If I only had a heart...

Valentines Day is just a round the corner Tiddlybobbers and it's a bit like marmite - people either love it or hate it! I, for one, love it! I think it's great to have a day to celebrate love and happiness but I do wish there was more of a focus on all kinds of love and not just the romantic kind. So, this year, try and tell your friends, family members and pets how much you love them too and let's celebrate love in all it's forms!! In fact I'm so excited I want to make everything heart shaped!! Below are a few ideas if you want to too!

How about letting nature know how much you love her by making these awesome heart-shaped bird feeders created by Alison at No Time For Flashcards? Birds will appreciate it and you'll get to wile away the Valentines day hours bird-watching - sounds like bliss!

But if looking at nature is not your thing, what about looking at some photographs? You could create a photo collage in a heart shape of all the people you love. I particularly love the overlapping design above from Hadley at Huffington Post as part of another inspirational list blog. 

Or why not invite all those people you love over for some cake and surprise them with a secret hidden heart! A brilliant creative bake recipe from I am Baker and one that definitely must be tried out!

And what is cake without a cup of tea? Try making these genius heart-shaped teabags courtesy of Her Imajination. It's a great tutorial - very easy to follow and beautiful pictures. 

And if there's something I love more than tea then it's books! This heart shaped bookmark is perfect  for those gorgeous times when you get to curl up with a great book and travel to your favourite far off world. This video tutorial below is from Lindsay at Craft Foxes and shows you how to make them. 

I hope you have a wonderful Valentines Day celebrating love in all it's forms even your love of crafting! 

Finding Method in the Madness

It has been a few days of serious organisation in my house and I definitely think it's on most of our minds at the start of any new year so this weeks Tiddlybits is all about offering you some crafty inspiration for organising all your bits and bobs. 

The christmas cakes and biscuits have all been gorged on over the last few weeks but what to do with the tins? Why not paint them and use them as storage boxes for all your favourite things? This tutorial from Home DIT shows you how to create a cute tea caddy as inspiration to get you started. 

Spring is just around the corner so before the flowers start to bloom pick up the last of the winter twigs and use them as a jewellery stand. You can even pop them in glass bottles left over from the Christmas drinks - two birds with one stone and all that! Thanks to Tina on SF Gate for the idea.

As I'm getting older I am discovering two things: 

1. Adhesive hooks are probably the most genius invention of all time

2. There is nothing more frustrating and annoying than the pots and pan press (a.k.a the pots and pans cupboard for you non-Irish folk!)

This great idea from the genius people at Instructables may just have proven number 1 and deleted number 2 making me a very happy lady and hopefully doing the same for you! 

I love this idea from Sewing Barefoot as a way to hide cables, wireless routers or other tidbits on your shelves but I would use old cereal boxes and make up mock book covers instead. This is only because destroying books makes me cry inside but if this doesn't bother you then destroy away!

How many lost keys do you come across organising your drawers? Why not use nail varnish to colour code your keys and never be confused again! Great idea from A Bubbly Life!

And finally possibly the most awesome idea of all time comes from the genius of Buzzfeed. Use lego people to organise your cables. I don't care if you don't own any (like that's even possible), you go and buy some. This is brilliant. So brilliant. 

I hope this has given you some cool ideas and best of luck with your organising!

Remove the rings not the Caffeine!

One of the best things about working from home is that I can have a proper cup of tea whenever I want. Unfortunately hot drinks do leave rings and by the end of the day I can be left with an overwhelming sense of shame as I count how many rings I've drank that day! So instead of giving up drinking so much tea (which is madness!) I have decided to make myself some coasters.

I came across these gorgeous coasters on Pinterest and fell in love. They're very easy to make and you don't need many materials which is great for a girl with, currently, a very rudimentary craft box. 

You can find the full tutorial including a free PDF of the pattern on the  How About Orange blog which is currently resigned. Sad face. But all of Jessica's tutorials and downloads are still there for you to use. Happy face. 

The only change I made to the steps Jessica provided was that I stuck the pattern piece to a cereal box just because it made it easier to cut around as felt seems to stretch and move as you cut around a paper template even if you've pinned it down.

Also, because I only had black felt which doesn't show the design as well as the blue felt used in the tutorial, I stuck my coaster to a small piece of leftover white felt which I think gave it a nice finish. 

I really enjoyed making it, even though it was a bit fiddly at times, and I will make more but probably in different colours next time.