MAKING THE MOST OF SUMMER

It's that time of the year where most of us are returning from holiday and finding it hard to settle back into a routine at home (the rain certainly doesn’t help!). Getting back to work after vacation can be challenging, but remember that we still have beautiful, long days which should be fully utilised before we say goodbye to summer! 

To kickstart the process, it's important that you surround yourself with the right kind of energy. Do you ever wonder why we feel so good whilst we’re travelling? It's typically the novelty of your surroundings, the exciting new things we get to do, see and experience.  So why not have that same feeling at home? Start with the small changes: having a summer and winter arrangement for the living room makes a world of a difference. Moving the furniture around, changing the curtains and using different accent colours brings a refreshing change.

We always recommend taking up a new hobby over the summer and involve your kids in it too! Summer is the best time for them to engage in outdoor activities: you can paint plant pots with them in the evenings, create a small herb garden in the kitchen, or make ice lollies and smoothies together. This summer, we’ve tried getting our kids interested in recycling and eating healthily. You could get them to help pick the vegetables as you grocery shop or even add some wildflowers to your salads. Let them get creative and they’ll learn to love cooking and eating healthily. (We’ve included a delicious salad recipe at the end that we absolutely love!) 

It’s the perfect way to spend some quality time with the kids before they head off back to school again.    

Speaking of getting the family more in tune with nature, indoor plants are essential for the home.
If you love flowers like us, there’s still time to have fresh summer flowers in the house every week. A fresh bouquet adds a burst of colour to your home and helps keep you calm during the ‘back to school’ rush. Spritz them with cold water with a drop of vanilla essence mixed in to keep them smelling divine for longer.

As the summer winds down, it’s important that you find ways to stay relaxed as things get start to get busier. We find that having a tidy, fresh-smelling home is the best way to feel calm after a busy day: have plenty of indoor plants and flowers and try to maintain sleek, uncluttered surfaces around your home to help clear your mind.   

Over summer, we tend to accumulate lots of clutter around the house, a lot of which won’t get used till the next summer.

Now’s the perfect time to clear some of that clutter away to reveal those beautiful table tops, desktops and floors hiding underneath.
Take your time with each section of the house: done right, this can be quite a relaxing process.
And by the end, you’ll have that calming, sleek look to your house (and maybe some extra space for new furniture!).

STRAWBERRY & AVO SALAD