Personalise your Home with Handmade Treasures

Your home is a reflection of your unique personality, so what better way to decorate than to fill it with your one-of-a-kind, handmade treasures?! My husband and I bought a house around 18 months ago, which was in dire need of a complete overhaul! Every room needed ripped back to a shell and given some TLC, to fix some botched DIY jobs and remedy the dodgy décor. While we still have a lot to do, we have started to make it feel like ours by tackling one room at a time, and adding our personal touches.  

My daughter's bedroom is decorated with a woodland theme, filled with friendly foxes, owls and squirrels. I wanted to add features to the room which were unusual, different to the rest of the woodland nursery items anyone can buy. I made the bunting from wallpaper samples and string (this cost me nothing... a local store was giving away books of wallpaper samples for free, and advertised on Gumtree!) I made the little toadstool footstool you can see to the left of the picture from a plain white Ikea footstool, covered in red scrap fabric and white fabric spots! The white footstool cost around £4, and I had the fabric lying around already. 

I made this apple picture to hang in her room (beside the window, so you can't see it in the picture!) from an old, tatty, ripped copy of Little Women. It's beautiful, eye-catching and I know that nobody else has this piece! The old book cost 10p from a charity shop, and I paid 50p for the frame it's displayed in. I very rarely buy new photo frames any more, when so many are just waiting to be reclaimed second-hand! Sometimes, it's just a case of seeing past a picture or photograph you don't like, and re-using the frame for your own project. 

This rustic and pretty little twine heart hangs in our bedroom, on my wardrobe door. Twine hearts seem to be everywhere at the moment, but somehow I think they are really sweet. This one is special to me because I made it using garden wire and twine- and that feeling of satisfaction and attachment to a decoration in your house simply cannot be bought! I make these in all different sizes to give as gifts, or to hang from various handles and knobs in my house. Garden twine and wire are easily picked up in local supermarkets for about £1 each- and you get enough materials to make countless hearts! 


Continuing the heart theme in our bedroom, I wanted to include an unusual picture showing key places in our relationship. Each heart is made from a map- Paris (where we got engaged), Dumfries (where we got married) and Thailand (where we went on honeymoon). Again, I used a frame sourced from a charity shop (£2.50, and in great condition!) and map pages taken from the back of an old work diary. 

I really enjoy making things for our house, and as we work our way from room to room, I look forward to filling it with more meaningful, one-of-a-kind items, crafted with love!