Lifestyle – Page 2 – My Gosh House

Top 10 Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

Mothers are the most significant others in our lives. They give us unconditional love and are behind our successes. When we were children they were always happy (or at least pretended they liked them) with a handmade card or drawing which were far from a piece of art:)

mother's day

Now when we are adults it would be nice to put some effort into choosing a perfect gift for our mothers. If you are looking for ideas for presents that you can purchase online I got you covered. Here’s my subjective list of perfect gifts that you will save you time because you can find them online. This article contains some affiliate links which means that if you make a purchase through them I will get small commission. The products I link here are the one I would consider myself when buying a present not only for my mum.

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Personalised mug -it can be cute like this one or cool like this one depending on your mum’s taste and personality.
Throw is a good idea as well- by wrapping up with a warm and cosy throw your mother will feel that you take care of her. She will think of you in that moment and she will feel loved.
Jewellery is something that always work and on any occasion. I really like the idea of personalised necklace with a name or this delicate bracelet
Purse– the bigger the capacity the better. There are reasonably priced ones like this Patent Kisslock Clutch Wallet or this vegan leather wallet
Scarf is also a cost friendly idea for a present. This statement piece or delicate neutral one – definitely there is a plethora of styles available online.
Scented candles – because everyone likes beautifully smelling house. Her home can smell like cookies or there are sets of different smells available.
Books are always good idea for a present. It can be an uplifting book on happiness or a book about healthy cooking. There’s plenty of bookstores that sell online which is convenient as you can shop any time of the day.
Home accessories like pictures , cute bedding or this cool wine rack are good ideas if you know your mum’s taste. Us women like to decorate home and surround ourself with beautiful decor.
Instant camera- I think this is an absolute hit. a camera that prints pictures straight away. How often do you make a photo and then you never print it? So many memories lost. I would be happy to get a present like this for any occasion;) They also have a pink version.
Beauty and hair products – especially the ones that make our life easier like BaByliss Big Hair which I recommend. It changed my life forever and saves me a lot of time and effort when styling my hair. A good hair dryer is always handy as well.

flowers

This were my personal favourite Mother’s Day gifts ideas that can be found online. I hope this post was helpful and I am curious what were your favourites from this list. Would you add something to it? Please leave me some comments below.

Thanks for reading,

Gosha

How To Add A Boho Chic To Your Interior?

Historical Background

The term Boho is a short form of Bohemian which is defined as a someone who lives and acts freely, disregarding conventional rules, usually an artist or writer. It has its origin in 19th century France where some artists and poets rebelled against an institution controlling the art market- the Salon. This movement died at the beginning of 20th century but influenced later art like surrealism or music like punk rock.

Bohemian Style

Nowadays Boho chic in fashion and interiors is associated with free spirits like hippies, Gypsies, travellers and artists. This eclectic style has to express individuality and freedom. There is no rules here and you can be very creative decorating in Boho vibe.

Boho Chic Interiors

As there’s no rule and the style is as unique as a person utilising the space it is hard to define the style, but there are few characteristic elements of Boho chic. Combining few of them or even all creates Bohemian feeling in the room.

Tropical Plants

They remind us exotic places and travels

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Macrame

This technique uses different knots to produce textiles and decorations. There are tutorials available online that show how to create macrame decor like the pictured below.

makrama

Hobbies

If you play the guitar or any other instrument or paint incorporate your interest in your interior after all Boho chic is associated with art and free expression. This will be a perfect topic for a conversation when someone visit you 😉

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Rug

In this style rugs are welcome even the old fashioned ones, patterned and vibrant- whatever you like.

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Fairy Lights and Lanterns

There’s something magical and artistic about them, they create ambient atmosphere- a perfect background for good music and long night conversations.

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Pattern and Colour

In Bohemian interiors there’s no rules how to mix and match patterns and colours be as creative as you want.

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Lace

This decorative and romantic element is used commonly in Bohemian style interiors.

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Succulents and cacti

They don’t need too much care and will survive without watering even if you travel a lot.

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Dream catchers

They are supposed to protect us from nightmares and are characteristic for Boho chic.

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I hope that this article was helpful and inspired you to add a bit of Boho to your beautiful houses…Writing this post made me think of buying a camper and travel around the World… Maybe, at least, I will learn to play the guitar?

Thanks for reading,

Gosha

New Year New Goals

After certain age the new year is not so exciting anymore and I am in that age already, but 2018 is here and I would like to wish all my readers a really good one.

The last year wasn’t as good as I expected… I thought that after obtaining my diploma in Interior Design all doors will open for me instantly and I will choose among job offers but this didn’t happen. That was a hard lesson from life but this led me to few good things. One of them was volunteering for Society of Saint Vincent de Paul where I met wonderful people and started to do window displays, which was something I was thinking of for a long time. I also appreciated more people around me, my friends and their support. Starting the blog was also a result of my difficulties with finding the job. I love Interior Design and wanted to be up to date with trends and wanted to share the knowledge and skills that I learned at school.

The start of the year is a time when people make new resolutions but research shows that most of them fail after a few weeks. I read an interesting article related to this subject here which I recommend. I decided to make some changes in my life and thought that a new year is a good time to start and that declaring my goals publicly will increase my chances to succeed.

In 2018 I want to:

Be more productive and work everyday on blog related tasks because when I write my post I often struggle to find perfect imagery or spend too much researching the topic. I was so far spontaneous and I need to organise that process. At the end of the year I happened to be sick, then I sunk in Christmas madness and haven’t published for weeks. I need to have backup for such situations.
I want to develop my writing skills as English is not my native language and we speak Polish at home. Sometimes it is hard to find words to describe things and I repeat the same word over and over. I want to read more design related articles and books and make notes.
Create an office space in a spare room to not work in my bedroom.
Exercise first thing in the morning during the week to look better and uplift my mood.
Have more social interactions both in the real life and online as I really suck at this.

I had a long list but I think there’s no point in overwhelming myself with expectations. Every little change can have a huge impact on life. I am starting from now on and will see where this will take me.

Do you make a new year’s resolution and would like to share it here? Please comment below and maybe we can motivate each other?

Thank you for being with me and reading the post.

Gosha

Decorating for Christmas

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This year I started preparing for Christmas relatively late… I am still on the stage where I look for an inspiration. I would like to do something different this time and I am planning to use a lot of natural materials and DIY decorations.

I like the informal style on the photo below- creased linen as a tablecloth, a branch suspended from the ceiling and paper star decorations in the window. I imagine my slow Christmas morning breakfast with my boys at the table set like this.

ikea christmas

Photo credit: Ikea

I also think the greenery around a chandelier like on this photo would look interesting as a holiday decoration- simple yet interesting.

ikea chrismas 2

Photo credit: Ikea

If the “white Christmas” is something you desire (but you live in Ireland where it is seldom the case), why not decorating all room in white? I really like that idea but I am afraid in my creative house it wouldn’t work 🙂

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Definitely when everything is monochrome you can go more crazy with decorations and it will still work well like in this beautiful living room.

ikea christmasa

Photo credit: Ikea

I still haven’t purchased the tree I would like the living one but I am considering the environmental issues maybe the potted one would survive until spring and could be transplanted to the garden?… And what about you? Do you have bought yours already? Do you opt out for the real or the artificial one? Are you making your decorations or you prefer the store bought ones?

Thanks for reading,

Gosha

Interior Design Trends For 2018. Part I

If minimalism and all white interiors are not your thing, or if you struggling to keep your house tidy and perfect, I have a good news for you. The 2018 trends in interiors forecast came to save you. In this post I will present few of them that I find interesting.

Imperfection or WABI-SABI trend is embracing flaws and accepts that the house is not a museum. This traditional Japanese aesthetics includes asymmetry, roughness, simplicity and modesty. Think of organic shaped porcelain, mismatched, creased linen pillowcases, uneven wood grain furniture or burn marks on chopping boards… There’s so many ways to incorporate this trend effortlessly.

wabisabi source: Fashionlandscape.com

Nowadays most of us live in a rush and we are surrounded by the technology but we still have a need to be closer to nature. Greenery trend respond to this need. It can be incorporated by placing live plants in the room. Green wall or few plants around the room, hanging baskets or stands on different levels will transform the interior completely, is inexpensive and you can never go wrong with it. this trend doesn’t have to be taken so literally, you can always use some printed accessories or artwork around the house.

judah-guttmann-green

Photo by Judah Guttmann on Unsplash

Millennial Pink is another big thing in 2018. This colour can be overwhelming so it’s better to use it in accessories as an accents. It looks very good when mixed with berry. You can add some texture like fake fur or fringes to give it more personalised look.

Milennial-Pink-2

Credit: Theinkformant.com

Tonal reds- this trend is apparent in fashion from which interior design often takes inspiration. Trend forecasters predict that this will be reflected in interiors in 2018. Combine different tones of red: coral, tangerine, wine. This is definitely energising combination.

tonal reds

Picture: Pinterest.com

I find the greenery trend particularly interesting it brings fresh and cosy atmosphere to any interior and I like to be surrounded by nature. Also Wabi-Sabi aesthetics appeals to me because house is for living not for show. I wonder which of the predicted trends do you like. Please leave me some comments below and follow my blog if you want to know more trends for forthcoming year.

Thank you for reading,

Gosha

Men Do Care About the Design

Decorating a house is definitely a woman’s thing. Making a house a home is in our nature since the beginning of humanity. This gives us joy and makes us proud. We like if someone appreciates our effort and men seem not to care. But don’t they really?

Man chilling out with coffee at cafe

Every time I see cute shabby chic living room with floral sofa, pink accents and white, distressed furniture I wonder how the man of the house feels in this room. I imagine him going back home after the long day at work and… Actually I cannot imagine that though I am very creative and I have rich imagination. He wants to relax on the sofa but there’s so many statement pillows so he throws them on the floor… I mean what else can he do with them? Then he wants to watch tv or read a book (yeah right, he’s tired after work) but tufted sofa is so uncomfortable, he had his favourite, comfy chair but it didn’t mach the decor… And this goes on and on…

Ladies you are not gonna like what I have to say: please consider your other half when decorating a house. I know it is not that easy but there are some things you should reconsider:

Fluffy fur pillows- they’re good in your daughter’s room or she-shed but not in the living room (plus they’re home for dirt, hair and allergens)
Floral sofas- imagine him with his male friends watching the game on it
Pink accents (obviously)
Mirrored furniture- I mean we have enough mirrors around the house plus they are hard to keep clean
Painted white, distressed, shabby chic furniture
Patterned wallpaper- especially floral, damask, fleur-de-lis
Too many accent pillows (they take up space and usually they will end up on the floor and you will be annoyed again)
All white room (men perceive colour differently most of them don’t distinguish slight tonal difference between white/ivory/cream their brain won’t be stimulated)

This post is just my opinion and shouldn’t be treated too seriously. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t let my man to decide about everything and definitely I wouldn’t let him to pick the paint colour. There are things we are better at… but they do care about how their home looks like and they want to feel comfortable there. Also there’s so many great male architects, graphic designers, web developers- that prove their attention to detail (so let them test the sofa or bed they will consider every practical aspect). I just think they don’t want to argue over small things and they want to make us happy and surely there is little something we can do to make them feel good at home. After all love is all that matters.

love

I am curious what are your thoughts on that? Are you asking your man about their opinion? Is there something you would add to the list? Please leave me a comment below.

Thanks for reading,

Gosha

Window Display For Charity Shop

This Summer I started to volunteer for Saint Vincent de Paul charity shop in Trim. I work there as a volunteer staff but they gave me also the opportunity to do the window displays. I go there whenever I have time and there’s a need to change the exposition. This job gives me a lot of satisfaction and nurtures my creativity. I never know what I will have in store so there’s a lot of improvisation and staging. So far I have done three displays and I had no experience with visual merchandising so I hope you will like it.

window baby

This was my first display ever- baby themed

window men

Inspiration for this window came from the large painting we wanted to show. We didn’t have space in the shop to display it properly (by the way the painting was sold very quickly). The window was supposed to show men’s clothes but I always introduce a bit of interior design.

window men2

This one was difficult as it seemed that we didn’t have too many interesting things in the shop. I usually get the men’s window which is a little bit harder but I think it went well. It’s Halloween themed but really subtle and elegant (I even heard the comment that “we’re becoming very posh now” which is a good thing).

My aim is to show that people can find really interesting and good things in charity shops and by buying them they help others and the environment. Don’t be afraid pop in and take a look and if you have things in good condition- donate.

Thank you for reading my post.

Gosha

Photos by Gosha Galuszka