drummbellina

Life Right Now...

I'm obsessing over my shop, which is a really really good thing! I've been on and off effort-wise with the whole thing over the last few years but right now I'm in a place where I feel like I can actually focus on this! Life is now settled and happy and drama free :D Also my little girl is starting proper school in september (omg), so it's either make this my career-of-awesomeness or get a job. Dun dun dunnn!

So yeah, career of awesomeness it is. Hopefully! I re-registered my business recently so I'm all official again. Right now I'm focused on building my shop stock so I'm sewing and embroidering and cutting peices whenever possible and trying to develop some consistency in when I add things to the shop. I did mess around with creating a work schedule for a while but I've ended up with "sew as much as poss, list at least one thing a day" as my rule until I get into the swing of it a bit more. It's funny, you imagine self-employment as this movie-montage of yourself being awesome and productive all day long, the perfect version of youself getting shit done, looking cute while doing it (lol) but my reality has not been that at all! I'm a mummy to two kids that live for attention (normal), a girlfriend to a boyfriend I can't leave alone (ughh he's so amazing, I'd clone him and send you each a Dave of your own if I could!), an expert excuse-maker (even to myself) and a person that has way too many late nights and early mornings. So I need to train myself to focus! But if I keep sewing and listing away as much as I can I'm at least going in the right direction :)

 

Here's a few of the new things in my shop..

My photos are poop, I need to re-do them! :/ More new things, butterfly bags etc HERE! I'd love your feedback! And some sales! haha

 

In other news...

♥ I've been reading through Danielle LaPorte's 30 Days To Fire Up Your Creative Genius series and it's awesome! My favourite to think about so far is What Does Your Perfect 12 Hours Look Like? You should check it out :)

 

♥ I finally made another Black Apple Doll , these are so good for gifts! (my first one is HERE) You can customise them in so many ways with different fabrics, hairstyles, decorative bits and bobs.. I added pig tails 'cos Jess always has her hair like that :) It was funny, I made it the day before her birthday and she was home so she knew it was for her and kept coming to have a look and asking questions. She must have been so excited to have because I went for a tea break when I was almost done, came back and it was gone.. she'd snuck it off my sewing table and hidden it in her bed before I'd even put a face on it!

She sleeps with it in her bed every night! Success.

 

♥ We're creating a huge wall of the kids drawings at home, on the staircase wall that covers two floors. I kept ending up with piles of drawings so it's great to have a designated spot to put them up and the kids feel all proud of their work :)  It's looking good and is fast heading alll the way up to the ceiling!

 

 Thanks for reading! I'm not sure when my next post will be, I'm obviously not going to be one of those reliable every-day bloggers any time soon :s But keep checking my shop for new cute stuff and maybe come chat to me on Twitter, I want more twitter buddies!

xxx

3 Home-Decor DIYs from my room!

1. Picture Wall.. The photo printing site I use offered my first 40 prints for free so this whole wall just cost me the 99p delivery charge! (Snapfish, if you're interested) I basically just got my entire Tumblr blog printed out so I could see my saved inspiration every day :)

2. Thrifted Frame Cluster.. I painted up a bunch of frames I'd bought from charity shops for silly money, layed them out on the floor to figure out the best clustery shape for them, took a picture as a reference and then hung each frame starting with the centrepiece. I used a ruler to make sure each outer one was the same distance away from that one to give a neat look to the whole cluster. I eventually filled the frames with images from an old Fairies calender. (which I've already posted about a LONG time ago! Look, right there in the sidebar ---> ) 

3. Framed Inspiration Collage.. This frame had been lying around my house with a wrinkled up Toy Story poster in it for.. too long. I eventually decided to take apart my old scrapbook and use my favourite images to make this! I basically used a big piece of white card from the art shop that happened to perfectly fit the frame and spent a couple of evenings trying out lay-outs and gluing things on. If you do this start at the edges with your biggest images and work to the middle and try to have a main image for the centre. Then you can put all the smaller images on, add some stickers, glitter or whatever! I really love how this turned out, although it's one of those annoying times when photos don't do things justice. Booo. 

 (Please link me up if you try any of my ideas, I'd LOVE to see!)

xxx

I <3 your home... Stacey Bendet, fashion designer.

Aaages ago I was reading the entire internet late one night, as you do, and somehow stumbled onto this video:

I promptly became obsessed with her home! <3 <3 <3 Honestly, I've played that first minute a stupid amount of times. The first thing I fell in love with was the slide. My kids would LOVE an indoor slide! Oh and the pink shelving unit, one of those in my life please. (Possible future DIY project!)

The obvious next thing to do was to search for pics! Here's what I found:

^ Loving the grid of framed kiddo pics in the background here! And the yellow shelving :)

 

^ Cute styled photo of the amazing play room.

^ And the bare-bones of the play room. A swing too! So cool.

I had to Google who Stacey Bendet was ... turns out she's kind of a big deal! She has a VERY successful clothing brand called Alice + Olivia worth millions and selling all over the world, who knew? Clearly not me. She's also on Tumblr and Twitter.

I'll just throw these videos in here, though they have nothing to do with her house. She and her girls from Alice + Olivia went on a promotional tour to make-over America.. look at the tour van they decorated DIY style!! Fun videos to watch :)

xxx

Tutorial: Glass Jar Flower Displays (a.k.a flower arranging for the skint girl!)

 

Buying reduced price bunches of about-to-die flowers (they're fine, they just need some love!) and arranging them in scrubbed and de-labeled pasta sauce jars is now a thing I do when I'm throwing a party or just want to cheer the house up a bit. Cheap and easy but sooo pretty... 

 

 

D.I.Y:

(Collect jars over time. I save jars from jam, pasta sauce, mayonaise... look for interesting shapes! Remove labels by soaking in soapy water overnight then scraping).

1. Fill up a row of jars with fresh water, all up to the same level. If your flowers came with those little sachets of plant food, share it between all the jars. (Edited to add: apparantly adding a little bit of honey can help them last longer too! Thanks Max California )

2. Seperate your bunch of flowers into types and colours to see what you're working with. Throw away anything completely dead.

3. Start by putting any simple stems in jars of their own. Hold each flower up next to it's jar to see where you need to trim it to fit. Cut the stem at an angle rather than straight across, it helps them last longer. Also remove any leaves that will sit under the water level.

4. Split the bunches between the remaining jars. Take off most of the leaves for a modern look, you want to see mostly flowers and simple stems. Don't over-cram the jars! Whenever I have leftover flowers, even tiny ones, I display them in a tea-cup or little glass to use in another room.

5. Arrange your flower jars in a row on a window, mantelpiece or shelf in height order or randomly... or scatter them all around your home. It's fun creating new looks with different bunches of flowers each time and finding new places to display them :)

 

Drape fairy lights around them for night time!

So yeah, don't overlook the dying flowers! I always pay silly money and they end up lasting a couple of weeks :)

xxx

Tutorial: Frame, String + Pegs Photo Display

I made this last year to display some of my favourite photos I've taken of the kids :) It's easy peasy!

You'll need: An old empty frame (the bigger the better!), drawing pins/thumb tacks, string or thread, tiny pegs and a bunch of your favourite photos printed out.

Step 1: Paint up your frame if needed. I found mine dumped in the street, it was plain wood and pretty bent up and had water damage! BUT it was huge so I ignored all that..

Step 2: Lay the frame wrong-way-up on the floor to attatch the threads to the back with tacks (tie knots and pin through the knots). This requires a bit of experimenting to see how many rows you want, depending on the size of your frames and photos. Make sure the threads are pulled tight across the frame as once you hang pics the weight will make them drop slightly.

Step 3: Hang your frame up on the wall (mine took 4 nails to balance it on and one big fat nail at the bottom corner to hold the bent up part flat to the wall... you shouldn't have this problem if don't use a dodgy frame) and peg your pics on, messing around with placement until your eyes are happy. Job done!

xxx

Long time, no see!

It's been over a year, I'm sorry! Life got a bit REAL, you know how it is.. there were all sorts of feelings (ugh!) and grown-up situations to be dealt with so I had to take a break. But I was thinking about you the whole time I promise ;)

I'm SO excited to get back to regular blogging and Etsy-ing! I've seriously missed it. I've got DIY home decor projects to share with you later this week and a whole bunch of fun creative stuff planned for the rest of the year. I'll be filling my shop with loads of cute handmade goodies too :D Come and follow me on Twitter for updates (tweet @ me, I'm friendly!) or Bloglovin to keep up with posts. 

xxx

 

DIY Tutorial: Xmas Heart Mural

(again, please excuse the rubbish phone pics! Not long till xmas and I'll hopefully have a new camera...)

 

 

Here's a fun idea for you if you happen to have piles of old xmas cards lying around like I did!

My heart is a little wonky but I can't be arsed to re-do it now...it doesn't really notice in person :) Anyway I learned from my mistakes and if you follow these steps and tips you'll end up with a perfectly shaped xmassy heart of awesomeness!

1) Sit down with piles of old cards and a pair of scissors in front of something entertaining... this takes a while! Helpers would be good.

2) Cut out loads of pictures in all different sizes... you'll need more than you think!

- Cut out obvious things and then look for smaller images in the pictures to cut.

- I ended up with santas, xmassy bears, presents, reindeer, snowmen, trees... and loads more of the obvious xmas stuff. Once you've cut out everything you think you could have cut out, look again. Even the tiniest things will make a difference and fill more space in your heart.

- Check the backs of your cards - a lot of them will have a tiny version of the picture on the front so use that too.

- Still need more? Go back yet again and cut hearts and stars from any patterned or glittery bits you've got left.

- STILL need more? Cut bits from xmas gift-wrap and tags. Or find some coloured paper and cut random shapes. Or get some of those little ribbon bows that you put on pressies and stick those on!

3) Once you're done with cutting, lay everything out on a flat surface face down. Grab some sticky tape (I use cellotape for walls all the time and it's never ever ripped off paint or left a mark...but test your tape on your walls first cos you never know!) and make little rolls of it to stick to the back of each piece.

4) Choose where you want to make your mural and mark out a heart shape with the tape or little balls of blutack. You can kid of judge how big you can make it by looking at your collection of cut-outs and hazarding a guess. Keep standing back and checking it looks symmetrical.

(Obviously I didn't do this bit, I just shoved stuff on the wall and hoped it would work and then spent a week messing about with it every now and then until it resembled a heart - not reccommended!)

5) Fill your heart with the pictures!

- Start with the edge using similar sized pieces to go all the way around.

- Then use your largest pieces. I made sure mine were spread out so the heart would look balanced in the end.

- Fill in the rest using everything else keeping roughly the same amount of space between each picture.

- Use the tiniest pieces last - keep standing back and checking to see where there are obvious gaps.

Edited to add (whoopsie!) :

6) REMOVE THE TAPE (or blutack) from the outside.

And you're done!

When I came up with this idea I was envisioning a massive bigger-than-me sized heart in my head but in reality this is the biggest I could get with the cards I had. BUT I'm thinking I'll keep these in an envelope when the decorations get put away and add to it each year with all the saved xmas cards. Then one day it will be HUGE and amazing! yay.

Here are a couple of other pics of our decorations while I'm here:

^ handmade snowflakes kept from last year :)

 

 
^ the most tack-tastic xmas tree, just crammed with xmassy stuff...I ♥ it :)

xxx

LINKAGE! (November 2010)

 

In which I share my favourite links from the past month. You can see previous LINKAGE posts HERE :)

- Chloe of Bo and Bella has been through an amazing amount of hairstyles in 3 1/2 years! And she looks great every time, I'm so jealous! I can't even find a parting that suits my fat head.

- I heart Em of lickmycupcakes because of posts like this. Full of win! 

- GRAZE is an amazing service for those (in the Uk) who want a variety box of really healthy + interesting snacks delivered through their letter box or their work desk. HERES HOW IT WORKS. (Unfortunately I've accumulated 3 weeks - minus 2 snacks - worth on top of my microwave because I'm rubbish at health but it's still a brilliant idea! Just make sure you'll actually eat them.) 

- I found this oh-so-simple DIY Hand-stitched T-shirt over at LeHappy. It turned out cute! I love the story behind the fabric too :)

- This girl's illustrations are the cutest!

- Erm.. here's a quirky tutorial: make a sweater out of 8 pairs of socks !! I wouldn't, but that is so clever. 

- 60 second inspirational videos for 21st century women - covering lots of subjects, worth a look!

- I really enjoyed this article on productivity: How To Fold Time And Space – The Entrepreneur’s Magic Wand 

- Stylit is a great idea,it's a fashion inspiration and planning notebook with all sorts of fun features. If you can't afford that though, check out my post "How to make a look-book, thrifty style"... it's a similar idea! 

- Alannah Hills website is the prettiest in the world. Me and Jess had lots of fun exploring it together :)

- How to make a gingerbread house - this is one of those things I've always wanted to do but never get round to!

- Look at these toaster plushies!!! They're so perfect! <3

- I loved this short video by Danielle LaPorte: Anchoring Into A Life Of Freedom

And here's something silly, fuckyeahsociallyawkwardpenguin !

---♥---

Bonus Feature! Songs I Can't Stop Listening To:

 

(Mostly R&B - I hope you like it. Everyone else in blog-land seems to be into obscure indie bands... I feel like a bit of an oddball with my oh-so-mainstream music loves!)

Rihanna - Only Girl In The World , Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are , Rihanna - What's My Name , Iyaz - Replay , Black Eyed Peas - Time Of My Life , Willow Smith - Whip My Hair , Roll Deep - Good Times , Taio Cruz - Dynamite , B.O.B - Magic , Soulja Boy Tell'em - Kiss Me Thru The Phone , Will.i.am - Check It Out , Far East Movement - Like A G6 , Flo Rida - Club Can't Handle Me

 Hope you're having a great weekend!

xxx

Today was Snowman Day...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I've taken to naming days. The other day was "Tree Day" - I'll post some pics of that soon!)

Jordan's school closed today so he stayed home and we got to go play in the snow! Little Jess got really cold really quick so we decided to make mini-snowmen up on the roof terrace rather than attempt a big one. So much fun! I'll admit the upside-down one and the couple with the heart were inspired by some I saw on weheartit.com - how cute are they though?!

Mini-snowmen are the way forward :)

Hopefully we'll get to go Cardboarding at the weekend! AKA shoving ourselves down small hills on flattened boxes. We did it last year, it was really funny! Who else has got snow?

xxx 

Wildfox Couture...

 

 

... has stolen my heart. I came across their lookbook this morning and immediately fell in love!

I'd never heard of them before so I had to look them up...

"Childhood friends Emily Faulstich and Kimberley Gordon are the creative force behind Wildfox. Inspired by sleepovers, beautiful books, fairies, dreams, vintage t-shirts and their friendship, the young designers gave birth to a brand based on love and having fun! Things had gotten too serious in the world of fashion, and it was time for a change. They created their t-shirts for every person, soft, baggy, bright and fun.

Together with musician Jimmy Sommers as CEO and President of Wildfox the brand was officially established in Los Angeles in 2006. Today, the girls spend their time visiting vintage shops and working out of their Silverlake-area design studio - where they ew their hearts on their sleeves and spread peace and love through design. "

Inspiring!

You can see the rest of their beautiful Spring 2011 Official Lookbook HERE and then their equally awesome past lookbooks HERE. The styling, photography, the models...everything about them are amazing, I just want to spend all day on their site now :)

xxx

PS. They have videos too! Oh look, it's that girl from The City:

I <3... Plaits and Braids

 (found here)

 

 
(Questionable Behaviour)

 

(Violet Bella)

 

 
(Found here)

 

 

 

 

(weheartit)

 
(Free People)

I'm LOVING the braids I'm seeing all over the place, they're so simple to do but can look really stunning!

The side-braid is coming in handy for whenever I have to wear a hood (rainy school runs) as my hair's getting so long (yay!) it just mattes itself up at the back if I leave it down. It's also my go-to style for excercise now. When i do that stuff. I recently learned to do the fishtail braid via Youtube videos, which was fun - though my hair is thin so I don't get a plait as wide as I would like. Today I've got my grown out fringe plaited and clipped because my hair dried itself with a weird parting while I was busy doing something else.... see, they're so useful :)

(I swear I'm not as boring and practical a that paragraph makes me sound. Oh god maybe I am... I blame being a mama! I must find time to look pretty for the sake of fashion. Yeah) 

Anyway...

The bonus is you get wavy mermaid hair afterwards!

 

(me)

 

I keep meaning to get round to trying these cute "French Braided Bangs" too:

 

 

Or maybe a lower-on-the-forehead version like this:

 

I'm not entirely sure either version will work on me but I'll give them a go at some point - damn widows peak/cowlick/high forehead combination ruins everything! ;)

Who else has been rocking the braids? I'm sure I'm late to the party.

xxx

Oh Hai!

 
 Just popping in to share this snap from today - Jessica in the cutest dress. (I want one for me!)

xxx

Crafty Skulls

 
One bag completed, 7 more to go! I just listed this one in my etsy shop :)

xxx

Currently working on...

 

1. A beachy pillow with beach huts and stuff for my Mums xmas present (a request),
2. A T-shirt with "LOL" emblazoned across the front for my little brother (also a request),
3. Painting and putting up all my thrifted picture frames and shelves,
4. Outlining my ZINE (one day this project will get done!!!),
5. Rearranging my studio,
6. Planning handmade xmas decorations,
7. Finishing painting the living room,
8. Inventing my own anti-psoriasis diet and get-gorgeous routines,
9. Attempting to complete about 8 half-finished bags for the shop,
10. Getting by on tiny amounts of money (not by choice) and panicking about how soon xmas actually is!

So lots of stuff to keep me busy - I'll be back when I've got some sort of progress to show you :)

xxx

Free People: Rainbow Braid

 

I just had to share this beautiful hairstyle with you... it's basically coloured glue-in extensions in a sort of french/fishtail braid. Genius! Do you love it? :) More info here.

xxx

LINKAGE! (October 2010)

 

 Happy November! Here are my favourite inspiring/entertaining/interesting links from October saved just for you. (There's now a LINKS graphic in my side-bar that'll take you to all the previous months too -  because sometimes you just wanna sit online and look at stuff and procrastinate on real life.... I know it's not just me!) 

♥

- Firstly, how cute is that opening picture up there?! ^  Lollypop sticks and magazine pages = awesome sign. Ooh, I could make one for my little girl's bedroom door ...or something! (Anyone know the original source please? It's been reblogged a trillion times on tumblr so I haven't managed to find it yet).

 

- I also want to spell something out on the wall with sticks !

 

- Supermarket Sarah is awesome -  LOOK!!  From the about page: "Sarah's "walls" started in her living room but have now spread into public spaces; galleries, shop fronts, bars, receptions and most recently Sarah curated a 30ft high wall at Selfridges London Concept Store." It's one of those wonderful things you wish you'd thought of first!

 

- Lately I've been on a "look for decent covers of my favourite songs on youtube" kick and I discovered ASTON Music, a classical band that covers Lady gaga - "Telephone" and Rihanna - "Rude Boy". I think they sound fantastic!

 

- What "I'm bored" can mean (and what it almost never means).

 

 

^ Supposedly "funny" greeting cards usually ...aren't. But these ones at Bluntcard kept me smirking and scrolling until they ran out.

 

 

^ I love Japanese magazines for their crazy quirkyness - I can't read it but it's fun to look at the pictures! You can download a copy of one called Egg HERE (it works, I checked. You get a zip file of 149 scans in jpg form!).

 

 - Tim Burton fans might like this makeup tutorial! The video is really well done too.

 

- Loving the Peter Pan Collar trend? Here's a tutorial on making your own using cute hankies - or any other fabric I guess :)

 

 

^ Trisha at MarySew made an awesome Batman Zipper Pouch using fused plastic bags! (I so want to try this)

 

- ColorMeKatie turned her kitchen table into a giant scrap book! (If you haven't heard of her before, I recommend her entire blog - she's pretty amazing).

 

- The most adorable cake by the adorable Em - Tiny penguins, glaciers, polar ice caps, snowballs, and a blue jelly pool - oh em gee!

 

- notthatkindofgirl.net is one of my newest favourite blogs - mainly because of her funny little comic strips - like THIS one!

 

- 25 reasons to dress up is a lovely list :) 

 

Another great piece on Procrastination that makes me feel like less of a loser.

 

 

 ^ Promise Tangeman explains the photo transfer process - clever stuff!

 

- How to Make a Playsuit/Romper (WANT)

 

- How to be friends with an introvert (I am one)

 

And that's the end - phew. This post always takes me at least a couple of hours - time for a well needed stretch and some lunch for me now! Hope you enjoy the links!

xxx

Happy Halloween!

 

 

 Me and my bestie Linda got invited to a party at short notice so her and my little boy did a quick run to town to grab some cheap hats and we conjured up some witchy frocks from rubbish bags! They were pretty easy, we basically shoved them on and cut, pulled and tied in front of the mirror for about an hour until they looked good.

Scott did a quick photoshoot for us before we ran out the door:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(We've established that Linda has massive eyeballs!)

Hope you're having a fun Halloween! We're taking the kids trick-or-treating tonight with their (8!) little cousins :)

 xxx

Latest bag... <3

 
Just finished this one yesterday and am excited to deliver it to my friend later today! She wanted a bag for carrying around her towel and water for the gym with "a dancer image of some sort" :) I emailed her a few ideas scanned from my sketchbook and she chose this one - I think it turned out so pretty!

(do I keep apologising for the awful camera-phone pics or just hope no-one notices until a new digital appears in my life? Hmmm...)

I'm getting as much sewing done as possible at the moment - I can't wait to update my SHOP with some brand new upcycled goodness!

PS. I signed up to Levis "Shape What's To Come" project (found via Elsie)- it seems like a good idea and should be a good way of getting to know others in the handmade community too! Come and have a look at my page and maybe sign up yourself? Let me know if you do and I'll come and check out your page too :D

xxx

DIY Tutorial - make your own "floaty clouds" top

 

~It's about time we started making some cute clothes around here!~

To make this you'll need: a T-shirt in whatever colour you fancy, an embroidery hoop, a needle and black embroidery thread, scissors, a pen and some card. This is really easy! I hope you'll give it a go :)

1) Cut the sleeves and neck off the T-shirt:

 

2) Draw a cloud shape onto card and cut it out to make a stencil:

 

3) Draw around your stencil carefully onto the t-shirt wherever you want your clouds:

 

4) Put the top in the hoop ready to do your first cloud. Knot your thread, thread the needle, bring the needle through from behind the cloud and sew even-ish stitches all around the cloud:

 

5) Then go back and fill in the gaps using the holes you've already made with the first lot of stitches:

 

6) When you get to the end, gently tug any really loose stitches from the back of the cloud (using the needle) to neaten them up.

7)Knot the thread, snip off the excess and repeat with all the other clouds.

Then you're done! I wear a black vest top under mine:

 

 

 

 

If you make this, let me know! I'd love to show it on my blog :)

xxx

 

Stuff I'm working on today:

 
Check back tomorrow - I'm posting a tutorial I hope you'll love! 

Hint - it's something you can wear ;)

xxx