Guest Post - DIY pom pom necklace

I should be heading back from my holiday in Turkey today, but whilst I am recuperating from the journey, here is one of my blog pals from across the pond to with another great DIY!...

Hi guys! My name is Erica and I blog over at Caught On A Whim.  I love creating beautiful things and am so excited that Laura invited me to share this fun DIY with you today.

Ready to create a fun pom pom necklace?

HERE'S THE HOW TO:

Stuff you'll need:

Wooden beads

Twine

Yarn

Scissors

Fork

Method:

1. First, we'll attach the wooden beads to the twine. To start, simply thread the twine through the bead like so:

2. Next, loop the twine around and through the bead once more. Be sure the bead is placed where you want it to be on the necklace.

3. Pull the twine tight. Now, the twine is wrapped around the bead. This will hold the bead in place on the necklace. Add as many beads to the necklace as you'd like.

4. Now, we will make some mini pom poms using a fork. First, wrap yarn around the fork. I wrapped my yarn around about 50 times. Next, tie a strand of yarn around the wrapped yarn. Make it nice and tight. Finally, take the yarn off the fork and clip the loops on both sides. Fluff up your pom to get it nice and plump, and trim it into a nice round shape. (P.S. This is a helpful video tutorial for making pom poms this way.)

5. To attach the poms to your necklace, use a large needle to thread the twine through the poms.

That's all there is to it! I love how fun this necklace is! You can mix it up with different beads or changing up the pom pom colors. The possibilities are endless!

It's been so great to meet you guys, and a special thanks to Laura for having me over today!

If you try out this tutorial, be sure to let me know. I'd love to see yours!

Erica x

Thanks Erica! This is a very cute DIY, I'd love to give these pompoms a go, maybe even make a whole necklace from them as well, like a pompom garland!

I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did.

Laura xXx

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Guest Post - {BEST EVER} Carrot Cake

Hello all - it's rather exciting to be introducing myself for the first time over on Laura's lovely blog!

I'm Rachel of OH NO Rachio and I'll be sharing with you the recipe for the world's best carrot cake {bestowed upon me by the lovely Leoni of From Leoni With Love at our Craft Party.}

So whilst Laura is away enjoying herself, here’s a little opportunity for you to enjoy yourself too AND I promise you, there’s little skill required {win!}.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your cake:

* 5 eggs

* 450ml vegetable oil

* 400g self raising flour
* 570g caster sugar

* pinch of salt

* 12g ground cinnamon

* 530g peeled & grated carrots
* 150g walnuts chopped

* {optional} handful sultanas}

AND here’s what you’ll need for the topping:
 * 200g cream cheese

 * 150g sugar

 * 100g butter

The reason it’s a super easy cake is that {despite killing your arms with all of that carrot grating} all you need to do is throw all of the ingredients together into a food processor or mixer and mix for 5 minutes.
That’s it!

Grease your cake tin all over and pour your goopy mixture in {it’s ok for it to seem abnormally thick!}.

Then you pop it into a pre-heated oven at 160° for 45 minutes. Once your timer goes - take him out and insert a skewer into the centre, if when you pull it out it has cake goo on it, it isn’t done yet and pop it back in the oven for another 15 mins. If your skewer comes out clean, your laughing - and you can pop it onto a cooling rack to, well, cool!

Then beat together your three icing ingredients and spread on - I use a cake palette knife to get a level smooth finish, then you can decorate however you like!

I hope you enjoyed drooling over some gratuitous cake shots today! Thanks to Laura for asking me to fill in whilst she’s away - and if you like what you saw then why not pop on over to my blog to see lots of other cake based posts, recipes and craft DIYs here.

xo

Thanks Rachel! This cake looks yum, and with the addition of sprinkles it is perfection!

Check back on wednesday for my final guest post with Erica from Caught on a Whim. She is going to be showing us how to make a DIY necklace!

Laura xXx

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Guest Post - DIY Braided Watch Strap

So I am on day 5 of my holiday and I have a nice tan, and have not yet fallen off of the boat ( I hope, I actually have no idea since I wrote this before I left!)

Anyway, today I have Cambridge Crafter and Blogger, Claire from Claireabellemakes keeping you entertained with a DIY braided watch strap, take it away Claire...

Hi guys! I’m so excited to be here on Laura’s blog today whilst she is off on her hols (lucky thing). 

I know Laura is a big fan of DIY and jewellery like me, so I thought I’d share a little tutorial today for a DIY Braided Watch Strap. It uses the simple knots that are used to make friendship bracelets, so it might be a bit of a nostalgic craft for some of you! I hope the photo step-by-step guide is clear, but if not just tweet me @claireabellemks or send me an email at claireabellemakes@gmail.com. 

Happy Crafting! 

Claire x 

The supplies I used are from Knot and Bow (glitter twine) and eBay (jewellery findings and tools).

Thanks Claire, that was awesome!

Don't forget to come back on Monday, when I have Rachel from OhNORachio popping by to share a delicious cake recipe with us! Yum!

Laura xXx

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Guest Post - DIY Macrame Pot Holders

Today I have my first guest post whilst I am on holiday, yay! It is brought to you by illustrator, cat enthusiast and succulent queen,  Harriet Gray!...

hello everyone, my name is harriet and today i'm taking over laura's blog!

i know laura is partial to a bit of diy, and like me, i know that she is very fond of the little green things that are slowly but surely taking over my tiny flat ... i'm talking succulents!

i'm a little bit obsessed with them! so i thought i'd introduce you to some of my favourites from my collection ...

i decided to take a few cuttings from my string of pearls succulent, and now that they've rooted it's time to pot them up. being a trailing succulent, they like to be free to hang, so i thought i'd make some simple mini macrame pot holders! ... and 'cause i'm nice, i made a little tutorial for you to follow!

you will need : a succulent, planted in a small pot (my pot is from ikea, if you were wondering), embroidery floss in a nice colour, a pair of scissors.

1. cut your floss so that you have four strands measuring approx. 60 inches in length.

2. gather them together *neatly* and fold them in half.

3. using the looped edge as the 'top' make a knot about half an inch down -

this will be what you hang your finished creation from

4. lay your thread down and section the threads out so you have 4 groups of two - you might like to  place something heavy on the 'top knot' to help you in the next steps (else it can get a little fiddly!)

5. gather two threads at a time and knot them together approx. 9 inches down the length of the thread.

6. repeat steps 4 and 5, only this time make the knot about 3 inches down from the previous row

7. again repeat steps 4 & 5 this time the knots are about 1.5 inches away

8. yep, you guessed it, repeat steps 4 & 5 about 1 inch down from the previous knots

9. tie all your threads together in one big knot (like you did at the top)

10. chop off the scraggly ends with your scissors to make a nice, neat tassel!

all that's left is to hang your succulent somewhere sunny and admire your lovely new pot holder! hooray!

Thanks Harriet!  These Macrame pot holders are the prettiest! Also, I think we all now want your tortoise plant pot! You can follow Harriet's blog here and visit her shop here.

Don't forget to come back on friday when I have Claire from Claireabellemakes guest posting with another brilliant DIY!

Laura xXx

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Holiday!

Today I am going on holiday! In fact I am on the plane to Turkey as we speak! Wish me luck, I'm not very fond of planes. Although, strangely, I do enjoy plane food, which is not something I seem to share in common with many other people. I will also be happy to spend the 4 hours of the flight reading Game of Thrones on my kindle!

Above you can see the nail art design I went with for my holiday, I am quite pleased with them! And yes, I am that sad that I made them match my bracelet! I got the triangle design idea from Rachel's post here.

It should be an interesting holiday as I am going away with Chris, his parents and sister, and my parents too! Plus, we are staying on a boat! Luckily I know we all get on, otherwise there could have been trouble staying in such close quarters! It's going to be a bit of an adventure, so I will be taking my camera and promise to report back.

Anyway, whilst I am away I have some very talented girlies holding the fort for me! All 4 of them have wonderful blogs which I know you will love, so if you haven't already you must check them out...

Harriet from Harriet Gray Illustration

Claire from Claireabellemakes

Rachel from OhnoRachio

Erica from Caught On A Whim

I am sure you will really enjoy their posts, they have got some wondrous DIY's lined up, so get your craft box and baking ingredients at the ready! Come back on Wednesday to see Harriet's post which is a tutorial on how to make a macrame pot holder!

So long for now, I hope you all have a lovely couple of weeks while I'm away!

Laura xXx

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