Decorating our Bedroom

I started writing this post in September but then it took me ages to get around to taking the photos, and then even longer to put it all together. I blame Christmas!

So anyway, we moved house at the end of June and the first room we wanted to decorate was our bedroom. In my relationship, my husband is the one with the design visions and I'm the practical one who makes it happen. He has the Pinterest boards for each room, and I spend ages online trying to find the best deals.

When we moved in, this room had a blue feature wall and the built in wardrobe had been painted to match. We liked the cream colour of the other walls, so bought a matching colour just ot freshen them up, so we just wanted to change the blue one. We chose this dusky pink paint which is Raspberry Meld from Wilkos. This shade of pink was also one of our wedding colours which means our new curtains look like they're made out of the bridemaids dresses!

Andrew was set on having hanging pendant lights either side of the bed instead of bedside tables so I left it to him to contact an electrician and make that happen.

For the artwork above the bed we ordered some digital prints from Etsy, got them printed with Snapfish, and put them in Ikea frames. It was actually a set of three images so we printed the third one smaller and used it elsewhere in the room.

I inherited our bedside tables/drawers from my Grandad and refinished them to match our bed, which we already had from our old house. I sanded them down (using my 30th birthday present from my parents!) and treated them with furniture wax.

Now on to the wardrobe!
It wasn't in our budget to rip this thing out and get a new one made so we worked with what we had. The righthand side had a lot of little shelf cubbies which weren't very practical for us so Andrew took a hammer to them to open up that side. We installed a short hanging rail at the top for my dresses, and used the existing shelves at the bottom with some plastic baskets we already had. We painted the whole thing in white gloss paint, which is never my favourite thing to work with but it looks so much better.

For the side of the wardrobe I had the idea to use wallpaper to add a bit of colour and fun. We found this pink with gold palm trees print from World of Wallpaper and I successfully hung my first ever piece of wallpaper.
We bought some corner shelves from here, as we're not quite up for making them from scratch yet. I've only just bought a drill, give me time!

Our blind is from Blinds Direct and our curtains are from Ikea, hanging on an Argos curtain pole which I managed to put up all by myself.

One of my favourite things that we did for this room was a buy a projector. When I put up the blind I immediately thought that it would make a great projector screen. After some contemplation over whether it was an unnecessary luxury, we decided to buy a projector with the last of John Lewis vouchers we got given for our wedding. And I'm so glad we did! If we wanted to watch something before bed we used to use a laptop which is not ideal. We bought an Amazon Fire stick which plugs straight into the projector, which we have at the foot of our bed. All the wires run under the bed and the whole thing is controlled by the Amazon remote. Also, our blind is a black out blind, so the images don't show through the other side. I'm not sure what the neighbours would think of that.

We might add a few more things to this room, as there's still some blank spaces, but for now we're really happy with how it turned out and it was the first step toward making this house feel like ours.

Christmas Canvas Banner

 

This Christmas banner is another craft project that I completed during the first lockdown. I often get ideas for Christmas projects during the Christmas period, by which point I'm too busy with my Etsy shop to make them happen. So I made use of all the time at home earlier in the year to make some of these Christmas ideas. 

I started by cutting out two banner shapes from canvas and drawing a circle on one of them.

I used my Cricut to cut out holly leaf shapes from different shades of green felt. Then I sewed them around the circle on the canvas.

I printed out a 'Merry Christmas' template and sewed over it with red embroidery thread. Then I tore away the paper when it was finished.

I forgot the take photos of the final stages! Oops!

I sewed the two canvas pieces together, right sides in, then turned them right sides out. Then I folded the top over, enough for a wooden dowel to fit through, and sewed that in place.

I also added some red pom poms on the front as holly berries.

Then I added some ribbon so the banner could be hung.

It turned out so good! Hopefully next year Christmas craft fairs will be back and I can find a home for it.

Patchwork Christmas Stocking

Last summer my sister was helping me sort through my fabric drawers and encouraging me to get rid of the little scraps. She noted how much Christmas fabric I have piling up and suggested that if I hadn't used any of it in a year then I should probably re-home it.

So in order to save my beloved Christmas fabric I made this patchwork stocking!

I started by drawing out a template of a stocking on brown paper. I made two of these so that I could cut one up into the sections I had drawn out.

I used the paper sections to cut out shapes from my Christmas fabric. I'd labeled the sections with letters so that once they were separate like this I knew how they'd go back together.

Then I started sewing them together on my sewing machine, in pairs or threes, according to the template.

Then I joined the smaller groups together to form one big piece.

I cut out a back piece from red fabric and placed it with the patchwork front, along with some interfacing, and sewed them together.

I turned the stocking right side out and made a lining using the same stocking pattern and the red fabric.

 

Then I added a fabric loop so the stocking can be hung up.

It's a perfect celebration of all my Christmas fabric!

Crochet Baubles

One of the things I spent lockdown (the first one...) doing is building up my stock of these crocheted baubles. 

I had bought a big box of red and white baubles in the January sales from Poundstretcher which were perfect for these decorations.

The first stage was to paint the baubles a base colour so the original colour wouldn't show through any gaps in the crochet.

As you know, my Mum is the crochet wizard, not me, so during a doorstep drop off of some groceries to my parents I handed over a box of painted baubles with drawings of extra pieces I needed like ears and scarves. Then a couple of weeks later I picked them up; all crocheted and ready to decorate. Probably in exchange for some bread flour or yeast that I'd managed to get hold of.

Most of my designs were straight up Christmassy - Rudolph, Christmas pudding, Elf etc - but I also tried some other things like these animals. They were all made by cutting out felt pieces which I sewed to the wool.

My favourite design is this BB8. It took a lot longer than the others but I think it looks awesome. I must try making a Yoda next...

3 Ways to Decorate Wood Slice Ornaments

Today I'm sharing three ways to decorate wood slices to make Christmas ornaments.

First up is an old favourite; painting a winter scene. I've made many decorations this way which you can see here. I just search 'winter scene' into Google to find pictures for inspiration and then get to work with acrylic paints.

Next up I went for some word art. I used black ready mixed paint on the background, which allowed the wood grain to show through, and then used a gold Sharpie for the words. Watch the video below to see how I got the writing so neat!

For the third design I made an image transfer using a gel medium and a photo from my wedding. Any excuse to use those photos!

Check out the video below for a detailed how-to of how I made these ornaments.

Custom Order Book Covers

I recently had a request from an Etsy customer to make fabric book covers for her pet's medical records, after she saw the notebooks I have in my shop. This customer had already bought some felt keyrings of her dogs so she wanted the books to match.

 I sent her a photo of all the fabric I thought would be suitable for this project and she picked this blue and white striped fabric with embroidered hearts.

To make the covers I cut out a long rectangle of the patterned fabric, as well as a matching one in plain white which would be the inside. I cut out the animal faces and sewed them to he patterned fabric. The two dogs were based on existing patterns I had, just with a few colour changes, but the cat I had to design from scratch. 

With back sides of the two pieces of fabric facing I sewed along the top and the bottom and one of the sides. I turned them right side out and inserted two pieces of card to give the cover some sturdiness. I then sewed up the remaining open side

I made the fabric pieces extra long so that I could fold in the sides, and sew in place, to create pockets for the covers of the medical records to slide in to.  

Making these covers involved a bit of trial and error but the customer was so pleased with them and said the records fit perfectly.

Miniature Food Made of Salt Dough

Do you remember when I made a tiny table full of miniature salt dough food? That was 9 years ago!

So I thought it was about time to give it another go and see what other food I could create (and see if my skills have got any better).

I decided to focus on pastries and made croissants, pain au raison, cinnamon swirls and Danish pastries.

Check out the video at the bottom of this post for the how to!

After baking the salt dough I painted the pastries with acrylic paint and used PVA glue to give them a shine.

I also made a little wooden tray out of lollipop sticks because presentation is everything. This is a tiny brunch I'd like to go to!