Floral pinboard

This is the latest addition to my living room, post the freshen up with paint. I had an idea that I wanted to create a board using just the actual wall, simply attaching lots of ribbons crossing over one another, that I could slot stuff between. In the end though it seemed a bit impractical and if I made another pinboard it could be both pretty, in fitting with the room, and reusable. I am not sure if I have ever blogged about making a fabric pinboard before, I know I have meant to for a long time. I shall have a look back and, if not, do a post on how to make one yourself for those who don't know.

For this one I chose a pretty floral fabric that had green in it, like our sofas (inherited with the house unfortunately and not my first choice of colour- I am starting to warm to green lately though, when it used to be one of my least favourites of all time), red, like the nets at our windows and Avengers posters as in the previous post, and a variety of other colours. I chose purple ribbon to match the new walls and green, again to match the sofas. I went to find the biggest board I could and actually found this half price in Ryman's, which was a great buy. I then bought the amount of fabric needed and 5m of each ribbon. The trickiest part was actually attaching the hooks on top- my dad had to help me with a bradle in the end. To attach it to the wall I just plaited some of each ribbon and a little black ribbon I had from another project. I then sewed a little sunflower over each of the hooks, covering them up and tying in with the floral theme a little more. Mainly though, I think I just really wanted to use some of the sunflowers I have had sitting in my sewing box for nearly a year! I also had a little leftover fabric so sewed a giant bow for extra prettiness and just safety pinned it on. Voila, a pinboard with those extra little cute touches which make it a tad more unique.

It has turned out a great addition to the room, adding a splash more colour on one of the cream walls and meaning I can showcase some of the things I like, little drawings, cards I have collected, theatre tickets and so on. It is also great for sticking post in so you know where it is (always wise when you have cats that like to bat stuff around!). I have some nice ladybird drawing pins from Paperchase to help secure stuff on, as well as using colourful striped paperclips.

I really like it and love the extra girly touch to the house :)

Avengers- assemble!

I painted our living room this week, (big eek, didn't realise how much it needed a freshen up until I started!) and we decided that we would spend a little money on nice stuff for it as well to celebrate. We knew we wanted some better storage, so decided on a TV cabinet that would store some of our DVDs/ books etc as well as hold the TV in a much better style than the old silver plastic stand it used to be on. A great investment for when we can afford our own place and a great deal of fun to assemble. It is only a fairly cheap, £50, Ikea number (MAVAS Entertainment Unit), but adds a whole lot to the room. It turned out to be one of those things that is almost more trouble than it is worth to actually get hold of. We saw it but it was too big for our car, so came back in a different one the next day to buy it, only to find it was out of stock even thought there were at least 6 in the day before. After 2 weeks of waiting for it to be restocked we gave up, as wanted the living room finished asap, and found Birmingham had some in, so bribed my dad, with a promise of Ikea ice cream, to take me to get it.

The main thing we wanted though was something for the walls. We had some pictures up before, but mainly canvases that came with the house, so wanted something our own. Then we stumbled upon posterexplosion on Etsy. We are both quite geeky and love the Avengers movies, so when we found these great sepia, black and red themed prints (our favourite colours), we had to get them. £30 for 6 wasn't bad value at all we thought, as they were so us, and so we sat excitedly waiting for them to arrive, which happened in very good time- I can definitely recommend them and their service. Picking up some cheap Ikea frames (at least our first trip wasn't a complete waste!) we put the completely black and sepia ones in red frames, and the black, red and sepia ones in black frames and hung them in two sets of three.

Iron Man is above the TV, as he is my OH's favourite so he gets to see it a lot, flanked by Black Widow and Hawkeye. Then above the sofa and arm chair, slightly wider spaced and central across the wall, are Captain America, Hulk and Thor. Thor, being my favourite, is above my chair :) I think they look great and are definitely very 'us', so great for our house. The red even looks ok against the purple paint, which I was dubious about at first. Framed poster prints are something I definitely recommend as they are fun but quite stylish as well, depending what you get, so could fit into many different types of house and decor. I desperately want the Monsters Inc film poster the seller does as well now, the blue colour of it would fit perfectly in the spare room as well... something for the Christmas list I think.