Well hello Blogosphere. It’s been too long. But thats ok. My new years resolution is to be thankful for the things that distract us. Because they are probably worthwhile. Getting frustrated over not having time to read ‘The Week’ or ‘Style’ magazine is even less productive!

You need to share in the revolution of paper snowflakes. It started with a little festive gathering of friends and turned into Crafty craic. There were doubters. There were those who feared the shame and denied their inner crafter. But all were overcome when the admiration came rolling in, as these free and floaty paper creations hung in their festive foray.

When Jamie Oliver presented his Christmas show beneath a swathe of paper snowflakes i vowed i would find a way to cook my christmas dinner in similar snow capped surroundings..

I managed to kick things off by finding some large paper snowflakes online, and stumbling across this spectacular online shop in the process called ‘RE’. Says it all really. Probably one of the best virtual shopping experiences you’ll have. Beautifully laid out, user friendly, experiential website. The snowflakes are in ‘gREetings’, and I think I’ll carry on the paper fad all year with the star light shades in ‘REcycle’.

So armed with mull and gossip, we used this tutorial http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-3D-Paper-Snowflake. The only point you can go wrong is when you make the cuts. Always follow the diagonal line. You’ll only do it wrong once!

Get folding

Focusing on the prize

a doubter converted

craft by candlelight

Plenty of snacks..

Santa hat brownies

I personally really like this version hanging in a window..

We were on a roll, magazine christmas trees.

Magazine trees

Just how I imagined it. Other people making my Christmas lunch in the snow studio.

happy helpers

If you master that, the wonderful Jenny over at ‘Silver Spoon Society’ has taken it up a gear by suggesting this tutorial on pinterest, thanks Jenny!

And a happy new year to you all!

We have learned the Salvage sisters like to collect in themes, it’s a way of justifying our aquisitions, as they come together in some kind of library of usefulness! I have realised that Lucy is much more professional both in her aquiring, her knowledge and research, and her diligent repurposing of items to justify their existence in her home! I would go as far as to label myself as minimal in comparison, right sis?!

However here is one of my collection fettishes, ‘Coupe’ champagne and cocktail glasses..

Coupe champagne glasses

They are highly practical in their making of any moment worth celebrating!

mojito cupcakes

Featured here, are some Mojito cupcakes I recently made for a friends birthday breakfast, and I reckon this was the perfect vessel for serving them up!

And here they are making a Birthday Bubbly moment for my good friend Vicki, complete with retro tray I’m quite attached to! There is a family famed champagne cocktail recipe I must share with you that has made many an occasion.. anyone who has ever tried it always gets back to me for the recipe at some stage!

Birthday Bubbly

You will need: 1 sugar cube, Angostura Bitters, Brandy of any type – I use Cointreau for a little orange twist, Champagne/ Cava

Place sugar cube in bottom of glass. Place a drop or two of bitters on cube.. add a shot of Brandy, top with Champagne for the ultimate Classic Champagne Cocktail!

I haven’t found a reason to indulge in an I-pad yet.. for now I’m happy with my tablet as per our grandparents at their wooden desks in front of a coal fire at school..

The chalk board.

The blackboard/chalkboard wall is nothing new and can be seen in any nook, corner or vast space as seen below. Chalkboard paint is pretty readily available too, a couple of coats and you’ve got your feature and very functional wall.

In my house I painted the wall beneath the staircase, and we use it as a calendar, message board, picture wall, guest wall.

Chalkboard stair wall

An old Bangor Blue Slate from an outhouse on our family farm makes for a great kitchen shopping list and menu plan so my husband knows what to cook! ahem.

Slate memo

The same slates make a very nice table runner and heat mats, and I personalise them for the occasion, our lovely friends were round the other night, for no particular occasion..

Slate table runner/ mats

Here is a similar idea I found on my recent obsession with Pinterest, as introduced by Lucy here..

1.placemat

Other novel ideas with chalkboard paint..

2. blackboard furniture!

3. backboard door

4. more walls

5. entire room

6.walls and cupboards

Go paint!

1. by milkbottles 2. by thisnext  3 and 4. by Style Files.  5 and 6. by London Lisbonite

Take a ‘sate’ as they say round here.

My guests have been doing just that, some with curiousity, some with glee, some with a frown!

Following my post ‘Pallet Hi’, I was tickled to see this pallet waiting for me round the corner from home where a builder had just finished with it. A nice new one.

Following a serruptitious tug at it and realising it was fimly stuck, I decided to take the legitimate path and ask the owner of the cast off if I could have it. This resulted in a good old chuckle for the two builders who offered to deliver it to my door!

The chuckle became a hearty laugh when my dubious other half informed them what it was for!

Here is the conversion so far.

Im toying with putting Caster wheels on for more height, however at the minute its perfect for just flopping onto and for the resident two year old to headstand onto at speed!

I looked into getting a piece of foam cut to size for the top, but an unsuspecting single mattress was saved from eviction, and was reduced to size by removing a few springs. A much comfier seat pad I’d say. Wish i’d seen your christmas decor idea with bedsprings before then Salvage Sister!

And the pallet wasn’t as new as i thought, bit faded.

Check out my new Penguin books postcard collection on the wall, a little birthday present from the Sis. They make a great colour block. Thanks!

And finally, in case you doubt me.. there’s a market for this! Check out this pallet table for sale here.

I’m not sure if its a good thing or not that i have recently been introduced to Pinterest, given the amount of time i have been spending on it. ‘A virtual pinboard’, it says. Time warp, i say. Its packed with ideas in all sorts of categories, and i find myself going down various internet rabbit holes via the DIY, home decor and photography sections. Because its just pictures, its easy to spend ages just browsing through and gathering ideas as you go. Here are a few of my highlights (with a significant storage theme).

1. Old window made into chalkboard2. Electrical cable reel becomes book shelf and handy wheely table

3. Chicken wire on frames for notice board

4. Cute tins turned into fridge magnets for storage

5. Suitcases as drawers – love!!

6. Old bed frames re-purposed for Christmas decoration

7. Flexible picture display

8. We did this in our back garden following the eucalyptus tree coming down. not sure it look sthis good though…

9. Funky little alphabet magnets.

If there’s one thing we salvage sisters love, its a good old chair. There has been no shortage of recent posts on chairs (lucy, gemma), but why stop there…especially when i have another chair project up my sleeve, together with a need for some joinery advice for those so inclined. I bought this for a few quid from Drum Farm Antiques, fast becoming one of my favourite edinburgh salvage venues. It obviously needs the dowel replaced, and a lick of paint, but the basic structure is sturdy enough.

 My vision is for a fine and varied collection of cunningly sourced (ie cutting out the middle-design-man) mid-century, personally restored chairs for our kitchen table. In a perfect world, that would include a selection of these beauties.

1. Wishbone chair by Hans Wegner2. Bentwood bistro chair

3. Industrial stacking chairs

4. Vintage Ercol

There are a few different approaches to mismatching dining table chairs.

1. Different colours to accentuate variety

2. Keeping a theme on colour and mixing up the styles

3. A wide variety of styles (era, texture, shape…)

The best thing about mix and match chairs is that you can constantly replace and re-arrange as you gradually build up your collection.

Hope you enjoy this guest post from Ali T on the story of his amazing revamped diary collection….

I am a sucker for nostalgia. For years I have kept shoe boxes full of old letters and photographs, and bizarre trinkets that include airline sick bags, branded bar napkins and cinema ticket stubs, hoping that they will spark fond memories whenever I come to rifle through them again. For almost ten years I have been keeping daily diaries to chronologue my day to day activity, in the hope that one day I will look back on them and remember all the amazing things that I was doing with my life; the fun I was having, the places I was going and the people that were shaping me.

To a certain extent this will be true, because I want to have interesting things to remember, and will always be sure to write significant places and events down. But because I don’t keep the kind of diary where I log my innermost thoughts and by which I can chart the development of my character, and instead keep a books full of schedules and to-do lists, most of my ‘memories’ will be of appointments, shopping lists and train booking reference numbers.

Even without the wealth of interesting anecdotes to look back on and remember the days gone by, I still keep these diaries because I am helpless without them. I have a memory like a sieve so if I want to get anything done I have to write it down. But perhaps even more than the necessity of keeping these diaries for the sake of productivity, I keep these diaries because I love making the covers. I choose not to buy the trendy moleskin books that boast an air of literary accomplishment, but instead opt for cheap primary school jotters that allow maximum creative scope. Now you might think that covering a child’s jotter would be the easiest thing in the world, but what I have learned throughout my extensive jotter-covering experience, is that if you want to create a diary of utmost quality, there are rules that must be followed and phases of completion that must each be concluded in order to provide structural and aesthetic integrity to the finished article. I have made 35 to 40 of these books in my ‘career’ and have always striven towards each outdoing the last.

The actual imagery used to cover the diary is of marginal concern in comparison to the quality of the assembly of the structure. Over the years I have honed the art of diary making. I have gradually incorporated ideas that were initially tagged on as an afterthought, hidden structural devices in the very fabric of the book, and have finished the product with an ever keener eye for quality, parallel lines and perfect right angles.

But let me not detract from how important it is for me to continually out-do myself on aesthetics, as well as on structure. Where my first diary featured a cover made from a purple striped paper bag adorned with a postcard of Donegal, my most recent diary involved the gluing of 210 individual 2nd class stamps to the front cover in nice neat rows. In the past it was easy; I just had to find a single sheet of paper to use as a cover that was slightly more bizarre than the last.

Diary covers of old have included music manuscripts, pages from the Oxford English dictionary, movie posters, my Italian lecture notes, property listings from an Edinburgh newspaper dated 1952, and the piece of crepe paper that my Dunlop Green Flash shoes came wrapped in.

But now, with the introduction of over 200 individual covering elements coming together in unison, the bar has certainly been raised! Some might say that I am a little bit OCD when it comes to my diary making. I can’t really argue with that, in fact I would probably agree. I love trying to make a more interesting and accomplished finished article. This most recent idea using stamps will be hard to trump, but I look forward to the challenge of trying.