Christmas Julekugler

As featured on the Decor8 blog this is a fab video showing Rie Elise Larsen making really inexpensive but effective Christmas decorations called Julekugler. All you need is some patterned paper(you could use wrapping paper), striped twine and small beads. I fancy making these at the weekend!

Decorative Christmas Bags

I saw this image on Pinterest and loved the effect of the opaque print on plastic bags.

For the last few Christmas's I have made dark chocolate truffles for friends and family and popped them into clear cellophane bags with a nice red ribbon. This year I'm going to take it a step further into festiveness, so on Saturday i bought a pretty lace heart stamp and some Stazon opaque ink in cotton white, which can be stamped on glass, plastic, vinyl, metal, leather, paper, porcelain.... well pretty much anything really. I'll post about the results after the weekend.

DIY Christmas Tags

Image from Decor8

I saw this image on Decor8 this morning and thought I would share it with all you lovely people. This is a very simple but pretty idea for creating your own DIY gift tags. Buy some white jewellery tags available from most stationers and a punch in the shape or your choice. Here they've used a pretty Martha Stewart butterfly but you can make them festive with a snowflake. A simple but effective way of making your Christmas pressies look fantastic.

Friendly Fires

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend? We finally managed to get the living room finished last week so when out friends from the west country came up to visit we at least had somewhere comfortable to sit. I was so excited to finally get to use the sofas without plastic sheets all over them.

Last night, Date night, for my husband and I was fantastic. We went tot he Cambridge Corn Exchange to see Friendly Fires. They were awesome live and even though I wasn't familiar with all the songs I'm now tempted to buy their album, it's so funky. The lead singer can definitely throw a few shapes too he was even dancing on top of a lit up box at some points. The lighting and graphic backdrops were amazing, as well as a slow motion video of a flying parrot which features on the front of their new album Pala. Their music is a combination of funk, electronica and indie rock with sounds you would really enjoy on a beach in a far flung place. Check them out!

Image from Friendly Fires

Christmas at The Original Pop-Up Shop

I was reading about this wonderful online store The Original Pop Up Shop on HomeShoppingSpy and just had to share it with you.

Based in Newark and started by a mother and daughter team it only open for the 6 weeks running up to Christmas to make use of a usually closed ice-cream parlour. What a brilliant idea. The shop itself is open from the 26th November until the 23rd December and showcases a wonderful array of scandi inspired decorations.

I am particularly in love with this Cardboard Snowflake Wreath and this leaf wreath.

This handmade crochet Snowflake garland is also very pretty.

I wrote about these Hanging Paper snowflakes last year from RE but these mini ones are even sweeter, dot round your house for full festiveness.

This shop also happens to feature the products of one of my favourite greeting card companies Rifle Paper Co.

All images from The Original Pop Up Shop

3D Paper Ball Ornaments

Just in time for Christmas here is a fantastic project to make 3D paper ball ornaments. They are made from 12 slotted flower shapes that fit together to form a sphere. Apparently no sticking needed just paper in colours of your choice, personally I love the white, it's nice, simple, and festive. If you have a silhouette machine you can make a template in illustrator and cut the shapes using the machine but you could also print out the shapes onto pages and cut out by hand, it's up to you.

The full instructions come courtesy of Jessica at How about Orange. Here are the links for the templates in large, medium and small. Happy Making!

Send in any pics of your attempts and i'll add them to this post.

A weekend of decorating

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Mine was spent decorating the living room, we have discovered that this decorating lark takes a hell of a long time, emphasised by the fact it has taken us about a month to finish one room. Well it's not exactly finished yet but it's almost there. We had a bit of a mishap with paint but that will be rectified this week, and then we just have to finish the skirting and add the wax to floor and we are done. We can then get the furniture in and start enjoying at least one of the rooms of the house. I will post a pic of the finished article soon.

We now have an unused fireplace, it's been blocked up, but we wanted to make a decorative feature of it so we thought we could tile the hearth. We trawled around a few tile places at the weekend and found a few options. One being these Snow Drift Mosaic tiles that come in sheets. They are quite simple but I love the brick pattern. We could go for a dark grout as a contrast or just white to match. What do you think?

Image from Wallsandfloors

We did think about Metro tiles like these but apparently they are not suitable for the floor and might crack so that rules them out. I'd quite them for the kitchen though, someday!

Image from Wallsandfloors

We also considered these National Trust Painters Grey Circle Decor tile but at nearly £10 a piece it was going to end up cost us well into three figures to cover just a hearth which seemed a bit extreme. However they are beautiful.

Images from Fired Earth

Upcycled Expedit

I saw this picture on pinterest and love the way this Ikea Expedit bookcase has be upcycled to look like a piece of unique vintage furniture.

Images from Pinterest and Ikea

I can't believe I never realised you could buy add ons for the Expedit range like drawer and door units and castors. I have this exact style of unit but in the beech veneer and was thinking of selling it on ebay but having seen this alternative use I love it. All I need is some interesting drawer knobs and and a lick of a nice farrow and ball paint colour, next project sorted.

Have any of you upcycled your Ikea furniture, if so let me know and I'll add them to this post.

Designer Window Film

If you're anything like me you will love all things decorative and what better way to spruce up your windows or add privacy through pretty window film. The best designs I've found are on Emma Jeff's website, I particularly liked the Otto design but unfortunately it's sold out. I really fancy something for the front bay window and the bathroom both os these designs would be perfect.

Pearl is also very pretty. They look particularly good on traditional sash windows

Images from Emma Jeffs

Another company that does great designs is Brume. They produce not only plain frosted vinyl cut to any measurement you want but lovely designs such as this Kiss the Cook one which would be great fun for the kitchen.

Image from Brume

Holkham Linseed Paints

I wanted to apologies for not posting much recently, but the house has taken priority.

Well after a long stint redecorating the living room we are finally at a stage of deciding what finish to put on our newly sanded pine floorboards. They look beautiful just as they are but we have found that any type of finish we put on them makes them turn orange. I realise this is because it's pine, but I really can't live with orange floorboards. So as a final option we have ordered some samples of Holkham Linseed Oil Wax from Paint & Paper in clear and grey to see the effects it will have. It is used as a surface protector on unpainted, varnished or painted wooden surfaces, it can apparently be easily applied with a sponge or cloth so sounds perfect but we'll have to wait and see. I'll post the results hopefully this weekend. Love the light limewash effect of the grey.

Images from Holkham Linseed Paints