HOW TO GUIDE - UPCYCLED JARS

In this day and age a lot of food and drink comes packaged in glass jars and bottles and these often end up in the bin. Don't throw them away - they make excellent accessories and storage for vintage and shabby chic styled homes and only a little bit of work is needed. 

I've recently changed the colour theme of my lounge and so my jars needed a little refresh to match the new theme. They once had red ribbon around them but the red has since gone so they needed to fit with my new theme of grey and white with copper accessories. 

For this simple makeover you will need:

>Glass jars and/or bottles - washed, labels removed and dried

>Copper wire 

>Wire cutters 

First things first, you need to secure the wire around the top of the jar. This is fairly easy as the wire is super flexible and so easy to work with. Put a length of wire around the top of the jar and twist both ends together; you don't need to twist a lot just enough to secure the wire and make sure it is nice and tight. 

Once your wire is secured you can wrap the wire around the top. Wrap round as much or as little as you like. Once you have a band of wire and are happy with the amount you need to secure the end of the wire. Now there are several ways in which you can do this, e.g. glue, blue tac, but I chose to wrap the wire around what was already there. I then just moved the wire around until that bit was at the back to hide it away. 

And voila, it really is that simple. You can create lots of different looks using different coloured wire and could even wrap several bands of wire around the jar. I've chosen to fill mine with crystals and candles but if you keep the lids then they could also be used for storage. 

Here are some of my other favourite ideas for upcycled jars - courtesy of Pinterest: 
1. Soap dispenser



















2. Candle



















3. Luminaries

HOW TO GUIDE - UPCYCLED SUCCULENT PLANTER

Apologies for being so quiet but I am still settling into my new home, have just finished university and am getting ready to start my new job next week.

For my new home I'm wanting to go a lot more vintage and shabby chic. I also want to add more handmade and quirky touches. And so at the weekend I took the time to make this cute succulent planter for my coffee table

To make this planter you will only need a few things:

• A selection of succlents - I used three but the amount will vary depending on the size of you pot
• Something to plant them in

I have been obsessed with succulents for a little while but haven't been able to find any anywhere - I have tried countless garden and home shops and was wary of buying them online. I stumbled across some in Wilkinsons one day and at only £2 each I couldn't help myself!!

As for my upcycled planter I used my other halfs old clutch cover off of his Ducati. I toyed with the idea of painting it black or painting it with copper spray paint but I really liked the finish of the clutch cover as it was and thought it added to the industrial upcycled look (I'm also really impatient and wanted to get on and plant my succulents).

Once you have everything you need simply take your succulents out of their pots and plant them into their new home. I used the dirt alreay in the succulent pots rather than adding any new and just broke it up a little to fill the clutch cover.  Make sure to pat the soil down to secure the plants and make them all snug, I also gave mine just a little water too.

And voila you have your own little handmade succulent planter!! The best thing about succulents in that they need little attention or water so they're excellent in you're not naturally geen fingered!

THURSDAY FEATURE - ERRY BERRY DESIGN

Since I am in the process of moving house which is much bigger and better, I have been browsing around for home-wares to decorate it with. While browsing I came across the wonderful Erry Berry Design who stock a range of modern, typographical artwork. 

Erry Berry Design is run by Cari Davies-Moore; a British graphic design artist. Cari runs Erry Berry in her spare time, when she is not busy doing her day job or looking after her little ones. Erry Berry's Etsy shop has been open since summer 2014 and all of the products found in the shop are designed and created by Cari. 

I really adore the simplicity of the designs and particularly like the ones featuring pale, pastel colours. I also have a weakness for nautical things and Cari stocks a fair few nautical designs. 

Erry Berry Design can be found on a range of social media including Etsy, Facebook, and @erryberrydesign on Instagram.

I hope you've enjoyed discovering Erry Berry Design as much as I have and please pay Cari a visit and show her some love. 

(All pictures courtesy of Erry Berry Design)

HOW TO GUIDE - TERRARIUMS AND PRESSED FLOWERS

Selling on Etsy is a competitive business and so I am always looking to expand and introduce new lines which in order to appeal to a wide array of people. My recent obsession, which I feel is fitting for Spring, is flowers and terrariums. 

In my last post I mentioned how I had been foraging for wild flowers to use in my jewellery. Since my last post I have been pressing the flowers in preparation and thought I would take the opportunity to share how I did this with you. 

In order to press flowers you will need a few things:

> Flowers

> Two large, heavy books

> Kitchen roll

First things first, prepare your flowers by discarding any parts you don't want and trimming stems etc. 

Then you'll need your book and your kitchen roll; open the book to around the centre, tear off two sheets of kitchen roll (leaving them attached together) and sit them into the spine of the book. 

Once you've done all that arrange your flowers on the kitchen towel, ensuring they are flat and nicely laid out as you don't want them folded and creased. 

When you're happy with your arrangement fold over the other sheet of kitchen roll on top and close the book - it's as simple as that. 

Once the book is closed place the other heavy book on top to weight it down. You should then leave your flowers to press for 7-10 days. 

I left my flowers for around 7 days, mainly because I grew impatient. They all turned out fairly well; some had to be discarded because they went brown but that was only one type of flower. The only thing now is that I have no idea what to do with my flowers, but I'm sure I'll think of something when I'm playing around. 

My next little creation are some cute little terrarium necklaces. I had a collection of large glass bottles building and no idea what to do with them so thought I would create some little terrariums. 

To make your own terrariums you will need:

> Glass bottles and corks

> Sand/dirt

> Moss

> Eye pin and necklace chain

> Glue 

> Tweezers

> Charms, crystals, shells (optional)

They are really easy and quick to make. First of all take you glass bottle and fill with a thin layer of sand/dirt in the bottom; I aimed for this to take up around 1/4 of the bottle. Next separate out your moss out and using the tweezers push into the bottle - I used moss that was completely dried out to avoid condensation issues. Either before or after adding the moss you can add charms, crystals or anything else you wish. I made bottles which also had layers of  raw amethyst, had small charms like keys or arrows, and with shells I had collected the day before. Once you're happy with you're terrarium put a small amount of glue around the cork and fix it in the top of the bottle. When the glue has dried you can screw in your eye pin, if you wish to make it into a necklace or even a keyring. 

The ones pictured will soon be available to purchase in the Etsy shop but I'm currently in the process of moving house so you'll have to be patient with me there. In the mean time you can keep track of everything I'm up to on Facebook and Instagram and if you have any questions then please leave a comment. Hope you enjoyed the post and found it helpful. 

THURSDAY FEATURE - VOODOO VENTURES

This weeks feature is the absolutely delightful Voodoo Ventures.

I was in need of some new business cards and also fancied some stickers with my little logo on and I could no recommend Voodoo Ventures highly enough. 

They offer a wide variety of personalised products for your business and the prices are fantastic - I got my 50 cards and 48 stickers for just over a tenner!! They also completely designed the business card with very little input from myself and the design is perfect and there is such attention to detail - even the social media logos are in vintage colours and fitting with my theme. 

Keep and eye out for these fab business cards and stickers as I'll be including them in orders from now on!!

SPRING UPDATE

Now that uni has dried up and I have two weeks off of work I am able to devote a little more time to the business. I have so many ideas in my head and so many supplies turning up but haven't had time to do anything with them so I thought I would take the opportunity to include some of the them in this post.

Today I have spent foraging round parks and fields for wild flowers - its amazing how much you can still find when you live in the middle of a city! Now I have a few ideas for these some of which I don't want to give away yet. They are currently being pressed and we will see how they turn out in 7-10 days. I have toyed with the idea of flower lockets but they are already quite popular with other sellers so maybe I will be able to do something to them which has a vintage or steampunk twist. 

I also have a bag of sand and amethyst but I am waiting on one more item to arrive before I can start making them - I will likely to a how to blog post on what I am planning to make with them. That is if all goes well and my idea works but for now hush hush. 

Also if you follow my Facebook page then you will know I was asking what people thought about Rose Gold and whether this would be something you would like to see. I am pleased to say that the last of my Rose Gold supplies arrived today so I will be putting them together tonight and probably photographing tomorrow!

At the moment there is also a stack of laser cut wooden pendants ready for making in necklaces. I have ordered these for Etsy's "Redesigning Alice" competition. I am a huge Alice in Wonderland fan and so I will definitely be entering. I have been going through the original manual script (Available on the British Library website) to find images and been playing around to see what I can do with them. I will probably be working on them tonight or tomorrow - don't worry it's likely I'll make a post about what I am making for the competition (if all goes well that is). 

Keep an eye on the blog, as well as Facebook and Instagram for up dates on all my new makes. Thanks for reading. 

HOW TO GUIDE - PACKAGING

Packaging is a simple way to make your business stand out. As I customer I love to receive my orders in cute packing and it makes me feel like a lot of care and effort has gone into my order. When I first opened my Etsy shop my packaging was very ordinary and, quite frankly, boring. But over time I have changed and personalised my packaging and I'm going to explain about it a little more in this blog.  

I'm a big fan of metals and metallics and I think that they work well with my steampunk theme. All of my items are bubble wrapped before being packaged into a cute gold and white striped envelope. As well as looking nice, this is also a simple and quick way of packaging when you have a lot of orders. I used to wrap my orders up in brown kraft paper like a Christmas present but this just wasn't practical when I had a lot to do. The bags are folded and secured with a Thank You sticker. 

My larger and more fragile items are packaged in a box which is wrapped with twine. There are so many different varieties of twine and it is an easy thing to adapt for different seasons; red and green at Christmas, orange and black and Halloween. I have slowly built up a large collection of twine - I seem to acquire the stuff quicker than I can use it. 

In my shop I also sell a variety of Alice in Wonderland themed jewellery and I recently came up with this idea. Any Alice inspired jewellery comes on a playing card and is again packaged in a white and gold striped bag. 

Since I sell jewellery which can be fragile I have to mark all of my envelopes as FRAGILE. I used to use fragile tape but thought this was absolutely ghastly and really didn't fit in with my handmade and vintage theme. I then explored getting a fragile stamp but all of the nice, handmade ones were out of my budget. Now I have settled for doing a hand drawn FRAGILE design on my envelopes. This design varies from order to order and I hope it conveys to my customers the effort that I put into their order. I also secure my envelopes with Washi Tape. At the moment I have a steampunk themed tape covered in old watches in a vintage style. However I am looking at getting different tapes for Alice in Wonderland orders and vintage orders. 
EDIT - Since writing this I have investiged in a gorgeous little Fragile stamp, which I'm sure you will be seeing in a future blog!