Archives for March 2013

Keeping Cosy

March 27, 2013

Oh coffee cup. So boring. So uncolourful. So guilt inducing that I can never remember to bring my own cup to Starbucks so I don’t have to throw so many paper cups away.

I saw this project on Wild Olive (one of the best craft blogs in my opinion!) about making your own sleeve for your drink, and thought this was something I could do! It’s small enough to leave in my handbag, but it means I don’t have to pick up an extra bit of cardboard to throw away when I pick up my ridiculous drink. (It’s currently a grande skim white hot chocolate without whipped cream. A total mouthful to say, a delicious mouthful to drink)

I took a cardboard sleeve, undid it (carefully so I didn’t lose the shape!) and traced it onto some black felt. I cut it out, and made sure it would still go around my cup. (See? SEE? That’s how bloody stupid my order is.)

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to use buttons as a decoration, or more coloured felt, so I made one of each! I have a huge box full of buttons, so picked out my favourite colours

I then raided my felt stash and cut out circles from lots of different colours.

I positioned the circles on my black felt curve to find how I was going to arrange them, then sewed them on with matching embroidery thread. Seriously simple!

Here’s the felt circles sleeve in action…

…and the buttons one!

If I did this again, I’d probably double up on the black felt so it’s a little more insulating. You (obviously) could do any pattern on top that you wanted – I just like polka dots! Felt is cheap enough – I bought A4 sheets from Fabric Land (I can’t bring myself to link to their site – if you’ve seen it, you’ll know) for 30p each.

If you’re bored this weekend, this is possibly the easiest craft I can recommend you do!

Such a Betty

March 25, 2013

So the way that I discovered this magazine is kinda an odd one. I recieved notification that an image of mine was being used in a blog post on the Betty Magazine site, and tweeted that perhaps they should have asked before using the image (because honestly, I don’t care if people use most of my images, I just want to know what you’re doing with them!) The editor emailed me to apologise, and offered to send me a copy of the magazine.

Betty Magazine describes themselves as

[a] magazine that is dedicated to sharing with you, things that we like. You won’t find any weight loss or diet tips here, we don’t play on people’s insecurities: our philosophy is for people to embrace who they are and celebrate it.

It’s a refreshing change to the usual trashy magazines that are unfortunatly the main choices in your local newsagent – I would love to see this magazine (and more like it!) on the shelves in the local Co-Op. I know I’m not the only one out there that would prefer to see a recipe in a magazine rather than “lolz, look at this chubby celebs thighs” or an interesting article that makes you think instead of yet another attempt at getting bloggers to provide content and advertising for free.

You can find where to buy issues of Betty here or you can buy it online here for £6

Closed: Win £100 To Spend At zalando.co.uk

March 22, 2013

It’s Friday! Hooray! It’s nearly Easter as well, so double hooray for a long weekend of whatever! To celebrate the little things being awesome, Zalando kindly provided me with a little prize to give to one of you lovely lot. Well, little…will a £100 gift card make you smile?

While setting up this giveaway, I couldn’t resist a little window shopping of my own…I’m sure it’s not just me, but do you see things while shopping online that would be perfect for your favourite people?

Sarah Mia is always working away on her laptop, so I’d choose this yellow Mexx tote bag for her so she could get out of her home for a change of scenery. For Sarah, I’d pick this Orla Kiely dress – it just looks like a Sarah dress, you know? These Casadei high heels are pretty crazy looking, but I have this theory that Amy can basically wear ANYTHING and make it look good.
This Louche jumper with a cat wearing cat eye glasses on it? That’s totally one for the cat lady that is Bex. My best friend finally had her baby last week (squeeeeeeee! I can’t wait to meet the little man!) and I love this little Bonnie Baby jumper with a fox on it (I bet Fritha’s Wilf already has one similar!). I suspect Gina already has a pair of shoes similar to these Miss KG stilettos, but you can never have too many pairs, right? Finally, I think I need this tea set for myself – not that I need any more teapots and pretty cups!

So, the main thing that I want you to do to enter this competition is to tell me something lovely that made you smile this week. Whether it’s seeing your name written down a certain way (I love seeing my Twitter name handwritten for some reason!), realising that you’ve got an awesome group of people around you, or just having a really good cup of tea – what has put some joy into your day lately? (That link is to my tumblr account which I try to record (when I remember!) what has made me smile!) You can also earn further entries by tweeting about it and doing a bit of following on Facebook and Bloglovin’.

The giveaway is open to UK residents only (sorry international peeps!) and ends at midnight on Sunday 7th April, so you’ve got lots of time to enter! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Archives for March 2013

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