DIY bedroom decor

As we are still settling into our house, I have been adding decor as and when I feel I need a change. Some pieces will stay, some will go….I am all about the flow of decor at the moment.

With this in mind and a set of battery powered fairy lights in hand, I created a little romantic something to go above our bed.

I don’t have a lamp my side of the bed (damn 1960′s house has a solitary plug socket on the OTHER side of the room – P has a solar lamp for this reason), so I use these little fairy lights to change and put on my night cream without waking his lordship and I can click them off once I hit the hay.

The signs are from our DIY Engagement shoot and the photo is from our first few months together as a couple.

It took me all of three minutes to assemble… whaddaya think?

DIY: Tiny Calender Magnets

We would be lost without a calendar. We have moved a lot of our life organising to digital (much to P’s absolute relief and my filofax’s horror!) but I still need a visual reference. We set up our hallway to include a calendar and I knew I just needed to have some little magnets to tell me when to take the bins out.

We have 3 bins…and they rotate and switch and jiggle about all over the calendar and make me dizzy…so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Everyone has some of these right? They give them away in packs of yoghurts and you can very rarely get a full set. I decided these would be perfect to re-use for something more useful.

Using white labels, cover the magnet and then split it into 3 sections. I did it into 6, but then realised it wasn’t the best idea! Don’t worry if your labels overlap…we are going to trim them off in a bit.

Using Sharpies or felt tips to colour in the sections to colour code to your bins/events/people/pets etc etc etc.

I coloured the magnet on top of a plastic baggie as not to make a mark on my desk. Worked quite nicely!

Cut them out, trimming round the excess and then pop them on your board!

Job done! You of course can neaten them up and make them smaller or a different shape. I just needed a quick visual reference!

Easy peasy right?

 

Quick Fancy Dress Idea – A Lazy Girl’s Mary Poppins

For New Year’s Eve, we threw an ‘M’ themed party. We asked all our guests to come dressed as things starting with the letter ‘M’. It was a great night, and I am going to show you my ‘thrown-together from things I owned’ Mary Poppins Outfit.

I made a bowtie out of red felt, attatched to my shirt with a safety pin. I had this full circle skirt from Mama Pigeon that she wore back in the 80′s. I claimed a tape measure and a spoon and voila! Outfit complete.

I must stress that I didn’t require a brolly, coat, scarf and hat, because the party was at my very own warm house…. so I took inspiration from the nursery scene, where she begins unpacking her bag.

I also threw on some black tights and a pair of ballet flats as I knew I would be padding about my own living room.

This could easily become a couples costume – throw you other half in a white shirt and black trousers and paint him a dirty face, pop him on a flat cap…hullo Bert!

DIY Gift – A ‘make something’ box

Know a little someone who likes to create and make?
Need a gift for that certain someone?

Introducing the ‘make something’ box.

I made one of these for my friend’s daughter for Christmas and apparently it went down a treat on Christmas day.

Find a nice box or tin, perhaps cover a less nice one in wallpaper. Charity shops and car boot sales are perfect tin hunting grounds. I recycled a beauty box.

Fill the box with all sorts of craft items. I put in a multitude of bits and bobs I had collected over the year with this in mind, such as stickers, feathers, pretty papers, glitter glue, die cut flowers, stick on gems and ribbon.

Kids love being able to use their imaginations and nurturing creativity is something I think is really important. Even these cut out circles could be used to create little flowers…

The beauty of a little ‘make something’ box is that it is contained. Easy to pull out and to create a treasure, easy to put away at tea time.

Some mess…but no fuss.

Lasting Till Payday #11: How to make DIY curtains from a blanket

A little thrifty tip and DIY mash-up from me today.

When we moved into the new house, we came minus any window coverings. We quickly bought some curtains for the front of the house, but when it came to the den, our shared office space, I decided that we needed a cheaper option. Curtains are really expensive!

Using blankets to make curtains means you don’t have to do any extra hemming, meaning it is super quick and effortless. I chose these blankets from Ikea because they are polar fleece, which is great for keeping the heat in during the winter.They are also £3 each….so a pair of curtains for £6!

These curtains will be easy to wash and will last for years. These particular blankets also come in cream, which I have used in our wardrobe room.

Firstly measure your window….boring I know, but vital.

Secondly fold over the top of the blanket and use your window measurements to work out the drop and how much of a fold you need.

Measure along the top of your fold to the edge at intervals, to ensure that your curtain will be level when it hangs.

Pin along the fold so it doesn’t shift when you sew it. Please always use pins….the amount of times I have failed at a simple project because I think I can get away with not pinning….

Using a sewing machine or very tidy hand stitching, stitch along about 2 cm from the edge of fabric…not the fold. You want to create a long loop in the fabric so you can hang it on your curtain pole.

I kept the folded edge on the outside as I liked the edging on this blanket, but you could always hang them the other way round for a cleaner line.

So there you have it…easy peasy curtains from a blanket. Cheap and cheerful.

DIY Nail Polished Key

Got a house key that looks far too similar to another key? My new front door key is far too similar to my work office key, so I took matters into my own hands….with things I had in my house already.

1: Grab your key and mask it off

2: Grab your favourite nail polish and a clear topcoat. Give the colour polish 2 to 3 coats, leaving the side edge clear, leaving to dry for 3 minutes in between.

3: Finsh with a clear topcoat and let dry for an hour.

4: Flip key over and repeat for a double sided look.

5: Attach to keys and enjoy!

I love my new key, and it was totally free!
It is also saving me time fumbling in the rain and grot to ensure I get the right key!

How to spruce up an old coaster

Got an old coaster that isn’t quite dead, but it makes your eyes bleed? Here is a quick DIY to spruce it up and make it more friendly to your optic nerves.

Using a bit of sandpaper or a nearly worn out nail file you were going to bin, rough up the surface.

Next find something that makes you happy to stick on the front. I have chosen some text from Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl, because it is awesome.

Draw around your coaster onto your chosen happy paper item and then cut it out carefully with scissors or a craft knife. Repeat with your unpeeled from the paper sticky-back plastic.

Glue your chosen paper onto your coaster.

Then unpeel your stick your sticky-back plastic and fix on the top of your paper cut-out.

Finally, trim it off and make it look pretty.

Easy peasy right?!

Much better!

 

 

The Pigeon Weds: Invites

Hello folks!

Another edition of wedding stuff! This time it is… INVITES.

Being a complete tightwads and DIY lovers, we weren’t willing to pay out for somebody to do something that we could easily do ourselves.

I mean, have you ever looked at wedding invite prices? They are extreme, especially when you are on a tighter than tight budget. A set of 60 daytime invites totals at about £100, for a basic type and fill in the blanks job. BORING…totally not us and way out of budget.

We needed 57 day invites and around 10 evening ones, but they also needed to be chock full of information including maps and places to stay. We also wanted them to reflect us, to be fun and most of all, tell people that we wanted them there.

Being the store whore that I am, I have been squirrelling away invites for years. Keep the ones with styles that I liked, fonts that I thought were pretty and ideas that needed clipping. We sat down together and talked through what we liked and what we didn’t like, and we finally came up with these.

They are a basic folded card, and the picture above shows two, so you can see the insides. He has pixellated the dates and places so we keep a little bit of privacy!

I love how he has used our names in such a fun way…we get teased a lot for them in our friend group, so this was totally ‘us’ and a perfect way to invite people to the last time they will be able to joke about it!

I really cannot take credit for these. I wrote down what I wanted inside it, but he had full creative licence. I am so proud of him and of how these turned out!  I am so very lucky to have such a talented computer fiend for a HTB.

He used photoshop to create them and has posted his ‘How To’ on his blog, so you can pop over there to see more detailed piccies or you can use his methods to make your very own personalised invites!

Oh…and costing wise? ALL our invites cost us about £12. BOOOOOM!

So, what do you think?

 

 

 

DIY Tea Labels

I know what you are thinking…. TEA labels? No one in the world needs frickin’ tea labels. But apparently I have a problem….

We went to IKEA yesterday, and we bought some extra counter space, as ours was non-existant and I also treated myself to some glass jars to display all my tea, (I know I need a life) freeing up cupboard space for jam and chutney and whatnot.

May I also add there is MORE tea in the green biscuit barrel…. packets of yummy loose stuff….I told you I had a problem.

So if you are as crazy as I am or you have lots of other things in glass jars, here is a little DIY of how I made my labels.

1: Choose yourself some card.

I personally delved into my box’o'scraps and pulled out what I can only guess to be some of sort packaging. Thick paper will do.

2: Find something about the right size and draw around it.

I used a little sample pot of Body Shop Body Butter….mainly because it was in reach…

2: Cut out your circles carefully and hole punch a hole into each

3: Write the initals of what is in the jars

I used a stencil, because my handwriting resembles that of a drunk spider, but if you have nice handwriting, go to town!

P = Peppermint, C= Camomile, Ch = Chai, EG = Earl Grey and Yum is for what ever loose tea I put in the jar (subject to change a lot!)

4: Loop ribbon/string through the holes and then attach to jars with a firm knot.

Viola!

This literally took me all of 5 minutes to do last night and I love how it looks!

Have you done a little DIY lately? Leave a comment, let me know!

How to: Make Plaited Rug Bowl

My plaited bowl rug really came about by accident, I was aiming to make another rag-rug trivet for hot-from-the-oven dishes on the dining table, but due to how I sewed this bad boy, I’ve come out with a handy little fabric bowl for my overflowing bangle collection.

This bowl began as one of P’s old tshirts that had past its prime, I made a small snip in the hem and ripped it around and around, spiralling up the tshirt (more luck than skill!) to make one really really long strip that I then cut into 3 shorter.

I then plaited it together and began to hand sew it on itself around and around like a snail shell. It wouldn’t lay flat, so I decided to go with it and create a bowl.

I guess the lesson I learnt during this little project is to be adaptable! Things don’t always turn out the way you expect.