Canvas Art

Whipped up a little present for my good friend Tim for his birthday and his lovely new flat ... so here it is for the blog world:

I saw a similar canvas behind Heston Blumenthal on one of his programmes and decided to steal the idea. I chose a nice font off Word, painted the canvas yellow, traced on the letters and then painted them on in black.

I sealed it with a protective covering so that it can hang in the kitchen and not be bothered by the moisture, but ... depending on where he wants a quote like this ... he could also hang it in the bedroom ;-)

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!

Cleaning Cupboard

Here comes my second cupboard to sit next to the storage cupboard in the cellar.
This cupboard is to hold cleaning stuff, e.g. ironing board, hoover, bucket, mop ... that type of thing.

The cupboard is very similar to the other one I've made, so won't bore you with the details of how I made this one!

The differences are that this cupboard only has one shelf to hold the iron and will possibly be a storage area for cleaning products or something and it also has a normal hook on the side so the ironing board can hang clean off the bottom of the floor taking up as little room as possible.
The door front is also different. I bought a ceiling medallion (or what ever they're called!) that is just polestyrene so is super light. I glued it to the middle of the door and then attached the door knob in the middle of it and painted everything the same colour - a nice purplish colour! I think it looks really nice with the white door knob.

Sorry about the dire photo quality too - they were all taken in the cellar with no natural light!

Canvas Art

I have actually already made this for my Dad for his birthday, but somewhere between here and his house the parcel went missing!! It's either damaged at the bottom of some postman's sack or sitting pretty above a postman's mantlepiece! Either way, my Dad never got his present!

I decided to remake it and hand deliver it when I fly to England so that there won't be any more mishaps!

I bought a 40x40cm canvas, some little mdf wooden letters and a few mirrored ones.

I painted the canvas a sort of off white and the letters 5 different shades of red.

I then glued the letters down to form the shape of a heart and spell out the words to the Beatles song:

All you need is love
Love is all you need

Happy Belated Birthday, Daddy!

Chalkboard Paint

When painting the office, I decided I wanted one wall that was chalkboard paint so I could write reminders for the month on the wall.

Chalkboard paint is actually really expensive to buy and I wanted it in the same colour as my other office walls, so just decided to make my own!

I mixed 2 cups of latex paint with 2 tablespoons of non-cement grouting (that was conveniently left over from when the tile fitters did the kitchen splashbask!) really well until there were no lumps.
I then painted the wall in the same way as the other walls in the office. The key was to make sure it was all covered in a thin layer and not slapped on too thickly.

Once it was dry, I lightly sanded the whole wall with 120 grit sandpaper.

I then "cured" the wall by rubbing chalk all over it and then wiping it off with a wet cloth.

I can now write down what's happening for the month and hopefully not miss another birthday, as I have a nasty habit of doing!

So, now if I look at my wall I've got my half marathon run and then have to call mum to say Happy Mother's Day!

Chest-Of-Drawers Makeover

We bought this cheapo chest-of-drawers from Ikea ages ago and it has moved with us into our 3rd new place now. I always think how cheap and ugly the fake wood veneer looks, so decided to pimp our chest-of-drawers! Here's what I did to make this pretty little lady:

From nasty, cheap, anyone can buy to...

Pretty & original!

I removed all the rubbish that seemed to have been stuffed in there and forgotten about, hoovered out the drawers as they were filfthy and generally gave the whole thing a good wash!
I then primed the surfaces and filled in the big scratch that was on the top! I lightly sanded everywhere to get a smooth starting surface.

I then got into my Dexter kill suit (does anyone else watch that programme?! I love it!) and painted the whole thing a nice glossy white. Unfortunately, G was away on a business trip and I didn't want to lug the chest of drawers downstairs into the cellar on my own (think visions of him coming home to find his wife dead at the bottom of the stairs with a chest-of-drawers on her!) and as it is currently -20°C outside, painting out there wasn't an option either! I don't really seem to be a very patient person, so I just put the protective covering out in the living room and got going. Unfortunately the paint I used is one that has a hardened glossy finish so it's more durable etc. Well, to say there was a slight odour given off is a bit of an understatement!
I used PowerPoint to make a border (which is basically just a hollowed out rectangle and four circles in the corners!) and then printed it out and drew over it onto the drawers and then painted it in black. I drew two little borders on the top drawer so it looks like it's two little drawers.

I went to the DIY store to look for little drawer pulls. Couldn't believe that they wanted €6 per little knocker! Talk about rip-offs! I looked on ebay instead and found these little babies for the same price as one, including p&p!
I primed them and painted them black. Here they are half finished:

It looks so much better than it did! You wouldn't recognise it as an Ikea knock-off, would you?!

Stencil Wallpaper

I came up with the crazy idea of painting wallpaper onto the wall. Glad I only decided to do the little downstairs toilet as it took quite a long time!
I cut out a stencil on card and drew round it onto the wall in pencil.

I then painted the background in blue and the pattern in grey. Here it is half finished:

I painted the frame of the mirror the same colour as the pattern and now declare this room finished!! Am really happy with how it turned out. Just need to get a lavender plant or something instead of the spider plant to match the walls.
I made some little heart-shaped soaps too and my lovely friend, Lyndall, gave us the white candle as a thank you for having her to stay gift. We haven't even lit it yet but because the room is so small, it smells lovely every time you open the door!

Clock

I ordered some clock hands off Amazon and printed out a sample of fonts for G to choose...
what do you think? Good choice?

I am definitely the creative one out of us and he has the mathematician's brain, so worked out where the numbers should go on the wall and I painted them on - what a team!
It's just behind the sofa in the living room and grabs your attention as soon as you walk in the room - I love it!

Dandelions Key Hooks

I drew a sketch of what I wanted and then free-handed it onto the wall in pencil.

I then painted over the pencil marks in a blue paint with a thin paintbrush.

I drilled into the wall, put in rawlplugs and screwed hooks into the wall.

Our house keys, shed keys etc. hang here and I love that you can always tell whether the other person is home as soon as you're in the door!

They're just next to the door and are supposed to look like a gust of wind from opening the door has made the dandelion clocks (or what are the individual bits of the clocks called - hands?!) blow up the stairs.

I got the inspiration from a great website with loads of brilliant ideas - have a look here!