Shopping haul!

Hello!I've been a little bit carried away on the buying front recently but I hasten to add that as always, it was on a budget!

The other day, I bought some red skinny jeans from Primark for the bargain price of £11 but I bought the size 12 and after wearing them for about half an hour, they went a bit baggy. So I took them back today and bought 2 other colours. (I was being indecisive as always!)

Here's the red ones:

Red skinny jeans - Primark, £11.

I personally think this outfit makes me look a bit short and dumpy but the boyfriend said I looked ok. Make up your own mind!

Here are the newer colours I bought:

One pair is a sort of teal blue colour, the other are a baby blue - not white as they look in the photo! They also had some lovely dusty purple ones but not in my size :(
I also bought the butterfly top that I'm wearing above - it was only £8 and has a pink zip down the back...

It doesn't end there...my lovely boyfriend also bought me a cute bag and also a stick on fisheye lens for my mobile phone - both Primark! The bag was £3 on the sale and the lens was £2. Bargain...

I picked up my new, free glasses from Specsavers:

Awful photo but you get the idea! Speaking of photos, I went to Gunwharf Quays yesterday to meet a friend and found a beautiful, leather photo album in the Paperchase outlet. It was only £15 down from £30 and it will hopefully give me the inspiration to put all my old photos somewhere a bit more accessible.

And last but not least, I ordered a new phone from a Groupon offer that was on last week! It's the brand new Samsung Galaxy S3 and it arrived today. I am only charging it so far as I'm a bit scared to turn the thing on tbh! It's huge. HUGE. My old phone (Motorola Defy) fits in to the screen size of my new phone. I'll give it a go in a minute...

I spent a good hour looking at phone cases on Amazon, but as usual, I couldn't decide. Ideally I need a phone case company to send me a freebie! Who can hook me up??

I think that's plenty of spending for now....although I saw some lovely black and white brogues on the Dune website in the sale....BUT I'm still undecided as to whether brogues are amazing or ugly. Answers on a postcard please...... x

My day of free stuff!

I had a really "lucky" vibe going on today. Doesn't happen often.... it all started in my local Sainsbury's!!

I was only in there to buy some rolls for my lunch but the self service machine printed me a coupon for a free razor..... so off I went to investigate and managed to leave with a free razor worth £8.99! It was in conjunction with my Nectar card but other than that I'm not sure what I did to deserve it! (There was a little bit of hassle when the coupon wouldn't scan but the shop lady sorted it for me...)

Free razor from Sainsbury's

I think it's probably a men's razor but who cares? Although I'll probably chop my legs to bits with it later....
So that got me in the more for more freebies and I had remembered seeing on my contact lens packet from Specsavers that I could get free glasses form the £45 range as I get my contacts monthly and by direct debit.

Of we went to town to investigate. I thought they might not do it for me as I recently got new glasses on the buy one get one free deal.......I picked some from the £25 range and sat with my fingers crossed whilst they typed in my details. Et voila! New glasses FREE to pick up next Wednesday!

Lyra glasses £25 from Specsavers or free with contact lens scheme!

There wasn't as much to chose from as there is online but these were different enough to my other two pairs. You can also go for more expensive ones but pay a much cheaper price ie pay £10 for ones from the £69 range. Such a good deal!!!!

My freebies didn't stop there..... in West Quay they had a stand giving away free loo roll!

Not the most exciting thing, but it's FREE and that's all that counts today!

I also dropped in to Rush (a hairdressers in Southampton) and got my fringe trimmed for FREE! It didn't really need it to be honest but I was in the "free" mindset!

That's almost where the free ends although I did park for free at Leisure World and I could have had a free cup of tea in Ikea as my boyfriend has one of their "family cards" - it gets you a free cuppa between Monday and Friday I think. But we didn't. We went to Starbucks and had tall teas and muffins (skinny muffin for me of course.)

I spent a little bit of money in Primark, on some burgundy skinny jeans (£11) and a black duck print top (£8) but we won't talk about that....

Duck print top and skinny jeans from Primark

I'll do an outfit post soon so you can see them in action. You won't be seeing that polka dot playsuit (that I blogged the other day) anytime soon as I wore it and the zip broke. Sad times. However, after seeing the pics I took of me wearing it, I decided it made me look wide!

Let me know how you get your freebies - I'm always looking for new tips!

My favourite easy tutorials this week!

Morning! I woke up early (for a day off) so decided to peruse Pinterest on my phone for a bit. I found some really inspiring tutorials that really needed no lengthy instructions to go with them as they were so simple!

Next time I have a little bit of spare cash, I'm definitely going to be trying these!

Here's what I'm loving right now:

Yarn wreath found here: http://wendyinflorida.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/rainbow-wreath.html

I've seen lots of these wreaths around the internet, but this one has bunting! I think all you need to do is wrap wool around one of those floral oasis circles and then decorate it. I've also seen some cool crochet versions so that might be worth a Google!

Up next is painted bottle vases:

Image via Pinterest from sugarandcharmblog.com

All you do is find an old bottle or vase, pour some paint in the bottom and then tip it upside down! The paint then runs around the inside and you leave it upside down to dry. There seem to be various variations on the type of paint used and the technique but how hard can it be, right?

Similar versions include:

Dip the pot in glue and roll in glitter. Use masking tape to make
 a nice clean line at the top.

Use rubber bands to create lines, then spray with frosting/etching spray!

Another super easy thing to make is a branch coat hanger. You just screw in a wire hanger top into a branch and voila! I've seen them where the branch is painted or sprayed with metallic paint too.

Branch hanger from A Pair And A Spare.

Here's one for the pet lovers - why not make your kitty a cardboard play house?! Looks pretty easy. Or you can find instructions at marthastewart.com.....

Cardboard cat house!

This next tutorial can be used for a number of different things:

Use wallpaper or pretty papers to jazz up a unit!

I've been dreaming of getting some of those old printers trays and filling them with little objects. You can get them for about £30 from ebay. Then you could fill each little square with a different coloured paper. So cool...

Printer tray from albertandthelion.blogspot.co.nz

Well, that's all I have time for right now as the boyfriend has just arrived (and I'm still in my pyjamas! Blogger widow!)

Hope that inspires you as much as it has me! xx

I didn't find it, it found me!!

Howdy! So I was going to blog about an hour ago but then I remembered that the Mulberry sale had started so I perused that for a bit then I checked out the Harvey Nichols sale....then the Harrods sale, then the Selfridges sale...then the My Wardrobe sale.....

The title is from the top of the Selfridges website. I though it was very apt! I haven't ordered anything though so you should be proud of me. That's not to say that I haven't bought anything today...

I got these gorgeous lamps in my local Sainsburys for £7.50 each. I was going to buy them when they were reduced to £15 each so I;m glad I waited! I also had some Nectar points so with bulbs I only ended up paying £11.50. Awesome times.

Picture frames, flower lights and bedside lamps - all from Sainsburys.

Yesterday, at work, the strangest thing happened. I was telling my friend about how I LOVE getting post but never get any when the days post arrived. He walked down the shop with a big package addressed to me! My lovely mum had sent me 2 dresses and a playsuit (that she says were too young for her...) So exciting!

Here is the playsuit:

Navy playsuit - TKmaxx

I'm wearing one of the other dresses she sent me. I wasn't sure about it at first, but it looks much better on!

Please ignore that weird smudge on the right hand side....I think I've fixed my camera now. Everything seems to be breaking recently! My garden parasol snapped in half in the wind, my hoover over heated when I obsessively hoovered for too long and then my camera got that weird mark. Bad times! Hopefully that was my 3 bad experiences over with.

The only thing to tell you is that I'm selling a couple of things on Ebay at the mo....mostly outdoor clothing but also my Muubaa leather jacket. You can find them here





Oh, and HI to my new followers and super thanks to the girl who tweeted about my bunting diy! Those things and all your lovely comments made me super happy! :)

Super Cute "No sew" Bunting Tutorial

Let's be honest, who doesn't love bunting? Well, actually, boys don't love bunting. They don't get it for some reason.....Fools. But everyone else in the entire world loves bunting and that's good enough for me!

So what do you do when you have a spare Sunday and lots of cute Ikea fabric? You make your own bunting, of course! Unfortunately, me and my sewing machine (sorry, my sewing machine and I) fell out last year when I tried to put a free motion quilting foot on it. I wanted to make pretty doodles on fabric but the tension went all wrong and then the only tension was between me and the sewing machine....anyway, I digress! Here's how you make bunting without the sewing part:

Step one:
Gather your materials together. You will need - some fabric, an iron, some Wunderweb (or hemming tape), some ribbon, scissors, a pencil and some card.

Webbing tape from the Range - on special offer!

Step two:
Cut yourself a triangular "bunting shape" template. You need to cut it out of card so that it stays rigid. Lay it out on the back of your fabric and use a pencil to draw around it. Then flip it over at the top so that you are drawing a diamond shape. (The reason you do this is so you can fold the diamond in half to create double-sided bunting that is stuck together through the middle.....)

Fold your template in half to check that it's symmetrical.

Step three:
Cut out several fabric diamonds from a variety of fabrics. The number you will need depends on how long you want your bunting to be. Lay them out and play around with different sequences!

Scandinavian style fabrics from Ikea.

Step four:
Now comes the ironing part! Firstly, you need to fold your diamond in half (wrong sides facing) and iron the top crease flat.
Open it back out and lay the ribbon along the middle line. Cut some lengths of hemming tape and lay them along the edge. Don't leave any gaps or the fabric will come apart!



Use the hemming tape to create a triangle around the bottom piece.

Step five:
Ok, so now comes the ironing part! Fold the top triangle over at the crease and iron over the top. The iron needs to be on quite a hot setting and I put a tea towel underneath just in case anything went wrong. (By the way, I didn't steal that napkin from Jamie's Italian, I got someone else to nick it for me! As my mother says, I was not raised that way. But she didn't mention anything about receiving stolen goods......)

Step six:
Iron on all your triangles/ diamonds leaving a gap between each one on the ribbon. Hang somewhere pretty and enjoy! Tell all your friends how clever you are.

Shabby blogs!

Hello! As you can see, I have been busy "pimping" my blog! Go big or go home.....

I'm secretly quite proud of myself for mastering all these technological techniques - I don't know what else you'd call them! Computers didn't even really exist when I was at primary school and I'm sure my six year old brother knows more about them than I do.....

 I'm now super happy with the appearance, thanks to a free template which was easy to download and customise. I've also added a little signature to the bottom of the post (hopefully) and in a minute I'm going to add a "tutorials" tab at the top so you can access all my tutorials with one click of the button.

Do you like? As always, comments make day, as do new followers. Never underestimate the power of a kind word!

P.s Thanks to Claire Maxwell of I think I just blogged myself for her super kind email and to my newest follower, whoever you are.....

Websites that save you money!

Evening! I was recently contacted by Fashion Vouchers and invited to enter their competition. The aim is to create a post about websites that save you money on fashion purchases. Perfect for me really, as I don't like to pay full price for anything! (You say stingy, I say frugal....)

So, who shall we start with?

1)  Let's go with Shop Style - a site I stumbled across via Google.

What it does:
Shopstyle is like a search engine for fashion. You have a search box in the top corner, and when you type in the thing you're looking for (in my case, it was brogues) it brings you up a selection of products from different stores so you can pick your favourite.....or cheapest as is usually the case for me!

How it saves you money:
You might have an idea of the type of item you want to buy, but not have a specific brand in mind. With Shopstyle you can search out a few options and decide where you want to buy it from. I think it also includes items that are on sale.



2) BrandAlley is a site I only joined yesterday, but already I can see the benefits.

What it does:
There are several sites popping up that require you to "join" or "become a member." I've always been intrigued but until now I haven't bothered to fill in my details. You get exclusive access to sales and emails telling you what's coming up.

How it saves you money:
This website is about shopping for the things that you didn't know you needed......until you saw them at 60% off! It covers women's, men's, kids and home wares. Worth a weekly browse at least. Another site like this is Achica which I've also signed up for but that's more for interior design purposes...



3) Obviously, the best way to get online discounts is through a discount code website. My new favourite is, of course, Fashion Vouchers !

What it does:
You search the website for the online shop that you want to buy from and see if there is a current discount code available. Simples. There are many other sites doing this on some level but this is one of the few I've found that focus solely on fashion stores.

How it saves you money:
Well, I think I've already explained that! It gives you discount codes like 10% off or free delivery for use on your favourite websites.


4) The Outnet is the sister company of Net A Porter and a darn site cheaper!

What it does:
Designer. At sale prices. What's not to love? If I ever win the lottery, I would still want to feel like I was getting a bargain! Most of the things on this website are a bit pricey for me but if I wanted to treat myself then I'd go here. I've just seen a Marc Jacobs bracelet for £40. That's 55% off. So cute...

How it saves you money:

If you are someone who spends a lot on designer, then this is the site for you. It's a slightly less daunting way of owning a designer bag or a piece of designer jewellery. You can have all the famous names but at half the price (mostly.)

5) And lastly let's not forget Asos - one of the originals and one of the best. It started off life as a way of getting the celeb look at high street prices (hence "as seen on screen") but has now evolved to become a household name in its' right.

What it does:

Asos should be your "go to" for anything fashion and beauty related. They have all the latest trends, a fashion magazine, and also a place for customers to upload their outfits. It's like a one stop fashion haven.

How it saves you money:

It gives you choice, for example: you need some new shoes for a night out? Look no further. There will be hundreds to choose from, so pick the ones that have the best price tag attached! I've also seen some good discounts on big name brands like Models Own, River Island and Paul's Boutique. If you click Like on their Facebook page you will get updates on their "Sunday Sales" where you can save an extra bit of money in a different category each week.

Well, that's my personal round up! Do you use any of these sites? Please feel free to retweet this page or link your friends to it. If it's popular and I win the competition, Fashion Vouchers will give me £300 towards my blog!

I've been thinking up ways of spending it already.....





Week in pictures!

Let's start with today......! My mum and I went to Gunwharf Quays in Porsmouth and had an awesome lunch in Jamie's Italian. I have been to the Guildford one (on the opening night!) and really enjoyed the food.

We had some olives "on ice" to start that came with "music bread" (seriously, where does Jamie Oliver come up with these ideas??) and some tapenade in the middle. It was heaven...



We treated ourselves to a Bellini....

I had the pasta with puttanesca sauce (a small portion as we had planned to have desert...)

My mum had the pear and proscuito salad.....



Then we each had desert, which I forgot to photograph! I had panna cotta (divine) and my mum had an ice cream bombe with pannetone and candied fruits.

The service was good, the decor was quirky and overall we had a lovely time! Outside, there was a vintage ice cream truck....



Jamie's ice cream!

Lucky it wasn't open or we would have been back in the afternoon!

What else have I been up to? The boy and I made a recipe from the Hummingbird bakery cook book a week or two ago. It was pretty hard to make the "butterscotch" part and it was laden with calories but I enjoyed it!


Butterscotch marshmallow bars.



Martin mixes the ingredients....



Ours didn't look like the picture....

The rest of these pictures are just other randoms from my phone that I have finally uploaded!



Headkandy hair extensions in hot toffee



Sainsburys peanut butter nutter ice creams



Showing my legs what the sun looks like!



Not real! Dip dyed tissue paper pom pom.



My mum puts Thomas in his place!

Well, there you go. That's what I've been doing recently! What have you been up to?

P.s my computer does not spell check Italian words so for the sake of my Italian heritage, I hope I've spelt them correctly. I have a feeling proscuito is spelt prosscuito? Answers on a post card to "I don't care." Lolz.