Upcycled Chair

Afternoon everyone!

I have been wanting to tidy up this wooden chair for ages.  I use it in my bedroom to sit at my desk and it really was looking sad and tired!!  We have had this chair since the 70's and we still have the extending table that came with it!  We use the table in a spare room for everything from crafting to decorating and more.  Sadly we only have 2 of the chairs left!

Here is how the poor chair looked before the makeover!!

I chose some nice heavy cotton with a pretty strawberry and gingham design on it to recover the seat.  I also bought some wadding to pad it out abit more as well.  Armed with my staple gun I secured it to the bottom of the seat.

For the chair itself, I used a shade called 'Wolf' from the Wickes Chalky Flat Matt range.  It is a taupe kind of shade which goes well with the fabric.  I sanded the chair down and then put several layers of the paint on it. I then lightly sanded it again and distressed it and then waxed it to seal it.

I am pleased with the finished result and it looks much cleaner and nicer now!!

Here is a before and after photo side by side so that you can judge for yourself!

Thanks for popping by!

A day out at Portabello Market

I've been doing a few little days out recently and as a friend of mine was over from India I caught the coach up to meet her.

We had decided that we would spend the day at Portabello Road Market so hopped on the tube to get there.  Nice and easy and not too many people until we hit Portabello and then it was packed!!

There are some lovely properties as you walk away from the underground station towards Portabello.

We met this fella along the roadside and he was so colourful that we got photos taken with him!!  This is me with the Mad Hatter!  Very nice happy chappy.

There are some lovely stalls at Portabello Market with some interesting old objects.  I don't think you will get much of a bargain price wise but you will be sure to pick up something unusual there!

These people were also on the pavement!!  It looked very strange as their heads are inside of their coat giving the impression that they are headless.  It looked very real!!

There were lots of lovely food stalls

Look at the different varieties of mushrooms on this stall!  Who knew there were so many!!

We were exhausted from walking so much on an extremely hot day!  My feet felt ready to fall off!  I made my way back to Victoria ready to catch the coach home after a very enjoyable day in London.

A day out at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park

Last week I had a lovely day out in Devon with my friend Lucy.  Lucy lives in Devon so I caught the train down to Paignton to meet her.

We spent the day at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park.  Wow what an awesome place!  It is huge and as well as lots of animals in good natural type enclosures there is alot of greenary - it's full of trees and bushes so wonderful to walk around.

If you are not able to walk, there are mobility scooters to hire very cheaply which is what my friend Lucy did.  The zoo and it's staff are very geared up to help anyone with mobility problems and make sure that their day is enjoyable.

The weather was good to us, it was very hot and sunny!  So armed with our packed lunches we set off!

There are large playparks built for the gorillas and orangutan with lots to keep them amused.  It was abit hot for them the day we went though so they didn't jump around too much.

The orangutans were hidden inside so didn't see too much of them.










Here are some more photos from my day out.

 

I'd really recommend spending a day at this zoo.  The place is well kept up, the animals are in very good condition and the staff are keen to make you feel welcome.  It's not a cheap day out - zoos never are but if you have a few people in your group there are various ticket options available as well as day and family tickets, you can also purchase annual tickets or there is another option to visit again using your day ticket if you pay alittle more.  Looking around the park I could see that the entrance fees were put to good use and that the place is kept up together very well and I think that it is worth paying the entrance fees to see the zoo.  You can certainly spend some pleasant hours here.

Facebook Page Giveaway.

Just popping in quickly to tell you about a small giveaway over on my Bumble Bee's Craft Den Facebook page.

The giveaway is for a string of my mini bunting which is made up of 10 small flags. Each flag is approx 6cm x 4cm and on a natural jute string. I normally sell these for £5 plus P & P. All you need to do is to 'Like' my Facebook page and share the giveaway post on Facebook with your friends - more details over on my Facebook page. 

Sorry this is only open to people in the UK due to stupid postage costs to post anywhere else. The closing date will be the last day of June which is 30th. I will do the draw using Random.org on 1 July and post on Facebook the winners name.

Upcycled Shabby Bunting Frame

I started doing this frame weeks back and today finally finished it!

I had already sanded it down and painted it with a gorgeous shade of chalk effect paint called Damsel Chic - it's a sort of vintage pinky purple but a very subtle shade.  I then got stuck on how I wanted to decorate it!  I have some words cut from mdf so had a look through those and chose one that said 'Home' and painted it in the chalky paint - this shade is called Shadow and is a grey/pale blue.  I lightly distressed the frame but not the 'Home' word and I waxed all of it.

The frame started off like this

I toyed with using a handcrafted flower but wasn't 100% happy with how it looked.  So I put it to one side and every so often got it back out to try to think of something that really appealed to me!  This morning I was cutting some of the mini bunting triangles and realised I had some flags that were just right for this frame so I made some bunting across the top of the frame.

This was a much better look than the flower that I was planning to use!  I am really pleased with how it has turned out!

I love bunting and think it looks great anywhere!

The frame is available to buy over on my Facebook page - Bumble Bee's Craft Den for £6 plus p & p or you can email me bumblebeescraftden@gmail.com

Thanks for popping in!

Shabby Framed Blackboard

A quick one from me today - the sun is shining and it is getting hotter.  Yay!!  I have a boat trip on Sunday for my Aunties 70th Birthday so hoping this weather is going to stay with us!  It should be lovely on the river in the sun!

Here is my latest project.  I have upcycled a lovely, heavy pine framed picture into a framed blackboard.  I used the same green paint that I used on the Poundland frame I did the other week as I love the colour!!  I spent alot of time on this one as it is a large frame.  It needed to be sanded down well to get rid of the varnish and then I used a wood filler to sort out all the digs and gaps.  I painted it several times on the front and back and then waxed it all over as well.  I distressed it lightly to give it a 'shabby' look.  The blackboard has several coats on it too.

This is what the frame looked like when I bought it

Rather tired looking and in need of some work!

This is how it looks now

This is up for sale on my Bumble Bee's Craft Den Facebook page for £10 plus postage.  It is in the 'Shabby Chic and Home Decor' album.  It would look lovely in a kitchen or in the hallway by your telephone to scribble notes on!

Easy Mini Shabby Bunting

Good Morning!

The weather is looking promising today, I'm hoping Summer is here!!  With it will no doubt come BBQ's and tea parties!  So, with that in mind I decided to make use of some of the huge amount of lovely cotton fabric I have been collecting and make up some mini bunting.

I used an X Cut Bunting die to mark the fabric - I say mark as it wouldn't cut right through it!  I mananged to crack my cutting pad as well but I think that was not the dies fault but maybe a fault in the pad as it hasn't lasted very long and was always rather bendy.  The marking was better for me than drawing around a template onto th fabric as you don't get pen marks!  Even when I use those disappearing fabric pens I have trouble getting the ink off of the fabric - very time consuming and annoying!  So I used the die and cut over the imprint with scissors where the die hadn't cut.

Cotton fabric frays and can look tatty quickly if you don't stop the fraying!  I did try to use my sewing machine to go around the edges but because the flags were so small they got caught in the machine and the stitching looked too much on such a small flag!  My advice is to use something like a fray stop on the edges or clear nail varnish - it is time consuming if you have a large pile of flags but quite a relaxing job to do whilst watching tv!

I then used a glue gun (I have a fab new glue gun!!) to stick 10 flags to some natural jute string.  Voila - a string of pretty bunting!

Look how effective it is when you use several strings of it together!!

If you can't be fussed to make some - you can buy some on my Facebook page for £5 plus P & P or if you are not on Facebook, just email me bumblebeescraftden@gmail.com to buy some.

Any questions - just ask!

Hessian 'Home' Banner

Hello again!

I am on a blog roll this week!!

A while back I purchased a 5 metre roll of natural hessian and it has been in the parcel sack it came in ever since!  I decided to have a play with it yesterday using a banner die set from Sizzix that I bought recently.  Here is the set of dies that I used

This is the result!

I really like it but then I do love the look of hessian anyway!!  I think in the US you call it burlap but if you go to a fabric shop in the UK and ask for that they look at you blankly!

Now the only problem with hessian is that it frays very easily!  To prevent this you can either do a nice zig zag around the edge with your sewing machine or you can do what I did and smear a pva/tacky glue along the edges on the back side of it.  It will dry clear and should harden the edges so that they don't fray.

I then used white acrylic paint to paint a block in the middle of each one.  For the lettering I made a stencil for each letter.  I just printed the letters out onto normal copy paper and used a pencil to go around the outline, then turned it over, put some stiff card underneath and scribbled over the outline on the back of the copy paper.  This transferred the outline onto the stiff card.  I then just went over the outline with my pencil and then cut it out using a craft knife.  With the 'O' I had to keep the little middle circle bit so that I could place it in the cutout when I was painting the letter.  Otherwise I would had just painted a circle and not an 'O'!  I then positioned the stencil over the white painted block on the hessian and painted the lettering onto each flag.

Lastly - I folded over the top of each flag and then used a glue gun to attach some natural jute string to it.

I am pleased with it and although it takes abit of time waiting for glue and paint to dry, I think it is worth it!

This banner is for sale over on my Facebook page Bumble Bee's craft Den for £8 plus postage, so if you want it, please head on over there!

Thanks for reading my post!

Beautiful Peonies

I was given these gorgeous Peonies yesterday and they are so beautiful that I thought I would share them with you! 

We have a local plant swap group and I had lots of extra lupin plants that we grew this year from seed, so I offered them on the plant swap.  One lady that came for some brought me a little posy of Peonies from her garden.  The colour is such a deep rich maroon colour and they have a lovely light fragrance.  I love the ball shape of them and today they have opened up even more.

They look so nice on my little shelf unit that I revamped the other day!

I wanted some pepper and chilli plants and luckily I was able to swap the lupins to get some!

Plant Swap groups are great - people in my area are very enthusiastic and keen to grow new plants and if we grow too many of one plant it is great to be able to swap them for something else.   We have set up a group on Facebook.  If you don't have a local Plant Swap group why not set one up on Facebook!  As well as getting some nice plants, you will get to know lots of people in your area!

Hopefully, this year, my area will have lots of people growing vegetables and flowers.

Another good place to look out for some bargain plants is B & Q - they had lots reduced last weekend.  Some of them just needed watering and were reduced to 20p!!    I also saw trays of 6 Geraniums and Begonias in Poundland today!  You don't have to spend much to get your garden looking pretty!