Tuesday 26 November 2013

Mini Garden Project


There was a square of space in our garden, near the shed, which I've done nothing to since we moved in other than attempt to grow some peas and beans. I've decided to make this into my latest mini garden project. It's a bit of a shady spot and, believe it or not, even in England we need such a thing sometimes. The fence panel will be replaced soon and I've just started to make a bench from concrete blocks and timber planks. I'll blog about this when it's done. I'm pretty happy with the transformation so far- and with more plants and blue slate it'll look even better!

Here are some before and during photos- it's definitely not finished yet!




Tuesday 5 November 2013

My Wedding - Favours Part 3 - Place Name Packs






I wanted to combine our table place names with wedding favours. I used glassine bags to combine the name card, lottery scratch card, personalised kit-kats, friendship bracelet (for the girls) and instructions about how the cushions and plants were to be taken by the guests, if they wanted them. These were taped closed with washi tape. The top photos are just my mock ups to make sure that everything fitted and could be read. They worked well although unfortunately there weren't any big lottery winners!

Top photo courtesy of Amy Radcliffe Photography

Tuesday 22 October 2013

My Wedding - Favours Part 3 - Kit Kat






Other favour that we included in our Place Name 'Packs' were Kit Kats with personalised wrappers. There were 16 different wrappers, 8 of Stuart and 8 of myself, this was so that everyone on every table would have a different one each. We chose photos from the 70, 80, 90 and 2000s, the more embarrassing the better.
I'd seen the idea on Martha Stewart Weddings. Kit Kats are the only (cheap) chocolates I could find which are still wrapped in foil so we used them. I bought all the different flavours to add some more interest. Stuart designed the labels and we were lucky to have a friend get them printed and trimmed, which saved a lot of time. They seemed to go down well- especially those who were last to go and get their meal from the buffet!

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Wall of Height - How we made our Giant Ruler







I've seen this idea on a couple of blogs and decided to make our own growth chart for the kids. It was really easy to make. We stained ours to match the other timber in our hallway however you could use a clear varnish instead.

What we used:
  • 1 piece of wood approx 220 x 1850mm wide
  • a couple of 1 x 2 soft wood battens
  • 1/2" black self-adhesive numbers
  • 1" black self adhesive letters
  • 1 pot Ronseal quick drying varnish in Mahogany
  • 1 black Sharpie Pen

How we did it:
  • Fixed the timber to the wall with two battens
  • Measured up 1m and market it on the wood with a pencil
  • drew a line at 10cm intervals up and down from the 1m mark
  • divide these lines at 1cm intervals, 1cm long
  • Stick on the numbers and paint with one coat of varnish
  • draw on the lines with the thick end of the Sharpie
  • Paint with a second coat
  • Finished!

Monday 14 October 2013

My Wedding - Favours Part 2 - Friendship bracelets




As part of our Place Names 'packs' on the table we added a friendship bracelet for all the female guests. From my jewellery making I had lots of different colour 0.5mm thick cord and leather, similar to this. I had already bought some Copper Plated curved beads from this Etsy shop which I thought were lovely, so I bought some more. They are made with a two simple slip knots. You can find out how to do this here.

Monday 7 October 2013

Interiors Project 02 Finished- Halls Stairs and Landing








OK so it's taken a ridiculously long time for me to finish the halls stairs and landing. But finally it's done. The Wall of Height was the last thing I wanted to make and I love it. The coat hooks are just about holding up- though the kids are doing their worst to the animal hooks. The smallboy fits perfectly on the landing upstairs, as do the prints on the wall.

Monday 30 September 2013

My Wedding - Favours Part I - Cushions





I love all the personal touches that I could add to our wedding. One thing that I wanted to differently to our wedding was the tables and chairs; from being an interior designer and space planner I knew that round tables were a very inefficient in terms of space. As the meal for our reception was going to be in a marquee, the more space we saved the more money we would save. We decided to use trestle tables with benches so we could cram everyone in. I liked the idea of people sitting close together so we had a bit more freedom when planning the table plan as people might not know their direct neighbours but might know someone behind or close to them.

The downside of using tables and benches was the comfort factor- or actually the lack of. I decided to make cushions for all the female guests which would also act as a keepsake and gift. After research I found these KRÅKRIS cushions from Ikea which were the perfect size 35 x 35cm and only cost £1.25 each. I had also previously seen this ÄLGÖRT fabric also from Ikea which is only £6/m. To add another little personal touch I had name labels made with "TAKE ME I'M YOURS | C&S 030813" (the date of our wedding) which cost £3.99 for 72 from Woven Labels UK.

All of the cushions were made on my beautiful and very cute new sewing machine from John Lewis- thank you mum!

All together the cushions cost about £2 each and I made 75 of them. The guests loved them and fights almost broke out over them. I was so pleased as I wasn't sure if people would look at them and think I was mad!

Top two photos courtesy of Amy Radcliffe Photography