DIY tissue paper pom pom decorations

I have seen these exquisite decorations in many places recently and thought they would be pretty complicated to make. Wrong! Super easy, super cheap (especially if you have the materials already like I did.)

Here's one I made earlier - hanging in my garden:

Yellow tissue paper decoration

Here's what you do:

Find some tissue paper in your crafty stash box. Whoop with joy that you don't have to go out and buy any. Also find some think silver wire and some sharp scissors.

My tissue paper was in big rectangular sheets so I folded it into a triangle and then cut along the line to make squares. (That doesn't make much sense, but I'm sure you get what I mean.)

You will need about 7-10 layers of tissue paper.

Then you need to concertina your tissue paper.

It is a bit tricky to get the folds even but it's not the end of the world if they are a bit wonky!

Then you need to tie a bit of wire around the middle like so:

Trim the ends with some sharp scissors into a rounded "petal" shape.



Carefully separate out the layers of tissue paper to create a 3d ball shape:

When all the petals are evenly spread, you are ready to hang your decoration! You could tie ribbon around the wire to make a more professional finish or you could use different coloured layers of tissue to make a brighter pom pom!

Some pom pom inspiration for you:



My pastel peach pom pom



At martha stewart.com



Beautiful turquoise



Colour coordinating



Natural neutrals



Patterned papers



Use as a table centre piece at weddings



You can dip dye the ends to create a more flowery hue

Well..........I hope you are as overwhelmed with inspiration as I am!! Happy pom pomming!

DIY felt peter pan collar necklace

As you may have noticed from my previous posts, I love a peter pan collar as much as the next girl. However, as I also keep mentioning, I paid my car insurance this month and therefore don't have endless money for new things. Sad face.

So I decided that DIY was the only way to go - and preferable with materials I already had around the house! This diy is using the pattern form an old edition of Mollie Makes magazine but the rest is all original!

Here's what you'll be making:

Diy felt peter pan collar necklace

And you'll be glad to hear that it's super simple. The best diy's always are.

First up, raid your fabric stash for some felt. Ideally it needs to be quite good quality so that it has a little stiffness to it. Not essential.....mine certainly wasn't.

Cut yourself a template out of card - this makes it easy to reuse.

Felt scraps and a cardboard template.

 Then pin your template to your chosen scrap of felt and cut out two "collar" shapes.

Next, you need to sew a length of ribbon to each end - this gives you something to tie your necklace with!

Add a cute button or bow to the middle - use tiny stitches to link the two pattern pieces in the middle.

Et voila!! Customise to your hearts content! Here's mine in action:

Here are few ideas from google images to get you started:



From wendyward.wordpress.com



From fashioncollars.wordpress.com

A full collar.



No longer available
at etsy sadly!

Send me your efforts my lovelies.......

Dreaming of you

So as I said, not much going on in my life at the moment! Mainly due to me being broke and the weather being atrocious.
 I've been having some weird dreams lately.....the other night I dreamt I gave birth to a baby swan (?!?) and then last night I dreamt I was pregnant but didn't have a very big bump, then all of a sudden the midwife said I was in labour.....

These dreams aren't particularly hard for me to work out (except for the swan bit) as I would be due to give birth this month if I hadn't had a miscarriage. I'm thinking about it a lot at the moment and wondering "why me?" Then again, I think I will appreciate being pregnant much more next time (if there is a next time) after experiencing this loss. And now I am a bit more clued in as to how common it is for women to miscarry.

Obviously this is a slightly depressing subject - sorry about that! I just thought it was an important thing to put out there.....It's a bit of a taboo subject. Has anyone else experienced this? How did you cope with it?

Bank Holiday Business

Hello. How was your Bank Holiday? I spent mine working. It was busy. It rained. What else do you need to know?

So here's an update from last week instead! I customised my brogues with some pink, velvet ribbon for laces....

Unfortunately, I then went to the gym but forgot to pack my trainers. So I had to work out in my brogues. I think I pulled it off. Or not!

Here's the outfit I put together:



Top - Primark, Cardigan - Zara, Jeans - River Island, Brogues -Topshop

I was going for girly geek chic......

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I took his parents for Sunday lunch to say thank you for tiling my kitchen floor. We had a super huge carvery. It was good!

Here's what I wore:

I'm still quite impressed with my Tresemme hair spray. It's made my hair nice and shiny as you can see!

Apart from that, nothing really going on. My life is a bit dull at the moment as I had to pay my car insurance. That means no money to buy anything or go anywhere. Sob sob.

I've been window shopping on the Zara website - they have some amazing handbags on there at the moment. I find that in their stores, they hide the bags on top shelves (which I can't reach) and don't really "push" the accessories much. Which is a huge shame when they are so upmarket. And reasonably priced. But hey ho, no new bags for me this month. Probably a good thing.

Anwayz..... I'm off to watch reruns of The O.C....another guilty pleasure....

Guilty pleasures: Audrina Patridge

I started by watching "Laguna Beach - The Real OC" which soon progressed to "The Hills" starring Lauren Conrad. Then Whitney Port got her own spin-off show in "The City" and finally Audrina Patridge has the imaginatively named "Audrina."

It's currently on the tv channel Really on freeview. It's all about Audrina and her celeb life style and her totally crazy mum (or mom probably) who I'm sure is high on something.....she seems to slur every sentence! It's totally cheesy but somehow I can't stop watching it.


Star of "Audrina"



Audrina Patridge

She is so skinny and pretty - totally jealous!  I'm sure it's a little easier if you have a stylist, personal trainer, hairdresser, make up artist etc

Anyway, I digress...... My love of terrible American tv started with the film "Clueless" which is currently on tv at this moment! I've always secretly wanted to be an American cheerleader.....Don't judge me.

You know already that I love Made In Chelsea. I've moved on a little from Millie Macintosh to Louise Thompson. Her style is so cute and Jamie is my favourite out of the boys!



Louise Thompson - Made In Chelsea

 There aren't many pics available of her - but this one of her sequin collar is pretty cool! She doesn't look too happy though.....

But my favourite Made In Chelsea look is from their various trips to "the country." They do British Chic style so well! I sadly can't find any decent pics of this. Think tweed, Barbour jackets and Hunter wellies and you are somewhere close.

What is you favourite tv show? Have you seen 2 Broke Girls yet? Soooo funny...

Styling my brogues!

Howdy! I don't know how it started but all of a sudden I had a passion for brogues. I don't think I even liked them before this week.....!

About a year ago, a girl came into the shop where I work wearing some amazing silver, leather brogues with skinny jeans. She was effortlessly cool. Then recently I stumbled across these gorgeous brown brogues with ribbon laces from Nordstrom:



"Paxton Oxfords" £39 from Nordstrom


Reasonably priced until you factor in the shipping costs of about £20! They have so many lovely pairs though.....sigh.
Another place that I found lovely brogues was Clarks. But they were £50. A little too much for a passing fancy. Then I found some Bertie ones for £44.99 in TK Maxx. They were also lovely. However, I finally settled on these from the Topshop sale:



Black suede brogues £15 from Topshop (sale)

They are really comfy and were reduced from £32. You can get them on the website - they are called "magician."

I'm currently wearing them with a nautical inspired dress and grey tights.



Brogues and a dress!

Do you like them? When I pinned the Clarks ones on Pinterest, my Dad asked if granny shoes were in fashion and said I should look in charity shops as "that's where elderly, deceased people send their shoes."

Thanks Dad.

Pearl Peter Pan Collars

Evening :) I decided to put a little effort into my outfit today....doesn't happen often!


Peter Pan collar necklace from
Miss Selfridges.



Dress from New Look, belt from Peacocks, boots as usual!

Sometimes my outfits come together really well, like today. Other days it just isn't happening. I bought this necklace ages ago but never found anything to wear it with......until now!

I was also having a pretty good hair day and had some time on my hands so I put in my Headkandy hair extensions....



Headkandy hot toffee hair extensions

I still haven't really perfected the art of putting them in, as my hair is quite fine. I struggle to hide the clips - and no one wants to go out with seriously obvious hair extension bumps!

And from behind...



Headkandy hair extensions

Mostly, I'm just so impressed that the "hot toffee" colour is such a perfect match for my own hair colour!

Other than prancing about in my bedroom, I went to town and had a yummy muffin and cup of tea in Starbucks. Starbucks is my happy place. It used to be Borders, but they went bust. Boo hiss. Actually, there used to be a Starbucks in Borders. That was the ultimate heaven...




Starbucks tall tea and blueberry muffin



Well, time to head off for dinner....and there is a kitten under my arm which is making it hard to type....

P.S I was not about to name this post "pearl necklace" - that would have been an entirely different sort of post!