A nest for my nest - May 2013

A NEST FOR MY NEST - MAY 2013

So I have a super lovely friend who lives near Cambridge where there are loads of decent antique/second hand shops. So when I wanted a nest of tables I asked if she could pick me up a set and bring them down next time she was this way. Well bless her heart (and her eye for a bargain!) she came up with these little gems for £42:

(There are three but guess who forgot to take a photo before she got to work on table 1...)

OK, so they don't look like gems yet, more diamond in the rough, but wait...

1. Sand them down using 70 (coarse) sandpaper. I did a reasonably good job of it on the table legs and cross pieces - but I did a proper job on the top as that's the bit that gets the wear.

2. Don't forget the wipe them down. I actually used a feather duster first so my cloth didn't get too dirty.

Then I used these lil puppies:

3. First up was the coloured paint - my weapon of choice was 'Warm Grey' - it's the same colour as my Grey birds. I did it outside as I do with all my spray paint projects (brand new house + spray paint = tears before bedtime). I don't worry about the coverage being too thick as I wanted little bits of graining to come through.

4. Now leave them to dry for 24-48 hours. (24 in my case cos I'm way to impatient).

5. Then to finish it off and give the paint a bit of protection give it one coat of the super clear spray (same as I used for the decal project by the way). Wait for it to dry and then give in another coat, just for good measure.

I also sprayed the runners that you slide the smaller table into the bigger table on - I figured they would get a decent amount of wear and tear too.

And here they are:

I might take a better pic when they are fully dry and in situ, but I couldn't wait that long... check back in a couple of days if you're interested.

Next for the treatment is a lamp stand my mum gave me - then I think I'll call it a day on the grey - I don't want all the furniture the same colour - right?

And as for me and my house - May 2013

AND AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE - MAY 2013

I'd been struggling with what to do with this canvas for a while. I wanted it to cover over the alarm panel in the hallway (the canvas is fixed to the wall with a hinge I had from the old house). I tried writing this with Sharpies but it looked rubbish - I think because there were too many words. So then I painted over it in white but the blue kept bleeding through. Grr!

This morning while my angel was asleep I painted over with a dark green (Promenade by Crown), and then went over it with a lighter green (a little of the left over Menthe from my Light up my life project) and a very dry brush. Then I just loosely brushed the Menthe to paint on the words. I love how rough n ready it is... hope the hubby does!

Oh - news just in from email - he likes! :) ...and that's my angel awake - bye!

Light up my life... - May 2013

LIGHT UP MY LIFE - MAY 2013

We bought light fixings for the living room a while back, but hadn't got round to putting them up, well - we tackled it on Friday/Saturday, so I thought I'd share how it went with you. It's obviously a bit more expensive than my usual projects, but a necessary evil!

Here they are:

And here's how it went:

1. We bought two ceiling roses from Homebase and two light fittings from BHS (half price in the sale). I also chose paints to match the fittings so I could paint the roses to match - I did look a bit of an idiot walking round B&Q with a baby strapped to the front of me and a light fitting in hand, but luckily I have no shame. ;) Surprisingly it turns out the paint on the fitting is actually a very light green - so ended up buying menthe and a brown colour... you'll see why.

2. I took my3.2cm bit and drilled three holes next to each other. I did this with the rose on top of a very large pyrex bowl so that I didn't damage any surface underneath - be sure to hold it steady though!. By the way, the trick when doing this is to do each hole half way down and then go over them again to finish off.

3. I got the paints home I gave the roses two base coats of brilliant white as a primer. (Two coats were to be on the safe side as I only had two sample pots of my base colour, so didn't want to have to do loads of layers and run out.)

4. I then painted the base colour on and tried to do a highlight colour on the rims around the edge, but a. I didn't have a steady enough hand and b. it looked too formal and set. So I painted over it with white and then the base colour again and had another think... Then I thought about doing a dry brush effect with the brown to mimic the brush gold leaf effect on the fitting. So while the base coat was still wet I took a VERY dry brush with barely any brown paint on it and brushed over the large recess area. Like this:

5. Turn off your slight circuit on your fuse board!

6. Once that was dry I used no more nails to hold the rose to the ceiling. You have to make sure you are smart with which way round you put it on, so in the picture below the wooden beam in the ceiling runs from left to right. You need to have plaster to screw into... see the next step.

7. So as you can see, where I had to mark and drill into the ceiling with the light fitting bar will go into the wooden beam above. (You will need to drill a pilot hole).

8. Once that's drilled in and fixed in place (I used three inch screws as it had to go through the rose, through the ceiling plaster board, through a small gap and then up into the beam), you can fix up your electrics. I'm really not qualified to give advice on this bit though! If you're not confident, you should get an electrician to do this bit.

9. I then employed my husband's arm to hold the light fitting up high while I did the electrical bit and screwed in the grub screws to hold the fitting up. We both had our hands full for this bit so I'm afraid there's not pictures for this bit!

10. And it was done!

They were supposed to have glass cups at the bottom of the 'candle' bit, and crystal bits dangling down, but they were too fussy for our not massive living room, so we left them off.

The rose closest to us in this picture was the first one I did but it's brown bit is too dark, so I'll need to redo it at some point, but that can be done during the week when little one is asleep!

Grey birds - May 2013

GREY BIRDS - MAY 2013

Owl will always love you....

Birdie!

This was my five minute craft deal this weekend. We dropped off some stuff at the charity shop on Saturday, and while I was in there I remembered this pin on pinterest. So I thought I'd do my own version. Unfortunately I forgot to take a before shot (again! grr) but the little owl was glass and the bird was this horrid turquoise/black spray weird effect. (you can see it coming through here:

When my husband saw them I think he thought I'd gone mad. They cost me £3 and I think they look cute now - they'll match the nest of tables as I used the same spray paint (post on that to follow once they are finished)

Shoe shelving in the cupboard - May 2013

SHOE SHELVING IN THE CUPBOARD - MAY 2013

Apologies in advance, this isn't a crafty fun post, more of an organising my house post. The cupboard over the stairs in our room was a higgldey-piggldey mess, and I've wanted to put up the shelves for quite some time in there,  but it's quite a big project. I finally summoned up the energy to do it today, and here's how!

First I worked out the heights of our shoe boxes and put guidelines on the wall with gaps big enough for the boxes. Next I measured across to see what the width of the shelf would need to be and worked out what the depth would be good front to back. The trick here is to get the balance of having them deep enough to hold the boxes fine, but not too deep that it's awkward to get them on the shelf, bearing in mind this was a built in cupboard. My shelves were 35cm deep and 98.5 wide - the gap was 99 so I gave a .5cm tolerance. 

In the old house we had loads of Pax wardrobes from Ikea, but I didn't need them all in the new house (built in wardrobes - yes!). So for the shelves I took two side panels and sawed them to the right size. This. was. exhausting. especially as it was warm out there today. One day I'll have a circular saw and it'll take one fifth of the time... but alas not yet!

I also used bit of left over wood I had lying about (although my reserve of scrap wood is running very low now!) as batons.

So - here's how I did it:

1. Draw guidelines on the wall where you want your shelves (I forgot to take a picture before I any batons up - sorry! but you can see them in the pictures below). Make sure you use a spirit level for this.

2.  Measure the depth of the shelf (2cm) down from my guidelines, and that's where the top of the baton needs to be.

3. Drill a pilot hole through the wood and a little through the wall. This gives you where you need to put the raw plug in. 

4. Put the raw plug in the wall

5. Put the screw through the wooden baton and into the wall, don't tighten it too tight yet though.

6. Lay a spirit level on top of your baton and make sure it is level while repeating steps 3-5 for the back hole - you can tighten both screws now.

And you just keep going till all the batons are up. Some of my batons were too thick for my screws so I had to do a countersink about 2cm deep! But is seemed to work ok.

Another tip if you have limited baton wood is to cut them at a 45 degee angle when sawing them up, you save about 6cms doing it this way, which was just enough for me! (you can see this on the leading edge of the batons below if you look carefully)

So here are the photos:

Coming along nicely:

And here they are in all their glory:

So glad that job is jobbed - I can put the workmate down in the garage out the way now.

I'm off for ice cream! ;)

An eggstremely good idea - May 2013

AN EGGSTREMELY GOOD IDEA

OK, so strictly speaking not my idea, but my Dad's, and like all good ideas it's a simple one.  When you buy new eggs but still have old ones in the basket, draw faces on the old ones so you can quickly identify which need to be used up first.

Cool eh?! Well done Dad!

Butterfly Lantern - May 2013

BUTTERFLY LANTERN - MAY 2013

This was actually really simple. I did have to buy the butterfly craft punch (£10 from Hobbycraft) but I will use it again, and I could have cut out hearts instead.

This was actually inspired by... you guessed it, Pinterest. But thought it'd go really well in my step-daughter's room.

So, first, use the stamp (or hand cut a simpler shape) to cut out your butterflies, then colour them in with a sharpie. Finally - fold your butterfly either side of it's body section so the wings point up at an angle.

Here they are all finished:

Then I took a boring ikea lantern lampshade and glue gunned them to the shade, working from the bottom up in a random cluster pattern:

Then I hung the lantern in her room, I think they look ok... If I was doing it again I'd use a cream shade lantern, but oh well, some day I'll redo it!

Mr G. Raffe height chart - 2011

MR G. RAFFE HEIGHT CHART - 2011

So a while back I was feeling like my step-daughter was growing at an alarming rate. I wanted to record her height but I knew we wouldn't be in our old house forever, so I didn't want to record her growth on the wall, it needed to be transferable. So I thought I'd have a go at painting a height chart. 

I searched online for pictures of giraffes that were cartoon, but not too clipart-y. I found one and then did a freehand version in pencil first. I just used half a sheet of mdf. Then I painted away and this was the outcome!

Lamp post - May 2013

LAMP POST - MAY 2013

First let me say... I love lamp. I love carpet.

So I was round my folks' one day and saw an old lamp was by the front door. I asked if they were throwing it out, and if so could I have it? Yep - it's just going to the dump. As my Mum said, she'd had it 35 years and had enough of it... hmmm. So it was an ugly fuggly lamp cos it was brass, and not very shiny, it looked dated. Anyway, I had some spray paint so 5 minutes work and I have a scrummy lamp. I grew up with it in the house so it's nice to give it a new lease of life, and to get a free lamp! 

Here it is in situ in the nicely-coming-together guest bedroom - it needs a new shade, but this is one I had lying around and will do for now.

Hooked on ironing boards - May 2013

HOOKED ON IRONING BOARDS - MAY 2013

I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was a great solution to not have the ironing board fall over on me in the utility room, especially as little one grows up. Growing up my folks used elastic and a big hook to keep their on the wall, but thought this was cuter.

Obviously ironing boards are pretty heavy, so I took four raw plugs and popped them in the wall (the fifth place I wanted to put one had a stud behind it, so I could screw straight into that one). I drilled five corresponding holes into the wooden baton I had. Then got a bigger bit and drilled about .5cms down (I'll explain why in a moment). Then I fixed the baton to the wall and hid the screws by filling the holes with polyfilla. Then I painted it with white emulsion and had to wait 30 minutes for that to dry. The I took my two hooks (which I had planned to use as coat hooks in my old house but never got round to using) and screwed them into the baton. Simples!

So mine doesn't have the pretty frame around it, but I might add embellishments later on. Or maybe not as it's going to be hidden behind a curtain I'm planning to get to separate the utility from the kitchen (washing machines and driers are so noisy!

Bathroom Weekend - May 2013

BATHROOM WEEKEND - MAY 2013

My bathroom had been pretty neglected as hubby and I used our en suite for everything. The only people who use the bathroom are my stepdaughter and my little-un, who don't tend to go around complaining about decor standards!

But I thought it was about time I spend a little time on it this weekend. Three main parts to the makeover:
1. Shower curtain (at last!)
2. Shelves
3. Wall art

The shower curtain is a shower curtain, I'm really not going bore you with a picture of that!

For the shelves, I had the two largest of the crate set used in the downstairs toilet left over which I wanted to use. I also wanted to show off my string vases, so here's that set.

Then there's the Wall art - I saw these on... yep... Pinterest and although there weren't any free printables, I reproduced it. A bit time consuming but easy enough.

The bathroom isn't quite homely enough yet, but at least it's on it's way now!

Mug branch - April 2013

MUG BRANCH - APRIL 2013

So, you've heard of a mug tree - now meet the mug branch!

I saw, in one of those long multiple idea pins on Pinterest (where else?!), a coat hook made from old door handles. I also had an overflowing mug shelf in my kitchen cabinet. Put the two together in my brain and you get this. My tree branch. I had three cool old cabinet handles and two hemnes handles from my old shoe rack, plus a plank of wood...

First I popped the old handles in some vinegar overnight (thanks for the tip Dad!), then got some wire wool on it the next morning to get as much of the vanish off as I could be bothered to. Then I painted them with enamel paint, expensive but I figure it'll help them stand up to wear and tear. I also painted the hemnes ones too.

I then spray painted the wooden strip (cos I'm so lazy) and left it to dry. When it was dry I drilled five holes to put the handles' fixings through. Nearly there! At this point I also painted a little fun pattern onto the wood in the enamel green paint, just to tie it all together.

Then I put three raw plugs in the wall and fixed it to the wall, before putting my five favourite mugs on there. (There's only four in the picture so you can get a proper look at my favourite upcycled handle. ;)

Lofty Heights - April 2013

LOFTY HEIGHTS - APRIL 2013

Ok, so I'm aware that loft storage is not exactly rock'n'roll, but bare with me! 

Our house is a new build and the NHBC recommend not boarding a loft - but who wants to see suitcases, or throw out baby clothes when there might, one day, be a use for them? Not me. SO I spoke to my friendly neighbour Andrew and he mentioned LoftZone.

Basically you put risers onto the beams and then put beams across those risers and put the loftboard on top of those beams. This means that you don't squash down the insulation and keep a good airflow - so not impacting your insulation or heating bill. Good news right! 

You can see the boards are way above the insulation here:

I opted to put it down myself, but if you are less nimble/willing/have more money and sense than me, you can get them to install. I say that because hanging out in the loft with the itchy dust of the insulation and masks and gloves and goggles isn't particularly my idea of fun. Having said that it is a simple system and easy to install, just take your electric screwdriver along for the ride. It cost me £100 for 2.4m x 2.4m (although it didn't stick to square, I went oblong). LoftZone often have sales on, so if it's not urgent, it might be worth waiting.

I promise not to post anything so unpretty for a while now!

A reflective post - April 2013

A REFLECTIVE POST - APRIL 2013

So as you may have read in my 'Spend a Penny' post, my downstairs toilet is the most modern room in the house, but modern doesn't mean it can't be fun, right? My wash hand basin is in a recess, and as the slope of the ceiling (under the stairs) means there's very little room for a mirror in the conventional 'over the wbasin location, I thought I'd shoot for the unconventional either side of the wbasin. That way people can see if they look ok, and if their 1000 clones are looking back at them!

My nephew loved this! Maybe that shows my mental age?! ;) 

Bean Bag For My Little Bean - April 2013

BEAN BAG FOR MY LITTLE BEAN - APRIL 2013

This one, I'll be honest, was a simple matter of following instructions from the Living with punks blog. It's quite simple to do, but three tips if you're gonna do this:

1. Buy your piping edge as small as you reasonably can, for cost and ease of manipulating under the sewing machine needle.

2. Buy 3.5m of edging if you're going to follow her directions - 2pkts wasn't too helpful when buying off the roll as I had to.

3. Because I had thick piping, to get the edge as smart as possible, I had to take all the feet off the sewing machine, even the bit which holds the foot. I WOULD NOT recommend doing this, hence point 1, but it was the only way I could get close enough at home. Total breach of health and safety, so don't try this at home kids, learn from my mistakes!

Anyway - the fabric came from my sister in the form of a toy bag which I thought was cute, but wouldn't use just yet - thanks sis! The whole thing probably took me a couple/three of hours, but I think it was worth it. :)

Can't wait til she's old enough to sit on it in her reading corner! Actually - scrub that I can - 6 months is such a cute age.

Throne of Inheritance - April 2013

THRONE OF INHERITANCE - APRIL 2013

Ok, I'm really annoyed with myself for this. I SHOULD have taken a picture of this before it all started. I Inherited this chair from my Nan who passed several years ago, via my Dad who didn't want it. It was a cute chair, but typical of women of her generation, it was a dusky pink colour, not so cute. But I could see the potential in it. Also - because it's really comfy, but doesn't have any arms and is quite compact, it makes a perfect little nursing chair for my uber-long baby! :)

So - I saw a tutorial of a far more adventurous blogger who picks up furniture in 'yard sales' in the US, and then I saw this one, which really made me believe it could work. So I googled fabric spray paint and came up with this paint - Caribbean Blue. The spray cans cost £10 a pop, so I bought two hoping it would be enough. It wasn't, but I think if the colour had been lighter and wasn't velour it wouldn't have been so difficult to get good coverage. Here it is after two cans... the colour is still showing through...

Also you can see the tassels at the bottom. which looked a bit buddy-duddy. So I trimmed the little dangly bits off, but left the larger loops so that it had some simple trimming. Then, two additional cans of spray paint later... success!

I felt a bit bad for spending £40 on the spray paint, but I figure it's an heirloom and I probably would have spent double that on a chair for that room or had to go without. If only you could see the full transformation, I shall endeavour to get better at documenting progress!