Inspire Me Monday (29.06.15)

I've been a bit distracted this week with decorating my living room. It hasn't been done in four years and needed a fairly major overhaul, so since last Saturday my routine has been sleep, work, eat, paint. Quite literally. Hence no blog post since last Monday. Bleh.

Anyway, all done now and looking gorgeous :)

For this weeks Inspire Me Monday post, hosted by one of my favourite blogs, Create With Joy, I thought I'd share my inspirations for a wedding present I am going to attempt to make for my friend Lara.

 Personalised Bamboo chopping board from Getting Personal 

Life Hacks 101: How to Quickly & Cheaply Paint a Lighter Colour over Dark

I love life hacks. Seriously, I spend my days figuring out or researching ways to get things done as efficiently as possible. Hence my new weekly blog feature - Life Hacks 101.

Welcome to my first installment :)

Mr C and I have recently taken on the challenge of decorating our living room. About four years ago we went through a similar exercise with the same room, but it was a patch and repair job. Now of course, it is much more of a major undertaking, but more on that in a later post.

One of the bigger issues that we had this time is that I wanted an entirely new colour scheme. Well, who wouldn't, right?

We opted for a custom green by Valspar for our chimney feature wall, mixed for us by a lovely chap at B&Q (left) to match the exact colour of our new curtains.

This is accompanied by a cool 'daisy chain' ivory for the remaining walls. The palette is completely the opposite of what we had previously - especially the new lighter green versus the original chocolate brown chimney (what was I thinking?!).

Anyone who has tried to paint a lighter colour onto a darker wall will understand how immensely frustrating it can be. But a few years ago I learned something that changed my decorating life forever, and with a little patience, this light vs dark situation is easy and cheap to fix... honestly.

Just Launched my Etsy Shop....Yay!

I have finally taken the plunge and launched my first and very own etsy shop... Hoorah! 

I'm actually quite excited.... and nervous...I know my store has only four products for now, but more will follow soon as I build, tweak and extend my range.

Inspire Me Monday (15.06.15)

I came across the Inspire Me Monday blog hop hosted by the lovely blog Create With Joy -- since this is a new blog for me and I find everything inspiring at the moment, I thought I'd share my inspirational picks of the week... I know its Tuesday, but what's a day between friends? :-)

I absolutely LOVE making things from wood right now, especially fallen branches and logs. This twig heart is on my to do list - I thought it would make a very cute Christmas decoration, or door hanger for my daughters' rooms.

For the Love of Burned Wooden Spoons - The Pros & Cons of a Dremel Versatip for Pyrography

I recently bought a Dremel Versatip because I needed a hot knife for an entirely separate vinyl project, which actually didn't work out too well. However, I had some old wood left over from a wooden sign project, so I started to experiment with burning some patterns into one. Instant love.

So, lots of research later and I discovered that pyrography was an actual an art form -- I know, it sounds ridiculous that I'd never really come across it before. This is my new obsession. How long it will last I don't know, but I'm currently developing a pyrography product range for my craft business, starting with wooden spoons.... who doesn't love a good old wooden spoon!?