Easy DIY Bits & Bobs Box

Hey Guys,

My desk is full of bottles of deodorant, body spray, hair protection spray etc, so I decided it was about time I found a home for them. After much deliberation I decided to create a shallow box container for them to go in that I could keep on my desk so they weren't just everywhere.

You will need...

A pencil, a ruler, a shoebox (maybe the lid), some acrylic paint, a paintbrush and something to protect the surface you are working on.

1. (optional step) Paint the entire body of your shoebox with a colour of your choice and leave to dry. If you already like the colour of your shoebox you can ignore this step, I did this and left mine yellow.

2. Lay something, such as newspaper, down onto your surface and choose your next paint colour, preferably something that contrasts or complements your base paint/box colour colour.

3. Put the lid of the shoebox back on and draw around your shoebox lid onto the main body of your shoebox. Take the lid from your shoebox and discard it. You will be left with a line going all the way round your shoebox, slightly higher than halfway up. (alternatively you can do this with just a pencil and a ruler).

 

4. Paint, with a different colour to that used in step 1, below the line you have drawn. I used black to contrast the yellow of the box. If you want the line to be straight you can put masking tape above it and peel it off when the paint is dry.

5. Leave the paint to dry and, if it needs it, mine did, apply a second coat of paint. Again leave to dry.

6. You may want to stick a piece of wrapping paper the size of the base into the shoebox, this will make it look less like a shoebox and more like a cute little box.

7. Voila! You have a new storage box, to keep whatever you wish in. You can also make a smaller version of this for storing nail varnish or a larger version for books.

Love Holly x

BeFunky Photo Effects

Hey Guys,

One website that I have been using a lot recently is BeFunky. BeFunky is a great website which you can use to edit photos and create photo collages. I use the collage feature the most, to create collages for Haisy, they can be as simple or as complicated as you want.

Although I haven't really used the photo editor much it seems to be a really great piece of kit. There are so many options, even going as far as teeth whitening and cloning. One of my favourite things about the photo editor is the art tab, which allows you to make your photos into 'pieces of art' by putting certain effects on them.

Along with the many effects there are a few choices of frames and I really like the Instant option that can make your photo look like a polaroid. If you don't own a polaroid camera this is the place to go. If you want your photos made into actual polaroids you can visit websites such as Polaroid Fotobar. 

The price for an original sized one is $1, which I think is a bit let than a pound. You can access Polaroid Fotobar by clicking here. There are also many apps on the app store that offer a similar service.

Using the collage maker is simple and easy, and there is a step by step guide to help you through it if you do get stuck. There is a huge choice of free templates and you can choose colours and backgrounds to go on them.

On BeFunky there are hundreds of free options and you can really go crazy editing as many photos and making as many collages as you want without paying their plus price. However if you do want access more templates, designs and stickers you can pay the price of $4.95 a month or $24.95 a year. This upgrade will also bring the luxury of there being no advertisements.

BeFunky has an app so you can edit on the go and create collages wherever you are. This is available on the App Store and Google Play.

I think one of my favourite aspects of this website is the goodies, which are basically stickers and accessories you can add to your photos, making them individual to you. The text is also really great as there is quite a lot of choice and you can really personalise it. There is also the option to make your photos into cards or just use the card templates.

I recommend this website as a fun and easy to use photo editor and collage maker. It is cute and free (unless you sign up for BeFunky plus), which I think makes it perfect. You can explore BeFunky here.

Love Holly x

Halloween Treats: Cupcakes

Hey Guys,

This is a follow on from my Halloween Treats: Cookies post. I'm now going to show you how to make some halloween inspired cupcakes. As you have seen on my cookie post things didn't really go to plan so I didn't make these but if things go to plan they could look really cool.

Cupcakes

I'll be making very simple vanilla cupcakes. Again this is a very simple recipe, a similar one to the one I'm using can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cupcakes_93722
The recipe I am using is from M&S 'Easy Baking': Chocolate chip cupcakes

Makes 28                                 My recipe
3oz butter, softened               Butter
3 1/2 oz caster sugar             Caster Sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten           Eggs
2oz chocolate chips             Chocolate chips 
8oz of self raising flour       Flour
1oz cocoa powder               Vanilla Extract
2 tbsp of milk                      Icing Sugar
                                             Food colouring, black 

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius/Gas mark 6
• Beat together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy
• Add eggs
• Add little flour if curdling 
• Add milk, fold in chocolate chips
• Sift flour (and cocoa powder) fold into mixture 
• Place in cupcake holders
• BAKE FOR 20 MINUTES

Icing

Make normal runny icing. 

I will telling you how to make a 'mummy' cupcake, but follow the cookie icing recipe to make a pumpkin and eye cupcake.

• Separate the icing into 2 separate bowls
• Add black food colouring to 1 of the bowls
• Pipe a white base on the cupcake
• Then pipe 2 black eyes and a stitched mouth

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

ENJOY!

Love Daisy x

Halloween Treats: Cookies

Hey Guys,

This halloween I am staying at my friends house and I thought it would be nice to make some halloween food.

I'm not the best cook so all of the recipes are very simple, the only interesting thing about them is their icing.

Cookies

I'm making some basic round vanilla cookies which I will hopefully be able to turn into some eyes. There is a simple recipe on this website - http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/607380
but the one I used is a M&S 'easy baking' book: White Chocolate Cookies

You'll soon find out that I don't follow recipes very easily and the first thing I'm going to change it the white chocolate, I'll be adding milk chocolate chips.

Makes 24                                                         My Recipe

4oz butter, softened (extra for greasing)                Butter

4oz soft light brown sugar                                Sugar

1 egg, beaten                                              Egg

9oz of self-raising flour                                   Self-raising flour

4 1/2 oz of white chocolate, chopped                     Chocolate Chips (no measurement)

Salt                                                        Salt

1 3/4 oz of Brazil nuts, chopped                           Vanilla extract  

                                                                    Icing sugar

                                                                   Food colouring (Red, Blue, Orange, Green, Black) 

• Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius/Gas mark 5
• Cream together butter and sugar
• Add egg
• Sift flour and add salt, stir in chocolate (and nuts) 
• Place evenly sized dough balls on a baking tray 
• BAKE FOR 10-12 MINUTES

Icing

Make normal runny icing

• Separate into different bowls and add colour to individual bowl; remember to save some white
• To pipe these colours use a piping bag or a plastic bag with a hole cut at the bottom

Eyes

• Cover each cookie with a layer of white icing
• In the centre of the cookie with your blue create a small circle
• With the red make thin lines coming from the blue, this will create a blood shot effect
• Finally, either with the black (or with a spare chocolate chip) add a dot in the centre of the blue

Pumpkin (easier)

• Cover the majority of the cookie with orange icing - a smaller circle 
• Add a green line and the top to act as the straw

So as you can see mine really failed, I didn't have many food colour options so I tried my best - but it doesn't really matter as long as they taste nice. 

                         

Hopefully they'll look more like this. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
ENJOY!

Love Daisy x

8tracks

Hey Guys,

8tracks is a great music website, I discovered it a few months ago. For those of you who don't know, it is a website that allows you to create playlists of at least 8 tracks or more from all the songs you can think of. It is a popular website with bloggers that run music blogs or share playlists of the week.

I think it is a great concept and I love browsing the website, often discovering new music that I would never have otherwise found.

I have loved the idea of mixtapes since I discovered them watching 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'.
The concept of the mixtape is so lovely and thoughtful, I think this is why I love 8tracks so much. It is the modern way of creating a mixtape of music you love and want to share.

'8tracks is the best place for people who care about music to make and discover refreshingly human playlists.'

My favourite playlist on the website is entitled 'Roar like it's the 20s' and is by a user called Juilanna from America. I think the 20s is one of the most interesting eras in our history and that the music of the time was genius. It holds a fab 20s sound and is so well put together, apparently it isn't just me who likes it as it has had over 44,000 plays.

Listen here...

www.8tracks.com/juilanna/roar-like-it-s-the-20-s

My favourite track on the playlist is by 'Belle Belle' by Electro Swing Circus, it is just so jazzy and upbeat, I could dance all day to it!

Visit the 8tracks website to browse some amazing playlists, or join and create your own, let your imagination run free...

www.8tracks.com

Love Holly x

To Be Read Jar

Hey Guys.
Holly recently found my TBR jar, and suggested that I share it with you.

I created a TBR jar to help me pick the next book to read. I always have trouble picking which book to read next and this jar comes in handy.

It's very easy to make.

All you need is:
Jar
Paper
Pen
Scissors

You simply write out all of the books that you want to read. 

You then cut them out and put them in the jar. It's that simple!

Love Daisy

A Creative Day

Hey Guys,

On Thursday I spent the day making some stuff that I needed. The first thing I made was a money box that I won't be able to get into. I had a smashable moneybox for Christmas last year and it was getting quite full. I decided I wanted to smash it to get the money out, but this meant being left with no money box and so consequently I decided to make a new one.

I used an old cardboard box and printed pictures that I found on the internet, sizing them on the computer first so they would fit perfectly.

I cellotaped the box firmly shut so I wont be able to get inside, then all I had to do was cut out the pictures, to decorate the box, and stick them on. I carefully made a slot for the money to go in and now I have a new money box!

 

Some of my shorts are getting too small for me and because summer is now upon us, I need shorts that fit! My mum had the brilliant idea of using some old jeans to make some new shorts.

We cut the legs off some old primark jeans, that I never wear,

and there were my new shorts. I used a stitch unpicker to fray the edges of the shorts. They have turned our brilliantly and I have saved money because I now don't have to buy new shorts.

The legs of the jeans were obviously left over so I decided to put them to good use. I made a little purse/makeup bag to go into my handbag. I used the bottom of the leg to make the main body of it and then made the flap with another bit.

I customised the little bag, sewing the word 'creep' onto the flap. I chose this word because I think the song 'Creep' by Radiohead (link below) is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk

The last thing I made was a banana loaf with my mum. We had some over ripe bananas which were perfect for the recipe, and the loaf tastes delicious.

Hope you can find something creative to do this summer!

Love Holly x

Corner Bookmarks

Hey Guys,

Sticking with the DIY theme, I took inspiration from Etsy and saw Hogwarts corner bookmarks being sold for £2, so naturally I googled how to make them myself.

This is the link - http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Corner-Munch-Bookmarks - to the instructions but this is just what I did.

Materials

Coloured card

Pencil

Ruler

Glue/Double sided sticky tape

Decorative bits and things

I made 2 different sizes, 6cm and 8cm, but you can make them what ever size you would like the process is still the same.

1) Draw out 3 boxes in a L shape, all the same size. Then split the first and last box diagonally (right top to left bottom) and scribble on the half which is closest to the edge of the paper.

2) Cut out the L shape. Now cut off the triangles which have been scribbled on.

3) Now bend the 2 points over to make a square shape. Glue/tape the upper point onto the one below, DON'T attach them to the base of the square. Once that is done it should look like the picture below.

4) Time to decorate. I wanted mine Hogwarts themed, hence the House colours, so I printed off the House Crests for each bookmark and glued them on. This is the finished product.

They're very simple to make and they look really cool. I'm so happy with how mine turned out and I think they would make good present fillers, specifically designed for what that person likes.

Love Daisy x 

Customised Notebooks

Hey Guys, 

There are loads of ways to customise boring notebooks but I have chosen my favourite way to share with you. 

Covering notebooks is the easiest way to customise them. Our friend Liz was 16 recently and loves Benedict Cumberbatch, so I decided to customise a notebook for her with Benedict Cumberbatch on.

What did I use?
A cheap notebook
A picture from tumblr.
Printer
Glue and scissors

1. I browsed tumblr and found a collage which had been made of Benedict Cumberbatch and saved it. I then measured the notebook to see what size to print the picture. You need to make sure that the picture is at least 3 cm bigger than the actual notebook on all sides, then print it.

2. Cover the front of your notebook with glue and place the picture, as it comes out of the printer, onto the glued side. Press it down starting in the middle and working outwards so the cover has no creases in it.

3. Trim the paper so it only is about 2 cm too big for the notebook. Open the notebook and cut diagonally from the sides of the paper to where the paper meets the notebook corners. From here create flaps (as shown below) glue the flaps and fold onto the inside of the notebook, (this should look neat if you do it well!)

4. Turn the notebooks so the back is facing upwards and glue down the remainder of the picture onto the back of the notebook

5. Now turn to the back page of the notebook, inside the back cover, and cut two more flaps, one at the top and one at the bottom (as shown below) Glue these flaps and fold onto the inside back cover of the notebook.

6. You now have your completed notebook, congratulations!

Love Holly x

DIY Lip scrub

Hey Guys,

My lips had been quite dry recently and I was thinking of going to buy the LUSH lip scrub, which you're all familiar with. But as you know I'm a cheapskate, so I thought I'd make my own scrub and the outcome was fantastic.

Here's a link to the website I found - http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Tasty-Lip-Scrub - but I winged the measurements to make a smaller batch and here's how I did it. 

Materials:

Bigish spoon (this is the kind I eat my cereal with)

1 spoon - Caster Sugar

1 spoon - Virgin Oil

Golden Syrup

Food colouring (optional)

Flavouring (optional)

Time to make: maximum 5 minutes

1. Add the sugar and oil together in a bowl and just mix well, The oil is essential because that's what hydrates your lips and the sugar is what exfoliates.

2. Add in a drop of golden syrup until it sticks together. The website said honey but I don't like that so I substituted it, I think anything sticky would have worked.

3. Then you're done. You can leave it like that or you can add some food colouring to make it more appealing. I used red and it made a nice dark pink/light red colour. 

You don't have to stop there, I added a few drops of vanilla because it just makes it taste amazing.

4. Finally just stick it in a pot. I found this little one lying around but I know it's from Primark from their travel kits.

I use this every other night after I've brushed my teeth and before I put in my retainer. As it's made of all thing edible you can lick your lips to remove any excess sugar, but I always wipe any off because I think it's a tad weird eating your dry skin...

Then I stick in my retainer and vaseline my lips for extra hydration. 

I've had it for 2 weeks now and the only compliant I have is that it does clump together in the pot; but that can easily be treated by shaking it or giving it a little prod. 

I find this really useful and I hope you do too. 

Love Daisy x

Tavi's Beehive Tutorial

Hey Guys,
I have been looking for some different things to do with my hair and found this two minute mini beehive tutorial on Rookie. The tutorial is by Tavi Gevinson, who is the founder of Rookie and a famous blogger. She has a very unique sense of style and this tutorial is easy to follow, it is also very funny. Here it is...

http://rookiemag.com/2012/04/how-to-do-a-beehive/

The best thing about this is it is quick and easy, also all you need is a load of bobby pins, no hairspray or any horrible products like that! I have successfully created my own beehive (using this tutorial) several times now and I love how it looks! Have fun creating your own.
Love Holly x

DIY Christmas nails - 1

Hey Guys,
I was scrolling through twitter when I noticed people had been painting their nails very festive, and naturally I wanted a go. I've had a few compliments on them, but i'm sure mainly out of curiosity.
Anyway I'm going to show you how I transformed my nails, however you must be warned that I will blatantly be showing you my nails and I do bite them (not the nicest), they're very short nails; and it surprised me that I could actually fit my design on.

So after taking inspiration for twitter and tumblr etc.. I decided I wanted to paint my thumb as Santa (which didn't work to well so I picked off) and four little elves.

Here's how I painted my elves:
Firstly I learnt this trick that when do fancy things/patterns on your nails and you don't want to get any varnish on your skin, you should put some sort of tape around the nails, so that's just what I did with masking tape.

Then, I painted my nails with a base of pink/peach for skin and left to dry. I found that using a darker shade of pink, emphasizing the skin, looked nicer and better than trying to get that 'subtle', natural skin colour.
After letting that dry, I used some white dots for the whites of the eyes; seeing as my finger nails aren't that long I designed it to look like the elves were popping their heads up, so I places the white dots at the very tips of my nails.

Afterwards, I painted on the elf hats using two different colours, I would have loved to use green but seeing as I don't own any I went for a mixture of blues. I tried to make the hats look floppy by extending one side to reach the top of the nail.

The pupils were then added to the whites of the eyes, I used a nail art pen for precision but depending on how careful you are, a normal black brush could be used.
There was then the final task of taking off the masking tape, cleaning up and adding a top coat for the end result.

They aren't perfect, as you can see, but I don't mind. The same process can be done for Santa but using red for the hat instead and I used glitter at the rim of the hat for a more festive look. Down below is a list of the products I used and I have some other designs floating around in my head, so look out for some more Christmas nail posts.

Here's a list of the products I used

1. Claire's cosmetics: 727 - pink 
2. Rimmel (I love long lasting): 030 Double Decker - red
3. Rimmel Nail tip whitener - white
4. Mint London: Envy - Dark green
5. Topshop - lighter blue/green
6. Models Own nail art - black
7. Nail varnish remover
8. Silver Glitter
9. Elegant touch rapid dry

Love Daisy x

Revamp Old Noticeboard

Hey Guys,
I was in a charity shop (yet again) the other day and spotted a nearly new noticeboard for just 85p, I had been looking for one for ages but hadn't wanted to pay much so this was perfect.
Here is how I revamped this old noticeboard...

First I lay newspaper down on the table to protect the tablecloth, Mum would not be happy if I got paint on that! Then I lay paper inside the notice board so the paint wouldn't go on the cork part of the board, making sure it was tucked in under the edges.

I used black acrylic paint. Acrylic paint is good because it goes on everything and dries really quickly. I put enough on so that I only had to do one coat which was great, altogether the painting of this noticeboard only took me 5 minutes.

So now it looks like this, I chose black to contrast the white wall I am going to hang this noticeboard on.

Now to decorate, so admittedly I haven't finished this stage and it does look a bit bare so I will have to collect some more things to go on it. I used pins (be careful!) to put things on the board, I have pink ones but you can pick up all sorts of funky pins from places like WHSmiths.

Love Holly x

Last minute Pumpkin

Hey Guys,
It's Holly here, I finally got round to buying a pumpkin today, cutting it a bit fine! My pumpkin is far from menacing, so unfortunately it won't be scaring away any trick or treaters.
 So here it is ...

Love Holly and Daisy x

Pumpkins

 
Hey Guys,

It's Daisy and if you didn't know it's Halloween very soon and tonight I didn't some pumpkin carving. I'm very proud of my pumpkin because it's the first one I did without any help from anybody - because I'm a big strong girl now ;)

                   Anyway I really wanted to show you it, so here it is...

Half way there

                                     

Love Holly and Daisy x