Wednesday 29 April 2015

DIY Beautiful Nail Polish Daisy Bracelet Present


                                     

I don't know about you, but I'm not made of money. (No, my skin isn't paper, but that's not what I meant) However, I've learnt the basics of this thing that you humans call 'friendship', and it involves being nice to the people who you wish to be friends with.  This includes caring about birthdays, hence presents, hence the moaning at the beginning of this waffling. I didn't call this a tutorial, because I didn't manage to take pictures at every stage, but I'll explain how I made this bracelet for my friend Megan. It looks really pretty (in my humble opinion) and can be made with things you probably have around the house anyway. By the way, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've had exams, which were *fun*. I should be revising for my last one now really, but I'm going to sleep on my  book instead, to see if history knowledge just seeps into my brain. I'm sure I'll do fine.

                                   



You'll need:
Nail polish
Jewellery wire, or some other thinnish wire
Um.
That's it.
Oh, you should probably invest in some patience too

                                   
                                   
The first thing you have to do is make a bunch of teeny little wire flowers, with about 5 or six petals each. You can make the petals even by wrapping the wire round a pencil, and make sure you leave pretty long 'stems'. Next, fill in the petals with nail polish. This honestly does work, by some sort of voodoo magic, and the picture below is from a tutorial on : http://www.goodshomedesign.com/diy-spring-flower-wire-nail-polish/
                                       
                                         DIY-Spring-Flower

You probably need about 12 of these little daisies. When you've made them, and they're dry, you can start to make little hoops at the end of them, and then start hooking them together. This is the best part - it feels like primary school all over again, because you literally loop them together like a daisy chain. (If you don't know how to do this then get outside right now and make you some daisy chains. This is a part of childhood, and if you're no longer a child then you're going to have to start now instead to make up for lost time)

                                     


.
Keep going until you've got a chain that will easily fit round your wrist, and then you finish it off, just like a daisy chain.



If you're fancy, and you've got clasps, then you could use those like a proper jewellery person, but if not (like me, sadly), then just make a loop out of the last daisy's stem, which is big enough to fit the first daisy's head through.

                                     
One you've done that you can dab clear nail polish or glue on the backs of all the bits where the daisies connect, or not if you'd rather it falls apart.




Megan really liked the bracelet (or at least, she seemed like she did. She does take drama though... Nah, I like to think it was all real.), so it was extremely successful, and something I wish I didn't have to give away.



Let me know if you had ago, and I'll be back soon. Next time I'll write there'll be no more exams for a whole year *silent partying* (my parents are looking at me a bit weirdly, but they don't even bother questioning my oddness any more. AI don't know whether to be offended or not)
Until next time
x

Thursday 23 April 2015

Politics and all that Malarky

The world of politics is in uproar right now, like usual. This time though, it's because of the election, and one of the things that's happening is there are loads of big debates and stuff on Tv, including two leader debates. I watched both of these, so I'm now officially a political expert. As such, I'm fully qualified to come up with whatever baloney I like, and pass it off as the truth. (I did this before actually, but now it's legal, or something.)

In general British politics is pretty rubbish. The politicians are slimy, arrogant gits, their promises are built of air and their only agenda is filling their own wallets. Well, most of them. They're not all bad - Nicola Bennett (Green party) has the right ideas, and Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) is genuinely likeable. They were little islands of reason among the rest of the creeps on stage.

Leanne Wood wasn't creepy, but she was unbelievably boring. Her welsh accent had just the right amount of calmness to send me over the edge, and I had little naps when it was her turn to speak. The men were almost unbearable, with David Cameron firmly rooted in the past. He went on for ages about all the great stuff he'd done while in power this time, but I think I was maybe asleep or eating something when it happened. Or even watching a new episode of Sherlock, and God knows that happens infrequently enough.

Miliband was pretty slimy in both debates, but can we just talk about this?

Miliband's sass face
Oh my.... *wipes tears from hysterical laughter* His heart is in the right place bless him. The same can't be said for Nigel Farage though. What was he thinking? 'Hmmm... Not enough people hate me right now, so I think I'll boost the numbers with some rot about HIV positive immigrants. Yaas, that ticks off two offensive boxes in one! Hurrah!' Grrr. I hate that man.

Anyway, now I've got that out of my system, there are some more craft posts coming soon, on account of my friends insisting on having birthdays, so I needed to find presents somewhere. It seems to be an annual thing or something.
Until next time 
x

Saturday 18 April 2015

My Favourite Things on the Web This Month, Part Two

Hello, I'm back, and without delay, let's continue where we (And by that I mean the royal we, dearies.) left off.
Image
https://feedeny.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/push-the-button-fandom-stlye/
Ok, so after the age old question of the chicken and the egg, and before the point of our existence, what is the most pressing question for humanity? Wait, there are so many (I just got a blog post idea, look out.) The correct answer is this one - it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and I'm still being forced to do maths.


http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/
Yes, well, this is pretty self explanatory.


http://awkwardstockphotos.com
Again, self explanatory. The thing these photographers have to take into account is that just because you can doesn't always mean you should. You have to see some of these. They will raise some questions about humanity even Buzzfeed can't answer.
/

http://www.doodlecraftblog.com/2013/08/doctor-who-painted-tardis-heels.html
I love them. I would die for them. In short, I must have a pair immediately. This is urgent

You may be wondering why this post contains no Buzzfeed. Yes, you read right. None. At. All. That isn't because I've lost sight of what's important in life, but because I'm reserving them all for a special post, on the best of Buzzfeed. Some things have to have their own special place reserved, and this is one of them.
Until next time
x

My Favourite Things on the Web This Month, Part One


So, some of these are a tad odd. I honestly don't know how I find myself in what must be the strangest part of the internet *gradually sees the axe murderers arm in arm with postage stamp collectors and backs away* (I know there are weirder things out in the big wide web, but I'm not all that keen to find them so as to compare, so I'm going to stay happily ignorant, kay?)
Here is a list of some of the best things I've found this month:


It was only recently that I discovered Mirth Box, and its wonderful creator, Jess Nolan. I kind of wish I'd found it sooner - any blog filled with happy fluff and amusing ramblings is definitely my kind of place. Having said that, that's not that surprising, as that's what I see this as. Anyway, definitely go and have a browse, and I guarantee it will brighten up your day.


This was a waste of time, obviously, but remarkably good fun along with it. The graphics of this are amazing (and yes, I am aware that I sound like a computer nerd. All you need is the vocabulary folks, and people will believe anything) and although it is short, it is sour (hahaha you weren't suspecting that, were you! You can't predict me!). No, really it's amazing, especially with the sound. I have to say, I'm quite tempted to watch the movie now, so it did its job.



http://geekologie.com/
This website is just. Phooomsllrp. That was my brain sliding out of my head in awe, ready to be absorbed by the creators of this collection of awesome. (I think that's how they manage to take everything good, and put it on one site. Like pinterest.) This website is all sorts of cool, and has some brilliant things on it. Have a look.


Lemon Poppy Seed Protein Muffins -- a quick, easy & healthy breakfast treat! They're packed with 9g+ protein & practically taste like cupcakes!
http://amyshealthybaking.com/blog/2015/04/03/13-must-try-clean-eating-muffin-recipes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foodsforthesoul+%28Amy%27s+Healthy+Baking%29
I had to shorten the URL here, because it goes on for about three years worth of reading. Amy's healthy baking as a whole is pretty fabulous - I mean, healthy desserts?! Is this not the stuff of legends? The only issue is, if every things yummy and healthy I'll end up eating more than I would have before, which pretty much makes it pointless. Oh well, these muffins look tasty enough to make up for the loss of use for my entire wardrobe.

DIY Roundup 9 Mini Bottle Tutorials. Part 1. Part 2 is here.
Bottled Potions Tutorial from Etsy. Love Potion, Dragon’s Blood, Wolfsbane Potion and the Antidote
Mini Meditation Bottle made with glitter and water. I suggest a better way to make this at the link.
Knockoff ModClothSweet Shop Necklace from Quiet Lion Creations.
Mini Apothecary Bottle Necklaces from My So Called Crafty Life.
Lavender Oil Bottle Necklace from Sincerely, Kinsey.
Mini Terrarium Necklace from Happy Hour Projects.
I Love You I Hate You Bottle Rings from Ornamantea. This is where I get bottles in unusual mini shapes.
Secret Message in a Bottle from Happy Hour Projects.
The BIG Version - Meditation Jar. Tutorials and printable idea at the link.



http://truebluemeandyou.tumblr.com/post/93595444105/diy-9-mini-bottles-tutorials
It's not really this post that I like so much, but the whole putting everything in a mini bottle and automatically making it two hundred times cuter thing. There are so many possibilities, for fan girls and normal people alike. Let's unite the world, through tiny portions of kawaii.

That's it, for today, but tomorrow, part two is coming. And it's good. (I think so, anyway. If I can work out how to do a delayed publishing thingy on this damn computer. Me and technology are not close at all.

Until next time
x


Tuesday 14 April 2015

Papier Mache Easter eggs

Easter eggs are fabulous - everyone knows that.Sadly, like most things that are delicious and make you happy, they are bad for you. At the moment, I would rather be sad and average than happy and fat, but temptation is everywhere. To compensate for my depression I turned to decorating, because crafting makes me almost as happy as chocolate (no, not really, but it's quite a close second) I decided to make something big, pointless and cheerful. Thus, the giant eggs were born.


I started by papier macheing a balloon, using a newspaper strips soaked in a paste made of flour and water. To make the paste you just mix flour with water until you get to the consistency of yoghurt, and it stops being lumpy.

Tear up the newspaper into strips, and then dump them all into the bowl of paste. You should probably use a bigger bow - I switched to a huge one directly after an unfortunate incident with my carpet and the paste.

Leave them to soak while you wrestle your balloon into some sort of semblance of an egg, and try to get it to stand upright.


Take the strips of newspaper, and begin to smooth them onto the balloon. 


When the entire balloon is covered, leave it to dry overnight. Make sure it's somewhere warm, or the balloon will slowly deflate, and go as soggy and wrinkly as your crushed hopes and dreams. When it's dry you can add another layer to make it stronger if you like. I didn't for the smaller ones because I couldn't be bothered didn't think it was necessary


Now, not that I'm encouraging branding or any of that stuff, but there are certain things that can't be replaced with Tesco own brand. Hellmans mayonnaise is one of them, but for chocolate there are many. I made the giant creme egg by using tissue paper for the purple and red, and yellow paper for the (you guessed it) yellow bit.


For you non branders out there, you could just paint them pretty colours if you fancy to. Like me.


This one is meant to be a mini egg, but I don't really know what went wrong here. Basically, I hate water colours of any description. Or they hate me.


By the way, vinegar does  work to get paint stains out of your carpet, but only if you dilute it, other wise it presents a whole new carpet cleaning adventure. Just saying, in case you make a mistake during this project. Because mistakes can be fixed, and it really isn't the end of the world.


(My parents were not happy at the state of my carpet. I can condense the lecture into 'you didn't pay for the carpet, we did', if you want to take notes.)



The Kinder egg is, as you might have already noticed, fairly personal to me, that being my surname and all. (Kinder, not egg. That would just be silly.) This one was just painted, but I'm afraid that someone stepped on it or something while I wasn't watching, so the back is slightly less 3D than it once was. Ah well, it fits nicely on my desk, and looks very good until you pick it up.


I should probably have ignored my own advice (I usually do) and done two layers, but never mind.


Although my mother is getting slightly anxious at the prospect of having to help me manoeuvre these into the attic once the Easter season is up (and it's only up when summer arrives, in case you're wondering), I was very pleased with these over all. They give me a little spark of joy in the corner of my heart previously reserved for sweet things, which, after all, was their main intention. Not to give mum an aneurysm.
Until next time
x

Sunday 12 April 2015

My Easter Decorations in All Their Glory

As you know, I've gone somewhat Easter mad this year. I've done everything Easter related that you can possibly fit into a two week holiday, which, of course, includes decorations. This post basically sums up all the decorations that I ended up with (and they're all still up - it's Easter so the 'it's bad luck if you don't take them down' thing that my mum goes on about doesn't count, right? (If it does, and I fall and break my back or something I'll warn you before I die, I swear.)) 
The biggest statement decoration is a pretty close call, because my decorations aren't exactly subtle - where would the fun in that be? My favourite is my big poofy window decoration pom poms :
They honestly do cheer me up every time I walk into the room (which is often), and just because they mean I can't close the curtains or shut my blinds doesn't mean that I have to take them down once Easter is over. I can face a few sleepless nights, knowing that even while I sleep I am resisting the passage of time, and refusing to be dragged any further into the future.


My second favourite is my papier mache Easter eggs, which are also coincidently my mums least favourite. She says that they are pointless, because they are only going to be around for two weeks, I ruined my carpet to make them and they're going to get eaten by rats anyway if I try storing them in the attic. I said that of course they're pointless -they're eggs! (HAHAHAHAAA! Sorry...)


This one is a tad dented - you have to lean it up against the side of my desk, but I love it all the same, because it is our imperfections that make us perfect (my bestie made this one, so that's the excuse she came up with. I'm not convinces, partly because it makes absolutely no grammatical sense.)


This egg is meant to be a mini egg, and if you sort of squint it looks pretty similar. (Don't crush my dreams.)


These are the classiest of my decorations, and supremely easy to make. (Don't tell my mum that though - she was delighted with the flower I gave her.)
http://aminorityofonelunacy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/gorgeous-paper-flowers.html


This one doesn't look all that Eastery, but it fits very nicely on my bookshelf, so I'm going to pretend that it's seasonal, if only to stay the many questions on why I have a big orange tissue paper flower on my shelf. If I say it's for my blog people ake interested noises, and move on. (Really it's because I love the colour orange, but don't tell.)

Happy Easter, and as ever, I'd love to see any photos you guys have of your decorations or DIY's - let me know if you tried any of my fabulous ideas. Mwa mwa darlings, 
Until next time x


Wednesday 8 April 2015

The exotic Isle of Wight

This easter we went to the notoriously luxurious and exotic Isle of Wight, full of gorgeous people, hot sun and azure seas. I wish. It is, however, packed with nice little days out, and lots of places to eat. Not exciting exactly, but nice. I'll post a little more about the specifics if you like, but for now here's a list of the things me and my family did, to either inspire or warn you.

Osborne house

We packed a lot in, and completely got our moneys worth (especially as it was a relatively cheap mini holiday). The ferry there was a bit iffy, and pretty darn small, but it wasn't rough or anything, and it was only a 20 minute ride. It was almost completely empty, mostly because we were on it at the ungodly hour of half past five. In the morning. Am. Before breakfast. I have no idea who decided that this would be a good idea, but anyway.

On the first day we managed to find a kind of smeggy little cafe that opened pretty early. It wasn't bad really, although because I'm stuck up I felt it could do with a little more class, if you know what I mean. I think it was the sheer quantity of grease that they stuffed into a small plate under various different guises that I objected to the most. It was fun though, in a strange way. Later in the day we went to Osbourne house, which used to be the home of queen Victoria, and is (understandably, as she was the queen, and Britain was rich) huge. I felt pretty proud of myself afterwards, like I'd just done a full two hours of classwork, plus a long walk. Talking of long walks though, the one we did the next day made a wander through a Osbone pale in comparison.

And the walk stretched on.
We walked, get this, eight miles! Yes, eight! *unimpressed silence falls* . Well, it might not seem all that impressive to you walking types, but for me and my little unfit legs I may as well have walked to the moon and back, rather than to a National Trust property that is basically the vague trailing off of the Isle of Wight.
The Needles
Surprisingly, the family got on quite well together, even with prolonged contact and forced interaction. I even managed to bully them all into going to a place that was in the book I was reading at the time, and there were no major arguments, and it didn't take all that long for my siblings to stop giving me cold glares and pointed silences. The place I wanted to go was the Devils Chimney, and to be fair to me it was actually pretty amazing. It was two sheer walls of rock, stretching up from a path where the steps were at a diagonal because the entire thing was practically slipping into the sea. Thankfully, it held up while we were there, although the enormously fat dog being carried by the grumpy woman we met before going back up again may have dislodged the cliff face by now.
The Devil's Chimney

In short, we had a brilliant time. I don't know if the Isle of Wight has recovered yet from my dad making impressions of the man with loud laugh in our restaurant (while the man was still on the table next to us... He seemed to leave pretty quickly after they finished eating), or from the transportation of most of their interesting rocks back to England (courtesy of my sister). Oh well, They've got a whole year before we come back.

Thursday 2 April 2015

Gorgeous Paper Flowers


These were partly an accident. They weren't an accident as in, oops I just cut up a magazine according to a template, but as in I meant to make some slightly corny, very cheerful easter decorations, and I ended up with these. That's not a bad thing, it's just that these are a bit more subtle and classy than I was expecting. If you like that sort of thing, then these are perfect for you.


All you need is some rubbishy fashion magazine (or sport one, neither are worth all that much to me) with loads of adverts or pictures in (except maybe not ones with pictures because they're much better than anything else.) , some scissors, wire, the template and a glue gun, or some strong glue. Glue guns are preferable, because they are perfect in every way; if I was a politician glue guns would be mandatory. The template is here, and sadly it isn't mine, although you can pretend it is, if you like. Take your templates, and cut about three of every type of flower and random circle. Just cut it all out, fill your room with slightly annoying bits of paper that you'll find everywhere for days, go crazy.

When you've done that, organise them into little piles of about three. The only real rule is that you should really go from largest to smallest, although you don't have to. As always, it's a free country.If you're wondering if the circles are meant to have odd slits in them, they are. They're going to turn into cones in just a second.

Glue them all together, with the, wait for it, cones (told you so) in the middle, if that's how you want it.

Aren't they just beautiful? I'm so proud of my little flower darlings. (they worked. yaaaaaaaaaaaass.)
Take a piece of wire and bend it in half, and twiiiist it, before sticking it on as some kind of weird stem thingy.

Just step back and marvel at the wonderful thing that you've created in silent wonder, or shout out to every one you know, showing them how great you really are. Because you deserve it. Power to the people (or something.)