Customised Journals

Hello everyone and Happy New Year,

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that 2018 will be filled with wonderful crafting ideas and creations!

For my first blog of the year I am going to talk to you about journaling - my new addiction.  As this is very new to me and I'm only learning it myself, I have started with customised journals rather than making journals from scratch as this is much easier and a great way to get into it without getting in over your head too soon.  It's the perfect way to ease yourself into making handmade journals.

As my customised journals are actually diaries, I wanted to get them done before the end of January so that the owners can get the full benefit of each month.

I used A5 sized day to page diaries with a hard cover but you can use whatever size you wish.  In order to decorate the cover as desired, it first needs to be primed for good paint adhesion.  For this I used Gesso which gives a really good base for the paint and hides any marks or writing that may exist on the cover.  Next, I used one coat of white acrylic paint on the cover once the Gesso was fully dried - depending on the original colour of your cover, two coats may be required.

The next step is choosing a colour scheme and adding your choice of paint to the journal cover before adding your embellishments.  For this I used two watered down acrylic colours and dabbed the paint on using a soft brush.

Journal Front Cover

Journal Back Cover

After the paint is dry the fun begins.  This is when you design your journal using any fancy papers, fabric, buttons, ribbons, lace, paper flowers, stamps and embellishments that you want!  Just layer them on and once you have decided what looks good just stick everything on using a hot glue gun.

You can then seal your project using some spray varnish - this will protect it and ensure the paint doesn't get chipped or damaged.

Below are some more pics of my own creations which I am very happy with.  You can also add some pockets or other additions to the inside on some of the blank pages at the front or back of the diary as per my photo below.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my customised journals and that you try it our for yourself.  I'll be posting more on this topic soon so keep tuned.

Bye for now

French Chic Bedroom

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all having a wonderful day as I am, here in the South of France. I've just finished decorating the bedroom in my little holiday home and thought I'd share the pics with you.

Although I've had my mobile home for some time, I hadn't gotten around to fixing up my room until now and as you can see from the photos, it's a big change for the better.  Now it's cosy and light and comfortable.

I painted the awful yellow walls in a fabulous taupe colour, bought a new white bedside locker, made some cream colour curtains and got some nice linen and lace boxes for the shelving, a lovely new lamp that matches the room colour and some small trinkets to decorate.

On the bed you will see a lovely French style bedspread and cushion to match which I picked up at the local market at a stall that has the most wonderful household linens and where I am a regular customer!

The bits you can't see are a new mattress and some additional shelving inside the wardrobes.  I'm so happy with my work and how my bedroom looks.  What do you think?  Let me know by leaving a comment below or you can send me a message on the right hand side of this page.

Newly Styled Bedroom

Bedroom Before 

Have a Spooky Halloween!

Wishing everyone a spooky Halloween.....

Autumn Wreath DIY

As this was my first time making a wreath I wasn't quite sure what kind I wanted to do - Halloween or Autumn? The Halloween wreaths that I had seen around seemed like a whole lot of hard work requiring difficult to get materials and as I just wanted to keep this one simple I went with the Autumn wreath - plus I had most of the makings of it to hand.

I bought a cheap euro-store Halloween wreath and removed all of the things that were stuck to it (a scarecrow and some plastic leaves) as I couldn't find a vine wreath anywhere else and that's what I wanted for this project.

That done, I made the two large bows from upholstery webbing that I had in the house, using a simple bow tutorial that I found online.  I bought some faux mini pumpkins/gourds (which also came in handy for the Autumnal Centrepiece in my last post). I added some straw that I had also pulled off the original wreath and glued everything on using a hot glue gun.  Two more tiny bows which I made with orange scrap ribbon from my collection and it was done.

Thanks for looking and good luck making your own Autumn wreath.

Bye for now

Valentines Day

Valentines Day may have become a commercial opportunity gig but its also a chance to remember who we love most in our lives......our loved ones.  It's not just about romance but about sharing love. Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends it doesn't matter .....Valentines Day for me is just about LOVE. Why not share some of yours today?

French Graphics Plaquette

Another gift option from Funky-Junk this plaquette is painted in a fabulous ochre colour with a lovely French Graphic which I found over at Graphics Fairy, a great source for unusual pictures and typography.  It has two senciled roses and is finished off with a black ribbon to complete the look.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Blackberry Jam

This is my first blog post about food and it's due to the fact that a friend of mine suggested that I start up a food blog,  As I already have the Funky-Junk blog I didn't see the point in another one so instead I am going to dedicate a page on this blog to food.

I am vegetarian and love making new veggie dishes. From the age twelve, I spent every Summer and any other time that I could, in the South of France where I learned most of my cooking and so a lot of my food has French influences. Jam making was a big thing there and we helped pick the fruit from which we eventually made the jam.

When I was 19, I moved to France and stayed there for a year and to this day I spend my Summers there with my little boy.  It is my goal to eventually move there for good.

Today's jam is blackberry.  My son and I went blackberry picking in our local area and collected enough to make a few pots.  Here's what we did.

Blackberry Jam
500g Blackberries
500g Jam Sugar
Half a squeezed lemon

Mix the berries with the Jam sugar and the squeezed lemon juice and place into bread making machine (mine has a jam programme).  If you don't have one, put into a regular pot.  Start the programme (or put your pot over the gas).  When ready, the machine will bleep.  Pour jam immediately into pre prepared pots.  If using conventional method, simmer for an hour or until the fruit has broken down and the mixture looks like jam.

I used old jam pots/baby food jars for mine.  I put them on a dishwasher cycle and then baked them in the oven for 30 minutes on 150 deg. C (300 deg, F).

The jam must be poured into the jars immediately before it starts to set.

Spread generously over bread or toast and enjoy - delicious!

Happy Halloween

For anyone who missed my earlier posts here are all three painted Halloween plates.  Baked for 30 minutes at 150 deg.  Happy Halloween!

Kitchen Accessories - A Complete New Look

Sometimes it's not just about saving money - getting the perfect match is just as good a reason to renew some of our old household items.  When I got my house repainted recently I found that I was having trouble finding kitchen necessities to match the new decor  Everything I had was tuned into the old colour scheme and didn't match the new.  It takes me time to shop around and eventually I do find what I'm looking for but what to do in the meantime?  Put up with looking at the miss-matches?................I don't think so!  Paint them? .............well why not?

This is what I did with a tattered wooden kitchen towel holder and a purple liquid soap dispenser:

I made up some chalk paint with my plaster of paris and some emulsion (recipe on this blog) painted on a couple of coats and then sprayed with sealant.  Now I have an exact match to my new look decor!

Pine Bedside Lockers - Revamp Completed

I'm delighted to finally post pics of the finished bedside lockers.  I decided on a deep red for the drawer fronts and couldn't find the right red.  Eventually, I mixed a deep plum with some fire engine red and came up with this colour which is exactly what I had in mind.

I thought long and hard about what to do with the drawer knobs, I thought about découpaging them like I did for the Chest of Drawers revamp which really turned out great but in the end I decided to do something different  and hand paint a design onto them - a very steady hand was needed for this and let me tell you, I don't have one!!   To say the least, it was quite a challenge, so they're not perfect but I think that just adds to their overall finish rather thank taking away from it.  I used a pencil to outline the design and then filled it in with a very small paintbrush.  I suppose I could have used a marker but it would have felt too much like cheating.

For the finish I used a dark French antique wax.

If you would like a piece of furniture finished in this style, please contact me by email.  The details can be found on the Contacts tab on this Blog.  Please scroll down to see all of the photos.

 

Bedside Lockers - Distressing & Drawer Lining

You learn a lesson from every piece of furniture you remodel, no matter how much experience you have.  I have been restoring and revamping furniture for many years and I'm still learning today.

I didn't use a base colour before I painted these lockers beige and because they were a natural pine, which was very close in colour to the paint I used on them, when I distressed them, the effect was quite subtle. In this case, this is what I wanted however, if you did want a more pronounced distressing it would be best to darken up the furniture by painting a quick coat of a darker colour before you paint on the intended colour so that when you sand it there is a contrast.  I'll use a dark wax to finish these and that will intensify the distressing some more but I want these finished with a lighter distressing than ususal.

You'll need to click on the photo to see an enlarged version.

I painted the insides of the drawers using the same paint but without adding the Plaster of Paris as I didn't want to seal the interiors with wax as these lockers will be used for clothing and a more 'satin' finish suited best for this.  I also lined the drawers as you can see below with this great vintage fabric that I picked up.  I bought a metre and have some left over (for another project) as the drawers are quite small.

Red Mirror - Painted & Distressed

A quick and easy job to this old mirror gave it a new look and saved me a few dollars on buying a new one.  It looks great in my little boy's room against a navy wall.

I used red chalk paint that I made myself and then distressed and waxed it for the finish you see below.  I have posted the 'before' picture below for anyone who missed my previous post.

Thanks for looking, make sure to drop back soon for my next project.

Chest of Drawers Revamp - The Result

I'm delighted to say that my chest of drawers is complete and I am very happy with the result.  It looks great in my room and has received the thumbs up from friends and family that have seen it.

The final finishing of this little piece really made the difference and gave it an appropriately aged vintage look.  Here are some pics of how it looks now and how it used to look - a big change for the better:

I hope you enjoyed following my progress with this piece of furniture, drop back soon to see what I have in store for two bedside lockers that have seen better days.  Let me know what you think of my work on Funky Junk Facebook or at the bottom of this post.