£300 for you to spend on a home improvement project

Over on the website we're running a new competition. We've teamed up with Wickes, the UK's leading home improvement supplier, to find out what your ultimate home improvement project would be. The winner gets £300 to spent at Wickes and 4 runners up each get £25 each.

So get yourself over to the main site and share your inspiration. 

What would it be - swanky new floors for the dining room, taps and tiles in the kitchen, a new bath? Would you paint or wallpaper your way to a new look?

Maybe you need some tools to get the job done? Personally, I've always fancied a pressure washer. Maybe then I'd get the patio looking exactly the way I want it, with a fire pit in the centre, so I can toast my toes even when its chilly.

Win £300 to spend at Wickes

Good luck!
Anne

Here's what I just made!

I don't like carrying paintbrushes in my pencil case so decided to make a waterproof roll for both brushes and pencils using laminated cotton fabric from our MIAMI shop. 

I'll be posting the instructions for this on the website shortly - but I'm very pleased with the result - and made from just a quarter metre of fabric plus some cotton fabric for the edging from my stash - and a couple of buttons.

So now I'm all set for my painting holiday in the Scilly Isles next month - can't wait!

We'll also be offering a pencil case kit to make shortly - all ready complete with instructions and supplied by our MIAMI Shop partners RU Craft. More news on this soon!

Clare F

The best things in life are free...

Well derrr….you don’t say?  There are moments in life when I wonder about the value of research – and I say this as a researcher!  Do Sainsbury’s need to spend a vast amount of money to realise that children prefer the simple things in life? 

 

Sainsbury’s have created a ‘pleasure per penny index’ by asking children aged 5 to 11 to rank their favourite holiday activities according to how happy they make them feel and how special and memorable they are….and guess what? -  playing in the garden or park, water fights or building a den come out on top, while expensive day trips out are way down the list. 

Contrary to popular belief, children value time spent with friends and family over material entertainment. Intuitively this is something we parents already know, but the problem is that we're conditioned to feel guilty that we aren’t doing enough for our children if we don’t take them out to theme parks and fast food restaurants.

Newsflash!…if left to their own devices children don’t get bored! They might have a few moments of whingeing, but they very quickly find something to do and can entertain themselves for hours.  A little  boredom is actually good for kids as it helps them develop their creative skills.  If we constantly force-feed them entertainment, we're denying them the chance to learn to enjoy being alone and find ways to entertain themselves. 

Even on a rainy day there are plenty of things to do.  Give them paper and paints, or salt-dough, or let them build a den and they'll be happy for hours.

So back away from the theme park, keep your hand away from your wallet and give your kids a summer holiday they'll remember!

We've got lots more ideas to keep the kids happy over the holidays

 >> Great ways to entertain the kids in the holidays  
 >> Recycled crafts for kids
  >> Get the best from your holiday

Hilary B

Advance copy of our new book arrives!

The first advance copy of Make it and Mend it, our new book, arrived today.

The book is already pre-selling on Amazon in both UK and USA as well as other online bookstores, including Waterstones and Blackwells. It will be in the shops around about October - just in time for you all to buy it for Christmas gifts! - or add it to your wish list.

The illustrations are beautiful - thank you to the lovely photographer Sian Irvine.

Here are a couple of spreads - snapped on my kitchen table - shown here are Stained glass biscuits and how to make a cake stand from old plates - both of these were Hilary's creations.

Clare F

Lifting a rainy day with decoupage bunting

It being the summer of 2012, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when testing out the new Make it and Mend it Rainy Day Pack, that bunting would feature large in the imaginations of my two trusty testers - Florrie and Martha.

In fact Martha got stuck in with gusto as soon as she realised just how easy it is to decoupage (the art of covering objects with decorative paper).

The girls were testing MIAMI's new Rainy Day Pack designed to inspire kids' imaginations and get their finger creating when stuck inside during what looks to be the wettest British summer most of us can remember!

It's a real mixed bag of materials with fabric, card, pens, needles, thread and wool we've specially picked to give them loads of ideas - and test their making skills. 

They used cardboard from an old cereal packet to cut the pennant shapes and then started covering them with the Pack's special decoupage papers with the special quick drying thin decoupage paste. As soon as the pennants were all covered, they were dry and simply needed stringing up. 

Amazingly enough the girls now have 2 metres of their own decoupaged bunting to decorate their room. And believe me - the 'I did that' factor makes all the difference.

Added to which there was a selection of cards, purses and friendship tokens produces. Brilliant work and if it hadn't been a school night I expect our little production line would have gone on for far longer than the 4 hours they spent using their imaginations and learning brand new skills.

Buy your own Rain Day Pack through RUCraft, Make it and Mend it's shop partner. It's  a life saver for this especially wet summer!

Martha and Florrie and their Rainy Day pack

PS: we're going to be publishing a gallery of the most imaginative projects made from the Rainy Day Packs. Have Fun. Clare O'B. Check out the MIAMI site for more 

Doing a spot of decoupage

I was about to chuck out this very tired old lampshade. Just as my hand hovered over the dustbin I pulled it back and decided to spend an hour trying to rescue it. Here's the before:

 And here's the after. Not bad eh? I haven't varnished it yet. Will do that and post the instructions on the website.




















Meanwhile here's Hilary's instructions for a decoupage dining chair and a decoupage kitchen cupboard door.

Instructions and video now on website and our You Tube channel

Clare F

The Homemade Home for Children

Following on from her fabulous book, The Homemade Home, Sania Pell has written The Homemade Home for Children, a beautifully produced publication with 50 child-friendly projects for parents to make for their children. There are also projects suitable for kids to make themselves.


The book is lavishly illustrated with colour photographs of the finished items and line drawings of the steps involved. Interspersed between the main projects are Quick Ideas - projects that can be done with a minimum of time and effort - such as pictures made from children's handprints.


There are ideas for personalising kids bedrooms, easy to make dressing up projects, jewellery made from buttons, vintage dolls and felt brooches - a cornucopia of ideas to delight your children. You can make your kids a garden playhouse using remnant fabric and your clothes line. Sania also makes good use of found objects, remnants and oddments, such as making a sail boat from an old tin bath, a dolls' house from an old bookcase and storage boxes from old suitcases. So the ideas in here aren't going to cost you a lot of money. 

This book would also make a fantastic gift for any creatively minded parent or grandparent.  
The Homemade Home for Children

Clare F

Cake Glorious cake

MIAMI team meeting at Clare O's today and we've been admiring the birthday cake she's made for her god daughter's Hollywood style birthday party.

It's based on Nigella's Malteser cake and features Maltesers transformed into glitter balls. Looks scrummy - and in order to prevent us from stealing it, Clare has even made a jam and cream sponge for us to have. Can't wait

Clare F

For loads of cake baking recipes check out the main site

Britain has gone bunting mad!

Its official: the British love a bit of bunting and there’s nothing like a royal celebration to bring it out in full force.  Wherever you look in cities, towns, small hamlet or out in the wilds, there's bunting fluttering in the breeze.

It seems that bunting brings out the party animals in all of us and sums up our summer celebrations.  But don’t panic if you haven’t got your bunting out yet. There’s still time to make some.  It’s really easy and can be very cheap to make if you choose the right materials.You don’t have to buy fancy fabric and spend hours stitching it perfectly.  

The joy of bunting is that it's fun and free.  Just grab some tape and some old clothes and start cutting. 

You can use old clothes, shirts, sheets cut into triangles and sewn onto a strip of tape to make quick and easy bunting.

Better yet, you don’t even have to use fabric or a needle and cotton.  You can make fabulous bunting from old books, newspapers, even plastic bags stapled to a piece of tape – it really is that easy. 

Even good old salt dough can be turned into the party spirit.  You could make salt dough into flags, pennants, roses or even corgis if you felt like.  

So what are you making your bunting from?

For more ideas and instructions:

>>How to make quick and easy bunting

>>Salt dough bunting

>>Organise a street party

>>How to make a vintage cake stand

Queen in a day!

Fancy knitting your very own Royal family? 

Well you can start with the Queen!

x

Deramores have teamed up with Fiona Goble and are giving away a free pattern for this fun 

Elizabeth II Jubilee Doll

Click here for your free pattern

 

We've finished the shoots for our new book

It's been harder work than we thought - so many things to make and all the step-by-steps to be done, but we're pleased to say "It's a wrap folks!"

The last of our total 6 days of still photography was on location down in Dorset, after 3 days at Hilary's and 2 day's at mine (Clare F). We're really excited about the book, although publication date still seems a long way away - not till October. Sian the photographer and her assistant Nick have done us proud and we're sure you're going to agree when the book's published.

In case you didn't know what the format is - it's (very imaginatively!) called Make it and Mend it and is full of projects for the whole year season by season - including a section on special occasions such as Easter and Mother's Day. All kinds of things for you to make and mend are included, from sewing a quilt from old sweatshirts to making chocolate truffles.

We'd expected the shooting was going to be a doddle - as most of the projects were ones we had already featured on the site - but most of them had to be tweaked and twiddled and generally re-made from scratch so we've been very busy bees.

Watch this space for more news.

Clare F

Casserole dishes no longer a family essential!

The basket of goods and services used by the UK government to calculate the annual inflation rate is updated every year by the Office of National Statistic (ONS). 

It's an interesting take on what the modern family considers essential (in the government's eyes at least).

The latest basket of contents - containing hundreds of items - was published this week. Not surprisingly, tablet PCs like the iPad have made it into the basket for the first time. But to our horror, step ladders and casserole dishes have been booted out.

From where we sit, DIY and slow, oven cooking are on the increase. Lots of other DIY items find their way into the basket but we're a bit concerned by the ONS observation that casserole dishes are "an over covered area of the basket" well represented by other pots and pans and that expenditure on them is dropping.

One possible reason why this particular piece of kitchen equipment is off the menu could be the fact that the ONS still thinks of a casserole dish as something made of heat resistant glass. The whole earthenware and cast iron revolution seems to have passed them by.

So, are casserole dishes old hat, or has the government got it wrong?
And if your not sure making this green bean casserole will convince you
Or check out the joys of a Romoska - the 'plug in' casserole

Anne Caborn