DIY Fantastic: Guerrilla Gardening

I've always joked about becoming a  Guerrilla Gardener. The idea of throwing wildflower bombs over fences into abandoned lots or neglected gardens and seeing the results grow and blossom always sounded like such a lovely antiestablishment act! And let's face it, as a goody-two-shoes at heart this is about as rebellious as I was ever likely to get! 

Finally, these long-harboured dreams have been turned into reality - there's really is nothing quite like getting a foot on the property ladder to get you invested in your local community and street improvements! Ha!

So tonight, I ventured out on to our street armed with 101 nasturtium seeds, a trowel and a watering can on a one woman mission to brighten up our street! Oh and I dragged the husband along to carry the watering can! (I think he enjoyed it, at least the guerrilla part at least!) 

We planted a handful of seeds under each tree, in the scrappy square of soil around each tree trunk. Created a series of trenches in the greyness and popped in a nasturtium seed or three into each. Covered them back up with a sprinkling of soil (aka dust and twigs) and watered thoroughly before moving on to the next tree.

And that's it. We now get to sit back and wait a while and hope for more rain! Each day I'll walk to the station hopeful of seeing my handiwork start to spring out of the earth. First as a teeny seedling, then grow into a strong little bushes and eventually burst into a root of colourful flowers! Hmm...we'll see! 

It's sure going to be a test of my patience mind! By the virtue of my daily walks in sure it'll feel like they're taking FOREVER to come to fruition, as I watch them grow a millimetre a day! But with the days and weeks, hopefully they'll bring a flash of colour and life to our already cute street over the summer. 

We picked nasturtiums as they are hardy, love scrappy, poor soil (which is what they're getting!!). They are bright and fun and hopefully easy to grow with very little tending! My ma bought out the pound store of nasturtium seeds last time she visited to stock us up in advance!!

As for hazards of the job, we got down and dirty with all sorts, the cigarette buts, the bottle tops, the dried dog poop (extra nutrients?!) and all sorts of natural debris. We both wore gardening gloves for the job and were super careful. Said gloves even got a deep bleach clean afterwards and I must have scrubbed my hands about four times before I was satisfied! Our remaining natural foes will now be the council weed-killing men (please don't do the rounds soon), dogs and drought! I don't often say this, but...bring on the rain!

I'm desperately hoping to one day spot a neighbour or visitor admiring the new addition to the street so that I can glow smugly on the inside knowing that each small change like this will help make our street a better place to live. (I'll report back if we manage it!)

So, what small steps have you tried to help contribute to your neighbourhood? I'm all ears - we need our next project!

P.s. you can see more about our first step onto the property ladder here and more gardening updates here.

DIY Fantastic: Hallway Hooks

Does anyone else also have a fear of becoming a hoarder? Or is that just me?! Since visiting our upstairs neighbours years ago and finding her flat literally stuffed to the brim with all sorts of gubbins, it's been haunting me! My fear is made all the more real by my love for pretty but useless things and car boot sales! (What a toxic combination!) 

I had been hoarding these four gorgeous coloured hooks since early last, they'd always been destined for a coat rack and so it was time to put them into action! 

With no place for coats, keys and the usual paraphernalia they usually ended up as a mound on the end of the banisters or piled up on our sofa. Great for snuggling up under in winter, but not when you're in a rush to leave the house and scrabble through the pile looking for my favourite leather jacket!

So the solution was to create a hook shelf combo to come to our aid! 

We have also been hoarding (spot the trend here!? Maybe I should just give in and embrace it!) a pile of salvaged wooden floorboards from when we renovated the floors upstairs. They look super rustic here, but under that paint and grime the wood is really lovely old pine, beautifully worn and weathered! 

First we had to dry it out - which meant bringing in the damp and dirty boards into the bathroom for a few days. We then decided on a length, sawed then down to size and sanded off the grime. As you can see here, I brought in some muscles for this part!! 

'We' didn't sand them down fully, I wanted to keep some of that beautiful ageing that gives the wood texture and depth. But we did sand off the edges and corners to leave them smooth and splinter free. 

Once happy with the wood, we measured out the four spots to add the hook, evenly spaced along the plank and screwed them each in place.

The hooks I found in Tiger whilst shopping for wedding decor, ha! Tiger don't sell online (what sort of business model is that in this day and age?! Even TKMaxx, the ultimate designer jumble sale, and possibly,aherm I mean definitely my favourite shop of all time, sell online these days!) but you can see similar ones available in store here.

Here you can see that lovely texture  of the wood, yummmm!! 

We drilled a few holes along the wooden back. Think we opted for 3 or 4 to keep it secure. Measured out and drilled matching holes in the wall and then up it went!

Not entirely sure why we used the spirit-level - I swear there is not a single straight line or 90 degree corner in our house, it full of all sorts of curves and crazy angles!! Thank you London clay (but it is marvellous for the roses!).

We used the second plank to add a small shelf up above the hooks to keep the dust off our coats and add some plants and pretty things! We used simple black brackets and followed a similar process to adding the hooks. 

And there we have it, four big and bold hooks that bring a little (more) colour into our hallway! I bought these loooong before adding colour to the stairs, but by adding colours in a similar palette at the other end of the hallway, they tie things in very nicely.

On the shelf we added some car boot sale treasures and framed art - including a print I bought Mr Fantastic as his wedding present. I'd been lusting after this print by Clare at Tiger Food Press for months, the quote is brilliant and the mustang is one of our inside jokes!

For the meagre few pounds I spent on hooks, we now have a bespoke fixture that adds oodles of character to the hallway. I particularly love that the wood we used may even have been the original flooring when he house was built back in 1890, it certainly had enough layers of paint!! And now with a new lease of life, it can continue to contribute to the house's history! (Blimey, getting a little over sentimental here - got to remember this is a just plank of wood I'm harping on about here!!) Plus we now have somewhere to hang all our layers as we enter the house. Pretty AND practical - WIN!!!

The Potting Shed Fantastic: Spring!!!

Bluebells appearing for Spring

Happy first day of Spring! Winter felt way too long this year and at last the days are starting to lengthen and I can feel the promise of spring in the air. At this time of year the occasional warmer, brighter day keep us hooked with baited breath for summer. And naturally, this starts me thinking about just one thing....gardening!! (Okay, as well as holidays, flip-flops, bbqs, beaches, sailing etc.!)

Anemone shoots braving it to appear above ground

This will be our first year with a proper decent garden! And I am beside myself with excitement! We've said goodbye to our teeny square of concrete totally encircled by brick walls and moved up a rung to a slightly larger rectangular garden, circled by four fences!! Haha, but there is definitely much less concrete so a clear step in the right direction! 

Today I wanted to share our priorities for Spring time in the garden this year. I have grand plans for the garden eventually, but given it take time to develop and mature I know this is a multi-year project, so starting small...

Seedlings

The cutest sweetpea shoots

I've already got a whole bunch of bulbs and seeds planters indoors and they are starting to show their sleepy heads! This is my favourite part of gardening - when the tiny shoots are in the safety and confinement of the controlled conditions of our house and you can see the little steps of progress made each day!! And before they are let out into the wilderness of our garden and become prey to all sorts of urban wildlife! :s

In fact, our dining room has pretty much been repurposed to an indoor greenhouse at the moment:

Ranunculus thriving in our indoor greenhouse!

Climbers

On the outside, we need to cover the box of fences, and quick! I have already stated bulk buying all possible climber I can get my hands on!!

Honeysuckle starters

We have planted climbing roses (at least 4, I'm losing count!!) and my latest additions have been two honeysuckles on the shaded side. Plus we have added two thornless blackberry plants, a Japanese Wineberry and a Loganberry plant all at the bottom of the garden. Which may just have to become our soft fruit patch, yum!! :) 

Beautiful red stems of the Japanese wineberry

Ben's Valentine's Day pressie was a vine sapling - Pinot Noir no less! It's shooting already and we just need to find the perfect spot for it to get started in. And finally, to round off this collection of climbers I just want to add some summer flowering clematis to get some bright big flowers! 

Composting

Finally, on a slightly less glamorous note, composing. We have a giant composting bin that we've been adding to all winger long. The walk out tot the end of the garden in the dark and cold winter evenings is NO FUN! Particularly when you lift the compost lid and just KNOW it's full of slugs, worms and flies, but you just can't see them in the dark! Eeeek! But thankfully they are all working their magic in there to make usthe yummiest more nutritious humus ready for spring! 

We're actually close to maxing out on the compost bin so may wen have to strut a second! We're gonna have the best fed garden in the whole of London come Summer !!! :D 

More bluebells

As soon as this plethora of bluebells open up their blooms I'll be sure to get my camera out there once again. I plan to share a few snippets of our garden progress here over the next 6 months as we go from novice plant killers to pro green-fingered Bob Flowerdews!! :)

So, this is our starting point, what are you focussed on this Spring? Be it in the garden or indoors?!

DIY Fantastic: Magnetic Pineapple Chalkboard

We have a freezer!!!! This is exciting stuff. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it has revolutionised the way we eat, cook, shop and snack. Okay, I'm getting carried away, maybe not revolutionised, but changed A LOT! As part of my new obsession with the fridge I also realised that it needs a little sprucing up to avoid looking like a giant white blot in the flat. Useful white blot, but a blot nonetheless! So, I have started to attack it with gusto and put my diy skills fully into Decorate-the-Fridge mode.

This was easy squeezy and only even needed two ingredients: magnetic material and chalkboard PVC. To try and jazz things up a little I opted for an exotic shape for my blackboard - a pineapple! So in addition to those two ingredients I also used pen and paper to make a pineapple shape and sharp scissors for all the cutting, so in reality that was a fib!

Then the actual steps are just as simple! The first thing we did was whip up a template for our pineapple. As you can see below, there are (believe it or not) a LOT of different ways to draw a pineapple!! Eventually we struck on a shape we were happy with and cut out our template. :)

Next we took the PVC roll and cut out an A4 sized piece to stick onto the magnetic sheet:

The trick here is just to ensure that you have no trapped bubbles, other than that there's not too much to it! Once it was firmly stuck down we trimmed the edges, but to be honest we could have skipped this step as we lopped off a lot more shortly.

We then took out pineapple and placed it in the middle of the rectangle. Using the chalk draw around it being as careful or as carefree as you like - it's chalk so it rubs right off if you go wrong!

Then we took scissors to the pattern and snipped our your way around the outside. I was careful not to cut too much off too quickly, you can always trim it down but you can't add it back. Ha!

Then we took the chalk to the cut board to prime the surface and smoothed it over with our fingers to create the perfect background. Then we popped it on the fridge door and you're ready to start making a list! :)

How does a magnetic chalk board stick to a brick wall, I hear you ask! M A G I C. 'Nuff said! :p Okay, we fess up. Turns out it's basically impossible to make giant white fridge look glamorous! This is Izzy turning up the glamour stakes in a vain effort to produce the shot. Clear fail!!!

And this is more what it looks like after a few of said cocktails! ;)

Knicker Elastic Everywhere!

We're experimenting in all corners of social media over here. Apparently, this is what all discerning bloggers must do! Though we never expect to achieve that status, we can give it our best shot! So, we are now fully up and running on various social media apps all over the t'interweb. If you're enjoying our musings on this blog be sure to check out knicker elastic elsewhere...

I am constantly experimenting with Instagram, I love how instant it is and how you're forced to select a single shot rather than a whole album - it means only the very best photos make the cut!

You can follow here to get directly to the snapwidget of my instagram account or simply follow @knickerelasticfantastic in your app. Happy instagramming!

But that's not it - we also have a facebook page. This is great for keeping folks updated when we've posted to the blog or got any gossip to share! Give us a little 'like' if you like what you see! :p

And last but not least is my Pinterest account. I love Pintrest, having a place where you can save all your favourite images, neatly categorised by subject or moods, to browse for inspiration when you're on the move. Nothing beats it! Have a little browse through my latest inspirations...

The Grand Tour

Okay, it's hardly a grand tour - we only have two rooms for starters! But we have been in our flat for coming up to three years, and I love it! It was the first place we have shared together and for that reason I shaIl always treasury the memories we have made here. However, despite the best intentions I know it's far too easy to forget so I am making it my mission to document everything about our little haven called home before we leave.

We live in a cute flat in a Victorian terraced house with high ceilings, bay windows and quirky original features. I shall pop up a few of my favourite photos and thoughts every so often over the next couple of months before we have to pack up our belongings and make a new place home for the next few years.

First up are a couple of vignettes from our living room...

A few things to mention about the little tit-bits we've cobbled together over the years in our living area. The blue chest was inherited from my folks, it was varnished wood before, but I'm afraid I couldn't resist turning into a funky blue colour (sorry to the purists out there, Izzwhizz). I kept the original hardware and I love how it contrasts with the bright blue colour.

The large poster print above the fireplace we picked up in Riva Torbole on Lake Garda, Italy on a family holiday last year. It reminds me of my Grandmother's Italian heritage and her time growing up in Italy. It's massive and it was a real mission finding a red frame big enough to hold it! 

The canvas bag is sort of matching as I picked it up on the same holiday and mostly holds my plethora of magazines these days. On the other side of the fireplace are my prized red cowboy boots. These were a hand me down from a family friend and are my go-to gig footwear (they can take a beating and just keep looking better and better for it!).

The bits and pieces on the mantelpiece are constantly changing. But they are usually a collection of bric and brac I have collected or that hold sentimental value and are nestled in and amongst photos of family and friends that I switch up every now and then. 

p.s. please excuse the monstrosity of a tv, that's all down to Mr Fantastic. And yes, that was the tennis he was watching as I scuttled around him snapping away! My saving grace was the fact that I did a massive tidy-up job in order to get the place looking spic and span for the shots!

DIY project: photo transfer canvas

We have pics of all our family and friends coming out of our ears and Im always looking for new ways to showcase them and switch them up. So when my sis handed me an old pot of image transfer goo leftover from her uni days I decided to put it to work!

Ingredients:

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• Canvas boards as big as you fancy
• Image transfer goo - the one we used (Dylon Image Maker) was for transfers to fabric, but it worked brilliantly with the canvas too
• Photos you want to transfer - printed out on regular weight paper (we chose three fun pics from our trip to Mexico)
• Regular paint brushes (not your boar bristles, this is no tender watercolour session!)
• Rolling pin! Will explain later...

Now lets get down and dirty: 

Take your printed photo, cut to desired size and generously apply the image maker to the surface. Remember your image will be inverted in the final product so take care with any words (or graffiti, doh!). 

Once covered gently transfer on to the canvas, face down. We found it easiest to leave the goo coated photo in place and put the canvas on top (upside down), but give it a go and experiment. Also, if you apply the canvas from one side to the other you are less likely to get air bubbles trapped. Well, in theory! 

But never mind - cause this is where the rolling pin comes in super handy! (We were having too much fun at this stage for picture taking, ha!). Once you're happy with the position of your image, use the rolling pin, apply a small amount of pressure and push out all the air bubbles under the photo. Soo satisfying!

Once you're happy you've busted all those bubbles it's down to a waiting game - until the goo is completely dry (according to the instructions), we left ours overnight. 

Take your dry canvas with the photo securely stuck on top and stat to dampen the paper with a sponge and some luke warm water. In fact you can be pretty liberal with the eau, pile it on (just not enough to warp your canvas if it's backed with cardboard like ours). This feels WIERD but it's right, so just fight your instincts and trust us.

Finally, once the paper starts to soften you can literally rub it away with your fingers or the sponge, leaving the image behind! Bingo! Looks simple, but kinda hard work - you think it's all gone but once it dries you find a white sheen has materialised - aka very thin layer of remaining paper. We had to give it about three goes until we were satisfied. (Patience is not my forte, thanks little sis!) 

And that's it, hang or display your homemade canvas print with pride!

Being a renter (pah!) no pins in the wall for me, so I used bull clips and some cord to hang them. But what do you think of the final result - the images transferred waaaay better than I was expecting. Almost half tempted to take some fine sand paper to them to rustic them up a bit, but I'm sure age will give the same effect, ha!

I also recently came across this wicked use of photo transfers on Poppytalk - contributor post of an AWESOME decorated bench - so next time we're thinking BIG! :)

DIY project: Outdoor cushion covers

This is something I've been planning on doing for aaaages! Not particularly appropriate for this time of the year I'm afraid. But, I'm far too impatient to save this one for Spring, so here goes!

We had four lovely outdoor cushions that we inherited along with the outdoor furniture, but they are starting to show their age. So I decided to spruce them up! Back earlier in the year I raided a design guild warehouse sale in White City and scored some fantastic bolts of material and decided this was the project for it!

This is the 'before' pic, our four perfectly formed cushions, in need of a new lease of life:

Then find your perfect fabric. I went with a fairly thick fabric, so hopefully durable. It has a watercolour wash finish, which will hopefully disguise the smaller trials and tribulations of outdoor eating. And bright bold strips which remind me of deck chairs - they scream British summer (think bright blue skies and a stiff cool breeze, hehe).

The how to is fairly simple, it can be done with a sewing machine or by hand (I started by hand and admittedly it was taking a while!). I took one cushion and made a pattern by drawing around it and adding an inch for the seams. I then cut out the 8 sides required and tried to ensure that the stripes would line up when sewed together (easier said than done!).

Once lined up in pairs, I pinned them together (inside out) and sewed around the outside. I left a gap of a good few inches at the back to turn the cushion cover inside out and then squeeze the cushion in through! Once we had a snug fit and were happy with the result I sewed up the gap with a topstitch. If you wanted to have removable covers you could sew in a zip (tricky!) or some velcro (much simpler!) across the gap for easy access.

As simple as 1, 2, 3 (pinning, cutting, sewing!)

I left the covers a little bit roomy and then sewed through the cushion at four points to give the cushions the same shape and added four buttons to each side to hold them together. The final result looks a little bit like this...

Close up, check out the contours!

With the table set :)

All ready for a lazy afternoon in the garden...(okay maybe it's a but chilly to actually sit out there right now!) 

On another note - can you believe this last shot was taken in DECEMBER - look at all the bushes and creepers still in flower. Bloomin' ridiculous! (If you'll excuse the pun.) Shame it hasn't been warm enough (or dry enough) to sit out there and actually enjoy them (story of the year!).

And as a final sneaky bonus, this is what you get when you ask the man-about-the-house to pose for a action shot:

They say never work with animals or children....or boyfriends! 

Cheers m'dear! :)