D.I.Y Tin Can Lanterns

 

Hello again lovely readers!

 

Although it may not seem that long ago, it feels like forever since I've made a craft post for the blog. They're my favourite posts to create so I thought I would go ahead and make a new one for you all today!
I was inspired to create this post by the warmer weather we here in Australia have been experiencing lately. I think that these little lanterns are just perfect for summer backyard parties! They're also really easy and inexpensive to make- I had all of the materials already at home!
Keep reading to find out how you can make these little lanterns!

For this project you'll need:

• Tin Cans
• A power drill
• Thin wire
• Pliers
• Spray Paint in assorted colours
• Tea light candles

Before starting this project, you'll need to do some preparation. Fill your cans with water and freeze them overnight. This is so you don't bend the cans out of shape when drilling holes into them. You may also like to print out some designs for your lanterns too.
 

Tape your chosen design to the can. Alternatively, you can use a marker to draw a design onto your can. I learned that the simpler the design, the better the results! 

 

 

Using your power drill, drill holes outlining your chosen design. I used a few different sized drill bits to create my design because I thought it would look a bit interesting! Remember to try your best at keeping the spacing of the holes as even as possible- This design didn't really go to plan, but I thought it still looked pretty cool!

At this point, you'll also need to drill 2 holes on either side of the can for your handle. Once you've finished drilling, remove the ice by pouring hot water over it. It should melt relatively fast!

 

 

Next, Cut your wire to make the desired length for your handle. Thread one side through the hole and twist the wire together using your pliers. Once that's done, do the exact same thing to the other side!

 

 

Now its time to spray paint your lanterns! I used 2-3 coats for an opaque colour, but feel free to use as much as you'd like. This step is completely optional, but I thought it gave it a fun and festive touch! Remember to allow time for the coats to dry!

 

 

Add your tea light candles & that's it! Don't they look adorable?!

They're bright and festive during the day..

 

 

..But its at night when these little lanterns really come alive!

 

 

Please leave a comment telling me what you thought of this idea! As always, I'd love to see your pictures if you recreate this DIY!

A special mention goes to my dad for letting me borrow his tools! (There you go dad, I thanked you!)

I hope you all have an amazing day and I'll talk to you soon!

Love Megan xo

D.I.Y Doggy Tug Toys

 G'day everyone!

 

Earlier this week, a lovely friend of mine came to me with an idea to make some new tug toys for her dogs to play with. She explained to me that the expensive toys she was buying just weren't holding up with all of the throwing, chewing and pulling. She found this tutorial that seemed to be an inexpensive solution to her problem. Bek very generously allowed me to take pictures of her project so I could show you all how to make one too!

 

For this DIY, you'll need:

• Jersey Knit Fabric in assorted colours or old T-Shirts
• A cutting mat
• A ruler
• A rotary cutter and/or Scissors

Let's Begin!

Step 1: Cut your fabric into 20 pieces that measure 20" x 1". This measurement is for larger dogs. for smaller dogs, you can reduce the length and quantity, but not the width.

 

 

Please note that the 20 strips will allow you to make 1 toy- (As you can see, we cut much more than what was necessary for one toy with the intention to make a whole bunch!)

 

Step 2: Lay your strips into two piles of 10

 

 

Step 3: Take one of the piles and twist it tightly, then do the exact same to the other pile. You might need a friends help to hold the twists so they stay tight!

(Please excuse the lack of images here- all hands were in use!

 I tried to make these instructions as obvious as possible, but if you're still having trouble understanding, I'm happy to try and further explain it in the comments!)

 

Step 4: Once you have your two twisted pieces, hold them together and twist the two pieces to form the toy. To secure the twists, tie a knot at each end of the toy- These knots should be tight to make sure they are "doggy proof"- there should be no need for sewing or gluing.

 

 

 Alternatively to steps 2, 3 & 4- you can take the 20 pieces and plat them, then tie a knot at each. Again, make sure you tie these knots tightly to assure they don't come undone!  

 

 

Then that's it!

 

 

Please let me know in the comments how you got on with making these little tug toys. We hope your fur babies enjoy playing with the new toys just as much as our pups did!

My gorgeous friend Bek hopes to soon sell these toys. If you prefer to buy your pet a toy rather then fussing over making one, then this will soon be an option- I'll be sure to let you know when this happens!

That's it from me for now. Remember to check back on Saturday for my #100happydays recap of week 1!

See you all then!

Love Megan xo

D.I.Y Twine-Strung Notice Board

 

 

Hello Craft Bugs!

 This week, I was gifted a copy of 'The Art of Handmade Living' by Willow Crossley. This book is filled with 40 of the most gorgeous craft ideas for decorating your home. I just couldn't help but be completely inspired to create some of these ideas. I've decided that for today's post, I'll show you all how to make this notice board found in Willows book, but I've put my own little twist on it!

 

You will need:

 



• An old frame- you may have one somewhere in your house like I did. If not, you will be able to find plenty at an Opp shop/ Thrift shop or Market
• Ruler, Scissors and a pencil
• A hot glue gun/ some screw eyes
• Twine
• Mini craft pegs

***

Lets get started!

 



 

Firstly, You will need to decide how many rows of twine you are going to have running across the length of the frame. Work out how far apart you would like your twine to be and make a light pencil mark on each side of the frame.

 

Next, Use your hot glue gun to glue your twine where you had marked your frame. Make sure you pull the twine tight so it doesn't hang loosely on your board!

 

Alternatively, you can use screw eyes to screw into the frame where you placed your marks. Then, simply tie the twine so it is secure.

 

Once you've finished this step, cut off any excess twine. 

 



A backing for your board isn't compulsory, but I chose to use a piece of fabric I had to make it a bit more girly and fun!

 

If you would like to do this too, just grab a piece of fabric and cut it so it's a couple of inches larger than your backing sheet. Lay the fabric over the sheet and put the frame on top, then close the clamps to secure your fabric.

 

 

Don't forget to add your mini craft pegs!

 

 

 

And that's it! You can choose to decorate your notice board however you want to!

 

I hope you enjoyed this quick and easy DIY- I'd love to hear your thoughts on this weeks craft project! Also, If you've got any other ideas for future craft posts, please let me know!

 

 

Have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you back here for another post on Monday! 

 

Love Megan xo 

 

 

 

D.I.Y Hanging Phone Holder

 

Hello everyone!

Today I'm sharing with you all this adorable solution for keeping your charging phone protected.. 
 

I saw this DIY on Pinterest and just fell in love with the concept.. unfortunately I don't speak German so interpreting the tutorial proved to be a little difficult. I spent a fair bit of time looking for a similar tutorial and didn't have much luck. The ones I found had unclear instructions or they didn't look as good. I finally found this tutorial and thought it seemed easy enough and was absolutely adorable! So here we go!

For this project, you'll need:

Fabric (I recommend 1 print and 1 plain fabric)
Batting/ Fusible interfacing
Sewing Machine or needle and thread
Scissors & a seam ripper
A pencil

Step 1: Cut out a rectangle from your two fabrics and your wadding. The original tutorial used 12" x 6" but I found it was too small to fit my iPhone 5. I adapted it to 16" x 6" but you can use any size you'd like to fit your devices.

If I were to do it again, I would probably make it 14" x 6" because I found mine to be slightly too big.

 

Step 2: Lay your batting flat and place one of the fabric pieces on top with the right side up. Then place the second piece of fabric faced down on the top so the right sides are together. Pin them so they stay in place.

 

Step 3: Sew around the edges with a 1/4" seam allowance. Remember to leave a few inches unsewn for turning.

 

Step 4: Turn the piece right side out and iron it flat. Then, top stich around the sides to close the gap and give a finished look to the edges.

 

 

Step 5: Fold up the bottom to create a pocket. Make sure your phone will fit nicely before pinning the pocket into place.

 

Step 6: Sew over the top stitching on each side to secure your pocket.

Step 7: To make the hole for your charger plug, you must first measure to ensure you make a hole large enough. Trace around the four sides of your plug using a pencil. 

 

Step 8: Use a tight zig-zag stitch to sew around your traced shape.

 

Step 9: Use a seam ripper to start a hole in the centre of your traced shape, then cut around the centre of the square getting as close to the stitching as you can.

 

Ta da!

 

 

 

I absolutely adore this project and found it sew easy! Let me know if you make this DIY... As always, i'd love to see your pictures!

Happy sewing!

Love Megan xo

D.I.Y Yarn Tassel Garland

Hello craft bugs!

 Since starting this blog back in June and making all of these DIY projects, I’ve become a much happier person. I'm so proud of this blog and all of the posts I've created. Craft posts are by far my favourite ones to make, They are just so much fun! This one in particular has got to my best so far. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I loved creating it!

Whist searching for new craft projects, I found some tutorials on constructing a yarn garland. They all looked so cute and seemed simple enough to make. So I’m going to show you today how you can make one of your very own!

Garlands are more commonly made from paper, but I thought yarn was a fantastic alternative since they are less likely to become damaged! Purchasing these garlands can also be quite costly, but with more creative freedom and less money spent, why wouldn't you just make them yourself? In total, this garland cost me about $14 for all of the materials (and there was plenty of yarn leftover afterwards too!)

Ready to learn how you can make one?

For this project you'll need:

• Yarn in assorted colours

• A piece of cardboard cut to the desired length of the tassels (Mine was 10")

• Scissors

• Twine/ plain coloured yarn

• A needle (optional, but recommended!)

 

Lets get started!

The first step is to wrap the yarn around the cardboard until you have the desired thickness for your tassels. I wrapped mine around the cardboard 30 times per tassel.

Carefully slide the ring off the cardboard and secure it with a piece of the same coloured yarn. you may need to double knot this to keep it from coming undone.
 Make sure where you tie it is opposite from where you started wrapping.

Take your scissors and cut the yarn opposite of where you just tied. At this point you can also trim the excess yarn from your knot. Be careful that your knot doesn't come undone when doing this.

Fold your tassel backwards so that you cover the knot you tied. The top of your tassel should look like this.

Then take another piece of the yarn and tie it around the tassel to secure the shape. Again, you'll want to create a double knot before trimming the excess yarn!

Ta da!
Now just repeat the same simple steps to create as many tassels as you want!

Once you've got all of your tassels ready, its time to thread them onto some twine to hang. You can do this freehanded if you're patient enough, or you can use a needle like I did. Make sure you thread the twine through the back of your tassels (where the knot is)- you don't want the knots to be visible from the front!

That's it!

I absolutely LOVE this DIY. It was so easy, cheap and fun to make.. and it just looks so pretty!
As always, please let me know what you thought of this craft idea and send me your photos if you try it!
Happy Crafting!

Love Megan xo

D.I.Y Gradient Jars

 

 

 

Hello Everyone!

 

Here in Melbourne, we've been having some beautiful spring weather lately. I just couldn't pass up this opportunity to prepare some craft tutorials for you all!

Todays post has got to be one of the simplest, most effective DIY's I've done and its one I'm very excited to share with you all!

For this DIY, you'll need:

 

  

• Assorted glass jars with labels removed
• Any paint that has a really runny consistency (I used poster paint)
  - You'll need white and any other colour of your choice
• A plastic container for mixing colours

 

NOTE: if you decided to use glass bottles instead of jars, you will also need a funnel.

Lets get started!

 

 For the first jar, mixing colours isn't required, so just pour a generous amount of the coloured paint into one of the jars.

For the next jar, mix 3/4 coloured paint to 1/4 white paint in the plastic container. The 3rd jar will be 1/2 coloured to 1/2 white and then the 4th one is 1/4 coloured to 3/4 white. The final jar requires only white paint.

 

 

Twist the jar so the paint inside is evenly spread around the walls of the jar. You may need to use more paint if you find it isn't spreading anymore.

 

Once the inside of the jar is fully covered with paint, Tip the jar upside down and leave it on some cardboard so the excess paint can drip out.

 

Once you're sure the excess paint has been tipped out, leave the jars right side up to dry (I left my jars for a couple of days).

 

 

 

Then that's it!

These jars are so adorable and they were so easy to make! Don't you just love the look of them? Please let me know what you think of this idea and also let me know if you decide to create them- I'd love to see your photos!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love Megan xo