Guest Post: Claireabellemakes Boho Hand Chain

Hello you wonderful lot. Today I have a very exciting guest post for you from the lovely Claire of Claireabellemakes! I met Claire at the #cambmeetup and fell in love with her blog DIYs and handmade beauties in her Etsy store. Todays post is a crafty DIY post so I hope you enjoy! xx

Hello! I'm super excited to be here on Kat's blog today to share a jewellery DIY. Kat's fashion posts are some of my favourites, so I hope this one fits nicely with her summer looks and gives you a chance to try some simple techniques.

Here's what you will need (all available from Craft stores, Etsy and Amazon):

·         Jewellery chain

·         Jump rings

·         Chain cutters

·         Jewellery pliers

·         Small pearl beads

·         Flower connector bead

·         Lobster clasp

·         Eye pins

For this DIY you will need to be familiar with two simple jewellery making techniques: opening and closing jump rings and making a loop. Jump rings are use to attach one component to another and are vital to jewellery making! I would recommend spending a few moments practising each of these before beginning.

If any of these instructions aren't clear, feel free to tweet me or drop me an email!

Step 1

Cut a piece of jewellery chain which just measures around your wrist. Fold this piece of chain in half and attach a jump ring at the half way point.

Step 2

On the free ends of the chain, attach a jump ring to one end and a jump ring plus lobster clasp to the other end. This forms the bracelet part of your hand chain.

Steps 3 & 4

Thread a small pearl bead onto the eye pin and make a loop with the straight end. Repeat this with two more beads so you have 3 in total.

Step 5

Now you are going to begin to make the decorative part of the hand chain and connect the components together. In between each component you will use jump rings to connect them. Your flower connector bead should have holes on each side where you can add a jump ring and then attach to the pearl bead sections.

Step 6

Repeat step 5 so your decorative section has two flower connectors with pearl bead sections either side and in between. Cut a piece of chain long enough to wrap around your middle finger and over your middle knuckle.

Step 7

Attach the finger chain to the decorative section with a jump ring. This completes the hand chain!

To wear, first place the finger chain on and then close the bracelet part around your wrist using the clasp.

 I absolutely adore this boho hand chain Claire has created. It's perfect for summer and upcoming festivals! Thank you Claire for guest posting and I hope you all enjoyed her tutorial! For more craft posts and to check out Claire's handmade gifts click the links below:

• Etsy
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Instagram

Will you be making a boho hand chain?

See you again on Friday!

Guest Post | DIY Salt Dough Ornaments

DIY Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments!

Hello everyone!

It’s very lovely to meet you all, my name is Megan and my lifestyle & craft blog is called Room With a Bloom. I was just so excited when Kat asked me to create a crafty guest post for you all. Her blog is one of my absolute favourites and I was just so thrilled to be able to contribute to it. Of course I don’t need to tell you how wonderful her blog is- You’re already here!

Today, I wanted to share with you my very quick and easy recipe for salt dough ornaments.
They were so much fun to create and paint. I even think it would be a wonderful holiday activity for the kids too! The best part is that you will most likely have all these ingredients already in the kitchen! Shall we get started?!

What you will need:

1 cup of plain flour
½ cup of water
½ cup of standard table salt.

Preheat your oven to 100 degrees & line your tray with baking paper

Mix all of these ingredients together in a mixing bowl until combined. You may want to add the water gradually as not all of it may be needed. Once combined, sprinkle some flour on your work bench and begin kneading the dough until soft. 

Using a rolling pin, roll out your dough to create the thickness of your ornaments- This is completely up to you! My dough was about a centimetre thick.

Use some festive themed cookie cutters to stamp the shapes for your ornaments. I was able to make about 12 ornaments using this quantity of dough. Remember, you can always adapt this recipe to create as many as you’d like! Lay the ornaments on a prepared tray ready for baking.
Don’t forget to use a skewer to create the hole so you can hang your creation! 

These ornaments will take approximately 3 hours to dry out in the oven at a low temperature. I’ve read online that alternatively, you could put them in the microwave for 3 minutes on a high setting and achieve the same result. If you try this method, I’d love to hear how it worked out for you!

Once they've fully dried out and have cooled down, it’s time to paint them! I've just used basic acrylic paint for these ornaments but you have the creative freedom to do whatever you’d like- Why stop at paint when you can get crafty with glitter or fabric? The options are literally endless!

This was by far my favourite part of the project! Doesn't the little reindeer just look so adorable?!

Once the paint has dried, just thread some ribbon or string through the hole and tie a bow. Now your little handmade creations are ready to be placed on your tree!

I think these little decorations just look so cute! They really were just so easy to create.

Thank you everyone for having a read of my post, it’s been so much fun being a part of this gorgeous girl’s fantastic blog! If you create these at home, send me your pictures on Twitter- I’d love to see all of your wonderful works of art!

If you liked my post today and want to see some more crafty creations, head on over to my blog :)
www.roomwithabloom.blogspot.com

That’s it for today! I hope you all have a lovely day and a very merry Christmas!

Love Megan xo

Guest Post | Christmas Happy List

Image source Pinterest (original here)

Hi everyone! I'm Lucy and I blog over on 'From Lucy With Love'. When Kat asked me if I wanted to do a guest post I jumped at the chance because we have been blogging buddies for a while and I really enjoy reading her blog and catching up on her YouTube videos too. Over on my blog I mostly document bits and pieces from my every day life and try to upload a weekly beauty video on my YouTube channel too. Why not pop over and say hello? It'd be great to see you there!

So, let's crack on with today's post. I felt like a festive 'Happy List' would be a way for you to get to know me - let's do this!

 

It’s a given that Christmas time should be happy time for everyone, but I also think it can be a time of reflection. I think it is so important to keep your spirits up and create your own traditions that help you keep in a positive frame of mind as well as taking some time for yourself as the year draws to a close.

Here are my top 5 things that make me super happy during the festive period. Why not tell us about yours in the comments too?

:: Dec the halls!

My fiancé, Joe, and I have a bit of a tradition which involves a home-made Christmas CD, or 'mixed tape', if you are old enough to be familiar with one, putting up our tree and generally throwing spare tinsel over anything that looks bare! It wouldn't seem right to put up our tree without a bit of Whams! 'Last Christmas' or, Joe’s favourite, ‘Driving Home for Christmas’, playing in the background! The process of making our home all cosy and Christmassy together makes us both very happy indeed.

:: Christmas film marathon

These days it is a rarity that I get a lay in, same for poor old Joe. It's not like we have kids, just a very wide awake cat. Because of that we tend to be up before the sun and sitting in the lounge frantically searching the TV for something remotely interesting to watch. However, in the run up to Christmas, this isn't something we have to worry about. In December we start on our mission to watch all the Christmas movies we can lay our hands on, usually at 6am! We snuggle up in our pyjamas on the sofa, with steaming hot tea and, occasionally, a couple of slices of fruit toast too...if we are feeling like a treat! I really enjoy this early morning time together, it is rare I am awake enough to watch a film in the evenings, so I treasure this a great deal.

:: Glitter, glitter, everywhere

...well, on my nails at the very least. Shiny things make me happy, too happy really! I feel like, these days, I can only get away with the tiniest amount of glitter but, you know what, it's Christmas, so let's live a little. Right now I am loving a little glitter polish on my accent nail. My favourites are: Barry M Rose Quartz glitter polish, a silver and pink clear polish which looks fab worn as one coat or over the top of a darker polish, and the Maybelline Brocades polish in Knitted Gold, which I have had since last Christmas and still applies perfectly! I think it looks pretty without being over-kill and tells the world you are feeling festive!

:: Christmas markets

If you are not yet in the festive spirit, I can almost guarantee you that a trip to a Christmas market will sprinkle a little fairy dust over you. The smell of all the food, mulled wine and fresh Christmas trees and decorations are a delight to the senses!

:: Red lips

Old fashioned glamour is the best at Christmas. One of my favourite looks to create at this time of year is a subtle wash of gold eye-shadow over the lid, along with a flick of liquid eye-liner, and a full on red lip. It sings out glamour and makes you feel a million dollars. For long lasting lips that don’t budge I enjoy using the Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet in the shade Hot Pepper.

:: Games night

This has been a bit of a tradition in our little friendship circle for a long old time. Cranium is our favourite as we can make utter fools of ourselves in every possible way, such as trying to make your partner guess you are making Corn Flakes out of the green Playdough in just 30 seconds! Crack out the board game, throw on Spotify and let yourselves be children for a few hours, you won’t regret it, that’s a promise!

Lucy's Links:

www.fromlucywithlove.co.uk

@lucycarterart

https://www.youtube.com/user/fromlucywithloveblog