The Pledge

Sounds a bit ominous..... but thankfully I am talking about the Seamless Pledge - check out the funky button!
I stumbled upon this by chance from  a cute little blog I ended up at called Heart's Cottage and was intrigued. I will be honest, I don't really buy clothes very often, it stresses me out and my "particularness" means I rarely find anything I like enough to shell out for. I either make from scratch or upcycle existing clothes from my "uurgh, I am not feeling that anymore, I'll shove it in this box and get around to sorting it out later" pile. I will also have to exclude bras from this as I am on the hefty side of things so only NASA engineered over the shoulder boulder holders are good enough to stop my boobage from going wild! So other than the exclusion, perhaps the pledge is a little wasted on me. But I would like to join in anyhow so....

I, Lucy Lovell, take the Seamless Pledge, and vow not to buy any new clothes (except bras) and stick to the rules laid out below, until I sort myself out and am wearing a UK size 12 clothes. Once I have dropped the 2 dress sizes necessary I will re-assess my pledge and set another target. I would like to be free from the tyranny of corporation and this pledge is one facet of a multi-sided endeavour to become self sufficient and stick it to the man.

The rules -

1. No buying new clothes for the duration of your pledge. By new, I mean any new mass-manufactured clothes.
2. You can buy second-hand manufactured clothes – so be prepared to get to know your local charity shops awfully well.
3. Vintage clothing is a-ok!
4. Anything you’ve made by hand is definitely allowed. Get your sewing machines and your kntting needles out, because handmade is definitely in!

So what are you waiting for? Get involved and be inspired!

Bloglovin'

Hello! It has been a while.... lets just say that 2012 was not my year, in addition to my nana passing away at the beginning of the year, my grandad also passed away in November.
It wasn't all doom and gloom though, I started a degree with the O.U. in Astronomy and Planetary Science - exciting stuff! My immediate plans relating to this involve teaching physics, but I would like to continue and get a masters and a phd... a dream that seems so far away now but I'm sure will be realised in no time at all! So any way, I have been struggling with time management and everything that was not involved in the daily routine of work, homework and sleep didn't get a look in. I have still been up to some crafting so there will be some previous projects popping up here to fill everyone in! I have my exam in the beginning of June so from then until October I will be FREEEEEEEE!!!!! to craft to my hearts content and hopefully get a good volley of posts up before I am a slave to the textbooks again :)

In the meantime, there is some google reader thing people in blogland have been talking about, I will admit that I don't really know what the implications are or really what will change but I have followed everyone and jumped ship to bloglovin', so my dear readers, I hope to see you there!


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Pinterest Project - Strawberry Pincushions

I pinned the strawberry pincushion quite some time ago having seen the darling ones made over at nanacompany (pictured below). If you haven't visited the blog then you must! It is picture heavy though and if you are using a horrid chugging piece of crap like I do then you will simply have to be very patient!

Worth it though, you will be so jealous at  Amy's beautiful embroidery and hopefully a bit inspired too :)

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So anyway, at some point in time after pinning those beauts I saw this photo tutorial for the strawberries and it looked easy so I made some. Not as good as Amy's, or those in the tutorial pictures, but they are first attempts so I will make better ones next time.

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The best bit is that these use up so little fabric you can make a whole army of them!

I embellished with white pearlescent flower sequins and gold beads found in my stash, and I only used scraps of fabric for the strawbs so didn't involve any monies jumping outta my purse!

I have pinned a tutorial from purlbee for some strawberry cushions, basically the same as these but huge! When I get around to buying the fabric I will post them up with a size comparison!

Pinterest Project - Socktopus

I saw these cuties on Pinterest and just had to! I mean, how could you not when they are so simple?

Source

All you do is hunt out those old/odd socks, long ones work better, snip the foot part of the sock off (unless you are using tube socks or even old tights), turn it inside out and sew a running stitch along the top and pull closed (secure it with a few stitches through the middle). Stuff with scrap fabric, toy stuffing or even carrier bags. Sew closed and snip the rest of the sock into 8 strips for the legs! Add facial features and any other embellishments and you are good to go!
Took about 20 minutes each (I was not hurrying, you could probably do them quicker) and now I want to cut up all of my socks!
You could take it further with the embellishments and use a plain sock to decorate.

Not bad hey?!

Chocolate Cupcakes

Everyone needs a chocolate cupcake hit every once in a while, especially when the chocolate cupcake is from the ultimate chocolate cake recipe! I have made many recipes for chocolate cake but this one wins for me hands down EVERY FRICKIN' TIME! Sourced from the Good Housekeeping Simple and Stunning Cakes book by Greg and Max. For some unknown reason this is the only recipe I have made from this book, maybe I subconsciously thought it was the magnificent octopus (Magnus opus for those who don't get the Blackadder reference!) of the book and the rest would pale in comparison, who knows?

They were decorated with chocolate fudge icing, marshmallows dipped in the coloured sugar I previously posted about and a few store bought sugar butterflies.

I prefer to use chocolate ganache to frost my chocolate cupcakes with but as I stupidly delayed making these the bloody cream went out of date and it was too late to go get some more.

Anyway, these tasted awesome and maybe one day I will share my recipe.... when I have a better one to remain the supreme chocolate cake maker of the universe mwahahaha!

Dessert...

Looks pretty healthy here... Bananas and juicy strawbs....

But hidden in the bowl are marshmallows, chocolate, and a waffle....
...Which means STRAWBERRY AND BANANA S'MORE WAFFLES!!!!!

Yeah, I was pretty pleased with this invention ;)

Where did the time go?!

Apologies to anyone who actually reads the blog, I think I must have fallen down a rabbit hole and ended up almost in July! Posting will recommence shortly!