DIY: Leather Clutch Bag (for £3, maadness)

So every DIY post I do, I've vowed to do for less than a fiver! And that is what I shall do.

So if you're all about saving the pennies, then this not only will help, but will give you somewhere to put them too!

I've been loving basic-simple items recently, and the beautiful DIY projects from Love Aesthetics (a truly beautiful blog) are really inspiring me to get creative. Have a look at a few of her amaazing ideas:

Metallic Leather Clutch Bag

Leather/Clear Envelope Clutch

Ferrero Rochet Box- revamped (I want to make one into a box-clutch)

Along with this beaaautie of a bag from Zara's basics range.

So I found a nice large piece of black leather in a charity shop whilst I was working in Walton on Thames for  £2!! So naturally I had to think up something interesting to do with it & I decided to make myself a clutch bag, and here's how!

You'll need:

* To save money, I bought this naff make-up bag for £1 from Poundland & took the zip off, because zips bought from craft shops can be a bit pricey! And it meant I had a template to work with!!

Using chalk, draw around your template, or mark out an area big enough on the back of your fabric, leaving a 1cm edge to sew the seam. Then cut the fabric, following the lines you've drawn.

Fold the fabric in half so that the inside of the bag is on the outside (Hopefully this does make sense!)

Pin the fabric where you want to sew the seam. Make sure the line is nice & straight, as this is your guideline.

 If you have a sewing machine, this will take you 5 minutes. But if like me, you try to avoid the things like the plague then a needle & thread will do fine! 

Next, pinch each corner and turn the bag inside out, so it's the right way!

Once you've done this & flipped it the right way, you'll need to attach the zip! This was the hardest part I found, mainly because I ran out of black thread & impatiently swapped to a red wine coloured one! But managed to hide it thankfully. 

Once you've sewn one side of the zip on, it should look like this! Do the same on the other side, stitching the seam about half the way in on the zip itself.

So once you've done that, and neatened it all up a bit, it should look something like this! You could spend a bit more on a nicer zip if you wanted, a chunky metal one would be nice too. And you can use any fabric you want, I just liked the simplicity of black leather. And now I've got a bag to match my watch, as they were both made from the same piece of leather (:

There you have it, £3! BARGAAAIN

*Apologies for the inconsistent lighting, I made this over the course of a few days at Lil's house as well as mine.

Have you got any interesting DIY ideas you've done? Or anything you'd like me to do perhaps?

You can even challenge me if you like, to make something, but to keep it under a fiver!

Watch This!

Sorry if that title is just ridiculously horrendous & tacky, but 10 minutes have passed & it's the best I've got.

As you might have guessed by now, I'm not one to spend huge amounts on clothes, or anything really, so when I buy something, I like to get as much use as possible from it.

I bought a watch about a year ago from a car boot sale. I paid £1 for it, and have been completely in love with it ever since. It has a clean, simplistic face and the metal it's set on has turned a nice coppery-rose gold colour from wear.

But upsettingly, the tanned leather watchstrap that came with it has been slowly breaking, and finally last week it dropped off my wrist, having worked it to death. This thing was literally in peices!

But not being one to throw something away in a hurry, I decided to give it a re-vamp. I had a scrap piece of black leather left over from a recent DIY project I've been working on (which I'll post tomorrow). So I snipped off what was left of the old strap & cut a long strip of black leather to thread through the watch. I'm pretty happy with how it's come out!

What's the best thing you've ever re-vamped?

Brands I'm Loving: Pied A Terre

So a big trend that's carried through well from A/W12 to S/S13 is lime!

 It's not everybody's cup of tea as it's a rather striking colour, a bit neon-esque and admittedly it's a trend I'm very fussy about, which in my eyes is quite a good thing, as it's not something I could wear head to toe! It would have to be a statement piece in my eyes, and therefore I actually only like the trend on a garment that looks expensive well made, because I expect to pay that bit more for a staple item.

A brand that is doing this really well for me at the moment is Pied A Terre. They're most recent collections (as seen below) are all quite minimalistic and I absolutely adore this at the moment. Possibly because over the winter 'layering' (although I love it) get's done to death, so come Spring/Summer I can't wait for some clean lines & strong tailoring.

They're clothes, shoes and accessories are equally really good quality (as far as I've seen?) and I've been perusing their range. I've come up with a few key pieces that are my favourites & I wanted to share them.

001 //  Textured Jacket -Neon Lined with Upturned Cuffs

002 // Fluid Drop Shoulder Tee

003 // Oversized Cocoon Coat (now 70% off in the sale)

004 // Resin Clutch Bag with 2 neon purse inserts

005 // Zip Around Purse (now 70% off in the sale)

006 // T Bar Block Heel Sandals

I got my House of Fraser staff discount card in the post the other day, so I might treat myself to the purse (walked past it twice today and decided I need it somehow). And the clutch bag I can no way afford but I still have to walk past it every day at work! Nightmare.

What trends/brands are you loving for S/S13?

Company Magazine's Bloggers Event

I'm soo late boarding the blog-train for this one! The event was on Tuesday, but I'm still playing catch-up at the moment. One of my aims at the moment though, is to become more productive with my day, so getting up earlier & actually getting things done efficiently as opposed to being as easily distractable as I am!

Anyway, (disctracted, oh boy). I apologise for the text/image heavy post, but its long overdue! So me and Lil spent the day in London on Tuesday, initially for the Bloggers Event, but after catching the early train (8am to be precise), we made a proper day of visiting London. We're very lucky that it only takes less than 40 mins on the train into London, but because the train ticket costs more than anything else it's still a rareity that we go! So we started early & headed straight for Oxford St. I bought a few bits at Forever21, Topshop & Primark (see my last post for those), as did Lil.

Then of course we had to pop into Selfridges, only for 5 minutes though because we obviously wern't quite ready to splash out on a Mulberry bag just yet! But on our way out we noticed an amazing little conceptual pop-op shop within Selfridges, that had taken the subject of branding & sort of, rebranded it?! They had jars of Marmite & bottles of Ketchup, minus the logos. And brown paper bags made from suede. Everything was very cool looking and minimalistic. Very nice.

        

Then we headed over to Covent Garden and started with a lovely lunch in a nice restaurant called Maxwells in Covent Garden! Such a good price & really nice food. Well chuffed. And then attempted to walk it off trying to find Somerset House, which we did!

Wasn't too impressed with the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition that I'd been looking forward to (contained about 5 of his piccies). But the Tim Walker's Storyteller exhibition everyone's been raving about was amaaazing. And I maintain that me & Lil did infact stand in the same room as Quinn from Glee #claimtofame.

We also visited Chelsea and Kensington and popped into a few amazing/pricey charity shops crammed with Prada and Malano Blahnik shoes. And a fabulous vintage shop called East End Thrift Store, which we'll definitely be going back to next time! Took an age to find, and walking past a bunch of dodgy men in the dark & down an alley, but hey what's London at night without a bit of fear in you.

    

Hence why I'm so excited to find it in the photo above.

And our FINAL stop, the Company Bloggers Event. Basically a room filled with amazing bloggers and people I wouldn't mind doing a wardrobe swap with! Which btw, I'm well up for.

Panel consisted of:

Victoria White (Company Editor) 

Alexxsia Elizabeth of My Labyrinth (Blogger & Fashion Writer/Stylist at Company)

Gem Royston-Claire of Gem Fatale (Blogger & Web Assistant at Company)

Amber Venz of VENZedits (Blogger & President of rewardstyle.com)

Carrie of WishWishWish (Blogger & Community Co-ordinator at ASOS Marketplace)

Shini of Park & Cube (Blogger & Graphic Designer)

Sandra Hagelstam of 5 Inch And Up (Blogger)

WE WERE SPOILED! 

(And I haven't even got to the goodie bag yet).

All the girls were incredibly lovely, and just had some really inspiring things to say about how to get the most out of blogging, how to put everything we can into it and to enjoy it of course. The @Companymagazine twitter feed went wild on the night & you can see all the inspirational quotes from the panel here.

We had time to mingle afterwards & met some lovely girls, including Carrie and Shini from the panel it was lovely to see Gem again. Met some really wonderful bloggers aswell, including Megan from The Briar Rose who I literally accosted as she was leaving, and Charlotte from PlasticHorsess, and so many other lovely girls.

The little bag of goodies we got was incredible, and I can't wait to use everything in it.

There's also a video from the night here!

Recent Spends

I'm gonna breeeze right past the fact I've been a terrible blogger these past few weeks, and get right back into things. So hello, good to see you've been keeping okay. Got rid of that cold yet? Oh dear, it won't shift will it?!

Now I've been shopping, as you might've guessed, or investing because that sounds less like I'm actually spending all my money. I hit the sales on Boxing Day (Just so you know, I'm NOT 'one of those girls', and I'm categorically, definitely not a Next boxing day shopper). I was working in town in the afternoon, so popped in early to see what I could find. Also, me and Lil went to London very recently for the Company Magazine Blogging Forum (seperate post to follow soon), and so we spent the day prior gallivanting around London, hence another delicious opportunity to spend money I dont have (:

So here, my lovelies, is what I bought:

   001// Topshop Plain Sweat Dress from their New collection which I fell in love with a few weeks ago  but managed to pick up on my recent trip to Oxford St. SO happy with it (: can't wait to wear it with  tights, chunky heeled ankle boots & a big statement necklace. It's such a simple basic, you can't go wrong dressing it up or down!

   002// UO Grey & Burgandy Winter Floppy Hat. Wanted one for aaaages! Saw this in the Urban Outfitters sale with 50% off & I had to have it. Been wearing it with my fave lipstick (also featured below).

 003// 17's Supreme Shine Lipstick in 'Rich'  Okay so my favourite shade of lipstick this winter by far! I hate to say it, but it is most definitely rich in colour. It stays really well, will take you from morning til night with only 1 re-application. Couldn't recommend it more, would just suggest lip-balming your face up prior to using it as it can dry out your lips a little in the cold weather!

   004// Cream Sleeveless Lace Top with Beaded Collar. My bargain from River Island, only size 14-18 left on the rail. River Island sizing team must have made a booboo because I'm a petite 8 and this fits like a glove. So happy with it!

005// New Look Blazer in 'Oxblood'. Matches my new hat & my fave lippy. Possibly overworking the oxblood trend a bit now!

006// Forever21 Polka Dot Sleeveless Shirt or as I like to call it, my 1950's housewife top. The chap's gonna love the 'get back in the kitchen' vibe this one has!

So these are a few of my favourite recent purchases. Sadly not all of them still available, but the lipstick shade you can buy instore, and the other stuff possibly aswell. I also bought a black, pleated midi skirt from Republic in the sale & a galaxy print midi dress (that I forgot to photograph), which I wore to the #companybloggersevent. So you can see pictures of that in my next post.. Oooh cliffhanger?
 Not really.