Thrifty Thursday - Take A Bake...

What a day! It was my brother's 16th birthday today so I decided that I'd take a break from this week's Fashion Week frenzy and bake the best birthday cake for my bro!

A pre-made birthday cake in the supermarkets (double chocolate with icing and multiple layers) cost £10 and up...minimum!

The ingredients for this little beauty cost just under a fiver (bearing in mind I had most of the stuff in my cupboards somewhere anyway!) even though I used Organic Green & Black's chocolate! Twit twooo! Get me with my posh choc...

So whilst my brother slogged it out at school I was a slave to the kitchen whisking away to the soundtrack of J.Lo's Greatest Hits and, all in all, my sunny afternoon baking was a cheap and pleasurable way to spend my afternoon off! I didn' think about shopping once for a good 3 hours! Barclays will be pleased...

To bake your own delicious choccy cake I recommend the BBC Good Food Recipes! They are in such simple steps and I've never had a messy result since I started using them - which was after a very bad experience with a pasta recipe from Food & Travel!

What do you reckon? Think I went a little over the top with the Green & Blacks and pink decorations????

 

As always feel free to Tweet me @sheldan2207 or comment below

 

xx 

Thrifty Thursday - Fashion DIY Pt. 1 - Cut-Off Denim

I have never, ever attempted to 'do my own fashion'. Whether it's dying, sewing, cutting, blinging...I've never done it.

 

Reading through multiple magazines this week I've seen so many cut-off denim shorts which I L O V E. You can wear baggy, frayed shorts with tights and ankle boots whilst we await the arrival of some warmer weather (hopefully sooner rather than later, I don't think I can take another weekend snow report!) and then bare legged in the summer. How very economical...

 

 

 

 

Anyway I happened to find the ugliest pair of old jeans in storage today to test some ideas I had for cut-offs. Don't get mwe wrong, I'm aware that chopping the legs off these bad boys does not make them socially acceptable. This is purely my first go. A draft, if you will...

 

These are the offending jeans:

 

 

Ew.

 

So firstly I thought it would be a good idea to research hemlines. Short shorts apparently have a hem of between 2 and 3 inches. So, taking my thighs into consideration, I went for 5. Using a ruler to mark where I wanted to cut, I got chopping.

 

 

Now I faced the problem of how to perk them up a little bit. Using one scissor blade I made horizontal slits in the denim, then used a cheese grater to fray them up a bit... *blushes*... There was no sand paper in the house!

 

 

 

I also thought I could rip one of the back pockets so it would flap down and be all hipster. In fact, it looked ridiculous, so no photo for that little actvity!

 

After sorting the turn ups out I tried them on... not bad for my first ever attempt:

 

 

Now I've popped my own DIY Fashion cherry, the plan of action over the weekend is to scour eBay and my local charity shops for a baggier pair of jeans (preferably boyfriend style), invest in some acrylic spray paint and a cheap lace top. I'll show you how this works out in a couple of weeks...

 

Next week I'm posting a trend a day with celeb inspirations, high street bargain buys and an exciting Thrifty Thursday that involves a bucket, rubber gloves and salt (DIY Fashion Pt. 2)!

 

Tweet me @sheldan2207 or comment below, I love your ideas and feedback

 

xx

 

Thrifty Thursday - Cleverly Customised Calenders

This week's post follows on from my ideas yesterday. It's all well and good having a delightful mood board but if you have nowhere to hang it, then you have a slight problem.

 

It's the 10th of January so we should all by now have our new calenders/filos/diaries on the go...so really this week's project shouldn't cost you a penny!

 

We look at our organisers every day and all we see are numbers and pages, but why should we stare drearily and count down the days until our next big thing? I'm going to customise my diary with images similar to those on my moodboard so I can be reminded of my goals and what in turn is going to make me happy this year!

 

That weekend away - the one that is going to be the first weekend away of the year and isn't until March:

 

 

(Excuse the terrible picture quality - blame my BlackBerry!)

 

That week before the super luxurious trip to the Caribbean - the one you've spent all year preparing for:

 

 

 

Inject a little fun back into your everyday lives. I used images from the Boots magazine I mentioned yesterday (only because I haven't had a chance to go and stock up on my glossies!) but you can also take your own pics to really pump some personality into your organiser!

 

These are some of my personal photos that could be used on my moodboard/in my organiser:

 

It can literally be anything that will help you see through the year happy and successful!

Give it a go, it's just a little bit of penny-pinchin' fun

 

xx