How to make paint dipped pine cones - tutorial

Today I'm going to teach you how to make your own paint dipped pine cones!

This is a really simple craft that even the kids can get involved in. If you have all the bits already like I did then it's also a free craft!

What you need:
Pine cones (obviously!)  I picked up mine for free from the local park.
Emulsion paint - a 1.25 litre can that is more than half full will do.
Broom handles or bamboo canes.
Craft wire - fine gauge.
Large piece of cardboard to catch drips.
2 Chairs to balance your wood across.
Scissors or wire cutters
Optional wooden skewer


1) Set up your workspace

It's a good idea to do this outside - especially if you live in a rented property with cream carpets like I do!
Balance your brooms across the chairs. This is going to be your hanging point to dry the pine cones.
If you have a wooden skewer, use it to stir your paint. The skewer is also handy for pushing your cones into the paint.

2) Prepare the pine cones

Using lengths of the wire (approx 20cm) wrap them around the pine cones between the 'leaves.'
You could also use small screw hooks into the end of the pine cone and attach the wire through the screw - this would be handy if you wanted to make a garland out of your cones. Another way is to make a small hole in one of the 'leaves' using a drawing pin and then you can thread the wire through the hole.

In hindsight, I would buy the screw hooks and use that method as it's quite tricky to untie the wire without taking off some of the thicker paint that hides in the grooves. You live and learn!

3) Start dipping!

Now for the fun part....... submerge your pine cone into the paint until it is fully coated. I used the skewer to push it under. Hold it above the paint can for a minute or two so that the excess paint can drip off before tying the top of your wire around the broom sticks.

4) Leave to dry

It's quite sunny today so mine have dried pretty quickly. I'm going to leave them for an hour or two just to make sure though! (Top tip: when you think they are dry, leave them for yet another hour! The paint is really thick underneath...)

5) Marvel at your creation!

I used some really bright, orange paint as my lounge is really bland. This is a great way to introduce colour to a rented house without losing your deposit!

There are so many variations you can do for this project:

White cones for Christmas and then painted with glitter varnish
Ombre effect cones or two tone dipped cones
Pastel cones for an ice cream effect
Acid brights and neon cones for a trendy house
Shades of grey for a monochrome scheme
Make a garland in different colours to go over the fireplace

Some more inspiration from around the net:

Pastel, dipped and bright pine cones

Pine cone garlands and ombre pinecones

I hope you enjoyed reading about this as much as I enjoyed making them!

P.s Thanks to various people on the net for the pictures above. Sorry that I'm too short of time to credit you!

Make your own typography quote wall art

It's no secret that I'm on a tight budget these days - weddings don't come cheap you know!
I've been wanting to do this tutorial for a little while now but I couldn't justify the new photo frames needed. Luckily though, I found some old frames that I hadn't put up yet so I set to work making myself some new art!

I would say this was moderately easy to do.....I made it all in Microsoft Word.

Firstly, I downloaded a whole load of different fonts from a free, online website. Just google "free fonts" to find some and then you just download them, save them to a folder, open the folder and click the save font box. Easy!  (If that doesn't make sense, the websites usually tell you how to do it....)

I then went on Pinterest for some quote inspiration. When I was feeling suitably inspired, I opened up Word and inserted a text box (insert tab at the top, choose a simple text box and drag it to the shape you require.)
I found this to be the easiest way to write each word and adjust the size. This way, you can place words at different heights and angles.

When you are happy with the design, print it out! Mine are A4.

DIY quote art for simpletons.

I like the first one better than the second one, but by then my fiancé was rushing me about making the dinner (I offered) so I didn't get the proportions quite right!

I'm planning to make a load more, of different sizes and then I'll create a little feature wall of them in my hallway.

What do you think?!

Craft fail: Bicarbonate of soda and cornflour dough ornaments

Bicarbonate of soda and cornflour dough ornaments:

You can blame Pinterest for this one again! I was going to make salt dough ornaments as my wedding favours but then I read a few blogs which lead me to trying this purer, whiter dough instead. Big mistake.

You can find recipes for bicarbonate of soda dough all over the internet. Here are the dry ingredients:

It took me 3 tubs of the bicarbonate to make up 2 cups (it's all in American measurements!) and about half a pack of the cornflour.

Measure out the dry ingredients and bung them in a saucepan.

Add the water and stir it all up. There are little, black bits in my mixture which are the coating of my "non-stick" saucepan. Luckily, they didn't really show in the final dough but I should probably have taken this as a warning to give up!

Heat it on a medium heat until it starts to thicken. Keep heating until it starts to come together as a dough.



Leave it cool (takes quite a while) before tipping it out and making a ball. Knead it until it's smooth.

At this stage, it looks gorgeous! This might work! It could be fantastic! No. It's all lies.

I rolled it out and cut out some shapes.....it was too soft to hold a shape. So I threw a strop and put the ball of dough in the fridge for a couple of hours.

This helped a bit and I re-rolled the dough and re-cut out the shapes and laid them out on a baking tray to dry.

A few days later, they started to crack. You can dry them out in the oven on a low heat but I would think this would make the cracking even worse!

Ok, so they are lovely and white in colour, but the texture is crap. Cracked and quite brittle.
Most of these went in the bin and I still have a large ball of dough in the fridge. What a waste of five quid and my time!

I then went back to the shops and spent more money on some Das air dry clay, which I know works because I used it to make my Xmas ornaments.

Don't even bother trying this craft as it is a waste of money!!!

Unless..... you can send me some pictures of how it's worked for you....and tell me where I went wrong!

How to make a crochet baby shower blanket

On Saturday, I went to my best friends' baby shower! It was so much fun. We played games and ate lots of yummy vegan food, and she got lots of amazing gifts (like a baby grow that said "I'm glad to be out of there, I was running out of womb!)

I decided to make my gift for her after seeing a post on Pinterest for a crochet baby blanket. Here's the original link for a triple yarn baby blanket.

You use three strands of yarn (no wool for my vegan buddy!) for each stitch so it grows quite quickly and feels nice and chunky. I took a trip to Hobbycraft and bought some purple yarns in the sale. This turned out to be a bad idea as one ran out half way through and I couldn't get another ball! This blanket takes maybe 6 big balls of yarn?

 Make your starting chain about 35" / 90cm long so you have a nice wide blanket. I also used a 10mm crochet hook which is quite big.

The easiest way to learn how to crochet the single stitch is to watch a Youtube video. I know this because I spent AGES learning to crochet via a book ("Stitch and Bitch Crochet" by The Happy Hooker) and it was really tough. Crochet is easier to learn if you can see someone doing it!

I wish I had made mine a little bit wider but it didn't really matter. Then you just keep stitching until it grows to the length you want!

I did some of the crochet on my lunch hour at work!

Close up of the single crochet stitch.

At some point, you might need to weave in a new ball of yarn - I just tied a knot between the two pieces but this isn't a very aesthetically pleasing way of doing things! Youtube has some good videos of how to weave in the new colour or strand.

Half way through, I needed to weave in a different colour as I ran out of the thick, purple yarn - so I found a contrasting colour. The yarn was of a lighter weight though, so it did make the tension different. I had to do a border around the edge to make it stay square.....bit of a fail but it worked in the end!

Mixing in the new colour

The finished blanket!

I also bought a cute hat with ears, and a fluffy lion! The blanket did take hours to make but I was really pleased with it and it's inspired me to try and make some crochet cubes as a baby toy.

Can you crochet? Aren't handmade gifts just better?!

Kindle surprise!

After much thought and deliberation (I'm not one to buy on a whim!) I decided to get myself a Kindle from Ebay. I managed to get the keyboard model for £50 with over 900 books on it!

I love to read and I had been using the Kindle app on my phone but I did find it annoying to have the glare of the sun on the screen in the summer.....Today, the sun came out for the first time in a decade and I took my new Kindle outside and felt very happy.

Kindle Keyboard with free case!

A retro armchair in the sun? Yes yes yes!

It's amazing how much better a little sunshine can make me feel. My retro upcycled armchair followed me into the garden and even my zombie skin got a little colour! That's how I spent my afternoon....



I kept my outfit casual and cool. First time this year for a white top! 

In other news, I've been getting out my biggest crochet hook (having been inspired by Pinterest) to make a blanket for my preggers friend. She's a vegan so I made a special effort to find yarn without wool in it. Easier said than done....

Crochet hook size 10mm

This blanket should be quite quick to make as it uses only the single stitch and 3 pieces of yarn as one thread - so it grows really quickly! I've been happily crocheting away whilst watching tv in the evenings.

Single stitch crochet

It's currently a bit bigger than this but I think I've got a while to go yet! Luckily, I've got the next 2 days off - if I don't get distracted by sun worshipping that is....

P.S I know that I've only been posting once a week recently....if the sun continues to shine then I'll have more to post. Pinky promise!



Upcycled pegs tutorial and life lately!

Hello peeps. Another little tutorial for you today. This one is super easy and very cheap!
We're going to make some cute, decorated magnetic pegs to use on your fridge.

They will look something like this:

What you need:
Wooden pegs
Yarn or embroidery thread
Magnetic strips
Buttons
Glue
Nail polish!

Your method depends on how you want your peg to look. Some I painted with nail polish, some I wrapped embroidery floss around one half, others I decorated with buttons and some cat stickers I had from Paperchase!

When you have made your design, simply stick your magnetic strip to the back and start pegging!

Pretty easy, huh? You could make a set and put them in a gift box as a Xmas gift. A nice, 5 minute craft.

In other news, I have been helping my housemate decorate my old room....we saw in the Dulux catalogue a picture of a dark grey wall with a funky orange band across the middle so we tried it out!



Martin was not impressed!

However, it was waaaay too dark so we have started to paint white over the top! Chickens.



Homebase one coat white paint!

I've also been moving house this week and looking at decorating ideas for my own place. I've found some lovely wallpapers recently....



Wallpaper £30 a roll: John Lewis

And coming up soon, I will be collaborating with a gorgeous online decorating boutique so keep an eye out for that! They stock ALL my favourite brands - Jan Constantine, Pip Studio, Missoni, and my latest discovery: Mulberry home! I can't wait....

My last very exciting bit of news is that Marks and Spencers have started selling mini macaroons/ macarons in the chiller section. My lovely Mum bought me some to keep us going as we shifted boxes:

Mini macaroons from Marks and Spencers - £5.49 for 12.

The vanilla flavour is to die for!

Not sure if I'll be posting for a couple of days as it's my birthday on Friday (going to London) and I'll be moving my furniture on Saturday. See you soon!

How to make a "yarn wrapped Xmas wreath" tutorial

Evening! I have a cute, little tutorial for you today. I've got the week off to move house so it's nice to have some time to craft.

This wreath is based on one I saw in Ikea for £10. I had already planned to make a yarn wrapped wreath but when I saw the Ikea one, it gave me the inspiration and the motivation to do it! I'll show you the Ikea one at the end and you can judge whose is better!

So, this is what you are aiming for:

Yarn wrapped wreath!

You will need the following:

A polystyrene wreath shape.
Some wool or "yarn" as the Americans' call it!
Some felt pieces.
Some buttons.



I took apart some old crochet work for the wool.

My wreath shape was from Hobbycraft and cost about £2.20.

The first thing to do is cover your shape with wool. Wrap it round several times until it covers the polystyrene. If you are using two or three colours, wrap them evenly over the top. I didn't glue mine on, I just wrapped the end into the wool.

Make some heart shapes by sewing around the edge of some felt. Leave a gap so you can turn them inside out and then stuff with some wadding.

Attach some ribbon to the top of each one and then tie that ribbon around your wreath so they hang underneath.

To jazz up my wreath, I sewed some buttons on to my hearts and cut out some letters to stick on with a glue gun. I also cut out some bunting shapes out of felt to go through the middle!

(In this picture, the letters are not stuck on as I'm waiting for my mum to bring me a glue gun!)

I was going to write "Merry Xmas" on it but then I wouldn't be able to use it all year round! If you look on Pinterest or Instagram, you can find loads of inspiration on how to decorate your wreath. Simples!

Here is the Ikea version:




They are pretty cute, but mine only cost about £3 to make as I had everything apart from the foam shape! If you give it a go, send me your photos :)