Friday I'm in love... with individuals

Very sad news to hear about David Bowie's death this week. I've found myself quite surprised by how much it's affected me actually - of course he's a huge talent, has written some fantastic tracks, many of which were the soundtrack to my childhood, but I would never have classed myself as a huge Bowie fan. Until now. Because I suppose his death, so dignified in the way he handled it, made me think about him more than I have done before. About how he was so much more than a musical talent. About how brave he was to be the person he was - someone so different for his time in terms of the songs he sang, the clothes he wore, the things he said. Someone who was so sure of himself that he felt no need to conform and be like everyone else. Who steadfastly took his own path and never compromised who he was. Who celebrated being individual. Someone whose individuality inspired others to be brave and be themselves too. If I've learnt anything from Bowie it's that we should all feel free to do/ say/ sing/ wear/ be whatever we bloody want to.

Because I was thinking - what if Bowie had listened to the people who mocked him for having long hair, or wearing make up? What if he'd lost confidence and not been who he really wanted, cleaned his face, bought a polyester suit and got a boring office job? We'd all have missed out on so much! And what if others with such talent and ideas have conformed along the way and not felt bold enough to stand up and say "this is me". There could be so much more music and magic in the world if we all took a leaf out of Bowie's book and stayed true to ourselves. And as a parent this means more to me now than it ever has - I so want to instill this into Arlo so he feels comfortable in his own self, whoever he wants to be. So let's be brave, try all those new things we keep thinking about, stick up for ourselves and be exactly the person we want to be. And if that includes drawing a lightening flash on your face, then all the better.

This week I've seen and read so many wonderful tributes to Bowie - these are all worth having a little look at:

• Caitlin Moran's wise wise life advice 
• This wonderful little ode to Bowie by super fan Adam Buxton. Incidentally, if you're a Buxton fan (or indeed if you're not) (yet) then I really recommend his new series of podcasts which have been making me lol on public transport all week 
• This episode of The Flight Of The Conchords, with its perfect Bowie tribute, is worth a watch any day of the year

Friday I'm in love... with a Christmas gift guide for a little animal-lover

I'm finding it a little tricky to find the perfect Christmas present for Arlo this year. I don't want to go mad and get him loads of stuff, I just want to find one great thing that will really make him smile on Christmas morning. One thing's for sure - it will have to involve animals in some way or another, because this boy is animal-mad. A few of the things I've been eyeing up over the last week or so include: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

Friday I'm in love... with pom poms

It all started with a hat. A simple bobble hat for the winter months. I've been looking out for one on my travels and along the way I've been noticing lots of pom poms all over the place - from bags to shoes, and jumpers to jewellery. So this winter I fancy pom poms in a few other places than just a hat, starting with these shoes which I LOVE and stopping off at a few other bobbles along the way. Above are some of my faves. (Minus jewellery you'll note - even I draw the line at pom pom earrings.)

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Friday I'm in love... with the best winter coats

...time to go Winter coat shopping, that is. As has become tradition, I've been enjoying a trawl through the shops (online of course - actual bricks and mortar shopping options are fairly limited over here) to look at coats for the big Winter Coat Shop. Last year's picks were pretty colourful, but this year I'm looking for something a bit more classic. No matter how many I look at, I keep coming back to the old favourites - parkas, fur collars, trenches... now to just choose one. Or seven.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

Friday I'm in love... with delicious kitchens

Kitchens really float my boat. Lovely kitchens. It was the kitchen that really sold our house to me when we first looked round - in fact it's probably my favourite room in the house. Apart from paint one of its walls bright pink within 24 hours of getting the keys (it was that important) we haven't done a single thing to it since we moved. It's big enough for three people to dance around in while waiting for dinner to cook, and that's good enough for me.

So the kitchen isn't a room we plan on doing anything to in the near future, but that doesn't stop me swooning at lovely ones on Pinterest occasionally often, and having a litte daydream about what I'd have in an ideal world - wooden worktops, lots of open shelves, a Smeg (it's the dream, let's be honest). Here are a few current faves - all taken from Pinterest here, along with lots of lovely other kitchen pics that you're welcome to swoon over too.

Friday I'm in love... with black and white spots

Just lately I've been feeling very diy-inclined, and have been perusing my Pinterest boards for inspiration. I have a board dedicated to black and white spots for interiors, which is a look I love. It is such a classic combo that looks gorgeous with pops of colour, and is really versatile. It can look super-stylish, like this classic bathroom or artfully arranged gold shelving unit, or fun and playful, like either of the bedspreads above. And how about that Dalmation chair!? Totally un-child friendly (I wouldn't let a felt tip pen within a 3-meter radius) but that only adds to its desirability.

The easiest way to add a splash of monochrome spots to your house? Add some fabric, like the light curtain above, or some cushions. Because black and white spots are always going to look fresh. Just ask Cruella.

Friday I'm in love... with pay day

Things that I do every single pay day:

1. Weep a salty tear of relief
2. Buy some fresh flowers and order a shitload of Nespresso capsules in an excited flurry of feeling loaded
3. Sort out all the boring stuff like mortgage, council tax, bills etc etc etc 
4. Begin precise countdown until the next pay day

Friday I'm in love... with birthday presents

So, a certain small someone will be turning two very soon, which means presents need to happen. We don't tend to go all out with presents to be honest, as we know he's going to be very spoilt by friends and family as it is (and he's not exactly short of toys as it is), but I do want to make sure he has a couple of special things to open on the morning of the big day. I've collected together a few things I know he'll just love:

one. the boy loves duplo, and he loves animals. This would be job done.

two. I was shocked the other day to realise that we don't actually own a bucket and spade! I plan on getting a lot of beach action this summer so it's going to be an essential. And this crabby set is the cutest I've seen.

three. we've been spending lots of time in the garden lately, and next on our outdoor to do list is to start planting some flowers. Arlo has a little yellow duck-shaped watering can that he loves waddling around with, and I reckon a little trowel and fork for little hands would go down a treat

four. well OBVS we need to get a massive number 2 candle to top Arlo's cake (that I will not be making myself, seeing as I want it to be delicious)

five. books are always a winner and I've just discovered this, which is part of a series about a little elephant called Arlo. I'm coveting it just for the cover alone!

six. now, he probably doesn't need another train set, seeing as he has one already, but this is so mega cute and it comes with a giraffe and everything! I know he'd just love pootling around with this.

seven. this one might just have already been ordered and is winging its way to us now (luckily Arlo can't read) and I'm very excited to set this up and have it ready and waiting for him to discover on his bday. Arlo loves drawing and scribbling everywhere, usually on the walls, so I'm hoping to channel all that creativity and messiness into one area for maximum fun with minimum cleaning required.

Friday I'm in love... with birthdays

Well, if I ever needed an excuse for cake, here it is - A Sunny Island is 1 today. One whole year since I started writing stuff down on here. I thought about making a cake for the occasion, but I am basically the crappiest baker ever and it always ends in disaster so I picked up some celebratory fondant fancies instead (the king of cakes, after all). It's been a pretty extraordinary year by all accounts, and I'm so glad I've been keeping track of it on here. Thanks to anyone who's read a single word.

Friday I'm in love... with bathroom tile

Sorry if that's the most boring post title ever, but I have a pretty serious thing going for bathroom tiles at the moment. As I may have mentioned, we didn't inherit the nicest bathroom when we bought this house, and it's not my favourite room to be in. We have a million other things we want to do to the house before we get round to the bathroom - it functions fine, it just doesn't look that pretty, but given that a fairly small amount of actual 'hanging out' happens in there, it's pretty low on our priority list at the moment - so I am enjoying daydreaming in the meantime.

Here's a few of my faves that I've been pinning away over the last few weeks. And actually, since I've been discovering all these beautiful tiles, I'm thinking it would be amazing to do the kitchen in a lovely patterned tile floor too. That's a project that might actually happen before the bathroom does, so watch this space!

But in the meantime, if you love all things tile too, you can find all kinds of inspiration here.

Ooh, and while we're at it, if you liked this, you might like these posts with beautiful wallpaper inspiration and colourful kids' rooms too.

Friday I'm in love... with Spring cleaning

Our dining room on the first day of Spring: yay for natural light, boo for impending home improvements.

Something's been happening round here lately. There's lots more light about. I've been buying flowers. Arlo's been running round the garden like a mad man. It's Spring! And I am so bloody chuffed about it. The house is looking lighter and brighter, which is always a good thing, but the changing of the season, combined with a few home improvements of late (hello new old Ercol dining table and chairs, you're lovely but please stop showing up the rest of the place) has made me notice all the things that still need doing around the house. I'm not talking Spring cleaning as much as Spring changing, chucking and improving. Which is great because I have loads of time on my hands to potter around doing such things (jokez, loool etc etc).

So I've started a list (all the best intentions start with a good list, after all) and am making it public here in a bid to try and actually stick to it. Hopefully I'll be able to do updates on all the things that improved as and when they get ticked off the list. I'll try to avoid anything embarrassing like that time I publicly pledged to start a new patchwork crochet blanket project, and just got as far as two squares and never ever mentioned it again. Ahem.

So, here's what I want to focus on this Spring/ Summer:

• Finish the patio - finally. We're so close! 
• Sort out the rest of the garden so it matches the beauty of the patio. painted fences and walls, flowers everywhere, grow something we can eat - some herbs AT LEAST
• Get round to painting the alcove in the front room that isn't the same colour as all the other walls (can you spot it!?)
• Arlo's bedroom door has had a coat of primer on it for months now. It just needs to be painted. I really want to do it because I've got his name sign all ready to go on it. It just seems like such a boring task. Must make myself do this.
• Paint the bathroom. I've already done it once since we moved, but it was a bad impulse colour choice. I'll never be sharing pics of the bathroom unless they're the 'before' images to illustrate how much it's changed and is newly-beautiful because it would be too distressing for you all to witness it in its current state.
• Do SOMETHING to the front garden. Lick of paint on the front of the house. Some plants. I like the idea of window boxes too. Just something!
• Get the spare room painted so you don't see the edges of where we removed the wall at the end of last year. This is the room we've actually done the most to since we moved in - walls knocked down, upstairs loo removed, carpet removed, floorboards sanded and painted. It's getting there!
• Pipe Dream #1: some fantastic wallpaper in the bedroom. Inspiration here. 
• Pipe Dream #2: new tiles on the kitchen floor. Been pinning pics like a mad woman while dreaming about this. Further inspiration here.

Friday I'm in love... with London

I got to have one of my all-time favourite dinners at one of my favourite places in London this week when I met a really dear old pal of mine at Southbank. We sat on the terrace and had the whole of the London Eye as our view. I was a real 'I miss London' moment - and I haven't had many of those since we moved. It was really nice to be out in a place packed with people, which may sound strange but you're just never really part of a crowd here on the Isle of Wight. It's pretty sleepy. On the train home I was all WHY HASN'T PING PONG OPENED AN ISLE OF WIGHT BRANCH AND WHY DO MY BRILLIANT PALS HAVE TO LIVE SO FAR AWAY AND I MISS PEOPLE AND HAVING THE LONDON EYE IN CLOSE PROXIMITY AND ALL THE REST OF LONDON TOO, ALL PLACES SHOULD BE MORE LIKE THIS PLEASE.

But then the next day I was off work with Arlo, and the sun was shining, and we went for a walk and looked at the sea and all was calm and I was all OOH IT'S SO LOVELY AND SLEEPY HERE AND NOT MUCH HAPPENS AND I LIKE IT THAT WAY AND ACTUALLY IF THERE WERE SEVERAL HUNDRED ANNOYING MEDIA TYPES WANDERING AROUND INSTAGRAMMING THE SHIT OUT OF THE SEAFRONT IT WOULD BE REALLY BLOODY ANNOYING.

So I could never choose between London or the Island (and you can't make me!) But I'm very happy I get to hang out with the city once a week before coming home to the sleepy country for all the relaxings. But if there was a Ping Pong on the Island I'm sure I could cope with the ensuing crowds in return for the little steamed parcels of deliciousness. I need more of them in my life.

Friday I'm in love... with charts and lists

Happy friday pals. I was all ready to write today about how excited I am at the prospect of Spring, but it is well and truly gloomy outside and not-at-all Spring-like, so instead I've collected together a few things that have made me smile this past week or so. And in the meantime, COME BACK SPRING!

• If there's one thing I love in life, it's a list, and if there's two things I love, it's a good chart (pie, venn... i'm not fussy) so imagine my joy at discovering a nice list of charts that so accurately capture British awkwardness. Every single one is me.
• These should be part of the NCT programme to help you prepare for baby times. Numbers 1 and 2 are SO MY LIFE.
• I'm not showing any of these to Arlo for a while - the realistic cover of The Tiger That Came to Tea might give him nightmares.
• I challenge you not to laugh at number 4. It may be the only case in history of comic sans making something better too. 

It's been a really busy week with some long days at work, so this Friday I'm also in love with the weekend. Today is the start of a 4-day weekend for us and as it's rainy and grey outside I plan on being lazy and snuggly at home with Arlo. Key agenda points include: playing with trains, drawing pictures of animals, watching Dumbo on the sofa. Happy weekending all!

Friday I'm in love... with new threads

I do love a good shopping spree. Sadly, my spree-ing days are long behind me, so these days I get to shop vicariously through Arlo. It's actually loads more fun because the clothes are cuter, cheaper and you don't have all the changing room faff to contend with, so you can get a satisfying amount of shopping done in no time at all. We popped into H&M the other day for a browse and came away with loads of stuff - including the selection above, all of which fell into the 'can't resist this' rather than 'well that will prove very useful' category. Mind you, if a t-shirt featuring a bee in a beret surrounded by some solid gold word play isn't useful, then I don't know what is...

Friday I'm in love... with colourful kids' rooms

I want to give Arlo's room a bit of a revamp in time for the summer - it's starting to feel a little 'babyish' and now there's no doubting he's very much a 'boy' these days. So my good friend Pinterest has been helping me out - here's some of my favourite kids rooms I've been gazing at for inspiration (and there's about a gazillion more here too, where they're all taken from) - there's always room for more colour.

Friday I'm in love... with Valentine's

Happy Valentine's Day for tomorrow one and all - it's not really something we go big on in the Lewis-Wild household ("we don't need to be told when to be romantic by society!" etc etc) but any day where everyone's encouraged to share the love and people are slightly kinder and smilier than usual gets a big thumbs up from me. I love anything with red hearts on all year round so today seemed as good a day as any to share this LOVEly pic I found which has been making me swoon this week - it's got a winning wallpaper-heart-booze combo that makes my heart flutter.

All this Valentine's talk has got me thinking. I use the word 'love' a lot. In the last 24 hours alone I've declared my love for everything from a cup of tea to Jennifer Saunders to a certain pen that writes really nice and scratchily, and of course Arlo & his papa too. I think if you genuinely mean it, then you can't over-use it. I'm all for celebrating the little things that I love because they're great. To be mindful of what's happening now.

Like, I think realising how much you love a certain pen can make a boring chore like writing a list something really joyous (honestly!) Taking a moment to stop and think about how nice it is to sit and have a quiet cup of tea makes you enjoy it more and savour the moment rather than it passing by while you're busy thinking about something else, like; the washing, or whether Sienna Miller's haircut would suit you, or how a child can get through four pairs of shoes in six months. Sometimes I find myself juggling a lot, thinking ahead to much, and not stopping to enjoy what's happening now. So this Valentine's weekend I'm going to make sure I slow down a bit and enjoy every little bit of it. I do love weekends after all.

Friday I'm in love...

It's my favourite day of the week so I thought I'd share a few finds I've discovered and enjoyed of late:

• I think this may be the ideal way above to show your devotion this Valentine's Day
• This Storyville documentary that we watched (and cried along to) this week is well worth a look see if you're in search of some evening viewing
• It was national Nutella day yesterday (as if I needed a reason) so here's 45 different things to make with the good stuff 
• This little animation made me smile for a moment or two
• And we found a little fort building inspiration for your next rainy day

Happy Friday to you if you're reading this! Hope it's as perfect as Helvetica.

Friday I'm in love... with feeling impulsive

I've been feeling a little flighty lately. Like I want to do something different, try something new, break the routine. Not that we have much of one! A few ideas that have crossed my mind this week, fleetingly or otherwise, include:

1. having pink hair. Because why not?
2. getting a kitten. Because we've been doing a lot of sofa snuggling lately and a kitten would fit right in very nicely. And because Arlo has got a lot of kitten love to give.
3. or maybe getting a whole box of kittens?
4. painting our ceilings blue, like this dreamy bathroom I spotted.
5. buying more fresh flowers. An under-rated joy in my opinion.
6. painting again. Something for Arlo's bedroom wall like this lovely alphabet print.

Time will tell how many of these things actually happen, but for now it's nice to daydream. Mostly about pink hair.

Friday I'm in love... with kid-friendly Xmas trees

OK, I apologise in advance for another Xmas post, there might be a theme developing here...

I have been having an internal debate with my own mind for the last week or so about this year's Xmas tree. I'm torn between two options. Either the usual massive, sparkly tree full of the baubles I religiously buy from Liberty every year (the Liberty Xmas room is as close to god as I get), but that Arlo will no doubt try and manhandle every minute of every day, OR a small, reserved tree up high somewhere that will stay in tact because he won't be able to reach it, but ultimately I fear won't be big enough to be a true physical representation of quite how much I LOVE Xmas.

What to do? For inspiration, I've been looking at Xmas tree alternatives that will be more kid-friendly, and good old Pinterest has delivered - what did we do with our spare time before there was Pinterest?!? All these festive ideas, and more, can be found here.

Friday I'm love... with a wish list for Santa

By the way, it's nearly Christmas, in case you weren't aware? I usually get quite over-excited about the festive season anyway, but as this year will be Arlo's first where he *might* be able to get a bit excited about it too, I just can't wait. I've been looking for inspiration online this week to decide what to get him, and may have just bought one of the above things for him to find on Christmas morning. But I'm not going to say which, JUST in case he learns to read in the next five weeks...

one: I've been meaning to get Arlo a height chart for ages because he just seems to get taller and taller, and this one is really lovely

two: this is something Arlo needs probably more than wants, but the boy still doesn't have much hair and it's getting cold out there! These guys make the most amazing range of hats (and other knitwear) that I've just spent a good while pouring over. They're a) based in the US and b) pretty pricey as hats go, so it's fairly unlikely that Arlo will be discovering one of these under the tree, but really bloody gorgeous all the same

three: so sweet, and Arlo hasn't ever had a rocker before so I'm intrigued to see if he likes it

four: I love this Brio train set for incorporating so many of the things Arlo loves to do - stacking, pushing along little cars and trains, building with blocks

five: given the amount of time Arlo spends in our kitchen cupboards, taking things out and putting them back in again, I figure a little kitchen of his own would be a big hit

six: these bright blocks come in more unusual shapes than most, and are fair trade too so what's not to love?

seven: this is on the list for no other reason than it looks mega fun!