DIY Tutorial: Faux Fabric Cable Light Fitting

I have something of a thing about light fittings. I feel like they're a really important feature in a room, and in most of the rooms in our house we've completely changed them for something that's a focal point. However, striking light fittings aren't cheap, and if they are then they're almost always striking for the wrong reason, so in our two spare bedrooms we've left the plain white fittings up, and with a little help from some cotton yarn given them the look of fabric cable without re-wiring anything! 

As you can see, it wasn't the most attractive thing, but wrapping the cable is quick, relatively easy and after changing the discoloured part of the lamp holder for a new white one, and hanging a new shade, it look significantly less...blah. 

First, unscrew the ceiling rose, and thread the end of the yarn up through the hole. Tie it to the top of the cable, then screw the rose back up.

Then just get wrapping! Keep the loops as tight close together as possible, sliding them up the cable to close up any gaps.

Your arms will definitely ache, but it's much easier to wrap the cable with it still attached to the ceiling - in our other spare room I took the fitting down to wrap it and everything kept getting tangled up.  If you need a rest, stick the yarn to the cable with a piece of masking tape and let the ball trail to the floor (watching out for any cats who may have come along to "help")

Keep wrapping until you reach the bottom, then tie the yarn off with a knot. 

Cut off the excess, add your shade (ours is from Next) and you're done!

Much better I think you'll agree.

I'll be sharing a full reveal of this room soon. One day it will be our first child's room, and it feels like a really positive thing to be getting a room ready for whenever and however they arrive. If you'd like to read our IVF journey so far you can find it here.

Our Home Tour: Downstairs Toilet Reveal

Now we're really starting to make some progress with making our house feel like it actually belongs to us, I thought I'd start to share some of the finished rooms with you.  

Shortly after moving in we decided we'd start with the downstairs toilet because, a: it's tiny, and b: it was really sad in there! It was lilac, which is my least favourite colour in the world, it had dark purple carpet (yeah I know - nasty) and before these photos were taken there were four shelves above the sink and a medicine cabinet above the toilet which made the whole room feel really claustrophobic and dark.

There was also a very nineties (and not in a cool-again-revival way like chokers and space buns) border running around the room which  I took great pleasure in tearing off one night after work!

We wanted a really bright clean space, somewhere that some of our house plant collection could live and where I could indulge my copper obsession without it being too overpowering. We also didn't want to spend too much money as it's not exactly a room we'll be spending much time in! 

I love how it came out! The lilac took a surprisingly long time to cover and we've still got the door and doorframe to finish but it feels SO good to have a whole room exactly how we want it. I'm really pleased with the wall decals which we'd never used before. We had planned to wallpaper the wall behind the toilet but the paper we chose was something like trying to put actual toilet paper on the wall so we gave up and ordered these instead. If it's REALLY warm the edges do lift slightly but otherwise they're perfect!  

I made a little reed diffuser from an antique ink well and some essential oil, and a few of my vintage observer and Harry Potter books have found a home in there too. I also planted a few cuttings from a string of pearls plant in a hollowed out seed pod which seem to be doing quite well perched on the window sill. 

I knew I wanted to hang my beloved air plants in here and their hangers were sort of the inspiration for the rest of the room. I made them from some really thin copper tubing and copper wire and hung them with leather cord. Aware that as the plants grow they might become difficult to get in and out of the hangers for watering, I used jewellery findings to link the top of the copper tubes together so the hangers could open. They we're really easy to make but I might write a tutorial if anyone's interested in knowing more? 

What do you think? I sort of want to fill it up with even more plants and have a mini jungle in there. One day we think we'd like to extend this room to fit in a shower cubicle/wet room area too but for now we're concentrating on making the rest of the house as happy as this tiny space is! 

Here's where everything came from:

Blind: Ikea

Flooring: Homebase

Wall Decals: CGHome - Etsy 

Shelf Brackets (sprayed with copper spray paint): All Things Brighton Beautiful

Copper Ampersand: Hobbycraft 

Geometric String of Hearts Planter: Isatu Hyde

Copper Mirrors: I bought these in Cornwall but you can find similar here

Wall Hooks: Mica Rica - Etsy

Light Fitting: Ebay  

Towel Rail/Shelf: I made this from an upside down Ikea spice rack and a piece of copper pipe - you can find my tutorial here 

Tutorial: The Ultimate Lavender, Milk and Honey Pedicure

Since I was little I've loved soaking my feet. After a day in the garden, running around barefoot, playing tricks on each other with the hose and building birds nests out of cut grass and twigs, my sister and I would take turns to plunge our feet into the washing up bowl, always full slightly too hot water and with a cloud of fairy-liquid bubbles spilling out onto the carpet. 

As an adult, I like to make more of a ritual of the foot soaking process - I can't be the only one who still likes to indulge in these cosy warming practices even in the summer right?  I'll build myself a sofa-nest of pillows and blankets and surround myself with a satellite of requirements: snacks, a warm drink, slipper socks, a foot scrub, moisturiser and a towel (which is obvious yet quite often forgotten, resulting in me having to send someone upstairs to retrieve one for me)  

I've also moved on from the fairy-liquid bubbles, and love to make my own sugar scrub and foot soak. This lavender milk and honey variation is perfect at the end of the day, post shower and just before bedtime. 

First, we'll make the sugar scrub. These ingredients make enough for a 250g jar but you could make enough for one use by reducing the quantities:

Lavender oil is well known for its calming and relaxing properties, so it features in both the scrub and soak recipes. The sugar in is a gentle exfoliator, and the coconut oils serves to not only bind the ingredients together, but also to act as a moisturising mask. 

First mix the lavender flowers and sugar together. This ensures the flowers will be nicely distributed throughout the scrub and not get clumped together once you add the coconut oil.

Gently melt the coconut oil and leave it to cool - too hot and it will start to dissolve the sugar! Add it to the sugar and lavender flowers along with 5-10 drops of lavender oil depending on how strong you would like the fragrance. I'm a big fan so I went with 10. 

Mix all the ingredients together really well. It should have the consistency of wet sand and just start to clump together. 

Leave the scrub in a cool place for around an hour, stirring regularly. This helps to make sure the coconut oil has begun to solidify and won't just run to the bottom of the jar. If you're only making enough for one use you can skip this step an use it straight away. 

Spoon into a jar and, as long as you don't let any water get into it it should last for a couple of months.

Now for the foot soak! This isn't really a recipe, more some additions to add to your bowl of warm water. (I should probably add here that my adult self now has a separate washing up bowl reserved only for foot soaking and air plant watering - you know you've made it in life when that's a thing!)

I like to start with the water really quite hot. That way by the time you've applied your scrub and let it sit for a while the water will have cooled to just the right temperature. So, boil the kettle and add enough cold water so you can just tolerate your hand being in it. 

The first addition is milk, and I choose to buy organic even when I'm not actually consuming it. The fat in the milk makes the water lovely and silky and it also nourishes your skin, so it's good to add to your bathwater too. Milk also contains lactic acid which acts as a gentle exfoliator.  Add about 250ml (or a small glass worth) to your warm water and marvel for a moment at the swirling patterns it makes. You could also use powdered milk which works well, but as I prefer organic it's quite hard to come by. 

The next ingredient is a generous tablespoon of raw honey. Raw honey has a whole host of benefits including aiding healing and acting as a moisturiser, as well as having anti-microbial, anti-bacterial and anti-inflamatory  properties. You can use whichever honey you like or usually have at home, but I'm really enjoying this lavender honey from Hilltop at the moment. It's made from lavender flowers so has a lovely subtle lavender taste. Obviously that makes no difference whatsoever here, but it's the honey we're using at the moment! It's best to use raw honey regardless of whether you're eating it or dunking your feet in it as honey which has been pasteurised loses most of its beneficial properties. 

The last thing to add is a handful of lavender flowers along with a couple more drops of lavender oil. You can either sprinkle the flowers into the bowl which looks very pretty but can be a bit of a pain once you come to dry your feet. If I can't be bothered to deal with the mess, I like to place the flowers inside a paper tea filter, but you could also use a tea infuser, or tie them inside a square of muslin.

So, now you've got everything ready you can settle on the sofa, making sure you have a towel, your favourite moisturiser or body butter, tea, snacks, the TV remote, a good book...you get the gist! 

First, using a generous handful of the sugar scrub, scrub your feet and ankles paying particular attention the the heels, the outside of your big toes and anywhere else that gets especially dry or cracked (You can rinse your hands in your foot soak bowl)

Leave the scrub on your feet for about five minute to let the oils soak in. If you like you can wrap your feet up in cling film and a warm towel, but mostly I just like to rest them on the edge of the bowl. 

Once your water is cool enough, plunge your feet in and relax for as long as the water stays a pleasing temperature. When it starts to get too cool, rinse off any scrub that's still on your feet and dry them thoroughly. 

Apply your moisturiser. I like to refer to a reflexology chart to pay particular attention to any areas of my feet that reflect areas of my body that might need some attention. I often find the inside of my big toes, which relate to the neck especially helpful. 

Put on your slipper socks, curl up under that blanket and don't move for the rest of the evening! Bonus points if you can persuade someone else to empty the bowl for you! 

I think a jar of the sugar scrub would make a really lovely gift, especially packaged up with some cosy socks and some treats or tea to enjoy while you soak. I've made a gift tag to add to the jars which you're very welcome to use. Just copy the image below and resize to your liking before printing out on some card...

Making a Copper Pipe Plant Stand

I've amassed quite the collection of house plants over the year we've been living here, but as we're only just starting to do any major decorating, they haven't really found proper homes yet. Many of them are still sitting in their plastic terracotta pots awaiting some attention and this one in particular didn't seem to be doing so well, it's bottom leaves keep dropping and it's pot was on the small side so I think it had become a bit pot bound (which I know some succulent type plants like, but this just seemed far too small) 

So I set about looking for something larger for it to live in but I couldn't find anything I loved. I also felt I didn't want something that meant it would have to stand on a window sill as, for one thing, our window sills are pretty full of plants as it is, and for another, we have a cat who's favourite pastime is pushing things off tables and shelves and watching them hit the floor! 

After a quick Pinterest search for 'diy plant stand' I came across this copper pipe plant stand tutorial from Deborah at Pure Sweet Joy that I loved the look of! It was super easy to put together and it ended up costing about £20 including the pot. Apart from slicing my little finger with the pipe cutter I really enjoyed the process - like a big copper jigsaw. You can find the full tutorial here, but I wanted to share my process as I made a couple of small changes, and made an irritating mistake along the way too... 

I bought all the copper bits and bobs from Homebase, along with a 2 meter length of copper pipe, and used 2 part epoxy resin to attach everything together. Definitely don't mix too much of this at once as it cures really quickly and it smells nasty so you'll want all the windows open! 

My pot is slightly smaller in diameter than the one Deborah used in her tutorial, so I changed the measurements for the base part of the stand to make it smaller too. This meant that the T-shaped fittings ending up sitting directly next to one another with a small length of pipe glued inside. This is therefore the smallest stand you could make with these fittings, but it would be really simple to increase the measurements to accommodate a larger pot. 

Here comes the mistake: When I glued the second set of t-shaped fittings onto the four corners of the base, I got a bit carried away with making sure they were sitting level and didn't pay attention to where the glue was running. It therefore set inside the fittings making it impossible to push in the legs. So, I spent a good hour filing it down which made a lot of dust and really wouldn't have been necessary if I'd been a bit more careful. 

To decide how long to make the top part of the legs, I sat the pot on the base and cut the pipe so there would be just enough room to slide the pot in to the stand. Remember if you do it like this to take the caps into account too.

After that it was just a case of attaching the legs. I wanted a slightly taller plant stand than Deborah made, so I simply cut the copper pipe I had left into 4 equal lengths. When I came to put the caps on, I noticed it wasn't sitting quite level on the floor, so one of my copper caps has a couple of tiny circles of paper inside it to level things out (you know - like when the waitress shoves some napkins under one leg of your table in a restaurant) I also added some small pieces of self adhesive felt so the feet won't scratch our new oak floor. 

This is how our hall way currently looks. When we moved in it had beige walls and very questionable red carpet (and I think the woodwork was white once upon a time - ew!) We're nearly finished, just the door frames to paint grey and the doors to change, plus little bits and bobs like light fittings and curtains to hang. We may leave the doors as they are for the time being and change them all in one go once we've finished upstairs too - it's lovely living in a big house, but decorating does end up being far more expensive and time consuming. Finally though, with little touches like this, it's really starting to feel like our home now!