Crochet

I have been REAL busy crocheting lately and our blanket is close to the "finished" status - something I'm really looking forward to. I bought a lovely book (will share sometime soon) with 500 crochet pieces and have been trying out different stitches and patterns for our blanket. It will be a real patchwork/quilt/blanket/piece of art, hehehe....

So far I've made 70 blocks and have about another 30 to go, phew! What do you think?

Happy day!

DIY lampshades

With "designer" light-bulbs all the rage now, I would think a bespoke lampshade covered in your favourite fabric would be a fabulous addition to any room in your home.

from decor8 blog

decor8 blog

Click here to read the tutorial by decor8 on how revamp a shade for your own designer lampshade

from dottie angel

You can buy an uncovered lampshade like the one above from Lampshade Studio in Somerset West (ZA) or up-cycle one of your old shades. I like to visit thrift shops and junk yards and I'm certain one can find something special there too.

pretty lace covered shade (pic source)

What I like about these is that it is simple and inexpensive.  If you want to change the cover of the shade again, all you need to do is peel off the old fabric and start with a fresh idea. 

For the designer light bulbs the possibilities are infinite. Try here on the 1000Bulbs(dot)com website, if you like the antique look or here on Plumen, for something more modern.

one of my favourites from here

I love this one from Plumen

Happy day!

Goodbye Christmas

Well, the home-made advent calendar has been raided of it's treasures and it's almost time to pack up the Christmas decorations. Our biggest gift this year was to have The Captain home for Christmas. Below are a few pictures of my home-made Christmas decorations. The advent calendar was a total up-cycled project; one that I'll give a bit of a "twist" for next year.

Happy day!

Fimo clay tealight holder tutorial

Okay, so when I saw this, I thought it just too cute not to share!

Image source

Image source

I saw it on the Hearthandmadeuk website and you can just follow the link to see how it's made. I absolutely adore it!

Happy day!

DIY decor for Halloween

When our kids did trick-or-treating the other evening for Halloween, I was rushing around to make some last minute decorations to add to the atmosphere a bit. With some orange fabric and green felt, I managed to make a (little bit weird looking, but that's part of it, no?) pumpkin to put outside with all the other freaky stuff.

A couple of antelope skulls, old food tins painted black (for candle holders), the pumpkin and a witches hat over the back of the chair... It  looked pretty awesome, especially when I lit the candles after sunset. The skulls we found in the veld in the Karoo a while back and it was the perfect opportunity to put them to good use.

Happy day!

Shoe makeover

I saw some fabulous shoe makeovers done by Kelli of Kellism and decided to try this myself. It's a fantastic craft for anyone, especially for kids on those cold, wet, winter days when they have absolutely "nothing to do".

This is one of Kelli's designs:

from her Facebook page, here

And here are one of my own creations:

I had so much fun making these that this will be on my Christmas gift list for some people. All you need is a pair of white canvas shoes, fabric or acrylic paint and a bit of patience. For the rest, just go wild with your designs and enjoy!

Happy day!

Make-over

I bought this old "bar-stool" at our local second-hand furniture store for about ZAR 60.00 and it sat in a room for AGES before I finally got down to doing something with it, sooo.....

from this......

to this......

I'm real happy with the way it turned out!

Happy day!

west elm

I love on-line catalogues, and the latest one from west elm  features several South African designers who worked in collaboration with west elm. You can see the catalogue here.

Designers like Gemma Orkin whom I wrote about here . 

South African ceramicist John Newdigate creations like these

Potter's Workshop

John Vogel furniture

There's much, much more of course, but I'll run out of space here before I posted even half the pictures I'd like for you to see.

For more info on South Africa and other designers, click here. There are links to places to eat, stuff to see, a couple of videos and a profile of all the designers.

Happy day!

DIY - concrete vessels

I've been wanting to make these for a very long time and the bag of ready-mix concrete was sitting there waiting for me to do something with it.

I will ask The Captain to drill a hole in the bottom

and use this one as a pot for a small succulent plant.

All you need is a few plastic containers. Get a ready-mix concrete mix

and once it's mixed, pour it into your plastic vessels. 

You then press another smaller plastic container into the concrete and push it down,

but not all the way down. Pour some heavy stones or sand into it to weigh it down.

Allow it to dry and then remove the outside container and then the inside one.

Allow for it to dry on the inside

For the round one I used a plastic bowl like this one

I like this shape a lot and I think I'll make a few more of these. 

It will make a nice gift if you put a small plant in there, no?

Happy day!

Crochet bunting

So, I've been busy yet again with a bit of crochet and this is the result; crochet bunting. These are perfect for indoors and outdoors and I'm planning to make one with bigger "flags" to string up in our trees, as soon as the weather warms up a bit. 

I'm also thinking of a few in more muted colours, for kid's rooms. As soon as I have a couple ready, I'll post some photo's.

Happy day!

Green graffiti

I saw pictures of Green Graffiti for the first time on the Facebook page of Du Cote de chez Vous and loved it soo much, I had to find out more about it. I found  lovely images and recipes here, here and here.

image source

image source

In the meantime I had made my own and I'm anxious to see it grow into lush, green moss. Here are some photo's of what I did....

 Freshly harvested moss is the best

 Most of the soil rinsed off....

 Not very appealing, but it's not for drinking anyway...

 Moss goo, ready to be painted....

Painted on the wall of our shed

I'm adding some corn syrup to the remainder of the paint to see if it will be thicker and easier to paint with. The painted "wall" is South facing (in the Southern hemisphere) which is ideal for the moss to grow. For now we are very curious to see what happens over the next few weeks. 

Watch this space!!