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Kitsch Kitchen

My mini kitchen makeover – Paint colours & fabric patterns

The summer holidays have arrived! And with them come the opportunity to spend some time at home and get started on a couple of decorating projects that I’ve been bursting to do. You may remember that I shared some inspirational images for my ideal kitchen a couple of weeks ago

STYLE ON A SHOESTRING

Tuesday Shoesday – Accessories to revive your summer wardrobe

Nobody wants to wear the same clothes, day in and day out. It’s way too boring. Unfortunately, though, investing in a whole new wardrobe every season is a costly exercise and unless you are made of money, not practical. But there is an alternative. With the aid of a few

Spring

Spring fashion – Style Icon Challenge

For my Style Icon Challenge this Spring I chose Holly Willoughby. I’ve always loved her classic girly style and could easily picture myself in any of the cute tea dresses she wears so it was an obvious choice for me. I am a huge fan of floral patterns, especially as

Tuesday Shoesday

Tuesday Shoesday ~ My vintage weekend at the steam railway

Back at the end of September I travelled to a fabulous 1940s event at the North Norfolk Steam Railway and really enjoyed the whole weekend. Not only did I get lots of opportunities to dance, (check out last week’s Tuesday Shoesday blog post about my new hobby) but I also enjoyed

Events & Entertainment

Make your own nostalgia

Some occasions you just have to have a get together. Birthdays, weddings and christenings are no-brainers, but there are some other events that simply demand that you make them social. Things like the Eurovision Song Contest, the FA Cup final and the final of the Great British Bake Off are

Map Geek

Map Geek – Going into the map

Do you remember that episode of Friends where the Chandler and Joey are tourists in London and Joey has to ‘go into the map’ in order to get his bearings? He put the map on the floor and stepped onto it to work out what direction to head in, even

Caravan

My little vintage caravan – Caravan Magazine & soft furnishings

After sharing photos of Sian’s beautiful Daisy caravan with you yesterday (and the fabulous vintage party package giveaway – check it out here!) I felt a strong urge to hang out in my own caravan and enjoy the lovely weather.So when I finished work yesterday, I took brewed up a

STYLE ON A SHOESTRING

Tuesday Shoesday – DIY shoe makeover using spray paint

This week I’ve been out in the sunshine spray-painting my brogues gold. Yes, completely on purpose. That sentence would have previously been due to an over-spray while tackling some kind of interior design project (which happened when I spray painted my retro desk!) but this time, it was with good

HOME DIY

Interior design inspiration – Industrial

Ever thought about living in a factory? Fancy sleeping with ducting above your head and rusting machinery in the corner? What if I call it a ‘loft apartment’? Is that a little more appealing? I personally love the industrial ‘loft’ style and I’ve been pinning more of it than ever on

HOME DIY

Googie style & my new dress

Have you every found yourself drawn to a piece of furniture, a homeware accessory or an item of clothing but you have no idea why? Even though it might be the tackiest, most brash, weirdest thing you’ve ever seen, you can’t take your eyes off it and actually kinda want

Autumn

Tuesday Shoesday ~ a history lesson in 40s footwear

As you know I’ve started learning to swing dancing, including lindy hop, charleston and now balboa, all of which are intrinsically linked to the 1940s era. I’ve been going to hangar dances and I’m attending another 40s dance this coming weekend. I’ve been delighted to find that there is quite a

Sewing projects

Sewing tips to make a vintage dress fit

I am forever spotting gorgeous vintages dresses when I go for my weekly rummage in the charity shops but I am often put off from investing in an outfit because it is far too big for me. Last week, I tried on this vintage shirt dress from Oxfam, which was

Caravan

My little vintage caravan ~ Pillows & cushions

Before the summer holidays were out, I fully intended to sleep in my caravan and camp out for a couple of nights while the weather is good. In fact, it’s sometimes a little too hot to sleep indoors so I thought that a night in the caravan would be ideal

Autumn

Americana day

I went to an Americana day at Horham airfield recently and had a wonderful time. You may have heard me mention the event last week in my vintage dress blog post: I picked up a lovely dress from one of the vintage stalls and although it needs a lot of

HOME DIY

Ideas to spruce up your old sofa

Has your sofa seen better days? If the cushions are losing their plumpness and the seams are splitting, you might want to just throw it out. Or do you? Here’s how to revamp it on a budget…

DIY furniture makeovers

DIY makeover for mid-century modern teak furniture

Today I’m sharing a tip on making your own scratch-remover using just a couple of household ingredients. If you’re a fan of the mid-century modern style like me but are on a tight budget (also like me!) this ‘polish’ will help bring most teak surfaces back to a soft shine

Festive

DIY fabric Christmas wreath & my favourite decorations

Christmas starts here! As soon as bonfire night has finished, that is the start to my festive season. Some may say it’s too soon, but I’ve already had to hold myself back from watching Christmas films and singing carols. Okay, I’ve already done a little bit of Christmas shopping and

Tuesday Shoesday

Tuesday Shoesday ~ Menswear sale bargains

Last week I treated the man in my life to a few goodies from the ASOS sale. I was planning to buy a dress and jumper from Sugarhill Boutique, which were both reduced in the ASOS 70% off sale, so I decided to browse the menswear section to see if

Caravan

My little vintage caravan ~ Weekend breakfast

Ever since I finished making the new table top for the caravan, the space has become my go-to place to eat meals. It’s especially lovely in the summer because the interior is warm and I can pop the window open to get a lovely breeze flowing through the caravan. I

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ DIY display cabinet makeover

Storage is very important in a small space and after having to remove most of my caravan’s interior due to damp, it is in very short supply. I have precious little of the original storage left in the caravan – only the seats remain with their under-bench storage space and

Events & Entertainment

My day out at the Vintage Festival & D-Day Celebration

Last weekend I had one of the best days out ever: I visited the Mid-Suffolk Vintage Festival on Sunday so I thought I’d share my photos of the event this Sunday. Hubby, mum and I headed to the Mid-Suffolk Showground unsure of what we’d find at this brand new event

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ I’ve got the power!

Ever since reading Vintage Caravan Style when it was released last month (here’s my book review) I’ve been bursting to get on with my own caravan renovation project. Last week I shared details of my new bookcase and I’m hoping to be able to spend more time out there working. At

STYLE ON A SHOESTRING

My new London Retro specs

I’m quite picky about the brands that I feature on this blog – I only ever talk about my favourites – and as a thrifty retail kinda gal, the products I share need to be the best bargains around. So when the lovely team at MyOptique got in touch with

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project – the makeover so far…

After reading Lisa Mora’s new publication Vintage Caravan Style (which I reviewed here) I’ve been thoroughly inspired to crack on with my little vintage caravan makeover project. I’d allowed the caravan to enjoy a quiet winter while I stayed indoors in the warm and didn’t really do much work on

Tuesday Shoesday

Tuesday Shoesday ~ Orla Kiely, shoe designer

I have some very long-awaited news for Autumn/Winter 2014 that I’ve been keeping under my hat for a number of months and now I can finally share it with you all – the new footwear range by Orla Kiely has launched! Clarks unveiled the new range at a press event

HOME DIY

Cute ways to create a vintage style bedroom

Creating a vintage style bedroom isn’t difficult and shouldn’t have to cost the earth either. In fact, it’s pretty easy if you know how, and I’m having a go at creating vintage boudoir in my cute little caravan for guests to enjoy when they stay over. Take a look at

Books

Vintage Caravan Style – the book review!

Wow. I have it in my hands right now. Vintage Caravan Style. And blimey, what a book it is! You may remember that I interviewed the lovely author of the book and editor of Vintage Caravan Magazine Lisa Mora on my blog last month – here’s the article – and had the

Autumn

My mid-century living room ~ making retro artwork

Ever since I framed up a selection Christmas quotes and hung them on my living room walls during the festive period, I’ve been thinking ahead to the new year and what I could replace these seasonal posters for the rest of the year. I’ve already made the holes in my

Autumn

My ‘new’ vintage dress ~ the repairs

It’s taken a little longer than I’d hoped, but my vintage dress is finally fixed! My retro tortoiseshell cat’s eye sunglasses are from Sunglass Junkie and shoes from New Look It was mostly down to my laziness over the summer holidays that delayed the repairs but I spent an evening at

STYLE ON A SHOESTRING

An early morning walk in the frost

You won’t believe it but I’ve already been out and about in the ‘fresh air’ this morning for a walk in a frosty winter wonderland. Although it was freezing cold, I love chilly mornings when you open the curtains and see a white-out of sparkling frost on the ground. At

HOME DIY

Thrifty ways to make your house a home with only a few accessories!

As an avid interiors blog reader and the world’s most addicted Pinterest user, I love to drool over images of gorgeous homes, and I regularly have my head turned by new design trends. Now, I can’t afford to redecorate my home every time I see a new trend that I like

Living Spaces

My retro living room – lovely autumnal fruit bowl

It’s raining. It’s cold. The mornings are dark. And there is condensation on my windows. Yes, I think I can officially claim that it is autumn. I know I’ve been banging on about the season for the past couple of weeks, but I’ve not really been feeling it, because it’s

Art & Photography

My retro living room ~ adding a little sunshine for autumn

Just a quick photo today of the lovely bunch of sunflowers that hubby brought home for us this weekend. These bright yellow sunflower heads bring a much-needed injection of sunshine into our retro living room for autumn now that the weather is turning grey. The flowers are arranged in our chunky Hornsea storage tub which

LOW-COST RECIPES

Pieday Friday ~ Make your own retro Jazzles

A couple of Fridays ago I shared my first attempt at making cake-pops with you and I hope you’ve since had a go at making them for yourselves. I did the stick-two-halves-together method of cake-pop making, using a silicone cake-pop tray from Dunelm Mill. If you remember, I had to

Living Spaces

Retro living room inspirations ~ lighting

If you’ve been following my interior design series for my mid-century modern living room over the past few months, you’ll know how keen I am on retro design and how I am trying to recreate a swish designer look on a budget – check out some of my previous articles

STYLE ON A SHOESTRING

Shaded from the sun

Summer, summer, summer. That’s the only thing on my mind these days, especially as we’ve enjoyed hot sunny weather for more than a week now and it’s led to lots of wardrobe reorganisation at this end:

HOME DIY

Creating the perfect retro look for your living room

If you’re looking to create a welcoming, stylish and homely look in your living room, giving your home décor a retro twist is a great place to start. The versatility of the retro look means that you can make your interior design as subtle or as all-out as you want.

Sewing projects

Thrifty fashion ~ My finished stretch fabric sewing project

So after many requests to see a photo of my finished sewing project I’ve finally pinned my husband down long enough for him to take a snap of me wearing it. So here is the finished item and me posing in front of my retro caravan (don’t go thinking I’ve

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ Oilcloth table

This week I have made great inroads into using the caravan for its intended purpose as a workshop space – I have made a table. This is my version of a desk until I sort something else out at the ‘other’ end of the caravan, so if I want to

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ Pull yourself together

Patient: “Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains”, Doctor: “Pull yourself together”. So today I’m sharing my latest sewing achievement in my little vintage caravan project – I’ve made some curtains. And roman blinds too. The roman blinds came about by accident because I thought I’d ordered enough fabric

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ Floored or flawed?

You may have noticed in my last blog post about the caravan that there was a roll of carpet plonked in the middle of my seating area. And the even-more eagle eyed of you will have noticed that I’ve painted my inner wheel-arch cover with a dark pink shade. This

Beauty

DIY easy nail art designs for Halloween

Can you believe that it’s nearly Halloween? Have you got your costume sorted out and your treats ready for visitors? I recently wrote about decorating your home for autumn and how you can easily turn your decorations into a spooky Halloween decor with just a few changes – carve up those

Events & Entertainment

Don’t laugh, but I love this song..!

I think it’s quite a difficult thing to talk about the music you love in public. It shows your taste (or lack of!) like nothing else and is something that divides people the world over. I hate that dreaded question ‘what music are you in to?’ that I heard so many

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ Fabric inspirations

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a little while will know that a few months ago I bought a caravan! While she may not have been the prettiest looking caravan, it definitely gave me a project to sink my teeth into. I set up a Pinterest board

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ All the trimmings

Okay this might not be the most interesting subject of a blog post, but it is part of my vintage caravan makeover, so I’ve snapped some photos of the window trim being replaced. Although it’s not exciting, it is essential, because the old brown window trim had cracked and was falling off,

Birthdays

My little vintage caravan ~ Pink party inspirations

My birthday is coming up soon, and what with the Christmas celebrations, I often overlook it myself! I get too excited about the festive season and forget to make any plans to celebrate my birthday. This year, I thought I’d treat myself to a little pink-and-red party in my vintage

Autumn

Harvest decorations in my home

Over the weekend I went for a lovely chilly walk with my hubby and collected a few bits and pieces for my harvest display. I’d planned to decorate my home for autumn (as we discussed in this previous blog post) and I’d finally found the time to nip out to

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ Clearing out the old…

I am starting my new caravan makeover project with a clear out. If you didn’t see my first blog post about my new caravan please read back over my blog post a couple of days ago on 14th August and you’ll know why I need to begin with an excavation

Caravan

My little vintage caravan project ~ A fresh start with a new look

If you’ve not already read about my new caravan workshop project, please have a read of how I came across my little caravan (and all about clearing it out in preparation for painting) the links are below. I like the shape of my caravan – I think it’s small and round

Sewing projects

Thrifty fashion ~ DIY festive snood sewing project

That retro-knitwear staple, the snood, is very fashionable again this year, with all kinds of patterns and colours available in high street shops. But you don’t need to splash out on a new accessory to keep you warm this winter. You can simply upcycle an old festive jumper or cardigan that’s past

Caravan

My little vintage caravan – DIY patchwork walls

I’ve decided to go for a little ‘design feature’ on one of the walls of my little caravan. I want to wallpaper one wall to create a feature wall, so I went to the DIY store and picked up some samples of pretty wallpapers in shades of pink, yellow and blue,

LOW-COST RECIPES

Pieday Friday ~ Warming Caramelised Onion Soup

This week, when hubby had a half-day off work, I cooked us both a yummy soup for lunch. It’s definitely the time of year that I want to have something warm to eat at lunchtime (there was actually frost on the ground here this week!) so I looked up recipes for

Festive

New interiors trend ~ Decorating your home for Autumn

When the leaves begin changing and the pumpkins start arriving in the stores it can only mean one thing: it’s time to start decorating your home for Autumn – or at least that’s the case according to Pinterest ha! It’s certainly a new trend here in the UK to start

Living Spaces

Vintage orange roses

My hubby brought home a bunch of stunning orange roses for me last week. I’d never seen orange roses before and they coordinate perfectly with my retro living room design, so hubby gets extra brownie points for good taste! I totally forgot to take a photo of them when I

Caravan

A massive new project for Cassiefairy ~ my vintage caravan

First and foremost, I’d like to welcome all the lovely new visitors from Creative Crafting’s blog tour – I have been waiting for this day for a while now and I’m so pleased to be able to welcome you to my blog. While you’re here please have a good look around

Spring

Charity shops are going vintage crazy – good news for me!

Have you noticed that a lot of charity shops are now allocating a good portion of their display space to stocking vintage items? I’ve been in many charity shops recently that have dedicated a whole ‘department’ to vintage clothing, accessories and even retro homewares. Some shops that I’ve visited recently have

THRIFTY LIVING

Warm weekends ~ the perfect opportunity for a retro picnic

Now that we’ve entered British Summertime and now that the weekends are finally getting warmer and the weather is ever-improving, I’ve started to feel like its time to dust off the old picnic equipment and get out there for some al fresco dining. And what better excuse do I need

Living Spaces

Inspirations for my retro living room – vases & flowers

After putting up my retro pattern wallpaper, I thought I had nearly completed my retro 60s/70s-inspired living room, but I don’t think I’ll ever really be finished, especially when there are so many vintage bargains to be found in the charity shops and at car boot sales. This week I was

UPCYCLING PROJECTS

Making large wall-art using A2 posters

I recently bought some frames at a bargain price from The Range and wanted to make my own unique artwork for my bedroom. The frames were very large carved wooden frames in a lovely dark wood that I thought would go perfectly with my bed frame. I loved the frames, but

Cassiefairy's News

A special honour for Cassiefairy

I’ve received fantastic news that my little lifestyle blog has been honoured by REXLondon.com as one of their favourite blogs. They contacted me to let me know that I’d won this little award for my crafty sewing projects and that they had shared details of my blog on their ‘beautiful crafting blogs’ page.

Living Spaces

Inspirations for a retro living room – the wallpaper is finally up!

You may remember that I was contemplating a rather massive decision at the start of the year – which wallpaper to use to finish off my retro-inspired living room. Although I’ve looked a quite a few garish colours and loud patterns, I settled on a fairly muted beige and brown base

STYLE ON A SHOESTRING

6 amazing vintage accessories perfect for summer 2013

As you know, I’m a thrifty kinda gal and don’t like to buy a whole new wardrobe each season when sometimes just a few key accessories can see us through a season. As Summer 2013 bounds into view, I’ve asked one of my favourite vintage stores Mela Mela to put

Festive

More Christmas prep ~ shopping for fairy lights!

It started with the party dress… and now I’m already looking into festive lights for my home. It’s funny how one thing leads to another when you’re searching for ‘Christmas shopping’ online and I ‘accidentally’ started browsing through fairy lights and christmas trees! I’ve only had one previous Christmas in

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