• Crafts for adults - Father's Day - Handmade gifts

    Scrabble tile Father’s Day coaster

    We celebrate Father’s Day with handmade gifts in our house. We’ve already been busy with decorating candles and drawing pictures. I thought I would try something a little more grown up with my stash of Scrabble tiles. Vintage Scrabble tiles 2mm cork sheet UHU POR glue Swann Morton scalpel How to make a Scrabble tile Father’s Day coaster We kept our Scrabble tile coaster simple with the words ‘I love you Dad’. We arranged the Scrabble tiles, using blanks to make each line the same length. We placed the tiles on a sheet of cork (purchased from eBay) and glued…

  • Crafts for adults - Handmade gifts - tutorial - upcycling - vintage

    Scrabble tile badges

    Did you know it’s Scrabble Week? This May over 6,500 new playable Scrabble words join the Collins Official Scrabble Wordlist. To celebrate the biggest update in 4 years, Collins are hosting Scrabble Week which runs from May 21-28 2015. I love playing Scrabble and crafting with my vintage Scrabble tiles. I felt I should make something special to mark Scrabble Week so I made some fun Scrabble tile badges. My two favourite things (after my family of course) is sewing and drinking tea so I made simple badges using my Scrabble tile stash. I used: Vintage Scrabble tiles 2mm cork…

  • homestyle - interiors - vintage

    On my mantle – April

    My mantle has a bit of a mono theme going on this month which means I’m bang on trend for once! I was actually quite relieved to take down our Easter decorations this year and return to some normality (if that’s possible with a 3 and 5 year old). The clutter that comes with family life quite often brings me down and I seem to be forever battling to keep our living space functional but comfortable. Fortunately we had some friends over one weekend so I had a major tidy and the house isn’t too bad. I’ve had my usual…

  • Crafts for adults - Recycled crafts

    DIY Scrabble tile dishwasher magnet

    I have a fun little make to share with you today. I don’t know about you but my husband is forever putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher when in fact it’s clean and needs emptying. My children also love to help tidy up but needed a little visual help to understand if the dishwasher was clean or dirty. This is such an easy project. I love crafting with Scrabble letters so I have hundreds of tiles to play with but you should be able to pick up a vintage Scrabble set from your local charity shop for a few pounds.…

  • days out - sewing - swaps - vintage

    Monday happy things

    Yesterday we spent the day at Wendover Forest with some friends. We had fun exploring the new Superworm Trail, enjoyed den building and our first picnic of the year (outside of the car!). I love the new print of Alexandra Palace by Georgina Westley I received for my birthday. We used to live near Ally Pally and I could see it every day. I’ve been making some Scrabble tile art for my dish washer – Clean/Dirty Scrabble dishwasher magnets – a tutorial will follow soon. I was sent an ActiviTea portable tea flask to review and it came with us…

  • Handmade gifts - upcycling - vintage

    How to make Scrabble tile key rings

    I was tidying up today and was a little shocked how many Scrabble sets I have. As much as I love the game I also love to craft with the letter tiles so have bought a few sets recently to upcycle. Today I’m going to share how I make Scrabble tile key rings. These are the perfect size to pop in a cracker, or send in the post as a little gift. Equipment needed to make Scrabble tile key rings: Selection of vintage Scrabble tiles Dremel Needle file Mobile phone straps with a lobster clasp How to make Scrabble tile…

  • days out - sewing - vintage

    Monday happy things

    We had the busiest weekend in a long time so my Monday happies are just going to be photos from our week: Bacon sarnies cooked in the back of the vintage Camper Van we rented for the weekend. Art Deco lovely-ness in deepest South London Signs of Spring at Bekonscot Model Village Re-visiting a discarded project Lusting over retro typography at Brooklands Museum

  • homestyle - interiors - vintage

    On my mantle – February

    February has been a busy month and my mantle has changed several times to reflect Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year and my husband’s 40th birthday. So what’s on my mantle this month? The one constant has been a bunch of daffodils. I’ve really enjoyed watching them bloom. Can you see my beautiful vintage tea cup and saucer? I spotted it when out charity shopping with my mum and had to have it. I love vintage china and this was produced to celebrate the Treaty of Versailles on 28th June 1919. The motif features a map of the world and the…

  • handmade - quilt

    Monthly Makes – February

    February has been  great month for me. Although sometimes it’s felt like I have been drowning under blog posts I’ve managed to find time for some sewing. My Union flag quilt is coming along nicely. I took it away with us over half term and spent quite a lot of time on it. I’ve evened up the sides so the stripes are really noticeable. It’s still going to grow a lot more but I’m really pleased with it. I’m putting aside for a while as I need to spend some time thinking how I’m going to finish it off. It’s…