Selfspirational

It would appear that, this year, I've already achieved the typical new years resolution type situations.
I've lost weight, got a decent job, got better at staying in touch with people and found my own happiness.
So instead of new years resolutions, the bottles you see above are just little messages to myself, that I feel I should pay attention to through 2015.

A rather lovely friend of mine gave me some of the Urban Outfitters colour drip candles for Christmas, but I had no candle holders... But I did have some prosecco bottles left over from a particularly indulgent dinner with friends. So these were to become my candle holders...

Once I had removed the labels from the bottle thoroughly (Nail polish remover helps with the glue), I used Montana gold spray paint, in black, to completely cover each bottle.

I gave them a couple of coats of paint, in the garden for ventilation purposes of course. They take a little longer than the average surface to dry - the are glass, and naturally, are a little less absorbent!

Once you've allowed this to dry, just lob your design on with whatever method you find easiest. I used typography, with a couple of gold and silver paint pens, but I feel like any sort of decoration will do the trick. Let's be honest, it'll be unrecognisable once it's covered in wax anyway.

So that's my candle holders for this year. Inspirational. Aspirational. Pretty cool.

Christmas takes a lot of planning...

I'll make all my gifts this Christmas she said.
It'll be less effort she said.

It is not less effort.

However, it does make for a much more rewarding Christmas day when your family appreciates the efforts involved. Give yourself about a week to prepare everything and you can do everyone's presents for a minimal cost. Here's the things I made this year:

A bowl.

And some decorations. (These did have gold wire inserted at a later date so that they actually hang, but I forgot to photograph them before I sent them off. I got too excited. Sorry.)

I'll keep this short and sweet. The bowl was pretty simple, I used terracotta air-dry clay, rolled flat with a freshly dropped autumnal leaf on top of it. Once the clay had reached the appropriate size, I used a knife to cut around the shape of the leaf. Once this had been achieved, I peel back the leaf and... voila. We have clay leaves. So easy. 

To attach two leaves together, simply use a little water as glue - the clay is water based, so it should just dissolve it a little, and dry as the clay air fires. If you want a proper bowl shape, that will sit properly, put your wet clay into a pre-existing bowl. A nice touch at this point is to bend the excess leaf edges over the sides a bit, it makes a nice, natural shape.

This is how to NOT hold a knife. I repeat... do NOT hold your knife like this. Also use an appropriately sized knife. This was hazardous. This was the holding of the knife in both the bowl and decoration production. It's a stupid plan. 

The clay takes 4-5 days to dry, and make sure it is totally dry before the next stage or you'll ruin EVERYTHING. 

Once the clay is dry, use a waterproofing agent before you paint it. This is very important. You can pick it up for just a few pounds from Amazon, don't skip this step.

Give the waterproofing agent a day or so to dry, I think it only takes about 10 hours to be fully dried.

Now for the fun bit. The painting. Being a little lazy, I chose to invest in spray paint. Montana outdoor spray paint, which is often used in graffiti, and so I'm fully aware will be hard-wearing, waterproof, fast drying and awesome. Protect EVERYTHING. Particularly yourself, you need to be in a well ventilated space, preferably outdoors, wear a mask, and no posh clothes, this paint gets everywhere, particularly into your lungs. I gave the decorations and the bowl about 3 coats. This is very fast drying stuff, so it doesn't take long at all.

 I added all the details with acrylic paint, this bit's up to you really, colour schemes and patterns are personal preferences and you can take as much or as little time as you like. This is the point at which I broke some of the decorations so be really careful, they are thin and very delicate.

Finally, for a glossy, professional finish, varnish them. Again, I went for a spray option. Laziness. Make sure you pick one that's non-yellowing, this could ruin all your efforts til now, varnish is the ONE thing you REALLY don't want to skimp on in this situation! Same instruction as the spray paint,  be careful with ventilation on this.

I hope all your Christmas' were warm and fuzzy, and I'm looking forward to filling this blog with more projects for the new year!
Have a lovely festive season.

Crafty Christmas

All Christmas related shenanigans will be posted after Christmas,
to maintain the element of surprise.
Have a lovely holiday everybody, here's my creative partner in many Christmas jumpers to get you in the spirit of things.

London is not the centre of the universe

Sometimes, as an adult, you need to embrace your inner child.

This week Lisa drove me out into the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside for a bit of an adventure. The intention was to see brown signs, and follow them, and that's almost what we did. We ended up in Great Missenden - a very sweet little town with tiny doors and timbered houses, surrounded by the vibrant tones of an autumnal countryside, with a disturbingly eclectic range of cuisines available in it's restaurants. Really, what sort of tiny village needs three different international cuisines on one street?
What we did find in Great Missenden, besides it's delightfully quaint Christmas decoration and incredibly small and difficult to navigate parking spaces, was the Roald Dahl museum.

You'll be familiar with Roald Dahl. He wrote such beautiful children's novels as the BFG, and Matilda, and was the literary upbringing of most 20-somethings. If you don't remember Dahl as a name, you'll definitely remember the delightfully child-friendly illustrations of Quentin Blake.

Photo above by Lisa. The museum was great. It used interactive displays and silly activities to teach you all about Roald Dahl as a person, and where his stories came from. 

I bet you didn't know Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot. Neither did we. Also that he was very, very tall...

We found out about his stubborn nature, and the difficulties Quentin Blake had with working with him sometimes, and also how hard it was to translate his work onto the big screen. It always had to be just right...

There was also a replica of his writing hut, where he had objects of inspiration surrounding himself, where he cut himself off from the world and just wrote down his stories. 

I would like a writing hut.

And of course, as everything was very interactive, and not very busy, the opportunity was there to be a little bit silly...

Photo by Lisa again. I'd make a great jet pilot. It was loads of fun for us as a pair of quite wordy, excitable people, and with a 2 for 1 voucher (Which you can easily find with a quick Google), it only cost us three quid each (plus cake) for a couple of hours of great fun. We even made a little animation! I would say that it's probably a destination that you could spend all day in if you have kids, they do storytelling and have a crafts corner, and there's an excellent cafe. 

All in all, a very fun day, and highly recommendable if you've got kids, or have just never grown up.