Why I became a minimalist and how you can too

Recently I became extremely frustrated by the amount of clothes I have managed to accumulate.
I'm the kind of person who wears the same clothes over and over again and so seeing unloved garments spilling out of my wardrobe and drawers seemed completely unnecessary.

I pressed play on a YouTube playlist about minimalism and started to ruthlessly make piles of unwanted clothes on my bedroom floor. After struggling to fit all of my clothes in my wardrobe for a few months I could finally fit everything on the rails and even had hangers to spare! Looking at my bedroom in it's clean and clutter free state was so satisfying and I realised I want to have this feeling as I enter every single room of my house.

I sat down with a well deserved cup of tea and found a TEDx Talks on minimalism.
I'm obsessed with interior design and I've always pictured my adult home as a beautiful, clinical white space with no visible clutter, but yet I am an adult and my vision wasn't reality. I'm sure I'm not the only one that puts things off and imagines this perfect future where your life and your home will finally be what you've always wanted.

I decided in that moment that I needed to take control of not only my home but my life and create what I really want rather than putting it off like I have in the past.

I started small, walking through my house and picking up any nik naks that I didn't particularly want or need. Broken mugs, multiple sets of coloured pencils, ornaments that don't match the decor, it's strange how I've held on to objects over the years without ever thinking why. I promptly began to bin anything that was broken and gather the unwanted things for a trip to the charity shop.

Finally I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. It's true that a home full of clutter will inevitably clutter your mind. Although I didn't realise it at the time, I can now feel the difference. Calming the chaos was so satisfying that I managed to tackle the whole house in less than a week. My guess is that we've managed to cull over half of our possessions and I plan on throwing more and more.

In most aspects I completely boycott the mainstream way of life and so it makes sense for me to reject consumerism and to have fewer material things.
We are programmed to want to spend our money, to buy new clothes, new phones, new cars, to keep on spending until we have none of our wages left. People are competitive with our stuff, we want more stuff and we want better stuff than everyone else. Luckily I've never been interested in spending all of my money on new things, but yet I was keeping hold of things that I had no interest in using anymore, so what was the point?

Now when I decide to go shopping I have a few rules...

1. Do I need this/ will this benefit my life?

2. Will this be timeless? Mainly relevant to home ware and clothes, will I still love this in a few years or is it just a fleeting trend?

3. Would I still buy this if it cost three times the amount? (Since often we buy things purely because we consider them "a bargain").

I'm excited to finish off the process and I can't wait to see how much money I save without mindlessly spending. Let me know if you have tried minimalism or if you know of any minimalist YouTubers that I can get inspiration from!
Thanks for reading

Instagram @wolvesandflames

Bedroom tour 2015

 Since we moved in to our new house in July, I've prioritised decorating the kitchen/Living room area and I've put off finishing our bedroom. We've put a lot of work in to getting it how we wanted over the last few weeks and so I thought I would take some photograph's!

Of course Pinterest played a big part in inspiring the decor. I wanted to recreate the look of the open shelves and clothes rails instead of just buying a normal wardrobe. I bought three rails from Ikea and we fixed them to the wall with two floating shelves above.

I've displayed some of my favourite shoes on the shelves and two of my teddies (so Sabbath can't reach them!).

I'm in love with our velvet style sleigh bed. It's the perfect grey and I love how luxurious it looks! I bought the tropical bedding from Marks and Spencer and the palm tree pillowcases are from Primark.

The vintage anatomy and the bunny wrapping paper are both from Utility and I just use clips to put them on the wall like prints.

So far I'm happy with how the bedroom is coming along, next I need to buy some drawers and I would like a vanity area to do my makeup!

Instagram @wolvesandflames

Home accessories haul

I am one of those people that are more likely to spend their money on redecorating a room than on a new dress.

I am obsessed with interior design and I thought I should start talking about this more on my blog!

My most recent purchase is this money box from Accessorize, he's a super cute fox and he's a really metallic copper/gold colour.

He's currently living on my kitchen window sill (please excuse the dirty window!) but I think he would work well in most rooms in my house, as I love copper details!

Metallic fox

Another current obsession of mine are these postcard prints. They're so cheap (usually under a pound!) and I love how they can be easily put up on a wall and moved about to however you desire...

I've got them scattered all about the house and I love how they are silly and they add a lot of colour!

I bought all of the postcards pictured from Utility and Paperchase.

Our bedroom walls have been looking a bit empty so I picked out this anatomy print from Utility. I've seen a few people using clips on their walls so that they can switch out prints as they wish and I think it's an awesome idea. I chose this chunky "clothes peg" style clip from Primark and my boyfriend drilled it above our bed. I'm really happy with how this looks and so I'm going to definitely buy a few more of these large scale prints and swap them when I want a change!

This was just a quick post but I plan on doing more talking about interior design and hopefully showing you some of the before and after photo's I have taken in our new home!

Instagram @wolvesandflames