The 'Made To Be' blogger challenge with MADE.com and Verything

I was invited by Verything, the lifestyle blog from voucherbox, to take part in their 'Made To Be' blogger challenge hosted with MADE.com. The idea was to pick an item from the MADE.com shop, explain why you like it, and how you would incorporate it into your space. 

If you don't know of MADE, they offer beautifully designed furniture and homeware at affordable prices, and often have things that are just a little bit quirky and unusual compared to the high street. I've actually been browsing recently, as I'm in the market for a bit of a furniture overhaul. My boyfriend and I are moving in a couple of weeks, from a tiny one bedroom flat into a nice spacious house - the few items of furniture that we have certainly won't fill the space much. Not just that, but most of the furniture was given to us or bought second hand when we first moved in together over 3 years ago. As a lot was old to start with its all looking a bit worse for wear, never mind nothing matching! So this challenge got me thinking about how we could update our home.

The item I chose was the Hooper Storage Coffee Table, sold by MADE.com for £149.

I LOVE the very 60's design of this, its a beautiful shape and would really stand out in a room and lets be honest, it has a bit more personality than an Ikea LACK that is currently doing the job in our lounge. Of course, like most people we can't afford to replace all our furniture at once. So I've tried to think about how we could incorporate this into our new lounge when we move, adding a few new items to bring together everything in the room with the coffee table while recycling what we already have (namely, a beige Ikea sofa currently hidden under a big orange throw, and a couple of 'cube' bookcases, which take up the most room.)

Here's my little 'ideas board' of how I would style the lounge around the coffee table, after having a browse around the MADE shop. I've tried to stick with mostly neutral colours, but use accessories like rugs and cushions to pick out orangey-yellow sunset tones...

1. Polygon Shelving Unit in Ash - for our ever-expanding book collections.
2. Juno Armchair - the neutral tones would match with our current sofa, and offer extra seating space.
3. Starkey Cluster Pendant Light - I seriously love industrial looking lighting, and this is only £75 - I've seen this sort of thing so much more expensive!
4. Trio Cushion in Mustard and Sports Luxe Stripe in Red - to add a bit of sunset colour.
5. Astoria Rug, in Yellow and Pink - a bright rug like this alongside the coffee table would help make the table even more of a centrepiece in the room.

And of course, the beautiful Hooper Coffee Table itself. I'm so looking forward to moving somewhere a bit more permanent (we've moved 3 times in 3 years so far), and actually being able to put some personality into our space, so although getting ready for the move is pretty stressful at the moment, it will all be worthwhile when we get there. I can't wait for a bit of a shopping spree, actually!

I've got my fingers crossed for winning the blogger style challenge - the winner gets to take home the very piece of furniture they chose, and I really REALLY want that table! I can't promise I won't be buying that cluster light pretty soon either..

Golden Syrup Goodness

The last few weeks have been crazy busy getting all of my university work in - the deadline was today and I finally submitted everything! I'm not completely free now - I still have to write my 15,000 word dissertation over the summer. But I have a bit more time for all the things I've been wanting to do.

The first thing I did after handing in all my work today? Made a TREACLE TART!

I've never made one before and the last time I made pastry instead of buying it was when I was at school, so I'm pretty pleased it turned out so well.

I used a recipe from the BBC Food website here. It doesn't require many ingredients at all really.

For the pastry:
225g Plain Flour
110g Butter
1 Egg

Rub in the butter and flour and add the egg, and knead into dough. Blind bake in the oven first for 15 minutes in the tin.

For the filling:
450g Golden Syrup
85g Fresh Breadcrumbs
Pinch of Ground Ginger
2 tbsp Lemon Juice

Just chuck them all in a bowl and mix! Pour in and bake for 30 minutes.

The trickiest bit was the breadcrumbs - I spent ages trying to grate bread to make them until I realised I could put them in a blender. I think next time I might add something else to it to make it more interesting - maybe some walnuts. But for now, super sweet deliciousness is perfect, just what I needed after all the work!

Vintage Tea Set

This is part of an exciting new acquisition - a beautiful vintage teaset, given to me by my nan. It's the first time I've had any nice cups and saucers that matched, all my others are odd mismatched ones (although all beautiful in their own way). They are lovely bright spring colours, and I'm looking forward to afternoon tea in my teacups and a slice of cake on my matching tea plates!