DIY: Ombre Button Phone Case

Recently, I was asked if I would like to become a member of Fantastic Ribbons' review panal. This was an offer I couldn't refuse as I love trying out new products and making things.  This means I will be providing you with regular reviews on their wonderful products and also showing you easy tutorials on how you can get your craft on!

For my first review I was sent a mixed bag of buttons in different shades of pink. I've always had a fascination and love for these small fasteners since my childhood. This all stemmed from a large jar of buttons my mum used to keep on the mantelpiece. I would spend hours sorting, examining, counting and playing with them and that fascination has continued into my adulthood.

I've been wanting to decorate a phone case for sometime and been loving the decoden craze that has hit the craft world. Inspired by decoden and the different shades of buttons, I decided to make an ombre button phone case. Here's how I made it....

YOU WILL NEED

Phone case (must be hard plastic case)

E6000 glue

Mod Podge or sealer

Buttons from Fantastic Ribbons

Paint brush

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1.   I wanted my phone case to have an ombre effect, so first of all you will need to seperate your buttons into colours. 

2.   Test out the layout of your buttons on the case and then take a photo for your own reference. 

3 - 5.   Using the E6000 glue, start sticking your buttons down on to the case. The E6000 glue is very strong and the one I bought came with a very handy nozzle. I started where the camera hole is (that area is a bit tricky and wanted to make sure it was perfect) and worked my way down.

6.  Once I had stuck all my buttons down, I noticed there were some gaps so I decided to add a couple of extra buttons to cover them up. This gave a textured effect, which I love! I also added some pearl beads around the camera hole as I didn't have any buttons small enough to fit round that area. Once your happy with your design, leave the case to dry for a  couple of hours.

7.   Once dry apply a layer of Mod Podge. The Mod Podge will act as a sealer and make sure all the buttons are secure. I used the 'hard coat' version as it dries quite hard and I thought it would help my case to endure every-day use for longer.  

8.   When applying the Mod Podge, make sure you cover any gaps.  Once coated, leave to dry for 2 hours

9.   Once your first layer is dry, apply a second layer. Allow this layer to dry for as long as possible. I left mine to harden overnight. Once dry, you will have a cool ombre phone case that no one else will have! 

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The bag of buttons from Fantastic Ribbons were such good value and were enough to make at least 3 button phone cases. They have different packs available and if you can't decide what colour you want you can take them up on their special offer of buying 4 packs for the price of 2... BARGAINO! 

If you were given a bag of buttons, what would you make? 

Be inspired and get crafty!

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DIY: Summer to-do list on lolly sticks

Do you have children on their Summer holidays at the moment?  Molly has been on hers for a couple of weeks now and I was SO worried about keeping her entertained for such a long period of time. Then, whilst browsing the web, I came across this fabulous tutorial from Good + Happy Day on how to make a Summer to-do list using lolly sticks and it's been working like a charm so far, especially at times where we've been too busy to plan anything during the week.

So. Want to make a to-do list too? This is how you do it...

First of all sit down with everyone from your family and write a list of things that you all would like to do. Add some new things amongst some old favorites. It is a great way to learn and try new things and also see new places. Need some ideas? This is what we included in our list;

• Go rock pooling
• Go to the beach
• Learn to ride a bike
• Go berry picking
• Bake a cake
• Have a picnic in the garden
• Swim in the sea
• Play with the penny arcades on the pier
• Go on the trampolines
• Fly a kite
• Make sun prints
• Stargaze
• Write a song as a family
• Collect and press pretty flowers
• Have a BBQ
• Make fruit popsicles
• Have a camera day
• Visit a farm
• Go to Lewes and have cream teas
• Visit a flea market or car-boot sale
• Go on a bug hunt
• Go camping
• Read a chapter from a book as a family
• Cycle along under cliff path and have a picnic
• Go to the Zoo
• Family game night
• Family movie night
• Mail a letter
• Have a sleepover
• Treasure hunt
• Make brownies
• Paint and decorate rocks found on the beach
• Make homemade lemonade
• Work on Molly's scrapbook
• Make masks
• Make giant soap bubbles
• Go for a walk over The Downs
• Go to Ashdown forest
• Go on a boat ride 

Next it's time to decorate! Molly and I had lots and lots of fun doing this bit. We used watercolours and painted simple shapes and patterns. You will most likely have to leave your sticks to dry over night. Once dry you can start writing your to-do's. I just used a black Sharpie pen to do this.

Then, on days when there is nothing to do, pick a stick! Yesterday we picked out, "Play with the penny arcades on the pier" and we had an excellent day. We raided our big jar of coppers and headed down to the pier to see what we could find.  Molly had great fun and was ecstatic when she and Mr D won a cuddly toy on the Dolphin Derby!

This is something we will definitely repeat every year. I'm looking forward to adding new things to our list as Molly gets older. Do you write a Summer to-do list? And what fun things do you include?

Happy summer holidays!

AKA Hooting Miss Owl

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Have you vined yet?

Vine is a new app from the makers of Twitter. It's a mobile service that allows you to capture and share looped videos. It's free to use and so simple! A really fun way of being creative. Currently, it is only available for iPhone (iOS 5.0 or above) but I'm sure an android version will be made available soon. 

WARNING!! You will get hooked! Not only does making the 6 second videos quickly become addictive but watching what other people create is just as engrossing. It's very inspiring and awesome what folks can come up with.

        The app is very easy to use. When it first came out it crashed quite a lot but this seems to be all sorted now. To make a video is very easy. You simply point your camera at what you want to film and touch the screen. Because Vine only records when you are holding your finger down, capturing stop motion videos becomes effortless.
         Only having 6 seconds of recording time forces you to be more creative with your filming and it's amazing what you can achieve. It certainly can make it more of a challenge. Vine does also record sound (there is no way of switching it off) so if you have music playing in the background and you are doing stop motion you get a jagged sound effect of what ever is playing. Again, if your clever about it, you can use this to your advantage.

So, how can you use Vine to promote your business/blog?

There are a number of ways you can use vine. So far, I've used it to. . .

• Show new collections from designers (this is the new S/S 13 collection from designosaurYEAH. This app is perfect for recording catwalk shows) . . . 

• Show off new purchases/stock (I bought these rings recently in a jewellery haul at New Look) . . .

• Be silly and creative! It is amazing what you can make in 6 seconds (this is a fun montage of my little girl, Molly. She loves dressing up!) . . .

• Show off new creations. I made this Valentines heart for a recent DIY post. I thought it would be fun to show it off with a little stop motion.

How to embed your vine videos into a blog post?

It is fairly easy to embed your videos into a post. There are two ways of doing it. You can either download VineGifR. This is only available for Mac and unfortunately I was unable to use this as my operating system is too old. 

If you are having the same problem, the other way to embed your videos is to use Vineit.co . The first thing you need to do is always make sure you share your videos to twitter.

1. Go to Vineit.co
2. Drag the blue 'Vineit' button to your bookmark bar.
3. When you come across a vine video on twitter, click on the 'Vineit' button and hover over the video. An embed code will appear.
4. Copy and paste embed code into your blog post. 
5. Adjust the sizes to 480px. I find this size fits perfectly on my screen (you don't have to do this though).

Et Voila! You have your vine videos in your blog. They should look how mine are currently posted.

Vine videos I love from other vine members

Drawing a rubber egg by Pinot

There's a message in my alphabet soup by Khoa

Honey, we really should consider moving to a safer neighborhood... by Kiel James Patrick

If you would like to follow me, you can find me under  Hooting Miss Owl.  I would love to hear what you think of this wonderful new app, and if you're already Vine-ing, any other tips you may have to use it to it's full potential would be mahoosively appreciated! Message me your Vine name and I'll follow you back! I can't wait to see what you come up with :)

Big love!

AKA Hooting Miss Owl

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