HOW Jewellery Club - 50's Diner

EEEK! I have been waiting for what feels like forever to reveal our 50's diner themed jewellery club box! Well guess what!? That time has come! Whooop whooop! The theme for our March box was of course 50's Diner. This was inspired by all of our pin up and rockabilly Wonderlanders! I really love every item we made for this box and hope our subscribers do too! But without further delay let's take a look shall we?????

So here was the main listing image we used for this box. Check out our awesome doodles!: 

So here is a full view picture of the box opened... Then we shall go into more detail on what was actually included :) 

Doesn't it look AMAZING!!!! :D Here are some of the pictures from this box...

In this box you will find:

-Metal Vinyl Record Charm Necklace (RRP £10)

-Vintage inspired diner large magnet (RRP £6)

-It's only Rock n Roll A6 art print (RRP £6)

-Metal pink fabulous badge (RRP £5)

-Large red hair bow from Miss Cherry Makewell (RRP £3.49)

-Make your own burger garland kit (RRP £8)

-Mini burger candy (RRP £1)

-Pizza wish bracelet (RRP £4)

-50's diner sticker pack (RRP £5)

-Burger cross stich pattern from Geeky Stitching Company

-HOW Newsletter with Miss Cherry Makewell interview

-A clue to next month's theme :D 

I really enjoyed designing and making this theme. I think the red, white and blue colours look awesome together and on the goodies. I loved the garland so much I ended up keeping one for HOW HQ! I'm thinking a make your own garland range would be pretty rad! right? What do you think? Would you be interested if we bought this in as a range?

Has anyone guessed next month's theme yet? I think we have had 2 people guess it correctly at the moment... I wonder what it could be???!!! :D Anyway this mystery theme will be available on the 1st of April (no joke!!! :D) at 9am so set your alarms!

 If you missed this box fear not! We now have a couple more available over in our Etsy store right here

Have an awesome easter break little Wonderlanders :) 

My top 5 reasons for being self-employed!

So you may have seen recently that we have been joining in on Joanne Hawker's #MarchMeetTheMaker challenge and in the process of doing so have discovered some amazing designers, artists and brands that I never knew about (that awesome feeling when you discover someone amazing and your just like WOW! how did I ever live with out....) :D Anyway as a little extension of this challenge I wanted to share with you my top 5 reasons for being self employed! So let's get started!....

1. Being my own boss! - For me this a big big part of how I started.... I just really don't take orders too well! :D I always seem to find the 9-5 jobs too slow paced and just not challenging enough. By being my own boss I am able to work as many hours as I would like! Got a slow patch? No biggie! Make more work for yourself! There's ALWAYS an endless list of things to do!

2. Flexibility - With 3 young boys this is super important to me as there are a lot of school runs, last minute parties and other errands to do! Running House Of Wonderland means I can work, school run, come back and work. If I loose too much time during the day, no problemo I can make it up in the evening. Have a fixed 9-5 job wouldn't give me that and also means I would have less time with my ikkle monsters :D 

 3. Uniform - What uniform? I pretty much spend most of my working days in my PJ's and I'm okay with that! No horrible coloured polyester uniforms for me! 

 4. Creative Freedom- Being able to do something I am super passionate about is just a dream! Everyday is never like the previous, each day challenging and a new adventure. Being able to sit and sketch unicorns (whilst munching cake, dressed up in a onesie) and then create them into a range of fun products is just amazing!  All you need to do is believe in yourself! 

 5. No limits- There's no limit to what you can earn and no limit to what you can achieve. I have learned so far you get as much out of it as you put in. A regular job limits you to a set wage which working for yourself doesn't! Whilst a job may offer more stability and a guaranteed income it won't generally give you the opportunity to reach your personal dreams and goals! 

I hope you enjoyed ready this post! It's a bit different from my usual but we gotta have some verity right?  What are your thoughts on working for yourself? What's your favourite reasons?

Have a magical evening! Oh and don't forget to check out our HOW Jewellery Club boxes! We only have a few left so make sure you grab yours now :)

HOW Jewellery Club - Mermaid

The time has come to reveal February's HOW Jewellery Club box contents!  This month was Mermaids! ....because who doesn't love mermaids right?  So for this box I wanted to create some fun bits as well as a more grown up take on the mermaid theme. When researching it I came across a lot of  cartoony mermaid illustrations and for this collection I wanted something a bit more subtle! So let's firstly take a look at the main photo used on our listing.

Here it is! ...but  it also has a big clue as to what was in the box as we included one of these prints in the box!

So with the theme in mind let's take a look at what was in the latest HOW Jewellery Club box!

In this box you will find:

-Laser cut pink shell charm necklace (RRP £12)

-Hand sculpted shell ring with organza bag and sequins! (RRP £5)

-Limited Edition Rockin Claws, Mermaid (RRP £3.50)

-Magical sea scented bath salts (RRP £2.50)

-Anchor hair slide (RRP £5)

-Mermaid glossy die cut stickers (RRP £5)

-Sparkly sea blue pencils (RRP £2.50)

-Secretly a mermaid print (RRP £6)

-Custom made heart of the ocean candy (RRP £1)

-Part time mermaid pin from punky pins (RRP £5)

-A business card to one of our favourite stores the Art of Silvia "Silly" Ballardini
-HOW Newsletter with punky pins interview

This box was great fun to make! The bath salts left HOW HQ smelling gorgeous for about a week! My favourites from this box are the pink shell necklace and the punky pins brooch as well as the stickers!  Next months theme will of course be 50's Diner and will be released on the 1st of March, 9am over at the HOW jewellery club website! 

If you missed this box fear not! We now have a couple more available over in our Etsy store right here

Have a magicial day little Wonderlanders and don't forget our next box launches on Tuesday! Whoop Whooop!

My favourite Harry Potter makes!

My son, Joshua has recently gotten into Harry Potter, and he has gone HP mad! His birthday is coming up in March and when I asked him what he wanted he made a list of only HP stuff! So the DIY in me began to search the internet to find a couple of goodies to make him. I came across some awesome finds so I'll share a few with you below... Firstly here are the piece's I made him....

The first thing I made him was a golden stitch! This was a super quick project and very simple to do. I used scrap cotton yarn to make mine and I found the pattern for it here.

After this quick make I decided on something a little more challenging... A Mandrake! This one took me a grand total of 17 failed attempts to get it right! But I think it was well worth it as Josh is going to adore it! You can find the pattern to make your own right here.

After crocheting the mandrake I wanted another quick project (are you noticing a pattern here yet? :D) So I decided to make a childrens sized Griffindor scarf. I made this in about 30 minutes (over 5,500 sts in 30 minutes! Pretty sweet right?) on my Prym knitting mill midi. If you haven't tried the knitting mills out before I totally recommend them! They are great if you want to create something quickly and require pretty much no knowledge to do! I have done 2 brief posts before on the larger prym knitting mill before here and here. Maybe I should do a tutorial on it? Anyway, I knitted 13 blocks of colour and each block is about 20 rounds if you would like to replicate it. 

Once I had finished making the scarf I also found a house elf pattern by the same person who wrote the madrake pattern. I was a little hesitant as the mandrake took me 17 attempts! :D But decided to give it ago anyway! This one was much simpler and I managed to finish him in just over a week. You can grab the pattern for this one here.

As well as the ones I made I found some more amazing patterns which I will list below. I won't be making them for Joshua's birthday but I think I'll try and get through as many as I can for his Christmas! 

Squarks the Phoenix, available via Ravelry
Doll sized sorting hat, available via Etsy
Fluffy the 3 headed dog, available via Etsy
Ipad cosy, available via Ravelry
Muggle Mitts, available via Ravelry
Dumbledores Army Armband, available via Ravelry
Wand, available via Ravelry 
The Gamekeeper, available via Ravelry
Monster book, available via Ravelry

Have you seen or found any awesome HP makes? Let me know but commenting below :)

Pretty Pastel

Over the past few weeks we have been working on a brand new collection! Inspired by pretty pastel shades and nostalgic vintage styles. I'm a sucker for pretty vintage pieces but it's so hard to find full sets of crockery and coordinating products. It drives me crazy! So with that in mind checkout our latest designs...

shake it off tote bag - £10.00

marathon tv show time - £10.00

kewpie stud earrings - £5.00

shake it off cushion - £20.00

i'm so fancy tote - £10.00

one of my personal favourites! mugs - £10.00

i'm so fancy compact mirror - £5.00

 I hope you like the new collection as much as I do! I have already claimed one of the shake it off bags for myself! Which of our new products is your favourite?

HOW Jewellery Club - It's Raining Cat's & Dogs Box

It's been about a week since all of our latest HOW Jewellery club boxes headed out! So the time has come to share with you what we got up to on this box.  This box was themed It's raining cats and dogs.  We came up with this theme due to all the rubbish weather we had this Winter! Lot's of rain, no snow, no sun BOOO!!! We thought we would put a spin on this gloomy time of year :) The collection started as always as a few doodles in my notepad! I instantly fell in love with the little characters and aloe and behold we have our design!

So with the theme in mind let's check out some images from this month's box! Now I'm going to let you know how much of a pants photographer I am and didn't get as many pictures as normal due to the chaos of December/doomy/gloomy pics!  :( But here we go anyway!

In this box you will find:

-Our fantabulous recycled umbrella notebook from guest designer Sophie Luck Jones,

-A limited edition A3 Cats and dogs poster, 

(we have a couple more of these posters available on etsy right here!)

-A limited edition A6 illustrated notepad,

-An enamel glittery umbrella necklace,

-A pure cotton crocheted silver raindrop bracelet (not pictured),

-Mini cotton dog drawstring pouch,

-Acrylic 3D sleepy kitten ring (not pictured),

-Satin kitty hair bobble,

-Cloud papercut bookmark (not pictured),

-Limited edition Rockin Claws Nail Decals (not pictured),

-Candyfloss rainclud,

-A sprinkle of cats & dogs sequins (not pictured).

I really enjoyed designing this box! I think the prints, notebook/notepads and the crocheted bracelet are my favourite bits from it! Even though the bracelets took me a month to crochet one for every box!  Next months theme will of course be mermaids and will be released on the 1st of February, 9am over at the HOW jewellery club website! 

Oh and don't forget to head over to our facebook page tomorrow evening from 7pm for our first flash sale of 2016! We will of course have our usual best sellers at amazing prices, bargains on some of our new arrivals and even a few freebies along the way! Quick go set a reminder! ;)  

Have an awesome evening and hopefully see you tomorrow!

Pom Pom Bag Charm

Have you seen all these adorable pom pom bag charms about lately? They remind me of an old Juicy Couture handbag I used to own!  As soon as I saw them I pretty much decided I had to have one! But of course I had to DIY it! 

I had already found the most adorable fluffy pom poms at Wool Warehouse! WW stocks a range of faux fur pom poms in various colours, the hardest part of this tutorial is choosing which colour to make! I finally settled on the Lion brand - Mink coloured pom pom (£1.49). It measures a fantastic 7cm in size so won't get lost on your bag or key chain! 

The pom poms come with a loop of elastic attached.  For this make I simply cut it off! 

As for the findings I had a check around the house for various bits to reuse! So the keyring was from a broken keyring and the chain from an old necklace I had lying around! But basically all you need is a keyring, 2 jump rings and a small length of chain. 

To fix the chain to your pom pom I sewed like crazy just using a standard needle and length of thread! I sewed mine in white thread but you can't see the stitches at all due to it's fluffyness! See..........................

And taaaa daahhhh! you have one super awesome fuzzy keyring! Ideal for tormenting kitties with, adding to your favourite handbag or simply accessorizing your boring keys! 

If you make one please share your photos to our social media pages and either tag us or use the hashtag #houseofwonderland :)

Have a fuzzy filled evening!