I love mixing old and new. Charity shop and car boot sale bargains with more modern fresh pieces of furniture or decorations. Our kitchen for example is high gloss black (what were we thinking with years of sticky fingers) with walnut wood but with big distressed window frame style photo frames and a scuffed, worn wood table.

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I'd love the house to look more like a show house and less like a play room but I know it has a homely feel. It has good soul when you come in and whilst there is a theme, be it colour or textures in each room, but it is not overly matchy.

The dining room is a narrow little room that used to be my husband's office until he converted the back of the garage. We have been pouring some love into it recently, a painted round table I found on eBay, a beautiful carved painted dresser from my friend's furniture shop and we just have to flog our leather dining chairs so we can replace them with the eames eiffel chairs my husband has lusted after for years.

I have had my eye on these secondhand wall shelves for ages but would need to re paint them in this grey from Annie Sloan. We have some beautiful glasses which have been hidden away and I want a way to display them high out of reach of those sticky little clumsy fingers.

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I also have 2 of my Grandparents decanters. I adore them even though they are only brought out for Christmas cocktails! When I popped into my favourite charity shop last week I saw a whole selection! There were 9 to choose from, I was in heaven! All priced between £3 and £4 I picked up 4! I love the different styles and the reflection of the sunlight on them lighting up the spirits inside.

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They look beautiful displayed together and would look even better on those painted shelves!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted a set of 4 champagne saucers identical to the set of 8 I had bought in there a year ago! £1.50 the lot! I now have enough to make vintage cocktails for Christmas and I love the delicate gold pattern. I also feel less anxious using them than my Granny's precious paper thin saucers.

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Cheers!

I was named after my Grandpa's mother who sadly I never met. When I got married my Granny gave me a delicate gold pin, set with tiny pearls. It belonged to my Great Grandmother and had her initial and mine!

I tucked and pinned it into my wedding dress, just under my right arm.

It was my something old and at the time something borrowed.

My Granny had some beautiful jewellery that was passed onto the next generation when she died, as I hope I will be able to do with my special rings. She wrote a list once on the back of an old cereal box of who was to have what and I was lucky enough to be given one of her special cocktail rings.

But this pin is my most treasured piece of my Grandparent's jewellery collection. By no means the most expensive but by far the most precious to me.

I gave it to my brother to wear in his jacket pocket at his wedding as he too had a special relationship with my Grandparents and it felt like we had a little piece of them with his for his big day.

Do you have jewellery that you envisage you will pass to your daughter or granddaughter?

We have been enjoying a bank holiday of sorting. Sorting old paperwork, putting up pictures, clearing out old boxes and I had a good rummage through my Granny's suitcase.

I found her old recipe books and I am ashamed to say, that for all the creative things I do, baking is not one! I have never baked a single cake in my life! Shocking I know!

I am determined my first will be from one of these recipes!

There are so many but I though I would share 2 child friendly ones! I imagine she used to make these for my Mum and Auntie when they were young.

Granny's Cheese Straws

4 oz flour, 3 oz grated cheese, pepper, salt and cayenne, 2 oz butter or margarine, 1 yolk of egg.

Mix flour, cheese, salt etc rub in butter. Mix to short paste with yolk of egg. Knead until smooth. Roll out to 4 inch in thickness.

Granny's Oatflake Cookies

4 oz porridge oats, 2 oz self raising flour, pinch of salt, 2 oz margarine, grated rind of an orange, 1 egg.

Mix oats, flour, sugar and salt. Rub in fat, add some orange rind and mix to a dough with beaten egg. Roll out to fairly thinly and cut into rounds.

Cut out a small circle in the centre of half the rounds, brush over with milk and sprinkle with sugar. (These rounds form the top of the cookies.)

Bake in a moderate oven for 15 mins.

When cool, spread the lower rounds with jam and stick together.

A post for you, Dear Granny.