Quick Update: Chalkboard Jar Labels

I am not going to profess that this is particularly 'home made', but this is a nice, quick update to make your food storage a bit more organised (and a little bit prettier!)

This was my jar storage before:

I purchased my chalkboard labels from eBay and my chalkboard pens from Amazon. I got a pack of 8 labels and 4 pens, as a 4 pack wasn't much more than a single pen and these ones had good reviews:

I was going to copy a font from somewhere and then I decided that would just be frustrating and difficult and would defeat the point of the 'quick' update, so I just free-styled in my normal handwriting:

I then carried on, carefree and stuck them on by eye, careful to avoid air bubbles, but not careful enough to worry about using a ruler, or any of that jazz:

And do you know what? I'm pretty pleased with the result. They help bring a little bit of cheer and order to our otherwise quite depressing kitchen (note the mastic on the bare walls behind the shelf!)

This wasn't the thriftiest update ever, with the labels and pens costing just under £13, but I now have 4 chalkboard pens for all sorts of projects and I'm glad I got long-lasting chalkboard labels (they're even dishwashable!) and didn't opt for something cheaper, as I think they look great!

PS In case you're wondering... our jars are mostly from the 99p Store, except the large ones, which are Ikea Korken jars.

Recipe Book Makeover

Today I'm decorating our recipe book- a three section Pukka Pad- where we gather all of our favourite recipes from family, friends, the internet and cookbooks:

I cut out images from magazines, used labels from food and even a handy guide to bicarbonate of soda v.s baking powder to cover the front and back:

The end result is much more colourful and fun (but also safe from food flying off the electric whisk because of the plastic cover!)

Now I just need to work on the inside...

Greetings Card Art

I wanted something to brighten up our (very magnolia) bathroom and something that would remind me of holidays and happy places and when Dave received this lovely Birthday card from my Mum and Step Dad, I decided it would make perfect bathroom art:

I adore this picture of Port Isaac in Cornwall. It's by Susie Grindey who is absolutely amazing- I adore her style and am trying to pick an original to ask for very nicely as a Birthday present (I have fallen in love with them, but my Birthday isn't until May!) I'm thinking one of Bath as I went to uni there and it holds lots of happy memories for me, or maybe one of Cornwall, where we spent lots of holidays as children and still do now. They're all so lovely, it's impossible to choose!

Anyway, for now I have popped it in an Ikea Nyttja frame to get my fix:

So now I can dream of beaches, ice creams and the beautiful Cornish coastline every day, ahhh.

Bunting Birthday Cards

We've been having a New Year's clearout and I've promised to cut down my boxes and boxes of 'craft stuff', so I thought I'd make a start with Birthday cards. I got out lots of leftover scraps of tissue paper, sugar paper and wrapping paper:

I then cut out lots of little triangles from the paper and grouped them together into similar colours to make bunting:

This was a lot of fun and once the triangles were cut out, it was really quick to glue them on and draw the 'string' and I think the overall effect is quite cute. Just a shame I chose a design that barely used up any of the craft stuff!

Now I've done this, it's making me think about a cloth bunting project... watch this space!

A Lick of Paint

I have set tonight aside for doing all of those things I keep putting off, like sewing buttons back on and filing the paperwork currently strewn over the desk. One of those things is to coat my trusty old Ikea magazine files in cream tester pot paint to make them match our red and cream living room a bit better:

As you can see, this is not their first re-modelling. I am a big fan of wrapping things in wallpaper/wrapping paper to jazz them up a bit (but for now I'm going all sensible and magnolia!)

In their rightful place with the Christmas monkey :)

Flowers

This evening I finally got round to making something from Eithne Farry's beautiful book- Lovely Things to Make for Girls of Slender Means. I picked a simple project- fabric flowers, which are based on a template drawn around a mug:

With hindsight, I should have used a plain fabric, as this one is only coloured on one side, which doesn't make for such a pretty flowery effect. I haven't yet built up my fabric supplies though, which is why everything is made from this one rather bright pattern from Ikea. I would quite like to attach brooch backs to these for cute Christmas presents... watch this space.

On a separate note, whilst buying flowers may not usually be thrifty, I think that these reduced-to-45p sunflowers from the supermarket have rather brightened up our living room and so far have lasted nearly a week. When combined with the lovely sunshine we had today, it almost feels like summer again!