Made: Painted Seagrass Baskets

I love a DIY project, and I especially love an IKEA hack: to take something that's cheap and mass-produced and turn it into something unique is so satisfying.

When we were in Norfolk a couple of weeks ago I saw some beautiful painted seagrass baskets on sale for £40 in a gift shop, which is massively out of my price range. So instead, I hatched a plan...

You will need
- A seagrass basket (mine are IKEA Fladis, £9 each, but you can find them in all shapes and sizes in places like Wilkos and Home Bargains).
- A pot of tester paint
- A paintbrush
- Old newspaper
- Spray varnish (this is probably not essential, but it will make the baskets more hard-wearing)

I would do a step-by-step but it's so ridiculously easy that I don't want to insult your intelligence: basically, put paper down, paint basket, wait for it to dry, spray with varnish.

The only issues I encountered were that masking tape doesn't seem to stick to seagrass, so I had to go freehand with the paint. Also, on the green basket - which required more than one coat of paint - the paint started seeping through to the inside of the basket. To solve that, I let it dry then rubbed the inside down with wire wool, which cleared it.

Because I was limited by the tester paints my local Homebase had in stock, I'm not totally sold on the colours - the mint could be bolder and the pink a bit less Pepto Bismol bright. But I'm too impatient to have waited while searching for the perfect colours, and the beauty of a project like this is that, if and when I tire of these colours, I can just sandpaper the varnish off and repaint.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Sarah asserted this week that bloggers fall into two camps at Christmas: those who have a theme, and those who have an ethos. But I reckon I have both. From the piles of foraged greenery to the homemade tree decorations, my Christmas decorating theme is simple, natural beauty with just a dash of glitz.

And my ethos? Probably much the same. For me, Christmas - and the far more exciting run-up to the big day - is about small, simple pleasures but with an added dose of luxury. Whether it's lighting scented candles, spending time with loved ones, settling down with a good book next to a roaring fire, or drinking my own body weight in Prosecco, December gives me the chance to do all my favourite things in the name of festivity.

And one of my favourite things to do is decorate the house. No hall is left un-decked; stand still long enough in my house come December and you'll probably find yourself draped in fairy lights and sporting an ivy crown.

As I wrote about last week in my wreath how-to, evergreens are one of my favourite things with which to decorate. Every year I raid the local hedgerows and gather armfuls of greenery to pile high on the mantlepieces, intertwined with LED fairy lights and baubles for added sparkle.

This gorgeous Dashwood Studio Christmas Village fabric (from Crafty Sew & So, a great workshop and haberdashery space in Leicester) is a close match to the George at ASDA festive bedlinen I missed out on last year and have sulked about ever since. I used it to make some festive cushion covers, as well as whipping up a new stocking to hang by my fireplace, so that even our bedroom has a dash of Christmas charm.

Before last Christmas, I'd never thought of fresh flowers as a decorating essential. Then Blossoming Gifts kindly sent me a festive bunch to review and now I don't think I'll ever go without. My budget this year didn't stretch to a fancy mail order bouquet, but Aldi came up trumps with bargain Fairtrade roses and berry sprigs, which I combined with eucalyptus from my mum's garden.

And while I still think my house could do with MOAR DECORATIONS, it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas here...

Made: An Evergreen Wreath

This is an edited repost from my now-defunct blog, Words That Can Only Be Your Own

For me, nothing quite says 'Christmas' like bringing boughs of evergreens into the house. From pagan yule logs to modern wreaths, the custom of using holly, ivy and other evergreens to decorate the house in December is an ancient one that has lasted thousands of years. However, wreaths made from fresh foliage can be very expensive to buy - understandable, as they're time-consuming to put together. But with a bit of foraging for free greenery plus an hour of patience and sore fingers, you can make a wreath that's just as beautiful as a store-bought one.

You will need:

A wreath base (usually made of moss over a wire ring - I found mine on eBay for less than £2)

Armfuls of greenery - at least two different kinds but the sky's the limit. I used cypress, holly, eucalyptus, ivy, pine and hebe

Florists wire

Secateurs or strong scissors

3 metres ribbon

Assortment of decorations - I dried some orange slices and teamed them with foraged pine cones and cinnamon sticks tied together with scraps of ribbon

1. First, forage for your greenery. You don't need to live in the countryside for this: I picked up the pinecones from under a tree on a nearby industrial estate, the eucalyptus was from my mum's back garden, the hebe from a shrub in my yard, the ivy cut on various walks along the local canal, and the cypress, holly and pine from friends gardens.

2. Soak your ring [snigger] in water before squeezing out any excess.

3. Your wreath will be made up of multiple bundles of greenery, each affixed to the base. Gather a small piece of 3-4 different evergreens and pull together to form a bouquet. As I had 6 different kinds of evergreens, I varied the contents (so one had holly, pine and eucalyptus, while the next had hebe, ivy and cypress, for instance). 

4. Bend a length of wire to form a U-shape at one end, approx. 1 inch long. Place the U at the base of the bouquet (with the remaining wire pointing away from it) and then wind the wire around the bundle two or three times, to hold the bundle together securely. You should be left with about 15cm of wire still pointing away from the bouquet.

5. Push the long piece of wire through your base, bend and push back in again to secure. 

6. Repeat, laying each bundle of greenery so it points in the same direction and overlaps with the previous one, until the wreath base is covered.

7. At this point you may find some bundles need another piece of wire looped around and pushed into the base to ensure they're completely secure.

8. Again using wire, attach the decorations at intervals. 

9. Cut 2 metres from your ribbon and loop it through the inside of the wreath. Tie the remaining metre into a bow around the hanging ribbon, trimming the ends neatly.

10. Once it's hanging up you may need to trim some edges: I found my eucalyptus especially needed a bit of a prune.

11. Step back and admire your work! Wreaths made from fresh foliage will survive for about three to four weeks if hung outside in the cold.