knitting class

one of my new year resolutions was to learn some new skills - for years now I've wanted to learn to knit, and have tried to teach myself from some You Tube videos a few times, but always felt it was far too complicated and so gave up! when I saw the amazingly talented Siobhan from Bless the Weather was holding another knitting class, I decided to sign up and finally learn!

the class was held in Siobhan's home, and she served up tea and cakes whilst we learnt - pretty much my idea of heaven. if school had had cake and tea I reckon I'd have learnt a lot more! Siobhan is also an excellent teacher - she explained everything really simply, and showed us each step as we went along. I can now say that I can knit, which is super exciting!

I haven't actually finished a piece yet, as I decided to spend a bit of time just practicsing getting my stitches as neat and even as possible. But I have some grey chunky wool which I think I need to turn into a nice long scarf.... Thank you lovely Siobhan for finally turning this cack-handed girl into a knitter!

DIY: turn an old calendar into cute notecards

January always means two very difficult tasks for me; the first is choosing a new calendar. hello, my name is Zoe, and I hate choosing calendars. in fact, I'm not a big fan of making any sort of decision really, but with a calendar you're stuck with it for a whole year, looking at it every day while it mocks your inability to make such a simply choice. (no, just me?) the other difficult task is parting with my old calendar. after twelve months together I tend to get overly fond of last year's calendar, and the thought of chucking it unceremoniously into the bin makes me get all weepy. (again, just me?) so I came up with a very simple way to reuse some parts of my old calendar - NOTECARDS! every calendar has a back page with little thumbnails of the images that are on each month - I simply cut these out and stick them on some blank cards and WHAM. a set of twelve little notecards that cost you absolutely nothing.

(the images below are taken from my instagram calendar from this year, and from last year's Mollie Makes calendar)

 (look how cute and dinky the pictures are! to be honest you could just keep them like this!)

I'm using these as thank you cards to send to the lovely people that gave me Christmas gifts. I'm enjoying finding cheap and quick little DIY projects to sneak into my day - it breaks up tasks which can otherwise get quite monotonous!

DIY: advent calendar

right, so this post is going to show just how busy (ahem, disorganised) I have been - it was meant to be posted at the start of December! I realise it's a bit out of date now, but I wanted to post it anyway.

me and the boy celebrated our first ever Christmas together this year - I wanted to do something special for him, so I decided to put together a little DIY advent calendar (I did also buy him a Monsters Inc chocolate one because I've had one every year since I can remember!)

I just gathered together a selection of 24 little gifts or handwritten notes, and nothing I put in cost more than £5. amongst the little trinkets I put in a £5 starbucks gift card so we can go on a coffee date together, a lush massage bar, wind up racing snails, christmas lottery scratchcards, and a pair of christmas tree socks.

 I chose a colour scheme to wrap the items in so they all went together - I decided on kraft, black, and white, because apparently boys don't appreciate pastel pink polka dots. I wrapped everything and added little embellishments and vintage touches (I'm sure Jonathan didn't appreciate them, but I loved doing it!) I popped everything into a big box and instructed him to only open one each day (each one had a number on for the order he was supposed to open them in.)

 they even got the Jasper seal of approval so they must have been wrapped well - that dog LOVES a wrapped up present, and the more nicely it's wrapped, the more he wants to claim it for his own!

 did anyone else make an advent calendar this year? I would definitely do it again, although I'll gather presents throughout the year rather than rushing to try and find suitable bits and pieces without spending a fortune. hopefully this can be an annual tradition!

shark attack

it was my friend's birthday a few days ago, and it's her party tonight, and I realised yesterday I hadn't even thought about what to make her for her birthday this year. last year I made her an embroidery that said 'live every week like it's shark week' so I wanted to carry on the shark theme (yeah she loves her some sharks!)

I remembered I had these wooden shark samples still, so I painted them up and added googly eyes for effect (I have a pretty serious stash of googly eyes in all shapes and sizes - don't ask why)

 my original plan was to drill a hole, add some ribbon, and make shark ornaments. but then I remembered I had some wood dowling rods, and the shark on a stick was created. perfect for posing with in photos/creating hilarious puppet shows with....

sorry for the short post - Monday I will be launching a new collection of bow themed items (bow ties for guys, girls, and pets, plus mini clip on shoe bows EEEK!) so am focusing on that right now. hope you all have a lovely weekend, be sure to check back Monday to see all the new things!

DIY project: mini cacti planters

I'm so excited because this post marks the start of a new project here on Ladybird Likes, where every week I take a bit of time (usually no more than an hour or two) to complete a simple DIY project. I decided to finally start this project for three reasons; firstly, because I spend way too much time on pinterest pinning things and never actually making any of them. secondly, because I miss doing crafty stuff just for fun - I used to love nothing better than completing a project and being able to wear it/display it/gift it, but I can't even remember the last time I made something that wasn't directly work related! and thirdly, because this here blog is getting way too full of business talk, when really I want it to cover a whole range of stuff, including DIY projects.

so anyway, without further ado, my first project is simple DIY mini planters. these projects aren't going to be proper step by step tutorials - they are so simple I don't think you need instructions really! rather I'll just document the process as I go through. basically last night in Ikea I found these small sized ceramic mugs (plus one larger sized one.) the small ones were 60p each I think. remembering I had some paint markers at home I snapped up a couple with this project in mind. I simply doodled on in my paint markers (I used the molotow one4all acrylic paint pens, but you can use sharpie or posca or any similar style pen.) then I baked them in the oven for half an hour at 140 celsius. VOILA!

 next, on to planting - I picked up a medium sized cacti, plus three mini ones, just guessing roughly on the size that would fit in my pots. you could also plant air plants or succulents. if you got a bigger ceramic pot (they sell those in ikea too!) you could put three or four of the baby cacti in one which would look awesome!

 I put a small amount of gravel in the bottom of each cup for drainage, then popped in my cacti (without the plastic pot) then filled around it with a mix of compost and sand. wear gloves whilst repotting cacti kids, those things are vicious.

 there you have it - super easy, and super quick. this project cost me about £10 total for the plants, the paint pens, and the mugs, which is cheap as chips really considering I got four planters out of it. I'm going to get some more mugs next time I go to ikea, and some different coloured paint pens, so I can make some up as gifts.

for future DIY projects, where items are smaller and easier to post, I will be giving away some of the things I make simply because I don't have space to keep everything! plus, I love sending post!