Embrace That Ol’ Camera :)

Ok, so I know today is ETC day, but I just had to show you these pretty (DIY/repurposed if you want!) cake stands. Yes, how sad – since yesterday’s post when I suddenly realised that it was my destiny to have a new cake stand, I’ve been looking around.  A quick coupla pics to soothe my obsessed brain, and then I can move onto all things ETC as I should…

Via Little Glass Box

Via BHLDN

And also do do do do check out {my all time favourite ever in the world blog} Under The Sycamore for Ashley’s cake stands. 

I like the idea of having a stand with cover, like this (totally NOT repurposed or DIY):

Porcelain Pedestal with Dome, Roullier White

Ok, Embracing The Camera now…

LOML’ s turn to be ’embraced’ and be on-screen with the boy 🙂

Yes, I know LOML’s head is cut off. And some of LM’s too.

But I just love the composition of this whole shot because of that. Totally unintentional – I’m no photographer. Clearly!

All I did in the way of editing was add the pretty framed edge.

There’s just something about the space to the right, under LOML’s outstretched arm. And the way LM is totally absorbed in looking at his Pappa, ignoring the toy in his hand that  he had been chewing on.

*sigh*

Love.

A little something extra…  here’s a link to a video clip of their favourite new game. It’s on YouTube (in case you have filters if you’re reading this at work).

A Personalised Gift

I love these…

By Sweet Dimple on Not On The High Street

By sarah & bendrix on Not On The High Street

By sarah & bendrix on Not On The High Street

I’ve wanted to try to make something like this for ages in my homemade and repurposed quest… so a recent wedding was the perfect excuse to make one as a gift 🙂

Materials:

Frame from charity shop (a pair for £1.50)

White spraypaint

Sandpaper (we had this already)

Red paper

Old books (car boot sale purchase – remember this?)

Step 1: Remove hanging fixtures and keep. Lightly sand the frame, then coat with white spraypaint. I used many many many coats. And I sanded lightly again before my last two coats. Then I screwed the hanging fixture back into the same holes at the back.

Between coats of spraypaint, I got on with…

Step 2:

Make paper hearts out of old book pages

Personalise two red paper hearts with names and dates. I tried a few different things (rubber stamps, handwriting, printing on computer) but using fonts in Word and just printing it onto red paper was the nicest looking. Boring to do, but nicest to look at!

I made extra hearts and fiddled around with the layout and number of hearts a bit until I was happy with it.

And then all I had to do was put the frame back together again, and voila!

I liked it 🙂

Hopefully, they did too.

I’m looking forward to doing something similar with the second frame of the pair too.

A kewel home blog

(That’s ‘cool’ by the way – a cool home blog)

I just had to share this blog with you… I love checking up on this family every now and then and seeing what they’re up to. Their posts are well written, photos are lovely and they have a home that they are making beautiful on a sensible budget. They seem like the kind of people I’d want to be friends with.

I guess that’s the trick – to write a blog in such a way that readers become involved and want to keep on reading, keep coming back for more because what you have to say is interesting, funny, helpful and relevant.

That’s why they are professional bloggers (yip, blogging is their job) and I’m just a nothing-particularly-exciting-to-say-but-I’ll-sneak-in-a-post-while-baby-sleeps kind of blogger. Suits me 🙂

But enough about me – go and have a look at their blog. Unleash the stalker in you and snoop around their home!!

(p)interesting

Haha! Oh joy! What ho!

I have found somewhere to organise my I Really Want This List Wish List without having to bookmark or copy and paste a gazillion websites 🙂

I guess it’s kind of like the social network of collected images. You ‘pin’ internet images onto your boards, and other people can follow you, see your boards, and ‘repin’ the pictures (ideas, inspiration, etc.) onto their own boards.  When you pin the picture to your board, the owner of that image automatically is credited – the link appears below the picture, and anyone can quickly and easily see (and go to) the website that the picture comes from.

Hmm, I hope that makes sense….

Sorry, I couldn’t get the picture of my boards any bigger in the post – if you want to see it more clearly, click on the picture itself and you’ll be taken directly to my Pinterest page.

Anyway, this is Pinterest.

This is where you can get an invitation to join (yes, you need to be invited!)

 

People use it to catalogue all sorts – fashion, science and technology, wedding ideas, books… anything really! For me, it’s my Wish List, my crafty/DIY/repurposing To Do list, and my These Things Are Just Generally Gorgeous list.

 

Add to my To Do list:

Oh dear, my ‘I Really Want To Make This’ list is getting longer and longer…

Ever since I was a little girl and discovered chalk board paint, I have wanted to use it. And now (or has it always been like this?) you can also get magnetic chalk board paint. Double the fun! Perhaps I use ‘fun’ rather loosely. But double the practical uses, definitely!

I have long admired organisational accessories (what a geek) like this:

Love Of My Life was over in France a few weeks back and saw this in a shop: something similar to these photos in a shop….  He almost bought it on the spot, but then figured that since I’m on a DIY/repurposing journey, I would probably very much like to have a go at making something like this myself. He knows me well 🙂  He was also thoughtful enough to take a photo, which he has since accidentally and unfortunately deleted. Grrrr.

[Also, he had very quickly realised that getting it home was going to be a logistical nightmare. It’s a pretty big board.]

Hurray – so now I not only have ideas and inspiration for another project, I have LOML’s approval too!

But I have one big problem with chalk board organisers: I cannot cope with chalk dust. I sneeze and itch and just about go crazy when chalk is around. [What was I thinking becoming a teacher, huh? Thankfully, these days very few classrooms actually still have chalk boards. It’s all white boards and interactive boards (which are way cool, I must add).]

Enter the chalk marker. Drum roll, please.

Ta da! Problemo solved!

 

So now, a chalk board organiser is definitely on the cards.

I wish I could do something like this, but it would require some hanging and make unnecessary holes in our walls. Not good in a rented home!

Repurposed window chalkboard

Hmm, now… what do I have lying around that I can paint with chalk board paint  and pretend that I actually paid for it?

Embroidery Hoop Art

I wanted to be all clever and do something April Fools-y for April First… but I just don’t have the brain space. It is the end of the week, after all. I do enjoy a good ol’ practical joke, but I think I’ll leave that kind of thing to the comedians and comediennes amongst us.

Here’s what’s in my head today.

A little while ago, I mentioned a hoop design that had inspired me to make my own little something for the baby’s room. Instead of a hoop I just used a canvas I already had, in the spirit of finding a new purpose for old things rather than throwing them away and buying new stuff.

I was unable to credit the idea at the time, but the creator of the lovely hoop I showed you has reappeared on Etsy, so here goes… Take a look at a few of Abigail’s pretty pieces…

 

I am also drooling over this as a wedding or anniversary gift:

 

Which reminded me of these (which I love possibly even more):

From Sweet Dimple

 

 

From sarah & bendrix

 

I am positively itching to get going on my own frame like this… I think I’ll use our wedding anniversary as an excuse to make something as a ‘practise’ before actually trying to make one as a gift.

Oooh, I’m excited! I’ll let you know how it goes.

First on on the Plan Of Action list – find a box frame/shadow frame that’s not too expensive. Google, here I come!

Bunting, baby!

I like bunting.

Perhaps I’m just so unimaginative that I like it because it’s everywhere these days. Would I have liked it if it was still considered really old fashioned? I know bunting would never have caught my eye in its ‘old’ form – primary colours, plasticky, strung up to mark out each house at the swimming gala… But these days it’s b e a u t i f u l.

This was some of the bunting from my friends’ recent wedding. I just had to take a photo…

More pretty bunting… (just off Google Images)

http://www.allaboutyou.com/country/travel-camping-kit-bunting/gallery

http://assets3.notonthehighstreet.com/system/product_images/images/000/246/767/normal_DSC04411.jpg

http://www.bridalwave.tv/ZigZagBunting.JPG

http://www.housetohome.co.uk/imageBank/cache/b/bunting1.jpg_e_9c53654d7f7c9c72667efde1daba6b35.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2776/4481005279_7469a1822a.jpg

I would very much like to make my own. I think it would be very easy to repurpose old rags, clothes and bits of stuff to make some. It’s on my To Do list…

 

Car Boot Booty

My first foray into the world of repurposing!

And also part of my attempt to avoid the mass produced high street in my quest to create (in other words, trying to make new stuff out of old stuff, on the cheap! lol)

I am an awful shopper. I always shop with a mindset. A picture in my head of what I want to buy. And when (naturally) the shops don’t stock the exact thing I want, I have very little imagination to come up with a different plan.

Now I know that you cannot be like that at a car boot. Which is why I’ve never actually gone shopping at one of them. I think I have once wandered through one ‘accidentally’ (it was set up slap bang in the middle of my route home from town!). But this time was different. I had mentally prepared myself. I was open-minded. I had a few ideas of what kind of things I might hope to find, but no preconceived ideas. Also, I had remembered to take cash rather then rely on my trusty debit card. Now that is great forethought (I still have baby brain).

Mostly, I was just going to practise this new type of shopping.

So LOML, Little Man and I set out to our local car boot sale on a recent sunny Sunday morning…

And this is what I got, for the princely total sum of £4.50 (including a little practise haggle – I got a book thrown in free!)

+

+

 

This stamping set is my favourite. I was really chuffed with myself for finding it.

 

Hopefully I can actually do something with this stuff! Will keep you posted 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A chandelier of a different sort…

One day when I have a big, proper, grown-up house, I would love to have one of these as a chandelier.

Kara Pasley Designs

And I want to make it myself. Like this.

Well, not all by myself. I would probably electrocute myself.  But I would very much like it to be homemade.

I do think it takes the right kind of house, though. And realistically, I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. I’m just not one of those people.

Have you noticed how some people can take a bunch of old or odd stuff and make it into something so beautiful that just works? Bleh. I wish!

Are you one of those people? What have you made or done that’s turned something strange into something wonderful? Share, share!

A Week Of Handmade Valentine’s Ideas: Sunday

In the run-up to the cheesiest of all celebrations, I thought I’d get in the Valentine spirit and hook us all up with some cute ideas, whether to do, or give, or hint at to be given, or to make to *show the love* around your home. I think they’re kinda nice. And not too cliche (in my opinion). Best of all, they’re {mostly} handmade and non-bank breakers.

 

Paper Chain

Heart Chain Via Craft: Transforming Traditional Craft

Something easy peasy, and a novel take on the traditional Christmassy paper chain.

Click here for a full How To…

Spread the luuuuurve and get the little people involved 🙂