Upcycle: Coffee and Tea Jars

Okay, this is not technically DIY. More an upcycle?

When Mr Mars and I moved we got rid of most of our kitchen stuff. My old rusty IKEA tins got the bin (imagine these in Orange black and white: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/80188927/). I then begrudged paying cold hard cash or warm plastic credit for something to go rusty again.

Then I had a brainwave... hold the applause... and I decided to use the old Douwe Egberts coffee jars that I kept my buttons and stuff in. I only had two of these, so I then went to the supermarket and bought another (we needed coffee anyway and Douwe Egberts is one of my preferred instant brands) it is expensive (compared to other instant brands) but if you wait until a special or offer you can get some good bargains.

I then had 3 big jars. Filled them with tea, grinded coffee and sugar, photo below. I also love loose tea as I got a cracking gift of a tea pot (I'll post another time) meant for fires and wood burners but I put it on my retro cooker hob, so I bought another small Douwe Egberts next time and filled that with my red bush tea leaves. Got another that I'm hoing to fill with my coconut chia tea leaves - it is lush, but it has caffeine in it, so is not my ideal pre bedtime drink.

I love them! They will go with any style of kitchen AND won't go rusty like metal containers!

When ready to re-use soak in hot soapy water and take the labels off, you may need to scrub/rub the glue.

 

Coconut Chia Tea waiting to be out into the jar (once it's emptied!)

Anyone got any other uses for their old coffee jars?

xoxo

DIY: Re-vamped penny jar

I thought I had posted this. I had not.

My "DIY" has subsided as we have settled into our new life (along with the blogging ;). We also purged most of our junk/old stuff/used items therefore not much to up-cycle/revamp. To be clear I like to up cycle as much as I can as it's better for the environment AND no-one else is likely to have it AND it usually saves a bit of cash :)

On the note of Purged, I watched the film The Purge last night. Scary.

Back to DIY. I am a fan of saving pennies/coppers/change. I did my wedding scramble from saving the change and have made payments to debt with change! We smashed a couple of our jars that were wedding/engagement gifts before we left the UK (photo below) but this one opens (no need for smashing). Unfortunately it is clearly styled for a 5 year old boy – I think it belongs to Mr Mars from his youth (oops!).  So I decided to take what I had and try and revamp it to blend into the Lodge House living room black/grey/white styling.

Jars in the first 'Life at the Lodge House". RIP Lodge House.
 

Equipment (including cup of tea):

I purchased some fine glitter (£5 GBP) and I already had modge podge, so off I went. Layer of glue, layer of glitter, layer of glue, layer of glitter. GOD it took forever to cover those bl**dy blue stripes!!!

First layer of glue...

 

First layer of glitter...

 

Another layer of glue and glitter...

 

FINALLY!!! After 100 layers of glue and glitter (an exaggeration, more like 3 or 4)...

I dried it using my pepper shaker baby cactus (cool mug from SPCA charity shop).

But I did it. With black glitter EVERYWHERE. Mr Mars was NOT happy. When I empty my purse of the coppers (and steal from Mr Mars’ pockets!) they will be stored here! Then banked at a later date. Small but effective way to gather some savings!

That's all folks

xoxo

Anniversary time!

So like members of a family who have had a fight and are now going to pretend we haven’t…I am going to slip back into my blog posting without explaining my absence or giving an apology…

No DIY in this post, I have some very first attempts at DIY cardmaking for you to laugh at look at but I will save them for another post and keep this one for le anniversary.

Incase you had not guessed, Mr Mars and I recently celebrated our Anniversary! Being the SUPER romantic couple we are we did NOTHING! Only kidding, we went camping, and to the cricket. Yes, camping and cricket! Camping involved a 5 hour solid hike and over 3,000ft of climbing added in. It was actually really good fun and in the most amazing settings. Cricket involved 5 hours of solid drinking and in glorious sunshine. 

Cricket...

Hiking view from the bottom...

Weather was brilliant and as you can see both were amazing with the added bonus of a bouquet of flowers, a book and some fancy tea (I told you we are super romantic), it was just a lush day!

Close up...

We also got some super cool Scottish coasters, with a card to match off Mr Mars parents:

Nicely wrapped as well...

I thought I had a picture of my book and tea, but I don't so I will leave that up to your imagination :)

xoxo

DIY: Re-juvenated coasters

This weeked I used some of Mr Mars leftover paint from his Ray-Bans re-vamp, see HERE, and re-vamped some nasty coasters I had from my “Girl Power” days.

 

They were bright pink and had the words Cleavage and Knickers and G&T etc all over them. I am still all for “Girl Power” I just no longer feel that I need the colour pink and the words Cleavage and Knickers to do so.

After about 4 coats of primer you can still see the gastly words...

Take some leftover black matt paint (left one):

 

 

I'm not accustomed to the using spray paint, so error number 1: Don't go too close:

 

You end up with gloops and blotches like any other paint job, ohh dear.

 

 

I originally just wanted to paint them matt black, because I'm boring like that. But my black paint mess ups meant I felt I needed something to hide the damage. As these were not looking good, so far...

 

Step forward some old glitter spray (see picture above, can on the right) that I THOUGHT was silver and glitter, but after a patch test turned out to be clear spray with some glitter. Perfect.

 

Some uneven glitter spraying...

Closer:

 

 

I actually like that they look uneven, I'm not a matchy matchy kind of person. I think I realised a long time ago that I would unlikely get things perfect, ever, therefore have embraced the imperfections!

 

Once dried I put the bottom back on to them with some super glue:

Turns out the superglue was not great for this. I've put some mod podge on one of them and that seems to have worked the best! Live and learn...

 

And there you have it! Some leftover paint and some old coasters and I have some AWESOME coasters, I think.

 

Admit it. Addddddddddddmit it. These look not bad, eh?

 

I have got to say these turned out MUCH better than I ever expected! And all made with things we already had – expect the black paint that Mr Mars bought at £4.99 for his Ray-Bans!

 

The clear glitter spray hides a multitude of sins, something I will likely invest in again. I will have a house of glitter!

 

xoxo

Hey you guys!

I have nothing to say – how is that for a blog post?

Only kidding! It is my mum and dads anniversary today. Quick lunchtime trip to the Card Factory and a £1.18 spent on an anniversary card AND a birthday card (gotta love the card factory) and I am sorted. I will take them out for dinner on Friday.

I want to make my own cards one day – something I’ve got to try. I will try and fail and post all about it. It will be fun.

Mr Mars is a grumpy m*thaf*kka recently. Fortunately – I take crap from no-one – so he got a severe telling off. I nearly put him on the naughty seat but then decided that would be probable cause for a divorce…

What else? Bounce Back Tiger has been collected – took ALL my willpower not to rip that box open, blow up Tiger and wack Mr Mars over the head with him. Put. Tiger. Back. Into. The. Box. Mrs Mars.

Both Tiger and Mr Mars will never know how lucky they were! Certain death for the both of them… … …

Anyway, I promise I will start posting some productive DIY/repair posts, just trying to get some order in my life. I plan to do a shed load of DIY before we go on move so I shall record it all.

xoxo

DIY Decopatch Box - passable fail?

This is not one of my better DIY projects. But I like to think I represent the "real" people who attempt DIY and not like these people where everything turns out amazing. All. The. Time. I hate those people... ... ... I'm totally not jealous. I'm not.

I had a small Blue nose bear gift box that I had been gifted. It was sturdy little box, but I'm out of that blue nose bear phase of my life (thankfully) so wanted to turn it into something I could put to use around the house...

Here is the finished product on top. Okay, from a distance and with some good filtering it does not look TOO bad, but the flaws are not clear in this picture (glue bubbles from FAR too much glue, missing gaps where I, well, missed bits). I THINK it is definitely a passable attempt! Common...it is.

Here is all my bits and bobs together. The pink sheet is where I cut the hearts from - let me re-phrase that - where I TRIED to cut the hearts from.

 

Cut up my gold sheet - to try and get the patchwork look. I got that all right...

Glued it on. Put glue on first then glue on top. Not error here - FAR TOO MUCH GLUE. Save your DIY - do not make this mistake.

Crap sponge brushes. Save you bank account - do not make this mistake, just use a regular brush.

And that is about it for this fail.

 

I do love it, though. Much like a mother loves her child's arts and crafts attempts. I Imagine this is similar to how I feel.

 

So It will be getting kept and put on display like the proud mother I am.

 

xoxo

Happy 21st Birthday!

My nephew turned 21.

Since I already had a stash of cards I was reluctant to buy another one.

So I decided to make one of my standard birthday card stash and make it fancy!

Take a plain card and write 21 with PVC glue and a brush:

Take some glitter - this was some seriously cheap glitter:

Cover the card in said cheap glitter:

Tah Dah! I think this looks not bad!

A £21 cheque wrote for him and I had me a 21st birthday present and card! Done!

Mrs Mars

xoxo

DIY Wedding present glass painting

This is DIY attempts from a couple of months ago - I was so darn proud of these there was no way they were going to waste.

These were gifts for my wedding.

I had purchased some personalised glasses as a gift before and they cost an eye watering £55. This was in what will be known as the "crazy debt days", therefore with my new minimal budget, I was trying to do it for A LOT cheaper this time.

I had googled a lot of videos on this and unfortunately I did not use any one video - my attempt below is a combination of stolen ideas from other talented people and from glasses I have previously purchased. I am a fraud.

Take a champange glass and some glass paint or glass liner paint. I purchased my glass paint from Artifolk.

Anyway, take your plain, unpainted glass...

Sorry about the poor pictures, I clearly need a better camera and some lessons in photography.

I then painted some white "blossom" flowers - I THINK that is what they are called?

I tried to put it against a black background (my couch) to make it better, but, erm, not so much...

Then I added the other colours - grey and burgundy (made by mixing red and black glass paint). We are full of brightness and colour in this household.

Then I added the "tags" i.e the labels/names at the bottom:

Finally, I added the grey to the blossom flowers.

I purchased some lovely personalised Funky Pigeon cards to go with them, I got £1 If I paid with paypal. More expensive than the cards I would normally purchase - but it was a special occasion!

I did some other sets for friends 30th, 40th and a friends engagement and I did them in white, baby pink and baby green. I'll show them in a separate post!

I actually decided this year (2014) that I was not doing birthday presents! As I was spending a fortune on gifts (that I could not afford) and the time and pressure was too much. Call me a drama queen but I literally spent every single month buying something for someone. It was getting far too much! And I do not handle pressure well. In my family, pressure comes with the gifts.

But these LUCKY friends got gifts, I did not mind doing them and they were cheaper than the £55 glasses and I do not expect anything in return!

Mrs Mars
xoxo