Recently I’ve been treating myself to scrapbooking and craft books. I don’t have the space or time to craft as much as I’d like, so it’s nice to browse projects and plan/dream ahead.
In particular I’m adoring The Art of Handmade Living by Willow Crossley, and feel it’s my duty to share! There are at least 10 projects that I’ll get round to doing once Husband and I have our own home. My favourites include the twiggy advent calendar, memory box, framed word art, fabric covered notebook, fabric decoupage coat hanger and linen laundry bag. Many of which would make lovely presents.
Real crafties may yearn for tougher projects to stick their teeth in to. For everyone else I highly recommend it. Swoon worthy.
I got mine from Amazon for £11.89.
I love perfume. I spray every day, choosing the scent that suits my mood, or how I want to feel on that day.
I have a wardrobe of 20 or so perfumes, which I guess is enviable. But I haven’t yet found ‘The One’. By that I mean my signature scent, the one that everyone recognises as ‘me’ when they smell it.
I very nearly did crown my signature scent when I was 21. I adored the sweet smell and friends started to think of me when they smelt it. But it was Britney’s first fragrance and I ended that little romance pretty quickly after people started asking me what I was wearing!
I have a few favourites that I use regularly, or love going back to, either because they remind me of people or special memories. There’s the one my brother and his partner gave me on our first Christmas together (Versace Crystal Noir) and the one I wore on my wedding day (Chloe). But if I was limited to these I’d be yearning for something new very quickly. In short, I’m born to have a variety.
I recently bought ‘The One’ by Dolce and Gabbana (that’s actually its name). I love it and for a moment I thought the clever marketing had actually worked, and I had in fact found ‘My One’, but no, it’s just one of many.
Have you found your signature scent? Id love to know what it is, how you discovered it, and why you love it.
I know, I know, Christmas is ages away! I will stop with the Christmas talk after this, I promise. For a week at least!
After buying some more scrap booking supplies at the weekend, I didn’t feel like doing any scrapbooking this evening (typical). Instead I remembered a little craft gift I was given last year and I dug it out.
The pre-cut fabric and everything except needle and thread was provided and it took less than an hour to make both.
It was so easy to do and with different fabrics you could make these in to year round decorations. I also love the idea of creating your own craft kits to give to crafty friends.
Who knows what I’ll be giving at Xmas this year 😉
Tomorrow I’m going to the Big Stamp & Scrap Booking Show at Alexandra Palace and I’m so excited!
It’s my first time there and I can’t wait to get my hands on some new papers and ribbons. Scrap heaven!
.
Here’s some of my latest craft purchases.
What do I love? Hmmm, let me think.
Shoes
Celebrities (a purely psychological interest, obviously)
Cocktails
Pampering
Helping good causes
Well then, imagine my delight at purchasing my tickets for the Small Steps Celebrity Shoe Auction at posh London Club Jalouse next month!
Small Steps is a Charity run to bring aid to children who live and/or work on rubbish dumps. The founder of the Charity went on a Jolly to Cambodia in 2009 and came back with a mission and an amazing idea. Thus Small Steps was born. As it’s such a fantasic organisation celebrities have dug deep in to their lovely, lovely wardrobes to donate shoes.
The premise is that one pair of £500 Jimmy’s (or whatever takes your fancy) equates to 250 pairs of wellies that could protect the feet of kids working on hot, sulphurous dumps that are littered with needles, rotting nappies and even hospital waste (not pretty), as well as the usual household paraphernalia.
On the night you can bid on your favourite slebs shoes during the live auction and could actually walk away as the proud new owner of them (the shoes that is, not the celeb).
The event will have cocktails and trays whizzing by with some of the celeb donors favourite snacks. I hear that Liz Hurley is partial to a chipolater with ketchup, you heard it here first!
Also to keep guests entertained there’ll be a pop-up hair salon (yes please!), a photography exhibition and a short film about the amazing work the Charity is doing.
Celebrity donors this year include Keira Knightley (that’s her heels in the pic), Sienna Miller, Joanna Lumley and Margherita Missoni, to name but a few.
Click the following link to see a cool promo video and buy tickets:
http://www.smallstepsproject.org/london-celebrity-shoe-auction2/
See you there, unless you’re a square.
It seems that after my batch of mediocre chick lit I’m now enjoying a run of greatness that the genre has to offer.
Watch over me by Daniela Sacerdoti is a magical and beautifully written book. After the first few pages I had already made a mental note to read the section again at a later date because it’s so well written, almost poetic. The beautiful writing flows through out the whole book making it a joy to read. The story itself ensured that I didn’t want to put it down.
It centres around Eilidh who is back to Scotland, what she remembers as home, after 10 years of failed attempts at pregnancy and the ending of her marriage.
The descriptions of pregnancy and small children are lovely and the book should come with a disclaimer that says “Will make you broody”!.
I’ll be reading more from this wonderful author.
Next up on my list is the latest Dorothy Koomson, The Rose Petal Beach. I’ve loved pretty much all her books so am hopeful that this will be another great one.
Don’t worry, I’ve not done a deal with the devil. Sin is the name of my favourite eye shadow which is made by Urban Decay. It’s pretty much the only eye shadow that I’ve used to the end (twice!) because it’s such a beautiful natural colour and goes with everything. And I’ve lost count of the number of compliments I’ve received on it.
Urban decay isn’t the most lux brand (nor is it cheap) but I’ve tried Dior, Clarins, Estée Lauder, MAC etc and none of them seem to match the amount of pigment in these – it’s just beautiful. It’s listed as eye shadow shimmer, but I’m not one for sparkle. Instead I’d describe it as a deep, rich, luminous eye shadow.
I first discovered the colour in their original Naked pallete which my bestie Amanda introduced me to. If you’ve not seen or heard of the palette then firstly, where have you been?! Secondly, this is the most perfect wardrobe of nudes and you probably NEED it!! They since launched a second palette (aptly named ‘Naked 2’), but I haven’t felt the need to try it because the one I have is so great.
They hiked the price of the palette up from £26 when they saw how successful it was (and sawpped the double eyeliner for a brush), but even at £36 it’s well worth it. Just do what I did and get an extra ‘sin’ separately, else you’ll use the one in the set up in no time. And nobody likes to be with out sin in their lives!
Sin is available for £14 from House of Fraser.
Enjoy your sinning girls!
I’ve seen advertisements about this for a while and have been curious. For those of you who missed the magazine ads, Glossy Box send you a monthly package of 5 good sized sample products (or bigger) to try. The cost each month is £10 plus £2.95 p&p, or you can subscribe and save.
Their website shows the contents of previous glossy boxes and from this I could tell that they were generally what I’d consider to be good value for money.
My first box arrived on the 15th August and was themed around the Olympics, with each product being an ‘International Superstar’, which made me wonder if this was the best box to receive. If their aim wasn’t simply to send me the best latest products, would some of the items be in there simply to fill a quota of Countries?
Here’s the beautifully wrapped Glossy Box, which was a joy to receive and open.
My box contained:
–Lipcote (Great Britain)
RRP £3.99 7ml
I’ve used this lipstick sealer in the past and loved it but as more and more indelible lipsticks came out (which I invariable didn’t fall in love with) I forgot about it. One of my besties still uses it religiously. The special edition bottle is really cute and I’ve put it on a few times since it arrived. I’ve rekindled my romance with it and am glad I did.
-DHC Deep Cleansing Oil (Japan)
RRP £18:50 200ml
I am a huge fan of oil cleansers and usually have one which I alternate with a cream cleanser. My favourites are Clarins Melting Gel and Shu Uemura enriched high performance balancing cleansing oil. I’d not heard of DHC but the brand seems to have cult following. The results were good, but no better than the other oil cleansers I’ve tried. The thing that put me off this was the smell…it contains olive oil which I don’t doubt is good for the skin, but at night when using it before bed it made me want to go find some bread to dip in it. I’m a sucker for a nice smell and scent of products is important to me. If you’ve never used an oil cleanser you’re missing out, they take off every trace of makeup (even mascara!) and dirt with ease.
– GLOSSYBOX lipstick in Glossy Pink
RRP £9.50 4g
I was a little surprised by this one as I didn’t know Glossy manufactured their own products, and wondered if it was a little cheeky to include it. But the colour and consistency are lovely and I’ll definitely be keeping this.
-imPress Press-on Manicure by Broadway Nails (USA)
RRP £7.99 24 nails
Plain and design manicures that you literally press on to your nail and last up to a week. Fake nails have moved on a lot since I was 13! I didn’t like the design I received but gave them a try. I love these so much that I’ll follow with a separate little post.
– Allesandro Pro Whitener (Germany)
RRP £7.85 10ml
Gives a whitening effect to nails. Not something I’d usually look at or buy. Tried it on my toe nails and didn’t really see a difference. Probably the item I was least interested in.
-Vera Valenti Eye Shadow Pallete (Spain)
RRP £3.85
So, there were actually six items in total. I’m glad about that because this item is like some sad bonus booby prize. I thought perhaps I was judging a book by its cover (and price tag) and therefore being superficial. So I tried the shadows on. I was right first time, they are like makeup I used to receive at Christmas as a pre teen. They have such little depth and flake when used with a proper eyeshadow brush. I’m sure Spain has much better products to give, I’d be a little put out if I were them.
There you have it, the contents of my first glossy box and my thoughts on them.
Out of the 6 items I received there are two that I love, and one that I like. I’m pleased, and will continue service for another 3 months and see how I go.
I can’t remember how I initially got the idea for these wedding favours-come-table names. But I am always hanging little heart decorations on door knobs and dimmer switches (much to husband’s annoyance), so it probably grew from there.
In my many cuttings from wedding magazines I saw something similar, in that it was a wooden heart that had been decorated . But they were sold for around £4 each and personalised by someone else, and not really done to my taste.
As I love crafting and think weddings are all about the personal touches, I took on the task of making 136 of these beauties myself. That was shortly after we got engaged, leaving me with around 16 months to play with. I had thought it gave me lots of time to go at a nice slow pace. And I did. Two months in and after various test versions I’d settled on the final template. Two months before the wedding and I was still taking it slow, with no more made!
In the weeks leading up to the wedding I (reluctantly) accepted help with the fairly basic task of painting the hearts in the wedding colours before I stamped the rest. Two pairs of hands definitely made things quicker. Husband made a good effort, I did however, have to sack the Maid of Honour from the duty (she stroked the brush in the wrong direction – unforgivable!).
As you will have realised, the hearts come unpainted. I bought sample pots of matt emulsion paint from Homebase(!) as DIY shops seem to have a wider selection of colours than craft stores, and they can even colour match for you. My wooden hearts arrived accompanied with twine which does look good, but I decided to pretty them up with some ivory ribbon. For the front (pictured) my other materials were:
-‘Birds and Nests Rubber Stamps in a Tin’ set by Cavallini Papers, which included a black ink pad.
-My beloved individual alphabet stamps.
The reverse (not pictured) had a background white stamp, and a personalised message stamped in black ink. The materials were:
-Tim Holtz ‘Birdsong’ Cling Stamp, used with an acrylic block (I also used this for my wish tags shown in a previous post).
-A white crafting ink pad.
-A custom stamp from The English Stamp Company, with both our names and the wedding message ‘From the love birds 23-06-12’. I went for the address Stamp, which for the amount of text we used came to £14.95 mounted on a wooden handle.
I got 8cm x 7.5cm hearts on eBay for around 40p each. When you bear in mind that most place names come in at £1 each, you begin to realise that a multi tasking favour like this isn’t just a pretty face!
One of the many things I love about my husband is that he’s good with his hands and can make something out of nothing (like a few girls I’ve heard about but never had the pleasure to meet!). He very cleverly made a device to hang the hearts from for drying. It was made out of a wire coat hanger (original) and enabled me to paint more in one go. As a side note: When writing prompts for this post on the tube I noticed the person next to me looking across my shoulder, the note I’d left myself for later was ‘Husbands hanging device’. I wonder what she thought I was getting up to!
The traditional wedding favour is five Sugared almonds, representing fertility, longevity, wealth, health and happiness. Not one to miss an opportunity for sweets, we had a candy bar too. Colour co-ordinated, of course.
During the reception a few of the guys attached their favour to their jacket button holes which looked cool and was nice for me to see. And now, a couple of months on, it’s lovely to go round to my friends and families houses and see the favours hung and looking pretty. As for mine? They are hanging on my chest of drawers, where husband doesn’t need to worry about them getting in his way!
Dotty Belle's Blog 