Blackberry and Elderflower Pimms

This was how i spent my bank holiday weekend - Blackberry and Elderflower Pimms with strawberries and mint - y-u-m!

DIY drawer dividers

 

Ive been looking to buy some drawer dividers for our clothing drawers but everything i found was really expensive. Then inspiration struck! I had to shorten a venetian blind in our new house and i've been left with a load of spare slats - now arent they just perfect for drawer dividers!

 

I cut them to the right length and then, because i wanted the ends to be grippy and beause my cutting wasnt 100% accurate, i covered the ends with electrical insulating tape. I used insulating tape as its plasticy and grippy but anything similar would do

 

 

Then you can shove them in place and away you go!

 

 

Theyre not totally secure but they certainly do the job and they were entirely free so i'm happy with them!

Handmade shoe rack

Check out my carpentry skills!! Yes i made shoe rack corner shelves, with my own hands, so very proud! The corner in our cloakroom is a funny shape and i couldnt find anything storage wise to fit in it. So i decided to make my own :)

Basically the most important thing i did was make a template of the area i wanted my shelves to cover. But, because it wasnt a standard shape, rather than cutting a  template to fit the shape, i fitted smaller bits of cardboard into the shape, layering them over each other and taping them down, until i had the shape i needed. I then used this template to see what angles and length i need to cut my wood to.

 

I just bought untreated sawn timber from my local DIY store and cut everything to the correct length using a jigsaw and couple of saw horses for support. Once everything was cut i checked it all fitted and made a few adjustments.

As this was my first every carpentry project i didnt fix everything to the wall permanently at first. I used command hooks first to make sure i hadnt made any stupid mistakes

 

Luckily i hadnt so i sanded and varnished the wood and then fixed it together permanently. I screwed the slats to the supports from the bottom so the screws didnt show and then fixed the brackets directly to the wall - job done!

I think i want to add another shelf, a solid one this time, above so there is somewhere to put our work bags so i'll update you on that if i ever get round to it!


 

Ribbon hanging loops for towels

I always thought everyone added hanging loops to their towels but apparently not! I cant take responsibility for the idea, i copied it from my sister but we've both done this for years so i thought i'd share.

I love it when a towel comes with a built in hook but they rarely do these days so i always add one myself.

Its just a small lenght of ribbon folded over and sewn in place. Pin it first to make sure its in the right place.

Then sew backwards and forwards over the ribbon a few times as it'll need to be strong. You can do this by hand, just make sure its nice and secure

The ribbon ends will fray, especially after youve washed it a few times. You can seal the end with nail varnish but i never bother, it is just a towel after all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade Pitta Bread

I made some delicious home made pitta bread recently, it was so easy i'll definitely do it again.

 

 

I used Paul Hollywood's recipe (love him!) here and definitely try and use a pizza stone, the ones on the stone were much better.

Chocolate biscuits

 

These are made from the left over dough from my ice cream sandwich biscuits - the dough froze well and the biscuits tasted the same as the fresh ones. They do make me crave ice cream though....

Food ID flags

I had a little mini house warming at the weekend and made some Mexican food for my guests. As some of my guests have specific dietary requirements i thought id make some food id flags to make sure there was no confusion. They are simply washi tape wrapped around a cocktail stick with the little triangle cut out of the end to make it more flag like. I wrote on them in silver pen and popped them in their corresponding dishes. Super easy and saved any potential confusion.
[sorry for the terrible photo, i planned to take better ones when they were actually in place but forgot until everything was pretty much eaten and looked like swarm of locusts had attacked so it wasnt looking very photogenic...]

Baby blankets - blue foxes

Another baby blanket - sorry for the terrible photo im still trying to find the place with the best light in my new house. I love this one especially as the fox fabric (sorry cant remember where i got it) makes me smile every time :)

This blanket has no owner as yet but as usual there's plenty of pregnant people in my life :)

Another baby blanket - no owner yet though

I finally got round to setting up my sewing machine last weekend and make a couple of baby blankets. This is the first one and i used some cream minky on the back instead of my usual white and i love it! I'm definitely going to try and incorporate more coloured minky in the future
Just need someone to pop out a kiddo and it'll have an owner!

Nail Varnish Marbling

I had a go at marbling with nail varnish at the weekend and it was fab!

I followed these instructions at Design Mom just used up two old nail varnishes i had lying around and some cartridge paper.

This is my favourite two tone one, love the big swirl of pink :)

And this is my fav one tone one, it hasnt come out very well in the photo but it has a wonderful subtle marble pattern

I did have some fails though - as Design Mom mentions you have to act quickly or the nail varnish dries - leaving bug chunks like on this one :(

But sometimes it just make a more patchy pattern like this one, which i quite like!

I love this technique, im definitely going to try it again, maybe with some bolder colours next time...

Blanket stitch embroidered baby blanket - baby boom!

George Digby Thomas was born on 26th March, a very welcome little addition for Neil and Adriana, and this is his blanket
 

Its a double layer of brushed cotton with white topstitching, a blue blanket stitch edge and a little G embroidered at the bottom corner
 

Simple but made with lots of love :)


 

Rolling magnetic planner - in use :)

Im please to say my magnetic rolling planner is in use in the new house :)

Our old fridge was a built in and therefore not magnetic so the planner used to be on a metal notice board but it always got covered up by other stuff.

But now its got it own proper place, so pleased!