A rare review...

A short one today.

I don't normally do reviews, but I feel this one is worth it!

I finally got round to buying Love at First Stitch by Tilly Walnes ( of Tilly and the buttons and the first series of the Great British Sewing Bee) . I was expecting great things, and it delivered!

The book features patterns, tips and skills, beautiful photos, beautifully designed pages, and much more!

Head on over to Tilly's blog to learn more, or just buy it! You won't regret it!

I branched out!...

Ok guys, I have been suuuper busy on the craft front recently. making lots of clothes for myself which is nice :) I have also decided to venture onto etsy. So please do have a gander at my shop and tell me what you think, or what I should list there, that'd be great!!

Here's the link: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/WhyDidIMakeThat?ref=s2-header-shopname

You may need to copy that into your browser bar, I'm not so tech-savvy, did know how to make it clickable haha!

Oh, by the way, I do plan on updating you all with this crafting malarkey I've been doing. It just happens that I work all day, then I craft in the evening, so there's never any decent lighting around. I will do it soon. Promise :)


Byee!

Spotty nails...

So, as you may or may not know, at uni I tend to use glue a lot. Glue melts nail varnish. I haven't been able to have pretty nails for nearly 3 years! Since I finished a couple of weeks ago I've been painting them a different colour/style every other day. So I figured, why not do a blog post?

Today, I have spotty nails.

I thought it'd be difficult, considering I haven't got any professional tools or anything like that. But it was simple once I realised I could make my own dotting tool out of things I already had.

I've seen dotting tools on ebay for about £5 a set. But I just used a pin and a spare rubber. Everyone has a spare rubber. I've also seen this done with the end of a pencil - it works the same, you just stick the pin in the rubber at the end of the pencil. I've also heard that the lead-end of a mechanical pencil is good for super small dots, I am yet to try this though.

Anyway, the process is fairly simple. Start with a couple of coats of a nail varnish that you like.

(I did one more coat after this picture was taken.)

Then pour a little bit of a complimentary (or contrasting, whichever you prefer) nail varnish onto a bit of paper. I just leave the brush out of the pot, and take the paint from that. But that's because I do it fairly quickly and the paint doesn't dry up. For your first try I would pour it out. ONLY POUR A LITTLE BIT! You can always pour more, but you can't get it back in once you've poured it!

Dot away! I prefer close dots, I have also done spaced dots, one dot etc etc. You can google 'nail designs' and hundreds and hundreds of pictures will inspire you!

One more time, as it is so pretty :)

Charity shop finds...

I know I know...I've been lazy with the blog again. *slap on the wrists for me*

BUT...I have been very busy.

I got married :) 

So far it has been the best 5 months of my life. I love being married. In all honesty, not much changes, but in another way, everything changes. In a good way :)

I've also now finished my degree in Architecture!! So I've been busy for good reasons.


Anyway, no crafty bits to show you...YET! So here are some charity shop finds.

Black and white floral skirt. £1.

I don't tend to wear skirts at all, but I am always drawn to them. This one is a light cotton fabric, and I quite like the length - it falls just below my knees. I'm also tempted to make this into one of those high-low, dipped hem-type skirts that are popular now. I'm a fan of anything that makes sure it covers my bottom!

A nautical looking jacket. £1.

Yes this jacket is a few sizes too big. But I love it anyway. It is a light jersey fabric - perfect for summer. I like these sorts of jackets because they look posh, but they are cool and comfy to wear even as it gets hot.

Look at that pinstripe sleeve turn-up!

I also love the pinstripe bias-binding on the inside of the jacket. 

No one will see it but me, but it's so cute!

That's all for now guys. Now that I have some free time, I do plan on blogging more, I may just have to save up all of my interesting posts and then blog them all at once. I don't know. we shall see :)

My newest little sewing treasure...

Hi guys, no crafting updates today, but look what the Mr bought me!!

How stunning is this?!


It's a little pin box (I think), and it's all enameled with little gems stuck on in places. The machine is a deep purple colour and the base is a pale baby pink. It even has a little cotton reel on the top!

I love this. I love my Mr for buying it for me. I'm so very lucky.

Granny dress refashion...

Hello all!

I picked up a rather large granny dress in the summer with the intentions of making it fit me. I really liked the pattern and the light fabric. (Plus, it was only £1!)

(It was a size 20 and someone had hand-sewn up the buttons for modesty. How sweet!)

I usually take ages to plan what I'm going to do with a refashion. But this time I decided to just dive in and chop bits off!

(I chopped off about 10 inches from the bottom)

(I took the sides in and here's what I was left with.)

Now normally, I would have stopped there. But in all honesty, am I really going to wear a summer dress in the freezing cold, windy Plymouth winter? No. Also, I just didn't love it. I'm trying to make things i'm actually going to wear, not things to live at the back of the wardrobe waiting for good weather, or waiting until I have the confidence to wear. So I carried on chopping.

Here's what I finished with....

(A cute little blouse!)

I'm quite pleased with this. I left the sleeves as long as this because it's cold, and I think it's a more mature length. I unpicked the hand-stitching down the buttons so that it would open up again. This allowed me to take the sides in a bit more to make it more fitted. You can't see it too well, but where the buttons finish, is where the bottom of the dress started to fan out. It now forms a little bit of a peplum, which is quite flattering on my hips.

I'll be trying to make some handmade Christmas gifts over the next few weeks. I won't be blogging about them until after Christmas though, some of my readers are some of the people who will be receiving those gifts!! 

I'll try and update soon!!

Halloween refashion!

Good afternoon everyone!

(That would have said good morning had I not been so fragile earlier today. Great night out :) )

Ok, so as you probably know, I study architecture. It pretty much takes up all of my time. So when I was invited out with the other half, one of his friends and his girlfriend for halloween, I was sure it was just going to be a calm evening. No dress up involved. Then I found out I had a few days off and we could actually have a proper night out!!

I only found this out on Wednesday. Halloween was Thursday. I haven't gone out for halloween in years, and I didn't have an outfit!

Enter...this 4 sizes too big, flappy sleeves, ankle length red little number that I bought for 50p and one of our charity shops! (it was 2 for £1 day, so I got another new top as well :D )

(I forgot to take a photo of me wearing this, sorry!)

So the dress was a lovely heavy jersey fabric, and barely even needed proper hemming to be perfectly honest. All I did was cut off about 35cm from the bottom and cut off the flappy sleeves - luckily the way it was sewn in meant that if I pulled the sleeve tight enough when I was cutting it, it pulled all the little loose threads out too, so it was literally just a case of cutting them off! Oh, I did tighten the sides of the sleeve a bit when I added darts to the side. Nothing wrong with them, I just didn't want people to see the sides of my bra. The best thing about this project is it took less than half an hour!

Here's what I ended up with...

(Nice eh? Not bad for a simple refashion)

And just because it was for a halloween outfit, here it is with me all done up...

Oooh, also...look at all the extra fabric I've got! I don't know what to do with it really, red isn't something that's normally in my colour palette. Any ideas?

It's ok though, we were all safe that night. There was a doctor present at all times :)