Home: Monk's Bench Upcycle Tutorial

Over the years I've done various pieces of DIY and I love upcycling in particular. Today I thought I'd share this tutorial on a monk's bench I found on eBay and how I refurbished it into something that looked good and fit in our home decor.

Tutorial: DIY Memo Board

I have been working on creating an office in my spare room for a while now and one thing I know I wanted was a memo board. I have been a fan of them for a few years now and considered buying one from Etsy. I recently saw Kerry over at Oh So Amelia had made her own so I decided to give it a try myself.

Tutorial: DIY Washi Tape Desk

When I decided to set up an office in our spare bedroom, I needed a desk. Budgets did not really allow for me to spend a fortune, and besides I do love upcycling old furniture. My sister had an old desk she didn't want anymore, so I took it off her hands and put it to good use.

I wanted my office space to be colourful, but not garish. I saw this pin on Pinterest and thought it was a great idea, so decided to give it a go.

source

I ordered some washi tape from Cutetape and set to work.

Round & Round The Garden #7

I am very excited about this week's Round & Round The Garden. Yes, you guessed it, the tyres are done!!

Round & Round The Garden #6

In my last Round & Round The Garden post a lot had happened. Since then progress has been slow and steady as we only really have the finishing touches to make. The tyres are still plant-less as I am yet to get to a garden centre to get what I need, however I think that really is the final thing to do.

This week I'm going to show you how easy it is to make your own personal paving stones.

I first saw the idea on Pinterest (of course) and after some searching around found a couple that I liked and knew I could adapt to exactly what I wanted.

I also loved this idea of making them glow in the dark so thought I would give that a try too.

What you will need:

Cement

Large plant saucers

Paint, if you wish to colour them

Glow in the dark spray paint

How we did it:

First of all my husband made up the cement and poured it into the saucers. We left it for about an hour to set a little, otherwise the imprints would have just disappeared.

After waiting we tested it to make sure it was the right consistency - when we dipped a finger in there was a indentation. Then, one by one, we all pressed our foot into a saucer each. Doing this with the children was a challenge as H wasn't keen on the consistency under her foot, and it was quite cold. Baby J obviously didn't understand to keep his foot still, so it took a couple of tries to get it right. 

I wouldn't say they are perfect, but we were pleased with how they came out. I can't help but laugh at how big Mr H's foot is compared with the rest of us!

After leaving them for two days until we felt they were totally set, we took them out of the saucers. I felt the colour of the concrete was a bit uneven so i bought some grey spray paint and just gave them one coat to get a more balanced colour.

Leaving the paint to dry for 48 hours, I then added the glow in the dark paint. The tin said to do several light coats, which I did, and then left them to dry once more. Once we were satisfied they were completely dry, they were ready to plant. Mr H used a spade to dig a small circle out of the lawn for each stone to sit in.

We then added four sandstone effect solar lights found at Bents Home & Garden Centre. These are £29.99 for a pack of two, and are really lovely lights. I often find solar lights can be a bit cheap-looking and break very quickly, however these ones with their sandstone effect look of good quality and their white LED lights give off a bright glow to the path.

Unfortunately the glow in the dark paint hasn't quite had the desired effect, so I will be adding more spray to them to try and see if that helps. 

Overall, though, I love the personalised stones that added another element to our garden.

*This post is brought to you in association with Bents Home & Garden Centre, for more information please read my disclaimer.

How to Ink Stain Paper To Create A Vintage Look

I keep flicking through crafting mags or various luscious blogs and seeing lovely embellishments or cards where the edges of the paper had been inked to make it look aged. I always thought how great this looked and how I would like to try it out myself. Now I know for some of you more experienced crafters this may seem very straight forward, but to someone who had never done this before I really didn't have a clue how to go about it. And clearly it's too straight forward for many a tutorial as I couldn't find that much to show me the way! But after hunting around I threw a few ideas together and came up with a plan of attack, and thought I would record it as I did - so here you go...

The Rug Challenge

As I was wading through the many crafting projects out there looking for something to grab me, I came across an idea that seemed impossible - making a DIY rug. After delving further, I found this great tutorial by Moda Bake Shop and had to share.

And, as always, I have to share my own version. It was more tricky than I thought and took me quite a while, so in the end its more the size of a place mat than a rug, but it's cute anyway!