Feature Wall

I have injured my foot running so am resting it at the moment, which on the plus side means that I have quite a lot of spare free time! Have put some of that free time to use and painted one wall in our bedroom.
Everywhere else in the house has white walls (apart from the office and downstairs bathroom), so it was nice to get a bit of colour flowing!

Here's the walls before I started painting

I chose a colour called blackberry and painted the wall in a matt colour.

I then bought a stencil of cherry blossom and stencilled in a repeat pattern along the whole of the wall in a slightly lighter blackberry colour in semi gloss. The trick was to use as little paint as possible on the roller.

I then just used masking tape and started in the top lef-hand corner and worked along and down lining the stencil up as I went.

I love it! It gives off a really nice shimmery shine and is really nice and subtle but beuatiful. It also ties in really nicely to the blinds from Ikea which also have a sort of cherry blossom design on them.

We just need new bedcovers and I might even make some cushions with the cherry blossom stencil on too!

Letters Shelf

In a bid to have somewhere to put letters and all the little bits and pieces that are in limbo and don't really have a home (i.e. the stuff that comes out of G's pockets at the end of the day, like his wallet), I decided to make a little shelf to go next to the front door.

I made it using all scrap pieces of wood, paint, hooks and a jam jar that I already had, so this is a free project - love it!

I used one piece of wood as backing and cut out the corners with my jigsaw to give it a bit more of a fancy look.



I then screwed the shelf into it from the back. I added a bit of trim I had left over from another project so that the shelf has a lip to stop thing falling off it.

The hooks are ones I already had at home and I painted them a gloss black.

The jam jar was also hanging around in the cellar, so I painted it with some glass paint and slotted it into the round holder I made out of scrap wood with my jigsaw. It can be easily taken out to add water, depending on what little flowers are there. At the moment I've just got some dried lavender from the garden.

I painted the whole thing the same white as the shoe rack that is also in the hallway, so it all ties in nicely.

Here it is hanging up in all its glory:

Fingerprint Babygro

My friend Claire has just had a little baby boy called Luca, which means I have been busy making a little something to send her.

This babygro is painted straight on in black fabric paint and is meant to look like a thumb print with "one of a kind" written underneath.

Materials used:

babygro
black fabric paint
thumb print stolen from Google images printed out to required size
paintbrush

I slipped the printed image into the babygro and basically just painted over it ... simple as that!

I then sealed the paint by covering the babygro in a tea towel and ironing over it and then washed it.

Money Origami

I was invited to a wedding last week and the bride and groom asked for money rather than  gifts. So, instead of just putting some boring old money in an envelope, I decided to get my creative juices flowing!

I googled "money origami" and decided on trying to fold some Euros into a bride, groom and heart.

€10 wedding dress
€10 heart
€20 trousers
€20 shirt and tie

I followed the instructions I found here and this is what I came up with:

€10 wedding dress

€10 heart