I had a fab wee weekend down in London last week catching up with friends and shopping my wee heart out.  I also managed to fit in a furniture upcycling, or indeed luxecycling, course at Muck N Brass.  I couldn't believe my luck when I saw that Zoe was running a workshop the very weekend that I was visiting.  Check out my fabulous side table that I painted and decoupaged with beautiful designer wallpaper!

I discovered Muck N Brass through my interest in Fusion Mineral Paint.  I was lurking on Instagram, lusting over some beautiful furniture upcycles and noticed that my favourite ones were all using Fusion.  Now, I may have mentioned previously that I'm not a fan of chalk paints such as Annie Sloan's at all.  I find them hard to work with and I don't like the rustic, thick paint strokes and distressed finishes.  I much prefer a completely smooth, flat, matte finish.  I'm pretty devoted to General Finishes Milk Paint, but upon reading some reviews of the Fusion Mineral Paint range, I noticed that they shared similar characteristics - both are self-levelling, matte, low prep and durable.  I spoke to the lovely Nicky from Done Up North and she told me that if I enjoy working with GF Milk paint, I would like Fusion too.  Check out all the lovely colours in the Fusion range:

In the Muck N Brass Table Manners Workshop  we got to pick out our own solid wood end table and then learnt all the steps to upcycle it.  We covered prep, painting techniques using the Fusion Mineral Paint and also decoupage using designer wallpapers or luxury gift wrap.  When I hear the word decoupage, I think shabby chic vintage roses, but nothing could be further from that on this course.  We're talking bold and graphic designs and even included some absolutely fabulous wallpaper designed by and exclusive to Muck N Brass.

The course was £150 which includes all the tuition, materials, teas and coffees plus lunch.  You have the table plus an information pack to take home afterwards!  It runs from 10am to 2pm.

I considered the workshop really excellent value for money and would thoroughly  recommend to all levels of experience from complete novice to avid upcycler.  Zoe is an excellent and fun teacher and she went above and beyond in helping me to get my side table back to Edinburgh! 

Regarding the Fusion paint, I liked it but found it a little harder to work with compared to GF Milk Paint.  I loved the colours and durability, but found it left brush strokes which I don't normally get.  I read that it can be sprayed so I'll defo try that and I've also bought their Ultra Grip which preps even the craziest surface to accept paint such as glass and laminate.  At the moment I feel that there is room in my life for both General Finishes and Fusion Mineral Paints :)

Zoe will be up in Glasgow for a while filming a show for the BBC (she's proper famous don't you know?!).  I told her that I know lots of people who would love to take a class up in Scotland and so she's looking into it.  I'll keep you posted if she manages to get something organised!

I visited London last week and decided I'd use Airbnb instead of a hotel.  I've used Airbnb before when renting the entire apartment, but never a room.  I decided to take the plunge and force myself to be more sociable, something I've been conscious I need to work on lately.  Anyway, it wasn't anything like work, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and met a kindred spirit in my host Richard.  Indeed, when he told me about the Tom Dixon designer sample sale, I asked to tag along and we had such a laugh.

I got a little message from Richard after he'd seen my recent post about my kitchen refurb.  He was inspired to get crafty himself, so made over some Ikea drawers with marble contact paper. 

Next Saturday I've arranged a craft day at my place for Lorna's lovely mum-in-law Babs and her pal Ros.  Bab's in a champion knitter and lover of all things crafty, so we figured it would be really fun to have a wee day showing each other hints and tips and making things whilst we natter over tea and biccies.

I'm also meeting up with an arty pal whilst I'm on holiday in America and once I'm home, I've booked in another day with Lorna's wee cuz Ava to make her fabulous sparkly things, most likely involving unicorns!

I'll make sure to take some pics and will update the post.

I gave up my jeweller's bench a while back and whilst it's lovely to craft at home I think inserting a bit of sociability into crafting and making is always good.  Sharing ideas, top purchases and getting and giving troubleshooting help makes things so much more fun.  I'm a member of a few facebook groups and really appreciate all the help and belly laughs there too.  If you are in the UK and have a Silhouette, check out Silhouette Cameo Crafters Support U.K.  I tend to favour the UK ones as the products and shops are available, but the mainly American Silhouette CAMEO Project Inspiration is worth joining too - it's very active.

So folks, get collaborating, share any crafty projects you've been doing on my Facebook page, I'd love to see all the awesome stuff you're making! Nadine x

In my recent Kitchen Refurb project, I used my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine to make some large scale stencils and today I'll share the two techniques that I used.  For the splashback, I pieced together 6 a4 sticker sheets and used registration shapes to align them, whereas for my cocktail cabinet upcycle, I cut long continuous lengths of vinyl from a roll.

For the splashback, I wanted a gentle stencil material that wouldn't damage or lift my dark grey paint.  I decided to use my favourite metallic sticker paper from Poundland (£1 for 8 sheets).  The only problem is that these stickers are A4 in size, so I needed 6 sheets to make up the stencil.  To make sure that I was aligning my sheets exactly, I cut little squares along the sides which formed registration marks.  Once I piece the 6 sheets into one, I covered over the squares

I'm a big fan of the Whatcha Working On blog and Eff recently did a tutorial on large wall decals.  She used the same registration idea as I did, but used stars instead of squares (any shape with corners is fine).  In the wall decal tutorial, the stars are used to align then removed, in much the same way as I uses the squares to combine the sheets before then covering them.  Check out Eff's guide on How to Divide a Large Wall Decal in Silhouette Studio - the principles are exactly the same for a stencil.

My cocktail cabinet is quite narrow, so I didn't need to piece together separate stencils, but at 90cm high, it's much longer than even my biggest 12 by 24 inch mat.  I therefore decided to cut my stencil without a mat, directly from the roll.  I normally cut everything from a mat, even vinyl despite the fact it has a backing sheet so doesn't strictly need it. 

TOP TIP 1: Ensure the top of your vinyl is cut crisply and is as straight as possible

Cutting without a mat works just fine, but it's very important to load it straight.  If your vinyl doesn't have a nice clean edge it may load wonkily or not at all.  Similarly, if not cut square, you'll find the vinyl will eventually slope off it's rollers.  The back of your vinyl will likely have a grid to keep you right and I recommend using a rotary cutter if you have one. 

TOP TIP 2: Position Clear of Obstructions
I placed my Silhouette Cameo on the floor, making sure there were no obstructions

TOP TIP 3: Use Arrow Keys to Test Feeding
I used the arrow keys on the machine to feed the vinyl through and test that the vinyl would load through for long lengths without any issue.  I was tempted to buy the roll feeder, but decided I wouldn't use it enough to merit the outlay (and storage!).

For more tip's check out How to cut without a mat on your Silhouette

Oh how I yearn for a garage!  Unfortunately adding a garage to a lovely apartment in Edinburgh's city centre comes at an eye watering price, so I've come up with a slightly barmy idea that works for me!  I bought a deluxe aqua dome tent which is really quite big at over 2m tall and 1.65m square.  It's ample size for the furniture I need to paint and I don't have to worry about fumes as the paint I use (General Finishes) is non-toxic and has no odour.  My colleague thought I'd be a disaster trying to put it up, even asking me to Facebook Live it!  I defied his mockery though and was quite happy that it was up within 30 minutes.

I'd never want to make out that all my crafting projects go to plan.  Normally there's always something that goes awry!  On the splashback, I got some bleeding.  Now normally the sticker paper is perfect, giving very crisp results, but the force of the HVLP sprayer must have been just a bit much for it.  I just tided up with an artist's paintbrush.  On the cabinet, I originally tried the wet application method, but it was a disaster, I couldn't get the vinyl to stick to the cabinet and the transfer tape wouldn't come off the vinyl either!

A while back, I contacted Baillie Signs asking if they had any offcuts of vinyl.  They generously gave me a few big rolls!  Whilst not the colour I'd use to directly decorate items with, they work perfectly for stencils.  Many crafter pals I know have struck up friendships with their local sign makers.  It might be a handy way to buy smaller quantities instead of ordering online and if they are happy for you make pretty things from what would otherwise be waste, I think everyone wins :)

After a long hiatus, I'm glad to share with you my kitchen makeover - dark grey and Orla Kiely themed!  Whilst my kitchen before wasn't terrible, I really disliked the mix match of wood colours and it wasn't my style.  I had actually picked a new kitchen (acrylic gloss) with a  U-shaped layout, but decided to cancel the order when I separated from my partner last year.  The total cost of this project including all the Orla Kiely accessories was under £1000 and I'm surper pleased with the results.

I'd seen upcycle projects using my favourite General Finishes Milk Paint on Pinterest and thought it might be a fun project to try.  I originally thought I'd go with the paler Seagull or Driftwood, but I kept being drawn to projects that used the darkest Queenstown Gray, so decided to be brave.  I used the High Performance Flat Topcoat.  The worktops were sanded back and stained with GF wood stain in Walnut.  For the walls, I used Johnstone's who colour matched to Farrow and Ball Ammonite

As you can see from the above photo, I have 12 cupboard doors of varying size and 6 drawers. I boxed in some pipes with MDF and painted that along with a freestanding shelving unit. There were also the kickboards, cupboard sides, wall shelves and backsplash, not to mention random stuff like my doggie door stop and even some picture mounts! I opted for 1 large (gallon size) tin of the milk paint and 2 of the top coat. I painted 2 -3 coats of milk paint on both sides and 3-4 coats of topcoat. I opted for the smallest tin of wood stain for the worktop. The total price for all the paints, topcoats and stains was £241.

I wanted a perfect finish, so decided to abandon trusty foam brushes and set about researching a paint sprayer.  Bamboozled by options, I spoke to the helpful guy at General Finishes Edinburgh who said a HVLP (high volume low pressure) sprayer would be best.  I was set to hire one from Glasgow, but managed to get a bargain on EBay for £107.

OK, so I did go a bit overboard with the whole prep thing!  Life would have been infinitely easier with a garage, but alas, I don't have one *sigh*.  I needed to fully protect the floor and window area and spray inside the room.  I got the dust sheets, overalls, mask and floor protector  all from Screwfix.  When a friend told me that the orange mask filter looked like a massive tongue that photo gets even more ridiculous!!  I ended up ditching the overalls, the sprayer really wasn't that messy.  The floor protector however is really an excellent product, I ended up hoovering and mopping it and it was very durable but peeled back without damaging the floor or leaving residue.

I did quite a full coverage on some of the first coats, but then decided that it would be better to layer up the colour more gradually.  I had a scrap of cardboard about 60cm by 30cm that turned out to be very handy when blocking any overspray, as this was the size of my full and half sized cupboards/drawers.

I started the project over the Easter weekend and thought I'd prep the room Friday, paint on Saturday and Sunday and be finished and relaxing on Monday.  Pah-hah-hah, what wishful thinking! I was still doing topcoats each night after work and then when I got a horrible lurgy-flu it was just grims-ville trying to paint whilst coughing and spluttering into a mask. I'm glad I painted the fronts and backs, but it certainly added more than double to the time as each side had to be completely dry before I could flip and paint the next layer. 

In a distressed call to my close pals, they wisely told me to get some help in for the final push.  My lovely Polish decorator Gregor and his friend Paul came to my rescue.  The lads boxed in an ugly pipe left by nightmare plumbers, did the emulsion and sanded and stained the worktop along with other jobs around the flat.  I was honestly am so indebted to them for all their hard work and for rescuing me from my mini meltdown!

I love the Poundland metallic sticker paper for stencils. It cuts well with the Silhouette and has a washi-tape like stickiness, never taking off even the most delicate of paint finishes. This time though, the force of the Earlex sprayer meant there was a little bleeding. No biggie, I just tidied up with an artists' paintbrush, but a repositionable vinyl may have been better in this instance.

One of my major bug bears of the kitchen is the tall cabinet in the middle of the wall.  It splits the kitchen in two, reducing worktop space and would have been much better at either end.  I therefore ordered bespoke hob covers from Hob Covers Direct for just shy of £100.  I was very impressed - the technical drawings came back same day (Sunday) and the covers were with me a few days later.  They do scratch easily, but overall have been a lifesaver for giving me much more worktop space.  They lift up when cooking and so have the benefit of also shielding the splashback from splashes and splatters.

I made the window seat myself but ordered the blind from Lilac Tree, who I was very pleased with. I ordered the foam cut to size from efoam and opted for the dacron wrap with stockinette, so the total came to £48. I actually had issues with my first attempt - the continuous zip kept splitting and I didn't like how the seams on the side panel looked. So I managed to reuse the fabric for the bases of the shelf boxes and started again. This time I wrapped a continuous length of fabric around the cushion and just boxed panels at the angled sides. This time I used thick width velcro instead of a zip. I used the exact dimensions of the foam width and depth for the fabric. The only change I made was to use a cushion thickness of 10.5cm in my calculations rather than the actual thickness of 12cm to give a nice and full plumpness.

I didn't intend on this post being quite so long, sorry!!  I'll come back and talk about the large stencils I cut with my Silhouette machine for the cocktail cabinet upcycle project and also the backsplash in my next post.  Until then here is a slide show of before and afters.

Hey guys, Nadine here with a guest blog post from my mummy!  Craftiness runs in my family, so when my mum showed me pictures of her recent livingroom makeover, I thought it would be fun if I could share here.  So today I'll move over and let my mum takeover with her makeover!!

After living with ‘drab’ plain navy curtains for over 10 years I decided in my wisdom that it was about time for a change!  Which colour, plain or with a design, readymade or make my own?  Decisions, decisions!  I had a good look on the internet and shopped locally in Belfast, Northern Ireland which resulted in a few options.  I couldn’t find anything that I really liked in any readymade ranges, so thought I’d have a go at sewing my own curtains and if I hadn’t gone mad in the process, possibly run up some cushions to compliment them. 

I found a fantastic shop with a nice easy to navigate web site called Mad About Fabrics http://www.madaboutfabrics.com/  which was just on the outskirts of Belfast in the Duncrue Industrial Estate.   Brilliant!!  On visiting the shop I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much choice of fabric in one place and excellent customer service too.  They had various Orla Kiely fabrics by the metre, which was nearly the fabric of choice! 

In the end, I decided on ‘Isla’ fabric in the colour Pewter from Porter and Stone http://www.porterandstone.co.uk/isla-collection  (£22.95 a metre).  Although described as classic Chenille Jacquard, it is by no means what I would have thought of as ‘old fashioned’ chenille, as it has a slightly distressed texture and is a nice weight for curtains so I thought this would make up well for a warm and cosy feeling in my living room.

When the assistant carried the large roll of fabric out to my car I was slightly concerned that I’d taken on more than I could chew and worried that the material was too thick to go through the sewing machine and could turn into a nightmare! 

Out came ‘Minty’ my trusty sewing machine from John Lewis (a gift from my daughter Nadine), which is currently on sale for £99 (20% off).  I needn’t have worried about any problems as this was a dream to sew and the pattern turned out great to use as a guide.   

I had ordered up an extra metre in case I felt a cushion coming on!  So, I made some cushions in a very easy pillow case type design with pompom edging purchased via EBay, how-to guide easily found on YouTube.

I also purchased via EBay some material with a fox design: Fryetts “Foxy Fox” in Teal to add a different element into the room and 2 plain cushions from TK Max, which I have always found to have good quality cushions and feather pads at a reasonable price.  Result – one awfully fancy living room and one very pleased seamstress!

To complete the room I have finished it off with a new coat of paint.  I used Dulux paint in Slate Grey, on two walls which was mixed by Dulux in Homebase to provide some extra protection against marks but still providing a nice matt finish.  I used Crown paint from their Period colours range in Palladian on the other two walls.

Guest blog post by Madeleine Scott - Nadine's mummy!

We have a couple of those lap trays with the polystyrene balls underneath  that I totally destroyed with spilt acetone and other crafting abuses.  Following the success of my Winged Eyeliner stencilled make-up tray, I decided to give our two lap trays a wee make over using scraps from other projects.

I used Coastal Blue Milk Paint from favourite brand General Finishes.  It's  a deep midnight shade that I thought would go excellently with copper.  I bought it to upcycle a funky heaxagonal drinks cabinet I found on gumtree, but figured I'd give the paint a quick whirl on these trays first.  It's a no prime, hard wearing formula, but as it's such a dark colour, the first coat might look ropey - don't worry though it all comes good on the second /third coats.

I'm addicted to the glorious world of Liberty prints.  I picked up some of this gorgeous fabric in Mandors fabric shop in Glasgow and it's been waiting patiently for me to put it to good use.  I plan to make some fabric applique cushions with the fabric, but haven't managed to get around to that just yet.  For the trays, I just used my staple gun to attach the fabric all the way round the edges.

The fabric pattern reminds me very much of mountain scapes and our holiday to Iceland last year, so I decided to cut some geometric style mountain graphics using my trustee Silhouette Cameo from vinyl.  The kind guys at MDP Supplies in Falkirk gifted me this copper vinyl as it was an end of roll and always tripping them up.  What a score, I absolutely love it!!

The only problem now is that I don't want to use these trays in fear of wrecking them!

I'd love to hear from you.  If you have a cameo too, do you use it to upcycle?  Which tray design do you prefer?

Since moving house, I have been keeping my beady eye out for nice upcycle projects using retro furniture from Gumtree.  About a month ago, I spotted this lovely piece that was already completed for sale at a very reasonable price of £90.

We jumped into the car and collected the drawers from a lovely girl called Zoe in Falkirk.  Having previously worked painting furniture, this was her first foray into selecting and selling her own pieces.

Mála Furniture Facebook Site

We had a wee chin-wag about Annie Sloan versus other chalk brands and the paint she used for this piece, General Finishes Milk Paint, which I had previously never heard of.  This paint is made by a small American company in Wisconsin.  It does not contain milk and comes pre-mixed, so is not a true milk paint, but can be used to produce the same effects.  The paint doesn't need to be primed and offers a smoother, more durable finish than chalk paints. 

I feared that the colour, whilst beautiful, might be too blue for our bedroom.  Duck egg shades seem to have a lovely trait of changing from blue to green depending on what they are near.  I would never have chosen Persian Blue for our bedroom, but once we got the drawers home, I think that they fit in wonderfully.

Luckily, just a week later, I found this wee cracker for sale two streets away.  It was a steal at only £10, but we are the world's worst hagglers and so offered the lady £20!

Next, I needed to procure my supplies.  General Finishes paint is available online but I noticed that Acanthus in Bruntsfield are stockists, so decided to pop along.  The shop has just reopened following a revamp and the ladies are very friendly and knowledgeable with many hints and tips.  I picked up a tin of the Persian Blue, the High Performance matte topcoat and some 4 inch wide foam brushes.  The paint is pricey at £21.50 for a 473ml/ 1 pint tin, but I was assured that this would cover many projects.
Acanthus Interiors

You can also order this paint online, the cheapest I've found is Kast Services - they are on Ebay and have a web store and deliver for free.
Kast Services

Having learnt my lesson with an earlier project using Annie Sloan, I decided to spend a little prep time applying wood filler to divots, in particular where the handles on the bottom drawer had rotated and scored the wood.  I taped the sides for clean lines and then gave the whole piece a wee buff with a sanding sponge before starting.  

I was nervous that the foam brush would waste paint, but found that it seemed to apply a nice fine coat, and there were no problems with lap marks.  Zoe from Mála furniture said she completed the drawers with just one coat.  I definitely don't have her technique as my first coat applied really patchy!  I wasn't worried though as the ladies at Acanthus advised that this would likely be the case.  The paint was super fast drying, so by the time I had finished the legs, body and drawers I could start again.  I probably could have stopped at the second coat as it looked great,  but I'm a 'one for luck' type gal so did 3 coats and a sneaky 4th and final coat for the top :)  I struggled with the paint consistency of ASCP on previous projects- always adding either too much water or not enough.  The GF milk paint on the other hand is just right, I have finally found my paint goldilocks!  More than just consistency improvements though, I found GF very forgiving and easy to use for a novice like myself.

Whilst the paint dried, I started polishing up the handles.  In a whoopsie moment, I discovered that I had been a little too enthusiastic and actually wore away the gold coloured plating, revealing the base metal beneath!  I achieved a nice shine and thought the silver colour might be nicer anyway, so I set about completing the job.  I decided to also polish the handles on the chest of drawers so that both pieces match.  The quickest method I found is to simply use a fine grade sanding sponge - each handle took just a few minutes to polish up.

My handles for the chest of drawers were ready and so were the bottom pair for the dressing table, but it transpired that the small top ones were solid brass.  Not to be deterred, I ordered up some metallic silver spray paint from Amazon for £8
Plasti-kote Brilliant Metallic Silver Spray Paint

The Amazon packaging is perfect for spray painting as it has little wings to keep the paint from spraying outside the box.  To get better stability and access, I fed the screws from below the cardboard and then attached the knobs.  This was a stroke of accidental genius, as it was so windy that the whole box flew across the garden at one stage, but thanks to the screws my knobs weren't smudged.  I was however picking grass and mud out from the other items I was spraying at the same time! 

I applied the topcoat that evening and again the following day.  I then attached the handles and I was done - hurrah!