Muchos Home

Ripple Crochet

2014-04-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

So, as I mentioned last week, I have a finished crochet blanket, photos and a mini tutorial coming really soon! But since finishing the blanket, it has freed up some crochet time for me. I have recently become hooked (cheap crochet pun I know) on a few crochet blogs, namely Attic 24 and According to Matt. A few of their projects have inspired me, I have added learning to Tunisian crochet to my goals thanks to Matt, and have been dying to give this ripple pattern a try thanks to Lucy.

The ripple pattern has been playing on my mind the most, so I dived in, bought some new wool and have started my project. I am hoping to create a ripple cushion using these five colours, which should cause a splash on our dark grey sofa!

I have only been rippling for the last two nights, but boy am I addicted to those ripples, I read Lucy's post and wondering how she could be so enamoured with the ripples, after all surely a plain pattern is easier to lose yourself in, but since giving it a go.. I get it! Rippling is totally addictive, just seeing those lovely waves appear is wonderfully satisfying.

I am going to try and stay quite random with my colour choices, which is something I am terrible at, so we will have to see how that goes! But for now please gaze in happy contentment at my first few ripples.

If you want to give them a try, you can find Lucy's pattern here. Persevere through that first ripple row into your foundation chain, it drove me insane but it was definitely worth it!

Muchos x

Can I 'No Poo'?

2014-04-25T09:42:00.002-07:00

Sounds kind of strange, but to 'no poo' basically means to stop using shampoo and conditioner to wash your hair. I feel I must emphasise that it doesn't mean to stop washing it altogether...

The reasoning goes as follows:

- Commerical shampoos contain chemicals which strip your hair of the oils your scalp produces, leaving it feeling squeaky clean
- Your scalp has a meltdown over the loss of all these natural oils which it has produced for your hair's wellbeing, and so goes into oil production overdrive trying to replace them
- Your hair quickly becomes oily and greasy due to this overproduction from your panic stricken scalp, and so.... you need to shampoo it all over again - vicious cycle complete.

The thinking is that by stopping using these shampoo's your scalp will rebalance itself and gradually will stop the oil production frenzy and return to what a normal scalp should be, producing enough oil to keep your hair healthy and no more.

The benefits people have felt have been impressive, my research around blog land has found people experiencing healthier hair, an end to dandruff, reduced hair loss, no more frizz and even in a slow down in greying hair! Impressive.

Personally, I stumbled upon this idea around three months ago, whilst searching for ways to speed the growing process in my effort to get my short hair shoulder length, the idea intrigued me but as a daily washer I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead I cut down my shampooing to every other day - and I struggled to do that!

But recently the idea started playing on my mind again, I did more research and I found myself truly convinced. And so last week I decided to take the plunge. I washed my hair with shampoo and conditioner for the last time on Monday 14th April, I wish I had savoured it more.

Ever since I have been using the method of washing my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar, as infrequently as possible. There are all kinds of suggested ratios and I am still figuring the best ratio for my hair out, but currently I am going for 1/2 tablespoon of baking soda mixed with a bit of water in my hand and then applied to my hair (directly on the roots) and 200ml of AVC mixed with 100ml of water in a spray bottle (sprayed only on the lengths and ends). So far it has gone as follows:

Day 1 - Last wash with commerical shampoo and conditioner - hair was lovely
Day 2 - Not washed, hair was greasy
Day 3 - Washed with baking soda and vinegar, hair felt clean, but I was rather paranoid!
Day 4 - Not washed, hair was feeling pretty greasy, wore in ponytail and smothered my fringe in talcum powder to soak up the excess oil
Day 5 - Washed with water only - grease ball (didn't leave the house)
Day 6 - Washed with water only - had to leave the house for a meal so ponytailed and talc'd again
Day 7 - Washed with baking soda and vinegar - must have messed up on the baking soda as roots did not feel clean
Day 8 - Washed with BS and AVC, felt better but still not as good as the first wash
Day 9 - Not washed, rather greasy
Day 10 - Washed with water only - to quote a colleague 'it's still wet isn't it?' - it wasn't.
Day 11 - Washed with BS and AVC, much better not greasy in lots of places, must have missed my crown though - that was sticking with the grease
Day 12 - Not washed, greasy but, and I don't know if I'm dreaming, less greasy than usual....

(Not washed means I didn't allow it to even get wet, wet hair can break more easily I heave heard, so I'm trying to avoid wetting it every day)

So far, not so good, but maybe getting better... My hair has always been into it's excessive oil production so I do expect I will have a rather long breaking in period. The aim is to try and keep the BS and AVC washes to twice a week to allow my scalp the breathing space to get to work balancing itself out - hopefully sooner rather than later.

But for now, here's a picture of my hair on Day 6.

Yes I went out with hair like this :O but what might disgust you more is that compared to how it felt - I thought it looked pretty good....

Eugh. Muchos x

The Dining Room Begins

2014-04-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

We took advantage of the four day Easter weekend to get started on the dining room - and what a start it has been. So far we have encountered a dead rat under the floorboards (puke) an army of house flies (courtesy of deceased rat) a bit of a leaking shower which actually wasn't a big deal, and also a hissing sound from behind the boarded up old gas fire.. hmmm. So it's gas off until that gets looked at. Cold water showers here I come!

But enough trials and tribulations, how about some progress shots! We started of by making a plan...

So here is our dining room on Friday morning - a perfectly okay room but we wanted to redecorate and it needed a rewire - plus we want some fancy electrics such as ceiling speakers (disco anyone?) and the our favourite - spotlights, plus moving sockets and switches etc. (Note to all, J is an electrician, a legit, qualified, does it for a living type electrician, so please remember that he is not a DIYer and I probably wouldn't recommend you giving this a go - like I might recommend you dabbling with some crochet).

But back to business.. our dining room before....

Before we started we broke out some old bedding to act as dust sheets.. a wise move.

And our dining room right now (Monday night) - it might be surprising that there has been significant progress when actually it looks like a thousand rhinos had a party, then we were robbed and finally a bomb hit.

I do always find we get to this point and then sit a cry in the corner, but it feels better this time, because this time I have seen it happen three times already and I know IT DOES GET BETTER. (eventually).

So actually rather than wailing in my newly finished crochet blanket (spoiler alert) I am quite ants in my pants excited!

Have you taken on any major work lately?

Muchos x

Weekend Updates

2014-04-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

A trip out for a tile cutter resulted in us finding a few other things which have helped make our new house a bit more homely.

First up... A few months ago we bought this light from Made and while we really love it, it has received a lot of comparisons to a hairdryer.. And I mean a LOT.

So we switched out the existing chrome lampshade, for this muted sage lampshade. It's a lot softer to look at now and helps pull our grey room with accent greens together.

We also got the green armchair for Made, the owl cushion from B&Q and the mirror is from the Hartford range at Next.

Next up, our bare light bulb in the bedroom got itself a lovely fluffy coat to wear..

I just love how white and soft and fluffy it looks! And lit up it looks even better!

And finally, my favourite (and cheapest) update, is this little pot of colour for our landing windowsill. I think Gerbera's are my favourite flowers, they have officially won the contest. And these are such a vibrant red, in their shiny bright red pot.

They add some much needed colour to our newly painted, and very neutral hallway and landing.

Such deliciousness.

Both the lampshades and the pot plant are from B&Q. We did also get the tile cutter that we originally went for, but more on that soon!

Have you been making any quick updates to your home lately?

Muchos x

Upcycled Pine Bedroom Furniture

2014-04-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

Since the move we've been sinking our funds into the house makeover, so wherever we can save money we will do! We've always hated our pine bedroom furniture, but it was free to start with as a family member was getting rid. We have had it for over a year now, and in the new house we wanted something a bit nicer, we'd been shopping online for weeks for bedroom furniture but we're not very good at being realistic so it was all way out of our price range.

So rather than shell out we considered what we could do to turn the furniture we had into furniture we loved. The first thing that popped into our head was to turn the pine white.

To prepare the wood for painting we sanded the drawers until the shine was lost and the wood felt a little bit rough, just so the paint would stick to the furniture and not chip off if the drawers were knocked. We used white undercoat and gave all the drawers two coats, leaving 24 hours in between as the tin instructed.

On the woodwork in the bedroom we've used Eggshell white, which gives a matt finish with a slight shine... a bit like an eggshell. So we used the same on the sides of the drawers, however gloss is much easier to wipe clean and keep stain free so we glossed the tops.

For this project we used quick dry gloss to speed up that 24 hour drying time, whilst it did dry quickly, the effect was far from impressive, we ended up going over it with gloss twice but there is still no where near the same shine or coverage as with usual gloss. Looking back we wouldn't use it again, the 24 hour wait is worth it when you get the right results!

After painting the outside of the drawers we had started thinking along more adventurous lines. Originally we wanted a white and pale blue bedroom, but after finding this wallpaper, that all changed. So we wanted to still bring some blue into the room, but not too look completely out of place. We used alternate blue and a tan brown paint to paint the drawers fronts.

The paints we used are 'Quintessential Blue' and 'Ancient Artefact' from the Dulux Timeless Classics range, we used tester pots for the paint, which we already had to hand after trying out a few colours around the house. As this was standard emulsion it didn't take well to the undercoat we had already put on the drawers, it took four coats to get a good even coverage and it will probably chip off if you knocked it. However this was purely due to the fact we had undercoated first, we have used the Timeless Classics paint in our front room as well and it gave great coverage and went on really smoothly.

To break up the blocks of colour we stuck with white handles, and we're quite happy with the results. It was J's ideas to paint the legs blue, I wasn't sure at first but they have grown on me now (and I don't actually see them very often...)

We're loving our new look drawers, they should last us a few years until a full update is due.. whilst they are pretty for now, they have seen better days.

Have you ever tried upcycling? Or made the mistake of using emulsion over undercoat?

Muchos x

Craft Catch Up

2014-03-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

So I have to be honest.. we have actually been in the new house for about three months now...I think it's safe to say I'm not very good at blogging about our home renovation process... but I have been desperate to start blogging again. So I'm sticking to what I know (though I will share some updates about the house soon, I promise!)

What I know and love is craft, and right not I have a few woolly projects I would like to share with you. Clockwise from the top left we have, crochet hats, a granny square blanket, a crocheted throw and a knitted cardigan. They are all works in progress but I thought I would share them anyway.

First up the crocheted hats, this ideas came about from a basket pattern which I found in the Homemaker magazine.

After I had crocheted the smallest basket, my mum commented that it would make a great hat, and so I searched the web and came across this very similar pattern, I have used a really chunky yarn and a 10mm(!) hook, so these babies will definitely keep your head warm in the winter.

(The hat is actually hat shaped, it was just very difficult to get it to keep its shape for the photo!)

My plan is to test the sizes out on friends and colleagues and get an idea of which size fits which size heads best, from there I can then make hats in any weight wool and size crochet hook as long as I increase to the right size to start with. I have become to crochet recently, since teaching myself using various YouTube videos last year. There will definitely be more hats in the future and I will keep you updated on the best size for a certain head and will share how I amended the pattern to get the right size.

Then we have this little granny square blanket.

I steered away from my usual preference for neutral colours and went with bright with pink and purple, I think when it's finished it would be perfect for a little girls room. I haven't got particularly far with this, mainly due to a design decision which I could not make, which was basically whether to make one big granny square or a medium size granny square surrounded by normal size granny squares like these:

I have gone for one big granny square as I have really likes the look as I have been increasing, and I think a scallop edge would look lovely to finish it off. I'm slowly chipping away at this each night at the minute doing one or two rounds, so I will keep you updated as to my progress. However if you like the style of granny squares, I found the tutorial for this style here, the video is really easy to understand and really clear for a beginner crochet-er (mastering these squares was the first thing I learnt in crochet!)

Up next is the crochet throw, I started making this when our offer on this house got accepted. We knew then that we wanted a grey and white living room. Our inspiration from here and here. So as soon as our offer went through I got to work with this throw ready to keep us snuggly and warm on our new sofa in our new home. But then the sale took an absolute age to go through and I kind of lost enthusiasm, so the poor little throw is still only half complete.

This is another one that I chip away at occasionally when the mood strikes, and it is progressing steadily. again I am thinking of edging this with white, i just haven't decided on a style, I may just go plain and simple, after all I am sure there is such a thing as too much scallop edging! To make this I have done rows of single, double and treble crochet worked as follows:

Chain 90
Single crochet full row
Double crochet full row
Treble crochet full row
Double crochet full row

And then repeat from single crochet.

I will end on a single crochet and then do one mahoosive round of white all the way around, not only to finish off but to draw attention away from my wavy sides... whoops.

And finally, it's a little knitted cardigan that is very much in its first few weeks of life. I first saw this pattern in the June 2013 'Let's knit' magazine and have wanted to do it ever since, but this scary little chart terrified me and I didn't have a clue where to start. YouTube couldn't save me this time, I needed some hands on help, so I just put the magazine to one side and focused on other things.

But I never forgot the pattern. So, when I started attending a local Knit and Natter group at Cobwebs in Tottington, I took this pattern with me to draw on other people's knowledge and skill, and we're finally away!

I have made it through the chart and I am knitting my way up the back of the cardigan. I don't expect I will be finished this project any time soon, it's something I save for the weekly Knit and Natter group, so I have help on hand when needed!

I am knitting this in Rico`Essentials Merino Double Knit and 3.25mm needles as directed so it's not growing terribly quickly, but I don't think anything will deter me from this, I have been waiting over nine months to get it started and I am loving every stitch!

The last image gives the most accurate reflection of the true colour of the yarn.

So there you have it, a little insight into some of my craft projects. All very woolly at the minute, I am currently having a bit of a love affair with yarn I have to admit!

Has anyone else used YouTube to learn a new craft? Or do you prefer learning from friends and family?

And just for fun, some photo bombs from Eric...

Muchos x

Bathroom Inspiration

2013-12-06T08:03:00.001-08:00

So the move to the new house still hasn't happened and it is getting hard to keep up the excitement levels of it all.

But drawing up ideas sure does help!

Here are our dreams (at the minute) for the bathroom:

It does look a bit scarce but it is one of the smaller rooms after all! We plan on sticking to greys and blues with wooden accessories and possibly a bit of a nautical theme because I still love it.

We already have the chest of drawers which are from Dunelm Mill and they work perfectly to hold all our bathroom essentials including our bathroom cleaning supplies.

The toilet is just a toilet we aren't particularly fussy, we're just aiming for a modern white suite.

The shower head would be lovely but this style is quite expensive at £121.50, for a shower head!! we found this one here. But you can get much cheaper ones in a similar style.

We love these grey stone tiles, and like what they have done here.

As for accessories, I'm sticking with the nautical inspired theme that's been popular. Natural weather worn wood and beach themed accessories, I think they match the colour scheme quite well and draw in the blues we want in the bedroom, to help make the house flow a bit more.

Now fingers crossed we're in before Christmas!

Muchos x

Cute Christmas Decorations

2013-10-13T03:33:00.004-07:00

With Christmas just round the corner especially when you plan on crafting most of it, it's time to break out the decorations. And this year, as well as the good old craft magazines, Pinterest is helping out with plenty of inspiration , which is where I found these little cuties!

The full tutorial is here.

But here is my take on the little cuties.

I used thread the same colour as the felt rather than contrasting, and as my little decorative touch I added some 'with love' ribbon onto the back. Though I love the little buttons used in the originals and will have to have a hunt around for some.

These guys are so quick and easy, no doubt the tree of everyone I know will be sporting one this Christmas!

Have you started crafting for Christmas yet?

Muchos x

Dining Room / Kitchen Inspiration

2013-10-08T10:00:00.003-07:00

Okay, so in the new house the kitchen and dining room are separate rooms but we want to run the same colour scheme and decorating themes through both rooms to make them feel more like one space.

You will know from our preliminary colour palette the colours we were planning on, so here is what we came up with for the dining room:

Pale olive greens, pale tans and greys with whites and lemon yellows. It looks dashing don't you think?

It's great fun seeing our thoughts come to life, and it makes me even more excited to actually move in - which never seems to get any closer to actually happening by the way.... :(

So anyway, here's a breakdown:

Polka Dot fabric - Is by Clarke and Clarke and it's 'Dotty' in Sage Green. We bought some for our pinboard for £11.99 per metre at Abakhans, but we have since spotted it at Dunelm Mill for only £8.99 per metre.
Curtains - Marks and Spencer Linen Mix Herringbone Curtains between £79 - £119 - I can't wait to buy these, I think they are just beautiful and will help to keep the space light yet cosy.
Grey Oak Dining Chair (larger) - this one is from Loverslounge.co.uk and is pricey at £120 - yes for a dining chair, but it is very pretty and it is Oak...
Eames Grey DSW Chair - this beauty is from cultfurniture.com and is £79, so cheaper than the oak ones but still pricey in my opinion - but they are lovely!
The little Polka Dot Yellow Plant Pot is from Newbank Garden Centre and I already bought this for £1.49 - SALE
Dining Table - Now I apologise to whoever I nabbed this photo from but I cant find it again for the life of me! Basically we are looking for a light natural wood that's got a grey look to it, but not too grey (I'm doing great here) but it must be solid wood. If you Google 'natural light mango wood dining tables' you might find similar. We're going for this wood as we have already bought a Wall Organiser but no where can I find the wood it is made out of! We're guessing Mango from pictures and as it was made in India but it's only a rookie guess - the organiser will be accompanying us on dining table shopping trips!
Country Style Kitchen - I found this kitchen image here, and this is what we will be desperately recreating, but J insists we buy the kitchen from Howdens, here. He's worked on many a kitchen and he's terribly fussy!
The olives and sunflower are just for prettiness and further colour inspiration.

So I'm still looking for dining chairs that look like the above but are much more purse friendly and we still need to confirm the wood we're going, we don't want matchy matchy but as we are having white wood objects like our beloved pinboard, we're trying to keep the natural woods the same so it all ties in nicely.

(We also have bought a few other accessories for the kitchen/dining room which no doubt you will see soon - no fear, they closely stick to our colour scheme!)

So there we have it, what do you think of our plans for the Kitchen / Dining Room?

Muchos x

Felt Heart Decorations

2013-10-06T23:29:00.003-07:00

I love felt. It’s the best thing ever, along with wool and fabric and ribbon and glitter and cheesecake and snow and... well it’s one of the best things ever.

But back to felt, it’s a beauty because it looks lovely and it is very easy to ~~play~~ craft with.

I love a good old felt decoration for the Christmas tree but I love felt all year round, so I made a few of these to have as home decorations, and here’s how to do it.

You will need:

3 pieces of felt
1 pair of sharp scissors
Yarn
Thread
Needle (1x small 1x large for yarn)
Pencil
Toy stuffing
Length of ribbon
Paper

First things first, I'm not one of these who likes the look of a wonky heart and says its shabby chic (you know who you are!). I'm sorry but not for me. I am one of those armed with a stencil and a ruler and a let’s get this thing symmetrical attitude. So first things first I made my heart stencil. To do this, I used the good old trick of folding a piece of paper in half and drawing half a heart which I then cut out.

Symmetrical heart – done!

Using my new stencil I then drew around this onto one piece of felt (the colour I wanted for the heart) I then pinned two pieces of felt together and cut around them both at the same time – giving me two heart pieces which were identical.

Now for this heart I wanted a letter on the front as its going to be a gift, so again out came the stencil making kit (paper, ruler and pencil) I drew my letter onto the felt and cut it out. I also made a mini heart as well.

I keep all my odd pieces of felt and fabric in here, and for this project I was able to use an old piece of white felt rather than a new one .

Then using the same colour thread as your letter, you need to sew it onto the outside of your front piece of felt.

And I added this cute little bow which I got from my local haberdashery. I sewed this on using pink thread.

(As my heart was for a small baby I glued all the pieces down and then sewed them as well just to make it extra secure.)

I also want the heart to hang from a piece of ribbon so to do that you need to cut the ribbon to your desired length and fold it in half, you then sew the two ends of ribbon together to make a loop.

The using the same colour thread as the felt you then need to sew the ribbon onto the inside of the back piece of felt.

Almost invisible!

Now you can start stitching those babies together! Again if your super precise, you want to put pins around the edges to keep the hearts lined up (I didn't do that this time but I have made a fair few of these). Now here's where personal taste comes in, I like to sew the pieces together using a piece of yarn, so the stitches can be clearly seen and almost give the heart a little frame, alternatively you can use thread if you don't want your stitches so visible.

Taking the needle and your thread/yarn, I have always found it easier to start from the bottom, cut your yarn to the length needed, I usually guess by going round the heart 3 times as shown, it's always plenty!.

Then start sewing those pieces together! The tricky bit comes when you have to go around the ribbon at the top, here's how I do it to keep it neat and tidy.

As you sew that baby up, start filling it with your toy stuffing! Don't do what I always do and forget and then get to the end and struggle to fill it through a teeny tiny hole!

To tie it off, stitch to the end and then push you needle right through the middle of the heart and straight through the other side, pull tight (tight enough that your heart squishes up) and then cut the excess and pull the heart back into shape.

I make such a mess!

And now your finished! Go hang that pretty little heart!

Muchos x

Living Room Inspiration Board

2013-10-04T00:11:00.000-07:00

Following our Preliminary Colour Palette, we started the more exciting stuff of planning the rooms and how we are going to integrate them colours. Here's what we came up with for the living room...

These pictures are mainly nabbed from Google, so I will try my best to remember where they are all from...

The sofa is from DFS, and it's definitely 'the one' it's the Carnaby sofa and currently this 4 seater is only £799!
The chair is the Wilfred Armchair is Stone Grey from Out and Original (It's £299.99 so it's cheaper than the 2 seater sofa we planned on buying so maybe I can twist J's arm...) (Sofas and chairs are an investment after all!)
The lamp is from eBay (in fact we have already bought one very similar from T K Maxx for £39.99)
The cushion is from eBay, and I love the fabric but I will be making my own instead of purchasing :)
The bookshelf is again from eBay (all the eBay items I found by using the Google 'shopping' search tool)
The photoframes are from IKEA, I only plan on getting multiple frames in one size and having a photo wall.
And finally the curtains are from IKEA, the RITVA curtains for only £25, but again I have already bought curtains very similar from Dunelm Mill which were £39.99. (Darn it!)

So there we go, a few items already bought, some that definitely will be, and some that will be crafted.

As a starter, I'm already loving our living room!

Muchos x

Preliminary House Colour Palette

2013-10-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the move to the new house is 'imminent' so it's time to start putting pen to paper with our thoughts on what we want to do to the place.

After sorting through endless amounts of paint swatches we settled on some colours which we both liked and from that we got this...

Our preliminary house colour palette, preliminary as no doubt it will change, we need to be in the space, we need to get a clearer idea of the natural lighting in each room and which walls we want as our accents.

Our vision is for a home which is calming and fresh, so instantly we thought of blues and greens, a colour I love is grey so that will definitely be featuring heavily in our home. I'm all about subtle colours as the base so out of the above it will be the more subtle colours which I want on the walls. The bursts of colour like the yellows and brighter blues would be accent colours to inject some colour and something a bit more vivid.

I want our home to flow, so the colour palette above is relevant for every room but as a general overview the main colours for each room will be:

Living Room - Column 1 (Left) Greys and whites - with decorative touches of the greens and yellows
Dining Room - Column 4 (from Left) with Column 3 colours as accents
Craft Hideaway - White with splashes of yellow and green
Kitchen - Column 3 and 4
Hallway/ Landing - I can't decide whether to stay neutral or get some colour in there!
Bathroom - Column 2
Master Bedroom - Column 5
Spare Bedroom - Who knows?!

Opinions please?!? What are your thoughts on our colour palette? Do we need to change it up a bit?

Muchos x

Washi Tape

2013-09-24T13:31:00.001-07:00

My washi tape has arrived and I cannot wait to use it! I got it from this little shop over at Etsy and I'm really happy with it now it has arrived!

I plan to use it to jazz up my up cycled biscuit tin and cover them not quite straight lines in the process. But which one should I use?! The decisions, so to help me out I decided to buy some plain cards perfect for making your own and use the washi tape in my designs.

Complete novice I know!

To make this card I used 4 strips of washi tape, some plywood letters which cost 99p for the full alphabet and then some paper flowers from Dove Craft, I got a pack of various colours and sizes for 99p and plain cards which you can find in most craft shops, and a good old tube of PVA glue!

I still think it's great that you can achieve a personalised result so easily and on a budget (even if my attempt has 'beginner' stamped all over it).

My love affair with washi tape has officially begun.

Muchos x

Upcycled Biscuit Tin

2013-09-17T13:38:00.001-07:00

So, after the framed pin board project here. We had rather a lot of paint left. And I couldn't resist painting something else.

I'm always looking to reuse items we already have to create storage to help keep us organised. On my hunt for a paintable object I came across this old biscuit tin, whilst I don't hate the pattern or the colours, I am very colour scheme focused and there will be no room in our new house that will incorporate that many colours, so I got paintbrush happy.

This was solely my project so one coat of undercoat was all that was needed.

And then it got the white gloss treatment, and it was perfectly covered, lovely and glossy white and a tad boring. The main colour for our new dining room is going to be green, and we plan to carry this through to the kitchen. I want the green to be light and fresh and natural and will also be throwing in a few splashes of yellow. So a yellow stripe was in order for my rather boring glossy white tin.

I put masking tape around the top and bottom of the tin leaving a stripe uncovered across the middle. I tried to be very careful and keep the tape straight..I did my best.

Then out came this delicious pot of 'Taxi' yellow paint which I have had for quite some time now.

I decided to use a sponge to apply the paint to give the stripe a different texture to the rest of the tin.

Stripe painted I loved the speckled effect against the smooth gloss. But here is where I made my mistake, I left the masking tape on during the drying stage, instead of removing it straight away, so I did get some bleed through :(

But from afar you can't tell!

An excellent storage solution for all our tall utensils, and we have many, shown is just a small selection, I don't even know what half of the others do!

So my paint craving hands were satisfied, I'm not sure that this will be our forever storage tin for the kitchen, it was a very rush job after all, but I can already see a future for this tin holding various knitting needles, crochet hooks, maybe a few craft scissors...

And as for the bleed through, well I have a solution! I have recently ordered some Washi tape from the knickknackshop on Etsy, here. I got various tapes with yellow and green patterns - they will cover up the bleed through no problemo! I will update once they have arrived and been installed on my tin.

Waiting for a craft room...

2013-09-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

So for the past year we have been renting a lovely little terraced house, it's very open plan and we spend a lot of time downstairs. It has two bedrooms and the second bedroom is a bit of a mixture of spare room, dressing room and home office.

The intention was always to make it my craft room (well that was my intention anyway) but over the course of the year I realised I didn't like shutting myself in a room away from all the activity in the house and gradually those craft supplies started coming downstairs.

Where they get a lot of use.. resulting in craft chaos.

In the new house I already know where my craft space will be and have already planned out the space to fit all my supplies nice and snug - I can't wait to get started on that and share my ideas. But for now, my craft stuff is staying put, but it could sure do with some organising.

So I shopped my home and came up with these. A shoe box, a shoe box lid and a shallow wicker basket.

My main problem is that I have several projects on the go at any one time and the supplies I need for each project I try to keep separate which at best means an ugly plastic bag or sometimes they just get thrown in the mix.

So using my new items from around the house I got rid of those plastic bags and created separate storage for my individual projects.

So much better!

It's only a temporary fix and it's not perfect or beautiful but for now it will do the trick!

Muchos x

Fabric Covered Framed Pin Board

2013-09-13T05:25:00.000-07:00

With our move to the new house fast approaching I have been on the lookout for any freebies or cheap furniture I can find. And one day it paid off, I came across the most glorious framed cork board, left in a pile for the skip outside an office building in town. After checking it definitely was for the skip I rang my 'man with a van' (who from here on in will be known as 'J' - mysterious) and we hastily smuggled it home before they could change their mind!

Okay, so it didn't look to great to start off with, but I could see the finished product already in my mind and it was beautiful. As soon as it was home I wasted no time in separating the cork from the frame, I was so quick that I even forgot to take a photo, but you can see how much glue had been used to keep it in place...

Now I was ready. The next day me and J made a trip to our local Wilkinson's for some cheap supplies, sandpaper, masking tape, paintbrushes, undercoat and white gloss (yes we really did have none of those things! I am sure that will soon change once we become 'home owners') For less than £15 we had the lot and the real fun could start.

My first job was to sand down the frame to get rid as much of the varnish as possible, it took some doing and I probably should have kept at it a while longer but I hate sanding and my impatience won out.

Once I was happy enough with how much I had sanded we got to work and painted the frame with it's first layer of undercoat, yes I said we, it seemed J couldn't resist all the DIY that was going on and couldn't help but get involved - much to my delight!

Each coat had to be left for 16 - 20 hours to dry. And on J's instruction we had to give it three yes three coats of undercoat before he would let the gloss go on!

Finally, four days later the third coat was dry and the glossing began. This too took a day to dry, but it was worth it...

Whilst waiting for the paint to dry, we decided not to sit and watch it dry but to go and get our fabric to cover the cork. This was perhaps the most stressful part of the project. As we haven't moved into our new home yet, we also haven't decorated, so we had to decide once and for all the colour scheme for our dining room, as that's where we plan to hang the pin board. We easily decided on green as our main colour accent for the room, now it was finding the shade and pattern and that's when the tension started. My mind wanted vintage florals, his mind wanted masculine stripes and a simple design. We'd all about given up when we found it...

Polka dot perfection and a delicious shade of green that's fresh and light without being too overpowering. Love. And at £11.99 a metre it was a bargain, as the fabric was 140 cm wide we only needed 1 metre for this project (our board is 120 x 92 cm) but I snuck in an extra metre for luck (I sense cushions!)

Once home the fabric needed ironing. Lots.

The ironing session from hell itself...

There were still faint creases when we decided to give up (9 irons later) and just go for it. Impatience won out again. Luckily with no adverse results!

We did prep the cork by covering the sides with masking tape, purely because they had suffered some damage when I removed them from the frame due to the glue that had held them in place. I'm not sure it was necessary but we did it anyway.

The boyfriend proved incredibly useful once more and produced a staple gun I had no idea he had (it's meant for wiring but it worked a charm) so we got staple happy. This was a two man job so there's no pictures of the process but what we did was to lay out the fabric face down and placed the cork board on top. We made sure the fabric was straight (no one wants wonky polka dots) and once we were 100% happy we folded over the top and stapled all along, starting in the middle and working out. We then pulled the bottom tight (to get rid of them creases) and keep the fabric snug to the board, and stapled again. We did this again for the sides. We had our fabric covered cork! And it looked perfect in its new glossy white frame.

All that was left was to secure the cork to the frame. I didn't want to glue it again as I wanted to be able to easily remove the cork should we need to. So a trip to B&Q later and we returned with these.

We got 8, one for each corner and one for in the middle of each side.

Oh there's 'J's' hand!

The boyfriend proved useful yet again and out came the power tools.

And the big reveal...

I used the paint tin to show the scale of our mammoth pinboard!

Ta Da! We are so happy with how it has turned out and can't wait to move in and get it up on the wall. It's going to make a lovely feature for our new dining room and will be such a great place to display all our reminders, photos, tickets, invites, postcards and whatever else we like. I just have to work up the courage to put pins in the beautiful thing!

I can't wait to share a picture of it in it's new home!

Muchos x

Welcome

2013-09-12T05:32:00.002-07:00

Hello and welcome to the first ever blog post!

Muchos Home is set to be filled with all sorts of fun home projects ranging from cleaning, organisation, crafts, upcycling and will also detail every aspect of our fast approaching move to our first home.

I would love for you to come on that journey with us through following our blog and hopefully along the way you will also be inspired to try out some of our projects for yourself!

Thanks for visiting and please come back soon, you never know what you could find!

Muchos x