You don’t need me to tell you that being a mum is hard! You already know that it involves sleepless nights, days of feeling helpless and an awful lot of sacrifice. There are joys, that’s for sure, but there’s also a good deal of feeling like you can’t cope. This is true for every mum, but often even more so for mums dealing with chronic illness, whose energy and time are depleted by health problems.

Do you ever look at photos of styled homes in magazines and wonder how they manage to make them look so interesting? There is often a je ne sais quoi that only interior designers seem to achieve.

If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you’ll have realised that I’m about three things - beauty, affordability and sustainability. In creating our home, these are the things I think about, and I try to achieve a balance between the three.

“Budget” and “wedding” are two words you’d never normally expect to hear together. They are certainly not affordable affairs, and rightly so when they’re among the most important days of our lives! Thing is, you reach a certain point in life where it feels like you’re at a wedding every other month and buying a gift each time can add up.

I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to reed diffusers! Back in the day, I was a candle girl and would light a handful every evening, but now I much prefer having a few diffusers scattered around the house. While candles still have a place in my heart, diffusers are so much easier for home fragrance. You don’t have to light them, and they tend to pack a bigger punch on the scent front.

Today, I'm sharing this amazing DIY embroidered cushion, which was inspired by a rather more expensive version from The Conran Shop. I'm loving abstract and naive style art at the moment so I fell in love with this cushion, but knew we couldn't possibly spend £85 on it!

Over the years, I’ve amassed quite the collection of clothes in need of mending. In a box under our bed, there are broken zips, worn out elbows and holes galore. I’d always hoped that I would have time to mend the things that we loved, but finding the time has been so hard. Well, this year I decided I would commit to fixing some of those clothes, as part of our effort to buy less and live more sustainably.

love art. Even the most boring room can be completely changed with a picture or two. And even better, if you use a piece as inspiration for the decor in the rest of the room, it can pull everything together in a way nothing else can. Over the years we have curated our own little collection of wall art, but since we’ve moved into a bigger house and are planning a huge renovation project, I’m thinking ahead to filling even more walls with beauty. Here are 11 pieces of affordable art that I’ve found so far and am hoping I can add to our collection soon.