Day 154 - diy clock

Hard work does pay off. I have spent many hours chiselling out a square for the battery pack to go in so the mechanism would go through enough. Hard but worth it, I drilled holes for the number marks and put tiny cogs in for a little sparkle.

Day 153 - distressing wood with acrylic paint

Time for a break from the sofa job, today I have made a start on another idea, (though you'll have to wait and see what it is!) So far I have just taken an old horrible chopping board and added a bit of distressing colour using acrylic paint and sand paper. Which works just as well as chalk paint but cheaper.

Day 152 - stage 2 sofa upgrade

Stage two had been a very long process. First I had to take our the seams of the first cover to make it a teensy bit bigger then if course I needed to make matching covets for the other two sofa's and finally I could get on with cushions which is no where near finished. It's taking a while because I am recycling the feather stuffing from the old cushions. Which as you can imagine is dusty and feathery work. I decided to go for random shapes and sizes for the cushions so it would be simple enough to repeat. Gonna need alot more.

Day 151 - stage 1 sofa upgrade

That's one part of the sofa covered, I made a slip to fit over the arms seat and back to keep all the cushions in place. I only have another two seater and large corner sofa to cover and a lot of cushions... Much more to follow. eventually.

Day 150 - Plans for the sofa

I finally found some fabric in the charity shop, enough to cover the two main sofas in my living room. I made a start but only managed to cut my fabric before work yesterday, so here are my measurements and plans. More to follow...

Day 149 - herb crusted salmon and roast potato salad

Watching Masterchef always gives me inspiration to cook something special. Today I cooked my first salmon fillet, I made a crust of rosemary, chilli, lemon, toasted hazelnuts and parsley. The potato salad is made with roast potatoes and mixed with cream spring onion fresh cumin and mustard seeds.

Day 148 - making jewellery

I am opening my house up for an arts trail soon so I decided to make a new range of necklaces to sell. I am enjoying getting creative without any pressure.

Day 147- waterfall ladder braid

Had a little practice with a waterfall and ladder braid on Tam's hair. Pretty fiddly but straight thick hair is helpful to try.

Day 146 - bread bowl with dipping cheese fondue

One of my yummiest concoction ever. Very simply I cut the bottom off a whole loaf of bread (two infact) which had been cooked strangely resulting in a super hard crust. You can do this with stale bread and I reckon a fresh would work too.
Anyway after sawing the bottom off and hollowing the loaf out to leave a crusty bowl I then mixed cream cheese, grated Cheddar, some double cream, spring onion, chilli and seasoning. I added slices of pork sausage to one but left the other veggie. Spoon the mixture into the bread trencher. Wrap in tinfoil and bake at 350 for 1 hour. Then tear, dip and share . Perfect for Game of Thrones night.

Day 145- playing card case

For my friends birthday I made him a double deck holder for his magic the gathering cards. I've used Velcro for the fastenings and given the whole thing a lining.

Day 144 - fairy garden

After the mini herb garden was invaded by aliens of the slimy kind I had to investigate ways to protect my plants. The Internet has a lot of great ideas that don't involve outright killing them such as copper coins, to add some personal flair and try something new I made my herbs into a fairy garden. It is still ongoing (I haven't even added in last night's lantern fairy house) but I love it and may have a new addiction. As you can see I glued old copper coins all around the rim encasing my herbs and buried some in the soil.

Day 143 - fairy house lanterns

This is to go in my new and improved herb garden which I will share later today or tomorrow as it is not quite complete. I used a clean jam jar and acrylic paint mixed with mod podge to paint my faery tower. For the lid I glued individual pine cone seeds into a gentle spire. It's a little air tight with the lid on despite poking lots of holes so when the candle is lit it just sits on top. Tam made one too. 

Day 142 - studio chaos finally defeated!

Throughout this project and most of last year I have been battling against my studio. A place for hoarders, junk and some useful junk piled on top of each other. Finally I have a few major boxes to go through and then it is perfect. I'm pretty proud of how it looks right now but it can still be better, and it wont be long now!