Upcycling - Jewellery box

We moved into our new house last summer and the previous owner of the property left a few things behind. Most of the stuff was outdated old junk, and we took most of it to the local dump. There were a few kids’ things that I ended up keeping, one of which was an old jewellery box. I had been thinking of buying a jewellery box for Affie (she has been given lots of jewellery already from friends and relatives). So I thought I would use this as an opportunity to have a go at upcycling (inspired by Kirstie Allsop’s programme).

The old jewellery box

The 'upcycled' jewellery box

I started off by using plastikote in flat white. It covered the majority of the box but it was pretty thin, so I used the Wilkinson’s own brand (in satin white) which worked out so much better! I used some left over lace to get the pattern on the edge of the drawers. 

It didn’t turn out as crisp as what I would have liked but it’s still ok. I also used Plastikote in Sky blue. Not too bad for a first attempt at upcycling I suppose…

Banana Cake!

A nice easy recipe, just chuck all the ingredients into a bowl and mix. The main reason why I like this recipe so much is because most of the bananas I buy always go skanky before I get to eat them. This is a recipe my Mum taught me ages ago, she normally makes it in a loaf tin but I decided to make separate cakes so they are more bite sized (also you don't need to slice the cake each time you want some-yup I am lazy!) You can add extra ingredients to the mix if you like (blueberries, walnuts or chocolate chips).

My little helper

Ingredients needed:

2 Eggs

100g/4oz Self raising flour

100g/4oz butter/margarine

100g/4oz Soft brown Sugar (I used normal sugar in this recipe because I forgot to buy brown sugar)

1 Old ripe banana

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (gas mark 6).

1. Place all the cupcake cases into a cupcake tin (or line a cake tin or loaf tin with greaseproof paper.)

2. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and mix.

3. Then add eggs and mix.

4. Add flower and mix.

5. Mash up the banana and add to mixture.

6. Put the mixture into the cupcake cases (or cake tin). I stupidly used muffin cases so only ended up with 5 cakes...

7. Bake for 12-20 minutes.

Finished!

Beaded flower brooch

It is now officially spring time! Who doesn't like a nice flower at spring time? This is a tutorial on how to make a flower brooch out of beads.

For this you will need:

Fishing wire

3mm White beads X 245 (I used Swarovski white AB beads-which I bought from ebay)

3mm Coloured beads X 185 

Metal brooch back

A decorative button 

Some strong glue (I used UHU glue)

(I used 4mm sized beads because I didn't have enough 3mm beads for this)

I will keep words to a minimum for this tutorial as I think the diagrams are quite easy to follow (I hope this is the case anyway).

Repeat the previous steps until you have 5 petals.

Once you have 5 petals you will need to link them up...

The blue arrow lines indicate the beads you need to thread through to attach the petals to the metal brooch backing.

Once you have attached the petals to the metal backing glue the button to the centre. I'm sure there is a way of making a nice, neat centre using beads but I couldn't find a way of creating one. It just looked like such a mess, so its much easier to glue something to cover the mess!

The beads I used for this were probably a little on the large side. So the brooch ended up massive, I have decided to use it as a bag charm instead. (Use 3mm size beads for a more 'brooch' sized brooch!)