{A Little Quickie}

Hello!  It feels like I haven't been here for month and months.  Just wanted to post this super quickie DIY I did this morning.

Take a clothes hanger screw in top bit thingy (I don't know their technical name!) and a piece of driftwood and hey presto! you have a driftwood chrissy card hanger.  Super easy - the sort of DIY I can do.

Not long now until Santa comes - hope you have a wonderful Christmas / Festive Season :)

{That Time I Tried Mosaic}

So I broke a little saucer this week.  It was one of those blue and white willow ones that are a dime a dozen at the thrift stores.  So what did I do with it?  I smashed it up alittle more and decided to try and mosaic something.  I bought a little $1 terracotta pot from Masters, waterproofed it and began grouting broken plate pieces onto it, and added a few sand dollars around the top.

I'm actually a little happy with it, but there were a few things I should/could have done better.  (It certainly isn't my worst DIY work!!)

First:  It is so hard to get these little saucer pieces to sit properly because of the round edgey bit on the bottom, so there are a few bits that poke out a bit more than the others.

Second:  Don't stop work halfway through and talk to your mum on Skype for a few hours, or have visitors.  I sort of left the grout stuff a bit too long to dry and it is as hard as a rock, so its not a smooth as it should be!

Third:  Its a very messy job, so I am glad I used throw away containers and plastic tablecloth when I made it!

Fourth:  Now I have to try and keep this little fern plant alive.

{Take Me To The Beach}

Lately I've been fascinated with these products available from Castle

So I decided to try and make my own version of the cushion.

I used five different colours of wool felt and was going to try and make a cushion myself, but saw a plain white one at Spotlight on sale for $5.50, so used that instead.

I printed out the words and cut the felt, and sewed and sewed and sewed and sewed some more!

Finally after 2 weeks of late night sewing whilst watching tv and pricking myself approximately 20 million times, I now have my own colourful quote cushion!

"Take Me To The Beach"

{Fairy Lights & Shiny Things}

If you happen to follow me on Pinterest, read my Five Favourites For Friday, or know me personally, you would know I have a love of fairy lights and shiny things! 

I have so many fairy lights sitting in the cupboard for Christmas time (and a few around the house that I turn on every now and then) so when I came across this brilliant tutorial for DIY Marquee Lights by Sugar&Cloth featured on Grey Likes Nesting, I knew I just had to give it a try.

Last week, there was a bit of excitement around here as Cairns finally got their own Masters hardware store.  I love this store!  Well, at Masters they have a range of wallpaper, including designs from the Laura Ashley range.  You might say - yeah, but what has that got to do with marquee lights?  Well, I'm glad you asked!  Masters let you take a 20cm SAMPLE of their wallpaper range.  How cool is that? (I won't tell you how many different samples I've already taken!)  So I used one of these samples to use in my marquee lights.

I also bought one of those cardboard letters from the discount store and used some battery operated lights that were sitting in the cupboard.  All up I spent a total of $3.00, which was for the cardboard letter.  So not only was my marquee letter easy to make, it was also so cheap.  Gotta love that right?

(supplies:  cardboard letter, fairy lights, pencil, eraser, ruler, stanley knife, coin.  And glue, not pictured)

First I cut the backside of the letter off, and then covered the remaining with the wallpaper sample.  I used just normal glue to stick the two together.  After waiting for the glue to dry, I then followed the instructions to cut holes for the fairy lights from the tutorial here.  Shove the bulbs through the holes and WooHoo:

My own little Marquee letter, made by me!  Finally a DIY I've done that isn't a total disaster!!

 

Linking up with the Say G'day Saturday linky party held by the wonderful Natasha of NatashaInOz.

{Seashell Hangings}

I've wanted a seashell hanging for a long time, and have found some fabulous ones on eBay and Etsy but the problem is, I'm too scared that they are going to break in the mail.

(via Pinterest)

Enter my addiction to seashell necklaces.  Whenever I see one at the thrift store I have to have it.  My collection had started to grow a bit too much so I decided to make myself a 'mini' seashell hanging (a large one would require many more thrifted necklaces and I don't really have somewhere suitable to hang a very large one.)

(part of the 'collection')

I used all the ones that were the same for the main part, and it took me quite a few nights to re-string all the little shells - But I finally finished it!

Ok, its almost finished!  I ran out of fishing line to tie the last couple of bottom star thingy's on (these were off a belt!).  And I need to trim the line, but it's almost finished!

Now what to make out of the rest of the necklaces??!!

{How To Print Your Instagram Pics}

I'm slightly addicted to Instagram.  To me its like blogging, but in real time, and with no words, just hashtags.  You get almost immediate responses and it takes only a few minutes to answer comments or like and comment on other peoples photos.  I love it.  I take part in challenges (including Fat Mum Slims #photoaday challenge) and take photos of everyday life and random things that catch my eye.  Its a non-themed free for all, and you don't have to have things in order or a set way ready to write a lengthy blog post about or around.

Do you print your Instagram pictures?  I must admit most of the photos I've taken I wouldn't need to print, but some of my earlier photos are from when I was on holidays in the US/Canada, and most of these I wanted to have copies of.  Plus every now and then I really surprise myself and take a good picture!  So it would be nice to have these little reminders around and not just out there in internet cyberspace.

There are some good companies that you can upload your Instagram pictures to and get prints in the mail.  But I'm too impatient to wait for them to come from overseas.  I tried one company and couldn't get it to work properly and even after emailing them for help, received no help at all.  So besides being impatient, I also hate spending money.  If I can't thrift it or successfully DIY it I don't really need it!

Which led me to search for a way to print my Instagram photos at home.  I have a half decent printer (that is quite a few years old, and hardly used!) and photo paper.  I have all I need to print them, I just need to know how.

Enter the wonderful Jennifer from SimpleScrapper.  Jennifer has kindly done all the work and provides a free (requires registration) template to use in Photoshop.  (I have Photoshop Elements) And Jennifer provides an easy to understand video tutorial on how to use the template.

First you will need to download your Instagram photos.  I used instaport.me - this is a great tool to use if you want to download direct from your instagram account (an added bonus is you have options about what you want to download.  Either all your prints, ones uploaded on certain dates, or with certain hashtags). After downloading the ZIP file, saving and extracting the files (takes only a few minutes, depending how many photos you are downloading of course) you now have a copy of your Instagrams ready to play with.  

After watching the video tutorial, and a few minutes playing around in Photoshop Elements.....

Taa Daa!  I now have an A4 size photo page with 12 Instagram prints. (One page printed, another 100 to go!!)  Now my dilemma is what to do with them.  Turn them into magnets, put then into a travel scrapbook, make posters, frame them.....the list goes on and on with whats possible!

P.S.  You can find me on Instagram as @iheartsunnydays or you can see my #photoaday challenge photos on my Pinterest board!

{That Time I Tried to D.I.Y a Juju: Part 1}

We all love Juju hats, yes?  Well, I do.  I love everything about them - they have feathers and they are a fun addition to any wall.  I also love Louise's (from Table Tonic) juju's.

(Source: Table Tonic Shop)

The only thing I dont like is the price tag.  Some prices range from a couple of hundred up to onwards of eight hundred dollars.  Now for me, that is a cheap holiday down to Brisbane for the weekend.  And well, I love holidays too, and would much rather spend that couple of hundred on a holiday.

So don't laugh, but I tried to make my own juju!  It ended up being a F.A.I.L. (as I expected!) I googled a few tutorials and ending up doing a mix up of the ones I could find.  So here goes:

I used a wooden round base, double sided tape and of course feathers.  For the end middle bit I had thrifted a bunched up feather thingy that was on top of a ladies hat.  I considered using glue, but thought that might have been a bit too messy and I wanted the feathers to be flufflyish and not hard and stuck together.  I worked the feathers around and around and around until I got to the middle bit.  This is where I glued the bunched up hat feathers.



And this is what it ended up looking like - F.A.I.L.

Now that I've slept on the idea overnight, I think I might have figured out another way.  So I will give this new way a try and will let you know if it FAILS too!!

Some good DIY Juju tutorials I did come across are:

RefreshRestyle

FlutterFlutter

Live from B5

{Bling: Made By Me!}

I have a really, really bad habit of collecting beads, bracelets, charms and things when thrifting.  I have now accumulated a rather large collection for some reason.  If it shines or dangles its mine.  I don't know when this obsession came about or why.

They are taking up too much room, and my glass jar is overflowing with these bits and pieces.  Today I decided to do something about it!

Source: spelldesigns.com via IHeart on Pinterest

Source: thenativestate.com via IHeart on Pinterest

Inspired by the beachy boho creations of Spell & the Gypsy Collective (have you seen their shop and blog?), I came up with my own little creation.

I plaited together some leather strands and added different charms that I had collected.  I'm thinking I still need to add some more to it, but for my first ever piece of handmade jewellery I'm quite proud of how it turned out!  I might have caught the bug too, and have plenty more charms and bits n'bobs to create a few more.

{Broken Nails and Teabags: OR Is Pinterest the new Google?}

I hate my fingernails (even though I have a Pinterest board dedicated to nail art - you know, just in case!)  Toe nails I don't mind and I paint them all the time.  But my fingernails, especially the two thumb ones, keep splitting at the sides.  Normally I just cut them off and suffer with short nails for a few weeks, but this time the thumb nail on my right hand split a bit too far down to just cut off.

Enter Pinterest.  Pre-Pinterest I used to google just about everything.  Now I search Pinterest for anything AND everything (Sorry Google, I still love you). 

So what did I learn?  Tea Bags.  Yep - tea bags apparently fix broken nails!

Cut a small square (big enough to cover your break/split) out of the tea bag.  Using a base coat nail polish, paint your nail .  Whilst still wet, place tea bag square over your split.  I then did another layer of base coat.  When dry, top with whatever polish tickles your fancy!

NOTE:  I had to repair both thumb nails - on the good one I used a blue glittery polish and you can't see the bag at all.  But the one on the left hand (on the right in the picture above)  I used dark polish and the tea bag sticks out way too much.  Plus I smudged it....quite a bit.  So don't use dark polish - unless you can paint your nails properly, which I can't!!!

Now I'll just have to wait and see if the tea bag bit hardens when dried and stops things getting caught it in (yesterday I was trying on a top in a shop and may have accidentally pulled a thread, or two, with my split nail!) 

......And I have to repaint my other nail.

Where do you search for answers on the Internet?  Is Pinterest the new Google for you?