I recently accepted an offer to become a Spartoo partner, and as this is my first official post, I wanted to talk through this arrangement with you briefly.

Making the decision to promote any company on a personal blog is a difficult one, and I’m indebted to Nickie and her sensible advice as I was working through my decision on this occasion.

I’ve never worked with a clothing company before, and I had to seriously consider how this would fit into my ideas on minimalism and sustainability. As I’m already a Spartoo customer though, I realised that I already fit them into my life, and so it will not take much adjustment on my blog to accommodate them on here. Spartoo have excellent customer service and I love the range of brands they stock, so it makes sense to formalise my promotion of them on here! None of my blog content will change, and I will of course declare any posts that are sponsored (I already do this, of course!).

I like to keep a pair of scruffy shoes for generic boring wear like going for a short walk, loitering in the garden, etc., and for the last couple of years this has been a pair of Toms (these Toms, in fact). When a pair of shoes gets worn and not pretty, they get relegated to the scruffy zone and I buy a new smarter pair to replace them. As my current scruffy shoes are now getting a hole in them, it’s time for another pair of old shoes to get relegated, and for me to buy a new pair.

Shoes are hard to buy ethically, so it’s best to get as much wear out of them as possible and only buy what you need. My preference is for pretty low top trainers. My shoes must be fun, and I’ve chosen my 12 favourite designs to share with you.

[.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.]

I think my favourite pair at the moment is either 1, 3 or 12. Decisions, decisions! Of course, if you’re feeling very rich, this design is expensive but super cute! I’ll let you know which pair I end up buying!

If you prefer your trainers with less flowers and patterns, you can view the full range of low top trainers. They do stock plain designs alongside the exciting designs!

During the bank holiday weekend, I finally got around to decorating some new flowerpots for my bedroom windowsill.  I wanted to have matching vibrant pots for my plants to add an extra splash of colour to the room (I say extra as I already have quite a lot of colour in there!).  I had looked on Pinterest for some crafting ideas (I’m turning into one of those people!), but who can really be bothered to cut up intricate fabric shapes to paste on to flowerpots?  Not me, that’s for sure!

I bought three terracotta pots, at £0.79 each, and a tube of kitchen and bathroom sample paint for £1.  This project thus cost a grand total of £3.37 (although if we’re going to be truly accurate about cost it also cost me all the water and soap I had to use afterwards – see below).  There was enough paint in the tube to do another two pots (at least), so you could have even got more value for your money.

I sat on the lawn with the three pots and my tube of paint, and I did three coats of paint on the pots (I did the rim separately to give the bottom of the pots time to dry).  I also did the inside rim of the pots so that the soil didn’t have to go all the way to the top.

At this point, everything was going well.  I was feeling smug about being a craft blogger and generally being awesome.  However, as the proverb tells you, pride always comes before a fall!  The tube had a sponge applicator (it’s intention is to make testing decorating samples easy, but it was great for this project).  It was super-simple and effective.  Unfortunately, as I was playing about taking photos and chatting and lounging around in the sun, I squeezed the tube and squirted paint all over my arms and legs (which were bare) and the rug I was sat on.  I feel it is therefore my duty to tell you that kitchen and bathroom wall paint takes forever to wash off, and requires lots of scrubbing.  I basically went around with blue legs and arms for the remainder of the weekend.

This photo deliberately has a weird crop, because my basil plant (right) is poorly and I didn’t want to include it in the photo while it’s all wilted and pathetic.  On the left is my baby aloe vera (its Mummy is currently growing back after having an accident, but she is doing well!).  In the middle we have a baby spider plant, which is a descendent of the first spider plant I bought in 2000 when we moved into this house.  This family of spider plants has moved with me to university, come home again, been cared for whilst I was travelling, and is still here, 13 years later.  The original plant is long gone, but I like that I have this unbroken link back to the first plant.