Lariath- Live a Little.

My 5 month old hamster Tim has time out of his cage every night depending on my working hours. If I'm on earlies (6am starts) I struggle to get him out as he doesn't wake up till after 9:30pm and I'm normally asleep myself...  Anyway I get him out for at least an hour. 15minutes running around on me and the sofa, then into the playpen for food and water and then in the ball for 15minutes. He goes back in the play pen for a while if time allows. Here he is eating his veg in the DIY playpen: This playpen is really easy to make and pretty much free if you can get hold of cardboard boxes. I used boxes from post deliveries, recycling! The cardboard boxes have to be tall enough so that the hamster cannot climb out. To make this playpen I cut down the corner of the box: With the box was completely flat I cut the flaps off one edge of the box (I used these later):   I cut the other box exactly the same. I positioned the two boxes so that all the flaps wer...

I love the look of aged paper but who has time to wait for paper to start looking old? Here's how I made paper look old, in about an hour, using instant coffee. What I used Plain white paper Instant coffee A tray - must fit size of paper  A kettle or saucepan - to boil water Somewhere to dry the paper that wont stain Paper I used normal plain white printer paper for this, although more absorbent paper would work better, printer paper worked fine for what I need. I ripped my paper in half as this is the size that I wanted and the ripping added to the aged effect. Staining The tray I used was a tin food tray, recycling! I placed a piece of paper in the tray then sprinkled some coffee on top, I then placed the next piece of paper on top and sprinkled some coffee on that and continued this using 5 pieces of paper in total (and a few extra bits). The colour of the paper will darken the more coffee used. I boiled some water, waited for this to cool a little so no...

In the mood for making bracelets again, it's been a while. I wanted to make one that was like a heartbeat. This took me ages to make as the pattern is quite complicated compared to what I've done before. The pattern I used for this can be found  Here The buckle I used for this was simple. For the loop I twisted the threads together and tied a knot. The tails were just braided and then knotted.  Wrap Bracelet I wanted to have a go at a wrapped bracelet, I've never tried this before so thought I'd give it a try. It's exactly the same as hair wrapping, you know those coloured hair wraps that young girls get on holiday.... yeah that, I had a few.  Bracelet wraps are really easy and quite quick to make; a lot quicker than the friendship bracelets like the one above anyway. It is what it says on the tin, wrapping. I watched this Tutorial  to learn the basic wrap bracelet and this Tutorial  to make the crosses in the centre of the bracelet....