Raindrop cushion - Pin It Do It & Tutorial

Well, here's a post I started writing in November 2014.  I'm sure you can imagine why that was such a busy month (what with the twins being born!) and it never got finished.  But, we have the return of #pinitdoit, I was reminded to finish this one and I recently shared a pic of the cushion on Instagram too.

Hot Air Balloon mobile DIY tutorial

by Bex

I spotted some little hot air balloon cocktail sticks in Tiger a few months ago for just £3 for a pack of 12.  Perfect for making two mobiles of six balloons each.

To make your own mobile using paper cocktail sticks you'll need:

Cocktail stick designs or other lightweight object to hang
Craft Knife
Double sided tape (you don't need the fancy dispenser - I used to use that when mounting prints for sale)
Nylon thread
Florist wire
Wire cutters
Hot glue (not necessary if you trust your knots)

So, how did I make it?  You can probably figure it out just by looking at the design as it's pretty simple but basically I took the cocktail sticks off first, then trimmed away the excess card (the bit for holding them together as I would be gluing them anyway) to make them perfectly rounded at the top & side.  I used a stanley knife for this as I've yet to buy a craft knife.

You can see it's a bit rough but this bit will be stuck together and hidden.

After trimming the edges, I cut pieces of nylon thread and tied knots in one end to stop it slipping out when I stuck the balloons with the thread inside.  I used double sided tape to stick the balloons open and made sure they hung straight (which meant the thread coming out off centre due to the weight over to one side with the card sections).

It was then a case of hanging them off some wires I had from the florist section of Country Baskets (I'd bought them after the Floristry class I attended).  I simply bent the top wire in half and bent the ends up to stop the thread falling off the ends.  For the lower wires, I cut one full size wire in half before doing the same bending in the middle and at the ends.

I decided on the various lengths I wanted each balloon to hang and tied them all on before securing the knots with hot glue.  Any that were pulling the balance off were pushed along the wire to the right place before gluing.

And voila:

Pretty simple really but very effective as the balloons are so brightly coloured.  I think they look fab flying around.

I planned to make 2 mobiles for above the twins' cots but after making the first one (being conscious of the length) and trying it above a cot hanging from the slanted wall it was just a bit too long and in the way when leaning over, as well as making my new gallery walls look cluttered hanging in front of them.  (The gallery walls will be revealed after the birth of the twins as they include their initials!)  Instead I decided to hang just 1 above the Hemnes drawers/changing station rather than over the cots as it could hang much higher in the centre of the ceiling, out of the way.  It's just in front of the window so it looks a lot better too and I'm hoping they spin nicely when there's a breeze.

#PostCircle by Roz

I recently signed up to Anna's wonderful #PostCircle, an idea that centres around sending and receiving beautiful / exciting / fun post. How often can you go through a good few weeks without a nice piece of mail? Anna had quite a number of respondents and divided is up into groups of 6, I'm in the owl group :)

(Bex butting in here to say I'm in the Dormouse group and I'm excited about posting and receiving too!!)

I really wasn't sure what to send to my recipient for my first piece of exciting post, oh the pressure! I had a quick look online for some funky owl stationery but felt I bit underwhelmed. Then I remembered I was going down to my parents to see them at the weekend, which meant access to my mum's card making supplies!! My mum is super talented, designing her own cards and more often than not makes birthday, Christmas, celebration etc cards. She even made our beautiful wedding stationery :)
Butting in again: your Mum sounds JUST like mine!!  :D  Hi Mrs W!  (So weird, Roz and I are both now Mrs M and our Mums are both Mrs W!)

I had hoped after Bex's dragonfly ombré cards that I could do something similar if my mum had an owl punch....however, as is always the way, she had everything but an owl punch. (The only one I've managed to find is very cute but very expensive from the US by Martha Stewart!)  My mum did then offer to draw me an owl, told you she was a star. We then used the template to cut up 6 little owls for the front of the card. I chose a brown metallic card and a lovely embossed silver card. We added details using a black permanent marker, to define claws, feathers etc. and added a wee bit of sparkle by using diamantes for their eyes.

I was so pleased with the end result :) The owls are attached to the card with double sided foam adhesive to make the owls stand off the card and after arranging them on the card I added a Helloooooo to fit in with the first time theme of the card.

I really hope my recipient likes the card, I had a lot of fun making it! I also added a mix CD of some of my favourite songs (such a fab idea stolen from Gemma's #Blogmanay) as music was listed as one of the 10 favourite things of my person.

Here's the track listing...

1) Atomic '98 (Xenomania Mix) – Blondie. This song takes me back to dancing in nightclubs underage!

2) Let's Get Lost - Bat For Lashes / Beck.  There is something about this song, I just love it and would happily get lost listening to the music and lyrics.

3) Arizona - Kings of Leon.  This is one of my favourite songs of all time.  As soon as I hear the opening chords all is right with the world.  It also really makes me wish I could play guitar.  Maybe I should learn?

4) I Try - Macy Gray.  I know this is one of Macy’s most famous songs, but a friend played it to me in Bournemouth in the Summer of ’99 and I have loved it ever since.

5) For Reasons Unknown - The Killers.  I have a bit of a thing for the Killers, I’ve seen them & Brandon Flowers live so many times.  I’m pretty scared I might go a bit crazy fan lady if I ever met him saw him in a public place.  This is not my favourite song of theirs but boy does it make me think & Brandon loves to sing it live.

6) 20th Century Boy - T-Rex.  This song transports me back to my childhood and makes me think of my dad.

7) We Are You – Fun.  Clearly this is a really recent song, but it featured in a performance of Romeo & Juliet that I watched in Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens (actually amazing!) and I love hearing the song as I remember how amazing the play was.

8) Don't Stop Me Now – Queen.  Another of my all time favourite songs, which featured a number of times at our wedding!  Are there people out there who can listen to this with out singing along / dancing?

9) A Real Hero - College & Electric Youth.  Another relatively new song, from the soundtrack to Drive.  I was so impressed with the score for the movie that I bought the album (I think the last movie sound track album I bought was Dirty Dancing!!) and this is just my favourite song from it.

10) Rebel Rebel - David Bowie.  I had to have a Bowie song on this playlist, it was hard choosing one but this seemed as good a choice as any.

11) Here Comes The Rain – Eurythmics.  This album was also played a lot in my house when I was growing up as my mum loved Annie & the Eurythmics.   I remember liking this song a lot.  I think it was all the references to lovers – hahahaha!

12) Lightning Crashes – Live.  When I was 13 I went to America to stay with a friend I met on holiday a few years before (don’t panic my parents came too!).  My friend loved this song and it has stayed with me ever since.  I felt so cool coming home obsessed with bands that my friends had never heard of!

13) Dream of Me - Kristina Train.  This was a free single of the week on itunes.  I love Kristina’s voice.

14) Deuces are Wild – Aerosmith.  I listened to a lot of rock growing up (thanks to having a big brother who loved Iron Maiden, Guns N’ Roses etc.) and when I got my first cd player my brother bought me this single as he thought it was my favourite.

15) Mystery Land - Y Traxx.  I couldn’t put together a playlist without a little bit of dance music.  I didn’t want to anything too hardcore, so opted for this gorgeous tune to end the playlist.  I really hope you like it.

Nail Tutorial - Marbled/Swirl effect

I saw this swirled nail effect on Pinterest and wanted to try it out.  It was easier than I thought, even for the right hand.  Some nails worked better than others so I do need to practice, I think I put too much of the paler colour on some nails and put the top coat on too quickly on one which smudged my effect.  Oops!  I was on my own so couldn't get a picture of me actually doing it but I just followed the description on Pinterest.

The nail that worked best :)

Source: emilydenisephotography.com via Bex on Pinterest

I started with a base coat, I use Seche Clear.

Then a thick layer of the darker colour, I went with metallic colours and think it worked well with the marbled effect.  Then take a toothpick, dip it into the lighter colour and add a few dots onto the still wet 1st coat.  Take a clean toothpick and swirl the colours together to create a pattern you like.  (Handy hints: Keep a piece of old card or plastic handy to rest your toothpicks on as you switch between them.  Also, do one nail at a time so the 1st coat doesn't dry before you add the dots.  You will need to leave the top off the 2nd pot so it's ready to dip after you apply the 1st colour.)

Seal with a top coat, I use Seche Vite.

The nails I prefer are the ones which had smaller drops of the lighter colour as above, otherwise the pattern can get too mixed and isn't as pretty.  I will definitely be trying this again with other colours as it's the simplest but most effective technique I have tried yet.

Nails - Black tips tutorial

I was inspired by this photo on Pinterest (sadly can't find the source as someone's pinned it from google) (edit: have found it!) to have a go at doing this myself.

First I painted my nails with my new Butter London nail varnish in Dosh (a molten apple green that has been shot through with gold) which I've been dying to use (and now love!) and left them to dry for at least a couple of hours so I wouldn't ruin them with the stickers!

I then stuck on the hole reinforcer stickers (found in a local stationery shop - they only had clear ones so they might be more difficult to see here but worked just as well - if not better as I could see if they were stuck down properly so the varnish wouldn't seep under) and painted the tips black with my Filthy Gorgeous Nail Varnish.

Sadly I have wide thumb nails so the stickers were too narrow to get the right shape so I used some labels and cut a shape to fit my thumbs.

All the results were a little hit or miss - it was more difficult than I expected and some needed a little touching up but I am really pleased with the result and will definitely be trying this again with a different colour combination!

I finished with a coat of my new favourite top coat, Seche Vite Dryfast Top Coat.  (I also use the Seche Clear Base Coat)

Christmas Stocking Tutorial

So this week I have finally finished my wrapping, tidied out the spare room, sorted a bit more of the study, we have our tree up and decorated, decorated the hall, study, and the fireplace and I made stockings!

I was going to keep this a secret from my in-laws to surprise them when they arrive but I can't resist sharing on the blog with a little how to in case anyone else wants to give it a try!  (I know my friend Sarah does!)

We don't have a mantelpiece so I have improvised using my inspiration picture as a starting point.  I wanted to have some hanging baubles and lots of candles with greenery like this image found via Pinterest...

I got 3 similar but different sized silver glass baubles from TKMaxx to hang in the space and spaced out some Ikea candles so they wouldn't burn them.  I used two branches which were hanging loose from the bottom of our tree but plan to add to the greenery closer to Christmas.  As we don't have a mantel, I have pinned the stockings to the bottom of our large picture frame.  We have 6 people coming for Christmas so I made 6 new stockings using 2 kinds of fabric from Mandors.

Here is our fireplace...

It was really easy so here is the how to...

You will need:
Sewing machine (mine was my Mum's) (a basic knowledge of sewing will help)
Tailor's chalk (also Mum's but easy to get in a fabric shop or haberdashery)
Pins (as above)
Fabric scissors (as above)
Thread £1.55 from Mandors
Green fabric £10.99 per meter from Mandors (I bought 2.5m of the green one as I was making a table runner as well but have about 60cm left over)
Snowflake fabric £14.99 per meter from Mandors (I bought 40cm of the snowflake one)
Faux Fur £7.99 per meter from Mandors (I used 50cm and have about half left)
Stocking template - easy to draw by hand but I used a couple of old ones to draw around
Threads to make a hanging loop - I made my threads into mini friendship bracelets to hang them (you could easily plait them or just have them plain.)

I made 2 longer ones and 4 shorter, fatter ones.  I managed to get 2 stockings out of the 40cm of snowflake material and 4 and a table runner and a mini stocking out of the green - with plenty left over!

First fold the fabric and lay it on a flat surface.  Draw around the  template leaving a 1cm margin.
Cut the fur to whatever depth you want to have (this is super fluffy!)  Separate your layers.

Add the fur to each later - pinning the furry side down onto the back.
Stitch across the top.  Then lay the two together inside out (so the fur is in between).

Pin the layers together and sew around the edge (don't forget to leave the top open!)
Loop through your chosen hook to the back edge when sewing, making sure you put the ends between the fur layer  so it doesn't show.  Turn it all inside out and hang!

I hope that explains it all easily enough.  If you have any questions, just leave me a comment and please let me know if you have a go yourself!  Would love to see the results!