You'd know by now that I have a little something for pretty stationery. It all started with one notebook or two, a pen and than another, and now I just can't seem to stop hoarding cute paper goods. I tend to justify it as "I need it to, you know, stay organized when I work/blog" and that's actually true, there's no better thing than pretty paper for me to stay organized and plan everything ahead. But the truth is that I might have come to the point where I can not go back and have become a tiny little bit obsessed with anything cute that comes in paper or pen form. Can you really blame me?!
When Born Pretty Store reached out to me, it was enough for me to give a quick look to their website and spot the stationery section, to relive the excitement of my younger-self in front of a new set of colourful pens or a pretty diary! They have everything I think a stationery lover dreams are made of, a n d you can't really beat their prices: everything comes at only a few pennies! I KNOW, you can't go better than this!
I hope you enjoy the little short (as usual) video I've put together for you where you can see all the cuteness in action. Also they were kind enough to give my readers a 10% off every order using the code CAFEG10 at checkout for you to pick your favourite stationery items (or anything else from their site)!
Am I the only one that gets extremely excited about the weather being this warm, enough to start drinking iced lattes again? I have been experimenting with different latte flavours, and even if coffee will always be my favourite, for a healthier alternative I've been drinking iced chai lattes quite often recently. It was at the beginning of spring that I saw somewhere online a genius video of coffee ice cubes being used in iced latte, and since then I was impatiently waiting for the warmer season to give it a try!
Coffee works well as much as chai. I just have to make some chai tea once a week or so, pour it in ice moulds and freeze it, to always have them at my fingertips when I crave an iced latte. When you pour your room temperature milk over a handful of chai ice cubes, the latters slowly melt down and blend with the milk showing a lovely dissolving effect in the meanwhile - that might or might not be my actual favourite part!
This way you'll have a delicious iced latte (of whatever flavour you like) ready in less than 5 minutes having the ice cubes always ready and done!
A few months ago I've shared what my workspace looked like at that time and you might remember I was on the market for a desk update already then. I've been thinking about giving my workspace a little twist ever since - at the end of the day it's the place where I spend the majority of the hours of my days, so I felt it was about right to make some changes in order to achieve a more functional and inspiring space for me to work in! I wasn't happy with my huge wooden desk - it feels even weird right now to go back and look at those pictures and think that was one of those days when my desk actually looked tidy! Apparently I didn't really know what tidy means. I've been itching for a clearer, minimal work station for a while now, and only recently I realized my previous furniture disposition would have never make the cut for what I was looking for.
The thing with doubling up your bedroom as your "office" (and when said room is small by itself) is that you can't really afford a huge desk. It took away space that could be used to store things in a much less cluttered way! Plus I'm such a hoarder (can you tell?) and I pretty often feel like useless things are apparently all I need or will need to survive. That's one of the main reason why I came to realize the more space I have to pile useless things up around me, the more I'd do it, and the solution to see an end to it was reducing my space drastically with a way smaller desk than what I was used to. It seemed kind of extreme and for months I've pondered the decision, but in the end I was extremely sure about the change I wanted to do, and things are going pretty awesomely on the organizational front so far. I seem to really have achieved what I was pursuing!
You might want to stay tuned until the end for a little bonus article by me on how to keep a small desk organized and inspirational at the same time, avoiding to over clutter with a three easy step guide! But here's my new workspace...
*Use code CAFEG10 to get 10% off on Born Pretty Store. They have the cutest, cheapest stationery!
My new white desk is from Ikea and you'll never believe me if I tell you it was only £34! I KNOW! Yet it feels and looks such awesome quality. The desk top comes separately from the legs, so you can actually pick your favourite combination out of a bunch of different styles and colours for your desk legs, which I found pretty lovely! However I went for a simple and minimal white top + white legs combination, and I'm pretty happy with it!
You'll find out more about what I think about decorating a small workspace in the extract you can find at the end of the post, but I've added little personal touches with simple, white and minimal objects that not only make my desk look pretty, but which I also find inspiring and motivational, such as photo frames, little vases, my amazingly smelling little lavender bunch I've picked last year from a field, a vanilla candle I love burning on a Sunday and little succulent plants to add a touch of greenery to the space.
Getting a smaller desk means there's so much more space now and I was able to move my furniture around and change its original disposition to a better looking and more spacious layout. I've moved my old bookcase (that originally was hidden behind the door) right next to my desk, and completely rearranged and decluttered it all, adding touches of greenery and cute Provencal homeware even there. The plan with it was to paint the shelves white when summer comes, but I'm actually pretty pleased with how it looks even now, so maybe the light wooden shelves will stay like that for a bit longer.
You'll be surprised by how many multi-functional storage solutions you'll find. I was hoarding empty Ladurée macarons boxes without a real purpose, until I realized the smaller one was perfect for storing my USB pen drives and SD cards! I've also arranged all my pens, pencils and brushes in what once was a candle holder and it looks pretty great!
While tidying things up, my stuff was drastically reduced, which means my shelves can now actually look minimal and tidy instead of a cluttered mess. A great solution to store what you don't want to eliminate but not keep visible, is to store them in storage baskets. I've recently bought a couple of these flower patterned storage baskets in lilac and white, which not only pair amazing with the colour scheme of the entire room, but are also great to be placed on the floor right under the last shelf of the bookcase and store everything you need to keep in them.
I can finally have a well deserved solo space for my small side table that I use and have always used to store things, but that was hidden under my huge desk until only a month ago, and it was such a pity! It's a beauty against a wall by itself, and even better with the little wooden tray I had no idea where to put only a few weeks back. I've placed in there a couple of candles I love, together with the vase I was using to store my pens and pencils before, with actual plants in there for once, succulents actually! I love the touch of transparency of the little vases I've recently bought, which are great homes for flowers picked from the garden too. I have a thing for clear glass but also copper homeware, if you haven't already noticed!
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And there you have it, my new work station! I'm very proud of how it turned out and I wish I could share a before and after if only I wasn't too ashamed of what a mess my desk looked like before to take actual pictures of it... sometimes a change is highly required, you know! I hope this post can inspire those of you who aren't happy with their current work station to change things up if you can (it really only took us 9 hours and £34 to do it!), because I truly believe an uninspiring workspace has something to do with lack of creativity and productivity.
Also, I've put together a little piece of article about how I manage to keep a small desk inspiring and clutter-free with three simple steps. If you want to download it for free, you just need to hit the newsletter subscribe button below and an email will be sent to your inbox with the download link!
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Let me know what you think and, if you download the extract, how you're getting the most out of a small desk (if you have one)! ;) x
