Kitchen makeover

I have been missing again but this time it is because we decided to give the kitchen a makeover

 and boy, did it need doing!

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

The picture quality isn't great, the light was rubbish 

but I really didn't want to wait for a sunny day 

as knowing the UK weather that could be months away! 

 

See the cabinet in the corner....it looks lovely now, so pleased with the result.

  I love my new kitchen, it is so fresh!

All that's missing is for the rugs to go back under the table, 

you can't actually see them in any of the pictures here 

but they are great quality as my mum wove them and washable without shrinking.

Paint 'n Glue

From drab to fab

   This display cabinet was inherited from my hubbys aunt

although it is a well made cabinet I found it a bit drab and very old fashioned 

and thus relegated it to the landing, out of my immediate sight,

 b

but I just knew it would look lovely painted. 

It took a long time for Mr B to come around to my way of thinking 

but whilst painting the kitchen and all the cupboards he finally  saw what I saw 

and it was painted and moved to a nice spot in the kitchen where it holds our fine china.

I would love to take credit but the truth is 

Mr B painted this and a nice job he did too.

I'm very pleased with it and in the last picture here you get a sneak peek at the kitchen re-do...

the full reveal will be in a few days so stay tuned.

Initially

Initials printed on book pages.

Quick, cheap and personal.

You could also use these as gift tags as they would make a nice keepsake for a wedding.

 

Odd Socks

Odd socks are a prominent feature in our house. 

They tend to be left in little piles on the landing, 

waiting for a partner that may not show up for weeks!

I found some inspiration on
Tatertots and Jello

and
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

My take on the whole thing is a bit more elegant (if I say so myself) because I have no laundry room so it is on display on the landing where anyone can see it.
It came together like this..

Postbox

This was a plain letter rack in a dark brown stain.

All I did was spray it red, painted chipboard letters white an glued them on.

An instant "postbox" by the front door for outgoing post.

Music boxes

The cubbyholes on my desk always accumulate bits,

bits that make it look untidy, various USB leads, notebooks, chargers and so on.

I found a couple of boxes that were a perfect fit and covered them in music sheets to make them look nice.

Easy peasy.

Actually I lie, the boxes didn't fit, at all,

I emptied lots of cereal boxes and other food boxes to find a fit 

but all to no avail. 

I had to somewhat reconstruct a few to get a fit I was happy with and in my frustration I never thought to 

photograph my tormented struggles for your amusement!

So that will be left to your imaginations.

I thought the boxes looked OK but rather bland so I found some felt,

bought some beads, cut out some templates in paper...

used the templates to cut out felt flowers

then I stitched them all like this....

Then I tightened the thread 

and fixed it to make the flowers more 3 dimensional....

then I stacked the flowers and added beads

stitched it ll together

and hot glued it to the front of the boxes.

Much prettier and I'm very pleased with my now much tidier desk

And then there was .....

.... a new name and a new look

Welcome to 

Paint 'n Glue and other things too

All graphics in the header are courtesy of The Graphics Fairy.

If you ever need unusual graphics she probably has what you are looking for,

actually she probably has what you didn't know you should be looking for!!

I need to change......

....the name of my blog

I should have looked in to it before starting, but there seems to be loads of blogs and sites with the same name.
Not so good.

So at some point this name will change.................

question is, to what?????

Spice rack

The spice rack was looking decidedly tired and grubby so

I decided it desperately needed a make over

 Out came the white paint and in no time at all it looked this nice and fresh!

 But the jars...oh, so mismatched ....

It's all Tesco's fault you know, they bloomin' keep changing their jars! 

How am I to ever get a matching set when they do that?

Well, I managed to get 12 of the same (yeah, OK, I admit I went out and bought 

two more with spices I know we'll use, to make up the set)

Then I created some labels, only using MS Word and clipart, 

I did a test print to make sure I got the size right

 Then I painstakingly cut the labels out and glued them on the jars

an this my friends is where I didn't think things through properly!

The labels stain!

Doh, it's only plain paper.

 I should have covered them with sticky-back plastic

 (in true Blue Peter spirit!) 

leaving an extra rim around to hold them in place

But I didn't...... 

See that jar....

the third from the left....

yep, it's already stained

 But, overall I am really pleased and for now those labels will stay

Maybe one day I will remove them and try again

or maybe I'll just buy pretty spice jars like these

 

The cream coloured one in the first picture is my favourite.

Naughty Alice

 I really like the advert for Naughty Alice by Vivienne Westwood 

and wanted to make it into a nice piece of "art" for my downstairs bathroom

As I was unable to find a cheap ornate frame to go

 with my vision of what I wanted to create 

I decided to make my own

I tried to "stiffen" a crocheted doily with wallpaper paste 

but that didn't work at all 

So I painted it with a few coats of black gloss to make it go hard 

and blend in with the frame 

 Then I  measured up what size pieces I needed 

and tried to get the pattern the same on both pieces that I was going to use

 I then hot glued the pieces to the corners

 To make it look like this

 The edges of the advert were a bit rough after me tearing it out of the magazine.....

yeah yeah, I know I should have cut it out but I acted on impulse!

anyway, I bought some ribbon the same colour as the printed border and hot glued it on all the way around but not until I had glued the advert to a pretty sheet of paper 

 After assembling it all this is the result!

I'm rather pleased with it.

Now just to get time and energy to coincide 

and I will paint those walls a nice red.