A quick messenger bag

Hello fellow bissums,

sorry for the radio silence. What with it being a glorious Scottish summer and all I've been out in the garden watching nature do it's thing. I've also been sunning myself in Venice for a week and nourished my creative soul and satisfied my desire to eat gelato for seven days on the run.

Anyway while I was in the Veneto, it struck me that the tea towel is surely one of the most ubiquitous of holiday souvenirs. It's a daily reminder of cheery times spent with people you love in (hopefully) unforgettable destinations. But eventually, the poor wee thing gets washed out and stained with lord knows what in the quest to keep your kitchen tidy. What if there was a way to combine everything that is functional and practical about the humble tea towel, with a stylish reminder of good times had on holidays I pondered?

I've had a little habit going for a while now of sorting through piles of tea towels in thrift shops and choosing the best ones to take home to add to my fabric family. I like to take a moment and imagine who purchased each one and how they felt about being in their chosen destination. Or perhaps it was an unwanted gift for someone who wasn't lucky enough to be at said destination. In any case my collection has grown steadily. I was most thrilled to find one of the old school calendar tea towels from the year I was born and some from the part of Scotland in which I now reside. I chose however, for this remake, to use a gorgeous tea towel from New Zealand, my home country which had a pretty collection of stamp images and a map of NZ. I should have taken a snap of her in her original glory before snipping her up.

Handy outside pocket on the back of the bag

Another handy little inside pocket

Anyway, after a little googling I came across a fab tutorial for a simple messenger bag and thought it was the very thing for my project. I used an old pillow case for the lining and a salvaged piece of navy corduroy for the main fabric. It was quick and simple to stitch up, no fastenings or zippers here. Next time you're thinking about ditching a pile of old tea towels think again and get thee to thy sewing machine pronto (like the way I casually dropped in some Italian lingo there?)!

xx

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.

Lamp makeover

I've always really admired the style of Dottie Angel and Ted & Agnes. They're the author's of 'Granny Chic: Crafty recipes & inspiration for the handmade home from Dottie Angel and Ted & Agnes'. One of the cool ideas in the book involves tarting up an old wire lampshade with scraps of your favourite fabrics and I decided to try my hand at it.

I picked up a scalloped wire shade in a thrift shop for £1 and cut the old cover off and used scraps and doilies from my collection for recovering. It can be a wee bit fiddly but once you get the first few scraps on, it's much easier. The trick is keeping the fabric taut and pinning and stitching as you go makes that easier.

I heartily recommend the book if you're serious about cultivating a love of all things granny chic. The photography is fantastic and the can-do spirit of the authors is inspiring.

Crocheting with t-shirts

After what can only be described as a horrible but thankfully temporary loss of crafty mojo it's come back full swing with a little help from my good friends. Apologies for the hiatus.

When you meet a true crafting genius you begin to feel that everything is possible and there's no limit to what new skills you can learn. For me, my crafty soul mate is Marion, my fellow Bissum. Fueled by cakes and bucket loads of tea, I came away from a weekend with Marion having tried my hand at needle felting for the first time, rug making with wool and hooks and crocheting with strips of unwanted fabric.

Marion presented me on my arrival at her lovely home with the worlds fattest crochet hook. This beast promised to allow creation of bigger stitches and larger items in record time. It did not disappoint and not that I want to play favourites with my hooks, but this could be the best one of all.

We set to work cutting old t-shirts into a long continuous strip of fabric, stretching as we went and rolling it into a ball of yarn. I decided a new bath mat was in order so off I went using a simple treble crochet to whip up this mat in no time. It's 50cm across in diameter giving an overall circumference of around 160cm. Not bad for two old t-shirts eh?

Restyling junk

Ever wondered what to do with some of the junk and ornaments you have lying around the house, or find in your local thrift shop? Well today I came across this guy, Chad Wys, who has taken upcycling to a whole new level. Check it out...