Dog bed & toys

For two month now we have been preparing for our new family member - Pan, a Hungarian Vizsla.

Among lots of other things we made him a bed and a couple of toys.
For the bed we used:
- foam from an ould couch
- a soft blanket
- a couple of wooden planks which we nailed together to form a bed
- a little bit of paint

For the toys we used:
- old shirts
- a ball
- a plastic bottle
You can find the instructions for the toys here and here. 

Making my coasters look a little better…

What you will need: cork coasters and a marker.

Instructions: go nuts!

How to make Soft Rocks - home decoration

What you will need:

• Home spices: cinnamon, cloves, cocoa, curry, turmeric, chilli
• White Fimo - modelling clay
• Tin (aluminum) foil

Instructions

Make a lump out of the tin foil. This will serve as the center of your rock. Because Fimo is expensive and we don’t need the whole stone to be made out of it, we use much cheaper tin foil to fill our stone. The result is also a much lighter stone.

And now for the exterior. This is where you let your imagination run wild. You can use all sorts of Fimo (different colours etc) to make the surface of our stone. I used white Fimo and I have coloured it with home spices. Not only this colors the Fimo but it also gives a very nice smell to the stone when they are finished. When you are satisfied with your result, dress the lumps with your Fimo and put them in the oven. When they are done, you will have a nice set of beautifully smelling soft rocks to decorate your home with.

Homemade oil painting

This is what you will need

• cardboard box
• toilet paper
• varnish
• brushes
• tube colors

Instructions

Make canvas out of cardboard boxes. Then add about 3-5 layers of toilet paper on your canvas, fixing each layer with varnish. The varnish will act like glue for the toilet paper. After you are finished, wait for your canvas to dry.

Now start making your masterpiece with your brush and when you are finished, wait for it to dry.

In the final step, apply varnish with a brush on your painting. And voila! Your homemade oil painting is done!

Summer is here! I’ve been making vases for me and my friends to bring a little bit of sunshine in the house as well.
I’ve used old jars, some rubber bands, a glue gun and spray paint to make them. Here are the instructions for these beauties.

This is my new cupboard! I didn’t make this one myself. My dad made it for me…♥

One day I saw a beautiful cupboard at Butlers but the dimensions weren’t quite right for my dinning room. So I showed my dad the picture of the original cupboard (click) and asked him if he could make it, if I make some adjustments… He smiled and that was it. :)

In a couple of weeks he brought it to my house. He made it from scraps of wood and leftovers from his other projects. I must point out that he is not a carpenter. Nor is he an interior designer :) By profession he is an electrician but works in his firm, which deals with heating systems. So yeah, that’s an accomplishment! :)

All I have to do now is paint it white, buy some Ikea baskets an fill it withe tea, wine and cookery books. It is going to be amazing! :D

Our Easter Eggs: grass + flower petals + stockings + onion peels :)

Our dearest friend Valerij (we all call him Vasko) had a birthday. And we had to give him something special. And this wine holder is special.

My boyfriend did the wood work and I did the typographic work. :) I think it turned up pretty amazing. And it works too!
What have we learned from this? Oak is an amazing material, beautiful and elegant, but wasn’t meant for this kind of details, especially without proper tools.

This (last) year’s Christmas presents - homemade delight.

I made chocolate with all sorts of nuts, chocolate chips, rice, dried fruits,… I packed it nicely and labeled it with my homemade paper. I also baked coconut cookies (we call them coconut kisses, I don’t know how are they internationally known, sorry…) and put them in a jar. Finally - hot chocolate mixture. This was tough. Me and my boyfriend both made two different mixtures of hot chocolate, tasted them, rated them and the winner was put into the last jar.
It was fun making those. But it was A LOT of work! We have to many friends… :D 

This is my new bird house. Again, my boyfriend put it together and I painted it. We put it on the balcony fence, where I can always see it from the kitchen.

There is a little sad story behind the making of this bird house. The past summer was very hot. And every time me and my boyfriend drove home from work, we were driving with our car windows down. One lovely afternoon three little sparrow birds flew inches above our car, while we were driving it and one little fellow got sucked in the car through my open window. He crashed directly into my right shoulder and fell on the back seats… When we stopped the car, we found the little sparrow dead. The speed of our crash was too much for him.
We felt bad. After all it was us invading their space. So as we buried him in the woods we swore to build another bird house this winter, which will be always rich with bird seeds. And so we did.