It's TOMORROW!

Can't keep my excitement for the Vintage Markets tomorrow!

So the shameless advertising will soon be over, soon..

The markets will be running for the next fortnight. Dates are as follows:

• Thursday 17th October
• Friday 18th October
• Thursday 24th October
• Friday 25th October

Starts at 4:30PM but more info can be found on the Facebook event here.

SO come down and see all the things I've been making in person. There are quite a few things that I haven't posted up so come and say hi and see my stuff before the rest of the internet does!

Also just a reminder to like the facebook page, The Jolly Cottage.
And to follow on twitter @TheJollyCottage!

Yay! See you tomorrow!! :D

Julie & The Jolly Cottage.

DIY Must Try: Improv Polka Dot Wallpaper

Love polka dots?
Love wallpaper?
On a budget and/or not willing to commit to big renovation project?

Well here is the perfect DIY for you (and me)!

I present to you the easiest and cheapest faux wallpaper DIY ever!

and how good does it look?

This awesome project is from Finnish blog My Second hand Life on the Indie Days website. It is in Finnish but there is an English blurb at the bottom. There is no actual DIY instructions but I thought I would add some here. And I haven't done this project yet (hence the "DIY must try" but I am hoping to try it out ASAP, probably going to the shops to get my supplies tomorrow or by the end of the week)

Now for the how-to.

All you will need is:

• a wall
• a roll of little dot stickers in the colour/size of your choice otherwise known as circle label stickers.

So this is the kind of thing you are looking for. You can find a roll at your nearest Officeworks or other stationary store. Probably just in the stationery isle of your super market will do. One of these should cost you between $5-$10! Change the look of your walls for LESS than $10! How crazy is that?!

The instructions..

1. Select the wall you want to polka dot. It can be one wall in your room to use as a feature or two walls or even 3. All of them?! The ceiling maybe even or a door (I do like the door idea).
2.  Make sure it's nice and clean. It doesn't have to be spotless but no one wants to look at a dirty wall. Just use a damp cloth. If you are having any difficulties, consult a professional (that's a joke).
3. Start sticking! You can place your dots as dense or as sparsely as you like! You can place them randomly like in the photo at the top or you can be really pedantic and space them all out evenly with a ruler (this will probably make this DIY more difficult and time consuming).
4. You're done! Step back and admire your hard work. ☺

Of course there are alternatives to dots. Use stars, squares or cut up your own shapes from a roll of colour tape. And it doesn't have to be on a while wall either! It's all up to you. Hopefully I can try this out soon and I will post some photos up.

In the mean time good luck with this!

Julie

Little projects: Origami business card stand

Hey internet,

So I've been following How about Orange for a while. It's a blog by a woman named Jessica Jones, she's a graphic designer. On her blog she posts little DIYs, free printables and  desktop images and other cool little fun things she find on the internet. Needless to say I have spent a good amount of time on her blog (especially during my HSC)

Anyhows, so I saw this link to a tutorial to make an easy origami business card stand a little while ago (post here).  Thought it was worth trying, but thought "hang on I don't have any business cards to put on it". So I left it and continued surfing the net as I do.

Don't you think they look pretty nice all coordinated with the stationary and such?!

Anyway, months later, I made some business cards/contact cards for The Jolly Cottage for the markets! And these neat little crossed my mind. So I made some!! 

Here are my new cards! Don't mind some ink leaks and wonky printing/trimming. They're handmade, complete with some washi tape. But they look pretty good if you asked me. What do you think?

And here are my cards in my little card stands! Yay!! They aren't really in the colour/pattern of my choosing. Just recycling a map of Taronga Zoo my little sister printed off when we took her there last school holidays (pretty sure it was the winter break). I thought it looked nicer then all the other random stuff in the recycling pile. Huzza! for recycling and saving the planet! Think I will make another proper set of business card stands for the markets. Any suggestions on the kind of paper. Colour? Pattern? 

Pretty happy with how everything turned out. Those card stands are SUPER easy! You should try it yourself. I've even embedded the instruction video for you! It is just below. :)

Woo! It can also be used as a phone stand too. Multi purpose. I like it!

If you try it out, let me know and tell me how you went and we can chat over how awesomely easy they are to make.

Anyway, have fun with that and enjoy your weekend!

Julie

Packages + Announcements

Mail time! MAIL TIME! MAAIIL TIIIME!!!

Anyone get the Blues Clues reference? Used to love that show, even when I was older than the intended audience age.

Anyway..

I got a package!! Here it is..

WOO PACKAGE!! It arrived in the mailbox on Monday. It came all the way from the UK! Hoorah for online shopping! Was TOTALLY excited for it to arrive. I've been wanting one of these for a while and finally got around to buying it online a few weeks ago. Want to know what it is?!

TA DA! A very badly focused photo of my new DIY self-inking stamp kit!! Then I can stamp all the things! It can stamp up to 4 lines of text. It even has 2 different sized character sets. Only reason why I preferred this to the one I could have bought from office works with 5 lines, also it was a few dollars cheaper.

It actually took me a good 10 minutes to stick all the little letters in.. I think i was over thinking having to write everything backwards. I had a few errors mixing up the character sets. Also left out the second "L" in finally the first time. Got it right in the end but I have to get faster at this.. It is a little tedious.

But worth it when you finally get stamping!! Weeeee... Anyone getting the Toy Story reference? Too many references in this post from my childhood..

And then changed all the letters out to use it for it's intended purpose and stamped the back of all my notebooks so that they're all branded and ready to go for the markets! How good does it look? (I was super pleased with myself at this point).

Speaking of markets, more info has been released about the Parramatta Lanes Festival later this month! The Vintage Market that I will be featuring in is going to be held in the Connection Arcade just across the road from Parramatta Station on Darcy street. The arcade connects to Church street where Sweet Street Bakery is. Here's a map.

And just a reminder I will be there at the Vintage markets on Thursday 17th, Friday 18th, Thursday 24th and Friday 25th October from 4:30pm to 9pm each day.

For more info, click here. You can also download the festival guide there too.

And now for my announcement!

The Jolly Cottage now has a Facebook page!!  Yay! That's facebook.com/thejollycottage. So go ahead and like that if you wish. Either by searching "The Jolly Cottage" on Facebook or clicking here!

As you can see it's only got 7 likes.. we need more friends..

There is also an event page for the Vintage Markets on the Facebook page. Go and check it out here. So if you are planning on stopping by click that you are "Going" and go invite your friends too! I'm sure the Festival will be a great night out. Well 4 great nights out.

There are some photos up there but other than that page is still a bit bare but only really been playing with it over the past two days. Just need somewhere for people to go if they want some contact details from the markets but just in general too I guess so I can show people what I'm up to. Those who can't be bothered reading this blog. Any suggestions on what else I can put up there?

Speaking of which, not sure whether I should change the name of the blog to "The Jolly Cottage Blog" or something along those lines. Only thing is that it's not strictly just Jolly Cottage stuff that gets posted on here though at the moment the vast majority of my latest posts are related. I think I will have to think about it more. See what happens after the markets. 

Anyway, till next time.

Julie & The Jolly Cottage