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

Wedding Thank You Cards - Snippet 1 - The Envelopes

Only 4 months late...cos that's how I roll.

So I started our wedding thank you cards… this is getting posted about in 3 stages. I will do one all-inclusive post and pop it onto my DIY tab, but for now, time is a luxury I do not have, so I can only do some snippets. Some people would say forget sending the cards, but I really do like a thank you card. I just think it is nice.

We wanted to do our thank you cards a lot cheaper than the invites (as I ain't made of money) BUT I also think that thank you cards are peoples lasting impression of the wedding (or maybe it is just the crazy people in my head who think that) so I don’t want some cheap ass cards getting chucked out the door when we spent the equivalent of a house deposit on our wedding day (judge away - I don’t care).

So I went to a print shop (this one in Glasgow) and just got a nice, non-cheesy, no kissing, picture of us printed in black and white onto card and cut to postcard size (A6). I then ordered some Bordeaux envelopes (C6) from EBay (there are about 100 sellers and I cannot remember which one).

I then used the embossing stamp that we got MADE for our invites (Eve at WEDLOCO helped us do this). I love that we found a design and made it into a stamp. I feel like it became our wedding trade mark, along with our wax seal....more on that later.
 
Because I am 4 months late with them I also wrote a handwritten “Sorry it’s late…” on the bottom corner with an embossing pen, just to acknowledge that I know I am late and I’m sorry. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I AM SORRY.

A snippet (as I said I will do an all-inclusive post later):

For our labels we purchased some nice CLEAR labels from WH Smith (I'm sure you can get them cheaper but I'm Mrs Unorganised, remember?). With some Rennie Mackintosh font they will look BRILLIANT on the envelopes.

We kept a note of what everyone got us, so I will write personalised message on the back of the postcards – as I also think that is nice. A personalised touch goes a long way in my book (see my personalised wedding glasses HERE). I'm quite self absorbed so that might be why I love items with my personal touch brandished all over them...

A lot of people gave us cash as they knew we were moving abroad so it will be nice to say thanks for the cash, as we are now ACTUALLY moving abroad and are going to put it to good use! You think I could spin that as they reason I left it 4 months to do my thank you cards?!?!

xoxo

Mr Mars does DIY: Re-vamped Ray-Ban Sunglasses

Mr Mars had been gifted the following Red Ray-Ban sunglasses:

 

 

As much as he loved them, there is the small issue that they are RED and he only really wore them to a festivals etc. But he really liked them and they are "comfortable", apparently.

 

So he decided he was going to paint them black...

 

He took some Matt Black Paint (£4.99) and some old Penny Bronze Metallic Paint (£?)...

 

 

He then took an old metal coat hanger. And after removing the lenses' he spray painted the frames the matt black (this was outdoors in our garage)...

 

 

Then Mr Mars painted the detailing back onto the glasses, he painted the Ray-Ban back on at the sides and the wee bits at the front, all in the metallic bronze...

                               (Mr Mars hard at work)

 

He then used a heat gun to get the lenses back into the frames, he followed a You Tube video for this (sorry, I do not have the link). Thankfully we already had a heat gun as we made our own wedding invites, gun was approx £15 from EBay.

 

Tah Dah...

 

How cool do these look? He was off wearing them to work today...

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