MeRrY ChRiStMaS!!!

Hey everyone, merry Christmas! Who feels sick? Me too. Gym tomorrow....

So what did you all get? I haven't photographed all my presents yet as I'm a bit OCD and have tried to tidy some of them away. My house is so full of stuff!

Probably the most important thing I got is a new kitten!!! She is called Coco and she is absolutely adorable. And a bit pesky...



Coco the Kitten!


She is the sweetest little scrap of a cat. My other 2 cats aren't particularly impressed so far...

Not been up to much else. I had my work Xmas do at a Chinese restaurant:

Playsuit from River Island

The only other great pictures I have are of my two brothers playing with their Nerf guns on Christmas day..

The guns are sooo dangerous! I kept well out of the way.

Enjoy the rest of your Boxing Day my lovelies!

My Ultimate Christmas Wish List

Dear Santa,
                    I have been very good this year. Can I please have a very designer Christmas?


Alexa Croc Satchel £885 at Selfridges



Chanel books £475



Lanvin

Catwalk printed silk pajama set

£1,485




Aubin & Wills

Moulsford fox intarsia wool-blend scarf

£60



Juicy Couture Days of the Week necklace £90



Alaïa

Studded suede ankle boots

£1,575



Gucci

1921 leather and stainless steel watch

£750

 
Well, one can dream....

ChRiStMaS DiY - TrEaT JaRs !!!

Hi everyone! So you might be still struggling to come up with some last minute Christmas gifts and starting to panic.....well, fear not. Here is another relatively cheap DIY gift that you can give to anyone with a sweet tooth.


What you need:

Clean, empty, glass jars.
Lots of sweets (different varieties)
Fabric and ribbon to decorate the lid.
Optional - stickers or Christmas ornaments to decorate the jar.


What to do:
1) Clean out your glass jars if you are recycling them.
2) Fill with sweets. Mix them up into different layers so it looks like you have variety.
3) Try not to eat too many!
4) Screw the lid on and place a circle of bright fabric on top of the lid. Fasten with some coordinating ribbon.
5) Decorate your jar with stickers or the name of the person you are giving it to. Or tie a Christmas ornament into the ribbon.




Buy lots of sweets!



Clean your glass jars.




Fill with sweets.





Find some scraps of fabric and ribbon.




Decorate with a Christmas ornament!

Simples! Anyone could do this! And the whole thing comes in under £5 if you are super thrifty. Enjoy xx



Christmas Clay Ornaments Tutorial

How would you like to make your own decorations this year? They're fairly easy to make and you can personalise them.

What you need: 

DAS air dry clay



Cute cookie cutters and something
 to make holes with....



Rubber letter stamps for personalising

Mine were 99p from The Range

You will also need a rolling pin to roll out the clay with and some ribbon to thread through the tops of your ornaments. You can decorate them in loads of different ways so buy a variety of glitter paints etc.


Step one: Kneed a lump of clay and roll it out on a chopping board until it is about half a centimetre thick.
Use your fingers to smooth out the clay on the top. Cut out your chosen shape using a cookie cutter.

My cookie cutters were from Ikea last year.

Pull it carefully off of the board and smooth down all the edges and the back. You want it to look as perfect as possible as flaws show up a little more when they are dry. You will get little fibres that stick out around the edges, this is what you are smoothing down.

Step two: Using some sort of tool (mine is from a screwdriver set) make a whole near the top of your ornament.

Step three: Decorate! I personalised mine using a mini rubber stamp alphabet set. You simply need to press them into the surface.
You could also experiment with different textures by pressing anything you can find into the clay. Have fun with it!

Step four: Put them on a flat surface to air harden. This takes a little longer than 24 hours. I put mine on a baking tray lined with baking parchment.



To make the wave pattern at the bottom right, I used the edge of a round biscuit cutter.



You don't really need to use baking parchment but my
tray was a bit dirty!

 Step five: When they have fully dried and hardened, you can decorate them further. I have so far experimented with silver paint and white paint. On the personalised decorations, I plan to find something that will pick out the letter detail.

The ones above are still drying out, then I will paint them and add the ribbon. I'm planning to give them to my family for Christmas in some gift boxes that I bought.

This has been one of my favourite Christmas crafts! I hope you enjoy trying it out!

Celebrating 30th Stylee

So, you may have noticed that it was my 30th birthday recently! I thought about going away somewhere but decided it was all too much hassle so me and the boyfriend went to London for the day.

Christmas windows
First stop was Selfridges to check out their Xmas windows. Bit disappointing this year compared to last years colourful displays. All the shops in London seem to have gone for an all white, winter wonderland theme which just looks a bit dull if you ask me!

Selfridges' Xmas windows

See? Not the most fascinating of designs......It's hard to find a focal point when it's all white!

Then we had a yummy lunch in Bella Italia (I had the spaghetti and meatballs, as usual...)
From there we got the tube to Harrods. Their windows were slightly more interesting - I think there was a promotion going on with Swarovski so it was all very glittery.



Xmas windows at Harrods using Swarovski crystals.


Afternoon Tea At Harvey Nichols:

Picnic afternoon tea at Harvey Nichols.

After a good look around at Harrods, we went to Harvey Nichols for afternoon tea. For £18 you get 3 rounds of finger sandwiches, 2 scones with cream and jam, 2 petit four cakes, a pot of tea and a Bellini cocktail.
Which is pretty reasonable I think! We shared one and ordered another pot of tea.

Overall, I was disappointed with Harvey Nichols this year as they have changed their gifts and lifestyle floor into another women's fashion floor. Which means it's pretty much five floors of women's fashion.....


Birthday Presents!
I got some great presents for my birthday: An Archos 7 Internet tablet, An Olympus vr310 camera, some Laurent Perrier champagne, a Swarovski crystal necklace and some other little bits.



My new Archos tablet.




Purse from River Island




The case I made for my tablet.

I was also lucky enough to get another birthday cake! This one is chocolate and raspberry and was made by my stepmum. By the time you read this, we will have eaten it all...

Well, that's all for now. Let me know if you want a tutorial on how to make a 7" tablet case. The one above is a little bit big so I'm just finishing a slightly smaller one.

Have you put up your Christmas tree yet? I'm doing mine this weekend....

If you go down to the woods today...

If you visit Marwell Zoo at the moment, not only is it off peak pricing but you can get an extra 10% off on one of the voucher saving websites. (Google it! I can't remember which one!) That means the ticket price is only about £11.45!!
So off we went and had a fun day in the slightly damp weather!



This is a snow cat. He's like a regular cat but more vicious!





This may look fake but I promise he is a real penguin! I tried to sharpen the picture as much as possible which is why it looks weird!





Parka - Primark, jeans- River Island, boots - Ugg.




This little penguin seemed to really like my silver nail polish....he kept trying to bite my fingers through the glass!

 So there you have it. A fab day out at the zoo. I would advise you to take your own sandwiches though as it was extremely expensive in the cafe!

Coming up this week: photos of whatever I get for my birthday and a post of my trip to London!