September Best Bits 2017

Hi guys. Today we're back with a trusty best bits post, this time for September. Autumn is now in full swing and I'm not going to lie I'm loving it. The leaves, the colours, cosy jumpers and hot chocolates. What more could you want?

1. Leaves
Now that the leaves have started to turn beautiful autumn colours, the world just looks so pretty. You can pretend to be a 4 year old and run around kicking the leaves. It might be stupid, but it's so fun.

2. Cosy jumpers
In Autumn it gets a lot colder (in England anyway), so that means warm jumpers. They're so cute and so warm and so amazing. It's like being wrapped in a soft blanket, but one you can actually wear. I just love them.

3. The weather
I think the weather is just perfect in the beginning of Autumn. It's cold, but you can get away with not wearing a coat; a jumper will do the job. The only think that's not so great is the rain, which is plentiful in England (yay!).

4. Warm food
Autumn also brings the start of eating stews and curry which give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. When you're cold on the outside, a warm meal does wonders.

Basic crafting supplies and where to get them without spending lots!

Hello everyone! I thought it would be nice to share with you my basic crafting supplies. We have done a post similar to this with basic sewing supplies so check that out if you want to see what I use for sewing projects. But today I'm going to talk about supplies for crafting. I'll also mention where tonight it without spending lots because craft supplies can be very expensive depending on where you buy.

1. Paint
Acrilic and poster paint tends to be super useful for most craft projects. Having a few basic colours like black, white, blue, red and yellow is great so you can mix them to make any colour you need. Acrylic paint varies in price depending on quality. If you aren't looking for great quality then you can buy acrylic paint from The Pound shop or Tiger for a couple of quid. If you are looking for more quality, Hobbycraft or the Range sells a range of tubed and tub paint. For poster paint, Hobbycraft sells tons of poster paint for a pound a bottle. Can't go wrong!

2. Paint brushes and sponges
You can't use paint without brushes. Like paint, you can get brushes varing in price depending of quality. However your best bet is a Swedish shop that you can find in some high streets called Søstrene Grene. They sell a range of brushes of great quality for amazing prices. They also have tons of craft supplies and stationery at great prices for good quality. They are online as well so definitely check them out!

3. Mod Podge or decopage glue
This glue is very similar to P.V.A but tends to leave a much better finish. It's a bit pricey but your best bet is Hobbycraft. If your local Hobbycraft has a sale section it's worth checking there as I have found it for much cheaper in there. The best thing about this glue is, as the come in quite big pots, they last a while so you won't need to reperchace very often.

4. Sharpies
These are definitely the best permanent markers around but are quite expensive. You can find them quite cheap online or W H Smiths do offers on them quite a lot so keep a look out.

5. Coloured and plain card
A classic basic, card almost always comes in handy. I found the best place to pick it up is at The Range or Pound Land sometimes sells it for kids crafts. Either way, it's never too expensive.

6. Good quality scissors
Fabric scissors are best. Keep them in good condition by reserving them for hard to cut maritals. I bought mine quite cheap from my local market. There is a sewing stall there which sells lots of basic supplies for a reasonable price.

7. Wool, buttons, lolly sticks, zips and ribbon
This might seem quite random collection of stuff but they are the kind of things that I tend to collect. I have a little stack of these in my craft supplies. The best places to grab this stuff tends to be independent markets. The kind that are on once a month or something. I have actually find zips and ribbons at charity shops as well before. If you're looking for certain colours or lengths then Hobbycraft have a huge range of stuff.

8. Fabric
Fabric is another thing that's great to have a stash of. The best place to buy felt is Hobbycraft (if you are looking for small pieces). There are lots of offcut shops around that sell big rolls of offcuts from various sources. My local market has a great fabric that sells a huge range of colours and styles of fabric for a great price which is great if you need lots of fabric. Failing finding it at any of these places, you could always rip up some old clothes, always ask first though.

9. Hot glue gun and sticks
This is my most used craft supply. It's perfect because it can be used on most surfaces. You can also get cold glue guns which are safer but more expensive. In most shops they have to be bought be adults and do need supervision to some extent. I bought mine from the Range for under £10. Have a stack of glue to go with it is important too.

10. Washi/ patterned tape
Colourful tape is great as it can be used for so many things. It's sold at most craft shops so it's just a case of being savy and shopping around.

So, that was a brief run down of my most used craft supplies. I hope you found it useful and if you have any suggestions then let my know in the comments. Thank you for reading.

August Best Bits 2017

So, the summer is finally over and now we are in autumn. If I'm honest I did really enjoy most of this summer (apart from my holiday :). The weather was awful, not much was going on, to me it didn't really seem like summer. It was just... meh. Fine. Whatever. I didn't really care for those 3 months.

But now, onto what this post is supposed to be about. The best bits of August. Lets see if I can try to scrape a list together.

1. Holidays

Lots of people go on holiday in August. It's the school holidays and the only time to actually get some sun here in England. You can stay here in the UK or go abroad and get some real summer. I went to Italy just after the massive heatwave, so I missed the super hot weather (good thing, I'm white as a sheet) but still got some pretty nice heat.

2. No school!

If you're of school age and living here in the UK, August means the summer holidays. And that means no school for 6 weeks! I mean it's not quite comparable to the 3 months (!!) that America gets, but I'll take it.

3. Barbecues

For me the summer means barbecues. And I do love barbecues. Summer is the best time to just sit and eat nice food with your family. While the sun starts to set above your head and you relish in the delicious smells of a cooking barbecue, life seems perfect.

The Bullet Journal - My First Month

Hey, it's E and today and I'm going to be talking about a recent thing I've started - my bullet journal.
So, previously I've had a Filofax and I just started to decide it didn't really work very well for me. I'm very creative and so it was just too structured and I didn't have that freedom that I wanted. I couldn't just doodle in the margin or really easily add in a sleep tracker. I'd heard about the bullet journal system before and I started to look into it in a little more depth that I already had. The more I discovered about it the more I realised I really like the system. It was coming up to then start of May so I thought it would be a great time to start. I found a notebook with plain pages that I already had (I bought it from The Range) and got started with the first few pages.

The First Pages
I started off with a very important spread - the future log for the year. I started it at May and just drew out little calendars. I put this in so I could quickly coordinate dates with days and have a log of all the birthdays I needed to remember.

Next I have my reading pages. I am an avid reader so it's really important to me to be able keep a track of all the books I want to read and have read. It's very simple but extremely functional and easy to use.

The final one of these pages is a levels record. In England we get levelled on subjects and we are always doing little assessments and it helps me to just keep a record so I can see if I'm progressing.

The First Month

To start May off I just did a little title page with some washi tape to tab it so I could easily refer back to it.

Then I stuck some nice paper onto the pages to create a noticeboard type thing so I could just easily use post it notes to put quick notes and events that are going to happen. For example, I have a post it note with the two tests I have in May.

After this I have my monthly calendar so I have space to write events that are coming up. This also gives me a easy way to view my month. I also have the goals page after this for my monthly goals. This includes things like 'use my bullet journal every day' and 'finish No Stars at the Circus'.

The final two pages before my weekly spreads are my habit tracker and my blog ideas page. The habit is really helpful for trying to instil new habits in my daily routing and the blog ideas page is great to brainstorm blog posts and design ideas.

Now we move on to my weekly spreads. So far I have three and I've already learnt a lot about what I like in the spread. So my first spread was very simple but it didn't really work me because the sections were horizontal and there wasn't much space to write tasks downwards. There was also a big gap at the bottom and I wasn't really sure how to fill this so I just wrote a quote. I feel like it wasn't a very good use of the space and was not helpful for me.

In the next spread I changed it a lot. I'd found lots of inspiration and I decided to do the days vertically. This gave me space to write more tasks which I often have a lot of. I also had more space generally so I was able to put a sleep tracker into it. I also got some great inspiration for the decoration and I was really happy with how it turned out.

My spread for this week didn't change much. All I did was change the headings slightly and moved the sleep tracker simply for a bit of a change because I don't want all the spreads to be exactly the same.

That's all I've got so far but I know I'm going to be using my bullet journal a lot since I love it already. I can be so creative and can change anything I want. If something doesn't work I don't have to include the next month and you don't get this flexibility with other planning systems. I will definitely update you with my progress and I have some good ideas for other bullet journal posts. If you want a bit more inspiration, please check out my Pinterest board (profile is TangleOfThread) for bullet journals.

Recycled Paper Beads

Sometimes, you want to make some jewellery but you have no beads whatsoever. I often come up with this problem but there is a solution: homemade paper beads! Grab some paper and lets get going.

You will need:

• Paper
• A gluestick
• PVA glue
• Water
• A skewer/bead making tool
• Cocktail sticks
• Small piece of polystyrene
• Coloured pens

To actually make the beads, the best and easiest way to do it to use a bead making tool (I recommend the Recycled Paper Beads kit from green creativity. You can get it easily off Amazon). But if you don't have one, you can roll them on a skewer.

Method

1. Firstly, you need to cut the strips of paper. There are different shapes of beads you can make but I will start with the most common. Start by marking inches across the top of the paper (you can change this to suit how wide you want the beads).

2. Mark half an inch on the bottom of the paper. Continue making full inch mark along the bottom.

3. Now join all these marks up so you get triangle shapes.

4. Cut them out.

5. At this point, you will need to decorate the strips of paper. But if you have cut them out of some magazine paper or decorated paper then this won't apply. If you are decorating them, remember that you will keep rolling over the top of the design, so anything running down the middle won't be seen.

6. After decorating, you now need to roll the beads. If you are using a specialised tool, follow the instructions that come with it. If not, start by putting a line of glue on the wide section of bead. Make sure you do this on the back.
7. Now fold it the top over the skewer and glue it down. This will hold the bead in place as you roll it.

8. It is now time to create the actual bead shape! Slowly and carefully roll the piece of paper around the skewer until there is a small tail left. Use a glue stick to secure this down.

9. Slide the bead off the skewer and put it onto a cocktail stick. Stick the cocktail stick in a piece of polystyrene. This will keep the bead from the ground as it dries and make it easier to seal.

10. Once the bead as dried, you will need to make the watered down glue to seal the bead. If you have some Mod Podge, feel free to use this. But if you don't, put some PVA glue into a bowl and add water until it is a thick but runny consistency.
11. Paint this all around the bead. You may find it easier if you pick up the cocktail stick.

12. Wait for them to fully dry and then take them off the cocktail sticks. Your bead are now finished! 13. Thread them through some elastic and tie to create a wonderful bracelet or necklace.

We hope you have found this tutorial useful and comment down below if you have made some. We would love to see a picture if you have!

January's Best Bits 2017

The first year of the month is finally over! Now we can get on track once more and complete our goals and really feel like it is now 2017. So we've rounded up everything we loved from January,

1. New year... new me!

Well this one is old and a bit cliche but it has to be included. It can mean anything for anyone and for all us crafters it means better organisation and better ideas. I am definitely trying to get better ideas and one of my goals is to post on this blog a bit more - hopefully at least once a week.

2. Warm Stews

Ok so it's not really related to craft but in the winter a hot stew is absolutely amazing! It warms you up on the inside and the outside and can be a life saver when it's frosty outside.

3. Bath Bombs

I adore bath bombs and they are even more incredible when you have one in a steaming bath when it's icy outside the window. They're still great in warmer weather but it can feel a bit stuffy it it's too warm so I always cherish baths I have in the winter.

A beautiful bath bomb from Bomb Cosmetics

4. Body Scrubs and Moisturisers

So over Christmas I got a lot (and I mean a lot) of moisturisers and body scrubs so I decided that I may as well use them and see what they can do. My favourite one have the Soap&Glory body butter and it has transformed my extremely dry knees and elbows. It has worked wonders! I highly recommend it.

Gift Wrapping Ideas

Many people get to Christmas and birthdays and immediately loath what comes with it: gift wrapping. But, it can be fun. When you make something beautiful for someone, the first impression is important. And that first impression is how its wrapped. Here we will give some great ideas (and cheats too ;) for wrapping gifts the best way possible. All those aesthetic people out there, this for you.

1. Wrapping Paper

Although the little additions at the end make your gift look super cute, the paper you use can really make or break the final outcome. First, you need something that fits what you're wrapping for. Don't use Christmas wrapping paper for birthdays and don't use paper with firetrucks on it for a fully grown adult. Quality of paper doesn't matter as much as you may think it does. If you find 50p roll, but you love it, go for it! As long as the paper holds together, quality isn't your biggest worry. The more fun designs can often be found in cheaper like Primark and H&M. Also, always have a good range on hand. You won't always have time to go and buy some.

2. Washi Tape

Washi tape, or any other coloured/patterned tape, is a great way to give your gift that little edge that it needs. It draws a little more attention and makes it look like you've put a little more care and thought into to it. Plus, washi tape is just amazing! Pick one that matches your wrapping paper and decide whether you want it to pop out or be slightly subtle. For instance, you probably shouldn't use a patterned tape if the wrapping paper is covered in pattern already. But, if it contrasts nicely and you love that eclectic effect, it can look really good. If you're a little more elegant and plain, add some sparkly tape to give that sophisticated look.

Tip: Use a bit of clear tape first and then put the washi tape on as it often isn't actually very sticky.

3. Bows, Frills and Decoration

Sometimes, the perfect finish to your gift can be a perfectly placed hand-tied bow. Stuck on or wrapped around, it finished it off beautifully. Take a bit of raffia, string, cord or whatever floats your boat and tie a bow around the gift. Add decoration as well. Stick on some cute little gems or beads and embellish, embellish, embellish. You do have to be careful though, and try not to go over the top. This can make the wrapping look cluttered and a bit over done. Have fun. But restrain yourself when necessary!

Cheat: If you don't have enough string to go around the gift or don't how to tie it correctly, tie a bow and leave the strands. Then stick these around the gift and nobody will notice.

4. Be consistent

Even if you do everything in this list to perfection, it can be ruined if you're not consistent. By this I mean that you should keep the same colour pallet and using the same wrapping paper if you're wrapping more than one gift. Find paper, tape and decorations that all go to together and fit together. In different gifts you can still decorate them in different ways, but use the same paper and the similar colours for a nice coordinated look.

Please try some of these ideas and see what works for you. Plus, if you have any other ideas, we would love it if you could comment them down below. Maybe we'll include them in a future post.