A Productive Day, Kitchen Cupboard Re-paint

 Hello everyone and a happy Monday to you all. I feel like I have made a good start to the week although I did decide not to do any paid work today and to concentrate on a few things of my own.  Mainly the kitchen, if you are a regular here you may know that I re-did my kitchen units about a year and a half ago with cupboard paint.  I researched this thoroughly before buying any paint and they did look great for a while.  Well six moths ago I did a touch up job and today I have had to do the same again.

Now I do not regret painting the cupboards, they look really well, it has modernised the kitchen and no doubt saved us thousands of pounds.  I am annoyed that I believed the tin as it said no primer needed and usually I would have primed first so now it will be a case of ongoing management I think.  We did discuss a new kitchen but I feel it is such a waste, everyone is in such a hurry to throw out and buy new and when I think that the layout would be exactly  the same as it is now that seems to me to be an awful lot of wasted money and perfectly good cupboards gone to the tip.  My other thought was well so what if they need painting, if in a few years I want a different colour it is easy enough to do for little cost.  For now they are looking ship shape. 

My tiles were also painted with tile paint when I did the whole kitchen and the shelves were added last year as I wanted some open shelving for display and to make it more welcoming.

I never did do the end boards and skirts as I thought it was a bit of a feature to keep them wood.  Knowing now that the paint is not as hard wearing as I thought I think that is a good thing as they get knocked more with three dogs.

My next project is the jacket I am working on for me. It is a stash busting job using some gifted tweed and leftover bits of denim, topstitching threads and lining fabric. In all apart from one pack of jeans buttons it will have been comepletely cost free.  I have made the burda pattern twice before so I know that I like it and I decided to mix the fabrics to give it a more modern feel.  I am just waiting on that pack of jeans buttons to arrive as I have a few left over in another packet, it is almost there.  The button holes, buttons and cuffs need finishing although after trying it earlier I don't think I will add a denim cuff as I planned as I don't want denim overload. 

I will show the completed jacket in my next post, those button packets above have three useable buttons in one packet and two in the other plus a number of bent tacks, |I have to admit I struggle to get these things in!

There was a lovely long walk with one of my dogs, the older two can't manage a long walk any more.  The light was pretty and the wind had dropped so that was good, I tend to leave my headphones out now when I go for a walk as I do feel there is that issue of being permantly connected and if I am outside then I want to hear the outside.

Well that is all for  today, how  was your start to the week? I hope it went well.  Bye for now.

Denim Quilted Jacket Make

 Hello everyone I hope you are all having a good week.  What a funny one it has been with deep snow and beautiful blue skies, the snow here is mainly all gone now and I am hoping it will warm up enough for us to have our weekend away in the caravan soon.  

So this past week or so I have been working on a quilted denim jacket inbetween other jobs.  I didn't want to rush it as i had a very specific idea in mind and couldn't find it among my patterns.  I had thought of using a pattern from my book Basic Black but I know the sizing is tiny and on further inspection the pieces looked too small to my eye. When you look at patterns every day you can often tell when the size is wrong just by looking at the pieces so I abondoned that idea.  Then after much thought I decided to use burda 6053.  Now this is more of an edge to edge cardigan pattern but I knew I coyuld tweak it and the size and shape were along the right lines.

I cut it out just a touch bigger to allow for the quilting I was going to add, also I planned on lining it.  My next idea was to add a small stand up collar.  Well I must say my son suggested this when I was showing him what I thought, he suggested rib like on a bomber but I went with the same kind of shape but in denim and I quilted it the same as the rest of the jacket.

Next was to change up the pockets, the ones on the pattern felt too small for a jacket so I drew my own shape on paper and cut, quilted and lined those.  

The biggest most time consuming part was drawing the grids on the denim ans sewing in all the lines through the denim and wadding.  I am so glad I did this though as the end result is just what I wanted, I have lined it with leftover viscose challis from another project but the sleeves are lined with regular red lining fabric.  I hand stitched the lining to the denim facings and bottom on the inside.

Finally it closes with a good zip with metal teeth.  I am sort of sad it is complete I enjoyed the process so much, that is a good thing and I think I need to have more slow projects on the go as I complete most things in an afternoon.

It is very warm so the wadding has done the trick.

I think the wild lining goes well with the denim, it was also good to be able to use these pieces of fabric as the denim was a piece that was in the large amount I was given when a lady passed away. It now has a purpose and each time I make something  I think what a kind gift it was from her daughter.  I only bought a small amount of wadding and the zip for this project so I spent £7!  Not bad .

A lot of photos but I am very pleased with it!

That is all for today, have a super week and take care.

A Little Kitchen Update

 Hi everyone I thought I would share this DIY project that we did a couple of weeks ago, I have been meaning to share but keep forgetting.  So ever since we moved into this house about thriteen years ago I have had above worktop units all the way around.  If you have seen previous posts you may know that about two years ago I painted the cabinet doors grey to give it a little facelift.

Still not feeling like this kitchen needs replacing as it is a perfectly good kitchen, but there was a little niggle that did bother me.  The main stretch of worktop that I have to work and prepare on is below some of these overhead units, that means that you are working with them directly in front of your face and this has never been the best. For sometime now I have liked the look of open shelving and often save the images from pinterest, however as it is a small kitchen my husband has always maintained that these particualr units can't come out.

Well two weeks ago I decided to get everything out and have a look at the situation, the top shelf I am ashamed to admit had quite a few things out of date as I can't reach it without a chair. So they went straight in the bin, I also had a good tidy and found new homes for the rest of the items, including sorting a lower level cupboard, raising an internal shelf in one of those and putting all sauces etc in little storage baskets so that they can easliy be lifted out to use.

It is amazing how you can fit things into less space when you think about it and also look at what you use regularly or not at all. When all the cupboards were empty and clean I asked my husband to take them down (three over head cupboards) he said you will regret it but took them down anyway thinking it was a bad idea. 

This was on a Sunday, on the Monday morning as soon as I got up I got out my paint and set about painting all of the units again as a touch up, redid the tiles with tile paint, and painted the walls and ceiling  white.  When he came home from work it was all pristine, I arranged the shelves with some of the nicer things I had already in cupboards or else where in the house.   For me it is really just what I had in mind and I am very pleased with it, my husband is getting there he just keeps reaching for the wrong cupboard for the cereal!

The shelves are just loose shelving boards from Wicks and we just chose brackets ourselves, I reused some of the under cupboard trim and painted it grey so it would conceal the lights that are underneath. It is certainly much more light and airy and does not feel closed in anymore when I am preparing food.

 

The items on the shelves I had already, just today I found some pretty china measuring cups for baking my friend bought for me that usually live in a cupboard so I have added those now too.  The one thing I did buy was a print from Whitby at the top of the steps when we were away a few weeks ago, it is not in this image but sits on the top shelf. 

                                                   I still have the under cupboard lighting 

You may think I am crazy to get rid of three perfectly good cupboards but my feeling is the more cupboard space we have the more we pack things in, think about when you move house and have all those lovely empty cupboards.  They soon get packed with nonsense over the years don't they?  I think this is forcing me to be more organised in my kitchen.

Well that is all for today, let me know what you think.   Have a good week. 

Revamp and Resize Jeans

Usually when family or friends are getting rid of old jeans I ask if they can pass them on to me and I use them for bags and pouches.  If you have a bit of a search on pinterest you will find there are all sorts of things that you can do with them.
A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine gave me a bag with a few pairs in and straight away I used a pair to make a bag (which I  shared on here). However there was another pair that was such good denim and although not my style or size I thought I will save that pair and see if I can do something with them.
Today I took the scissors to them and thought why not? If it all goes wrong the denim will go on other projects as originally intended.   They have a bit of bright fabric in the pocket if you read below you will find out why.
These are the finished jeans...

I tried them first and they were a couple of sizes too big, they were also loose all around the bottom and the style of leg was a wide boot cut.  The jeans are from Gap and have a slight stretch.

First of all I pinned them at each side of the waist how much they needed to come in.  Then I stitched that part first to see how the fit was.
 I had to cut a 'V' shape out of each side before I stitched to get rid of the rivets or the machine would not have been able to stitch over them .  If you are only adjusting  the waist of your jeans by a small amount then cut this 'v' out from the centre back seam only.
I also removed the belt loops at the sides at this point to add them on after if required.  Because of the amount I needed to take my jeans in I also had to remove the small riveted pocket within the front pocket.

I know one side is bigger than the other but that is easily trimmed to match.

Because I had removed this inner pocket I then added a piece of fabric that I like along with a piece of scrap denim beneath it for strength. I stitched this by hand over where I had removed the small pocket.  You don't have to add contrasting fabric you could just use another bit of denim.

Once this was done I stitched down the sides then tried them on for fit, I had to take a little more off.

Then I turned them inside out, tried them on  again and pinned all the way down each leg to make them fitted and straight legged at the bottom.

Then I sewed the seams following my pins as a guide.  Next trim away all the excess fabric and zig zag to finish.

I am very happy with the finished result and these are probably my best fitting pair of jeans now! It is very rare you can get a pair that fit you properly all over.

Here is the front...

Much better I think

I also like the fact that they come up higher at the back than most jeans now, I have a couple of pair that you don't want to bend down in without forever hoisting them up!

Art Doodles

At the start of the summer holidays I bought myself some coloured pencils and fine tipped pens. This was inspired by an evening I attended at a friend's house. We all created some art on a postcard and the theme was based around the work of Hannah Dunnett. Now you may have seen some of her beautiful work without realising it as she has lot of it out there on greetings cards and posters.
I really enjoyed doing this and promised myself I would take the time to do more as the process was really relaxing whatever the end result.
Sad times at the start of the summer put a halt on all creativity with the passing of my father and the business that followed helping my mother.
I did manage to create a couple more however and while they may not be the standard of Hannah Dunnett  (I'm not an artist) I am happy with them and feel I will continue to try and get some ideas on paper no matter how infrequent.
Here is one of them, I followed her same detail of adding Bible passages but I suppose you could use favourite poetry, song lyrics or your own musings.  I just chose a word as my theme on this one and linked verses to it, the others I did were pictures.

I suppose the big thing at the moment is adult colouring to relieve stress, I like the idea but prefer to make my own images to fill. The pencils I bought are Derwent Academy and the pens Scribblicious.

I think sometimes as we get older we feel a bit guilty if we sit and do something like this.  There are always so many other things we feel we should be doing, and most of the time they are things people don't notice or that don't really matter.  I saw a bit of a show on T.V about people who clean obsessively, hoovering numerous times a day and cleaning the bathroom four times a day.  What on earth are they doing? Hiding evidence? It's insane and they will never get that time back but the dust will return.  I watched ten minutes of it that was enough.  

Anyway if you would like to take a look at more of Hannah Dunnett's  work there is a collection on pinterest here

I'll try and add one but it may not save...

Hannah Dunnett art. God is Good.

Here you see, her work is fabulous.

Frugal Bathroom Blind revamp/makeover

I redid the bathroom blind last year or was it the year before? Using a bit of fabric from Ikea but as we have recently redone our bathroom it no longer went with the colour scheme.  As it was so easy to do on the cheap last time I had no intention of paying out a ridiculous amount of cash to get the look I wanted.  Lets face it a roller blind is just a bit of fabric with a channel in one end for a bit of plastic and it is attached to a mechanism on a cardboard tube!

Here it is...

This is what I did.
As the bathroom is a damp place and my window is right next to the bath I decided that this time I was going to use the coated fabric. You know the kind you use as wipe-able table cloths, so we went and had a look and found this...

It has little pebbles all over it which will go really well with two pictures I have in my bathroom.

This is the lovely orange one I took down, but don't worry that fabric will be washed and pressed and I am sure it will come in useful for something in the future.

It is a great design but it does not go with the current neutral colours.

All I did was remove the old fabric by taking out the staples from the tube, I lay the new fabric over the top to get the right size and then stitched a new channel at the bottom for the plastic to go in (the bit that weights the bottom down).  If you are starting from scratch you could just make this from a bit of dowel.  I didn't even need to hem the sides this time because the fabric being coated it does not fray.  We just made sure it was lined up straight on the tube and stapled it with an electric stapler.  I'm sure strong glue could probably be used for this bit.

I showed my mum the fabric and she said she could do with something like that as things get splashed on her blind and she has a hard time keeping it clean. I told her to have a look for something she likes and we will do her blind up next.

Cupboard revamp/makeover

We have been in the middle of doing up our bathroom, not because we felt like it but rather because we had a leak that meant everything had to be taken out to get at it and repair it.  We sourced everything cheaply and kept what we could such as the sink and toilet and just added new taps  (found in the discount section but very nice) My husband is very skilled at many things so he installed the new bath and did the tiling and flooring.
One thing I did want was a nice cupboard to keep all the cleaning products and toiletries out of sight.  I didn't want to pay too much for it and also what I had in mind probably did not exist.  We looked in some salvage shops and I have to say they charge an awful lot for junk!  We eventually found one the right size in a charity shop, solid wood for £20.  Very pleased with that I bought a small tin of paint, some sand paper, primer and a new handle.  The paint was for the door and other woodwork also so not really included in the price of the makeover.  I also had a small piece of wallpaper sample (free).
Here is the before and after...

I had already taken off the many gold handles as you can see.

Now this is exactly as I saw it in my head so I am pleased and it goes well with the bathroom.

I sanded it all over and wiped off all the dust, then it had a coat of primer.  Then two coats of gloss 24 hours apart.

The wallpaper piece had the effect of panelling so I used a baking paper template to get the size of the insets in the mock drawers.  I then cut out four and stuck them on with paste.  The handle was £3.45.  It just needs the paper sealing with a clear varnish and we have some of that in the garage.

Total cost £30.

When I was looking for this cupboard we went in one shop and it was a vintage shop.  We saw a small cupboard that looked like it needed painting as it was all patchy and flaky looking.  We asked how much, thinking we could get it and do it up, the lady said oh that is £40.

  It was much smaller than mine and my husband said really?  She said oh it cost me loads for the Annie Sloan paint I can easy sell that for £40.  Well I have to say I have seen how much that chalk paint is and it is expensive, if people like it good for them but I like finish of regular paint better, if something is freshly painted I want it to look that way.

A Couple of Creative Goals

Its good to have something to aim for as we go along I think and at the start of every year I always think about what I would like to achieve in the coming months. By this I don't mean financially and unfortunately I have noticed with many goal setting articles it seems to be all about money and work!
If we look at life that way we will be forever chasing money and missing a lot along the way, I have decided not to focus on that.  While I do like to be aware of what I spend and save I don't want to be a person who thinks life will only be good with a fixed sum of money.
So that said what I do like to look at is what I can learn, make or find out more about while being happy at the same time.
 One of the things on my list for this year is to find out more about pattern making and design and maybe do something with one of my designs.
Another possibility I'm looking at is to design my own fabric and we can do this now! Yes, anybody can just design their own fabric and have it printed, now this is something that will cost about £20.00 a metre as I have found this site...

It called Woven Monkey and it is UK so the postage is free.  I think the design would have to be spot on before I would pay so much for it but it would be great for a special project and if home made clothes are not unique enough this takes it to another level.

This is something I will play around with and if I come up with a design I really love I will save it and maybe have it printed up at  a later date.

Something I didn't plan last year was to buy my guitar in August and I have to say it has been one of my best buys, I have been learning using justinguitar.com and the books that I have bought by him and it is so relaxing. I have about four basic songs in memory and can play more from the beginner book ( play as a beginner that is) but the main thing is I really love it! 

On the theme of learning new things I went on a course this morning to do with my job, I really enjoyed it and always like to go on courses to learn more.  One of the ladies on my table had said she hoped it would be cancelled so she wouldn't have to come.   It just goes to show how some people enjoy things that others don't but also how we have a different way of looking at things. I have decided I am going to try and always frame things in a positive way because if we start out with a cloud over our heads in the morning it can be very hard to shift.

Fabric printing testing

I had a go at printing on some fabric today, I only have the one colour as I wanted to see how it works and how it lasts through the wash before I invest in any more.  I chose aqua (just because I like it) but if I plan to get any more I am going to buy just the primary colours and white so that I can mix my own colours.  I bought it from a shop called the Range and it is a little pot for £2.49, it was £2.99 in hobby craft and the same online, the make is Dylon.  If anyone knows that the cheaper makes work just as well let me know as I saw there were sets of these online and they were reasonably priced.  For my fabric I just used an old shirt of my husbands (he always passes them  on to me for fabric) but it did have a fine raised line in it which does affect anything you print.

I decided to use a potato to try it out first as they are easy to cut into and I didn't really have anything else suitable to print with, I know you can buy all the tools and foam stuff for making your own print blocks but I really just want to see how this works first. To be honest I don't want to be spending much on it so anything from around the house I can use will do just fine. I cut it into a square then I  cut a square from inside that one, that bit was tricky as I had to score the centre square then chip the bits of potato out.  I blotted the potato then as it is full of moisture and I used a small brush to paint the fabric paint on. 

I went along the fabric in rows so as to cover the whole thing, at first I thought I could paint it on then do maybe three prints but the colour fades so much immediately after the first print that you really have to load up the paint before you print each time. 

You can see that you get a bit of variation in the squares I think some of that is of course the way the potato has held the paint but some of it is the raised lines in the fabric.  I quite like that though as it is not too uniform. 

This is what it came out like and I like it but can you see where disaster struck? I dropped the potato just as I was finishing and there is a little splodge in one of the squares.  It now has to be left to dry before setting with a hot iron so I moved on to another bit.

This one I did just using the brush and it is supposed to look like waves.  My teenage son came in and said he liked  this one, he had been laughing and asking me how old I was when he saw me potato printing.

Here they are drying, the yellow one was to see if it would go green on yellow or just sit on top of the colour. as you can see it does go green on this very bright cotton. I used the square again and overlapped it lots,  not sure I like this one though. Next time I will try and cut some stencils but they will have to be paper  so they may go soggy quick. I want to see what the paint looks like with a crisper edge.  I suppose you could just paint a border on things free hand if you are artistic.  I think this would be good for people who do quilting because if you get given fabric you can change the look in lots of ways or maybe just stencil or print on certain little blocks.  I don't what I will use these bits for yet but I want to fix it and then wash it just to test the staying power of the colour, I will let you know how it gets on.

Fashion Drawing Book for Wish list and Journal Keeping

I did mention the other day how I do not get bored as there is always something to do, well one of the things I would like to try and learn is to put my designs on paper and be able to draw the fashion figures. Whenever I make something I always have an idea of where I'm going with it but I rarely put it down on paper.  Part of this may be that I often change my mind but there is also the issue of feeling that when I draw it it doesn't look right but in my head I can see it.  I know this is a skill that needs to be learned like any other and although some people are more talented at art than others I always feel that putting time in at something will get results.  I have seen this book on Amazon and added it to my wish list...

It has really good reviews, I will try the library first of course to see if I can order it but a few people have said they bought it after checking it out as it is so good.  It may be one for Santa if not, and I will just see what else the library has on offer first.  I have had a little go at getting my ideas down on paper (after the fact with one dress) just to try it out.  I copied a figure of a body from a website then drew my dress over the top, it may be basic but I have to start somewhere.  I decided I would start and do this in future and keep a a little scrapbook even if I don't make all the ideas it will serve as practice and I can add images I like and so on.    Here is a page ...

Like I said in this case it has been created after the dress is complete but I though it would serve to remind me of  projects or provide inspiration if I use it regularly. I also don't keep things forever so if I had done this in the past I could have looked back on past projects that I maybe no longer own.  I do photograph often now but I never used to.

I also sketched out some ideas on a sheet to give to someone who had seen my baby dresses, I added a few fabric samples and she has got back to me requesting dresses so that proved useful.

So I have made a bit of a start on developing one of the skills I want to learn.

  

Clothes Dyeing 2

Well I dyed the T-shirt but it did not come out well.. When it was wet it looked ok but then you have to wash it and when it dried it appears to have strange patchy marks all over it. Its a shame because the mark on the back looks a bit like a pattern. If that was even all over it, it may look like an effect but its not!

Here is the before

Here it looks like flour is wiped down the front, Oh dear more strange patterns on the back.  Now I only wore this T shirt rarely under things before so it can continue its life in that way now.  I used the correct quantity of salt so maybe I just didn't stir it enough.  I'm sure these dyes are better if you are just brightening to the original colour and not changing it completely. I think any future dye attempts will be done naturally.

I have a lacey effect jumper with a low neck I will probably wear it under that as the neck area at the front looks ok.

I found some good ideas at Burda Style, the flower mashing dye job below looks great.

I think that is the way to go next time, not trying to get it even, if I stencil it on or use an item such as a leaf or petal then I think the results will be more acceptable.  So I have learned something, how not to do it.