Fancy boxing

Look. I know alright. I know I have been slacking again. Im not even gonna bother this time with excuses either because lets face it they are very few and far between. I've just been lazy!

Do you remember a while ago when I mentioned this old wine box?

And told you I eventually wanted to make it look a little like these?

Well I came by a few more old wine boxes a while ago. They weren't quite as old and rustic looking as I wanted to so I spent a nice sunny day in the garden tea staining them to make the wood that little bit darker and rougher.



Then on a terrible rainy day I sat inside and recovered them all in the same matching wallpaper. I was tempted to mix and match a few because I got all of the pieces as samples from big DIY stores. I am guessing your only supposed to take a small sample. . . . But it isn't possible to create great artwork for free on a mini sample so I took a whole load!

This first one is my favourite because it's just quite kooky and weird! Like a Japanese anime drawing with french wording?!

I decided instead to cover all three of my boxes in this paper, which actually was a really great choice because I got the samples from Focus which was closing down so Im convinced they wouldn't have noticed even if I took the whole roll! I'm not a thief I swear, but I managed to get a nice big 'wodge', enough for all 3 boxes and a little left over . . . . . maybe for a 4th.

I did have in mind the perfect spot to put them up as I did just move my bedroom around. So my before shot . . . . . . (featuring my turquoise frame which actually was a little neglected at that point in time just left propped up against that crappy corner of wall. Ooops)

And the wall as it is now . . . . . .

All of the items I have in the boxes are little things I've picked up over the last few years. The top box has a green fan that I got in China last year and 2 coloured lanterns that I was given for my last birthday. The bottom box has a tea cup set which I picked up at an antique shop a while ago. I don't even drink tea. Or coffee for that matter but I love the colours. There is also a pair of chopsticks propped in the corner that I got from Thailand. Again, I can't even use chopsticks but as the famous saying by William Morris goes 'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful'. Something I now religiously follow and allows me to feel alright when I pick up another thing for my room!

Also there is the small pink frame that I picked up at Newbury antique fair. I had a few ideas for it and originally thought I would cover over the picture inside with the same hot pink and then put a light pink key ontop in it's place but I was a little charmed by the picture in the end and like the contrast between the hot pink and the old.

Let them.... I mean ME eat cake! Please!

I told you in my last post that I had been spray painting lots of exciting new things with my exciting colours so here is project number 1.

We recently got our hands on a LOT of old plates, bowls, saucers, cups etc which are just sitting around so my creativity went a little wild and I knew I had to do something with them! Although the colour just isn't that great, kind of a dull grey/mauve so it needed changing asap.
I wanted to use a nice bright summery colour so I chose the daffodil yellow paint for this project and got spraying. Made use of the last few sunny days and indulged in some toxic fumes in the garden!

Sadly in my excitement I didn't take a photo of the in between stage of the sprayed plates to my final creation but you'll get the idea!

And now my lovely sunshiney yellow plates and cup have with the help of some super dooper glue become a cake-stand! Which I love!

Now. This next photo is the cake-stand 'in situ' and I think it may shock and surprise a few of you . . . . . .
I didn't have any chocolate or cake in the house to make it quite believable. It was sunday night. We were having a BBQ, and all that was available was . . . . . . SALAD!
Although I hope that this may inspire some of you for uses and thinking out of the box! Maybe as a jewellery stand, or for crafty bits and bobs or once again for man stuff.

So be prepared for the reveloutionary 'Salad-Stand'!

Crazy I know, because if it were up to me it would be crammed with biscuits, chocolates, cakes . . . . chocolate cake . . . . . and you get the picture.

I hope you like it though! And of course I can make these for anyone who is after their very own salad stand!
Please leave comments as always.


I'm just off to snack on a carrot.

Spraying the paint

Im sorry.

I have been slacking again recently and I will lay the blame with

1. the nice weather again

2. my next creative escapades and

3. . . . . . . just because.

So here is a cheeky sneak peak at what has been involved during my creative ecapades . . . . . .

The first results of my spray painting will be up within the next few days. Yipeee. I know your all excited

Record bowls

I have had this idea for a.g.e.s now but have never really put it into practice until this weekend.

It was my birthday and I had some of my favourite friends over for a picnic . . . . . . and didn't have enough bowls to hold all of the food!!

So now with the opinions of my lovely friends who were so positive about them I have decided to sell some of my newest creations!

I have a thing about old vinyl records. They can be used for so much and I have some small ones on my wall in my room just because I love the colours and just because I can! Definitely NOT for the songs themselves as some of those featured include 'I think we fell in love too fast' by Leo Sayer, 'Needles and pins' by The Searchers and 'Razzamatz' by John Travolta. . . . . . .  So basically it's father Bee's ideal playlist!! Enough said *cough cough*

So my newest great creation are these . . . . . . . .

Old vinyls made into bowls! They look so good and the friends who saw them LOVE them (thank you girls!)

The small ones are 7inches and the large are 12inches. All the ones on the grass above are 12'' I have just made a few more compact than others.

If you need some inspiration of what to use them for; I have one in the kitchen with all our car keys in, one in my room for my makeup and another for my rings and hairbands. You can use them as bowls for food. Plug the hole in the bottom and use them for floating candles or for flowers. Store all your creative bits and pieces. And boys you can use them to keep all your . . . . . . . .  boy crap in.

I can make some custom for you if you want some more compact, or if I have one with a particular colour label that you want. And I can post them wherever in the world or you can collect from me. (Well, obviously you can't collect if you live outside of England. Sorry friends! Unless your here for a holiday then holla!!)

Small vinyls - £ 2.00
Medium vinyls - £ 3.00
Large vinyls - £ 4.00

P&P - Depends where I am posting to!
Send me an email or facebook if you are interested and I'll sort it out for you philippa21@hotmail.co.uk

Finally the frame is finished! (Try saying that 10x the speed)

Now I know I have been slacking massively lately on the blog front which I will put mostly down to the Great British weather we've had over the past few weeks.

I've been too busy sunbathing in my garden to sit inside!

But the wait is massively worthwhile I promise you! . . . . . . . I finally finished the turquoise frame that I started a good few months ago! See how I started it all here and my latest chapter here.

I finished it outside while enjoying the sun so here are the final stages . . . . . . . . I decided to go with the pinboard idea rather than making it a chalkboard . . . . . . .

I started off with just a big piece of cardboard and traced the shape of the back of the frame to get the right size to go into the frame and hold the material on it.

Here I made sure the cardboard fit properly into the frame and would leave just enough room to also hold the fabric around it as that would pad it out a bit.

I chose this fabric from Hobby craft which cost me £1.99 for a metre and it was also doubled up so it worked out really cheap. It's just burlap which I love, kind of rough and ruggid and a bit of a vintage feel to it.

Then I got the rough sizing of the burlap to fix around the front side of the cardboard

Out with any creative fanatics trusty tool . . . . . . the staple gun to fix the burlap in place over the cardboard

I like to think I was making sure that it was all stapled in place and nice and securely when actually I was just really enjoying firing that bad boy! Seriously satisfying.

My overall costs for the frame were;

Frame - £6

Paint - Free. Found amongst the MANY in our garage

Cardboard - Free

Burlap - £1.99

Total - £7.99

So the final before and afters . . . . . . .

Any questions or thoughts please send my way. I hope you enjoy!