comfortable enough to sleep on, and I know how tough it can be moving into a new home feeling stretched with funds after all the fees etc, but If I could advise you now I would make sure you buy a good mattress from the start.


So, what makes me realise this now? Well.. I was kindly sent a NORA mattress from Wayfair.co.uk
a few weeks ago now to review and from the moment I rolled it onto our bed from its easily deliverable box I could feel its amazing quality and comfort and was super excited for our first nights sleep using it. Delivery was also super speedy and efficient.

The ease of rolling it onto the bed from the box was great, it pretty much does all the work for you by expanding and sitting into place. Plus, who want's to waste time and disrupt life waiting for a large delivery of a mattress that is pushed and squeezed up the stairs and into place, potentially ruining things on the way up.
Not me!
As you can see from the image above, after letting it settle for a few hours, it moulds around the area of pressure perfectly allowing for the right balance of that lovely 'sinking' into the mattress feeling & support. First impressions were great but I was curious to know if it would give us the support we needed because as nice as feeling as though you're falling into your mattress is, its important to remain relatively flat to aid posture and avoid any back pain etc.

Wayfair.co.uk has everything you could want in regards to home ware and decor, with products ranging from high end to very affordable, they have it all covered. I've loved Wayfair for years and even before working with them recently, I purchased many items for our first home form them and always found exactly what I was after and so I'm so delighted to have received this mattress!

Nora Promises the best Quality sleep experience at the best value backed by Wayfair UK's commitment to customer service excellence. Nora was engineered using sophisticated sleep technology to deliver an outstanding rest. It consists of four layers of foam which provide an optimal balance of support and pressure relief, while the cooling cover regulates body heat better than other mattresses. It provides a cooler surface for the best sleep possible and don't we all love a cool bedroom with cool bed sheets and pillows to cosy up into?

Plus, there is nothing worse than waking up in the night in a sweat hey? which we found happened with our memory foam topper on our previous mattress, however I can confidently say that we are kept nice and cool with an undisturbed night sleep.

4 weeks later, how do we feel about it now? ... Very happy! It moulds perfectly to your body and has the perfect balance between comfort and maintaining a good posture throughout our sleep. My other half Mat suffers with a bad back if he sleeps a certain way, or over sleeps which was a regular occurrence with our old mattress, but since using the NORA mattress he hasn't complained once about his lower back and is able to lay in on his days off without fear of waking with a bad back. Further to this, and this is definitely a bonus with me working shifts but there is very little transferred movement with this mattress so we can slip in and out of bed without worrying about disturbing the other!

I have yet to have a bad night sleep since this mattress came into our lives, and I couldn't imagine returning to our previous now that we have experienced Nora.

If you're uncertain which mattress is for you, you have Zero- risk rest with 100 night risk free trial for your nora mattress with an introductory promotional price of £359 (20% off) and a regular price of £449 (this is for a double size, our bed is a king size).

Therefore I urge you to go and check out the link and seriously consider one of these mattresses whether your moving into your first home, needing a new mattress or simply not satisfied with your current mattress, you won't be disappointed.

WAYFAIR INTRODUCES NORA - CLICK FOR LINK

Everything I review is honest and true to my thoughts & feelings towards a product & brand, I only work with brands & products I truly love and believe in. 

Emily- Louise 

xoxo

LUXE CURTAINS : How to achieve my look for just £150!

Love the full, thick neat pleat look for your curtains, but not wanting to pay the hundreds it costs for bespoke curtains to create this look?

Well in this blog I'm going to talk you through how I achieved my look for as little as £150!!

So, its pretty simple and quick (the only long boring part is ironing all the curtains, because we will have 6 panels in total urrghh!). 

And that's essentially the main  part behind this look, panels panels and more panels!

What you'll need and where to find them! 

Curtain pole - you want this to be much longer than your window in order to create the look i've gone for where it is essentially a wall of curtains and it creates the illusion that the window and wall is much larger than it really is!

My french doors are very large so I've gone for a 4meter pole. You can find most required length poles in your usual places, however for my extra long one I searched 4 meter pole on google and searched around. I decided on a brushed chrome effect, I previously just had chrome and I find the brushed chrome a beautifully subtle silver with a more classy feel and less 'bling'.

Curtains- Now this is where the cost can really vary, due to needing more panels than normal if you choose an expensive curtain the price will significantly increase. This is because you'll need 6 panels In total which means 3 packs. However I tried a few different curtains some being quite expensive that just didn't do it for me, when I came across a new curtain in Dunelm. 

They are their plain cotton collection in Natural, and although looked very insignificant or special in the packet, I knew would work perfectly for what I wanted to achieve. I opted for the largest 228x228cm. 

and just £55 per packet of two panels!! 

(don't be put off by the website picture, the colour is completely different.) 

My look is achieved with eyelet curtains, so If you want different curtains then any eyelet will do the same job. 

Click here for link to product. 

Voiles- I incorporated voiles also, again in the eyelet style, but make sure you go for Ivory instead of white in my opinion. They can look yellowy in the packet but thats because they're all bunched up. By getting Ivory once they are up they just have a softer look to them and more classy than paper white. 

Click here for link to product

Once you have all your bits, and all 6 panels are ironed.... especially if you go for the same product as mine as they come tightly packaged so very deep creases...(the only downside) but the end result...well totally worth the effort! Heres what to do next. 

⥤ We aren't planning on drawing our curtains, just the voiles and so I didn't bother sewing each panel together, however if you're planning on drawing them then ideally you'll need to sew the length of each panel together. Each side will consist of 3 panels of curtains. So you'd need to sew down two lengths to attach the three panels into one continuous panel. 

⥤ Whether you are sewing the panels together or like me, leaving them as they are. You will need to take them up so they sit almost flush to the floor, approx 2cm off the floor. The problem with leaving the length draped on the floor is that the pleats will not sit as neatly at the bottom. 

Sew along the bottom and cut the excess away. I also cut the behind lining just above where the stitch is as it was pulling the curtains causing them to not lay flat, this just took the pressure of the bottom and let them hang neatly. 

⥤ So now the panels are all set, if you're including voiles you will need to pop these on the pole from the outside inwards first, but leave the end eyelet off the end in order to put the first eyelet hole of the curtain on first and then the final voile eyelet. Following this finish feeding the three curtains panels onto the ends. The image below shows how they should feed into each other so no gap is left on show. 

⥤ Once all the panels are on, secure by screwing back on the heads to ends of your poles. 

Finally, push the eyelets close together, so each ring touches the next. This can require some fiddling and puffing, tugging and touching up but once in place they sit and stay perfectly. Each of my pleats is approx 4cm wide. This is when it becomes apparent why 3 panels is needed either side, because we are pushing them close which causes the panels to become very thin, therefore by doing this continuously with multiple panels on each side we can achieve the thick look. 

And there we have it! The actual applications is really quick and easy, the time spent is prepping the curtains but for just £150 curtains It was completely worth the effort! and as you can see from the final images it has really opened up the space and provided the illusion that the window and wall length is very large. 

I hope this has helped some of you achieve the look or has given you some ideas on various curtains styles and what you would like to achieve in your homes. 

Thank you for reading,

Emily- Louise

xx

D.I.Y WREATH

Wreaths can be super expensive, often worth it but why pay so much when you could create one yourself for a fraction of the price and have it bespoke to your own colour and flower preferences! 

So in this blog I’m going to talk you through making your own wreath with all things easily accessible from local stores. This tutorial is based on a wreath from Christmas but the process is the same, just switch up the things you include! It’s super easy to make it’s the design that can be the harder part.
Below is the wreath I'm going to talk through

So to start I got the wreath base, a beautiful intertwined twig wreath which I love compare to the plastic or polystyrene ones in this situation because they’re easier to attach things too and if you want to leave some on show as I did then it looks great! 

Rattan Wreath Base- Hobby Craft, £3.50 Click here for product.

Hobby wire- Hobby Craft £1.00- Click here for product.

For attaching everything to the base you'll want hobby wire & maybe have some super glue if you’re wanting to add things that can’t be wired on such as single berries etc. 

So now the fun part, choose your flowers! Country Baskets, Dunelm and Home sense all have a lovely selection of faux flower stems in a wide variety of types. For my wreath I chose the Ava Cream hydrangea stems from country baskets (click here for product) white roses, eucalyptus and spray blossoms all from Dunelm.

Ava Cream Hydrangea from Country Baskets - Click for product. 

Now you have all your pieces you can get creative! 

• So firstly cut all the stems shorter, you still want about 10cm to play with to allow for attaching but the rest can be chopped off. 

• I started with my eucalyptus which is my base flower and the one I want to sit at the back that will create the shape for my arrangement. Lay them one by one in the direction you want them to sit and feed the hobby wire around the stem and into and around the nearby twigs in the base. Twist the ends around to secure and continue onto the next.

• Continue the same process for anything you want to be attached in the same way, as you can see I did the same for my sparkly ferns. 

• So now the beautiful flowers. I used the hydrangeas first as they’re the largest flower and the other flowers can be placed around without getting lost. However instead of laying these across I just pushed the flowers stem through and then bent the stem around and fastened wherever suitable with the wire again. 

• I continued this same process with all the flowers, it’s best just to fiddle around, find where it sits well and then find the closest twig to fasten too with the wire. The white roses I’ve used came in a bunch and are thin wired stems anyway so could just be fastened with their own stem.

• I finished with adding some leaves to the back that were from the stems that were cut at the start. 

• It takes some patients and some fiddling and changing as you go but consider where you’re planning on hanging it, for example I wanted mine on the front door so I made sure I secured as well as possible to allow for the wind. Otherwise if it’s inside you can be a bit more lenient and most will hold itself.

• Lastly my wreath hanger was from hobbycraft and with the base being twigs it means I could just slip it onto the hanger without needing for anything else. String, ribbon and most other hanging methods can all be used easily by feeding through the top of the twig base! 

So there we go! it’s nots a long tutorial at all, slightly longer to create, but super easy and effective and the same method can be used for any style weather that’s filling the full base with stems or just as section as I did. 

Lots of Love
Emily-Louise
xxx

Me and my Soft Furnishings.

Oh Hey! so you've clicked on my new blog and first ever post, Thank you. I'm very excited to be doing this and finally having a blog up and running! yay!

I have been encouraged by my other half to do this for a while and now I have decided to go for it after brief chat with one of my favourite bloggers. My blog will mainly consist of, interior design or interior related DIY but maybe a few lifestyle & fashion related content thrown in!

First of all I thought I would tell you a little bit  about me and how I fell into making bespoke cushions and creating Emily-Louise Soft Furnishings, which has taken off more than I could ever of dreamed off.

So me in short... (although I'm not short at 5ft 11) I'm a full time Paramedic for the NHS, and play netball 3 times a week which takes me all over the country :). I've been with Mat for 4 and a bit years now, I have 1 older sister and 4 very close girlfriends. In June 2017, after a very stressful few months, age 23 me and my partner (who wishes he was 23) purchased our first ever home, not our forever house but yet still a beautiful home that I'm so grateful for.

I'll be honest; 6 months prior to moving in, I had pretty much designed our hole house on a mood board app and we had bought the majority of the furniture and stored it all in my room at my parents house or in there front room (which I'm sure they loved). It was a risk but having an impatient nature it just had to be done!

Me and the OH always talked about focusing on the living room first as that is where we new we would spend majority of our time having spent 18 months in a room at my parents to save for the home (a lot of you will know the struggle) and like most I wanted it to be cosy comfy and classy.

The statement piece in our front room we feel is our sofas with the feature mirrors behind which was my other half's idea (he made me write that bit, but i'll give it to him....I thought of a large mirror behind, he came up with the three)

So how did bespoke cushion making come about? Well we loved the sofa style and colour but unfortunately not the cushions it came with and after browsing all the usual stores, I found cushions I liked but either they didn't suit or I just was not feeling them!

So being the creative, impatient person I am I then thought of attempting to make my own and having always liked being creative whether thats drawing , painting or designing I figured why not!

I made my first lot of cushions by hand (can't imagine doing that again, praise the sewing machine!) and here they are in the images below. Friends and family would often pop by and say how they loved them not knowing I made them, which was really lovely and first gave me a bit of a business idea.

Therefore I decided after making my living room set that I wanted to make them for all the rooms, and probably not even the next day they were all done! (impatient strikes again). Below is a picture of the master in which I have made all the cushions also. 

Naturally this then led to posting them on my Instagram which I already had to document the new build process and my interior progress. The love and requests I received was overwhelming and really pushed me to start Emily-Louise Soft Furnishings.

So really It was never my intention to start up a bespoke business, one thing led to another and now there isn't many days that go by (other than my crazy long shift days) where I'm not at my machine and I am so super grateful for all the orders and without Instagram this wouldn't be possible.

lots of love to you all for taking the time to read, & I'm looking forward to creating more content!

Emily-Louise 

xxx