Journey of a first time blogger...

 

 

Hiya guys!  Hope you are all having a fabulous day! 

 

So, last week was my wee blog’s 1st birthday!  Yay!  Cannot believe that it has been a year since I started my blog!!  It’s actually flown in…and I’ve had SO much fun this past year learning new skills and finding new hobbies, and getting the chance to use my creativity more! 

 

Anyway guys, I thought I would recap why I started the blog and tell you all about who have been my inspirational blog idols – the people who have helped inspire me to be more creative and put myself out there to start up this blog!  As well as this, I thought I would list my top four most viewed posts and the top four favourite DIY crafty posts I have most enjoyed doing this past year!  

 

 

Let’s get started! 

 

I started my wee blog so I could have a place where I could post design tips, DIY crafty projects and photographs of my travels, in the hope that I would inspire some of you out there to try out some of these hobbies/little design-y tricks!!  And, I really hope that I have done that.  

 

 

So, I have two main blogger/vlogger/YouTuber idols that have defo been my inspiration for starting the blog and doing DIY stuff and putting myself out there in the blog world for all to see!!  And they are Mr. Kate  and Shameless Maya !  If you haven’t heard of these two, definitely check them out because they are amaze and so creative…plus you’ll get to see who has inspired me to use my crafty creative side more!!  

 

(To be totally honest, I’m not too sure how I came across them on YouTube (??) … but ever since I did, I have watched every video they have on their channels and keep up to date with their new ones!  Obvs!!) 

 

 

So, Mr. Kate is a super quirky and creative DIY blogger/interior decorator/stylist!  She is the first YouTuber that I really started watching and I think I actually sat one day and made my way through all her DIY videos, like her nail art ones.  This was definitely the main reason for me developing a keen interest in nail art!   

 

I loved art in school but I haven’t really had the chance to do much drawing/sketching since University, so since discovering how much I love, love, love doing nail art, I got the chance to start up art again…just on my nails this time…or other peoples nails!  Its just another art form that I have learned!  So I’m really quite lucky I came across Mr Kate’s channel otherwise I would have never found my passion for nail art!!  Which would be a very sad-faced Lin! 

 

 

My next YouTuber idol is Shameless Maya!  Again, she was one of the first blogger/vloggers that I started watching.  A bit different to Mr Kate, in that her videos are more about her, I guess, because mostly it’s about how she has shamelessly promoted herself through her social media – and got herself out there!  Her main tagline (or motto) is  ‘Do you. Be you. And stay true boo!’  Which is a fab saying…as you are you…so be you!  

Shameless Maya does a lot of camera ad tech videos too, which is good to learn as well, as I’m also into photography.  That is another thing I realised I loved when I was at college/university!  Having had ‘perfection, perfection, perfection’ drilled into us with mood boards and presentations and work like that has made me a perfectionist.  But I think it has also taught me or made me realise that I have a good eye for photos and displays and things like that.  I don’t mean to sound arrogant but I like to think I know what a good layout is.  

Anyway, anyway…her camera tech videos are interesting!   

 

 

So yeah, those are my blogger idols who have helped me realised to just be me, be creative, be helpful and write posts that hopefully people will read and like and realise themselves that they can also try the DIY things out too!  

 

Okay, that was a lot of text!!!  Hopefully if you have got to this part, I haven’t completely bored you!!  Now, you will get some visual-ness with photos form my top 4 most viewed posts and my top 4 most fave posts I have done this year!!   

(You can click on the title and it will direct you to the actual blog post if you would like to read more about it!)

 

 

Top 4 most viewed posts: 

 

1.      What to do with leftover loom bands!

 

 

 

...  this week I decided to clean out and arrange my craft boxes and I found a box of loom bands.  Remember them?  They were quite the craze in the summer!  …  I kind of went through a wee phase of making loads of them, a little bit embarrassing I know.  …  So, for this post, I’m not going to show the steps involved to make these creations.  …  

 

 

 

2.      Question/Answer post #1

 

 

 

This idea came to me after a couple friends asked me some creative-y/design-y questions, and I thought it would be a good idea to answer their questions through my blog.  …  Okay, this week’s question was about nail art, water marble nail art to be specific.  A friend had seen a video of it on Facebook and was wondering ‘how is it done?’  …

 

 

 

3.      Craft DIY Gift– Watercolour Bookmark!!

 

 

 

For this week’s post I thought I’d blog about what I made my lovely pops for Father’s Day!  I wanted to make a gift instead of buying one, like I did for mama for Mother’s Day.  So, I made something that he would use…a bookmark!  …  this was a good wee crafty project for it as my dad loves painting, so it was a good way of incorporating the artiness into the making of the bookmark!  …

 

 

 

4.      Funky Nail Art Design!! 

 

 

 

…  you might have seen that I quite like taking photographs with the whole focussed/out of focussed thing going on!  …  Well I just found out this week (in a nail art video) that it is called bokeh  …  a photography style which I guess many photographers use. …  As I have said, I saw a nail art tutorial  …  So, this week I thought I would try to give this nail art a try  …

 

 

 

Top 4 most fave posts I’ve done so far:

 

 

 

1.      Jewellery organisation: A cheap and easy way!!

 

 

 

This week I’m going to do a wee organisation-y post, an easy DIY that anyone can do!  …  This is quite an easy and fairly cheap DIY, that you don't have to spend a lot of money on for a cool, quirky little storage idea!!!  …    I tried a few things out but most of them never really worked  … It was basically just ‘trial and error’ to see what worked and what didn’t! 


 

 

2.      Easy DIY Embellished Dinosaurs!!

 

 

 

For a while, on Instagram and Pinterest etc. I have been seeing people update random items  …  to give them a new look!  It’s amazing how a bit of gold paint can make something random and ordinary look quite elegant and funky.  Love this idea!  …  I decided I would use up some nearly empty bottles of old just-about-gloopy nail polish.  …

 

 

 

3.      How to: Cat burglar Halloween costume DIY

 

 

 

Hiya folks!  Hope you all had a fab spooky Halloween weekend, dressing up, going trick or treating or just staying in watching scary films!!  …  I was a little bit stuck on what to dress up as  …  so after some ‘research’ I thought I would go as a Cat Burglar.  …  My post this week is basically about ‘my version’ of a Cat Burglar costume and the DIY aspects of it. …

 

 

 

4.      My week of making hats…

 

 

 

Since making my fave red bobble hat, I’ve had loads of pals saying that they loved it!  And they were asking me if I could make them one, which is basically what I have been doing in my spare time this week!  …  So, basically all I really use to make the hat is a 36-peg round knitting loom with the hook, and the needle to finish off the hat…and wool of course!  …

 
 

 

So that’s it for my super long (and hopefully not boring) 1 year birthday blog post!  I hope you enjoyed reading about who inspired me to start my blog…and totally check them out too because they are both fab creative people!! 

 

 

Anyway guys, that’s me…I won’t take up any more of your time!  Thank you SO SO much for reading!! 

 

 

Have a fabulous day and as always, take care!!

 

 

Okay, love you, bye x

 

Funky nail art design!!

 

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Monday!  Hope the bank holiday is treating you well and you are out enjoying the nice (dry) weather!

 

Totally gutted that I couldn’t do my usual Sunday post to my blog yesterday!  L  I’ve just been super busy this week with work and starting a new job that I just ended up running out of time!  However it’s all published now and up on the blog, so…better late than never, eh?

 

So, as I said, I’ve not had much time to do a mega creative DIY project this week…however I did manage to do a wee nail art design!

 

If you have seen any of my photo posts on here or on Instagram, you might have seen that I quite like taking photographs with the whole focussed/out of focussed thing going on!  You can see this in my Earth Day 2015 post, where I took pictures of the sky and tried to capture the wee blobs of light caused by the sunlight.

 

Well I just found out this week (in a nail art video) that it is called bokeh – where you take photos with purposely out of focus little blobs of light.

 

 

 

 

This is a photography style which I guess many photographers use.  If you Google ‘bokeh’ photography you’ll see loads of lovely photos!

 

I really like bokeh photography!  Every time I have put up my Christmas tree in the last few years, I always take an out of focus photo of the sparkly lights (example above).  So, I guess I have been using this photography style all along without actually knowing what it’s called!

 

As I have said, I saw a nail art tutorial by a well-known YouTube nail artist cutepolish, where she creates this bokeh design on her nails!  I’ll include the link to the video at the end of my post.

 

So, this week I thought I would try to give this nail art a try and this is my recreation.  And, I got to use my practice hand!

  

 

 

To be honest, I got in a bit of a pickle because I’m not sure how to stick the nails onto the practice hand?  So, I ended up using small bits of folded up masking tape.  (I’ll have to work on this!)

 

 

 

 

I then just picked the polishes I wanted to use – mustard yellow, terracotta, mossy green and a wine red.

 

 

 

 

Before the colours were applied to the nails, I applied a base coat of white.  Then, once that was dry, I took turns to sponge on the colours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is what it ended up like!  I decided to have one of the nails just plain, so I used the mustard yellow colour for that.

 

 

 

 

For the next part, I followed the steps from the video, so I won’t go into detail.  See the photos I took when I was doing the nail art and watch the video for more info!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the final completed look!  Quite cool, isn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and as always thank you SO much for reading!

I’ll catch you all this Sunday for my next post!

 

Enjoy the rest of this week and take care! Xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YouTube Source:

 

Bokeh Nail Art! by cutepolish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L2_m_In694&sns=fb 

 

 

 

 

DIY idea: what you can do with leftover bits 'n' bobs!

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Sunday!

 

I thought for this week that I would do another post on leftover bits ’n’ bobs!  Like my post on ‘What you can do with leftover loombands’, it will be using mainly pieces of broken jewellery, random keys etc.

 

I originally thought of doing this when I was sorting through my jewellery box to see what I haven’t worn in ages, and found that quite a few pieces were broken and/or missing jewels.  I thought it would be a cool idea to try and do a wee DIY using those items.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I decided I would make a wind chime/wall hanging piece!  I just used what I had in my craft supply box so I didn’t spend anything for this DIY.  Yaldi!  

 

So, I made three different wind chime/wall hangings using different materials and things.  The thing that all three have in common is that I used this technique called macramé - which is basically a type of decorative knotting, like in friendship bracelets!  You create the designs and patterns by tying knots in the string.  It’s really quite fun to do!   

 

I really just used basic macramé knots – the square knot and the horizontal double half stitch.  The links to the videos I looked at to do these knots are at the end of my post.   

 

Anyway, I created three designs which I will show you now…

 

 

 

Wind chime/wall hanging #1

 

 

 



What I used

 

-          One fat jumbo straw

-          Jute string

-          An elephant earring (that lost its other half)

-          Beads (off two broken necklaces)

 

 

Steps

 

1)     Firstly, I cut five pieces the string to the length I wanted for the piece.

 

2)     I started off putting strings onto the straw, and then used the horizontal double half stitch to create the top of the design (video source 2).

 

 

 

 

3)     I then used the simple square knot to put more design on the string (video source 1).

 

 

 

 

4)     I attached the elephant on the two middle strings.  I did this to make it the centre piece of the wind chime/wall hanging.

 

 

 

 

5)     Next, I used the circular beads and tied them onto the rest of the hanging strings.

  

 

 

Wind chime/wall hanging #2

 

 

 

 

 

What I used

 

-          One plastic tumbler rim (the rest wasn’t needed)

-          Fluorescent green string

-          Jute string

-          Beige thread

-          Embroidery thread (a red colour and a pink colour)

-          A feathery earring (that lost its other half)

-          A triangular earring (that lost its other half)

-          A set of round earrings (tarnishedL)

-          One ring for hanging the design

 

 

Steps

 

1)     Firstly, I cut the rim off the plastic tumbler, so I had a ring shape.

 

 

 

 

 

2)     I used the fluorescent green string and wound it around the ring to cover the plastic.  I then used super glue to attach the end string and cut off the excess when it was completely dry.

 

 

 

 

3)     Next, I used the jute string and cut 12 identical pieces to the length I needed.

 

4)     I attached the 12 pieces of jute string using a basic knot, making sure to space them out evenly around the ring.

 

 

 

 

5)     As the embroidery thread, when you buy it, comes in a set of six threads I had 12 pieces of thread in total.  I split the thread into pairs – three pairs of red and three pairs of pink – and cut them the same length as the jute string.  I then tied each pair on to the ring, evenly spaced around the ring, keeping them as close to the jute string as I could.  I really just wanted them in the design to give the jute string a little bit of colour.

 

6)     I then used the square knot again (video source 1), to get the detail in the string.  I made quite a few knots in this one that it ended up looking like a basketball net because of the circular top.

 

 

 

 

7)     Where the last knots I made were, I added a few more square knots on the same pieces of string (like friendship bracelets), just to have a difference in the design.

 

8)     After I finished the knots, I began putting on the details to the string – the feathers and the gold leaf designs.

 

9)     On three extra strings, I tied one earring to each and then joined the three strings together at the top.

 

10) Lastly, I finished the top detail of the wind chime/wall hanging (the bit that is attached to the ring used for hanging) by using the square knot as well.  And then using the detail in step 9, I attached it to the ring with some beige thread - I put this on the inside of the whole design so it would clink together amongst the feather and string outer detail.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Wind chime/wall hanging #3

 

 

 

 

What I used

 

-          One plastic tumbler rim (the rest wasn’t needed)

-          Jute string

-          Random keys

-          Beads (from a broken necklace)

 

 

Steps

 

1)     Like the second wind chime/wall hanging, I cut the rim off the plastic tumbler, so I had a ring shape.

 

2)     I used the jute string and cut 10 identical pieces to the length I needed.

 

3)     I attached the pieces of jute string to the ring shape, keeping them close together at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

4)     I then used the square knot again (video source 1) to get the detail in the string.  This time I created a triangular design onto the string.

 

5)     After I finished knotting the string, I then attached the details.  I didn’t have enough keys for each string, so to the free strings I added eight little wooden beads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That was all that really went into the making of the wind chimes/wall hangings!  It’s pretty simple, fun and creative to do…AND you can use anything you like really.

 

Well I hope you enjoyed this post!  Thanks for reading!! J

 

Have a fab week and take care! Xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YouTube video sources:

 

DIY Macrame: Square knot (left-facing) by Chatelaine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_9uwJRhIBc

 

DIY Macrame: Horizontal double half hitch by Chatelaine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3GCiZQT7Vs