home: made [ mason jars ]

We love a crafting or DIY project and this super book brings together 35 brilliant projects using mason jars and other glass containers.

‘Crafting with Mason Jars and other Glass Containers: Over 35 simple and beautiful upcycling projects’

This book explores methods and makes for great lighting, storage, gifts, kitchenalia, table settings, wedding ideas and so much more. With easy and building to slightly more complex tutorials, it’s a lovely way to improve your crafting skills and give you a great repertoire of ideas to use for many occasions and interiors

RRP £12.99

Currently on Amazon at £9.54

home: favourite thing [ sofa ]

We love the smooth curves, retro leg shape and soft outback leather of the new Seattle sofa from Made.com

Their price for this premium leather sofa is £749

Visualising bohemian throws and ikat or kilim cushions strewn on and around for a real laid back style. Compliment with textured rich pattern rugs and other dark wood furniture.

Also available is a matching armchair

home: made [ concrete ]

A material that has mixed views within the home is concrete. Some see it as ugly and lifeless, others see it as an interesting, even beautiful material with many uses.
We are much more the later so today we look at gorgeous accesories you can create in the home using concrete. There are loads of great tutorials and guides online showing how easy it is to make a concrete moulds for all types of projects.
A simple place to start is making tealight votives or a hanging plant stand. You pick the size and shape using plastic pots or old bottles and with a bag of cement mix away you go.
Check out sayyes.com and themerrythought.com.
If you’re feeling a little more adventurous try creating a concrete pendant lamp. Again using the same process with bottles, this time you will need the cable and light bulb attachments, and a little more patience, but you will have a stunning contemporary light after. Alternatively on a smaller scale try a table top lamp base. Head to brit.co and pastill.nu to be inspired.

home: made [ garden fencing / hanging garden ]

Further to our highlight of enjoying outdoor living now that summer is here we look at a simple idea to enhance an outdoor space.

If your fences are looking a little dated and worn but it’s either impossible or too much money to replace them all, using cheap battening can give a great modern clean look to old panels.

Using the existing fence posts as your base of support, you can evenly mount new batons horizontally with spacing, to create a new design and look.

Batons or narrow wood (approx 2”x 1”) can be purchased from your local wood merchant or building suppliers. Most will offer a cutting service for a small cost if you don’t wish to cut all the lengths yourself. Then for the easiest fixing use long outdoor weather resistant screws and a drill.

This simple battening idea can also then create a great system for hanging pots, planting, lighting and other paraphenalia from. It can be handy for small spaces to allow the use of the walls for growing fruit, veg and flowers if there isn’t much floor space. It also keeps things out the way from pets, foxes and little fingers!

We love these handy hanging pots from Tiger and they’re only £2!

For furthermore and more complex fencing guides head to silvatimber or little house on the corner

home: made [ dipped spoons ]

Simple creative projects are great to make personal gifts, are fun with the kids and result in unique items for the home.

Items dipped in paint are hugely on trend right now with stores offering a variety of furniture and accessories with the ‘dipped in paint’ look. Anything from stools and coffee tables to vases and glasses can look great with splashes of colour. It’s an easy way to get highlights of present colour trends into an interior – currently popular is copper, neons and simple monochrome – either black or white.

Start small with an easy project of dipped wooden spoons. All you need is spray or paint, masking tape, a brush and to strengthen to allow washing use a sealing agent like acrylic sealer, shellac or paint in enamel paint instead.

Head to high street kitchen stores, IKEA, or supermarkets for cheap basic wooden spoons.

For simple tutorials try BespokeBride, BrightNest or LittleBitFunky.

home: made [ hallway hooks ]

Creativity and thinking out side the box can be stretched to any projects across the home.

Planning hallway hooks and storage can be an excuse to be quirky and fun, and you can design a system that not only looks good but works for your needs in the hallway – the room of the house that gets so much traffic and needs to function for accessible storage for coats, shoes, dog paraphenalia, shopping bags and all sorts.

When planning your hook system search google, Pinterest and similar for ideas and inspiration. Think about the type of hook and the type of layout. Hooks can be classic in look but arranged in a quirky order – you don’t have to have them in a straight line. Hooks can be colourful, unusual or could be made from other items that produce something that can act as a hook. We found door knobs, cutlery and even a rake head used for hanging.

Explore DIY store hook departments for a mix of traditional or modern shaped hooks. Hang metal hooks on a coloured wall or make hooks stand out on a white wall by spraying the hooks in great colours. You could use shades of one colour or look to current colour trends for inspiration.

Visit homeware stores like IKEA, Anthropologie and Tiger for a great mix of great designs and more unusual hooks.

And hooks don’t have to be directly onto the wall but could be mounted on panels of wood, pallets or even coming down from the ceiling. You can also think about combining hooks and baskets for a flexible interchangeable storage system.

Explore EBay, Not On The Highstreet and Amazon for cool modern metal baskets, vintage style aged baskets, woven baskets and old, or made to look worn, crates for effective storage that can hang from hooks.

You can create an eclectic display mixing height and style and change according to your needs, and add more hooks and baskets when you need more space. And if the hooks are empty why not hang decorative accessories for a design feature. Hooks can also be personalised with letters or names on or above using stencils or stick on initials (we spotted some easy peal stick on letters from Tiger in a great font).

Make your hallway personal and make a statement with the first room people see in your home.

home: made [ wall decor ]

Sometimes choosing a wallpaper or wall covering can be difficult, finding the right design that fits with the room. If you have a small room or wall, you don’t really need to be buying a whole roll either.
Here we show you a couple of ideas of how to bring pattern onto a wall with minimal cost.

Why not try stenciling, using nothing more than some card, scissors and marker pens. Pick a simple design that will work as a repeat pattern, try not to make it too intricate. Abeautifulmess.com have recently done a gold cactus design and we think it looks great. This look works best on a white wall, but go bold with the colours you want to add.

Another idea we have seen, which could look really good in a monochrome room is using washi tape. Instead of creating a stencil use the washi tape to create the design – crosses, stripes or squares perhaps. You can pick up rolls of tape everywhere now, but to keep cost down head to ebay. We found designrulz.com for some brilliant ideas.

The main thing to remember when doing a wall like these is to roughly mark out the first line, with distance between each design starting in the middle of the wall and work out either side. Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly straight, it all ads to the look and charm of doing it yourself.

home: made [ lanterns ]

It’s not just the larger items of furniture for the garden to think about as the warmer weather arrives but the little accessories too.

For lighting in the garden it’s good to think about solar or battery powered options to avoid the need to get electricity outside although whilst renovating a house it’s always good to plan ahead and get outdoor sockets fitted.

For use with battery powered lights or candles we love these pretty home made tin can lantern lights. Fairly simple to make with tools including a hammer and nails or bradle or similar.

We found this simple tuturial on Inhabitat.com that step by step guides you through the make. It also mentions a useful tip to freeze your tin cans before using to help avoid denting and for ease of punching the design out.

Designs can be pattern-based, outlines of butterflies or birds or you could even do letters and spell out a name or phrase. These would be great at an outdoor wedding with the names of the bride and groom or simply ‘love’ or ‘happiness’.

Punch design pattern templates to follow if you’re not confident with freehand can be drawn on first and you can also download and print patterns to follow.

home: made [ feather light ]

We’ve had the cloud light, and now we’ve come across the feather light tutorial from the inventive folks at Crafts on Facebook.

This simple but very clever ‘make’ using papermache, a balloon, glue and some paper results in a oh-so-pretty feather ball light for your home.

You’ll need a little time for the papermache layers and drying time but the feather making is quick and straight forward for an effective result.

Ensure using a safety bulb that doesn’t heat up when used or instead fill with fairy lights. Even without the light element it’s a super pretty room accessory!

home: made [ staircases ]

For a more unconventional idea, a more quirky design idea, we’ve looked into wow-factor ideas for staircases that go further than carpet or plain wood.

A great idea if you have spare tester pots of wood paint or off cuts of wallpaper – there are an abundance of examples across the net, especially Pinterest, for brilliant designs for your staircase using either paint or paper.

Your hallway is important design statement about the rest of the home, being it is the first room visitors see – so why not make a bold look?

We looked around and were inspired by the many ideas for bright colour choices, clashing patterns, blending pantones, using typography, saying something about the rest of the home, all giving a great feel and welcome to introduce ‘your home’. Colours and pattern can be used to liven up a space or brighten a hallway or even each tread could tell a story!

We found some great inspiring features from Brit&Co, Country Living and a how-to from DIYDoctor.
The important thing to start with is a well prepped set of stairs. It’s essential to sand down to a smooth finish, removing any nails, sharp points and excess old paint, and give a good clean to ensure a good surface to work on. Treads should be primed next, to give a good layer for the chosen paint to go on to. Priming can also help even if using wallpaper as it can help to make a smoother surface under the paper. It is key to apply a few thin layers, fully dried in between to create a solid, long lasting finish with paint and with wallpaper the same with clear varnish.

Look online for inspiration, and as it’s a small area – know that it’ll be easy to change in the future if you fancy a different look!

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