I’ve been nominated in the Interior Blog Awards 2016!

I was SO chuffed when I heard that I’d been nominated as best DIY & Craft Blog in the Amara Interior Blog Awards 2016! I can’t believe that my lovely readers took the time to nominate me for one of the most prestigious awards in the country – I hope that this means you’ve been enjoying my crafts and have been inspired by some of the projects I’ve been DIYing! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be included in the awards this year and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you’ll help me reach the finals by voting for me. The voting for the awards opened last week (if you’ve been following my Instagram stories you’ll know that I’ve been visit the lovely Kent coast) so this is the first chance I’ve had to share the great news with you! I’ve actually got my own profile page on the Amara Interior Blog Awards website and I’m thrilled to be included alongside hundreds of other fantastic interior design blogs – I’m totally inspired by them all!

The competition is really stiff, with over 30 fantastic blogs included in my category, so I’d be SO grateful for if you’d vote for my little blog here. I can’t imagine how amazing it would be to be a finalist! And please let me know if you do vote by tweeting me @Cassiefairy so that I can say thanks!

Since I was nominated for the Amara Awards I’ve had a look back over the DIY interior projects that I did in my little bungalow. I thought it would be a good idea to share some of those blog posts today, just in case you need any encouragement to believe I’m a thrifty DIYer!My last summer holiday was spent painting my tiny kitchen in a rich duck egg blue colour and I gave it a thrifty DIY makeover with secondhand storage, a repurposed bathroom cabinet and lots of magnetic chalkboard paint! I stitched up a peg bag and a carrier bag dispenser using the same striped fabric as my tiny blackout blind. It was a fun makeover that only took a day to finish but made the kitchen look a whole lot better.My bedroom decorating project was probably the cheapest DIY I’ve ever done! At the time, there was a power cut in our home so it was a good excuse to do something practical rather than sitting in front of the TV. I invested a whole £2 in a sachet of wallpaper paste and started slapping book pages on the walls. My feature wall behind the headboard is made up of a Marilyn Monroe biography, a horticultural book about roses and sheet music and a few vintage postcards. It was so simple yet really made a difference to the room, in only about an hour’s worth of decorating. I’ve always loved mid-century design and I set about making my own 60s/70s inspired living room. Taking inspiration from some old record boxes, I used orange, olive green and bright blue hues to decorate my living room. I photographed the floral pattern of the boxes and printed it onto fabric in order to make some brightly coloured matching cushions to dress my basic leather sofa. When I needed a desk to do all my blogging from, I found a £5 set of drawers and added a piece of wood (painted in 70s orange, of course) to turn the top shelf into a desktop. An old telephone table got the same spray-paint treatment and is the ideal space to store my pens and thingmebobs.

The bathroom was a big project for us; it needed a new bath so my husband and I watched some YouTube tutorials before attempting to do the work ourselves. Thankfully, everything went well and we continued the project by using pressure-treated wood that we rescued from a skip to make a bath panel, clad the walls and create a storage unit. And to top it all off my little bathroom project has since been featured in Style at Home magazine – so proud!

 You can read more about my garden makeover, caravan renovation and DIY projects through my home inspirations page so please have a browse around and let me know if you find any of it helpful.

I hope you can spare a minute to vote for me in the Amara Interior Blog Awards 2015 – it really would be a dream come true to be a finalist! My voting page is here and I am eternally grateful for every single vote, thank you!