Sunday 29 December 2013

Thrifty Christmas Decorating

Christmas is over!  Time to start thinking about how you'd like to decorate your home next year.  No, I'm not kidding!  The sales are the perfect time to grab some half price Christmas trees, decorations, giftwrap and cards, assuming you have somewhere to store them until next year.  And, now that you've got all your decorations up is the time to notice any areas that you think are under-decorated (e.g. you didn't have anything to put on your mantlepiece), and to make a note of things you definitely have enough of (e.g. if you have about 10 strings of fairy lights, that's probably enough...).  Make some lists in a little notebook and then throughout the year you can buy things as you see them, rather than do a last-minute panic.

Cards & Giftwrap
I've just been to Marks and Spencer and Next, and picked up some beautiful cards for £1.50 and £1 respectively for boxes of 20.  Their Christmas sales tend to be in-store only rather than online, so worth popping in if you're passing.  How many cards did you send this year?  I sent far more than I'd planned, once I took into account my workplace, so had a last-minute panic of buying more cards, which wasn't ideal.  I keep a spreadsheet (!) that tells me which cards I've sent to which people in what year, to avoid duplication.  Now that all my work colleagues are on the spreadsheet, I know more accurately how many cards I'll need for next year.

I also stocked up on gift wrap, £1.75 reduced from £4 a roll for 4 metre quality metallic wrap.  My top tip would be to buy plain metallic colours if you can, because then you can use them for birthdays, leaving presents, weddings, and pretty much every other occasion you can think of.  For example, a plain gold paper with some white ribbon looks quite 'weddingy', or use a plain red for a Valentine's gift and use some heart-print ribbon.  Ribbon is incidentally also half price in the sales, Next had some pretty patterns.

Trees and Ornaments
Being our first Christmas in our new home, we only had some tiny student size trees, and wanted to splash out on a big 7 foot one for our living room.  The one we chose was the artificial Meribel Sheen from B&Q for £45.  If you think that next year you'd like to upgrade then search the sales now - the one we bought is now just £22.50, with all of the B&Q trees being half price.  Sometimes you'll find them even cheaper, one year we saw trees orginally priced at over £100 for just £10.

I should confess that this year we actually had two trees!  On the Saturday before Christmas, B&Q slashed the price of all real trees to just £5.  It would have been rude not to!  So, we had a lovely real tree for our dining room.

With all this additional foliage, we were short of some baubles.  We'd managed to cobble enough together for the artificial tree, but did have to buy some additional baubles for the real tree.  Fortunately Morrisons had bumper packs of 55 assorted finish baubles at half price, for just £2.50, in either red or gold.  Great value, we're really pleased with them.  I also made a few decorations, I'll tell you more about that in another post.

Don't forget to look on Freecycle or car boot sales from January onwards for second-hand decorations - this year we passed up on a 6 foot artificial tree and a bin bag full of decorations for £5 at a local car boot sale, and I've seen so many Christmas trees going for cheap or free online.  People tend to buy new ones, even if they have a perfectly good old one, so take advantage of it.



The Christmas Table
I already had a tablecloth and lots of candles and candlesticks, so the table didn't need much dressing.  For the napkins, I had a rummage in my sewing box and found some black and red tartan fabric that matched the red of the tablecloth and black of the placements.  I tied this around each napkin and added a sprig of fresh rosemary, and a gift tag with name written on, to double up as a placecard setting.



Dressing the napkins in this way is a really quick and cheap way to smarten up the table a bit.  If you have a basic, plain set of placemats and other table items, then you can use them all year round, and add some 'festive' touches as required around Christmas.  Perfect if you don't have the space to store an entire lot of Christmas-themed table settings.

If you were short of plates, serving bowls and serving spoons, or a big platter this year, then start keeping a look out for these items in the sales.  These are also the kind of things you find for next to nothing at the car boot sale or in charity shops.  I bought two large silver-plated serving spoons just before Christmas at the local car boot sale for 50p, and a beautiful old cake knife also for 50p.  I'd already noted that I was missing these items, and just remembered to keep looking for them.  Seek and ye shall find!

Lighting
Was your tree twinkly enough this year?  We have 3 sets of lights on our large tree but to be honest it could take more.  As soon as car boot sale season starts, keep an eye out for strings of fairy lights.  We must have at least a dozen sets of lights now, some of them outdoor lights.  None of them were more than £3, and they were collected over a whole year of charity shop rummaging and car boot sale lurking!

If you do have spare lights that don't need to go on the tree, consider using them elsewhere.  A glass vase or bowl filled with lights looks enchanting, as does hanging them over mantlepieces, above windows and along bookshelves.  Don't have any spare fairy lights?  Consider adding extra lamps to a room, but with low wattage bulbs, so that light is softer and more diffused - you'll be amazed at the difference in atmosphere it makes.  You can always use candelight too if you candles or tealights already, but it does require the utmost care if where they are placed (keep away from Christmas cards and decorations!), and you can't leave them unattended.  You can get battery operated tealights, but I don't know how good they are.




The Scent of Christmas
Next to lighting, smell is one of the quickest ways to evoke atmosphere.  I'm a huge fan of the highly scented candles from Yankee Candle and The White Company.  Both do Christmas themed scents, and they really do fill a room with the most wonderful aromas.  They're pretty pricey, but this is again something you can look for in the sales - I got a 'Apple and Pine Needles' Yankee Candle last year for around half price.  I tried a huge, and cheap, scented candle from Home Bargains but alas the scent doesn't fill the room, you have to be up close to get any fragrance.  Sometimes it's worth spending the money on something that really works.   Alternatives are to use an oil burner with scented oils in, or you can let the smell of your mulled wine waft through the house as you're heating it.

Christmas Food & Presents
This isn't about decorating, but I should add look out for nice presents and food in the sales!  Stash them away in a box or a drawer for next year.  Food items that are always on sale after Christmas include Christmas puddings (on sale now they should have a best before Spring 2015), and even things like bottles of mulled wine.  I always keep an eye out for items in the sales that would make nice gifts - angora socks (below from Next, £4 reduced from £10), boxes of chocolates (check the date on them), scarves, hats, bags and such like.  I tuck them away and use them for birthdays coming up in the next couple of months.



Are any of you preparing for next Christmas already by stashing things away?  I hope I'm not the only one stocking up on cards and giftwrap already!



Friday 27 December 2013

A Louis Vuitton Copy Dress for Christmas Day

Did you all have a wonderful Christmas?  I do hope so, and can't wait to see what you wore, ate and what presents you got!

This was my outfit for Christmas day, a £28 Matalan dress that has hung with the tags on at the back of my wardrobe for some years now!  The shoes are a Christmas present to myself, the 'Concert Ticket' from Clarks in red suede, now on sale for £34.99.

Christmas day dress Louis Vuitton copy

Monday 23 December 2013

Evening Wedding Outfit

First of all, thank you for your kind responses to my last post. I'm glad you havent all disowned me from the blogging world because of the acidental shoplifting incident! 

 Life is very, very busy in the run up to Christmas, I've just made some mince pies and finally have the chance to sit still for an hour, so thought I'd share some photos with you of an outfit I wore last night to an evening wedding reception. I've worn this Stop Staring dress many times now, it's very versatile, but I don't think I've shared the Vivienne Westwood for Melissa shoes before.   I curled my hair with an iron and pinned them in place until they cooled, I was very pleased with the waves I achieved!  Excuse the selfie, it was the best way to capture them.


Stop Staring Dress
 Dress: Stop Staring
Shoes: Vivienne Westwood for Melissa

Lipstick: Dusty Rose by Besame
 

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Book Review: The Book Thief

I've just read Markus Zusak's, 'The Book Thief', which was actually published back in 2008, but a film has been made (released January 2014 in the UK I believe) and the book has had a bit of  resurgence.

The Book Thief Review


HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.
Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH
It's a small story, about:
a girl
an accordionist
some fanatical Germans
a Jewish fist fighter
and quite a lot of thievery.
ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES


Interested?  I have to say my curiosity was immediately sparked by reading the above blurb on the back of the book.  As it says, it centres around the world of a poor young girl, and the characters that come and go in her life as war breaks out.  The story is set on the periphery of the wider story of WWII, so that the characters are affected, irreparably, by the war, but it's not really a book about the war itself.  The central story is really about coming of age, of friendships and about books.  I don't really want to say too much about the plot, because it unfolds beautifully and if you're going to read it then I don't want any surprises spoilt.  It starts off as a gradual slide from 'normality' into a charged atmosphere of facism taking over every aspect of daily lives, and very much captures just how terrifying it must have been for 'ordinary' people.

Monday 16 December 2013

1920s and 1930s Inspired Christmas Party Dresses!

It's time to think about being a more glamorous version of yourself as we launch ourselves into the festive party season.  With a huge range of vintage-inspired frocks on the high street this season, thanks I'm sure in no small part to the popularity of The Great Gatsby film and costume dramas like Downton Abbey, you're really spoilt for choice.

My suggestions below are really a nod to an era - if you want a full blown vintage look then you can source vintage reproduction items off the internet from places like 20th Century Foxy and Revival Retro.

1920s
1920s Inspired Christmas Party Outfits


Friday 13 December 2013

The Christmas Tree

It's up!  Following on from my earlier post about the decoration debates with my other half, I am pleased to report that the trimming of the tree was fun, non-confrontational, and we both love the finished result.  In the end, we didn't have any budget left for new decorations so we had to combine what we already had - fortunately we both had mainly red and gold ornaments, so the theme was already there!  We scrabbled around a bit to get enough decorations, I even put a little bird cake decoration on the tree.  I let tinsel be put on, and coloured lights.  I supervised even distribution of ornaments and vetoed which ones could or could not be used.  We drank mulled wine out of tea cups.






The end result is quite traditional, and not at all interior-magazine perfect.  But it's our tree and I love it.

Seems like love trumps tinsel.

Thursday 12 December 2013

Party at a Vintage Shop

My friend Liz, owner of Emily Rose Vintage, had a little knees-up.  A small gathering of models, photographers, hair and make-up experts and general vintage lovers!

Emily Rose Vintage





 

It was lovely to meet some more people interested in the vintage 'scene' and to find out about some of the exciting things that are planned for the New Year - I'll keep you posted!

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Art Deco Inspired Shelving

First of all, welcome new followers!  Today is a bit of a tangent and is about vintage inspired interiors.  My Baby has a vast collection of CDs, and myself a library's worth of books and DVDs.  The living room in our new home is rather large, so we decided that we needed an actual library to house our respective collections.  "I'll build some custom shelving", my Baby said.  "Can I have Art Deco shelving, please?" I requested, thinking that as we're in a 1930's house we should try and do something that would fit with the style.  My wish is his command.  Two weeks (of blood, sweat and tears) later...

art deco inspired shelving




 
I was thinking of buildings like this when we were sketching out ideas (images just from a Google image search of 'art deco building').  I knew I wanted some curves, and a stepped detail.  I think we've captured the 'essence' pretty well, considering they're shelves not apartments!

The project is halfway through - we still have to do a mirror set of shelves for the other wall, for the books and DVDs.  I think that will have to wait until January though, as I think my Baby needs a rest.

If you're interested in the construction details, then read on!
The shelves are in two sections (rather than making one huge L-shaped unit).  The shelves are made of planed pine (6" x 1") and the 15 horizontals are fitted into the 3 vertical supports on each unit with half-lap joints.  The joints were cut with a jigsaw, chiselled out, and then filed.  The ends of the horizontals were cut into quarter circle arcs using a jigsaw.  Sharp edges were all filed to soften them, and although the shelves stand on the floor, they have been secured to the wall with mirror plates to prevent them from toppling over.  A decorative stepped top lintel has been glued to each top of the shelving units.  The wood was all painted before assembly (with Sanctuary matt emulsion in 'Soothing') and lightly sanded.  The wood cost approximately £140, and we already had all other materials and tools needed.



What do you all think?  Do you like them??

Sunday 8 December 2013

Festive Housewarming Party Outfit

I just wanted to share quickly what I wore to our festive housewarming party on the weekend (which was wonderful!).  I love this jacket from Traffic People, it's getting a lot of wear this season,I feel so decadent with the faux fur cuffs!  Underneath is a beautiful red dress, high street, that was a gift.  Please excuse the 'selfie' but my camera couldn't cope with the dim lighting elsewhere!

faux fur jacket and red Christmas party dress
 
In my hand that's a Festive Fizz cocktail of my own concoction...

I have so many posts planned, I don't know how I'm going to fit them all in!  Lots of book, clothing and make-up reviews lined up, plus a few outfits to share with you as well as some home improvement lessons.  Throw in a few parties, and December's going to be a busy month!  I can't wait!!

Friday 6 December 2013

10 Mile Run!!

It was a few weeks ago, but I need to confess that I ran 10 miles, through forest, across dunes, along a beach...
Well, to be more accurate, I injured my knee at mile 6, so the last few miles were more of a limp-jog, but I made it across the finish line and I wasn't last!!

The 10 mile multi-terrain race was held by Sospan Road Runners running club, at Pembrey Country Park, and this year was in memory of my father-in-law, who passed away a few months ago.  A very fitting tribute and I was proud to be part of the day.



Wednesday 4 December 2013

Vintage Breakfast

Vintage Breakfast

Don't keep your vintage china for best - use it!  I spent the time on the weekend to make myself a proper breakfast (rather than something shoveled in at my desk) and it tasted so much better being off vintage china, and being eaten at my lovely refurbished dining table.  Yes, those are Angel Adoree's coddled eggs - perfect with some chives and bit of hot sauce.

Do you use your vintage china everyday?

Monday 2 December 2013

Christmas Cake Baked!


The first proper bit of baking in the new house's kitchen.  I always use Nigella Lawson's Christmas cake recipe, and follow her instructions of creating a little brown paper shield so that the top of the cake doesn't get burnt.  It works!

Have you made a Christmas cake yet?  What recipe do you follow?
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