How Bazaar

At the beginning of December, my work held a Christmas Bazaar, so along with helping out with making cakes to sell, my wife and I had a wander round looking at the wares on sale. Mostly we just picked up food, but we also found some excellent things on the bric-a-brac stall. Paying very little (basically all our small change) we came away with the following items:

While we initially thought these were old suitcases, we were (and are) unsure as to what their intended purpose was. Along with not knowing their purpose, my wife and I were not yet clear as to what we were going to do with them; we just knew they were decorative and appealing to us. 

After leaving them in the living room for a little while, my wife concluded that if we turned the two smaller cases on their ends they would make interesting vases for artificial flowers. We remembered seeing some nice flowers in Dunelm Mill last time we were there and so went on a return visit. 

We also picked up some foam discs for putting artificial flowers in so that we could arrange them in a more secure way. We went for wildflowers for our cases and made up bunches in the shop to try to get the right number and the right combination of flowers. 

Here are the finished products:

And here they are in situ in our living room:

We're definitely very happy with the way they turned out, and feel they add a nice pop of colour and happiness to the room. 

We have yet to do something with the largest case, which when you open the top has three round holes, but I'm sure at some point we shall.

If anyone has any clue as to what the intended purpose of these items is, please let me know as I'd love to find out!

Another twenty-second birthday

Last Thursday was my wife's twenty-second birthday, and in true me-style I had to make her something. Simply buying a present is never enough. For quite a while I had no idea what to make her, then after looking on Pinterest, I found this, and decided that it would be perfect. 

After a quick trip to Wickes to buy supplies, I set to making the string heart, starting with a piece of timberboard:

I then spray-painted it in silver, trying to make sure I didn't get any of our bedroom painted in the process. After three or four thin coats I decided it was covered well enough, as I still wanted the wood grain to show through:

Next, I grabbed a piece of brown paper and sketched out a heart shape, trying to ensure that it filled as much of the wood as possible without being a very warped shape. This is the heart I ended up with, and then taped onto the wood:

 

Then came the noisy bit (which definitely confused my wife to hear); hammering in nails around the edges of the heart. I tried to make them evenly spaced around the shape, although this inevitably didn't quite happen.

Once I'd carefully removed the brown paper, this is what I was left with:

Now it was time to attach the string. I actually used some red double knitting wool I had lying around. After tying it around the bottom nail I proceeded to fill in the heart, making sure each nail was used at least once and then just playing it by ear to make a pattern that I found pleasing. To finish off the heart I wrapped the wool all the way around the outside of the heart to help shape it, tied the wool to the bottom nail again and then used a little clear nail varnish to help secure it.

After finishing the string heart, I had the slightly interesting job of trying to hide such a large present somewhere in our one bedroom flat without my wife catching sight of it, or any of the supplies I'd used to make it!

Here's a quick picture of my wife on her birthday, with the cake I made her: