Love Defined

(cross posted with The Blanket Stitch)

Hello! For today's post I have been busy making a wonderful heart decoration that was picked up from a craft shop, and I have been umming and ahhing over what to do with it ever since. Its actually taking me a fair while to get it made, due to not really knowing what I wanted. 

 

 When I made my 'Imagine' canvas a few weeks ago I loved the colour of the paint so much that I ended up painting the heart while I was at it, however, from there I didn't know what I wanted to do, so it had been left untouched, until now.

I was also making something for Fathers Day, and when I finished that I decided to keep going and finally finished the heart! 

 

 I started with a smaller heart I had painted that I knew I wanted to attached to the main heart. Using a Paris stamp and Victorian Velvet Distress Ink, I created this look on the smaller heart.

On the larger heart I stamped, again using Victorian Velvet Distress Ink, a sheet music background.

  

Using some pink wire, I added this to heart, and wound it round the stick.

    

For the centre of the piece, I used some cream paper, stamped quite haphazardly with Old Paper Distress Ink and edged with Vintage Photo to give it an old look. I then rolled the top and the bottom to make it look like an old scroll. Then, using a Tim Holtz stamp I stamped the centre of the scroll, using black archival ink.

 

Underneath the scroll I have placed a tag shaped piece of card, with a floral pattern.

  

To the right hand side of the scroll I have added a small silk/fabric flower.

  

This was really simple to make in the end, and I left it with this as I feared if I added anymore it would become to fussy. 

  

The final outcome... ...What do you think? 
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For today's blog post I wanted to share with you a little canvas that I have made my dad as part of his Father's day present. It was super easy to make and you can do anything to customise it so it suits your dad.

I started by painted my canvas my chosen colour, for my dad my only option was blue, plus I wanted to do something special on the front to represent him, and blue would be pretty pivotal for that. I used acrylic paint across the canvas.

Down the left hand side I used a piece to string, to break up the canvas. I tied a bow in the top and glued it too the canvas.

I also added this cardboard 'Dad' sign I found in my stash, just so the string didn't look too bare against the canvas.

I found some letter tiles I had in my stash, and using Chipped Saphire Tim Holtz Distress Ink, I stamped them to match the canvas.

As you can see from the above photo, everything was very blue while I was working!

I found this tag, and stamped it in Chipped Saphire Distress Ink. Then, using a stencil, I copied 'Love, Amy' coloured it in using a black sharpie and attached it under the Cardboard 'Dad' sign.

I attached the 'Dad' tiles to the top of the canvas, using 2 sticky pads on each tile.

For the centre piece I drew the Torquay United Logo (Dad's favourite football team - he was born and raised in Torquay, Devon, UK) and painted it using yellow acrylic paint and then glued it to the centre of the canvas.

I am really pleased with the outcome, its just how I imagined it. I am sure he will really love it, I will keep you all updated!

This is a really simple idea, easy to make and you can make it to completely suit you Dad's personality.

If you try this don't forget to leave me a comment below, linking to your post and/or photos, I would love to see them!

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Happy Sunday DIY'ers!

Today I want to show you how I took an old, tatty garden set and refurbished it, making it look bright and brand new for summer. Its really easy to do, and all you need is your required garden paint colour (we chose Seagrass, which is lovely and bright), a paint brush and a warm day.

Before starting the painting, the table top was removed from its legs and placed on a decorating table to make the painting process much easier.

To insure that the paint didn't end up on the black metal between the planks of wood, I cut out some pieces of masking tape and used this to cover the metal. 

This is the colour we chose.

Here I am, hard at work, painting the first coat.

The hardest part was definitely painting the sides of the wooden slats, the colour took to the wood really well, but if your wood is varnished or treated, you might want to sand it down before you start, otherwise the paint might not cling to the wood. Our table set was very old and very weathered, so the paint clung to the wood wonderfully. 

While the first coat of the paint was drying on the table I got to work on protecting the metal on the chairs.

A couple of coats later and the table top was finished. The colour looks wonderful and bright, its taken an old, sad looking table and made it a bright piece for summer. Its given it a new lease of life. 

It took three coats to get the table looking like this, if you wanted a more distressed look one coat may suffice. 

Next it was on to the chairs, which I also gave three coats.

Even this chair that we had stashed in the shed didn't escape the painting frenzy.

The finished article.

I think you'll agree that it looks great, especially against the black, it really has brightened up the table. This table looked ready for the bin, but with a few coats of paint this table has brightened up the garden and looks brand new.

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What I love most about working with wood is just how free you can be to create something completely unique.

I picked up these wooden words, along with many other, from Hobbycraft and decided I would make a wooden sign for my bedroom.

I picked the three words I associated with and set about painting them, choosing white and a raspberry pink to match my room. I also had to decide which order to place them in.

Once they had been painted I fed some pink wire through some pre-drilled holes and made up the sign.

What I love most about this sign is that it totally represents me!

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The re-doing of my room is a constant, ongoing process... I am always looking for ways to make my room look more cute and more creative.

My latest idea was to stencil onto some boxes to pack away my beauty stuff, so its not all over the place!

I have some old white boxes (the theme of my room is white and a raspberry pink colour) which I got from Ikea that used to hold DVDs. I decided to stencil on what I would be keeping inside, and they would be stacked on a shelf in my beauty 'room'.

All I needed was a suitable stencil, some acrylic paint, which I used straight from the tube, a paintbrush, and the white boxes.

Remember: Let each of the previous letter dry before starting the next one to ensure you don't smudge the paint. It only takes around 5-10 minutes for the paint to dry, and if you do several boxes at a time, the others can be drying while you do the next one.

I think you'll agree, they look quite effective!
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