How to Re-Vamp Sun Faded Wicker Storage Baskets

I've had a couple of these wicker storage baskets on the windowsill in my bathroom for a couple of years now and the sun had really faded the red colour, so I decided to spruce them up a bit!

As you can see, the sun had really bleached out the colour! All you need is some acyrlic paint and a small paint brush. My Husband and I are huge Tim Burton fans, so I decided to go for a black and white stripe. Also, by using acrylic paint, it gives the wicker more of a waterproof barrier =)

Cleaning Mold Off Of Tile Grout - Tips Tuesday

Hi everyone, I sure have missed blogging on here, so I have decided to start adding weekly, home related blog posts.

I'm going to start with a weekly 'Tips Tuesday' or 'Tutorial Tuesday', beginning this week with 'cleaning the mold off of tile grout'.

We have a big mold problem in our bathroom! It's horrid! We don't have an extractor fan in there (this is something we will add when we replace our bathroom), so we have to have the window open constantly. Now that the weather is turning cold again, this is causing a problem and bringing the mold back with a vengence!

We had purchased a really expensive mold spray from B&Q which stank of bleach, so I thought, why not just try bleach? So I bought a 2ltr thin bleach from Sainsburys (which was about 40p) and a pack of cheap toothbrushes from Poundland:

I then went to work...

Before:

After:

So, as you can see, it worked really well. If you're going to try this, make sure you have all the windows open =)

Re-Launch Day!

Hi everyone, I hope you like the new look blog/website! I've spent most of the day doing it and as it's just gone 10pm here, I think I'm going to call it a night.

I'll be uploading some items to our Etsy shop tomorrow.

I hope you're all enjoying your weekends,
Lots of love,
Kate x

Where have I been?

Hi guys, please let me apologise for my lack of blog posts this month. I started a new module on my BA Honours in Business Studies in February and it has completely taken over my life.

I have a lot to update on here and items to add to my Etsy shop, which I am hoping to start getting up together in the next couple of weeks.

I've started scheduling coursework and my blogging (for here and my other blogs) on a weekly basis, so once my time is organised better, I will be updating Emily Joan on a frequent, if not daily basis (whether that is a blog post or social media).

I am also going to be doing a weekly post, like I had been doing with the Pinterest Wednesday posts. but I will insted be doing tutorials, recipes, as well as the odd Pinterest post.

I also want to revamp the blog a bit, so it's all coming soon, so you will hear from me shortly =)

I hope everyone is doing really well xxx

Wire Shapes - Pinterest Wednesday

Hello hello beautiful people =) It's that time of the week again for Pinterest Wednesday.

This week I had been thinking about having a play about with wire. It has been a while since I have done any jewellery making as I have been concentrating on coursework for a while, so it was great to get my tools out and have a play about with some wire.

I got the inspiration after seeing this pin:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213105694/

I had a little play about this afternoon and made an 'E' and a 'Z':

Re-growing fruit and vegetables - Pinterest Wednesday

Hi guys, I hope you're all doing well =)

For this weeks Pinterest Wednesday post, I decided to try out something I have been thinking about for a while after seeing pins like these:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213403010/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213403005/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213403001/

After I'd eaten all the leaves from my swiss chard, I decided to give it a go! I placed the base in a bowl of water and put it on the windowsill in my kitchen.

I left it alone, other than changing the water on Saturday, and here is a photo I took of it today:

Valentine's Day Card - Pinterest Wednesday

Hey guys, I hope you're having a fantastic week. The weather here is awful at the moment, high winds and lots of rain. Still, it's nice to have some snuggle time at home in the cold winter evenings with your loved ones, and with loved ones in mind, this weeks Pinterest Wednesday post is for Valentines Day.

I know some people don't really do Valentine's Day. We don't really. We (as I'm sure most people) think that you don't need to be told by the shops that it's time to show your other half that you care, for that one day... Saying that though, it is nice to take the day/evening out to specifically spend time with your other half.

We don't tend to spend any money around Valentine's Day. We might have a nice meal or take away at home with a homemade card and present.

It's with this in mind that I decided to make this card, after seeing this pin:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213299522/

I really liked the fact that you could come up with things specific for your partner =)

Here is the one I've made for my gorgeous Husband:

 

Are you making anything homemade for Valentine's Day? We'd love to see it if you have! Let us know on our Facebook page or please comment with any blog links below =) xxx

Nail polish & wire - Pinterest Wednesday

I saw this pin a while back and thought it was a fantastic idea!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213127823/

I don't think I'd have the patience to create something as beautiful as that, but I quite like what I came up with.

I started off trying a bow:

I had problems with the bow as the circle was too large and I couldn't add enough nail polish to make it stick, so I made a thinner one to practice on:

And finally got it! 

So I created a collection of a few together:

And then painted them with the nail varnish. I'd advise that you first paint around the edges on the inside and let dry to a tacky consistancy, then swirl a full brush around the inside and it should take:

All dry the next morning:

I only had the black nail varnish to hand, but I bet it would look great with pastel colour nail polishes, like the ones from the original pin.

Clementine Chicken - Pinterest Wednesday

It's another food Pinterest post this week, and another bit of a cheaty one as I only got the idea from Pinterest, rather than follow the recipe.

Here is the pin that gave me the idea:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213131305/

I had some clementines to use up and thought this looked great, so decided to give it a go with a twist. I had some onions and rosemary in the fridge so decided to use them too

Please excuse the photo being on it's side, Blogger flipped it for some reason

My recipe is as follows:
3 x clementines
1 x pack of organic chicken pieces (2 thighs and 2 drumsticks)
2 x small onions
2 x sprigs of rosemary
some new potatoes (how ever many you want for 2 people)
a little olive oil
some mustard

I put the chicken in the roasting dish, peeled and then chopped the onions in half, squeezed one clementine over the chicken and sliced up the other 2. Scrubbed the potatoes and sliced into small pieces, added them all to the roasting dish and then striped the rosemary leaves from the stalks and scattered them over everything. Before putting in the oven I brushed the chicken with a little mustard and added a small slosh of olive oil. I then put them in the oven at 180 for about an hour and a half.

I served them on a bed of stir fried kale and courgette:

Etched Wooden Spoons - Pinterest Wednesday

Hi Guys, I came across this pin for etched wooden spoons:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212848984/

I've had a wood burning tool for a while that I saw in Lidl very cheaply a while back and had been looking for an excuse to use it.

My Niece and I gave this a go last weekend, and I think they turned out great!

 
We will be listing some for sale in our Etsy shop over the next week or so (I will add the link when it's up and running).

I hope you're all enjoying 2014 so far xx

Pretzels - Pinterest Wednesday

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hope you're all enjoying 2014 so far! Getting back into exercise after having a break for Christmas has been blooming hard work today, but so worth it. I've definately put on a few pounds over Christmas!

This year, we have a new addition to Emily Joan! My Neice Emily. She will be helping me with Pinterest posts, tutorials, packaging items and helping me out at shows. She may also start selling her own items too =)

So anyway, back to the Pinterest post haha!

I have been wanting to do a food post for a while now and after seeing the large pretzels for sale in Tesco, I decided I wanted to try to make my own.

I came across this pin:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213025418/

Which is for a video by The Vegan Zombie

Here is the video: 

These were SO good! I definately recommend them! I used butter instead of vegan butter, but you could use vitalite or oil for the vegan version.

Here is my attempt:

I did half with sea salt and the other half with cinnamon sugar. They were absolutely delicious!

Game of Thrones Snowflakes - Pinterest Wednesday

Yeah I know, it's another snowflakes post haha I just really love these, and I'm cheating too as I didn't see these on Pinterest (although mine will be on there in a second). It's Christmas though, so I'm bending the rules ;-p

I had planned on doing a Pinterest food post this week, but it's been SO hectic getting everything ready for Christmas and for college this weekend, so I thought I would share these instead =)

These Game of Thrones templates are by Krystal Higgins and can be downloaded from her website here:

http://www.kryshiggins.com/free-game-of-thrones-inspired-snowflake-patterns/

So here they are, I decided on Targaryen, Stark, Baratheon and Lannister :

I LOVE how they've turned out! I'm putting them up with my star wars ones from my previous blog post

As it is Christmas Day in a weeks time, there will be no Pinterest Wednesday as I will be stuffing my face with my beautiful Husband and seeing family and friends.

I hope you all have an absolutely magical Christmas and I'll see you in 2014 ♥

I'll leave you with a little bit of Michael Buble =)

xxxxxxxxxxx

Print your own wrapping paper - Pinterest Wednesday

I got the idea to print my own wrapping paper after seeing this potato print pin:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212756111/

I decided to give the potato print a try, and am really happy with the results, but I found the cutting of the potato quite fiddly, and the tree part and base ended up in 2 parts. This actually ended up working better though as I was able to print the tree and base without bleeding the paint together:

I then decided to try using a stencil, and decided to try using the star wars snowflakes I did a couple of weeks back (previous post here: http://www.emilyjoan.co.uk/2013/11/star-wars-snowflake-christmas.html )

and here are the results:

I love the storm trooper one! That has already been earmarked for one of my Father in laws presents and the Darth Vader one is pretty cool too, but looks better in the flesh.

I'm going to continue to try out more and more of these and will post the results in my 'homemade Christmas' post in the new year.

Is anyone else making anything as gifts, cards or wrapping? If so, I'd love to see it! Please feel free to message me a link on Twitter or Facebook, or leave a comment below =)

Here is a fantastic Christmas lights show to the sounds of the metal band, Machine Head =)

Make your own Christmas cards - Pinterest Wednesday

I try to make my own Christmas cards each year, if I don't have the time then I buy some charity ones. This weeks pinterest post is more inspired by pinterest, rather than me copying a post.

Here are some fantastic ideas for making your own Christmas cards, starting with the one that inspired me to make the ones I have:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212756152/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212849004/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212829408/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212756084/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212645061/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212247264/

So to make mine, I used some A4 white card (folded in 2 to make A5), a glue stick, scissors, a compass and pencil, some different colour sharpies, some 'Merry Christmas' hearts that I had typed on my typewriter, some gorgeous tear out patterned paper from Craftseller magazine and a couple of pieces of awesome wrapping paper from gifts I've received that I thought was too beautiful to throw away.

Here are 4 cards that I have made already. I think they're awesome, so I hope the people receiving them think so too. I love the fox, owl and mushroom ones particularly. I just cut out the headshapes from the wrapping paper and glued them to the card. For the other baubles, I used the compass and pencil to draw the circles, cut them out and then stuck them to the card. I decided to do 4 per card as I didn't want to over clutter the cards. I then used a ruler to draw the lines with the sharpies and drew a little bow on the top of each bauble =)

I have left the inside of the cards blank to write a personal message.

I hope you like them and that this has given you some ideas to make your Christmas a little more 'homemade'. 

It's only 3 WEEKS TO GO!!!! I cannot wait!!! =D

Here's a little Shakin' Stevens to make you feel all Christmassy:

Star Wars Snowflake Christmas decorations - Pinterest Wednesday

I'm sat here listening to Christmas songs and Christmas has taken over all the shops, there is no avoiding it, 4 weeks today will be Christmas Day! =D

For me, that means I need to start planning, in fact I feel a little behind already! I have bought a few pressies so far, but am no where near finished. I'm also starting to think about the food, etc. I'm making alot of Christmas presents this year. I won't be able to post them all as I know a few friends and family read this blog, so it'll spoil the surprise, but I will do a 'home-made Christmas' blog post after the festivities.

My first Christmas Pinterest post is Star Wars Snowflakes after seeing this pin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212810368/

The guy that designed them is called Anthony Herrera and he is kind enough to allow us to download them for personal use for free. Check out all his designs here: http://www.anthonyherreradesigns.com/index.php/8-ahd-blog/8-star-wars-snowflakes-2013

I love the way they've turned out, although mine are far from perfect, they were great fun to make =)

and here is a little Run DMC to get you in the festive mood:

Batteries - Pinterest Wednesday

I saw this pin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212677393/ The one where you cut open an Energizer battery and find it is made up of watch batteries.

I've been meaning to see if this works for a while, but didn't have any Energizer batteries, so I tried it with a Duracell and a Sony battery.

The first one is the Sony and the second one was the Duracell (which was a bit leaky :-/). As you can see, neither of those brands are made up of the smaller batteries. They had both run out, so I didn't waste a battery. If I happen to come across an Energiser battery that has run out, I will open it up to see, but it did say on the pin that you must use that brand and model and that they couldn't guarantee any other brand, but I wanted to have a look to see anyway =)

Make your own Sketch Books - Pinterest Wednesday

I saw this pin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212740978/ for designing the covers of your sketch books, but I thought I would take it one step further, using some of the skills I learnt on a recent course and thought I would do a blog post on making your own sketch books.

Depending on what type of paper you want to use (for this example, I used regular copy paper, but for a sketch book, I'd use good cartridge paper. Saying that though, it's your sketch book, so you could use it to collect pictures, magazine cut outs, etc. Anything at all really, even fabric)

What you'll need is some paper, linen thread (for this I used 15 inches, but it will depend on the thickness of your paper and how many sheets you're putting together), a tapemeasure, and a book binding needle.

To start with, fold the paper in half. Along the fold find the centre point and then measure 2 dots to either side at 3/4 of an inch interval:

Then, using your book binding needle, pierce a hole through each dot:

Thread the needle with your linen thread and start by going through the centre hole on the outside:

Then sew over to the next hole, bringing it through the other side:

 Then back up the next hole:

And so on:

 When you come back to the centre, you skip over it, and then go on to do the other side in the same way:

When you've sewn together the other side, you bring the thread up through the centre:

When you start to bring the thread up through the centre, bring it up on the other side of the thread, so that you can tie a knot around to secure the thread running through the middle:

Like so:

You can also bind many of these together to make a thicker, more secure book. This is the first one I made at college:

Then to decorate your sketch pad, draw a pattern that you like and decide which colours you'd like to use:

Voila!

In the New Year, I am planning to start doing some YouTube tutorial videos. I will do a video of this as I think it's a great little skill to have. I've found it really useful personally since I've started my Foundation Diploma in Art & Design as I can create sketchbooks with a theme.

I hope you find it useful. If you plan on making one also, please feel free to share a link to it, I'd love to see it =) x

Arty doodles - Pinterest Wednesday

Yes, on a Thursday again :-/ so sorry, I have been SO busy it's been ridiculous! I am going to try to be uber organised this week and make sure next weeks is written and ready on Wednesday!

While browsing through Pinterest this week, I came across this pin:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212714149/

I really like this as I love to doodle. I've also been experimenting with pattern alot at college, so this sprang out at me to give a go!

Here is my attempt that I put together whilst sat in front of the TV:

Hot dog mummies - Pinterest Wednesday

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought I would pick something Halloween themed to do this week. I also haven't done a food Pinterest post yet, so when I saw these I knew they'd be perfect to try out.

This is the pin that gave me the idea:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212613771/

The hotdogs I used were Frys vegan hotdogs which I took out of the freezer to defrost. Whilst waiting for them to defrost I made some pastry (half the fat to flour with a dash of water to bind). When defrosted, I cut the hotdogs as shown in the picture and wrapped pieces of pastry around them. I love how they turned out!

 Just before going in the oven

With his leg bitten off with ketchup! Yum yum yum

Decorated Door Knob - Pinterest Wednesday

I've been uber busy this week, so needed a quick Pinterest Wednesday post and decided on this: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212041203/

I'd seen the pin ages ago and had it saved, so I decided to draw it on today. I had wanted to copy it exactly, but the position of the screws in our door handle prevented me from doing so.

 

I could have done it neater haha, but I think it's quite cute =)