Bathroom Inspiration

So the move to the new house still hasn't happened and it is getting hard to keep up the excitement levels of it all.

But drawing up ideas sure does help!

Here are our dreams (at the minute) for the bathroom:

It does look a bit scarce but it is one of the smaller rooms after all! We plan on sticking to greys and blues with wooden accessories and possibly a bit of a nautical theme because I still love it.

We already have the chest of drawers which are from Dunelm Mill and they work perfectly to hold all our bathroom essentials including our bathroom cleaning supplies.

The toilet is just a toilet we aren't particularly fussy, we're just aiming for a modern white suite.

The shower head would be lovely but this style is quite expensive at £121.50, for a shower head!! we found this one here. But you can get much cheaper ones in a similar style.

We love these grey stone tiles, and like what they have done here.

As for accessories, I'm sticking with the nautical inspired theme that's been popular. Natural weather worn wood and beach themed accessories, I think they match the colour scheme quite well and draw in the blues we want in the bedroom, to help make the house flow a bit more.

Now fingers crossed we're in before Christmas!

Muchos x

Cute Christmas Decorations

With Christmas just round the corner especially when you plan on crafting most of it, it's time to break out the decorations. And this year, as well as the good old craft magazines, Pinterest is helping out with plenty of inspiration , which is where I found these little cuties!

The full tutorial is here.


But here is my take on the little cuties.

I used thread the same colour as the felt rather than contrasting, and as my little decorative touch I added some 'with love' ribbon onto the back. Though I love the little buttons used in the originals and will have to have a hunt around for some.

These guys are so quick and easy, no doubt the tree of everyone I know will be sporting one this Christmas!

Have you started crafting for Christmas yet?

Muchos x

Dining Room / Kitchen Inspiration

Okay, so in the new house the kitchen and dining room are separate rooms but we want to run the same colour scheme and decorating themes through both rooms to make them feel more like one space.

You will know from our preliminary colour palette the colours we were planning on, so here is what we came up with for the dining room:

Pale olive greens, pale tans and greys with whites and lemon yellows. It looks dashing don't you think?

It's great fun seeing our thoughts come to life, and it makes me even more excited to actually move in - which never seems to get any closer to actually happening by the way.... :(

So anyway, here's a breakdown:

• Polka Dot fabric - Is by Clarke and Clarke and it's 'Dotty' in Sage Green. We bought some for our pinboard for £11.99 per metre at Abakhans, but we have since spotted it at Dunelm Mill for only £8.99 per metre. 
• Curtains - Marks and Spencer Linen Mix Herringbone Curtains between £79 - £119 - I can't wait to buy these, I think they are just beautiful and will help to keep the space light yet cosy.
• Grey Oak Dining Chair (larger) - this one is from Loverslounge.co.uk and is pricey at £120 - yes for a dining chair, but it is very pretty and it is Oak...
• Eames Grey DSW Chair - this beauty is from cultfurniture.com and is £79, so cheaper than the oak ones but still pricey in my opinion - but they are lovely! 
• The little Polka Dot Yellow Plant Pot is from Newbank Garden Centre and I already bought this for £1.49 - SALE
• Dining Table - Now I apologise to whoever I nabbed this photo from but I cant find it again for the life of me! Basically we are looking for a light natural wood that's got a grey look to it, but not too grey (I'm doing great here) but it must be solid wood. If you Google 'natural light mango wood dining tables' you might find similar. We're going for this wood as we have already bought a Wall Organiser but no where can I find the wood it is made out of! We're guessing Mango from pictures and as it was made in India but it's only a rookie guess - the organiser will be accompanying us on dining table shopping trips!
• Country Style Kitchen - I found this kitchen image here, and this is what we will be desperately recreating, but J insists we buy the kitchen from Howdens, here. He's worked on many a kitchen and he's terribly fussy!
• The olives and sunflower are just for prettiness and further colour inspiration.

So I'm still looking for dining chairs that look like the above but are much more purse friendly and we still need to confirm the wood we're going, we don't want matchy matchy but as we are having white wood objects like our beloved pinboard, we're trying to keep the natural woods the same so it all ties in nicely.

(We also have bought a few other accessories for the kitchen/dining room which no doubt you will see soon - no fear, they closely stick to our colour scheme!)

So there we have it, what do you think of our plans for the Kitchen / Dining Room?

Muchos x

Felt Heart Decorations

I love felt. It’s the best thing ever, along with wool and fabric and ribbon and glitter and cheesecake and snow and... well it’s one of the best things ever.

But back to felt, it’s a beauty because it looks lovely and it is very easy to play craft with.

I love a good old felt decoration for the Christmas tree but I love felt all year round, so I made a few of these to have as home decorations, and here’s how to do it.

You will need:

•          3 pieces of felt
•          1 pair of sharp scissors
•          Yarn
•          Thread
•          Needle (1x small 1x large for yarn)
•          Pencil
•          Toy stuffing
•          Length of ribbon
•          Paper

First things first, I'm not one of these who likes the look of a wonky heart and says its shabby chic (you know who you are!). I'm sorry but not for me. I am one of those armed with a stencil and a ruler and a let’s get this thing symmetrical attitude. So first things first I made my heart stencil. To do this, I used the good old trick of folding a piece of paper in half and drawing half a heart which I then cut out.

 Symmetrical heart – done!

Using my new stencil I then drew around this onto one piece of felt (the colour I wanted for the heart) I then pinned two pieces of felt together and cut around them both at the same time – giving me two heart pieces which were identical.

Now for this heart I wanted a letter on the front as its going to be a gift, so again out came the stencil making kit (paper, ruler and pencil) I drew my letter onto the felt and cut it out. I also made a mini heart as well.

I keep all my odd pieces of felt and fabric in here, and for this project I was able to use an old piece of white felt rather than a new one .

Then using the same colour thread as your letter, you need to sew it onto the outside of your front piece of felt.

And I added this cute little bow which I got from my local haberdashery. I sewed this on using pink thread.

(As my heart was for a small baby I glued all the pieces down and then sewed them as well just to make it extra secure.)

I also want the heart to hang from a piece of ribbon so to do that you need to cut the ribbon to your desired length and fold it in half, you then sew the two ends of ribbon together to make a loop.

The using the same colour thread as the felt you then need to sew the ribbon onto the inside of the back piece of felt.

Almost invisible!

Now you can start stitching those babies together! Again if your super precise, you want to put pins around the edges to keep the hearts lined up (I didn't do that this time but I have made a fair few of these). Now here's where personal taste comes in, I like to sew the pieces together using a piece of yarn, so the stitches can be clearly seen and almost give the heart a little frame, alternatively you can use thread if you don't want your stitches so visible.

Taking the needle and your thread/yarn, I have always found it easier to start from the bottom, cut your yarn to the length needed, I usually guess by going round the heart 3 times as shown, it's always plenty!.

Then start sewing those pieces together! The tricky bit comes when you have to go around the ribbon at the top, here's how I do it to keep it neat and tidy.

As you sew that baby up, start filling it with your toy stuffing! Don't do what I always do and forget and then get to the end and struggle to fill it through a teeny tiny hole!

To tie it off, stitch to the end and then push you needle right through the middle of the heart and straight through the other side, pull tight (tight enough that your heart squishes up) and then cut the excess and pull the heart back into shape.

I make such a mess!

And now your finished! Go hang that pretty little heart!

Muchos x

Living Room Inspiration Board

Following our Preliminary Colour Palette, we started the more exciting stuff of planning the rooms and how we are going to integrate them colours. Here's what we came up with for the living room...

These pictures are mainly nabbed from Google, so I will try my best to remember where they are all from...

• The sofa is from DFS, and it's definitely 'the one' it's the Carnaby sofa and currently this 4 seater is only £799!
• The chair is the Wilfred Armchair is Stone Grey from Out and Original (It's £299.99 so it's cheaper than the 2 seater sofa we planned on buying so maybe I can twist J's arm...) (Sofas and chairs are an investment after all!)
• The lamp is from eBay (in fact we have already bought one very similar from T K Maxx for £39.99)
• The cushion is from eBay, and I love the fabric but I will be making my own instead of purchasing :)
• The bookshelf is again from eBay (all the eBay items I found by using the Google 'shopping' search tool)
• The photoframes are from IKEA, I only plan on getting multiple frames in one size and having a photo wall.
• And finally the curtains are from IKEA, the RITVA curtains for only £25, but again I have already bought curtains very similar from Dunelm Mill which were £39.99. (Darn it!)

So there we go, a few items already bought, some that definitely will be, and some that will be crafted.

As a starter, I'm already loving our living room!

Muchos x

Preliminary House Colour Palette

Okay, so the move to the new house is 'imminent' so it's time to start putting pen to paper with our thoughts on what we want to do to the place.

After sorting through endless amounts of paint swatches we settled on some colours which we both liked and from that we got this...

Our preliminary house colour palette, preliminary as no doubt it will change, we need to be in the space, we need to get a clearer idea of the natural lighting in each room and which walls we want as our accents.

Our vision is for a home which is calming and fresh, so instantly we thought of blues and greens, a colour I love is grey so that will definitely be featuring heavily in our home. I'm all about subtle colours as the base so out of the above it will be the more subtle colours which I want on the walls. The bursts of colour like the yellows and brighter blues would be accent colours to inject some colour and something a bit more vivid.

I want our home to flow, so the colour palette above is relevant for every room but as a general overview the main colours for each room will be:

Living Room - Column 1 (Left) Greys and whites - with decorative touches of the greens and yellows
Dining Room - Column 4 (from Left) with Column 3 colours as accents
Craft Hideaway - White with splashes of yellow and green
Kitchen - Column 3 and 4
Hallway/ Landing - I can't decide whether to stay neutral or get some colour in there!
Bathroom - Column 2
Master Bedroom - Column 5
Spare Bedroom - Who knows?!

Opinions please?!? What are your thoughts on our colour palette? Do we need to change it up a bit?

Muchos x

Washi Tape

My washi tape has arrived and I cannot wait to use it! I got it from this little shop over at Etsy and I'm really happy with it now it has arrived!

I plan to use it to jazz up my up cycled biscuit tin and cover them not quite straight lines in the process. But which one should I use?! The decisions, so to help me out I decided to buy some plain cards perfect for making your own and use the washi tape in my designs.

Complete novice I know!

To make this card I used 4 strips of washi tape, some plywood letters which cost 99p for the full alphabet and then some paper flowers from Dove Craft, I got a pack of various colours and sizes for 99p and plain cards which you can find in most craft shops, and a good old tube of PVA glue! 

I still think it's great that you can achieve a personalised result so easily and on a budget (even if my attempt has 'beginner' stamped all over it).

  

My love affair with washi tape has officially begun.

Muchos x

Upcycled Biscuit Tin

So, after the framed pin board project here. We had rather a lot of paint left. And I couldn't resist painting something else.

I'm always looking to reuse items we already have to create storage to help keep us organised. On my hunt for a paintable object I came across this old biscuit tin, whilst I don't hate the pattern or the colours, I am very colour scheme focused and there will be no room in our new house that will incorporate that many colours, so I got paintbrush happy.

This was solely my project so one coat of undercoat was all that was needed.

And then it got the white gloss treatment, and it was perfectly covered, lovely and glossy white and a tad boring. The main colour for our new dining room is going to be green, and we plan to carry this through to the kitchen. I want the green to be light and fresh and natural and will also be throwing in a few splashes of yellow. So a yellow stripe was in order for my rather boring glossy white tin.

I put masking tape around the top and bottom of the tin leaving a stripe uncovered across the middle. I tried to be very careful and keep the tape straight..I did my best.

Then out came this delicious pot of 'Taxi' yellow paint which I have had for quite some time now.

I decided to use a sponge to apply the paint to give the stripe a different texture to the rest of the tin.

Stripe painted I loved the speckled effect against the smooth gloss. But here is where I made my mistake, I left the masking tape on during the drying stage, instead of removing it straight away, so I did get some bleed through :(

But from afar you can't tell!

An excellent storage solution for all our tall utensils, and we have many, shown is just a small selection, I don't even know what half of the others do!

So my paint craving hands were satisfied, I'm not sure that this will be our forever storage tin for the kitchen, it was a very rush job after all, but I can already see a future for this tin holding various knitting needles, crochet hooks, maybe a few craft scissors...

And as for the bleed through, well I have a solution! I have recently ordered some Washi tape from the knickknackshop on Etsy, here. I got various tapes with yellow and green patterns - they will cover up the bleed through no problemo! I will update once they have arrived and been installed on my tin.