#2015BestNine

You may have seen your Instagram feed be taken over by #2015bestnine and 3×3 grids of people’s most liked photos. I did it and it was a great reminder of how big of a year this has been for me; I finally went travelling – something I’d been dreaming about since I was 16, moved into my 3rd home with Tom but the first we’re able to decorate and massively grew my role at work. It’s been an interesting year of ups and downs so here’s the story of my #2015bestnine…

A colourful shot of the Pushkar Bazaar. From January 23rd 2015 I went travelling for 3 months with my bestie. We hit up Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and then spent 6 weeks travelling India. This shot is from Pushkar in the North, this amazing holy city is centred around a lake where pilgrims come to bath and be blessed. It is also home to some of the best shopping we did in India, the bazaar stretched for miles and it was hard to resist buying everything in sight – although having to carry it on our back for another three weeks was a pretty good incentive to be frugal.

I subscribe to the Messy Box from A Beautiful Mess and this was a recent Autumnal edition (I wanna say November?) The felt leaves on top are from the felt leaf wreath I DIYed. The Messy Box is a great way to keep your crafting supplies topped up, I use it as scrapbooking materials but these papers and embellishments would also be great for card making. I have to admit, my scrapbooking is seriously behind but having these monthly boxes keeps me inspired to one day finish them. (fingers crossed anyway)

A snap taken from our trip to Dismaland in September which I blogged about here.

Another photo from India, these colourful boats are on the Ganges river in Varanassi, one of India’s holiest cities. India was so full of colour and beauty that I took countless photos and tonnes can be seen on my Instagram.

When we were in Jaipur in India we got to have an Indian makeover, this included Henna, Sari’s and jewellery. The guide/photographer was a read wannabe Mario Testino so we got loads of pictures, had multiple jewellery changes and were directed like real models. His camera also had a weird feature that picked up on certain colours, in the shot above it’s the orange of my friends sari and then the pink of our lips, cheeks and bindis.

Great to see that this DIY was a popular one on Instagram, these are my clay leaf tea light holders. I love how they turned out so much and I know they will be a staple of my Autumn/Winter table decor for years to come.

Another Pushkar shopping shot, here I am looking at all the different Hindu prayer beads.

Another shot from our Indian makeover photo shoot.

And finally this is a flat lay of an Oliver Bonas shopping haul, this photo got lots of likes and has even been used in the Oliver Bonas blog – made me feel super famous even if I’m not credited.