We've started renovating!

The minute exams finished I went into full scale renovation mode. I haven't blogged recently purely for the reason that I have been at the house painting and working on furniture from the wee hours in the morning straight until I crash into my bed. I never realised painting was soooo hard guys!

I really want to share some house stuff with you but seeing as nothing is totally finished yet I'm gonna hold off. Until then a fireplace wrapped in cling film will have to convince you that I am actually doing something.

SO EXCITING GUYS!

DIY Cherry Cardigan

Today I have a cute little DIY to make you feel all fruity and ready for Summer! My last exam is tomorrow and so Summer is feeling oh so near and yet oh so far at the same time. For that reason I totally need this cardigan to add that much needed injection of adorable.

The thing I love best about this cardigan is it is damn easy to make! The cutting and stitching may take a little while but it's pretty repetitive and therefore a good project to do in front of the telly.

You will need:
Green felt- make sure it's quite high density so that the stems won't just pull off.
Red PomPoms (I cut mine off one of those PomPom trims)
Scissors
Red thread
Green thread
White cardigan

 1) First cut out a double leaf shape with two stems. Make sure your stems are a little longer than you want them to be finally as your cherries are going to cover quite a large part of the stems.
2) Now place your cherries on top and sew them onto the stems. Pom poms are pretty forgiving when it comes to sewing so its unlikely that you'll be able to see any stitches. Make sure they are very secure.
3) Make a tonne of cherries!
4) Now place them on your cardigan to check for placement. You can either sew or glue your cherries on. I prefur sewing as it feels a little more secure. Remember to only sew in the middle of your two leaves so your cherries can bob around to their hearts content.

And you're done! I'm pretty happy with this cardigan. Nothing quite screams cute like tiny miniature cherries.

There is a massive hill behind our uni called Arthur's Seat. It's actually pretty famous; it's the hill that Emma and Dexter climb in One Day; so hey you may have heard of it. I've been meaning to climb it all year but for some reason have just never found the time.

This week is ridiculously busy. I have my last exam on Thursday which I am studying very hard for because it's my hardest one. I'm also trying to negotiate an exciting new contract for the Ukulele Workshop all the while trying to secure new wholesale supplier. On top of that we get the keys to the house tomorrow and we're doing an Ikea trip on Friday and finally moving on Saturday. It's going to be hectic and boy am I feeling the strain! So for some strange reason I thought that the right thing to do to calm down would be to take a nice relaxing stroll up this huge steep hill (I can just hear my friends sayin "It's not that steep!").

 Admittedly once you get to the top it is very beautiful. You can see the sea to one side and the whole of Edinburgh to the other. But boy was it windy! You can see how windy it is from the first picture. Of course it also started to rain the minute we were too far to turn back.

But still I am so glad I have finally climbed it. I thought I would leave you with the wonderful sight of Thomas rolling down the hill. Enjoy!

Guess who's not revising!

So, fun fact, I have an exam this afternoon. I also had one yesterday though so I'm finding it extremely hard to focus on anything vaguely work related as I feel like I should be rewarded for managing to sit still for two hours. So instead of revising I have been playing my sparkly ukulele instead. But next to my computer, just in case my brain want to absorb any information through proximity osmosis.

My Mum sent me a care package today to help me with my exams. Naturally I need a pen to write with and so she sent this fabulous example. It is a pen, I promise. Amongst the chocolate there is a nib and then there are some other pen bits among the feathers.

Mum also sent some highlighter pens. I have been working very well with them. Getting lots and lots of highlighting done.

I have also been packing up my room for the big move next week. Today's packing mainly involved packing all of my dressing up clothes and accessories and then getting incredibly interested in them all and so unpacking them and trying them all on.

I am going to ace this exam! (Don't worry, Mum, I've got it covered.)

DIY- Hot Air Balloon Lanterns

Today I am sharing how to make the hot air balloon lantern we made for my Dad's birthday. These make totally cool party decorations (especially if you have a hot air balloon theme- who knew!?) but they would also look really great in a kid's room, and frankly my room... these are so going in my room.

You will need:
Paper lanterns
White and coloured paint
A small basket, I bought mine in the flower arranging section of my craft store.
String
Invisible thread (for stringing up)

1) First assemble your lantern.
2) Now following the seams of your lantern paint alternate segments. I found it was always better to do a coat of white otherwise the colours would mix slightly (so red paint on a yellow balloon would turn out orange).
3) Now add your colour. I left a little white stripe each side because I think it looks cute.
4) Using a scalpel make four small holes next to one of the wire rings at the base of your lanterns.
5) Run a piece of string through the hole and knot.
6) Do this for all four strings.
7) Take your basket.
8) Cut off the handles.
9) Pass the strings through one of the gaps in the basket at the base.
10) And you are totally done! Yay!

Aren't these the cutest thing? I'm really looking forward to stringing them up in our hallway among some pom poms!

Hot Air Balloon Party

Last year we found out that my Dad had always wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride. It's so weird when you suddenly find out a new fact about someone you've known literally your entire life! To celebrate this wonderful piece of news this year we bought him tickets to fly in a hot air balloon! So exciting. I also threw this mini hot air balloon party because cute colourful mini parties are a must for birthdays.

To decorate I strung up blue streamers horizontally to be the sky and then hung some white card cut into the shape of clouds on invisible thread. I also made hot air balloon lanterns! I'll be sharing the tutorial this week so stay tuned!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Snapshots of my room

In 13 days I have to pack up this room and leave forever. Admittedly it's to move into the coolest house ever but STILL! I've never moved house before so I didn't really know how I felt about walking out of a door and knowing you're never going to walk through it again. It's a strange feeling. So I thought over the next few days I would take a tonne of pictures of things I loved bout my room so I could remember it forever, and you know what, it's really helping! It reminded me that what I love about this room is all the lovely things in it and all the wonderful people who've been in it and the best thing about moving is I get to take all that with me!

(The title picture is my super cute tea towel from ikea and my ribbon collection)
1) Right now my room is sorta covered in papers. Revision is slow and only uplifted by felt tip pens.
2) My favourite it of my room is this little corner. I love my poster, I love my calender, I love all the stuff crammed above my bed.
3) My extensive cute animal rubber collection really doesn't appreciate having to share a shelf with felt tip pen storage... and a golden dinosaur.
4) Me attempting to make Logic seem like fun...it's not fooling anyone.
5) A new (unfinished) ukulele design I'm working on. I'm hoping to do a lot more designs this summer as well as starting a system where you can send in pictures and preview them to see how they'd look...hmm that didn't make much sense. Anyway, it'll be cool. Oh and yeah that photo is me and George. It's one of my faves.

To everyone with exams good luck!