Upcycling requires quality ingredients: time, creativity and bits and bobs.
With a house move looming, messy making is off-limits — but that hasn’t stopped our festive creativity entirely. From simple paper chains and toilet roll reindeer to driftwood trees and branch-made reindeer, Christmas crafting with the kids has been all about small, meaningful projects. Working with wood remains my favourite, even when things have to stay minimal.
Merry Christmas — what have you made with your kids this year?
There’s something deeply satisfying about building something with your hands and then watching it spring to life through play. My four-year-old is deep in a “build it” phase. Dens, caravans, planes, boats, if you ask him if he wants to make something, the answer is always yes. Outdoors? Even better. His two-year-old sister is rightContinue reading “Building, Crafting, and Imagining: Summer Adventures with My Little Engineers”
Our dining room floor was truly a labour of love. It was a bit of an odd project. Technically part of the same space as the kitchen, yet completely different in character. The kitchen had a beautifully polished, hundred-year-old wooden floor, while the dining area featured raw, untreated, and stained boards that were loose andContinue reading “A Labour of Love: Our Dining Room Floor”
I love making things with old wood. I drilled a hole through so small twigs and branches found on beaches (driftwood) with my toddler and ran a wire coat-hanger down the centre. With some even smaller twigs and yarn I bound together in the shape of a star. Super simple.
Not all projects are exciting. Our utility room had a boiler and no cupboard. This really upset me. With some wood lying around, unused hinges and bought Louvre doors a made this cupboard to hide it. I still hate hinges, I can never get them to work first time…
When my first child was born I made some toys such as a sword and shield, scrabble letters and chair. However, a house move, new job and second child limited toy making. My son loves cars and the train set lacked a car bridge. This one was constructed with off cuts from a sliding bookContinue reading “Toy wooden train bridge”
The inner kid in me has always wanted to make a hidden bookcase door. We have this weird house set up with a utility room off a small sitting room and no door. This is an extension and they left a lovely brick wall as a feature. But it never felt like a nice sittingContinue reading “Bookcase hidden door”
When we bought this house it had some of the most ugly coat racks on the backs of doors. Gradually as we’ve decorated they’ve been removed. For our bedroom door I’ve chosen to use some left over oak rods and a hardwood slat from a wood reclamation yard to make a tree shaped coat rail.Continue reading “Tree coat rack”
Our box room is a small bedroom, office and storage. At 4m2 space is at a premium! We’ve lots of books and when we moved in there were some random floorboards in the room. The floorboards were cut to fit the corner and down gold brackets sourced. The shelves made a nice looking and practicalContinue reading “Reclaimed floor board shelves”
We have a small single bedroom that doubles as an office. Space is at a premium so trying to get as many creative shelves up as possible makes sense. I had some offcuts from my herringbone parquet dresser and decided to make them into corner shelves. Learning from the dresser, and still not willing toContinue reading “Reclaimed parquet oak wood corner shelves”
Cool Upcycled