Fun on a budget

Evening! Yes, I'm still poor. I don't get paid until Thursday and it has been SUCH a long month.  So here is what I've been doing to have fun on a budget.

Up cycled footstool:
I work right next door to a charity shop and I spotted a cute little foot stool sitting outside their back door one morning. I waited until the end of the day to see if the would put it up for sale but it was still there when I finished work.....so I nabbed it and took it home!

To start with it was covered in a grey, furry fabric and looked a bit unloved. In the spirit of "not spending" I found a good supply of Ikea fabric in my stash, hunted out a stapler and some tacks and set about transforming it.

In the beginning it looked like this:

And with only about 10mins effort it now looks like this:



If I had had a proper staple gun, it might have been easier but hey ho. That corner is not quite as mis-shapen as it looks btw.

I had been looking for a second hand foot stool to go with the vintage rocking chair that I picked up in Wales whilst visiting my mum. Unfortunately, as there is no room in my current house it will be staying at my mum's until I sell and move.

I can't wait to finally sit in it again. Luckily, I have had a few viewings on my house already so fingers crossed! 

What else? I got a cute little glass for my bathroom from Ikea. I had cracked the other one a while ago and this one was under £2.



Cut glass from Ikea

I've also been buying plants for the garden from Tesco. I got two hanging baskets for £5 each and an Acer for £10. Serious bargains.

And finally, my lovely boyfriend bought me Mollie Makes magazine as there was a free wedding magazine with it and I needed  it! It has some lovely pictures of my new obsession - brooch bouquets. I've already found some tutorials on the net and instructed my mum to hunt for cheap brooches at boot sales....



Brooch bouquet from Mollie Makes magazine



One last thing....I made another tissue paper pom pom the other day but this time I dip dyed the ends with some undiluted blackcurrant squash. It was really effective!

I hope this inspires you to think twice before splashing the cash! There is still a recession on, you know!

Any plans for the Jubilee weekend? I'll be working and hanging with my mum :)

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....