This week I’m sharing the easiest ever birthday cake recipe along with a fabulous cookbook & mugs giveaway. Okay, you can probably already see that I didn’t really make this cake, I just kind of decorated it but it’s my husband’s favourite dessert from childhood and I knew it would
Today is Thanksgiving Day is the US and I’ve found that it’s quickly becoming a bit of a tradition to celebrate it here in the UK too. Traditionally it’s a special day of relaxation and reflection with all the family and involves a thanksgiving dinner with a roast turkey –
I recently read a worrying report by the Children’s Society that one in 5 UK families are struggling with financial issues and suffering from ‘problem debt’ – meaning that they are a month behind on one or more bill payments. More importantly, the report highlighted the affect that this financial
What did you get up to for Valentine’s Day yesterday? Are you celebrating today instead? I know a lot of my pals are making it into a weekend-long celebration but for hubby and I we did all our Valentine-ing yesterday and really enjoyed ourselves. I was completely spoilt with the
Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Mean Girls. The film that got us through our student days is TEN YEARS OLD (yet I’ve not aged a day) – how did that happen? And why am I still saying ‘fetch’ and pinning ‘You go Glen Coco’ embroidery patterns to my Pinterest boards? Surely
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.
Okay, okay I know it’s not Christmas (although looking at the OTT shop displays at this time of year you’d be forgiven for believing otherwise) but I think, in my own selfish way, that Valentines Day is an important gift-giving occasion (hubby, this is a hint for you..!). In fact, it’s
Do you sometimes find your mind wandering off to a place far away where it settles down on a comfy sofa to take in the stunning coastal view from your seafront property? When I’m daydreaming about my dream home, that’s exactly where my brain takes me and sometimes I can
Can you guess what I’ve been doing all morning? I got up during half term with an alarm that was set even earlier than on a work-day in order to watch the Winter Olympics. The first event that I wanted to make sure I watched was the Men’s Snowboard Cross
As you know, I regularly blog about thrifty fashion and DIY fashion hacks on the Oxfam fashion blog. Oxfam has asked me to share my favourite party dress with all their wonderful readers and I thought I’d show you it too: My party dress was bought for me by thrifty mother
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
Celebrate your little girl’s love of fairies and all things magical by turning her bedroom into a beautiful fairy cove, no matter what size the room is or your pocket. Here are a few simple ways you can add a touch of fairy dust and sparkle to your girl’s bedroom
So what if I don’t want to spend £9 on a cocktail on a Saturday night in a swanky bar in the city? It doesn’t mean that I’m dull, ‘square’ or poor – it just means that (for the second time in two days) I’d rather put that money towards
Over the weekend, hubby and I took a trip to Cambridge and it turned into one of those days of eating and drinking in a surprisingly foodie location. Our sightseeing journey around this historical city involved lots of walking, so we were guaranteed to work up an quite an appetite
Today, I’m back to normal. After all the festivities of Christmas and new year, an after a month of having a poorly hubby at home recovering from an operation, we are finally heading back to work and back into our normal routine. I know many people went back to work last
I have amazing news and I’ve already been yelling it all over Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Google+ so if you haven’t already heard my screeches from where you are here it is again: I’VE BEEN SHORTLISTED IN THE NATIONAL UK BLOG AWARDS 2014! When I saw all the other
Tonight is Burns Night – the yearly celebration of the life and literary works of great Scottish poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796). People all around the country will be celebrating with a Burns Supper which includes the eating of a traditional Scottish meal, the drinking of Scotch whisky, and the reading
In my living room there is wall which hasn’t been wallpapered and that doesn’t have a piece or art or mirror hanging on it, and every time I sit on the sofa my eye is drawn to the big blank empty space. I knew that I wanted to include some photos
After the frenzy of baking activity in my home over the festive period, my mind is in no doubt that I need some new gadgets in my kitchen to make my life just that little bit easier. Ok, a couple of times, I had a helping hand with my Christmas cooking
Please cast your mind back to just before Christmas when I was telling you all about my bedroom makeover and it was going surprisingly well. Then Christmas hit and it kind of grinded to a halt – although I did put up ‘themed’ decorations in the bedroom during the festive period
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
I think I can actually say that it’s one of the things I enjoy most in life. I’m obviously not talking about the bills or admin bits n bobs that we all get every day, but proper, genuine, actual mail – isn’t that awesome? When a handwritten envelope drops through the letter
So today I’m sharing my new year’s resolutions with you. I’m hoping that in doing so it will keep me on track and I’ll be able to check back on my progress during the year. So here goes: Write a blog post every day – I did pretty well with
Today is the Chinese new year and 2014 is the Year of the Horse – one of my favourite animals, so I am especially excited about this year and wanted to share some of the traditions and recipes for Chinese New Year.
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
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
Welcome to another Pieday Friday and this week I’m chatting about the concept of solar cooking. It’s possibly not something you’ve considered before and prior to this month I’d never even heard of solar cooking myself but I’ve been researching energy-saving ways to do everyday tasks around my home and
Last week I shared my inspiration for creating a pink and red themed birthday party. I usually forget all about my birthday in the excitement of the run-up to Christmas, so this year I’ve made an effort to mark the occasion with a little party in my little vintage caravan.
A few weeks ago I shared my recipe for using apples and blackberries to create a flavoured vodka and this got me thinking about creating other types of fruit flavoured alcohol using my hedgerow finds. The first and most obvious choice was to make sloe gin and after a rummage through
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
One of my favourite treats is cheese bread. I’m not someone who gets particularly excited about sweet things (except for this red velvet cake, yum!) but I can’t resist something cheesy. If it’s melted cheese, even better! I still have a lot of cheese left over after Christmas – why do
You’d be forgiven for thinking that we have gone back in time to our grandmother’s era, when shops didn’t sell off-the-peg clothes, and make-do-and-mend was a way of life rather than a quaint Pinterest board. But no, this trend is happening right now in the 21st century and tons of people are choosing to
As a girl who has been a student for most of her adult life, you’ll remember how I struggled with not starting a course in September this year and how I wrote about the quick U-turn I made when I discovered that I could study a free module from the
Although lots of fireworks displays took place over the weekend, today is finally bonfire night and hubby and I have decided to have traditional bonfire-fare of jacket potatoes and chilli for dinner, and build ourselves a little bonfire in the garden. I’ll try to take some photos to share with you
Find frugal inspiration for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, hen nights, parties, festive celebrations & more!
January is the perfect time to think about having a home overhaul and clearing the clutter from your house. Like me, you’ve probably made promises to yourself to improve your emotional wellbeing, career and health but did you focus any of your resolutions on your house? I’m thinking that maybe
A couple of weeks ago I started planning my birthday party. I usually completely overlook my birthday because I get too excited about Christmas. But this year I have my little vintage caravan, which seems to be the perfect venue to celebrate my getting a year older! I have already shared
At the weekend I told you all that I’d finished sewing the cushions for my bedroom that I’d been putting off for ages. I finally powered through my sewing-block and used the leftover fabric from the bottom of my bedroom blinds to rustle up a pair of cushions for the bed. It
This week is Cassiefairy’s birthday and to celebrate I’ve baked a cake for a little birthday celebration I’m having in my little vintage caravan. I wanted to break from tradition and avoid my usual victoria sponge cake this year (even though it is my favourite) so I thought about making a
We all know that emerald is Pantone’s colour of the year for 2013 (here’s my blog post about it from January) and although we are 3/4 of the way through the year, this doesn’t mean that the colour is any less on trend. In fact, it’s really coming into its
This month’s Inspiration Challenge theme was ‘apples’ and luckily enough I’ve since been given loads of apples from my mother’s apple tree which had bumper-crop this year. So I had a think about what I really wanted to make (after crumbles, of course!) and the answer was blackberry and apple jam. So I
I’m planning a red and pink theme for my birthday celebration and have shared my ideas on the blog via this moodboard. One of the decoration idea that I was keen to replicate was hanging pom-poms, but I wanted something more permanent than tissue paper, so I decided to use
Let’s start with the real reason why I’m setting myself this challenge: I need to save money between now and Christmas (yes, I’ve peeped into the piggy-bank and there’s not enough in there to buy Christmas cards, let alone anything else!) and the best way to do this is to stop
If you’ve been following my series of blog posts about my bedroom makeover before Christmas you’ll know that I’m trying to decorate my bedroom and make it into a tranquil, restful space on a budget. So far, I’ve used book pages to wallpaper a feature wall and plain white bedding for
Today is the end of my month-long challenge to improve the quality of my sleep. Hopefully you’ll have already read all about my sleep challenge and how it got me thinking about making some changes to my bedroom decor. If you’re interested to read up on all of my past
So on this wet Wednesday morning, what better to chat to you about than my new ironing board. Honestly, it’s a much more interesting topic than you’d think! I needed to replace my previous ironing board this week because I discovered that it has gone mouldy and rusty where it had
Over the past few weeks I’ve been making a concerted effort to stop buying new products and use up what I already have. Click to read my blog post about the challenge I set for myself and now that we’re getting towards the end of October, I wanted to share my progress. As you
A couple of weeks ago, one of my closest friends and blogger-extraordinaire Jenna from Glitter Daze blog came to stay with me and we has a fantastic time going on little trips, taking snaps for our blogs and getting stuck into craft projects so that we would have plenty of DIY tutorials
Earlier this week I mentioned that I was having a go at making my own dress. I’d got the fabric ready, chosen the dress style, cut out the pattern and was ready to make the first cut. Just like so many others around the world, I was making my first
The summer holidays are drawing to a close, but that means there are lots of pretty fed up children around! Here’s an idea for a fun activity that you can do with your children to stop the boredom and entertain them during the last couple of weeks of the school holidays. This is
Did you know it’s National Chocolate Week? I had no idea until my friend Jenna gave me a heads-up yesterday afternoon. Are you telling me that I could have been legitimately scoffing chocolate all week, and I didn’t know about it? I guess I’ve got a lot of choccie-eating to make up
Frugal Fun <ul> <li> Need inspiration for a fun yet thrifty party? </li> <li> Want to add a crafty DIY touch to your seasonal celebrations? </li> <li> Are you planning your wedding but don’t want to blow the budget? </li> <li> Looking for low-cost entertainment ideas? </li> <li> Planning a
Well, it’s not that much of a tutorial – it’s a fairly simple process to create a cute tea-light holder without breaking the bank. I knew that I would like some rainbow-coloured tealight holders to decorate our anniversary party venue and light up the hall after dark. This project can just
My brother gave me this beautiful unicorn cookie-cutter for Christmas. I know it’s a bit lame to admit it, but I’ve only just got round to using trying out and we’re already 6 months into the year! Oh well, at least I’ve made some unicorn biscuits now and my bro
This year I decided to bake a batch of mini Christmas cakes rather than one large one. I find that one big cake often gets left after Christmas and I’m a little fed up with eating it myself after January 1st! So small cakes seemed to be the best solution
This year I went on a bit of a tour of the Christmas markets in the UK. It was a bit of a birthday treat from my husband, who took me to Manchester, Leeds and York to experience the best festive markets in the north. Here’s my photos from the
Hurrah! It’s the 25th November and only one month til Christmas! So I’m celebrating with a trip to the famous Bury St Edmunds Christmas Market this weekend and here’s what I’m expecting to see this year: Plus, I’ve gone all festive whilst wearing my over-the-top fairy lights jumper and have got
I am pleased to say that when I told my friends and family that all I really wanted for Christmas were books, they listened – and just look at this haul of fabulous new books for me to browse through at my leisure during the year! I received a couple of
I know it’s easy just to tape a piece of cheesy christmas wrapping paper around a prezzie, stick a foil bow on the top and hand it over to the lucky recipient but I like to add a little more excitement to my Christmas present wrapping. I spend ages choosing
Happy Christmas eve everyone! The day has finally come where everything is done, you’ve finished all your work and you’re ready to enjoy the big day. I think I might actually prefer Christmas eve to Christmas day itself, but don’t tell it 😉 In our family we not only have traditions
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,
Well, the UK weather forecasters have been predicting a deep-freeze for a while now, with a freakishly low-temperatured cold-front predicted to hit the country this week – and for once they actually got it right – it snowed! At least in some parts of the country that is. When I wake
For this week’s Tuesday Shoesday I’m focusing on what’s going on my legs before I put my shoes on. Okay, I know it’s an odd time of year to be talking about tights, but I assure you – there’s good reason for it! Firstly, you can get a real bargain on
This weekend I went to the Christmas Lights switch on event in our nearby town and this had become a bit of a festive tradition for our family in recent years. I happened to be shopping in the town when they were installing their Christmas lights this year so I got a sneaky peek at
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks working on a present for my new nephew, and have finally finished it – so I thought I’d share my project with you. I have used my Crafting Christmas Gifts book from Dunelm Mill for the penguin pattern and stocking-making instructions, and it
Here’s a super-easy, super-quick idea for making a Christmas basket decoration with pretty sparkling fairy lights. This would be perfect if you had an unused fireplace space in your living room to give a festive focal point to the space – or use outdoor fairy lights and sit it outside
There’s nothing better than the week between Christmas and New Year. You’ve got nowhere to go, time off work and lots of food in the house. The perfect time to kick-back and relax with a hot spiced drink and a festive film. Mulled wine, spiced apple juice, mulled cider or
I think I can safely say that one of my favourite Christmas films of all time is Elf. If you’ve not seen it, please do! I’ve watched it twice last weekend alone, and it often comes out during the year too to cheer me up. I know there’s plenty of
As avid readers of my blog will know, I’m very keen on thrifty craft projects and on sharing tasty recipes on Pieday Friday. As such, I now have quite a number of articles written on these subjects and I’ve been thinking about summarising my favourite recipes and craft projects from
Traditionally, festive decorations should be taken down by the twelfth night as Christmas comes to a close. There is a little confusion about precisely when the twelfth night is but according to the Oxford English Dictionary it is “the evening of the 5th of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the
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