March 27, 2013 | Mum In The Madhouse

March 27, 2013

Get the Basics Right in Your Kitchen

Get the Basics Right in Your Kitchen

We would all love to have a more impressive kitchen but what if you don’t even know where to start? Will you need to spend a fortune on completely overhauling the place?

Before you start splashing out big sums of money on expensive changes it is best to think of the basics which can make the difference.

The Right Kind of Lighting

The type of lighting you use in the kitchen is vital to making it a pleasant room to be in and to cook in. Your first step should be to check out some ideas using chandeliers, recessed lighting, under cabinet lights and all of the other kinds which are available now. Once you know what the options are you can work out which ones would fit in best to your room. In general terms, a mixture of different types of lighting is best, although this might not be the case in a particularly small kitchen.

The Pots and Pans

Of course, the kitchen is a room we cook in and this means that you need think about the basics required for doing this right. A good example here comes with the saucepans from Lakeland. Buying a few of these will give you practical pieces of cookware and will also ensure that you have attractive pots in the room as well. You will find other ideas for useful basic items on the site at Lakeland.co.uk. By stocking up well on these things you will make it a nicer room at little cost.

The Colour of the Walls

There are some highly popular colours used in many kitchens and others which aren’t so highly recommended. The exact tone you would be best using will be determined by factors such as the style of the kitchen and the size of the room. If you aren’t sure which colour to use then a good idea is to buy a few of those little sample pots and paint small areas of the walls with different colours. After you have lived with the different tones for a few days it should a lot easier to work out which one to choose for the whole room.

The Space

One of the most common complaints which people make about their kitchens is around the lack of space. If your kitchen is too small or cramped then cooking is probably more of a problem than it should be. This might seem like an issue without a solution in some cases it could be but there are some tips to help you get a bigger working space in most types of kitchen. The first and simplest one is to clear out anything you don’t use on a daily basis. This can make a lot of space and help the room look better too.

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How to make a Pinecone Owl and other pinecone crafts

Maggie at Red Ted Art (who has a new craft book out) hosts a weekly Google + Hangout and this weeks was all about Pine cone crafts. Mini has been studying nocturnal animals this week, so we decided to make a pine-cone owl.

This is one of those crafts that you can adjust dependent on the age of your child bu cutting out all the felt (or foam) and allowing them to glue it or they can cut it out and glue it too. I made templates for the boys to draw around on the felt with a soft pencil and they cut out the felt themselves.

Materials

Pine-cones
Felt (or craft foam) in yellow, brown and orange
googly eyes
Glue gun or glue (Maxi uses a glue gun, but mini uses craft PVA)
Method

Cut out in yellow a figure of eight shape for the base of the eyes larger than your googly eyes and stick the eyes to it.
Then using orange felt or foam cut out a small triangle for the beak and curves with points which are the owls feet.
You cut out a square in brown for the owls hat – approximately 2 inches in size, but this depends on your pine cone.
Cut two triangles for the owls wings

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