How to DIY Age Wood

Finished 6 wine box display

I have read lots about this on tutorials and it seemed like quite a bit of work but thought I would give it a go.

First you need some wood to age. 

I chose wine boxes because they fitted in with the size of my Creative Upcycling craft fair display table & I needed something that could withstand the rigors of being flung in and out of my car and dropped on the floor regularly when I manage to overturn my trolley!

You will also need:

Black Tea (I also needed some to drink as I did the job)

Distilled vinegar (the clear stuff)

Fine wire wool (Not a soap filled pad!)

A two inch paint brush

A surface to work on (REMEMBER THIS IS MESSY AND THE VINEGAR WILL MAKE A MESS OF YOUR EXPENSIVE DINNER TABLE)

Wire Wool to Oxidise

Firstly put the wirewool in a jamjar with the vinegar and walk away for a couple of days.

Distilled Vinegar

I got really impatient at this point so decided to experiment with just using white vinegar without having to wait for the wire wool to oxidise in the jam jar. 

Once you are ready with black tea in a jam jar and the vinegar in another jam jar you are ready to go.  Using the brush paint the wood of the box with tea.  You do this because the brown stuff in tea is tannin and when the chemicals in the tannin react with the vinegar it turns the surface a lovely grey colour.  You could experiment with not painting with tea as often untreated boxes have plenty of tannin naturally present in the wood.

Be careful as the tea mixture is very drippy and you want the box to be coated evenly with tea.  Leave this to dry.

Next having washed the tea brush and dried on a paper towel use the vinegar mixture by brushing onto the box.  Again be careful as its drippy.  By the magic of chemical reactions, the box will start to ‘silver grey’ as it dries.  I found that by painting over again with vinegar the box colour darkened.

Left Side after Vinegar Right Side before Vinegar

I also found no difference using the vinegar straight away without the wire wool oxidation, my top tip is to trial what you do on a piece of wood (in an unobtrusive place) until you get the finish you like.

To protect the silvered surface you can use clear wax and a little elbow grease or you can spray with a matt acrylic finish or a high gloss finish.  Its all down to personal taste.

I painted the inside of my boxes with a white matt emulsion paint watered down to 2:1 but again you could do a different type of finish inside or do the same as the outside.  The only limits are your imagination. Beware watered down emulsion is also drippy and will make a mess (see my photo showing mess!)

Good luck and if you have any other tips please share them as I love to hear from you.

Valentines Day - Romantic but Frugal

As a teenager, Valentines Day was … well… awkward!  The peer pressure was intense.  Did you get a Valentine card?  How many?  Who From?  If you got one and you didn’t know who it was from there was a strange feeling of who is that stalking me!!  No wonder it felt awkward.

Looking into the history of Valentines Day the festival of Lupercalia was celebrated by the Romans on February 15^th and was all about fertility it was decided in 496 by the Pope that February 14 would be the feast day for St Valentine (presumably because the old Roman festival was still being celebrated).

Beeswax Tea Lights
Creative & Upcycling

Today, as with many occasions, Valentines day has become another day of the year when we are encouraged to spend money on our beloved.  This year I am trying to stay frugal.  For me nothing says romantic like candlelight and moonlight!  As it may be a little chilly outside to stare at the moon with my beloved I will be enjoying candlelight in the form of little heart shape tealights filled with natural beeswax.

The beeswax is from local hives and is filtered by use of a solar filter.  The warmth from the sun melts the wax which is then filtered to remove any impurities.  Check this YouTube video which shows how it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQbcglp85f4 Anything that helps to promote bees is fine by me as they are vital for our UK food production.

I am also making a simple Valentines card by upcycling some of the many buttons I have in my button stash.  We all have buttons from old clothes this is the ideal way to use them up. You don’t have to go out and buy card in a bulk pack I managed to save some card that came with some clothing (A shirt was folded round, it ok, its white on one side and grey on the other but with the addition of an inside sheet of copy paper its fine).  The envelope is just some recycled wrapping paper.  Check out upcycling project ideas on YouTube and Pinterest for envelopes and cards.

Vintage China Birdfeeder
Creative & Upcycling

 For my beloved, I am looking at a gift for the garden.  Last year he did some landscaping in the garden so now we have quite a lot of empty space.  We decided that we are going to include more bird and insect friendly planting so my choice of gift is a bird feeder that can hang from the old apple tree  (I make these from vintage china so its rare that there are two the same!).

Roses growing in the garden

I am also getting a National Garden gift voucher so that some plants can be bought. I love the idea of making the Valentines present something that will with careful nurturing grow, it will be of benefit to other creatures and is something we can both enjoy.  It’s definitely in the spirit of that old Roman festival of Lupercalia, appeals to my creative and upcycling side and I know my beloved will like it!

If you have any frugal, creative or upcycling ideas for Valentines day let me know its good to hear from my readers.

Post Christmas Blues? - Not Me!

Family Christmas Present

Nostalgia it’s a funny feeling I get, I guess we all do.  It can be a piece of music, the perfume of the person next to you on the bus or train or for me today it was putting the Christmas decorations away.

Its 12^th night tonight in our family at least, we have always put the decorations away before the end of 12^th night.  (see there goes that tradition/nostalgia thing again!).  Various people have theories about the 12 days of Christmas and I find them hard to fathom so am sticking with what we always did!

Red White & Grey Christmas Decorations

This year for Christmas we had a red white and grey theme for the first time and I loved it!  For the last few years we have been safe with blues & greens in a peacock tail feather hue, but I decided after many forays into Pinterest; check my board called Christmas, on my interpretation of a Scandi theme.

I was pleased with the results I had bought some inexpensive decorations as well as some local hand crafted pieces in glass.  The strange feeling of nostalgia was triggered by all the vintage baubles that I had remembered having on the tree as a child.

I think we are lucky to have any vintage glass baubles to hang as over the years we have had many adventurous cats who have made it their Christmas mission to scale the dizzy heights of the tree with the inevitable crashing to the floor consequences!  I remembered Christmas morning finding a pillowcase full of fabulous stuff, usually books about ponies by the Pullen-Thompsons oh and those lovely selection boxes!  I have photos showing various family members posing next to the most clashing colour tree imaginable year upon year.

Only the hardy decorations have survived the decades and the cats and I enjoyed putting them on the tree again this year even the little red one that is scratched so it shows the silver bottom layer.  It brought on a huge feeling of nostalgia for times past and obviously, memories of family and friends no longer here. 

Some vintage and modern Christmas Decorations

I think far from making me sad it just made me smile about the past, would I ever dare to put a tree up in the house with so many colours on it today? (probably not) I also laugh about the pine needles being found months later (trees used to shed a lot and combined with the cats … well!)

The vintage baubles are wrapped up for next December and far from feeling depressed about January I have a warm fuzzy nostalgia fuelled glow to keep me going.  I have a feeling the Pinterest board will fill with more ideas during the coming year.

I hope you are able to pass on some Christmas traditions to the next generation and everyone feels the glow of nostalgia.  Oh and if you can work out why we take them down on the 5^th rather than the 6^th please can you let me know because I am, as ever confused.