Blackboard Wall Calendar

Hello Everybody,

I made my blackboard (chalkboard) calendar for the kitchen quite a while ago now but thought I'd share it with you.

I have always struggled with kitchen calendars. With the invention of modern technology, such as iCal, I was finding that I was pretty much ignoring the kitchen calendar. I still wanted a 'traditional', i.e. non-digital, calendar but wanted one that was more interactive and not just a piece of paper that I forgot to turn over until halfway through the new month.

As I was searching on the internet, some interesting blackboard calendars caught my eye. Most were in traditional paint form but some were blackboard wall stickers, which I thought were quite cool.
I looked at lots of websites which showed you how to make chalkboard paint in any colour under the sun, which also appealed to me.

Here are some of the blackboard calendars that inspired me:

Blackboard wall sticker decal - available from here on Etsy.

From the Our Fifth House blog - full instructions on how to diy

From Martha Stewart's website

In the end, I bought some ready-made blackboard paint. I bought the conventional type, not the magnetic one but mainly because they had sold out and I had project startitis. The tin was dented so I got it reduced as well - bargainous! I started with a white wall in my kitchen. I didn't prime it or anything (although I probably should have!).

The next part was the most fiddly and time-consuming. To cut a rather long story short, I carefully measured out the design for my calendar and laid down masking tape where I didn't want the chalkboard paint. I bought a top-end brand of painting masking tape as I didn't want to deal with too much paint bleeding.

Seriously, I can't begin to tell you how long that part took. It's harder than it looks to get all those straight lines you know! Anyway, next was the fun part - painting the blackboard paint. 

I let it dry for a couple of hours, then removed the masking tape. And...ta-da!

I did have to do some minor touching up with a white paintbrush where the black paint had bled slightly. I waited a good 24 hours before using chalk on the board. I did buy some chalkboard markers but they were really tough to get off so I have stuck to good old-fashioned chart. it's a nice big calendar, so there's room to write a few notes on each day and it's easy to see what's coming up at a glance. I use the bit on the right for shopping lists, memos, important dates coming up next month etc. 

I also made a mini blackboard by my front door for important memos. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. Although I made them back in August last year, they're still going strong. Some of the pigment from the chalk has got onto the white paint when I've been careless with wiping. It's not too bad yet but I might need to touch it up with some white emulsion later in the year.

I still have lots of blackboard paint leftover, so I'll have to keep an eye out for more projects! 

Thistle Girl x

Christmas 2012

Hello Everybody,

It seems a long time ago now, much longer than a month. We spend all year working up to the Big Day and then BAM! - it's over. In my family, we take it in turns to host Christmas. There is (currently) a three year rolling rota, comprising my Mum, my Aunt/Uncle/Cousins and Me. I'm looking forward to my Cousins getting their own houses so they can participate too, then it will only be every 5 years! I couldn't believe it was my turn again. Not that I don't love having everybody at mine, but where have the last three years gone? Three years ago, I'd just bought and moved into my first house, everything was new and shiny and I didn't have a garden (my house is a new build and it came with a patch of dirt). I was really looking forward to Christmas this year, but as usual time ran away. I have decided that it is just not possible to do all the things you pin on Pinterest! Still, it was very nice - even if it was over in a blink of an eye.

The major change this year was that I did not have a real tree inside. Gasp! Balthasar, my potted Christmas tree, was banished outside. Last year, I went away for Christmas and returned to find Balthasar (and my house) covered in hundreds of tiny flies. I destroyed them but then Balthasar took a turn for the worse and I thought he was going to die. He has recovered pretty well, considering, but I thought it would be kinder to give him a year off (and I didn't like those flies!). So, he stayed outside for Christmas. I still decorated him, but don't think I remembered to take a photo. I also made (with the help of my Mum) some star-shaped bird seed decorations to hang up for the fat little robin that visits my garden. When I first moved in, we didn't have any birds or wildlife - despite being on the edge of a forest - and it was eerily quiet outside. So much so that I actually bought a birdsong CD. Yes, you heard me correctly. There are a few birds now but not many little ones, mainly nasty magpies! Inside, I decided on a space saving creation instead of a real tree. I was inspired by this pin on Pinterest (yes, I'm obsessed) and decided to recreate my own ladder tree. I don't own any ladders but knew my Mum had a wooden pair so I asked if I could borrow them. I think my Mum was a bit confused at this point, she had no idea how I was going to turn them into a Christmas tree! Anyway, once I'd removed all the dust and dirt I decorated them with lights, hung a few decorations from the platform at the top and put the Fairy on top.

Before all the presents were put out!

Dodgy iPhone photo - sorry!

Not as smart or elegant as the Pinterest one, but Hey Ho! I may well have told you about my Tree Fairy  (?Angel, not sure of the correct terminology) before. She's just a simple Fairy made out of Cardboard, some hessian and a wooden ball for a face but I think she's fab. My parents had her when they first lived together but when I was about 15, she was evicted for a trendy star from Ikea. I was outraged. I kept on trying to put Fairy out but Mum kept on banishing her to the box. As soon as I bought my own house I told them I would be taking Fairy with me. I think she's characterful. It's also nice to have some childhood memories on the tree. Most of my decorations are new, but there's a couple of childhood items that my Mum let me have and they make me smile.

For place settings I went with the fir cone idea I'd seen on.... (I'll let you guess). However, painting the tips with emulsion seemed a little tedious. It was also Christmas Eve night and I was reluctant to go to the garage to hunt down some paint. So, the tips were painted with Tippex! I have the Tippex with the spongy bit on the end and it was great for painting with and dried really quickly. To finish the placesettings, I just typed names out and stuck them to the fir cone. 

I made some Reindeer noses and Snowman Droppings to give as gifts and also to put in a jar for people to munch on over Christmas. It is harder than you would think to find red sweets that aren't aniseed balls. Don't get me wrong, I quite like aniseed balls - but I am aware that other people do not. In the end (don't laugh) I ended up dyeing mint imperials with natural red food colouring to make the Rudolph noses. 

Call me strange, but I was slicing leftover Brussels Sprouts and thought they looked cool in cross section. 

Anyway, that's all I have to say about Christmas. Maybe next time I'll get around to making cranberry shortbread, cinnamon ornaments, Christmas cookie cocktails and the million and one other things I thought I'd have time to make! Hope you all had a good time. What did you get up to? Have you recovered yet? My decorations are still in boxes in my lounge, but I'm blaming the rain/snow!

Thistle Girl x

It's Sew Easy!

Hello Everybody,


Yesterday morning, I made some quick "Thank You" cards to say thanks to my relatives for my Christmas gifts. 

They were easy to make and took about 10-15 minutes to make each one. As you can see, they are embroidered with cute little hearts. How did I make the cute little hearts? Well, I purchased a new and highly unnecessary device to add to my mounting collection of non-essential crafting kit.

It's a stitch piercer, made by Sew Easy. Basically you buy the handle, which comes with a basic running stitch piercer, and then you can buy lots of different heads depending on which pattern you want to create. You just run it along whatever you're piercing (in my case, a piece of normal card) and it makes the holes. You have to sit the card on top of a piece of foam matting (I just used a sheet of fun foam), otherwise it doesn't work. Then you simply use thread (I used standard embroidery floss) to complete your pattern. Simple!

As you can tell, I haven't quite worked out where the pattern correlates with the spikes (to start and finish neatly), but I'm working on it.

Does anyone else have one of these nifty devices? Please share your work, I'd love to see it!

Thistle Girl x

{insert name here} the Singer Sewing Machine

Hello Everybody,

Well, yesterday I promised that this week I would introduce you to my sewing machine, and here she is:

She's a 1933 No. 99 model Singer sewing machine that my Great Aunt gave me a couple of years back as she no longer uses it. My Mum has one just like it that I used to have a go on when I was younger. I'm afraid to admit it, but this little beauty has been left all alone in my dark (and probably slightly damp (!)) garage for at least 2 years. She comes with a little wooden cover but is heavier than she looks. From her serial number, I can tell you that she was made in Clydebank, Scotland - isn't the internet amazing? Not that that's a huge surprise, because I think that was the only place they were made in the UK!

After brushing off all the dust and cobwebs and admiring her for a good while, I had a look in the diddy little compartment on her right hand side, just under the wheel. In there I found a little green cardboard box with Singer written on it, and inside were some needles and random bits of metal. I expect these are all attachments, but I will need to investigate further.

Under the little box I was most delighted to find the original manual from 1933, in pretty good condition! I was really worried that I wouldn't know how to set her up and how to use her but the manual is beautifully illustrated and (relatively) straightforward to follow. 

At the back of the book, it tells you about all the attachments, which I believe were available to buy separately. I managed to work out what most of my metal bits and pieces are - various hemming devices, a buttonholer (or well at least I thought it was until I look at pictures on this blog, may need to do some further investigation) and a ruffler. Not sure what I'm going to ruffle, but I sure do wanna ruffle something!


She also can with a random piece of wood, which I eventually worked out was some sort of extension leaflet.

My Great Aunt has kept her in pretty good nick, as a quick polish with a a wet wipe and she was all shiny again. I love all the details, like the metal end plate.

So, after admiring her I decided I had better test her out. You should all bear in mind, that I can count the number of times I've used a sewing machine on one hand. I went to an all girls school and they banned needlework lessons when I was 12 (I went to a mixed junior school up to the age of 11 where we did a bit of hand sewing but not much else) as they thought they were sexist, so we hadn't even got past the health and safety lectures . I remember hunting in the 'rag cupboard' at school for scraps, but don't even remember turning a sewing machine on. As a result, I am completely useless. My Mum did try to teach me at some point, in all fairness, but aged 15 when asked to sit down with an antique sewing machine I was not particularly keen (to put it mildly). However, I decided it couldn't be that hard, I'm not a completely stupid person (no comments, please) so where's the harm in trying?


Armed with the ancient manual (and, thankfully, a diagram), I pulled the thread through, over and under almost endless springs, wires and eyelets. This bit is a lot easier said than done - it is very fiddly. I worked out how to move the foot thingy up and down and how to catch the thread with the bobbiny thing underneath. Good job there was already thread with the machine, because I'm not sure I have any!!! Sure, I have the odd bit for emergency repair work but no great collection (another fab excuse for a craft shopping outing methinks). So, I grabbed a scrap of old curtain lining and gave it a go. Here is a picture of my first wonky line, I figured I can only improve.

I think me and my machine need to do a bit of bonding!


So, there you have it - my first sewing machine adventure. Does anyone else own one of these machines? If so, I'd love to hear from you, if you have any advice? 


More importantly, this little girl needs a name - any suggestions? Do people name their machines? I tend to name everything, even the spiders in my house have names (yes I'm talking abut you, Eric!). What are your machines called?


Thistle Girl x

Scribbles and Green Stuff

Hello Everybody,


Today has been an odd day, no real structure! Got lots done but still lots to do. Hopefully, one day I will have a clean and tidy house (I live in hope).


I was inspired (via Pinterest) by this blog, to create some crayon art. Cheap and simple, I thought. So, when I saw a little diddy canvas in my local supermarket for 99p, I couldn't resist. It's only very small, but I thought it would be good to try it out before wasting time and money on making a larger one. I already had some cheap wax crayons in from the bargain store.


So, I set to work and created. First of all, I cut up some crayons to fit the canvas. I chose blues and purples as I wanted to put something in my beachy room. I floated the papers off the crayons by putting them in a bowl of warmish water for a bit. Then, I attached the crayons to the canvas using a combination of double-sided sticky tape and tacky glue. I left them overnight to set. This morning I took to them with a hairdryer. Other blogs have used heat guns, but since I don't have one and the blog I referred to earlier used a hairdryer successfully, I thought this would be my best option. So, I laid out the canvas on some paper and attacked it with the hairdryer (my brand new hairdryer I should add, my old one broke yesterday!). This was much easier said than done. I had to get close to heat the crayons but even on my hairdryer's lowest setting the wax was blowing everywhere. The wax seemed quite watery and the different colours melted very unevenly, but that could be something to do with the fact that they were unbranded! Well, I finished it. It's OK, I quite like it and all its imperfections. Not quite what I was going for, but hey-ho.

So, that was that. I then decided to sort out my tomatoes. I'm growing a combination of tomatillos, hundreds and thousands and stripy tomatoes in a little plastic covered grow house. Unfortunately, tens if not hundreds of caterpillars (I googled them, they're the Bright-Line Brown-Eye moth variety) have moved in and are eating them. Leaves, stems, fruit - the lot. I decided that I needed to get tough and sort it out, otherwise I will have been growing them for months for nothing! I had a big cull, the caterpillars are no more and the plants have been rid of all their holey leaves. I also moved them to somewhere slightly more sunny, to try and ripen them up. Unfortunately, I also knocked some off whilst re-adjusting their living quarters so I'm trying to ripen them indoors!

And here are the ones with caterpillar damage. Apparently, they are also known as the tomato caterpillar- I can see why!

But don't worry, there are still a few juicy ones left - I hope these are going to turn into stripy ones!

Remember I said that I collected some moss from my parents' house yesterday? Well, I spent some of the afternoon busying myself with a project using some of the moss that you may well see here in a few months. I also used it to transplant onto a stepping stone. I've got some left, so I might make some moss juice and do some painting tomorrow! I'm not sure whether the moss will work transplanted onto the 'stone' as it's man-made, not natural, and I'm not sure how porous it is. Still, worth a shot!

Then I was dirty, so I had a bath. My friends at work gave me a Baby Bot bath bomb, it was nice.


Here's Baby Bot Before:

And after- Baby Bot is no more!

Night everyone,


Thistle Girl x