Make your gadgets sparkle.

This may not be strictly neccessary thrift but lets face it black gadgets are a bit boreing. I'm often tempted by those oh so pretty cath kidston phone covers and pouches but they are expensive! (and I don't own an i-phone)

 

So of course I thought what can I do myslef to protect my phone and jazz it up a little.  A very simple solution for a phone pouch would be to sew a retangular pouch in your favourite fabric and line it with micro fibre cloth and perhapps include a simple draw string closure.  In the true spirit of thrift you could use an old baby sock but this idea is a little lack lustre for me personally.

How about cross stitching your own design like in this brilliant tutorial here 

weelittlestitchescrossstitch.blogspot.com

Of course if cross stitch isn't your thing you could just as easily mount a picture, photgraph, piece of fabric or scrap booking paper behind a clear cover.  The best thing about this design is you can change it as often as you like for litterally nothing.

Now how about this laptop key board - isn't it gorgeous!
Image from minifanfan

 

Get a full tutoria here. Kira recommends buying the Washi tape - a japeneese rice paper tape. from Etsy but if you don't want to wait for it to be posted to you here in the UK try nonesuch things.

My husband is hoping his work are going to provide him with a laptop so he can work from home and do bits and pieces on the train.  I've been saving some fabric that is right up his street and i've been waiting for the right project to use it.  I think a padded laptop case would be perfect, i'll post pictures if i make it as I know craft projects for men are always a little thin on the ground.

"The best things in life are free"

As throw away as the above saying is - and please try to cast images of Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson out of your mind -  isn't it true!  I was reminded of this when we woke up on Sunday morning to 4inches of beautiful crisp white snow!!!

We built a snowman before church and warmed up with hot chocolate.  We threw snowballs, pulled the sledge along the road - no hills here in the fens.  Made snow prints and took a walk to look at the pond all frozen over.  By the end of the day we were thoroughly worn out, glowing with excitement and very happy.

Having had some very poorly children of late who now apear to have chicken pox.  I’ve been stuck indoors rather a lot lately so we've had to make our own fun here is a list things me and my girls enjoy.

• Black and white films - no I’m not kidding my 4year old LOVES black a white films the slower pace, the simplicity and the singing and dancing, I like them too.
• Jumbo colouring books, big enough to share and colour together
• Flower pressing collect leaves and flowers from the garden and use a flower press or place them between sheets of blotting paper and heavy book.
• Making cards bookmarks and pictures with our pressed flowers.
• baking, always popular with children.
• sewing cards print a simple picture mount it on stiff card and punch holes around the outline.  Then let your child sew through the holes with a shoe lace of length of wool. 
• Building dens.  Under the table, under the laundry rack, between two chairs just make sure you have  plenty of blankets and perhaps a pillow.

Thats just for starters. I'll have plenty more posts on inexpensive or better still free fun for little ones.

Glamour

Look I've gone pink!  Those readers who know me personally will know I'm a girly girl. So I thought I'd play around with the backgrounds on my blog and have come up with a new scheme that I much prefer.

On the subject of glamour if you ever get a hankering for some glamour in your life let me introduce you to my alter ego.  My sister is a fashion editor and lives a glamorous life of fashion shows and after party's in London.  When she's not partying she writes a blog under the credo dress like no one’s judging.

Her latest post is titled 5 ridiculous things about fashion

It's well worth a read.

    

As she put it herself her idea of thrift is "finding an £800 dress for £500 and calling it a £300 saving"! I can only dream.  I am hoping she will do a guest post for me sometime and share some great fashion tips with us all. 

Daddy's Girl

Back in October my husband took a new job which came with a much more casual office dress code than his previous job.  So he was throwing out a lot of his formal shirts. Rather than letting them go to waste I set about re-purposing them.

This 1st attempt which I'm about to share with you started out life as a dress for my 4year old.  I have only bee dressmaking for about a year and I'm still very new to pattern drafting. I drafted a pattern  which on paper looked fine but as a began to make it up and fit the sleeves I struggled and decided to cut the bodice down.  When I got it all together I discovered the bodice was now too snug :(

In the spirit of waste not want not I decided to dispose of the bodice and use the bottom half of the dress as a skirt.  

The original dress used the hem of the shirt as its skirt hem - why make unnecessary work for yourself.

I had already narrowed the shirt and sewn up the side seams to make the dress. All I now needed to do was chop of the bodice leaving the desired skirt lenght.  Measure my daughters waist and cut the same amount (plus 1.5cm for joining) of wide elastic.

I gathered the skirt to the same lenght as my daughters waist measurement. Overlapped the elastic by 1.5cm and stitched it together using a zigzag stitch and then attached the waist band.    Et Viola!

 

I admit its a little madcap and perhaps not Sunday best but there are some things I like about this skirt. 

 In keeping the lenght longer and the top quite close fitting I haven't needed to sew up the shirt openings.  My daughter can romp about in this skirt quite freely because of the opening in the shirts bottom however this longer lenght keeps her perfectly decent.  Also I imagine in the warmer summer months (Which I can only dream of at present) this feature will also keep her lovely and cool.

So a play skirt for a Daddy's girl cost - mere pence!

Nutella Part 2

I've shared with you before about re-purposing the lids of Nutella jars but now for something pretty.

Of course the glass jars that the chocolate spread comes in can we washed out and used a tumblers but it may take quite some time to get a set this way so how about this.

Make them into pretty candle votive using nothing more than double sides tape and some scraps of lace.  This is so simple to do I won't patronise you with instructions and it's so simple children can do it to.

 

 
















The pictures don't quite do them justice but they cast some pretty shadows with a tea light in them.