DONE LIST // MAY 2016

I love lists and write them all the time. But the thought occurred to me the other day that most of the lists I write are about things that I need to do or things that I want to achieve. Even blog post ideas - lots and lots of them - that sometimes I don't have the time or energy to actually produce. I write them again and again, either as a reminder of all my 'ideas that are too good to forget' or as a way of motivating myself. 

And this got me thinking; how helpful is it to consistently make lists of things I have yet to do? 

How psychologically healthy is that?

Sometimes I wonder if 'To do' lists do more to reinforce my inadequacies and highlight the distance between my current position and where I want to be, than they do actually motivate me. And if I'm reminding myself of this, consciously or subconsciously, what room is there to appreciate where I am right now? Or how far I've come? I'm certainly not saying I'm going to ditch my 'to do' lists (I would be lost without at least some!) but maybe I can be a bit healthier with my list writing; more mindful. 

To help me do this, I've decided to start a new monthly 'Done List' post showing snippets of the past month. These snippets might simply be things that made me happy, things that I've done, things that I've made or things I've achieved.

Hopefully the first of many, here's May...

1. Pom poms make everything look better so naturally this cushion is now my firm favourite

2. A fun filled weekend in Lisbon indulging in the best custard tarts

3. Drinking tea out of my homemade monogram mug after a long day at work

4. Walks and afternoon tea in the sunshine with my parents

5. Cuddles and unconditional love from my cat

6. The Friday feeling

7. Practising hand lettering

8. Living by the sea on beautiful sunny days

9. Finding beauty in the most unlikely of places

What do you think of 'Done lists'?

How was your May?

Let me know in the comments below!

♥

5 FAVES FRIDAY // DIY HEN PARTY IDEAS

1. Wedding Advent Calendar by Something Turquoise

2. Balloon Wishes for the Bride by Studio DIY

3. Unicorn Pinata by Oh Happy Day

4. Ribbon and Lace Backdrop by Oh Lovely Day

5. Photo Booth Props by Thinking Closet

It's hen (or bachelorette) party season and so if you're anyone's maid of honour this year, you might be well into hen party planning mode. With just three weeks left until my sister's hen do, I've been frantically searching the internet and pinning ideas almost everyday as inspiration for those final little details (that so often make all the difference!). These five are just some of my favourite, which I picked very carefully, so that I didn't giveaway any spoilers to my sister before her party. Afterwards, I'll be sure to post some of the things I've been up to!

Happy hen party planning!

♥

DIY // ANTHROPOLOGIE MONOGRAM MUGS

I'm probably about to completely live up to the 'British stereotype' but I just can't help it. For me, there really is nothing like a cup of tea. It's a hug in a mug. A pep talk before a big day. A comforting blanket after a rubbish day. And there's nothing better than having a fresh brew in a pretty mug. The Anthropologie Monogrammed Mug is an absolute classic, and DIY's of them have done their rounds on the internet time and time again. So, I'm probably a bit slow to the uptake, but I recently realised that I had a monogrammed-mug-sized hole in my life and so set about to create some of my own.

Plain white mug  |  Sharpie  |  Tracing paper  | Pencil | Scissors |  Scotch tape

1. Take your plain white mugs and make sure that they are clean. For this I just washed them as I would any mug (by hand, we don't have a dishwasher!) and made sure they were completely dry.

2. Print your chosen letter in the Roman Print font and place tracing paper over this before tracing the monogram with a pencil and ruler. My printer is currently out of action and so I adjusted the monogram on my laptop screen until it was the right size for mug and placed my tracing paper over this before lightly tracing around the letter.

3. Turn the tracing paper over so that the monogram is facing down. Using the pencil and ruler, trace the monogram on the other side of the tracing paper. I then carefully traced the either side, using a ruler. This is the side that will come out on the mug so you want this side to be neat.

4. Cut around the monogram leaving approximately 0.5 cm of blank tracing paper around it. To make transferring onto the mug a bit easier, I cut around the tracing so that I could then stick it temporarily to the mug.

5. Fix the tracing paper to the mug with tape where you would like the monogram to be transferred to. This will stop the tracing paper moving about and ruining your tracing!

6. Using a pencil and some pressure, trace the monogram again so that when the tracing paper is removed a faint outline is left on the mug. It's really hard to see in this photo but there's a very faint outline on the mug - promise!

7. Using a black sharpie pen and a ruler, go over the faint pencil lines. I don't have the steadiest of hands and unfortunately the only sharpie I had to hand was quite thick, so I used a ruler to help keep my lines straight.

8. Remove any mistakes with your nail or some nail varnish remover before leaving your mug to dry for a day or so. Before it dries, tidy up any mistakes. I just used my nail and found that it came off easily but I've read else where that nail varnish remover is good for this.

9. Place your mug in your oven and turn the oven on to 180°C. Bake for 30 minutes. Now I chose this temperature and time from averaging some of the 'recipes' that I read elsewhere however I have more recently come across instructions to use a much higher temperature and to bake for longer. If you're braver than me, give it a go!

10. Switch the oven off and only remove the mug from the oven once the oven is completely cool. I read somewhere that it can be better to leave the mug in the oven to cool down with the oven which I assume is so that it does so slowly.

...and that's it!

Now this mug is by no means perfect and if I were to scrub at the monogram with the rough side of a sponge I'm pretty sure I could eventually get it off. But I've been happily drinking my tea from it and hand washing it (carefully I admit) with no issues. I'd love to hear about your sharpie mug creative endeavours and particularly if you do it any differently.

Let me know in the comments below!

♥

DIY // POM POM CUSHION

I know, I know, more pom poms. But following my post on how to make pom poms using a fork my brain has been full to the brim of crafty ways to use them. What with spring supposedly in full swing (it's actually been intermittently sunny, snowing, raining and thundering here in the UK the past week...) I thought it was time to inject some colour into my otherwise completely neutral bedroom and what better way to achieve this than by adding some fun and colourful pom pom cushions!

Primark cushion | 16 x Pom poms | White cotton thread | Scissors

1. Buy or make 16 pom poms in a variety of bright spring colours. For help with making your pom poms, head over to this super easy tutorial. I chose to make mine in three different colours so that I could alternate colours. But why not make multi-coloured pom poms? Or pom poms all in the same colour? The options really are endless!

2. Thread your white cotton through a needle and tie a knot in the end of the cotton. I used a really thin cotton thread and so I needed to tie several knots in exactly the same place to get a knot that was big enough to hold the pom pom.

3. Thread the pom pom on using the needle before pulling it down to the knot(s) and removing any excess cotton below it. When pulling the pom pom down to the knot, be sure to give it a gentle tug to make it will hold. Once you're happy it will, grab your scissors and cut off any visible cotton beneath the pom pom and knot.

4. Secure the pom pom to the cushion using the needle and thread. I chose not to open up the cushion and remove the stuffing for this step as it was just so difficult to get it back in when I decided to wash the cover. So instead, I sewed the pom poms on with the stuffing still inside and just made sure to hide any knots under the pom pom and it actually wasn't too tricky!

5. Repeat these steps so that you have pom poms attached at regular intervals around the cushion. I chose to have 5 pom poms on each side and so spread them out accordingly however it is entirely up to you however many you have - sew on pom poms until your heart is content!

...and that's it!

This has to be one of my favourite DIYs so far. I love how quick and easy it was to get quite a professional result (if I don't say so myself). The cushions I used here are these lovely textured white cushions that I found in Primark and I chose the colours as I really like how turquoise, mint and lemon yellow clash in that 'deliberate and co-ordinated' kind of way.

What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

♥

MINIMAL MAP WEDDING INVITATIONS

If you follow this blog, you might remember that back in April 2015, I was asked by a good friend of mine to paint an illustrated map for her wedding invites. After receiving the finished thing, and posting about it on here, another good friend of mine asked me to design and paint her entire wedding invite. I was so privileged to be asked, but it was one of those things that felt so important that I was completely terrified of messing it up. I was so terrified in fact, that it took me quite some time to actually sit down and start it. After some time though, when it really hit home that it wasn't going to paint itself, I did sit down and start painting, and just a few days ago, I received the final invite in the post.

To start, I created some quick sketches based on my friend's brief and started to play with some colours. Once I was happy with the layout (several attempts later!) and I had a good idea of what I wanted to do and where, I measured and marked where the fold of the invite would be and sketched out my design onto two pieces of A4 sized cartridge paper (i.e. one piece for the inside of the invite and one piece for the front and back). On the first draft I used a pencil for this, however after painting I found it really hard to remove the pencil marks and so several experiments later, I swapped over to very lightly sketching everything out with watercolour pencils. This meant that when I started painting, the watercolour pencil marks just dissolved into the watercolour paint.

In some areas I used both watercolour paints and acrylic paint and at times even mixed the two together. This gave some parts of the illustration, such as the roads, trees and buildings, a vibrancy and dimension of depth that I didn't feel I could achieve with watercolours. Inspired by the Norffo Watercolour Font, I then hand lettered all of the details onto the invitation using a variety of black fine liners. 

When I was finally finished, I scanned both pieces into the computer and emailed them to my friend. Thankfully all my initial worry was all over nothing as my friend assured me that her and her fiance were thrilled with them. It was so great to see all my hard work come together and I really loved the colours and quality of the printed invites. 

My partner keeps telling me (if I ever have the time...) I should aim to sell hand painted wedding invites in the future but my inner perfectionist keeps making me question if my paintings and illustrations are actually any good - it's so hard to judge your own work!

What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

♥