Halloween is annual celebration where anything goes! Costumes, pumpkin carving, huge piles of sweets…there’s plenty of excitement and fun to be had by kids and adults alike! Hand in hand with Halloween is crafting and we thought we’d walk you through this striking upcycling project using up what you might already have at home. Making as good a decoration by your front door, as it would as a lantern for little hands to carry while trick or treating, everyone in the family can

As a follow up to our recent post on our fabulous and creative laminated parchment papers, we’d like to introduce you to their perfect partner – Self Adhesive Textile Tapes. Primrose yellow, bottle green, blush pink and mid grey are just a few of the 35 colours (yep – you read right!) that our Self Adhesive Textile Tapes are available in, meaning whatever colour you’re looking for we’re bound to have it! Not only used to create a strong bond at the top and bottom of a parchme

Our bottle lamp adaptors are a great way of enjoying your favourite spirit and making a table lamp, surely a winning combination? For today’s post we’ve taken this one step further and added a simple, but effective decorative touch to our handmade base using copper tape, more commonly seen in gardens as a defence against pests. Converting any bottle to a lamp is quick and easy using one of our bottle lamp adaptors leaving time for you to make up a bespoke lampshade making kit

Bring bright bold colours to your summer dining with our fun and easy to make Stick It PVC cork coasters. As with all our Needcraft kits that use Stick It PVC, the coasters are totally customisable using your own choice of fabric. Better still the cool coasters can be made in under half an hour. We’ve opted for a colour popping fabric with a matching Chic Fabric Adhesive Tape edging. Whatever style you go for they would make a gorgeous gift for a friend, or simply sit back

Our Make and Paint Lampshade Making Kits are for exactly what it says on the box, making and painting, but in our quest to try new, inspirational and creative ideas for our lampshade making kits we’ve taken another much loved products, the humble Sharpie Pen Set, and put the two together. The results? This Sharpie Scribble Shade DIY tutorial. Born from a simple crafting technique that makes ‘squiggle gift wrap’ using brown paper and a bunch of felt tip pens (try it, it’s real

As well as being the creative vehicle for making your bespoke lampshade, our Lampshade Making Kits can be added to with easy #hacks delivering a shade that's even more unique. In this post we show you how to add bias tape around the top and bottom of your shade, giving it a polished professional finish. Whether you buy off-the-shelf bias binding (check out our range of patterned bias binding) or make your own in a matching fabric, this clever technique can be used with fabric

Garden parties, BBQ's, camping trips or alfresco cocktail parties, however you're seeing friends over the bank holiday weekend, bring a touch of boho style to your outdoor space with our quick and easy DIY Vintage Doily Dreamcatcher. Great for upcycling, cotton doilies are beautiful pieces of vintage textile and handily are relatively easy to find on Etsy and Ebay or your local charity shop. Cheap as well as simple to make, all you'll need is a Dannells plain ring, some embro

What better way is there to celebrate Easter than with a little easy crafting? This door wreath is a lovely way of welcoming in the Easter weekend and is super quick to make. We'll teach you how to make two different types of pretty felt flowers, with our step by step guides and how to assemble your wreath using a plain lampshade ring and some ribbon - it really is that simple! Great for scrapbusting, this project is one the kids can even try too. In place of using a glue gun

Highlighting our professional cutting service in our last blog post got us thinking that it would be fun to explore a DIY version of the same thing and this effective star cut out hack was born! Making shades for a children's room opens up plenty of cool creative ideas and we think kids will love the soft glow of the stars shining through the fabric. The stars are a simple design, the perfect unisex lampshade and with all of our drum lampshade making kits, this can be used as

Hands up who’s dreaming of a holiday escape? 🙌🏻 We Britons love our holidays - a day by on the beach, playing in the sand and sea rounded off with a fish and chip supper. We thought we’d capture those happy holidays with one of our Rectangle Rounded Lampshade Making Kits and in this DIY tutorial we’re going to show you how to make a lampshade using a paper map. Whilst this project uses regular lampshade making skills, there are a few differences when working with paper, but

As our homes become our castles again, why not turn your time and talents to making this cool and Contemporary Plant Hanger that will give your home the modern edge? Made from just three plain lampshade making rings it's super easy to put together and budget friendly too and with our stock of plain rings in huge range of sizes (1 meter plant hanger anyone?) you can get creative with the scale of your hanger. Sticking with the interiors trend for natural materials, we used ra

A homemade gift is often the most thoughtful gift and with time to spend in our kitchens cooking up treats this year, sweet treats are the best of all! We’re a huge fan of chocolate at Dannell’s HQ and we’ll not only be making plenty of these rich, chocolatey (and a little bit boozy!) bombs of loveliness for our nearest and dearest, but we’ve also come up with this simple hand-decorated truffle box too. By taking a cardboard Lantern lid and base (cheese box) and a sheet of A3

So if you're a fan of the blog you'll know that we shared this festive project before, well last Christmas actually :), but we loved it so much we wanted to share it again. Hacking our Candle Clip Lampshade Kit to make this clever balloon glass lamp can bring light to your Christmas dinner table in a super creative, and we have to say, expensive looking way. Something about this project says 'hotel chic' and while that might not be an option at the moment, our homes can defin

Did you know DIY gifting has double the benefits of buying shop bought? Not only are you making something thoughtful and handmade, but indulging in a little crafting is good for your wellbeing, helps you learn new skills and gives you something positive to focus on! We've taken one of these handy wooden tea boxes from our Paintable Products Range, normally used to store and display paper packaged tea bags and turned it into something that will make every crafter swoon - STORA

Perfect to occupy the kids for a morning, these creative Halloween lanterns are super easy to make using our free PDF template download.

Halloween is nearly upon u! Make this simple, but effective DIY printed lantern, to create your very own bespook (!) Halloween decoration!

Bring colour and a sense of humour to your home, by making this DIY birdcage shade on a budget. Follow our step by step tutorial!

As Christmas approaches fast our attention is turning to the smaller details and for us the Christmas dinner table is one of the most important. Not only because it’s a time to share the company of friends and family, some pretty delicious food, but because we enjoy finding just the right colour napkins, writing name cards and creating our table arrangements – and we’re fairly sure that this is the same for anyone who has a creative streak! At Dannells HQ we’ve been playing w