Aldi's NEW Home Range

On Thursday 7th May, Aldi are launching their new Home range in stores so can you spruce up your home without spending a fortune. 

Available as a single canvas (48 x 48 cm) or triple canvas (20 x 20 cm), Aldi's range of canvas wall art (£4.99) come in a variety of different designs and are an easy way to add a bit of personality to your walls. 

If you want to kick back after a hard day's work or looking after the littles, you can pick up one of Aldi's quality Cord Bean Cubes (£13.99). It is available in mink, teal, wine, brown and lime so you're sure to find one to suit your decor. It can be used as either an extra seat in the living room or a handy footrest. 

Rugs make a huge amount of difference to a room and are perfect for adding a bit of colour. Aldi do super soft Round Washable Shaggy Rugs for £12.99 each. they are 100 cm with non-slip backing and are available in cream, beige, black, red or brown. 

You can also find Printed Runners (£6.99) to spruce up your hallway and Doormats (£3.49-£3.79) to welcome visitors. 

I love a good nautical theme. My bathroom is actually all nautical! Aldi's pretty and practical nautical accessories are perfect for completing the look. Their Nautical Hooks/Tealights (£6.99) are available in four designs and are great for hanging keys and jackets or simply for adding a bit of fun to your home. The fixings are included too.

If you are a music lover, why not listen in style with a gorgeous Vintage DAB & FM Radio (£29.99)?

The Aldi Home range is available as part of its Specialbuys offering and it is available from 7th May but you must be quick, they're only available whilst stocks last!

(Disclaimer: I received some Aldi samples for sharing this post.)

Redecorating our Home - Haul #1

It may be quiet around the blog for a while as we're currently in the midst of redecorating our ENTIRE house before the baby arrives - why did we think this was a good idea at 33 weeks pregnant!?

Anyway, Chris is doing all the DIY jobs and won't let me paint! He says it's 1) 'I don't want you breathing in the paint fumes' pfft! And 2) he thinks that I will mess it up! How dare he!? :P

We've decided on a nautical themed bathroom, red kitchen, green & cream living room, our bedroom will be purple and C's room will be pirate themed. 

We had a bit of an impromptu shopping trip and managed to find some bargains that will tie in with our chosen themes. 

We picked up this gorgeous whale plaque from Next for just £3! I'm not sure on the original price though. 

We bought two of these cushions from Matalan at £6 each (they were originally £10 each). 

Chris chose this photo frame also from Matalan and it was £10 down to £6. 

He also picked out another frame which was an amazing £5 down from £15! A little bit of the glass is broken at the top but that is easily fixed. 

We also recently ordered the two kids beds and bedding and we built those up last night. 

For the new baby we purchased the Mothercare Gliding Crib. This is £99.99 to buy but as I'm such a bargain hunter, I got it when it was on sale a few weeks ago at £74.99. We bought the Mothercare Crib Mattress with Coolmax to go with it. This is £34.99 to buy but I got it on sale at £24.49. The bedding is the Little Lane Crib Bale which is now £39.99 but again, I got it at the bargain price of £28.99 on sale. 

C also got his first ever toddler bed! The bed itself is the Mothercare Darlington Toddler Bed which is originally £69.99 but is now on offer for £55.99. We accompanied it with the Mothercare Foam Mattress (£39.99). His bedding is the Mothercare Jersey Fitted Cotbed Sheets - 2 pack (£13.99), Mothercare Duvet & Pillow Bundle (£16.99), Mothercare Essential Cotbed Pillowcase & Duvet Set (£19.99) and I won a £50 voucher for Lovably Me so that was spent on his cool Pirate Quilt! 

I'm so excited to get all of the rooms completed but I will be sure to blog my way through it! 

Utopia Bathrooms 'Visualise' design tool - review

Utopia Bathrooms have come up with a brilliant idea; Visualise. Visualise is an online interior design tool.  You can use the functions to create your dream bathroom and see what the end result will look like before starting any work or handing over payments!

Utopia created this tool as a third of Brits think that the bathroom is the most important room to keep up to date as most house guests will visit this room at your home.

Visualise showcases Utopia's latest collection. I am rubbish at putting things that match together so I thought that this would be perfect for me!

The app itself was really easy to use.

The main screen:

Here you are able to choose what kind of bathroom that you would like; fitted bathroom, halo cloakroom or fitted en-suite. The fitted bathroom would be the one I would choose for my home so I selected that.

Here is the default bathroom template. You cannot change the positioning of the bathroom items but the point of the app is to see the style.

You are able to choose almost everything; door style and colours, carcass colours, worktop (laminate or deluxe), wall tiles and floor tiles.

Here are the door style options:

The design options were great. I liked how the the same style in different areas had similar names so you weren't trying to work out what matched with what. It was really fun to do and took me less than half an hour and that was with me clicking on every option to see how it would look, so it was quick and didn't take a while to load.

Here is my finished bathroom design:

I am extremely happy with it and could definitely picture it in my home now!

Win a Beautiful Set of Lights for your Home with Cable & Cotton!

I love Cable and Cotton. If you've never heard of them, they sell the most beautiful bulb cable string lights. Their decorative thread lights are perfect for a baby's nursery, a stylish living room display or can even be used as a twist on Christmas lights!

I absolutely adore them and once we've redecorated, I definitely plan on buying a set!

They've very kindly offered my readers the opportunity to win a set of 20 lights in your choice of colour. All you need to do is fill in the Rafflecopter widget below. This competition is open to UK entrants only and will end on 15/06/13. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

ThePrizeFinder - UK Competitions

Next Home wishlist

We currently rent our home and our lease is up in July. We've been here for two years but now is the time to move on as we need another bedroom for C to go into.

I love planning how to decorate a room in my head and when I received an email from Next about their new arrivals, I had to take a look.

Below are the items which I feel like I just need to buy. I wonder if Chris will agree that they are necessities...

Next Home wishlist by x-walter on Polyvore

Buy Velvet Pixels Cushion from the Next UK online shop, £25 / Buy Sentiment Mantle Clock from the Next UK online shop, £18 / Buy Words Plaque from the Next UK online shop, £12 / Buy Family And Friends Frame from the Next UK online shop, £20 / Buy White Long Collage from the Next UK online shop, £25 / Buy Eiffel Stacking Mugs from the Next UK online shop, £12 / Buy Hanging Stars Plaque from the Next UK online shop, £8 / Buy Overdoor Bathroom Towel Hook from the Next UK online shop, £18

Do you like my selections? 

What are your favourite items from their new arrivals? 

Have you purchased any of the ones that I've mentioned?