Seaglass Lantern

 Over the last couple of years I've gathered quite a lot of seaglass and never really figured out what to do with it. I'm just fascinated by it, the awesome colours you can come across and how colours vary depending where in the world you are looking for it.

 After gathering even more seaglass on our recent trip to Spain I found my jar at home to be too full to add my most recent stash to it, so I had to start making something with my seaglass.

I decided to make a lantern to sit as a table centrepiece or on the sid rtable in our lounge. A cheap glass vase and a tealight holder from Ikea, electric tealight, baby oil and an hour of my time and this is what I came up with.

The baby oil is a total necessity otherwise the seaglass will be frosty, losing the lovely colours and shine you really want to see.

 Here's how the lantern looks when it's dark and the tealight is illuminated. Much better than I expected it to come out so I'm very impressed with it.

My seaglass jar is now almost empty so I need to satrt collecting again, roll on the next Spain holiday or UK beach trip somewhere known for seaglass!

Featured over at... Stay At Home Nation

Found a comment on my blog this morning from Iffy (Cameron) from Stay At Home Nation telling me that she had featured my Scrabble Wordplay Decor for this weeks Spotlight.

Thanks very much Iffy!

Scrabble Wordplay Decor

Here's another idea that's been sat on my Pinterest board for quite a while waiting to be done.. finally starting to make a bit of a dent on my to do list of projects, till I find a load more that is!

I found this frame in the Hobbycraft sale ages ago and I used it for a Valentines frame to sit on our mantle, if you wan to see it again then it's here.

I just thought that it needed a bit of a change ok so this is still a bit lovey but isn't as Valentines Day in my head. The backing paper is actually a sample of wallpaper that I picked up walking round a DIY store and then I glued some scrabble tiles on top to finish off a simple, yet cute frame to go on our mantle till the next piece of holiday decor is needed.

All you need is..

So I know just about everybody out there in blogland has given this a go now but I still thought our mantle needed one so I went ahead and made one too.

The chocolate brown and red colourscheme seems to be creeping into our house, and it worked beautifully on this project. Good ol' dulux tester paint pots, what would I do without them lol.

I think the mantle is coming along nicely surrounded by all the bits I've been making :)

I'm linking this to the lovely linky parties listed on the right hand side and to the Simon Says Stamp Challenge

welcome sign tutorial

So we've been in our new place for a month now, the xmas decorations are down and I think it's looking a little empty without them so I'm off on another making tangent to fill the voids the decorations left... So for our inner front door I'm making a Welcome sign.

If you want to make on you'll need:

• Scrapbook paper
• Wooden/ papier mache word sign
• Craft wire
• Mod podge
• White paint
• Pliers
• Craft knife
• Sponge/ brush
• Embellishments (not pictured)
• Sandpaper (not pictured)

1. Cover the forward facing side of your word in mod podge and stick it to the back of your scrapbook paper.

2. Leave to dry and then trim the excess paper down.

3. Using the craft knife very carefully cut round the letters to remove the excess paper so you can see the word fully.

4. Paint the edges of the word with the white paint. Don't worry if it drips over the paper a little bit (I found it gave it character and looked good when I sanded it later). Leave to dry.

5.Once the paint has dried cover the whole thing with a good layer of mod podge and leave to dry.

6. Take a piece of sandpaper and rough the egdes around the word to give it a worn look.

7. Take the wire and the pliers, leave 3 inches at each end of the wire straight, wrap the wire round the nose of the pliers to form the desired number of loops. (I did 6 either side). Repeat for the other end of the wire.

8. Loop one end of the wire through the loop of the 'e' and twist to finish it. Repeat this with the other end using the arm of the 'w'.

9. Your word should now hang beautifully from a hook but if like me you think it looks a little naked then embellish it with ribbons, buttons or whatever takes your fancy!

I'm linking this to the lovely parties listed on the right hand side and also to this weeks Crafty Creations Challenge

Bauble Wreath

I felt the need to make a bauble wreath after seeing so any lovely ones out there on everyone's blogs.. so now our house has a few wreaths but hey I'm sure I can find many places to hang them..
The one thing all the tutorials forget to mention is how fiddly, messy and infuriating the whole process is and after an hour of frustration glueing baubles on I spent another hour picking all the excess glue off lol.
Dread to think how many baubles I've used, I stopped counting after emptying the 4th box, though I was using quite small baubles compared to the majority of people so it's no surprise I needed so many. There was glitter everywhere, over my desk, the chair, the floor and now all down the stairs to the front door where it hangs now lol!

I'm linking this to:

• Someday crafts - whatever goes wednesday
• fireflies & jellybeans - show off your stuff
• a glimpse inside - catch a glimpse
• blue cricket design - show and tell
• crafty cierra - wild wednesday
• creations by kara - look what i made
• the shabby nest - frugal friday
• chic on a shoestring - flaunt it friday
• finding fabulous - frugalicious friday
• funky polkadot giraffe - too cute tuesday
• a little lovely - saturday soiree
• taterots & jello - weekend wrapup
• be different act normal - show and tell

Heart Shadowbox

Really am running out my stash of ikea goodies now, good thing we are going again on monday for some furniture for the new house..think a few future project bits might make their way into the trolley too lol...
So this is glass pebble heart shadowbox I've made, no idea where it's going to hang yet but I love it!
I've used:

• 1 ikea plain wood shadowbox
• dulux muddy puddle paint
• wallpaper scrap (thanks to homebase lol)
• chocolate glass pebbles
• hot glue gun
• scrap of paper

To make it I:

• Painted the shadowbox inside and out with muddly puddle paint (can anyone else my mums obsession with this colour rubbing off on me yet?)
• Glue the wallpaper to the shadowbox backing piece
• Draw out a heart shaped template to draw round on the wallpaper when it's dried to the backing piece.
• Lay out the pebbles to find the best layout to fit in the heart template.
• Carefully take one pebble out at a time and glue it down till all the pebbles are stuck on.
• Even more carefully try and fit the backing piece back into the shadowbox.
• Hang it somehwere and look lovingly at it :)

I'm linking this to...

The shabby Nest - Frugal Friday

Fireflies & jellybeans- show off your stuff

A glimpse inside - catch a glimpse

Tatertots & jello - weekend wrapup party

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

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