If you’re getting the festive season started at home, then a lockdown film night is the perfect thing for you. Pop some popcorn, find your comfiest pyjamas and curl up in bed (preferably one from our extensive collection) and get stuck into a classic Christmas film. In case you’re stuck for one to watch, we’ve compiled a short list of some of our favourites below.

 1. Polar Express

A young boy who doesn’t believe in Father Christmas gets swept away by a train headed directly for the North Pole in this Christmas classic. Based on the iconic book of the same name, the film deals with what it’s like to lose the magic of Christmas and struggle to find it again.

2. Elf

If you haven’t seen Elf, you haven’t done Christmas. This iconic film about a human being who grows up thinking he’s an elf is the perfect mixture of sweetness and stupidity to make you feel good about the festive season.

3.Nightmare before Christmas

This is actually the best film to watch in November, because it kind of bridges Halloween and Christmas, so it’s the perfect way to start your Christmas watching. If you’ve not seen it before, it tells the story of Jack Skellington, the Halloween King who decides he wants to switch to running Christmas.

4. A Christmas Story

This is a vintage classic that gets passed over way too often. It’s an adorable story about a little boy who wants his parents to buy him a BB gun for Christmas but can’t convince them to do it.

5. Home Alone

Kevin McAllister is left to fend for himself when his family forget him and leave for the holidays. Need we say any more?

6. The Grinch

A Christmas-hating green creature attempts to steal Christmas rather than dealing with his trauma. As funny as it is wholesome, this film deals with what it’s like to get carried away in the materialism and forget what Christmas is about.

7. Miracle on 34^th Street

Father Christmas has to prove his identity to disbelievers in this 90s classic.

8. Nativity!

If you’ve got kids, chances are that they’ve had to watch this at school, but nothing ruins the novelty of watching Martin Freeman as an exhausted schoolteacher who accidentally leads the whole town to believe that a Hollywood producer is coming to see their nativity.

9.Olive The Other Reindeer

A niche favourite about a dog named Olive who doesn’t fit in- when Rudolph gets injured and Santa says he needs ‘all of the other reindeer’ Olive mishears and becomes convinced she’s Santa’s only hope.

10. A Muppet Christmas Carol

The Muppets and Dickens sound like two things that absolutely should not go together, but this film weirdly makes it all work, and work well. Worth watching just for Miss Piggy.

Picture courtesy of @beckyhomesweethomeaccount on Instagram

If you’ve been on the internet at all this year, you’ll have heard of cottagecore. If you haven’t, let me fill you in- cottagecore is a lifestyle trend that’s been percolating on Instagram and Tumblr for years, but which found a foothold on TikTok this summer, gaining almost four and a half billion views.

Cottagecore values a rural, artsy aesthetic and the power of self-sufficiency- imagine living in a cottage in the woods, making your own food and completely removed from society, and you’d be pretty close to the ideal cottagecore life.  If cottagecore is your thing, but you’re not planning on upping and moving to the wilderness any time soon, here’s what you need to know to get the look.

The good news; you don’t need to buy that much stuff to get the look, because this particular trend is about being able to reuse and recycle anything you can. To get the look, all you really have to do is make sure you have the essential bits. Steer absolutely clear of anything overly modern, technological or plastic; your furniture essentials should either be wood, metal or fabric. This can be the difficult part, but you can find some great fabric options for beds here.

The other piece of good news about cottagecore decorating is that not everything you do needs to match- as long as your colour palette stays consistent, variation will add the rustic charm we associate with cottagecore. For colours, stay in muted, pastel tones and neutrals- you can’t go wrong with white walls and pastel accents.

Finally, what makes a great rustic space is the details- flowers and greenery add great natural touches, as do exposed brick or beams. There aren’t really any hard-and-fast rules when it comes to this, but most cottagecore spaces try to stick to natural materials and soft colours rather than statement pieces.  

As always, the most important thing is to create a space that feels authentic and soothing to you. Cottagecore is about escaping the mainstream for a simpler, less stressful life, so remember that the only person who has to be satisfied with the end result is you.

Photos courtesy of @bestlife_style__ on Instagram 

Honestly, once you’ve gotten a mattress, you’re pretty likely to stop thinking about it, and because you spend so much time on it you might not notice it gradually aging.  Unfortunately, having a bad mattress is way more of a problem than you probably think (link to our blog here), so here’s how you’ll know when your mattress has given up.

The Springs Poke You

This is the obvious one- the more time you spend on the mattress the more likely you are to have pushed the springs out of place, which probably means they’ll be digging into you as you sleep.

Everything Hurts

As your mattress ages, it’ll stop supporting you as well as it has- the areas of our body that put the most pressure on it (your back and hips) will create divots which provide no support and cause joint pain.

Your Allergies Are Acting Up

As a mattress gets old, more dust settles in the crevices, which can cause those of us with dust allergies to wake up sniffly and sneezing

You Wake Up Tired

You feel like you can’t get up in the morning, it might be because a lumpy mattress is making it really difficult for you to get comfortable in your sleep, so you’re tossing and turning.

Whilst getting a new mattress might not be top of our priorities list, remember that getting 8 hours of proper, REM sleep makes you smarter, more attractive, less stressed and healthier, so you should probably at least think about investing in a new mattress as soon as you see your old one start to age.

Picture courtesy of @love_this_old_house on Instagram

Move things upwards

Anything you can raise off of the floor and onto the walls is great- having your stuff stored on shelves or hung up draws the eye upwards to create an illusion of height whilst also liberating floor space so the room feels bigger.

Less clutter frees up floor space

Any piece of furniture which doubles as storage is great, because if you can store things in an ottoman bed like this (hyperlink), then your room will have less need of extra furnishings and will seem much bigger.

Know your colour theory

Whilst it’s true that light colours create the illusion of size, dark colours can also create a sense of depth which widens out a room just as well.

Use contrast

If you paint a wall in two colours, with the bottom three-quarters darker than the top, the line creates contrast. Because the human eye is naturally drawn to contrast, the eye travels upwards and creates an illusion of height.

Hang curtains well above the window

A favourite hack of Queer Eye’s Bobby Berk, hanging the curtain rail a foot or so above the top of the window is another trick that convinces the human brain that the ceiling is much higher than it actually is.

Buy a mirror

If your small room doesn’t get much natural light, it’ll seem a lot closer and darker than it is. As we said before, light creates the illusion of space, so adding a mirror big enough to reflect some natural light adds depth to a room.

Buy a visually interesting light fixture

An interesting light fixture draws the eye upwards and creates the illusion of height, whilst also distracting from a lack of floor space.

Buy furniture with legs

Furniture that sits directly on the ground or which has a skirt makes everything in a room feel lower and stops light from moving through. By buying furnishings that are raised off the floor, you’ll ensure everything in a room looks slightly higher and a lot more open.

Create Space

A small room with lots of furniture crammed together will feel tiny- by bringing furniture     away from the wall slightly and spacing it out, you’ll seem like you have a lot more floor space

Find your light

If your room is dark, it’ll seem small, so augment your main light source with some lamps, candles or fairy lights .

Hi,

We have a new offer, just in time for the December and January sales! It's our brand new bundle deal.

Design your own bed and use the code WIN50 for 50% off, if that wasn't enough - you can now take advantage of our bundle deal to get a whopping 50% off a new mattress too! Please note that using this code results in 5% commission.

We believe relaxation should start at the beginning. We made our first bed in 2006, a lot has changed over the years. Todays demand due to small spaces means we demand more storage for our beds so we help customers find the perfect look, colour and size, that still meets their storage needs.
We wanted a solution that makes our customers lives easier, so after years of research and development, came the bed designer tool. The bed designer tool means that customers can have the look they want, the way they want it, without breaking the bank.

We've just launched our new mattress range! We don't want to bore you with springs and things, we just wanted to give you the same mattress in a box without the faff. Simply slide our slothometer and choose how you want to sloth. You get all the standard mattress in box but without all the faff:

10 years guarantee
100 night free trail
Free delivery

Please let us know if you would like to join our program, we would love to have you on board.

Thanks,
Arista Living

 

OKA & Silverbean Newsletter Monday 29th October 2018

OKA - Christmas Gift Collection Welcome to the latest newsletter from OKA and Silverbean. OKA are pleased to announce they have launched their Christmas 2018 Collection. This range is available from Monday 29th October until midnight Thursday 20th December 2018. Finding personal and thoughtful gifts can be tricky, but thanks to OKA's carefully curated collection, you can tick everyone off your list. DIRECT URL: https://www.oka.com/gifts/ DEEP LINK: http://www.awin1.com/cread.php?awinmid=5618&awinaffid=!!!id!!!&clickref =&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oka.com%2Fgifts%2F

Queries / Contact Us... If you have any queries, or would like to request anything please contact Louise James at Silverbean, and she will be happy to help: email: oka@silverbean.com telephone: +44 (0) 191 406 1200 follow us on twitter: @sbnaffiliates In Association with OKA's Exclusive Affiliate Partners Agency.