Tea Cup Pin Cushion- EASY PEASY!

Happy happy friday!!!

I'd Like to celebrate this magnificent end of the week with a cheeky little gem to pop on your hobby table, computer desk or to give as a gift to a crafty colleague or thrifty BBF!....

I'll let you into a secret (if you haven't already guessed) NOT ALL crafts and homemade/handmade projects are hard therefore taking forever to achieve the finished object!!

Here is an easy peasy lemon squeezy tea cup pin cushion, it will only cost you a matter of a couple of quid and takes about 5 big whole massive minuets to make!

So here's how....

You will need;

* A tea cup and saucer (I got mine from a charity shop and cost 50p)
* A handful of fine wire wool (enough to just overfill your tea cup) rolled into a ball shape.
* A teeny bit of pretty fabric that's about 2cm bigger then the rim of your tea cup.
* Superglue.

What you do;

* Wrap your lovely fabric over the wire wool (so it looks like an iced doughnut) and secure it in place with little blobs of glue around the edge of the fabric here and there. Put it to one side to dry for a few seconds.
* Run a dotted line of glue around the edge of the tea cup about 1cm from the top and maybe a little blob at the bottom on the inside too, just to be secure.
* Pop your doughnut looking ball in to the cup, fabric facing up (quick sharp now, don't forget your using super glue!)
* Make sure all the edges of the fabric are touching the inner side of the cup, are nicely held in place and you can't see any of the wire wool.
* Put a dab of glue on to the base of the cup and glue it into the saucer (it keeps it steady when your using it)

FINISHED!

To buy this in a shop you will hand over the best part of £10-£15 and YOU have made one for well well well under a fiver!

Enjoy

X X X

Happy Tip Shop Wednesday!

Wednesdays are always such glorious days for me, come rain or shine you will find me scurrying around local recycling centre store rooms (tip shops) and today was no exception, I walked away with a cheeky little bundle of joy containing 6 rolls of vintage wall paper (they are utterly 60s retro happiness), 2 dusky pink hand blown wine glasses and 4 old bath salts jars, all will be carefully cleaned and used lovingly!
I've been foraging for treasure in my local areas for a few years and I have to admit it's become a bit of an obsession....I think i can be classed as either Stig of the dump or a country pirate!
You can literally find anything from vintage typewriters to giant bags of vintage lace or original illustrations to WW2 amo trunks....... I LOVE IT!

RULES;

1, Don't get carried away, it's so easy to think that Ming looking vase will go for millions on eBay...It just doesn't work that way, my local recycling centre manager owns a Range Rover sport....go figure!
2, See it, hold it, own it....especially on a Saturday. 50 year old men take no prisoners when they want what YOU think your going to buy.
3, Haggle,Haggle,Haggle - NEVER take there first price even if it's 50p!
4, And finally....Leave the diamond rings and Rolex (i wish) at home...it will mean the difference between paying £1 and £21

HAPPY TIP SHOP WEDNESDAY!

TA TA for now x x x

Broken China Ring

I LOVE the little gem of ring and I hope you will LOVE it too!!
So all of us china lovers have all been there (me more than most as i'm ridiculously clumsy!)... Your parading around the kitchen with your bestest most best Emma Bridgewater platter or beautiful vintage floral china then OOPS how did it end up on the floor in 10 pieces! (BLAME THE DOG!)
This is by far one of my all time fav' methods of upcycling chipped china and looks wonderfully darling AND is super duper easy peasy!...

What you need:

* 1 piece of broken china (maybe from the floral part, as big as you would like your statement ring to be, I like irregular shapes too)
* Protective gloves.
* Fine sand paper
* Super glue
* Jewellery ring base (you can get adjustable metal bases from any good craft shop or eBay and cost about 50p each)

What you do:

* Pop on your gloves
* Take a pretty piece of broken china. (if you don't have a small enough piece take a hammer to it down the bottom of the garden CAREFULLY!)
* Sand all the sharp edges of the china, the more you sand the more it looks like one of this wonderful pieces of bone chine you find washed up on the beach!
* Drop a blob of glue on the round base of your ring and carefully stick the china piece on - HOLD - Ta da!!!!!

See easy!

Ta Ta till tomorrow! X x x

Zakka style!

A little bit is Saturday vocab for you...
Why not add the word Zakka to your memory bank this year, courtesy of my my newly discovered fetish, Mollie Makes magazine, I have been introduced to this wonderful new word!

Zakka, it's a japanese word meaning "many things" and to capture the feeling of surrounding ones self with pretty kitsch wares, and to notice the beauty in everyday objects.

Fabric designer Rashida Coleman-Hale has edited a glorious new book about Zakka style with 24 wonderful ways to Zakka!

I'm off now to see how many times I can say Zukka in one day!

X x

Drafty crafty solution on a budget

I don't know about you, but when something catches my eye that I don't like (even if I've loved it in the past) I can't stop looking at it, it sticks out like a sore thumb and I get major eye twitch!
My very old draft excluder was in the "eye twitch" box and my inner OCD was screaming to either lob it (not really what I ever do) or make do and mend. So here's what Clairey did next....

Super duper quick, cheap and cheerful wind stopperer!

You will need:

*An old draft excluder, cushion stuffing or a load of old rags (to scrunch up and use as stuffing)
*some beg, borrowed or freshly "stolen" fabric (I used some old cushion covers that i had cut up and re sewn back together to make enough length of fabric for this project)
* A needle and thread (if you have a nice cuppa and your feet up) or a sewing machine if you just want it done now!
* ribbon

What you do:

*Measure your cushion length and width or if your using loose stuffing, how big you want it to be (width of your door) leaving an extra 10cm of fabric loose each end.

* Fold both the small ends over (by about 3cm) to give nice neat ends and sew or blanket stitch (that looks really sweet too).

* Fold the fabric in half lengthways (pattern facing in) pin and sew a strait stitch along the long open edge joining the two edges together making a tube shape, make sure the tube is big enough to slide your cushion into.

* Now turn it the right way out (pattern facing out) and give it a good neat iron.

* side your cushion through leaving the extra fabric bits at either end free or if your hand stuffing, tie one end with a ribbon first then stuff and tie the other end.

* Tie both ends with a twee bow and give it a little kiss.

There you have it!!

Ta Ta till tomorrow x

Instant beautiful cake stand

This year my niece and I are planning on forcing our home baking on the masses by entering a sponge or two in to the Romsey show (as inspired by the our national treasure Kirstie Allsopp!) a tradition we need to embrace to keep going!
Any how, I'll be trying to bag more points (not that I'm trying to compete against my 14 year old niece or anything) and entering mine on a home made cake stand and if you've tasted my cakes before you will know they are very hit and miss so I'll need all the help I can get, it takes seconds to make and not only looks über chic but utterly twee and charming!
Also on the plus side, I found the glass and plate in a charity shop for 75p and pinched the glue from Daddio (you can get some from any good hardware store)

Here's how...

You will need:

A pretty dinner plate
A thick stemmed glass
Poxy glue

How to make:

*Give everything a good scrubby clean and dry.
*Dab a liberal amount of poxy glue on the upturned base of the glass.
*Press it firmly onto the centre of the base of the plate.
*leave it to dry

THAT'S IT!

You can wash it as you need, just don't chuck it through the dish washer, i'm sure it's fine but i've not tested it yet.

Perfect perfect table center, perfect perfect gift and hopefully perfect perfect way to nab a colour in the cake contest!!

Ta ra for now
X x

Tea pot obsession!

As you will surely find out I have a little tiny obsession with tea sets, I just can't help myself and am on a constant NEED TO HAVE basis when it comes to those beautiful twee little piggies. I have about 10 tea pots all purchased on a budget either from charity, car boot or tip shop and was thinking just the other day...what am I am I am I am I going to do with all of this china!
Then as if by coincidental magic I find this glorious idea for my Kitchen garden!
So today I shall be drilling holes in the bottom in prep for all my wonderful herbs.
It's looks darling and is a super cheapy cheap way to chinz up your yard.
Why not celebrate with a little afternoon tea (if you have a tea pot left)
Ta Ta for now x x

One for the vintage and knitting lover

So super quick and gloriously inexpensive!

You will need:

Vintage plastic knitting needles
Bubbling water on the hob
Spaghetti tongs

Easy peasy instructions:

* Treat the needles like spaghetti and slowly lower and bend them in to the boiling bubbling water (be super carefull)
*One they look nice and flexy (5-7 mins)Pick them out with the tongs and bend them with your hands (they won't be hot just quite warm as they cool down quick sharp)
*Hold them into place or pop them inside a cup to form a wrist size bangle shape
*TA DA!!
*I wear 3 at a time and give 3 as a gift!
ENJOY! X x