How to: make your uni room feel like home

When you first move to uni it can sometimes be hard to make your room feel homely. It may have taken me three  years and copious amounts of blu-tac but I think I have finally done it! I love posts like this (mainly because I am massively nosey) but also because I like getting inspiration from other people, so maybe this will inspire one of you.

This is probably my favourite area of the room, mostly because I am always tired and love to sleep! The lights around my bed are stuck up with blu-tac, as are the photos and the little bird is hanging on a hook that was already in the wall.

 On my bedside table I have scented candles. The lavender helps me get to sleep which can often be very hard in a noisy student house, but I also think they look pretty. 

I also have a poster, a full length mirror and this cute bunting which my mum's friend made for me.This is stuck up with pins. Obviously some landlords wouldn't allow this but I have been quite lucky with mine.

This is my dressing table/chest of draws area. I did a DIY post on how to make the blue and cream drawers here

 This jewellery hanger is from Pia, I love it, and it is definitely better than the horrible plastic bag that my necklaces were in before.

Last but not least is my notice board, I basically stick any old bits and pieces in here but I think it has ended up looking quite cool. 

I obviously have a desk area as well, but I am in the midst of essay writing so it is a total mess. No one is going to want to see a picture of a bunch of law textbooks so I will leave that to your imagination!

Feel free to leave a comment, I would love to know what people think/if anyone even reads my posts. Haha. 

How to: DIY Decoupage Storage Unit

I recently went to a little boutique shop where they were selling sets of draws covered in different floral prints and I fell a little bit in love, until I lifted up the price tag and they were selling them for between £30 and £40 depending on the size. Being a student I am constantly in need of storage as I pretty much have to keep my life contained into one small room but I was definitely not willing to pay those sorts of prices.

I knew I could pick up a relatively cheap set of wooden draws from ikea and having done some decoupage before I knew that would be the way to create the look I wanted. So that is exactly what I did. I also took some step-by-step pictures as I was going along for anyone who is interested in trying this out.

Step 1

First you need to start with a set of draws, mine were £17 from ikea (although you can use any piece of furniture you feel needs a revamp). You will also need glue, (I used 'decopatch' it is a PVA glue which also has varnish in so leaves a gloss finish) a paintbrush and the paper. I picked up the paper from my local craft shop for £1 a sheet but you can find it for cheaper online if you are willing to pay for postage. I bought 4 sheets of paper but only ended up using 2 so I have plenty left for another project. 

Step 2

Once you have all of your materials the first thing you need to do is rip the paper into pieces, I found it easier to rip as I was going along so that you can tear off pieces to fill the gaps. I made sure I kept the straight edges of the paper for the edges of the draws so I didn't have to worry about folding it to fit. 

Step 3

You then dip your paintbrush into the glue, put some glue onto the draw, stick the piece of paper down and then put some more glue over the top to varnish it. You keep sticking down different pieces of the ripped paper until the whole of the draw is covered, overlapping the paper until you can't see any of the wood.

Step 4

Next I painted the outside of the unit cream. I just used some paint that was left over in the shed. I only had to do two coats and I didn't have to be particularly neat as the draws cover up the inside anyway.

Step 5

Once the paint has dried and you have finished decoupaging all the draws you can pop them back onto the shelves and it's done. It was so easy and I had a really good time doing it. And the best part is, at the end you get to peel all the dried glue off your hands like you are back at primary school!

Here is a close up of the pattern once it had dried. 

This is such a good technique and you really can do it to anything, my mum decoupaged a letter 'K' and a lamp for me for my uni room last year and I can't wait to move back to Cardiff and start using these draws!