Category Archives: lucy

Easy up-cycled cake stands

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Now that Christmas is done and dusted, i can write about some of the creations that have found new homes via the packages in the previous post. The easiest of these was the cake stands, a joint effort with my pal Ali T. To swiftly summarise, pick up some old second hand cast off plates, drill a few holes, and bring together with fittings ordered from ebay.

I have sourced these from various places including my trusty salvage yard, local charity shops and some antique shops which often sell lovely single plates for £1 or £2.

Drill a hole in the centre using a diamond tipped drill bit. You will also need a water sprayer as it gets red hot and can blister the glaze. Put a few layers of sellotape over the guide hole as this helps give some grip to the drill.

Once you have all the plates drilled, match them up in funky combinations and screw together the fittings. You can get either a 2 or 3 tier stand. I think 3 tier is a bit more decadent, and you get to put more inventive plate combinations together. Here are the finished products….

And here is our trusty sellotape holder for the task…

its a wrap

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Many will know that i’m a stickler for a well wrapped present. Perhaps i’m reading too many interiors magazines of late, with stacks of stylishly wrapped gifts piled high under chic trees (no tinsel in sight.) Despite the fact that wrapping is of course designed to simply be torn off to reveal the goods within, i nonetheless enjoy the process of putting together paper, ribbon and tag in a way that makes a bit more, for me, of the true sentiment within gift-giving.

The cornerstone of good wrapping is, obviously, good wrapping paper. Forget the feeble glossy white stuff, i always go for thicker brown or matt white paper, which in general has better festive prints. My top tip for paper sourcing is Ikea in October. By that i mean going in december is a waste of time, certainly in edinburgh, as everything christmas-related has sold out by then.

This year Ikea came up trumps with this pretty blue paper with white snowflake-theme print. Like many things, i love to layer up to get the most out the complimentary colours. Using brown paper underneath also works well – a respectful nod to the traditional parcel.
Using various ties and ribbons is another great way to pimp your parcel. Raffia makes an appearance every year on my presents, this year combined with Baker’s Twine. Labels also are worth a thought. Again, you can’t go far wrong with the traditional brown parcel label. I had originally planned to do letter stamps on each one but it didn’t show up very well so i printed off labels in American Typewriter script, and added a wooden star (discovered serendipitously in my ever-faithful collection of filled Altoids boxes of old).
Last year Paperchase had a fine range of paper, and i’m returning to some of it this year again as i think its a great option for kids, with fun colours and funky illustrations. A simple ribbon is all you need when the paper can happily speak for itself.This year i managed to do handmade christmas cards. I don’t send cards every year (keeps ye guessin’), but when i have the time i do love sitting down to conjure up a design that is both crafty and, here’s the key, easily replicable. A bit like sista, i’m a very economically aware kind of person (pffft!) and hence have used FT newspaper for the trees, cut out with pinking shears. Ikea paper makes the perfect snowy backdrop, and my alphabet stampers complete the look.
Finally, have all your materials strewn across the table so that you can mix and match your collection. The last key to successful gift-wrapping is making a great big mess, plus plenty of festive drinks and snacks to get you in the mood!

Seasonal salvage, and some nostalgia

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I’ve been particularly seasonal in spirit this year, given that its only dec 3rd. Christmas tree decorating yesterday, mince pies today, advent evensong tomorrow… I have also been getting busy with thrifty decor, making my usual wreath and fireplace garland from the wealth of wonderful foliage at Blackford Hill. I find the trick is to be bold and extravagant with your materials, abandoning the functional details in favour of simply applying precarious piles of whatever with fervour to any surface that happens to cross your path. This i learned from the two masters of the art, my mother and our neighbour elizabeth harty, both of whom have now sadly left us. But they leave behind an inheritance of exuberant decorating with foliage, exemplified most beautifully on many occasions at tullyroan methodist church. Though not always appreciated by the wider congregation at times, i have fond memories of such times, celebrating nature the way nature intended. In particular i recall a harvest service where the door to the vestry was entirely obscured by catoni aster and ivy. i think elizabeth may have been asked to prune that back a little at the time, perhaps by a well meaning minister requiring access to the hymn books.

Anyway, back to the wreaths. Start out with lots of lovely bags of inspiration.

I use some fir for the base, building up with holly and finishing with some boughs of berry.

Bend a wire hanger into a circle, and be ready with some garden wire and secateurs. 

Build up the fir base, then attach on the holly with the wire.

 I have dried these orange slices which make a nice addition to the wreath.

You can make a bow by stapling together some lengths of ribbon in the middle.

Here is the finished product in situ. Hopefully no-one will need to use the door knocker for a while.

Don’t forget to ply yourself with other seasonal goodies whilst creating christmas cheer. Note here my tasty mince pie, the first of the season. Looks like something from an M&S add, eh?

 

 

Box file magic

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Back when i was famous and people asked me to go onto the radio and stuff, i received a lot of love for the covered magazine folders featured in this post ,which were discussed on the salvage sisters ‘Saturday Morning Show’ radio slot. So here i am at it again, covering every white ikea file in sight including these ones used at the front door to organise all the messy pups living in this house (if you live here and are reading this – just saying that to make the task seem more important and necessary.)

Here are some tips i have learned along the way, for those who might be interested in pimping their very own box files. Step one involves cutting out the basic shape from some lightweight fabric, leaving a margin of about 2 inches all around. I like to mix up floral and stripes when doing a set of boxes.

The two key tools for the job are good quality spray mount, and micropore. They are both ideal for fixing material, especially the micropore which comes in handy for finishing touches. It is fairly easy for me to get my hands on, but if you are a non-nhs worker, you could try bribing your local doctor for some. (Note how i have laid paper on the desk whilst using spray mount. i won’t even go into what happened the first time i used the stuff without adequate, ie extensive, covering.)

Fix the material onto the sides, front and back. Cut the overhang at the top into 1 inch intervals, to allow you to wrap it around the curved edge of the box. Then fix the strips to the inner edge with spray mount. Its tricky to not get the sticky substance all over the inside, resulting in magazines becoming permanently attached to the side, but there are worse things in life that could happen.

Then, fold the material at the bottom in the way you might wrap a present, and fix it to the bottom using spray mount, then secure the edges with micropore. Oh, and do the securing edges thing to the material at the top as well otherwise the flux of important things going in and out of your box with eventually unstick the material. Here are some fine pictorial examples….

Voila! Your lovely set of box files all pretty and unique for your hallway. Not a sniff of ikea identi-kit round here any more.

Magpie Moments 3: Tea Tins

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Back to my little series on collections…and remaining in the tea theme, allow me to showcase my tea tins. Here they are stacked haphazardly in the cupboard. Shame to hide them away but one can only have so many things on display. As you can see one has to practical sometimes, and thus i have labelled them on the outside, though not aesthetically pleasing, pretty necessary in a busy tea-fuelled household.

Lets have some close ups. The easiest ones to find are the chinese style black and red tins, some older than others. Others have all manner of scenes and styles, check out the gold and turquoise number in the background! Very kitsch.

I recently came across these Jacksons of Piccadilly vintage tins. Definitely too pretty to actually use. I am currently bidding on a nice red version on ebay – wonder how many others there are out there to find?!

Desk Love

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I have been considering a new desk for a while, or rather another one given that until now malcolm and i have always shared one. Our first desk we found abandoned on Dalkeith road, a traditional oak school desk which was one of my first restoration projects, sanded completely by hand.

I fancied a wee corner in our bedroom for computer moments or journalling. My friends at Retropolis came good once again with this lovely painted victorian pine leaf table. One leaf is missing which is in a way ideal as we don’t have a lot of floor space, so the single leaf option means it can function as an occasional desk which is tucked away when not needed. In true lucy fashion, of course i couldn’t come away without some additional purchasing. More on that later…

I started with a test spot to see what condition the wood was in underneath. (i’m sure test areas are supposed to be concealed but in my creative haste i only think of these kind of things afterwards). My plan was to do the top only, as i find stripping turned legs too difficult, plus i was quite taken by the retro red/pink paint.

I then did 3 rounds of Nitromors on the top, taking off the red paint and 2 layers of sticky varnish.Time for the fun bit! Sanding down to the bare wood. This doesn’t take too long – maybe an hour. But essential to have an electric sander – i’ve tried the traditional method (by hand) but it takes days.The next stage involves one of my favourite household friends – a bit of good old bleach. The table looked like it hadn’t seen a cloth since the original paintwork was done, and needed some decent elbow grease to get the grime off. Most things in the house undergo an initiation rite of being bleached to within an inch of their life, so the latest recruit was no exception. The wood looks pretty ravished by this stage and definitely is in need of some love – enter beeswax and linseed balsam. The wood retains an unfinished look but takes on a healthy glow with this stuff, plus you get to enjoy the aromas whilst typing up your subsequent blog post.And here is the finished product in situ, happily relishing its new home by the window. (Sneak peek at my wonderful crochet blanket collection in the right hand corner – clearly a desk is no place to store blankets but they complement each other too well for me to care about the practicalities.)And you can see also in the picture a beautiful Ercol-style vintage chair, purchased as a set of 4 from the same place as the table. Makes the perfect friend for my pretty desk….

Magpie moments 2: Tea cosies

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I am a big fan of all things tea, and many of my veritable collections relate to tea. So my next magpie moment post is about the ever-expanding collection of tea cosies. With vintage revival in full swing, these linen embroidered types are re-emerging all over the place.

The one on the right was the inspiration that begun the collection, a tea cosy belonging to the original salvager, our lovely mama. These ones are actually a bit too small to be of any actual use…Moving on to some more modern examples, the pink was a recent christmas present, and i made the coffee cosy for my husband last year (now obsolete as he has now transitioned to a Nespresso man from a cafetiere kinda guy).

The floral & tweed one was a gift from a fellow sewing guru. I loved the embroidery scene on the other one – the most recent addition to the collection via the usual route (charity shop).
Some other embroidered examples from the large cosy end of the spectrum.

This little beauty came from an antique shop in New Zealand; we were in need of some warmer conditions for out little teapot in the camper van (not to mention our little selves but that’s another matter). I was delighted to come back and find that it fitted snugly onto my favourite but completely impractical enamel tea pot (3rd degree finger burns after each contact).

And here they all are, nice and cosy together and basking in display glory…

Magpie Moments 1: Brooke Bond Teacards

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It has been noted by many that i am an avid collector of an assortment of things. This is the first in a little series celebrating what i am now calling my ‘magpie moments’.

I picked up a bundle of these little cards a few years ago at a car boot sale, intrigued by the eclectic range of delicately painted animals. I’m not sure if i could call myself a collector, but i have since gathered up a few other ranges, my favourite being ‘Wild Birds in Britain’, printed in 1965 as part of a 50-card set. The british wildlife painter Charles Tunnicliffe did most of the bird sets. I’m currently on the hunt for some of the very pretty Wildflower sets.

Although i didn’t realise it at the time, the cards were distributed in Brooke Bond tea packs, later known as the familiar PG Tips. Similar to cigarette cards, although with a much shorter history, they became very collectable particularly in the 50’s and 60’s, with the last cards being issued as late as 1999.

1. Robin 2. Nuthatch 3. Redshank

I recently decided they were too good to hide away in a box, and thus started my latest greeting card range, the most labour-free design i have come up with yet. Apply a few sticky foam pads to the beautiful birdies, mount with some dark background card and hey presto! Here are a few of my ornithologic highlights…

Catherineholm

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I happened upon this beautiful coffee pot last year in a charity shop in the Borders, at the handsome sum of £1. Obviously it has mid-century written all over it. I recently discovered it is actually part of the highly collectable Catherineholm range of enamelware, produced in Norway mainly in the 50’s and 60’s. I love the chance occurrence of buying something special second-hand, which doesn’t happen very often these days with charity shops getting canny about their vintage goods. It looks like i’ll be a while building up any kind of collection as there isn’t much of it in the UK.

So that got me to thinking about the need to be well informed beforehand so that the thrill of stumbling across a collectors item in a charity shop becomes more likely. I then saw this book in Oxfam and quickly swiped it up and have been studying it ever since. Its a highly selected and detailed group of 20th century objets d’art, with some notable omissions (Cornish Blue being close to my heart), but it gives an overview and approximate price for each item, within a broad rane of categories. High end bargain hunting here i come!!

Jamie’s Italy

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This has very little to do with salvaging but i just wanted to rave a little about my saturday lunch experience at Jamie’s new restaurant in Glasgow, a coalescing of my two loves – interiors and food. Albeit with a fairly corporate edge to the whole operation, i still would struggle to think of anywhere with a better combination of menu choice and careful style. Often i find you get one or the other when dining out. Firstly, the place is huge, meaning more room to display the vast collection of Le Marais and Bentwood bistro chairs. The antique pine shelves and sideboards are positively heaving with italian delicacies and voluptuous vegetables, whilst cured meats dangle invitingly from the ceiling. Napkins are (faux) vintage personalised linen. Food is served in a wide array of receptacles, from little cardboard boxes stuffed with fresh bread, copper bowls delicately lined with illustrated paper, beautiful rustic pottery pasta dishes, mini-wooden platters, cast iron teapots….

We struggled to choose from the well-composed menu, featuring many of Jamie’s signature ingredients (lemon, mint, chilli, cinnamon, anchovies). Ingredients are sourced both locally and from Italy – smoked mozzarella, tuscan fennel salami, sicilian cracked wheat, burrata…..not your average supermarket fare. Pasta is made fresh every day, and you can really tell. We went for the rice balls stuffed with mozarella and porcini, polenta chips and stuffed courgette flowers to start, followed by prawn linguine and the most intensely lemony ravioli…oooh it was good!

Now all i need is a valid excuse to go back very soon.