I feel like a proud parent. My beloved blog turns 1 year old today, and, my… hasn’t she grown (see here for my first ever post. Bless). I can’t believe how much has changed in a year. I dipped my toes into the blogosphere after reading so many others day in day out, and thinking, really, how hard can it be?! So, turns out, pretty darn hard! But, y’know what… it doesn’t matter. As I’ve said before, {what you fancy} is my creative relief from an oh-so-corporate day job, and it doesn’t matter how exhausted or cross-eyed I am from staring at a computer screen all day, blogging never gets old.
But it’s not just the actual blogging that I love; it’s the community that comes hand in hand. It’s the newfound friendships between like-minded people, the sheer extent of the creativeness that exists out there, the emails, the tweets, the pinning, the instagramming, but most of all, the feeling of ‘this is what I’m meant to do’. Twee, but true. I don’t know what direction it’s headed and where it’ll be this time next year (hopefully with a sister wedding site to keep it company), but if it’s anything like the past year it makes me unbelievably excited. Bring it on. I don’t want to sound all trite or anything, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for all your support, messages, and for visiting my little blog as often as you do. It means so much I can’t even tell you. And finally thank you to my amazing fiancé, who created this site based on my cobbled-together Powerpoint presentation… and still remains bewildered by my love of scatter cushions and “show candles”.

Now, remember those quizzes that you used to email to friends when you were a teenager, with a load of questions all about you? Howzabout a quick fire version. If we’re heading into our second year together, I think we should get to know each other better… (copy and paste into comments, and replace with your answers):
Where do you live? SW London
What do you do? Event manager by day, style blogger by night
Favourite high street store? Zara or Anthropologie
Favourite designer? Mulberry
Most visited website/blog? Pinterest
Favourite film? Anything with a wedding or a last dance
Style icon? Diane Kruger
Top of ‘laminated list’? Bradley Cooper
Weakness? Cheese
Aim for 2012? Escape the corporate world & escape to the country
Spending Christmas…? With family in Hertfordshire
Can’t wait to hear your answers! And thanks so much again, El xx

Sometimes you click on a website and immediately know that it couldn’t be more ‘you’ if it tried. This was the case with the Ebury Home & Garden online collection, which is the brainchild of Hannah Gooch. It was launched just last month after Hannah had spent years dreaming of running her own online interiors boutique. And it’s a beauty. The products are all inspired by countryside living (which probably explains why I was drawn to them, the Country Girl at heart that I am), and are what Hannah likes to call ‘rustic chic’. I like to call it ‘right up my street ’.

{all items available at Ebury Home & Garden}
As I’ve posted about before, I much prefer one-off pieces with vintage charm – which is what Ebury Home & Garden embodies – to generic mass-produced items. According to Hannah, “I’ve loved interior design for as long as I can remember. I’d always have a project on the go, whether it’s revitalising an old chest of drawers or renovating our own home. I’m much happier hunting round antiques fairs than shopping for fashion and have lost count of the number of design books and magazines I’ve collected over the years. So it made perfect sense to launch a business that I have a real passion for.”
I think I’ve found a kindred spirit.

{all items available at Ebury Home & Garden}
Beautiful, right? Oh, and that’s not all. Whilst you’re cruising her gorgeous store during your lunch break, check out her other website, The Ebury Collection, an online wedding planning website and blog (which incidentally is where we may have just found the perfect wedding venue – thanks for the tip-off, Hannah!). Enjoy folks, I’d love to hear what you think. Happy Wednesday.

Because sometimes we need a reminder that the direction of our day is in our hands:

{image via Rue La La}
… this, my friends, is my most-used mantra. Works a treat.

It’s that time of year again that I dust off the Christmas decorations and grotto up our home. I’ve collected baubles and tree ornaments for a number of years, and I love that lots of them have a memory behind them, such as the trip we made to Berlin two years ago… which we’re repeating in less than two weeks! Beyond. Excited. I favour a colourful festive theme, rather than anything too matchy-matchy. Although saying that, I seem to have homed in on aqua again, in the second image down. Quelle surprise (see here):

{images via pinterest}
When I look at the last pic, I start humming Chris Rea… just me?!

Two of my favourite recent pins on Pinterest were the statements: “I escape to Pinterest to avoid all the drama and bad grammar on Facebook” and, “I’m outdoorsy in that I like getting drunk on patios”. Both true stories. Other images that I’ve pinned lately include the following interiors – between that pink ottoman (guess who’s now on the look-out for a buttoned ottoman. New obsession), the elegant bedside table and the faux fur pillows, my list of items I MUST have in our future home is growing…

{images via pinterest}