EASTER STRING BASKET/NEST

The process is so simple, just a little time consuming because it takes ages to dry. But don't let that put you off! My first attempt went horribly wrong as I used a sugar and water solution which was supposedly the 'best way for hard string' according to a DIY blog. My balloon popped before it was even dry so I ended up with a ball of soggy, pink wool.

Here is my process:

1. I dyed my wool in a fabric dye with salt mixed in to prevent the dye from running. 

2. I mixed up a 1 part water 1 part PVA glue solution with some glitter in and soaked my wool in this for a good 5-10 minutes.

3. I found the end of the wool and using two fingers pinched together I ran the wool through to get rid of excess glue. Then I wound around my ballon. There isn't a set way of wrapping, just make sure as many gaps are covered in wool as possible.

4. Leave to dry-at least overnight. You will find that the balloon would of shrunk to around half its size, so pop this and pull it out.

I brought these little sets of rabbits and sheep in Tesco as part of their Easter range. They're so fun and ever so cute in life. To line my Easter basket I shredded gold paper and filled this in with a few feathers. Then all I had to do was fill it with chocolate eggs, a rabbit and my animals! Looks really effective and the basket can be used to play with once the choccies are gone.

Making Mother's Day cards

Yesterday I was busy with my god daughter covering the kitchen in painted hands and feet prints. I laid out a huge piece of lining paper and lots of colours with glitter and let her run free. Eventually after lots of cleaning up and once the prints had dried I cut the prints out.

The first is a butterfly card using feet and a paper body. 

And the second is a hand printed caterpillar which was originally going to be card but she wanted it to run around the house. 

Fairy tree with little fairy lights

Here is the fairy tree with little battery powered fairy lights on, very magical and looks fun at night!!

Making my Georgian Dolls House

To start:
I ordered some plain, untreated wooden shelves from Homebase costing around £20 and I measured the height and width of these. Then I worked out how much MDF wood I would need making sure I had extra on the top for the roof. Using a Jigsaw I cut out the windows, doors and the roof shapes ready to begin painting. The MDF wood was £7.50 from Homebase.

Here is a working drawing of the shapes to go around the windows-to be kept simple!

Next step was the exciting part where I selected the colours I wanted to use. I knew that pink was a definite so I found about 20 sample pots of shades of pink and then painted them onto some lining paper. Once dried I could see which ones went best together…This is the outcome.

The main colour on the outside of the dolls house was painted in this Crown Easy Rider. I originally brought 2 pots of Farrow and Ball paint thinking it was on special offer and got home to realise it was £7.00 for sample pots. So I took those back and noticed Crown paint samples were on sale for 93p each.

I wanted to test what colours would work best and how they would come out, so I stamped straight onto the lining paper sample paints I did earlier. I found the glittery ones looked magical-I picked this up from The Works for £1.49 and it does go a long way.

I have a selection of woodblock stamps which aren't the easiest to print with onto wood, but they do look very effective as a collection. You could try using foam stamps but the design wouldn't be as intricate.

This is what the final background looked like before I glued it to the shelves. I left a small space in-between each section so the glue stuck better to the wood (wood to wood sticks best). To glue it together I used Evo-Stik which is a wood adhesive and I left over night to set with loads of books on top to weigh it down. I also banged in small wood nails/pins to hold it firmly in place.

Finally I brought some decorative wood from Homebase, cut it down to size and also two little door knobs and using some metallic spray I coated them in a silvery/gold. 

Nearly finished-To add the finishing touches to my dolls house I used a metallic silver Sharpie pen and drew around the windows and added some little trees on the steps by the front door. Then I printed two stamps-one on the top of the house and the other above the door.

And this is the final outcome:

Georgian Dolls house

For my god daughters birthday I decided to her something special and a one off piece. I came across these Dolls House cabinets by Andrew Martin in January 2014 edition of Homes and Gardens magazine. I love the simplicity of these especially the chalk grey colour-very in this year!

From here I did a google search of Georgian style houses and created a mood board of some of my favourite houses and even little features I liked for example the patterning around this door frame.

I then looked at patterning I would put around my windows and door frames as Georgian houses are typically very simple with touches of pattern but mainly a few clean lines around the tops of windows. 

I looked at dome and triangular shapes.