Mondays Armchair Activity

Its monday again!! I hope you all had a good weekend... mine was still very full of snow and cancelled hotel and table bookings! So because its so cold and what not, today I have something wooly for you!!

Mini fork Pom Poms!!

This is a really simple, really easy way to make mini pom poms, that only take a few minutes!

Heres what you will need:

• Scissors
• a fork
• wool

 1. Wrap wool really tightly around the fork, as much as you can without it all falling off!

2. Now cut a piece of wool and tie it around the wool you wound around the fork... like below:

3. Tie the wool in a half knot.

4. Slide the wool off of the fork, and pull the knot tighter.

5. Whilst holding your pom pom by the middle, cut open all of the loops. Making sure you get all otherwise your pom pom will look funny!

6. Now that your pom pom looks like a pom pom, all you need to do is trim off all of the straggely bits of wool, so that you have a neat little circle.

7. Keep making pom pom until you have lots and lots.

Now all you need to do is figure out what to do with them, add them to cushions? socks? hats?... or even your jumper!!!?!! It'll look just like something your nanna made you! hehe!

I will show you what I will do with this lot tomorrow, because right now I need to watch hollyoaks!

Have a happy Monday

business cards and a chest of drawers

On a slightly more interesting note, our new business cards and mini cards arrived from Moo.com today. It's a bit of an understatement to say that I am happy with them.

So if you want to see them, then you better buy something from our store (we are going to be using the mini cards as labels for our products!) What does everyone think?

And last but not least I have my new chest of drawers to show you!! So as you all know I am very into this whole "homemade" thing and on my days off this week (along with breaking my laptop) I finally got round to decorating a very plain chest of drawers I keep all my paints and what not in!!

I've used decoupage on the drawers, using some really pretty wallpaper I found in homebase. I have then painted the outside and distressed the edges for that vintage, recycled but sexy look!

I will be doing a step by step of furniture decoration over the next few days, so keep a look out.

Also I am sorry if these pictures dont look as good as usual, I'm still getting used to this new laptop!

NightNight x

Oooopppss

So I had a slight laptop malfunction...involving the floor and the laptop!! Don't worry though I got a new one today, I just need to figure out how to use it so please forgive my lack of posts, well until tomorrow any way, I have something very exciting to share with you tomorrow!!

The end of my working week

Tuesdays for me are the final push before my "weekend" and I can safely say that today I have struggled to be productive. Had 4 hours sleep before work, 9 hours at work, 1 hour tidying, 2 hours ironing and now Im tanking through the tea cakes and reading one of my fav books, Homespun Style. Forgive me for this very short post... but hopefully Rays little face will make up for it!

Mondays' armchair activity

Monday Monday Monday... yay!! Mondays never have a great feeling about them do they. When you get home from work, all you want to do is sit on the sofa and do nothing and then you feel guilty for it later.

So I am going to help you out with part of that, why not sit on the sofa and do something creative and you can watch tv at the same time!!

Easy Paper Bunting

Right so this is the uncomplicated and smaller version of traditional fabric bunting.

• You will need:
• a mix of paper or wrapping paper
• string or wool
• pritt stick
• scissors
• a ruler or card template

And this is what we are aiming for.. subtle cute, vintage inspired bunting!!

1. Choose the papers youd like to use.. wallpaper, wrapping pape, magazines, old pictures, anything will do.

2. Cut out a triangular card template of what ever size you  like

3. Draw around the triangle then flip it over on the bottom axis to make a diamond shape.. as below

4. Now you need to cut out your diamonds and fold them in half

5. Cover the inside of your triangles in half and place them over the string, and them smoosh them down.. So that they look like this (see below)!!

There we have it, a fun way to sit and watch tv all night without feeling guilty, and the result is a cheap and attractive decoration!

And then your dog can go to sleep with it wrapped all over him!!

Happy Monday Folks!!

How to.... Potpourri

On my trip to Ikea the other day I found some really cute plump, Kilner style glass jars so obviously I have had to make some more potpourri to put in them and I thought this quite a good time to show you how to make fruity potpourri yourself!!

1. Choose your fruits, I like lemons, limes, oranges (they smell great), grapefruit, pears and apples.

2. Slice your fruit as thin as is possible, without including chunks of your fingers!! 

3. Place your fruit on a wire rack on baking tray, try not to let the pieces over lay, as this will increase drying time.

4. Put your fruits into your preheated oven, which should be on the lowest setting possible. Remember you just want to dry the water out of the fruit not cook it.

5. Keep turning the fruits every hour or so, they could take up to 4 hours to dry out all together, depending on how thickly you sliced your fruit. It's just something you have to judge as you go along. Don't be tempted to turn up the heat, doing so will just burn your fruits.

6. Once your Fruits are all dry, that them out of the oven and leave them out on the side over night, just to get rid of any residual moisture.

7. The next morning you can bottle your homemade potpourri. Remember at this point you can add any extra herbs, spices, essence etc, I like to use bay leaves and cinnamon. By using an airtight jar to bottle your potpourri, you will prolong its life, but saying that it should still be discarded after 3 months, as it is a natural product made with no additive or preservatives and may still run the risk of decaying like normal fruits do.

Top Tip - Tie some pretty string around your jars to add a bit of life and personality!!

Bunting

I love bunting, all types, styles, colours. It's a fantastic way of jazzing up a tired room or even draped across a boring headboard. I have spent my day making the bunting you see in the pics below, which went up for sale in our shop earlier this evening.

To be honest with you, its quite easy to make your own, provided you know what your doing.

using the lace as the way of tying each flag together is the best way if your sewing skills aren't fantastic.

1. Cut your flags from which ever fabric you fancy, I use 8 inches long, 8 inches tall. I find it easiest to cut a template out of card and use that to cut all of your flags out

2. about 1cm in from the edge of each flag, sew a straight stitch, following all around the edge, which if you choose to fray the edges of your fabric, will stop it going so far that you end up with no flag left!! ( if you choose not to fray then you don't have to worry about doing this, if you don't want to. )

3. Fray the edges of your flags. place your flag on the table and scratch the edge with your nail, this will pull the threads away from one another.

4. Now attach to your chosen lace. Using a lace with a flat edge at the top, will help with ease of sewing. You could pin it all and use a sewing machine, provided you have a good eye, as there's not much room for error. Or you could hand stitch each flag on, it wont be the strongest option but if your only using your bunting for an indoor decoration than this shouldn't matter, just use a simple running stitch will do.

5. Hang with pride and appreciate your new bunting, created by your own hand!