Midlands Craft and DIY Supplies

In the past few weeks I have received a few emails requesting a list of craft supplies in the Natal Midlands Area - Having DIY'ed most of our wedding stationery, (and being a stationery-freak in general) I have come to know the craft suppliers in the area pretty well - so I will let you know what I have found.

This list of supplies is in no way exhaustive, and if you know of any awesome places that I've left off - please feel free to leave a comment below.




House of Arts
Formely Prints Charming, the House of Arts, in Victoria Road stocks a selection of scrap book style papers as well as various other A4 sized coloured papers and cardstock. They also stock a small supply of ribbons, scrapbook embellishments and general art supplies including decoupage materials and stamps.

Speciality Papers
Having only recently discovered Speciality Papers - it has quickly become one of my favourite stores. It is located on 21 Hyslop Road - near to the Royal Show Grounds and they stock a wide selection of coloured papers, crafting supplies and loads of general stationery. For our wedding invitations we opted for papers in golds and bronzes - which we bought from Speciality Papers. They stock matching envelopes and are competitively priced. They also do book-binding, laminating and printing - so basically a one stop shop for "stationery-freaks" like me.


Bargain Basket
If you are looking for random bits-and-pieces I can recommend stopping in at Bargain Basket - this is kind of "lucky-packet" store because sometimes you may find some real gems and other times you may not. If you are looking for random odds-and-ends there is a good chance you may find them here - ranging from mini pegs (which we used on our wedding invites), little mini glass bottles and other random stationery supplies. As part of our men's favours - we bought a selection of old school games: Dominoes, Pick Up sticks and Playing cards - which we wrapped in paper, with a hand-stamped message to co-ordinate with our theme. We bought the games from Bargain Basket. Bargain Basket also stock a variety of different paints and art supplies - and is actually where we purchased the gold, bronze and copper metallic paints that I used to paint the flower girl shoes and DIY paper flowers with.

FoodPak
Another "lucky-packet" store is Food Pak located on 157 Victoria Road. Being primarily a Food packaging store you are likely to find food-packaging type goodies - For example - mini plastic containers, cellophane bags and brown paper bags (which are great for gift-wrapping by the way). You can also find really cool mini condiments etc. For my 16th Birthday, I had a "breakfast picnic" I decoupaged a wooden box for each of my friends with their names on it and then filled the wooden box with breakfast goodies including muffins, croissants, yogurts, mini jam-pots, cheese and fruit. We got the jam pots, marmalades, disposable cutlery and pretty coloured serviettes from Food Pak. (We also bought some inexpensive fabric and sewed up the sides to give each girl a mini picnic blanket). I should actually try and find some pictures of that birthday to blog about it - it was awesome.

Ragland Fabrics
Another place that stocks random bits and pieces is Ragland Fabric Store - 45 Peter Kerchoff Street, Pmb. Apart from the usual buttons and other fabric related supplies (laces, sequins, organza ribbons), they have also a very new (and small) craft supply section. I would say it is more geared towards kids, but if you are in the area - buying buttons for your DIY button flowers anyway, then you may as well give it a peak and you could find something you are looking for.




Unfortunately I don't think that the Washi Tape explosion has fully hit the Midlands shores yet. The majority of my (precious) Washi Tape collection was bought overseas whilst I was living in South Korea. Or from my very lovely husband - who sourced them from all over the world.

Doolally Daisy
A good friend of mine - Andrea from Cleverbird Banter has personally ordered washi tape from a local company called Doolally Daisy and she has always been very happy with her orders. I haven't used them myself for ordering Washi tape, but I trust The Clever Bird - so you can too.

The Washi Bug
Another local washi tape supplier - is The Washi Bug - you can read more about them on Andrea's blog here. You can also browse their catalogue of washi tapes here.

Etsy
Alternatively, if you are willing to order online, you can always search for washi tape on Etsy - which is where the husband got the vast majority of the Washi Tapes he ordered for me as a pre-wedding gift.

I can't tell you how much I love washi-tape! I used it basically all over our wedding - which I will hopefully be able to show you as soon as possible (there's been a small {large} speed bump in that road but hopefully will have some photos to show you soon! Everyone hold your breath/thumbs/extra appendages). Anyway, I've used washi tape for nearly everything - DIY business cards, gift wrapping, trash books and card making - I could be here forever.

Two other stores worth a visit are Rosehurst (239 Boom Street) - which has an awesome cafe and coffee shop and The House of Heart Emporium - (formerly the Dunrobin Centre, Warwick Road - Town Bush Valley). Although these stores are not stationery and craft stores per se, they do stock a wide selection of beautiful gifts and locally crafted beauties. Definitely worth a visit.

Hope this list of crafting supply stores has been helpful - if you are in the area and you know of any other good places that I've left off this list - please do post a comment - I'd love to check it ou when I'm next back in the hood.

Stationery Freaks Unite!

PS: 

Stationery - Pens

Stationary - a car that's not moving.

You're welcome.

{Kitchen Tea} Recipe Book

Oh hey again from the big smoke of London!
It is SO good to finally be reunited with 1x husband.

Last week I promised to post a specific wedding-related blog post on Friday - but Friday was a bit :

and that small moment when I nearly missed my flight to London.

And by nearly, I mean, the gates were already closed.

Like dude. Husband. London. Me. South Africa. And if I don't get ON this flight - I miss the connecting one. LIKE DUDE.

So massive kudos to Emirates for letting me on even though I was super a little late and in spite of the fact that "this flight has been open for check-in for four hours ma'am." Yeah, i know, It's a long story.

I flew on Friday night from Durbs and landed in London Saturday lunchtime to husband who greeted me with "HELLO WIFE" signs at the airport. (Well done husband).

So anyway - last week I promised to post about the awesome thing we are all oogling in this pic at my kitchen tea-

So without wasting any more time - here it is:

An entire hand-crafted, illustrated, up-cycled recipe book with recipes from my friends and family from across the world. Kerry, my awesome maid of honour (seriously - you should hire her) was inspired by the book I crafted for her to ask her to be my maid of honour. She wanted to make a recipe book that was "completely my style" and filled with messages and quirky things and bits and pieces from all the ladies I love the most.

But what makes it so special to me, is that it's not just any recipe book - The entire thing is ring bound around a huge All Saints paper bag - all the pages, bags, recipes, pictures, photos, comments and bits and pieces are slotted in, bound, tied, punched, washi-taped together to create the most interesting and textured recipe book - just up my street!

Apart from all the awesome recipes - which I'm super keen to try - I love love all the comments and remarks left by my friends and family - who are all well aware of my "cooking abilities"

How to look like a glamourous goddess while cooking: "Let the steam from the pot boiling on the stove make you hot and flustered. Team with shorter nightie or birthday suit. Wear high heels or plimsols for a sexy-cute or sexy look - bare feet are not sexy. Brandish the wooden spoon like a conductor of culinary excellence."

"If with child, do not cook" 

(ahem did you see that Warren? For future reference.)

"For when life throws you lemons lemonade - (this is only because I dont have a recipe for homemade tequila, otherwise I would say go for that and ditch the lemonade.)"

 - Rebecca

"Side Note: DO NOT stray away from the recipe + try your own "a dash of this+that" - it will not work! - It never has with you remember?"

 -lil lis.

Haha my friends. they know me.

"No matter how poor, lazy or old you become - it is never ok to eat cat food."

 - Lol Bakes.

"Thou shalt lie naked and place thy sushi upon thy body. Beware of the cheeky wasabi"

 - Sash... hahahaha. ha.

Recipe history from the days of pre-primary school 

- from Shelley, my godmother who has known me since I was born.

...and cooking instructions for rice. Yeah, my cooking skill: it's that chronic.

Warr's sisters making sure that I feed their brother.

And illustrations from Warr's niece.

"Debben" Original recipes from my Debben mate Sarah - 

and yes - wine does make everything so much better in the kitchen.

forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair - kahil gibran

"something to look out for - if they are black when you take them out, they are overdone."
- Shelly.

Carrot Cake Recipe from my bridesmaid and Recipes and cartoons from Warr's mom.

Banana bread recipe from the Cleverbird.

" a Ché-proof chocolate mousse, made even simpler just in case"

 - Sarah-Faye.

Inside the back pocket of the recipe book - are copies of the invitations that Kerry and the Bridesmaids sent out -

and yes - Warren does cook so well for me. sigh.

This is the most amazing kitchen-tea gift, not only for the compilation of fantastic recipes but the way that it was crafted and created in a way that is just so completely "me". I completely love it! I have already used a recipe from it as a sampler and it was DELISH! (and i didn't blow up anything). I can't explain how much all the love, creativity, time and effort that went into making this means to me. Thank you to ALL the amazing ladies who contributed recipes, cartoons and pics and to Kerry for putting this incredible keepsake together - I will treasure it forever! x

Piggly

I decided to make Paper Mache piggy banks with the little girls I have been babysitting. I used the same paper-mache mix that I mentioned in this post - one part flour two parts water.

We blew up some balloons - (you can make large or smaller piggy-banks by adjusting the size of the balloon that you blow up) and paper-mached around them using the flour/water glue mixture and strips of newspaper. Remember to leave a little gap over the balloon tie - so that you can pop the balloon later when the paper-mache is dry. You may want to do a second layer of paper mache in order to make the piggy bank a bit harder.

In order to make the trotters and nose - I cut up an old toilet roll, stuffed it with newspaper and paper-mached them to the pigs. Make sure to attach them in the appropriate place - some little kids may need help with this - since we nearly had legs coming out all over the place. lol.

When the pigs were dry and hardened with the paper-mache - you can pop the balloons inside and paint them with bright pink paint -   

Once the pink paint had dried we attached some pink ears (triangles made from cardboard) which we sticky-taped on. But you could also paper-mache them on in the stage before or glue them on once the paint is dry. Next we painted on some eyes and I used a knife to make a coin slot in the back of the pig. You can also attach a wool tail or paper tail that has been curled with scissors. The girls had great fun playing with them. I didn't manage to get a final snap since there was too much excitement at having made their own piggy banks - but the end result was something like this: