Mother's Day at Minted and Giveaway!!

Mother's Day is just around the corner now and if you are looking to get something that's as unique and special as mom is then look no further than Minted.com

Minted is a design marketplace where you can shop from a community of independent artists all in one place. They simply enter their designs and artwork, it gets judged and then the winners are available to buy on the site. As well as some great art you can also shop home decor and stationary.

Here are a few of my top picks for Mother's Day!

Top Left//Top Right//Bottom Left//Bottom Right

If none of these take your fancy you can find more lovely art in their art collection and ideas in their mother's day gift section.

When it comes to giving (and receiving) gifts I always favor ones that you can personalize. I think personalization makes it all that little bit more special and you can really let someone know how you feel about them. Minted is a great place where you can do just that. A lot of the gift-oriented art designs are personalizable- you can add your own photos and choose the color scheme and in some add your own text.

I had a play around with one of my favorite designs to show you how easy it is to make it your own.

It doesn't just stop at gifts either. You can choose to personalize your own gift wrap and gift tags too so your gift will look amazing! They also have a selection of cards for any occasion. 

They also currently have an event on where you can save 20% on all foil pressed products until the 27th April.
Be sure to get your Mother's Day orders in by the 29th to ensure delivery by Mother's Day.

Now for the giveaway.
One winner will receive $50 credit to Minted and free ground shipping (some items are excluded from free shipping)
Open worldwide (Free shiping in US only).
All entries are optional, the more you do the more chances you have to win.
All entries will be checked.
Winner will be announced on Mother's Day via social media and an email will be sent. Winner will have 48 hours to claim or a new winner will be picked.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


*I received credit for this post but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Our Home

I thought it was about time I shared with you all our home here in the states. 

Obviously we have lived in another house but that was rented off a lovely couple who moved back to England for a few years. This house however is ours! We are the homeowners and everything inside and out is ours. We moved in back in December (about 10 days before Christmas!) and as the previous home was rented fully furnished we had literally no furniture whatsoever (apart from Calleigh's room). 

It was hard, especially at Christmas, but we tried to do it room by room and slowly it began to look more and more like home to us! 

I'll share a few photos of our house and then later on down the line more about our move and how we made this house into our home! 

The first two photos are of our main seating area. This is where we spend most of our nights watching TV. The fireplace is gorgeous but it is a work in progress, I really wanted to make use of it over winter but it doesn't have any glass or safety yet so it's pretty much just for decoration at the moment. 

This next photo is the entrance from the front door and the stairway. To the left is Calleigh's playroom and to the right the dining area (see below photo). The door you can see leads down to the finished basement.

Upstairs has four bedrooms. This photo is the master bedroom which has his and hers walk in closets and an en suite bathroom. 

This is another upstairs bedroom that we are using a Paul's office. This room connects to a bathroom that also connects to one of the other bedrooms as sort of a shared bathroom area between the two. It's pretty cool!

The third bedroom is Calleigh's. She has her own en suite bathroom too! The walls are adorned with My Little Pony and she is also really into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles recently! 

The forth bedroom is our guest bedroom. It's kind of basic at the moment as we haven't had any guests yet but it's ready and waiting for any family that come to stay! It has a walk in closet and a bathroom too (that connects to the office). 

This is our master bathroom. I love the TV over the bath it has come in really useful!! 

Back downstairs and to the kitchen. This was one of the rooms that made me fall in love with the house. The kitchen is huge and I love the breakfast bar. Calleigh and I always have our breakfast and lunch sat there.

Another one of the reasons we liked this house was the finished basement. The property we rented previously didn't have this and it's such a big thing in America that we really, really wanted it. We haven't made use of all the rooms down there at the moment, there is still one room completely empty but it is a work in progress and we are happy with how it is at the moment. We have a pool room which we intend to install a bar at some point (hence the boozy pictures) and another room as the game room and finally another playroom for Calleigh. We try to keep Calleigh's toys confined to this room but it doesn't usually stay like that haha! 

There is also another bathroom downstairs with a shower as well so we may convert the empty room into another bedroom, we are not sure yet. 

There is obviously a backyard too but I haven't any photo's yet. Although now spring is here and the weather is a lot warmer we are spending much more time outside so there should be some photos soon! 

Calleigh's New Room

We have pretty much finished transforming Calleigh's room from a nursery into a little girls room. There are still a few bit and bobs I want to add, like a new floor lamp and clothes hamper, but we are really happy with how the room looks now and so is Calleigh. She loves being in there! 

It's come a long way from the office that was there when we first moved in! 

Before

View from the door

The back wall

View from the window

View from the back wall

The wardrobe 

After

View from the door

The bed

Bookshelf

View from the window

View from the back wall

 

The wardrobe

Calleigh's New Toddler Bed

Calleigh finally has her own little toddler bed. We knew hat once we got back from England we were giving her room a little makeover (more to come on that soon) and one of the things I was most excited about getting was a toddler bed. 

She had been in her crib since she was 6 months old and although she slept incredibly well in it, the time had come to move her on to a bed of her own. 

The bed itself is perfectly designed with toddler's in mind. It is just inches from the floor so if Calleigh happens to roll in the night the fall will not hurt. It's also really good because she can get herself in and out of bed when she pleases. This is more of a good/bad thing. 

It's good because it gives her a lot more freedom. When she wakes up she can get herself out of bed and come to the door and shout for us or she can play around with her toys for a bit first. It's only really bad at bedtime. Before it was easy to get her to sleep as she had no choice, she was in her cot with no way out of it. But now bedtime is a bit of a free for all. She goes to bed, she gets out and fetches a toy or a book and goes back to bed, she then gets out again to fetch something else and so on and so on. Before you know it you've been up there an hour, all her toys are out and Calleigh is still no closer to going to sleep. 

It' a work in progress, she is getting better. 

I am so happy that she is in her bed now, it really makes me feel like shes grown up. I've gone up after a nap to hear her playing in her room by herself and it really just makes you feel good! 

Calleigh loves it too! She loves running over to her bed, climbing under the covers and giving us a big yawn before pretending to go to sleep. It the cutest thing!