The past few months have been a mixed bag of some good, and some less good things, but now I’m back and ready to get back to the swing of things here at Seefoodplay. Life threw a few things at me, some planned, some unplanned, and I’ve definitely taken this blogging break to re-focus on what’s really important, and in doing that I realized that it all comes down to one thing: balance. I’ve been missing it. A lot. That’s ok, though, and sometimes we need to slow down to realize what’s really important. Don’t worry though, it’s not been all bad (or even mainly bad) and I’ve got lots of super fun travel posts and some delicious recipes to share over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
So I’m all about starting fresh these days, and what better way than with a homemade lemony body scrub! If you’re reading this from Europe, then you could probably use a bit of sunshine in your life right about now, and this stuff smells like summer in a jar ☀️ – give a try!
This body scrub is super easy and doesn’t require lots of ingredients, so it’s a perfect DIY project if you want an all-natural beauty product for the cost of a few lemons and a cup of sugar. For extra smooth legs, this scrub works wonders! I would not use this as a face scrub, however, as the sugar might irritate the skin, which might lead to breakouts. Give it a try, and let me know what you think!
Ingredients & supplies:
1 cup sugar
Juice from 2 lemons
Liquid soap (I used Cetaphil)
1 glass jar, with a lid (I used the 50cl ‘Korken’ jar from Ikea).
Combine everything in a container with a lid, and enjoy! I store mine in the fridge, just make sure you label the jar if you do the same.
The DIY project that I’ve chosen for today’s post is one of my absolute faves – upcycled wine bottle candle holders & vases. I’m not sure what that says about my drinking habits… But if you’re anything like me, then you probably have ahem…at least a few wine bottles sitting in your recycle bin anyway. This project is a great way to turn them into little golden accent pieces that can be re-used around the house in lots of different ways.
I made these for my wedding and used them as our table centerpieces, and to create a beautiful glow in the fireplace — they were big hits. These are great if you need a quick way to dress up your dinner table, and can be done in just a few minutes.
This craft is so easy and only costs a few bucks, but the end-result is pretty impressive. You could put flowers or candles in them, or a mix of both – like I did! You could also do about 5 or 6 of them, and make a beautiful candle fireplace arrangement. The possibilities are endless, so go finish up that bottle of wine (everyone has a Monday Merlot, or something along those lines, right…?) and get started on this easy-peasy gold spray painted wine bottle DIY!
Materials:
Spray paint (I used metallic gold)
Empty wine bottle(s)
Cardboard or drop cloth
Optional: Candles & Flowers (Hydrangeas pictured)
Here are a few photos of the finished product (courtesy of: Annie Gozard photography)
Instructions:
The longest part of this project is removing the labels from the wine bottles. The best method I’ve found has been to submerge the bottles in hot water and just letting them soak for at least an hour. The label should slide right off !
Next, dry your bottles and make sure the surfaces are nice and smooth. If some glue is still stuck on, then use a utility knife to scrape it off.
Place your bottles right-side-up on a covered surface (cardboard or cloth) and spray on your first coat of paint. Make sure you aren’t too close, otherwise you’ll get drips and uneven textures on the bottles.
If needed, add a second coat.
Allow to dry, using your spray paint brand’s recommendations (mine only takes about 30 minutes to dry, but I always leave them overnight to “set” and to avoid scratches and scuffs).
Add your flower or candle, and you’re ready to enjoy the fruits of your labor!
I don’t know about you guys, but I have a bad habit of under-estimating tasks that I take on. Organizing my wedding was one big fat example of that…times 100! For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to DIY everything that I could because I wanted things to be unique. The only way to make sure no one else was going to have the exact same decorations, or invitations…? To make them myself, of course! So, I made a big to-do list and got to work. We had 130 guests (of those, nearly 30 kids!) so just imagine the number of invitations, thank you cards, center pieces, and wedding favors we needed. All DIY’ed, of course.
The wedding guest gifts were one of the most challenging things to choose, because I wanted something personalized but that wouldn’t break the bank. There’s some cool stuff out there, but if you have more than 100 guests like us, it can get quite pricey. I looked into ordering monogrammed favors online, but everything we found that was actually in our budget looked pretty cheap. Then, I ran across a tutorial on Pinterest for homemade candles and I had my Eureka! moment. Miniature DIY candles it would be, personalized with special labels and ribbons and stickers and stamps and scents… you get the idea. My 10-year old self was revived, and I pretty much immediately raced to the craft store to get my supplies. I set aside a Saturday afternoon to knock out the “candle project” and planned to tick this off my list just as quickly as the idea came to me.
Reality soon set in, though, and this one was definitely a much bigger project than I anticipated. Partly, just because making 100 candles takes some time time if you’ve never actually made candles before, but also because I didn’t properly estimate supply quantities, and I had a mishap which caused me to junk a whole batch of about 30 candles. I’ll explain what went wrong, and hopefully how to help you avoid making my mistakes! I really enjoyed DIY’ing so much of our wedding and writing this tutorial brought back all those pre-wedding feelings ❤️. If you decide to take on a project like this one, I’d love to see photos! Did you DIY any of your wedding favors? I would love to see photos of those, too!
If you’re making one candle, then this tutorial will be an absolute breeze and will take you around 15 minutes all together (plus drying time). Candle making is super fun, and how cool is it to give them out as little gifts, or to have your very own homemade candles around your house!?
Let’s get started! (Please read through all of the notes at the bottom for helpful tips)
Materials:
Containers for your candles
Candle wax
Candle wicks
Strong fast-drying glue or glue gun (to hold the wick in place)
Prepare your work area – even if you’re careful, you will get wax on stuff. Avoid an area with carpet! I used our dining room table, covered in my “craft cloth” and a bit of newspaper.
Next, set out all of your supplies (ie, wicks, glue, candle containers). Glue your wicks in the center of your candle containers. Mine are narrow so we had to be careful to get them properly centered. This is important because if they’re off-center, the wick will look crazy (in a bad way) once the wax is in! Depending on your containers and the length of your wicks, you might need to cut them down a bit.
Allow the glue to set as needed (over-night if you want to be sure), then start melting your wax.
To melt the wax, pour your granules into a pot over a low heat. I used disposable chopsticks to stir the wax and break up chunks to help the melting process. Important: hot wax is just that… HOT! Be careful and wear a long-sleeved shirt and pot holder when handling the wax.
Once melted, add in your desired scented oil and give the mixture a little stir — I used vanilla scented oil for this project.
Next, pour your wax into each container leaving about 1 inch of wick visible.
Your candles will start to set quickly, so now’s the time to make sure your wicks are centered in the wax. Once they’re about half set, gently move the wicks to the center of your candle. This might mess up the wax a bit but that’s ok – you’ll add another layer of wax to cover that up!
Once your candles have mostly set (about an hour or two), a dip or indentation will have formed around the wick. To get rid of that, simply pour in enough wax to cover it up and let them completely set, this time overnight.
Now, you can decorate your candles however you want! You can leave them as they are because even as plain simple candles, they’re adorable. Or you can add twine, ribbons, tags or stickers to the candle container to jazz them up a bit!
To decorate these candles, I used:
Twine
Ribbon
Card stock paper for the tags
Stamps & black ink stamp pads
Notes:
I ordered the wax to make my candles online. I got lucky with the first batch because it was a beautiful creamy off-white/ivory color. Because I didn’t order enough of the stuff the first time around, I had to buy more: it looked the same (same stuff, different brand) but oh was it different! Instead of that beautiful creamy white, it was a cheap-looking semi-transparent horribly-textured version of the good stuff that I ordered the first time. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the difference right away because the wax takes on a different color when it’s melted vs solid. Oh the regrets…!
Tip: Quantity – If you’re making a lot of candles, buy a small sample if possible and make sure that the color matches what you’re after. Then, make sure there’s enough stock of that brand to get you through your entire project. If you’re making colored candles, then this might not be an issue for you.
I needed 8 x 1kg bags of wax to make around 115 candles. Yes, 8 kilos of candle wax. My original order was for 3 kilos and even then I thought I had over ordered! I would suggest trying an online calculator to determine how much wax you’ll need for your project.
Tip: Candle wicks – there are a few different options for candle wicks, and I’m glad I got it right the first time around in that I chose pre-waxed with sustainers (ie, the little metal base that holds the wick in place). Some wicks aren’t pre-waxed and don’t come with a base… don’t even think about using those for this project unless you like hours of frustration trying to get them to do what you want.
Tip: Time savers – Making a lot of these? I worked in batches of about 20 because I had so many candles to make, so use your judgement if you need to do the same. This gave me enough time to properly adjust each candle wick, to correct any wax issues, and to set aside to dry. For around 115 candles, we spent about 4-5 evenings making them (going at a leisurely pace).
Spring has been peeking its elusive little head out these past few days, and seeing actual real-life sunshine makes me want to get crafty and host little parties. And what is having a little get-together without also sorting out a few homemade decorations? Just kidding, I never really have time to decorate like I want to when I have guests over because really…we just go straight to the good stuff: the food and drinks. So this craft is perfect for people like me: good intentions when it comes to party decorations, but time-consuming projects never seem to make the cut.
A cute DIY tissue paper garland adds a little touch of “I put effort into welcoming you into my home for this gathering” while at the same time, doesn’t seem like you spent all of your free evenings preparing for it. Because you spent more time making the food and drink for The perfect apéro: cocktail hourfor example.
This garland comes together in under an hour (probably faster if you’re not sipping red wine and watching The Good Wife at the same time), and is DIY-able for even the most anti-DIYers out there.
It’s super versatile and keeps for a long time, so this garland can be used and re-used as you want. I’ve got mine hanging above my desk, for a little bit of color, but the possibilities are endless! You could even do little mini-garlands to decorate your desk/cubicle at your office, or use them in a kid’s room.
If you end up trying this, I’d love to see photos of your results!
Instructions:
Choose your color scheme and purchase your tissue paper. I like to use 3-4 different colors, and do a “light-to-dark” repeating pattern.
Roll out your tissue paper on a flat surface, and make sure that all edges are lined up. If you want smaller tassels, then you’ll need to cut your paper accordingly in half, fourths, etc.
Fold your sheets of paper in half to create a center crease. Make sure your sheets are nice and lined up (if they’re not, the tassel will look messy).
Next, take your paper cutter (or scissors) and cut strips about 1-inch wide going towards the edge stopping around 2 inches from the fold.
Once you’ve cut the 1-inch strips along the whole edge of the paper, unfold and you will see the middle is still intact.
Carefully roll the paper tightly down the center crease, until you get to the edge of the paper.
Tightly twist the rolled paper to create a loop.
Repeat until you have enough tassels, depending on the size of your garland.
Take a piece of twine and string the tassels together. If you want to prevent them from sliding around on the string, you can either twist each loop tightly, or tie little knots after you string each tassel.
Thumbtacks or strong tape work best to hang them on the wall.
Notes: most of the tutorials I found when I was researching this DIY suggest to use scissors to make the cuts. I have professional-grade scissors and I found that they just didn’t work very well. The paper cutter, however, gave me perfectly lined-up cuts, with no damage to the tissue paper. If you don’t have a paper cutter, then scissors will do but go slowly when making the cuts otherwise you’ll end up with raggedy garland. And that’s not a good thing.
For a fuller, sturdier result, try using crepe paper instead of tissue paper. I’ve been using this more and more, and the results are fabulous.
If you do want to use tissue paper, then you’ll need to use several sheets of tissue paper. Otherwise, your tassel will be limp and well… sad. Play around with it until you get it how you want it!
I’m big into online shopping, so got most of my tissue paper from Amazon. You can get lots of colors and sizes, and the price is almost always a little bit cheaper than the big craft store chains.
If you’ve been reading my blog, then you know that I relocated from Paris to London for work.
When I decided to move to London, I gave away or sold most of my furniture, and only brought a few things, almost all from Ikea.
Apartment hunting in London was significantly easier than in Paris: I ended up choosing the first flat I visited! I only visited a few others to confirm my choice, but I knew right away that the first flat was the one. It came unfurnished with the exception of two beds and kitchen appliances, so I pretty much had to buy everything new, which is both exciting and terrifying. I’m always keen for a good ole room makeover, but furnishing and decorating an entire flat? So, I set aside a budget and I got on Pinterest months before the actual move-in date to start brainstorming. The flat isn’t big, but it’s got some interesting features. It’s around 65m2, two bedrooms, and an open kitchen leading onto the living area. All that is pretty standard, but wait for it… both the bedroom and living room lead out to a huge (everything is relative…) terrace! I’ve never had this much outdoor space (other than when I was a kid) so needless to say I was very excited about working on the terrace make-over! But for now, the priority was on working on the inside.
Of course I would have loved to get everything from cute little shops and high-end stores, but I had a wholeapartment to furnish quickly and budget was limited. So, off to Ikea I went! About 6 trips later, I finally had most of the major things that I needed, and I could finally focus on the fun stuff: decorations and customizations. Since so many things came from Ikea, like the Ikea Bekvam Stool, I really want to try to customize as many things as possible to make the flat look a little bit less like I just chose it right out of the Ikea catalog!
That’s what’s so great about Ikea though – many of their products are easily DIY-able, so you can turn an inexpensive element into a unique piece of furniture using an easy Ikea hack! That way, no one will look at it and go “I have the exact same one!” when they come over 🙂
One of my very first Ikea DIY’s was to improve the Ikea Bekvam stool. It’s a great little sturdy stool, and I use it as a side table and bookshelf. I’m pretty obsessed with them, so don’t be surprised if I add another tutorial soon! It took all of my willpower to not paint it gold as I’m obssessed with gold spray paint these days! I settled on a more reasonable wood varnish (maybe add white-dipped legs in a few weeks? I know dipped furniture is very trendy right now but it’s trendy because it looks goooood!)
Cardboard, large cloth or plastic to protect your area while painting
Instructions:
Prepare your painting area by setting down a sheet, some cardboard or plastic. You’ll want to do this outside for best results and to avoid the fumes!
Choose a wood varnish color that you like – I chose Antique Oak from B&Q
Apply 2-3 coats (or until you get the desired shade) to the entire stool.
Allow to dry for at least 24 hours before decorating.
Note: I had already put this stool together when I got the bright idea to re-do it, so I just painted it without taking it apart. If I were to be using spray paint for the whole thing, then I would have definitely disassembled!
More Ikea hacks customizations will follow, so keep an eye on that! Have you re-done the Ikea Bekvam stool too? If so, I’d love to see photos & descriptions in the comments section!
