Book Page Topiary

Here begins the bundle of new decorations made for our new house.. less than 2 weeks till the move, lovely cottage here we come.. I thought it needed a few little homemade goodies to make it more homely.. So i made a topiary where the flowers are made from old book pages, there's so many pages left going spare so I feel a few more projects coming on..

I've used:

• gunmetal grey drawing pins
• charity shop book
• 2 flower arranging foam balls
• 1/8" wooden dowel
• small terracotta pot
• ivory ribbon
• half styrofoam ball
• brown glass pebbles
• rock salt paint
• chcolate paint
• hot glue gun
• shingle

To make the flowers I drew spirals on book pages (making sure all the pages I used had text on so they matched), then I used paperglue to twist the pages to form a flower shape. The scrappy egdes on the flowers created a fab distressed look and helped with making the pages look more vintage.
I pierced the foam balls onto the dowel, glued the balls to the dowel and then painted the dowel chocolate brown. After painting the pot, I filled it with shingle to balance the weight of the topiary, and glued half a styrofoam ball over the top of the shingle to the sides of the pot. When the dowel was dried I put it through the styrofoam and glued it into place.
To secure the flowers to the foam balls I used the hot glue gun and drawing pins. I tried just using drawing pins but they just didn't hold the weight, so they became just aesthetic and the glue did all the work. After many hours of cutting and sticking flowers, not to mention burning my fingers with the glue gun many times, I made it to the fininshing touch.. the ivory ribbon bow tied around the dowel... Now I just hope it looks lovely in the new house to make it worth all the work!

I've linked this project to:

The Shabby Nest- frugal friday

Tatertots & Jello- weekend wrapup party

A Little Lovely- saturday soiree

Pearl cluster drop earrings

These are a pair of earrings I made for Mum's birthday, ok so that was in may, but I'm still playing catch up getting all my older projects blogged. Based on yet another description of a cross of something mum saw in a shop and her twist as to how she would want them to look.
So I've used:

• 2 silver earring hooks
• 2 strings of silver chain
• Too many 6mm pearls to count
• Too many headpins to count lol

Surprisingly these are a lot lighter than they look, and they went down very well with mum, along with her purple felt dahlia flower brooch.

Bird In The Hand

I'm loving all the bird theme jewellery in the shops at the moment, though I don't like how the majority are all gold in colour, not my thing. Finally I managed to get some findings in Hobbycraft with their new season's goodies to make my own necklace that isn't gold!
I've used:

• Lost & Found: Birds on branch pendant
• Lost & Found: Leaves links
• Silver chain (recycled from a broken necklace)
• Silver clasp (recycled from a broken necklace)

I've lived in this since I made, it just goes with everything i wear! Though i am wondering if I should add some kind of gem into the nest at some time in the future?

I've linked this post up to The Shabby nest- Frugal Friday.. go have a look at all the other fab posts!

Felt flower brooches

Found a blog a little while ago where I stumbled upon this tutorial for a felt flower Dahlia corsage brooch.. Not Martha.. so I gave it a go coz my vintage black jacket needed a little something to give it some life.. and then of course there was a purple one made for mum to put on her jackets or handbag lol.

I've used:

• 2 sheets of felt (red wine and glittery electric purple)
• 2 brooch pins
• 2 circles of strong card as backing for the brooches
• Hot glue gun
• A lot of patience to cut all the little petals out lol

Collage frames

So here we go with another shop inspired idea recreated using more of those fab little 4x6 ikea frames! No way was I going to pay the shop prices so out came the stash of bits at home once more.
I've used:

• Dulux chocloate wood paint
• 9 ikea plain wood frames
• Super strength evostick glue
• Twine for the (hanging)

Now it's hanging in our lounge full of photos from our trip to egypt, with a mix of colour and black/white prints, will look even better when it's hanging in our little cottage next month :)

Starburst mirror

So by now everyone's seen these plastered all over the internet and in the shops.. and I thought our lounge needed something funky on the wall so I made us one :)
I've used:

• Thick cardboard (for the backing to secure the skewers to the mirror)
• Barbecue skewers
• Selection of sized mirrors
• Silver spraypaint (left over from my car)
• Twine
• Hot gluegun

Spur of the moment necklace

No idea where the inspiration for this necklace came from, been staring at the pink woven beads for months and months now and never had a clue what to do with them...
And suddenly whilst searching the internet for a new house I grabbed a handful of beads and some inspiration hit me.. not bad considering I was looking for totally different colour and style of beads for a different project.
So I've used:

• Wooden ball beads
• Pink wooven wooden beads
• Pink terracotta beads
• Felt pink dotty flower
• Chocolate grosgrain ribbon

Tri-Fold Frames

So I thought we needed some pretty frames in our house and typical me I imagined in my head what I wanted and once again shops let me down, so I made my own! Typical of my mum the first time she saw them she wanted a set for her too (in muddy puddle of course as she's obsessed with that colour) and then Dan's mum saw them and wanted a set too... so low and behold 3 sets of frames done and 2 christmas presents sorted good and early too lol!

I've used:

• 9 plain wood ikea 4x7 frames


• 6 wickes small barrel hinges


• 9 sets of hobbycraft wooden flowers


• Chocolate paint


• Muddy puddle paint


• Caramel paint


• Papercraft pearl stones


• Papercraft victorian style ribbons

Now to find some photos to put in them before I have to give them away!