In just 1 week my girls will finally break up from school for the Easter holidays, I love these holidays so much, it's nice enough weather to do things and life feels good again thanks to the increased daylight and more importantly, the sunshine!

I love Christmas and styling my house but over the last few years I've started to style parts of my house through all of the seasons, my fireplace, for example, gets a restyle every month to reflect the time of year and it makes me happy.

I'm also very lucky that I get to work with my favourite stores TK Maxx and Homesense, even when we do collaborate I end up spending way more of my own money on things I see.

So this month for them was all about styling for Easter and they couldn't have picked a happier person because I had that fireplace to fill and as always my first stop was to visit TK Maxx/Homesense in the Metrocentre.

Wanna see what I bought?

Now I must state with absolute honesty that on this particular trip with a £50 budget I ended up buying a desk also so I spent way, way over the budget but that's testament to it being my favourite store, I literally jump up and down every time they want to collaborate because I can't believe how lucky I am that my career has lead to this, I will never stop being thankful!

So before I show you my desk lets look at the above, the solid marble spring sign was £12.99 and now I have signs for Christmas, Valentines and Spring, they had Easter ones too but I figured I could keep this out until summer!!

The cute bunny was £7.99 and she's watching over us and luckily too sturdy for a certain beagle to eat although a certain beagle has been seen wandering off with those there plastic eggs which cost £9.99 and fill my fireplace beautifully.  The chick plate at the back was an absolute steal for £3.99 and finally, I even got the girls their Easter eggs and today, 1 week after I took that photo they are still sitting there and haven't been pinched, I couldn't be more impressed, they have though, chosen who gets which!

So my desk was £129.99 and I think an absolute steal, it's so sturdy, I didn't have to assemble it and it was pretty easy to get home!  It's solid wood and a thing of beauty!  I love sitting at it every day, it's the perfect size for my bedroom/home office, oh and if you look, there's a wooden star at the back, also which came from Homesense in the Metrocentre when I was working on the Christmas campaign!

So that's me, I feel more ready for Easter than ever before, this time last year of course we spent in hospital when Looby was poorly and only got released on the evening of Good Friday so this Easter I have so much to be thankful for and I'm hosting a big friends for dinner on Easter Sunday for anyone who wants to come, it's open house and consider this your invite if you are spending the time alone and unwillingly, we may not have enough chairs or table but there'll always be wine, dinner and really good company.

Christmas decorating with The Flower Studio

When I stepped off the plane on Sunday night and stepped through my kitchen door there was a large parcel waiting for me teasing with expectation, inside a beautiful red box containing a gorgeous table centre from The Flower Studio, it was exactly what I needed to make sure I didn't have post travel blue and by Monday morning I had thrown myself into Christmas decorating with aplomb.

I adore Christmas and I love to have my house looking as festive as possible but there never seems to be just the right decoration in the middle of the table, but the hot chilli festive candle table centre is just perfect, it's quirky (I never would have thought of chillies at Christmas) and different and I had the idea to add some sparkly beady Christmas lights underneath for a little extra sparkle, you know me by now, you can never have enough sparkle.  It's just perfect and looks lovely on my festive table, my kitchen tends to be the coolest place in my house due to no central heating in there so I have no doubt that this is going to last through the festive season.

When you buy it it comes without candles but that's perfect as you can add your own to compliment your festive colour scheme, I think it would look perfect with red candles as it would bring out the colour in the chillies.  I also love the smell of the fresh pine, I always feel a little wistful that I can't have a real tree because of too many animals but this is perfect and it definitely has that fragrance that signifies that the Christmas season is most definitely upon us.

All around my house Christmas has started to appear, we replaced our silver pop up tree in the kitchen with a beautiful illuminated twig tree complete with winter berries, I just need to find a few birds to sit on the branches and it will be complete.

Our upstairs tree has also been replaced this year, I adore it, it's the closest to a real tree I think you can get and it's filled with decorations I've bought over the years, some have travelled from afar whilst some were picked up from local shops, I even picked up a bauble in Palma de Mallorca on Saturday

I love Christmas, in fact I think I'm probably the queen of Christmas though this year I've actually denied the coming of the festive season until I got home from my european trip so now I'm kind of on catch up and it's good I suppose as I don't feel that I've peaked too early, I am though now starting to have a bit of a panic because other than picking up presents whilst I was away I haven't really started my Christmas shopping and I've just looked at my work calendar for the next few weeks, lets just say I am super thankful for Amazon and their special deals every 10 minutes I picked up lots of bargains yesterday and now all I need to do is wait for them to arrive and then find a helpful elf to wrap them up.

Christmas this year of course is open house at my house, if you don't have anyone to be with this Christmas Day or Boxing Day, rather than being on your own or just alone at home with your kids if you are a single parent you can come to our house and feast on festive goodies, just send me an email and as long as you're not a serial killer then you are absolutely welcome to come and join what I hope will be a houseful of jolly old elves and animals, friends new and old, we'll celebrate together, bring a bottle or a festive dish if you can but if you can't don't worry, I will make sure there's something for everyone.  Christmas shouldn't be lonely but for some it sadly is and whilst I'm only one woman and can't save the world I do feel this time more than any other is the time for being with people so please don't let pride stand it the way, get in the car and I'll be waiting with open arms with a glass of non alcoholic mulled wine (or alcoholic if you're not driving) and together we'll all have the best Christmas ever.