Thank you for visiting. I hope you like the posts and pictures here.
Can I show you my new website? Its called Project Warren and you can find it at projectwarren.com. I launched Project Warren in September and its about the things I really love, mainly gardening, refurbishing furniture and making things for the home.
I won’t be posting here any more, so it would be lovely if you would come and visit my new blog. You can also find me on twitter @ProjectWarren.
Pop by and say hello!
Thank you x
We have a luuurvely new camera, which is great for me because our old camera has caused me so much frustration when trying to take nice, clear pictures for this blog. Old camera was always temperamental, meaning pretty pictures were very hit and miss – well, mostly miss and mostly blurred. New camera gets it right every time.
The novelty of new camera’s skills and talents has not yet worn off and for the past two days we’ve been snapping everything in sight.
So, will you indulge me whilst I show you practice-run snaps of things from around the house and garden, until I have something more craft-based to talk about?
At about this time every year my dad sends out a warning to my sisters and me not to get him a birthday present, not to waste our money on buying him something and just to make him a card. Of course we ignore him!
Although this year I thought I would make him something as part of his gift.
My dad is a green fingered type of chap. All his life he’s loved gardening. Before he retired he would work long, long shifts and come home and get stuck into the garden. He spent hours teaching me the names of various plants, flowers and trees and still one of my favourite smells in the world is tomato plants because I spent lots of time helping (actually probably just getting in the way) dad in the greenhouse.
So, what I’ve made him is a drawstring pouch to keep his plant markers and dibbers. Its just a silly prezzie, a bit of fun but I know he’ll like it. It’s the first thing I’ve made from the Meet Me at Mike’s book! Yay!
The natural talent for gardening hasn’t rubbed off onto me unfortunatley, I have to try a bit harder to make plants happy. But here are some snaps from our garden this afternoon in the lovely autumn sunshine…
My saturday retro cushion revival recipe….
Take a few sad, tired old cushions and peel off their grubby covers…
Add a generous measure of lovely colourful 70s fabric and a handful of zips…
Whip up into a batch of fresh new covers…
This fabric came from various places; 70′s M&S pillowcases from the car boot sale, pretty flower cotton from Barnardo’s charity shop and the funkiest second hand retro print (that I’ve been saving for ages) from a little village craft fair.
Lucky I sat the sewing machine class to brush up on my zip skills. Zips don’t have to be scary if you practise, practise, practise!
Also from my fabric stash came these cute little curtains…..
If you want to make your own cushions, check out:
‘How to Make a Cushion Cover‘ with a zip on Mooky Chick
Kirstie Allsop’s guide on ‘How to Make an Envelope Cushion Cover’
“Our true intent is for all your delight”
This intriguing statement hangs on the tea room wall of the beautiful La Rosa Hotel in Whitby. Go and stay there and you will see that it speaks the truth.
I’ve written a little review of the hotel over at Green Girls Global but I just wanted to show some pictures here too.
If there ever was inspiration to find second hand and pre-loved items and bring them back to life then this place is it. On top of the antique and restored furniture the walls are painted in low odour paint and covered in vintage wallpaper.
More inspiration for me lately has been the beautiful blog Design Sponge and their ‘Before and After‘ feature. So many things pointing me back in the direction of furniture restoration I can’t ignore it.
Playing with the Bottle Chopper wasn’t the only crafting I did this weekend, although I’ve been concentrating on things for our home rather than clothes or accessories.
The downstairs hallway has been one of the last places to be decorated in our house. I guess it’s because you don’t really spend any time in there like you do the other rooms. Continue Reading »
Every time I look at this booklet my heart leaps. This is so unashamedly 70s it makes me smile imagining how people (perhaps even the author Yvonne Dockree) may have made a glass peanut bowl from an old wine bottle to serve at parties alongside prawn cocktails and black forest gateau. Brilliant!
My mother-in-law gave me this Bottle Chopper last year when she cleared out lots of craft stuff to move house. I fell in love with the idea of it instantly but didn’t get around to having a go with it until yesterday. Continue Reading »
Things are always busy but the past few weeks have been exceptionally so. We had to work today as we sometimes do on weekends but I hit my limit and needed to escape into something that required less concentration for a while.
The unusable space of my craft room has been bugging me for ages so sorting that out was the ideal task to get my mind off design and code.
This was the state of my craft room at about 5pm this afternoon…
…and this is it now, about 4 hours later… Continue Reading »
When we first moved into our house nearly 8 years ago I discovered that I absolutely loved restoring old furniture.
We couldn’t afford new stuff and although I preferred old furniture we couldn’t afford that in good condition either. So with the help of Nitromors (a very effective but chemical laden paint stripper), varnish, stain and paint I sanded, scraped and brushed various old wooden items back to life.
This writing bureau and one of 4 chairs were total freebies and they had both been coated with a thick black varnish which was flaking away. The chairs were minutes away from going on a bonfire but they were so pretty how could I not have them?
This two drawer chest was just £5 from a lady who had painted it bubble gum pink for her daughter when she was little. I had to get rid of that paint for the poor wood underneath.
The only problem is that as much as I enjoyed this hobby, with the chemicals I was using, it was bad, bad, bad for the environment and I haven’t done it for a few years. So, when I saw a post on my favourite blog, Crafting a Green World, about eco friendly stains and paints for furniture it sparked my imagination again. When working on these pieces of furniture I used to daydream about having my own restoring workshop and maybe even a shop like the lovely Bunny’s in Horncastle (Lincolnshire) to show people that re-loved and upcycled furniture is the nicest.
I’ve done a bit of research to find some eco-friendly paint strippers, varnishes and paints which are kinder to the environment and that perhaps I could use when I get my dream workshop and pick up my hobby again. Here’s what I found:
Home Strip – paint and varnish remover
Auro Paint Stripping Paste
EarthBorn Paints
Ecos Organic Paints
Farrow & Ball Paints
If you search Google there are actually lots and lots of eco paints available now. I’ll let you know if I try any of them.