recycled Archives - Lulastic and the Hippyshake

Finding things, Our recycled home, Thrifty

Recycled Home- Garden room make over

24 May, 2013

CRUMBS! Who has had quite enough of babies, eh?! Not of actual babies, Juno is continuing to rock our worlds (in a good way) but, blimey, has this blog gone all babyville or what? Here is a bit of reprieve- a little peep at a wee thrifty makeover we did in our spare room.

One of my favourite rooms in our house is one that began as the most unpromising. It overlooks our garden and we keep trying to pretentiously name it “The Garden room”, but it inevitably only ever gets named after the person who happens to sleep in it the most. At the moment it is called “Jojo’s room” after my sister who comes to stay a little bit.

Here is the BEFORE shot, in all it’s mauve and blue glory:

We carpeted and wallpapered and painted but I think it is the fun bits and bobs we have around it that make it such a bright room.

See this bed? It is made of beautiful native New Zealand wood and is soooo comfortable. We found it about 4 years ago when we were living in a little flat in Kings Cross. We had just decided that day that we would need to invest in a comfortable double bed. That VERY night we found this ON THE DOORSTEP awaiting the morning council pick up for landfill items. Couldn’t make it up, could you?!

I found the curtains in a car boot sale for £5, they aren’t luxury or anything but someone at that car boot sale obviously got the memo that we were creating a “Garden room.” *high fives stranger*

We found the mirror discarded in the street and the two vintage parasols came from car boot sales for a few quid. They only smell faintly of old man’s cigars, hehe. I love their shape and their colours and the delicate imagery on them.

I love these pictures, the image of a hot air balloon WELL fills me with joy! I got them from a charity shop for cheap, they were originally framed in pine which just made them look mega 1990’s Habitat. A lick of white just makes them a bit cooler, I reckon.

(In the first AFTER picture there is a string of stuffed fabric birds hanging out from one of the parasols- funnily enough I bought that from Habitat in the nineties… it is pulling off the nineties much better than pine does I think…)

This is a beautiful retro embroidery given to me by my sister who found it in one of her local charity shops. I’d go so far to say that retro embroidery is THE second hand item to snap up these days, it is so often bursting with colour and can fill a room with nostalgic happiness.

Including the cost of paint I’d say this room cost less than £40 to makeover, a thrifty nook indeed.

I am going to be revealing a few other rooms from our recycled home over the next few weeks. I’ve been meaning to do it for YONKS, so keep tuned!

Have a fab bank holiday weekend! We are off camping with family and friends in Gloster (yes, I’m aware of how you spell it and it’s ridiculous.) Here’s hoping it’s a bit dry sometimes. (Hey, look, this is the hope of a realist- it’s rained and poured every second of every bank holiday camping trip we’ve ever done, I think.) Have fun!

PS I’d hate for you to miss a post… enter your email to get them pinged into your inbox. I won’t be spamalot, promise!

Craftiness, Thrifty

Recycled Hobby Horse

11 April, 2013

Kids are awesome eh, with their incredible imaginations. Whenever I bend down to pick something up Ramona doesn’t see her mummy bending down to pick something up- she sees a horse. Struck by my horsey ways, she will immediately clamber onto my back and yell “GIDDY UP, CLIP CLOP!” impatiently.

It basically means I can’t pick things up any more. *gazes around at messy house in ambivalent resignation*

Ramona loves horses. As she grows her favourite animal species gets bigger too. A year ago her favourite animal was the Duck, I suspect in a year it will be the Blue Whale.

I have been thinking for a while of things I can do to help ease the arrival of the new baby. I am not sure we will do the “Baby bought a pressie” thing, but I have been burrowing sticker books and puzzles away as I find them at car boot sales in order to keep her happily occupied in those first few days.

I have been meaning to craft up a hobby horse for ages and felt this would be the perfect time to get on with it, so I can bust it out for Ramona’s enjoyment while I languish on the sofa in a constant milk-machine mode with the littlest one. Maybe if she has a little horse to ride my own back won’t be so tempting. Maybe I could even start tidying again. Pahahaha.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was to do. I completely cheated and did the whole thing with my glue gun, I am sure I will have to come back and sew bits on eventually but it meant I got the initial prototype done within half an hour. Such a delightfully quick craft.

You need:

A leg/ sleeve/ sock
Stuffing (I used a manky old cushion)
Ribbon
Buttons
Lace or wool
A stick
A bit of felt (I used a jumper that identically went in a hot wash)

To make this truly thrifty just find things you have around the house. I didn’t have a sock I was prepared to sacrifice (see this lovely sock version from the magnificent Red Ted Art) so cut the leg from a pair of Ramonas old leggings, where the elastic had gone at the top. Anything could do – a sleeve from an old jumper would be ideal too. I didn’t want to buy another broom so instead used a rough bit of wood and then covered it by winding lace around it. I didn’t have red buttons so used counters from a half-lost game of Tiddlywinks. I didn’t have wool so curled lace on to the head to make the horse’s mane.

How to:

Turn legging inside out and sew the ankle end
Stuff with stuffing
Stick the stick inside
Bend a crease in the horses neck
Secure open end onto stick with string or glue
Wind ribbon around the point that the leggins meet the stick- keep going to bottom of the stick if wood is a bit rough
Glue on hair- either lots of wool or a bit of fabric like mine
Cut ears out of felt and pinch the bottom of it together to make them look more realistic
Stitch (*ahem* glue) ears on
Add eyes
Add ribbon to act as rein (this also keeps the head bent)

I love how every horse is going to be different. There are no measurements, just roll with it. Stick the ears and eyes on where you want, use bits and bobs from the house. Whatever you do it is going to look like some kind of awesome animal and your toddler is going to be stoked!

I am so keen to give this hobby horse to Ramona that I am willing this womb-baby to make an appearance – that is odd, eh?! Come on womb-baby!

Finding things, Our recycled home, Thrifty

Recycled home – happy imperfection

8 February, 2013

We shift things around a fair bit in our house. We are so often picking up new bits of furniture from street corners (poor, neglected things) and little trinkets from charity shops that we kind of have to wriggle the whole lot about every now and then. We just recently overhauled part of our lounge in a bid to rehome a 1950’s cabinet that was covered in cat wee, which meant getting rid of a 1930’s beasty bureau that was taking up 50% of the room… This is the new craft station that took a while to get up to scratch:

These rearranging sprees have turned kind of extreme at the moment, almost, almost, venturing in to “tidying” territory. I have, in the past, been entirely capable of spending twenty minutes creating a tableau- moving ornaments on a shelf by millimetres, reframing bits of fabric to place there, filling a vintage vase with roses to sit just next to that frame, all the while stepping on raisins, over mountains of Ramona’s toys, moving half-drunken mugs of tea out of the scene. I understand this complete obsession with beautiful things and utter apathy towards mess makes me a bit cuckoo.

However, pregnancy hormones must be kicking in, playing with this inconsistency of mine- I am 30 weeks now, and with each day that passes I find myself, like, doing dishes! And picking the raisins up! Not only shifting around the beauty but dealing with the disarray. Talk about total discombobulation. Blimey, I’ll have a crush on Dave Cameron next.

Our latest big change in the lounge has opened up the room massively, and given us space to upcycle this old shadelesss lamp we found with a map of London.It looks wicked turned on, highlighting the twisting and turning bends of the Old Father Thames.

We honestly found this bench in a skip. Who would chuck this away, eh?

Our house would be even more of a shambles if we didn’t have stacks of vintage suitcases lying around. The ones tucked under the bench were found in Oxfam for a few pounds, the black cornet case in a derelict space, and the glam white one was given to me for my birthday (filled with the pair of vintage curtains hanging by the cabinet – best pressie ever, or what?!) These suitcases are the outer hebridies of my craft station- they hold extra paper and paints that I can’t squeeze in the cabinet (c’mon, have you seen the size of that cabinet? It is teeny, weeny, really…)

With the prospect of selling this little bubble of Camberwell we live in looming, we are going to have to get some paint on these walls to make it all a bit more appealing. We have had the bare concrete exposed for the whole three years here- I love the raw feeling of it, especially with the juxtaposition of all our homey jumble-sale trinkets. In fact, a visitor last week asked us how we did it. Like “How did you get this awesome kind of gritty concrete effect?” Hehe. Hoho. “Pure laziness my friend, pure laziness.”

There is nothing perfect in this house… nearly everything has a bit missing, a chip off the rim or a bit of rust, that is the way of making do, and then falling in love, with a completely recycled home. “Imperfection” for us not only means “bad ass thrifty” but it has come to mean “loved” and “enjoyed” and it is nice having a home filled with stuff that has bought happiness to loads of others in the past too. Even if it does make our house smell of cat wee. (Jokes.)

I have to admit, a bit reluctantly, these tidying up capers make it all even more delicious. I could almost get used to it…. *picks up a raisin purposefully*

These snaps were taken by the one and only Tom Hartford – thanks Tom, he was over here taking pictures of some exciting doilly crafts for an upcoming issue of Pretty Nostalgic mag… EXCITING!
redrosevintage

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Finding things, Our recycled home

Our recycled kitchen – a makeover from new to old

9 August, 2012

Around this time last year I posted that my dearly beloved had ripped out the kitchen due to us finding a retro cooker that we wanted to install. It just felt rude to bung such a nice nostalgic beast in our existing Nineties kitchen so we decided to let our love of all things old reign supreme.

Another year later and it is about time I did the final update, our makeover from new to old.

The before pictures aren’t terribly good. They never are, eh? I think this is because there is often nowt to shine, but also because of some deep reluctance to spend too much time peering at it all. Let’s just say there was ALOT of pine cladding.

Left hand side BEFORE

A low hanging ceiling with weird fake beams. Laminate flooring covering up stunning Victorian boards.

A huge pantry – it was an original, ancient cooling sytem but it just took up so much space. A boring tin sink with an ill fitting cabinet.

It was all so very dark and dreary.

*extreme makeover voice* It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears but here is our new bright and cheery family kitchen….

We ripped out the cupboards. We were lucky to find some exactly matching vintage tiles in the basement of a derelict house round the corner, we popped those up to cover the spaces we’d exposed.

Tim runs a youth club in the place I used to go to Seacadets as a kid- they were chucking out the old benches so we made shelves out of them. The very benches I would have been resting my sorry, freckly young ten year old self.

The enamel tins are our new pantry- we found them in France when we drove 12 hours to a car boot.

Somebody close by had hired a skip for a house renovation so we pulled the excellent bench tops straight out (with permission, of course!)

These are old lights from a butchers- we found them on Ebay, £17 for the pair. To find them we didn’t type “vintage” or even “traditional” but “trditional.” Is it terribly wrong to benefit from other people’s mistakes?

Tim found this whole sink for £25 on Gumtree, and got to grips with plumbing to install it. Using some old table tops and doors from an old cabinet he carpentered a unit for it. (Cor, Kiwis are bloody ace. Do marry one, if you can.) The tiles, we swapped with a local cafe, in exchange for building them some veg beds.

The retro blind is really a sneaky table cloth, and some of our Midwinter crockery sits upon a shelf we found in a bin and painted blue, and you can also spy the hooks I made from vintage spoons.

And here is the star of the show, our beguiling old oven. He was casted off, into the streets, along with these cupboards either side. A good clean, and a lick of paint on the cupboard doors, and they add a cheer from yesteryear to our kitchen.

When our fridge broke we took the opportunity to get one that fitted in with our theme. We had to hire a van to bring it home from the furtherest corner of Essex but we are so glad we did. It isn’t that old so is still efficient (although its huuummmm would tell you otherwise) but hails from the States which is why it looks so different. It has an ice maker much to my husband’s utter joy.

And this little corner adds a little pop of colour – we found it in someone’s garden and snazzied it up with some paint.

We had help with plastering the ceiling, and Tim picked up enough to some other walls, but other places we just exposed the brick. I love the texture of all the rubbly walls, recycled wood and shiny, colourful kitchen paraphernalia.

We spend such a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking, drinking coffee and eating so we are pleased we did this, despite saying we initially wouldn’t bother. I know it isn’t your usual makeover, and loads of you are possibly looking at the BEFORE pictures thinking it looks miles better HAARHA. But we love it’s quirky little self, it gets my heart all a flutter.

What do you reckon on this cornicopia of found objects?

PS The small and superior photos were taken by Jenny Harding during the Pretty Nostalgic shoot. She does a lot of gorgeous vintage style shoots.

PPS I’d love you to enter my giveaway – retro and Cath Kidston fabric, a 1982 Twinkle, a Midwinter tea cup and a glue gun! (An obvious mix!) Come over and say hi!

Finding things, Our recycled home, Thrifty

I see red: a few snaps of home

19 April, 2012

We have a magazine coming to our house to take pictures in a few weeks time, Pretty Nostalgic, the prettiest, newest wee vintagey mag on the shelf. Jim’ll TOTALLY fixed it for me as the night before it got arranged I was lying in bed thinking how much I would like some photos of some of the corners of our home that we have poured a bit of ourselves into, the spaces where we have taken someone’s nasty old scraps and given them new life. I am SO excited!

We have started tidying up in preparation, and, blimey, getting tidy is a bit addictive isn’t it? I did that toy shelf, moved onto the mantel piece, started in the kitchen, gosh, soon I’ll have OCD and will be hoovering once a week!!! (Oh, most people do that? For real? Once a DAY, you say? Ah. *awkward smile*)

The mantelpiece is one of those areas that is kind of a centrepiece of the room but still manages to be The Primary Magnet of Remnants. Keys, wallets, loo roll, it all ends up on there. Since sorting it out, whenever Tim tries to put anything down on there, like his cup of coffee, I am like “Er, is it red? No? Oh, well, bummer, it doesn’t fit the theme. Move on, please, move right along.”

One of the easiest ways to make odd collections of things look nice is by grouping them in vague colour themes.

I love nothing more than having fresh flowers around the house. I have searched high and low for some reasonably priced red tulips to go in this enamel jug but my inner cheapskate got the better of me and blossom from our backyard bush had to do.

Tim found this beautiful old red chair yesterday, just dumped on the street.

We have about 63 too many chairs in this house, it is one thing we can’t turn down when we walk past them, lonely and neglected on street corners. We should really start a chair hospital.

Given a discarded item a home lately? Got any posts of corners you are proud of?

Ooooh looookkkkkk: The Blue Eyed Owl! You are GONNA LOVE HER!!!