My little vintage caravan – I’ve been featured in Caravan Magazine!

Did you know it’s World Smile Day today? I can’t think of a nicer event! It’s got me thinking about the things that make me smile and, aside from my family and friends of course, this includes my caravan, sunny days and beautiful flowers. So I’ve nipped out to my caravan to take some photos of my latest projects and to share the things that make me smile on World Smile Day.I also wanted to share the awesome news that my very own little vintage caravan has been featured in Caravan Magazine! A double-page spread, no less. Pretty cool, huh? I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Ben Hackney for the magazine earlier this year and couldn’t wait for the article to be published. It’s in the September issue of Caravan Magazine on page 44 (yes, I’ve memorised it!) and they’ve made the photos of my caravan look amazing – check out all those fabulous cut outs; I need a design team like that for my blog! It is such an honour to be featured in this wonderful UK publication and I am so pleased that people are interested to read about my caravan antics. I proudly showed off the article to my family and have even sent a copy to my nan and grandad! To say I’m rather delighted with the article is an understatement! While reading through, it got me thinking about all the other projects I’d love to do in my caravan so I started making a list of things I can work on this autumn, including a door makeover and adding more fairy lights (absolutely necessary for Christmas!).

Projects-wise, this month I’ve been tackling the problem of the caravan floor. It’s perfectly usable but, as you can see from these photos, after a couple of years of sitting in the garden with the sun streaming in, the carpet has faded. I didn’t really notice it until I moved my bookshelf to make way for a new sideboard that hubby and I had cobbled-together out of two TV cabinets (I shared some photos of the new caravan ‘sideboard’ over the summer). At that point, I realised just how pink the carpet once was, and how very pale it has become, so I started looking around for a rug to funk up my floor. When I was shopping for my tiny kitchen makeover I discovered Benuta and it was there that I found a brightly coloured rug that would be ideal for the caravan. The smallest Pixel Swing multicolour rug was ideal size for the caravan floor and the thrifty price tag made me happy too! When I rolled it out on the caravan floor, I knew that I’d made the right choice; the rainbow of colours made the whole space feel brighter and I love the squares of patterns, which reflect the DIY patchwork wallpaper effect on the walls.  Oh, and finally, flowers always make me smile. This gorgeous autumn bouquet was sent by flower delivery company Blossoming Gifts and I adore the combination of bright colours – again, this puts me in mind of my new rug and looks great in the pineapple vase I picked up in the Store21 sale over the summer. They sent the flowers by post yet they arrived in perfect condition and the yellow lilies haven’t even bloomed yet so I’ve got that to look forward to! Even though flowers are a bit of a luxury, there are plenty of bargain bouquets available from this website and they offer 33% off (excluding flowers by post) using code BGIFTS33. Getting a bouquet of flowers always puts a smile on my face and I grin at them whenever they catch my eye, plus the scent makes the whole room smell gorgeous. To celebrate World Smile Day, Primula Cheese are working with Make-A-Wish UK to raise funds to help grant magical wishes to seriously ill children. Join in by tweeting photos of something that makes you happy with the tag #spreadasmile and @Primula_Cheese @MakeAWishUK. Throughout October and November, they will be donating 20% of the profits from their special ‘Just Say Cheese’ tubes to Make-A-Wish UK so I’ll definitely be adding a tube to my shopping basket this weekend!