A crafty Sunday

An obliging curtain offered up the fabric for today's little experiment, yet another handbag (you can never have too many). Keep your eyes peeled for handles in thrift shops or you can find a good range on eBay too. I hope you're all finding new and interesting ways to nurture your crafting souls.
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It's not actually uneven at the bottom, just poorly positioned by me.

A handy dandy pocket is essential for every good bag.

Review - Mollie Makes Home

I recently purchased the special edition of Mollie Makes Home, published on 31 January 2013. I've purchased a few copies of this magazine over the last year or two and decided to splurge the £9.99 for this special edition which promised to focus on a range of creative spaces and tutorials for a range of projects.

The bad news first: if you're a regular reader of this magazine or visitor to the website you're going to feel a strong sense of deja vu the whole way through this. Much of this looked familiar to me, especially the project tutorials.

The good news: this edition contains beautifully shot images full of inspiration for any crafty soul. It also had Q&A's with a great bunch of people from the craft scene both in the UK and abroad. My favourites were the Selina Lake, Pilgrim Lee and Penelope Durston pages.

I'm definitely inspired to have a crack at the tutorial from Lola Nova for a fabric headboard and Nicki Trench's quilt (which I have already made in my mind and can picture it perfectly on my bed).
So the upshot  is, if you have a spare tenner and are new to the world of Mollie Makes then I highly recommend this special edition.

Cushions- how many is too many?

Last month I wrote about creating a cool round cushion cover based on a fabulous thrifty recipe from the Granny Chic book. Since then I've become slightly carried away and made three more cushions from fabric scraps and tea towels. I'm using the excuse of having a new bench in the kitchen which just wouldn't look right if it wasn't adorned with a few cute cushions.

Pretty-ing up the kitchen bench

My own little village isn't marked on this tea towel but I still love it.

This is a super simple envelope design - no zips!

This is another tea towel with a zip closure.

Keep your eyes peeled for new or old tea towels that catch your eye or have some special meaning for you. Making them into a cushion cover is an easy way to keep the memories fresh and part of your home. You could also turn them into simple zipper toiletry bags or maybe even a set of quirky curtains or a quilt. Good luck stitching!

Hallway collections

What do you want your hallway to say about you? When the visitors to your home enter what is the first impression you want to make on them? Hopefully it's not something along the lines of "So, this is where good taste comes to die" or "I wonder how I can make a quick escape without this crazy girl noticing".

It's a constant battle for me to keep my tiny hallway tidy. There are just too many shoes and handbags vying for space and the cupboard where the coats are kept needs the application of both a knee and shoulder to the door before it will close. I know what you're thinking- time for a clear out. If only it were that easy.

Anyway, instead of focusing on the negatives I decided to add another bit of clutter crafty goodness to the area. I already had a little collection of objets d'craft behind the front door (see below) which were themed red and had a few of my favourite bits and bobs, especially the mirror, a gift from a much loved Aunt.

For a good couple of months now I've had a line from an old Ben Lee song stuck in my head. The song is called 'Light' and I've liked this guy for a long time now and have fond memories of seeing him perform at the bar in my old University. Anyway I wanted to get the lyrics the attention they deserved and the result is the canvas below which is now hanging in my hallway. Hopefully it won't wierd out newcomers to house too much but frankly, who cares?! I used a wooden frame from Ikea and then stapled on my stitched-together fabric squares, topped with my embroidered handkerchief.

I know the purists out there in Embroidery Land would be shaking their heads and tutting at the thought of wonky, free-styling stitching like the sort here, but to me, something that mimics your own handwriting is a lovely way to capture a part of yourself and immortalise it for all time (or at least until you get fed up of seeing it and can't remember what the words meant).

Discovering the wonders of chalk paint

For a while now I've been reading about this magical, easy to use chalk paint by Annie Sloan. I liked the sound of it because apparently you don't need to sand and prime surfaces before painting- excellent for getting jobs done quickly and with much less mess. The other bonus about this paint is being able to change the consistency by adding water or leaving it to thicken depending on the finish you want.

I struck it lucky finding a stockist of the paint in a nearby town and settled on the 'Original' colour which is creamy off-white. I also picked up some of the soft, clear wax which is needed for a protective finish.

Over the last week I've enjoyed getting stuck into a little furniture upcycling of an evening and I tackled an old bedside cabinet and mirror. The trick with distressing furniture is to make sure it stays the right side of chic and doesn't veer too far towards shabby. It pays not to be overzealous with the sandpaper.

Sad cabinet before

In need of some care and attention

After!

Looking much better

Cute mirror for the top of a new tallboy.

My Christmas present to myself finally arrived this week. For a long time now I've fancied having a bench in the kitchen and in December I spied the very thing whilst browsing ebay - an antique church pew, well half a pew to be accurate. These pews had been salvaged from an old chapel where they had been cut in half. As you can see they were pretty well used (that's putting it nicely). Either way, I didn't care, my heart was set on one. I had hoped I might be able to leave the pew in its original glory but sadly she was looking a bit too worse for wear and decided to give her the Annie Sloan treatment.

Before

Note the cute carving on the side

I gave this cutie two coats of chalk paint before adding one coat of wax and then sanding lightly. I added another coat of wax and then buffed her up. All in all, it was a very quick process, this paint dries quickly. I'm looking forward to brunching on this baby tomorrow and for many meals to come!

I think this may call for more cushions.