Come now sing with me, Proper Crimbo!

My housemates and I had our Christmas dinner together at the end of last week. We decided to be incredibly lazy and go out for food rather than make it ourselves as there wasn't a time during a weekend when we'd all be here together during December and quite frankly I'm not sure who can be bothered to cook a roast with all the trimmings after a long day at work! Instead, we ended up in Wetherspoons, and considering I only spent just over a tenner I managed to stuff myself full with two courses plus a big glass of wine! The perfect arrangement really! 

We decided that house Christmas would be the perfect opportunity to swap our Secret Santa presents (although if you've ever managed to keep Secret Santa a secret when there's only three people involved you clearly haven't thought hard enough about the logic behind it!). Our limit was only £5, and I had loads of ideas for presents, but very few ideas that wouldn't break the budget. I ended up having a crafty brainwave and nipped to Leeds Markets for some pretty fabric to set me on my way with making some pictures for my friend's wall. I thought I'd share my idea with you as its incredibly simple and a great way to give somebody a pretty little personalised present without too much trouble! 

To make some similar wall art then all you need to do is follow these few instructions and you'll have a present sorted in no time!

You will need:
Two patterns of fabric (I bought 1/2 a metre of each but you actually only need about 1/4m really!)
Two canvases (I used these mega cheap canvases from Wilkinson's because I knew I could cover up the picture!)
Pinking Shears
Scissors,
Wall staple gun (working in education means I have pretty easy access to these, if you're not as lucky, super glue would do the trick too!)
Super Glue
Letter templates

Instructions:
Measure your fabric out around the canvases you are covering, making sure you have enough to cover the sides properly.

Staple/glue the fabric to the canvas.

Print off a template of the letters you'd like to use on the canvas- I made mine to fill an A4 Word Document.

Pin the template to the fabric and cut out the letters using the pinking shears.

Glue the letters onto the canvas.

Seriously, its that simple! What are you waiting for?

Let me know if you give it a try yourself!

Propa Crimbo- Bo Selecta

(Not the most traditional of festive songs but its a great guilty pleasure!)

Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise

Lisette who writes a delightful little blog over at Lisette Loves coined a great little expression, NPA (nosy people's anonymous), in her post earlier today. Doesn't that sum up the world of blogging so well? We're all guilty of enjoying a sneaky little peek into other people's lives, so on that theme I thought I'd give you a look at some of the birthday presents my lovely friends gave me. They know me too well, and know how excited I get about new homey bits and bobs and so I was over the moon when I had the pleasure of unwrapping all of these beauties over the weekend. 

1. A girl can never have too many moustaches. They're a symbol of fun times during my uni days and will always make me smile.

2. Brownies in a jar- such a great idea... I'm dying to make them but can't bring myself to yet because the jar looks far too pretty! 

3. Wise, wise words. A very fitting gift for the girl who just forwent a trip to the gym in favour of coming home and eating approximately 1000 malteasers.

4. A frame made of a map of Merseyside to remind me of home. I decided Mama and Papa T were the most deserving people to be put in this frame. 

5. An incredible cushion in the same fabric as the basket and frame I posted about here. I'm loving having a few matchy matchy bits in amongst all of the other fabrics and colours in my room.

So there you have it fellow NPA's... a little insight into how lovely my friends are. I got some other fab bits and bobs too which I'm sure will appear as part of outfit posts and other things soon!

The Chain- Fleetwood Mac

Don't throw your fortune away

I arrived home after work today to the most lovely treat ever. I found out at the weekend that I'd won Linda from Hey! Homewrecker's Love Birds giveaway and today was the day that the little parcel dropped through my letterbox. Linda is the queen of all things crafty and this little Love Birds picture is just too gorgeous (as soon as I'd torn through the paper I was straight in there knocking a nail into the wall for it to hang on opposite my bed). Check out her blog, its full of incredible crafty bits and bobs and beautiful colours and fabrics. Plus, as if the parcel wasn't amazing enough enough already, she also included a note inside the cutest illustrated card too (made by her sister), how perfect are those foxes?! AMAZING! 

And onto another crafty lady, my buddy Charlie made me this pretty lining for a basket that I bought a few weeks ago. It originally came with a blue and white gingham lining which reminded me a little too much of my old primary school summer dress, so we marched down to the market to pick something a bit less uniform and a bit more Kaz friendly. That's where my input into the basket ended... I have absolutely no sewing skills whatsoever. I used to sneak my textiles work home for my Mum to add to every week and then sit there pretending to thread needles every week in lessons (actually... I probably didn't need to pretend, it takes me about an hour to thread one anyway!). Luckily, Charlie's a lot better with a sewing machine than I am so happily stepped in to make this for me. Now I have a pretty place to store my hairdryer, make up bags, and a frisbee (not quite sure how that ended up in there). 

Lucky for me, there was just enough fabric left over for me to pretend to be good at making things too. I'd bought a frame on mine and Michelle's unromantic Valentine's day in Ikea last week and decided I could turn it into something fun. And voila, one frame (made in much the same way as the noticeboard we made a few weeks ago), lots of buttons and a lot of superglue later, this creation was formed. I'm a bit too haphazard and DIY inept to keep up with Linda and Charlie's work, but I did myself proud here. Even if the heart is a bit wonky and uneven if you look at it too closely. 

Inhaler- Foals

Take me, take me, home, home

My flatmate and I finally decided last week to finally get round to putting up some sort of decoration in the living area. About time really as we've been living here for 7 months or so now. And so, after talking about it and talking about it for months on end, we took a trip to Dunelm for the final bits we needed to make a noticeboard for photos, shopping lists and all the other knick knacks that accumulate over time. 

I really don't know what took us so long, this pretty little noticeboard was so simple to make and has made such a difference to brightening up our big bare wall. If I didn't have so much other stuff up on my bedroom walls already I'd be making myself another... I say this, but I can guarantee I'll get bored in a few weeks and end up hammering a load more holes into my walls so I can have one of these beauties by my bed too. If you're looking for a cheap and cheerful present for somebody, then something like this is absolutely perfect- there are loads of similar things in shops and online that are all way more expensive (I'm talking from experience here having bought a similar noticeboard from Sass and Belle a year or so ago and as much as I love it, I am now wishing I'd just made my own).  

If you want to make one yourself all you need is: 

1 large photo frame/canvas

wadding (enough for a double layer if you're working with a chunky frame like ours from Ikea)

fabric (half a metre should be plenty for a similar sized frame to this one)

between 3/4 metres of ribbon

a staple gun

If you're using a frame, just remove the glass pane and then use the backing board as your base. Cut the wadding to the same size as the board/ canvas, using one or two layers depending on how thick your wadding is (tip: make sure you can still close the frame behind all the extra padding!). 

Then take your fabric and fit it around your base/canvas so you can then staple the edges of the material to the back of your base, making sure you pull the fabric tight so it fits snug against the wadding and doesn't hang loose.

Once you've secured the fabric to the board, work out where you want your criss crosses of ribbon to go, then cut each strip to size and staple the ends to the back of the board. Again, its really important to make sure these are nice and tight, otherwise you'll have trouble keeping your photos and notes in place.

If you're using a canvas, at you're all done and dusted now, if you use a frame like we did you now just need to pop it all back into place and secure the board into the frame. 

Then fix to your wall, take a step back and admire the pretty noticeboard you've just created!

It really is incredibly simple, we managed to complete ours in the time it took for this lemon drizzle cake to bake.

Home- Daughter