What a beautiful autumn we are having, and how stunning and vibrant is this amazing dress?!  I was so excited to be chosen to share the love for sustainable style thank you to Zanne from @allthingszanne for picking me. 

​Would you like to be the next custodian of the dress?

This is the ISSEY dress from Baukjen and it is part of their #baukjenstyleshare initiative, an idea created with Carrie from @the.thistle.edit.

This stunning dress is travelling the world to be shared, styled and photographed by different people, one of the most sustainable and ethical ways to enjoy fashion is to share!

Autumn is now properly with us.  The world is still in a mess and I am still utterly fed up with it all.  But I have been sorting my wardrobe out, some things never change.  And this year I have a bit more space to do that and as we are not going 'out out' much I am using the opportunity to buy less, because I need less.  And even if I was going out, well I still have too much and need less.  Sound familiar?  I am actually too embarrassed to count how many jeans and bikinis I have.  Clearly my obsession is with the perfect denim and the perfect bikini!  But I am enjoying seeing what I have and creating outfits by 'shopping my wardrobe' more it is amazing how many combinations you can create.  If I do buy then I am choosing carefully and filling gaps - and one gap I had - black chunky boots!  Read on for a few outfit ideas and to see the new chunky boots from Cara.

Should I be missing my children more and struggling with my empty nest?  Or is it okay to feel a little bit pleased that I have more space, more time and am loving getting my house and wardrobe organised?  I have been a stay at home mum / working at home for 23 years and I loved every minute of it (well mostly).  But I was also ready for a rest!  I don't think I realised just how tired I had got and how much I missed 'me'.   In today's post I am sharing details of my new walk in wardrobe (or dressing room), some pretty new underwear for the autumn and a super cotton white shirt!

We have a beautiful cottage in the woods but it isn't a mansion and being a period cottage it does lack storage space.  We have three bedrooms, two bathrooms plus a spare room in an annexe, we are also really fortunate to have the log cabin.  But my dream, since our trip to Florida years ago, was to have a big walk in wardrobe.  Okay so I am not going to quite get the equivalent of the big American homes but I can compromise.  I am not going to be one of those mum's who keeps the kids bedrooms exactly as they were for them to visit.  Oh no, space is too precious for that, and my son owns a flat ten minutes away so he hardly needs a bedroom here does he?  And he can still stay over for Christmas if he wants to.  I have therefore utilised his bedroom and made it into my dressing room and it will also be a spare room.

Towards the end of lockdown, I met Nikki from Creative DeZigns for the first time, she had got in touch with me to ask if I would be interested in working with her, trying some of the styles from her lovely range of cotton and sustainable clothing and maybe sharing my thoughts on the blog.  I suggested we meet up and chat, I wanted to find out more about her and her small ethical fashion business.  We hit it off immediately and I loved her story.  I loved the clothes too!  So I asked if Nikki would be happy to share her story in more detail on my blog.  So here it is, as part of my (somewhat irregular) Embracing Life (in Midlife) series.

In this interview series, I invite inspirational women, normal women like you and me, who are busy getting on with it all and keeping all the plates spinning, to tell me about their life and their business.  I am always amazed at their stories.  And I am very impressed with how they manage to do it all. 

Nikki is no exception, she has two grown up children, she spent a large part of her childhood growing up in South Africa and she then took over Creative DeZigns form her mother and has enjoyed taking the business in a new direction whilst staying true to its original ethos.  

I really loved reading Nikki's responses to my questions, I am sure you will agree, that she is certainly very talented and very inspirational.  Do take a few moments to read what she has to say and support her small business!  I've been looking forward to sharing this post!