A Domino Effect

I’ve been doing some DIY lately as a way to take breaks from revision.  Not DIY in the sanding/paint stripping/wall papering sense, but more the superficial kind: rearranging furniture, hanging pictures, decluttering and tidying up.  All on the cheap cheap cheap, of course.

Having very little money to play with can be a good thing when it comes to home improvements.  With your finances in tight check, you’ll be forced to get your creative juices flowing and think on your feet.  And who says you can only revamp your living space if you have a well-padded bank balance and a whole week to devote to it?  It’s true – you might not be able to effect big changes, such as painting or re-carpeting rooms, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still make a tangible difference to the place you live with a few well thought-out touches here and there.  All it takes is some imagination and a willingness to accept that some of your ideas might just be terrible.  That’s OK!  We’re all beginners here, especially me (someone who once thought it would be a good idea to have blue bedroom walls with dolphins stencilled all over them.  Er, nautical.).

So in the spirit of us all being friends and amateurs together, here are some of my top tips for making the most of your living space on a tight, tight budget…

Have a good clear out

Ah my old friend, de-cluttering.  Back to remind us that there’s joy to be found in getting rid of your old junk.  The more space you free up in your home, the more room you’ll have for yourself and the things you love.  I want my home to be easy to manage, relaxing and beautiful, not a repository for yesteryear’s crap that makes me feel guilty every time I walk past.  Even if you only have two or three things to get rid of, do it anyway.  I can almost guarantee you’ll feel better.

Tidy up!

Sometimes our homes actually need little other than a mighty good clean.  If you could spend a morning hoovering, dusting, polishing your pictures, hanging up your clothes and filing away all of your paperwork, how much better do you think your living space would look as a result?  My guess is miles.  Whenever I clean my room I think ‘Gosh doesn’t that look lovely?’ and I instantly feel less like I need to completely transform it.  I’m not saying that it should remain that way forever more (seriously not – I can be pretty messy when I put my mind to it) but a little bit of elbow grease might just take you further than you think.

Make do and mend

As far as I’m concerned, there’s a much greater thrill to be found in re-purposing something you already own than there is in handing over a stack of tenners for something new.  Use what you already have, and never be done asking the following question: what can I do with this? Such an approach has seen me hacking up old dresses to make new cushion covers, papering old shoe boxes with attractive gift wrap and brightening up a dull cork notice board by covering it over with some cheery scrap fabric.  There’s no limit to the new looks you can give your old things, or the new uses to which you can put them.  Let your inhibitions go and have some fun.

Think about functional beauty

Sometimes the things we use every day can make great decorations.  Clothes and accessories, for example.  I like to have my clothes where I can see them, so I hang things on the back of my door and also on the wall, where they can give me inspiration.  I like to display my scarves on a wire hanger, and my shoes sit along the top of my wardrobe where I can’t forget about them.  You can also make great decorations out of necklaces and earrings – hang them from the corners of mirrors and on mesh display racks where they can give your room some added ‘zing’.  Another thing I love to see displayed in a home is books – they say so much about a person.  They also look beautiful as well, particularly those really old ones with the musty smells and the battered covers.

Free stuff

A bowlful of shells from a nearby beach – varnished if you can be bothered – can give a theme to your bathroom, while empty wine bottles with candlesticks or long stemmed flowers in them look nice on your kitchen or dining table.  I know I say this all the time, but jam jars really do make great receptacles for stock cubes, sugar and other condiments.  And occasionally, you might be lucky enough to find something great for your home either on the kerbside or at the recycling plant.  I once found a wire shopping basket outside my flat which has done a stellar job as a magazine holder ever since.  And if you find out what day the bin men visit your nearest posh neighbourhood, get yourself along there the night before and have a butchers at what people have left out for trash (you’ll be astounded).  Remember the golden rule: the posher the neighbourhood, the better the swag.  Go to it.

To purchase to purchase…

Finally, if you do need to buy a few things to complete your home improvement projects, try looking in charity shops (particularly the ones with furniture outlets) for pictures, old suitcases and bits and bobs for the kitchen.  Your local recycling plant can also be great for snaffling up some new-to-you treasures.  The one in Edinburgh has a section where things that have been salvaged by the people at the plant are available for resale.  If all else fails, there’s always Ikea, but do beware of creating the bland, uninspiring mono-home that can so easily result from one too many visits to the blue and yellow warehouse.  Everything in moderation!

Image above from Flickr – 60 in 3.

Anyone else feeling the pinch a little at the moment?  I know the financial forecast is bleak just now but seriously – everywhere I turn there’s a price hike taking aim and firing at my measly, student-diseased bank balance.  My rent has increased, my fortnightly shop is more expensive and I put petrol in my boyfriend’s car the other week only to be utterly gobsmacked when I realised that £20 no longer buys even a quarter of a Renault Clio tank (and that was before we broke down on the way home from the Lake District and had to pay just shy of £150 to be rescued by the AA).  Friends?  This simply will not do!

I don’t really spend much time talking about personal finance issues on the blog these days, and to be honest, it’s a little bit intentional.  The internet of today is so utterly choked with money saving tips and advice that I’m really not sure I have a huge amount that’s new to add.  Don’t get me wrong – I remain completely devoted to living a beautiful life without breaking the bank, but let’s face it: there are only so many posts I can write about how great making batches of soup is, or which credit cards provide the best interest rate (did I ever even write about that in the first place!?) before I start sounding like a broken record.

Having said that, these barren fiscal times do call for some creative and ultra-frugal thinking.  And in a bid to regain some control amid the frenzy of price hikes, duty rises and spending cuts, I’m going back to the roots of personal finance.  I want to remind myself of the fundamentals of thrift, and ensure that I’m applying them every single day.  And I want anyone else who’s feeling the pinch to join in with me.  To start us off, here are twenty of my all-time favourite thrift-based principles.  Feel free to add some of your own in the comments.  I *really* don’t want to sound like he of the considerable forehead, but let’s face it guys, we’re all in this together…

FOOD

• Be supermarket-savvy and only take advantage of a great offer if you actually want or need to buy the thing in question.  As my very wise father once pointed out to me, a bargain is only a bargain if you were looking for the thing in the first place.
• Eradicate brand snobbery and buy as much value food and drink as you feel comfortable with.  I don’t buy value meat, eggs or dairy (cooped up hens make me feel very sad indeed) but everything else I consider fair game.  My cupboards boast an array of plain white packaging, and mighty proud I am of them too.
• Packed lunches rule the lunchtime roost, and will almost always taste nicer than anything that can be bought pre-made in a shop. Five minutes of preparation before bed and savings of anything up to £4 per day can be ours. One of the oldest, but most effective, tricks in the book.  Kerching!
• Batch cooking is amazing.  Make full use of any freezer space by loading it up with portions of home-cooked goodies: chilli, ratatouille, soup, yada yada yada…nutritious (hopefully), delicious and cheap cheap cheap!
• Skip going out for dinner and host your own version of Come Dine With Me instead.  Put in the effort now and you’ll reap the rewards in free slap-up meals in the coming months.

CLOTHES

• Use your friends’ wardrobes as opposed to buying new clothes.  ’New to you’ is just as effective as buying something, and you’ll get that added glow of cheap chic to boot.  If, however, you really must purchase…
• …always calculate price per wear (remember that?) on new clothes, and don’t break the bank for something you’ll only wear twice.  It’s all about the investment.
• Update your wardrobe on the cheap by shaking up your accessory collection.  Swap with a friend, raid your local charity shops or, if you simply must go high street, dive into the bargain bins.  The right piece of jewellery or a scarf in an eye-catching print will happily do the stylistic work of ten bits of clothing if you let them.

HOME

• Do as much of your laundry at 30 degrees as you can get away with.  No one smells enough to merit absurd temperatures, it’s a fact.
• Home-made birthday cards will excite and delight most people way more than anything Hallmark produces ever could.  Go get your Pritt Stick on!  Now!
• Become a scavenger.  Posh neighbourhoods can be great places to score nice furniture.  Note: only take something if it’s on the pavement and clearly earmarked for the binmen.  Otherwise you’re just thieving, and that’s really not cool.
• Keeping a spending diary or calendar and updating it honestly (that’s right, every single penny you spend) is a fantastic way to seriously monitor your finances and look at areas for potential savings.
• Become a cleaning product cynic and always ask Google whether a dab of humble vinegar will remedy your problem just as well as the £5 bottle of chemicals with the garish label promises to.

ENTERTAINMENT

• Quit the gym and jog/skip/cycle around your local park or neighbourhood instead.  You’ll see more of the world and save yourself fistfuls of cash.
• Block out all of your Wednesday evenings in favour of the cinema and find someone who wants to take advantage of the Orange 241 deal with you.
• Save cash on books and use the library instead.  Photocopy any pages (recipes, patterns etc) you feel you want to keep permanently.
• Take to the outdoors and, more specifically, the countryside.  The further away you are from the shops, the more physically impossible it becomes to spend money.  And if you work yourself hard enough, you’ll get fit at the same time.

SPIRIT

• Live mindfully and with intention and don’t spend money just for the sake of it.  Always quiz yourself as to whether you really need/want/can afford whatever thing or experience it is.
• Practice giving daily votes of thanks to the universe.  I have found that constantly reminding myself of all the things for which I’m grateful really helps me to want for less and appreciate what I already have more.
• Look at and really see the beauty in life that’s all around you – trees, animals, architecture, other people.  Your eyes are one of the most valuable attributes you have.  And what’s better?  You got ‘em for free.

Image above from Flickr – bies.

I hadn’t given Lent a moment’s thought this year until yesterday, when I realised (too late, may I add) that it was pancake day, and that the beginning of Lent was therefore imminent.  And as soon as I realised it was about to start, I got myself into a stupendous whirlwind of panic over finding something, ANYTHING, to give up.  Foodstuffs?  Charity shopping?  Needless hours spent watching re-runs of Friends on E4?  This frantic self-interrogation carried on for oh, about an hour, until I finally decided that I was simply trying to find something to give up for the sake of taking part in the gimmick, as opposed to using Lent as a means of introducing a change in my life that I actually think is necessary and that I really want to see through.

So the upshot is, I’m not giving anything up this year.  Long-term followers of the blog might remember last year’s challenge, which basically involved me giving up buying almost everything that wasn’t groceries.  Clothes, books, cinema tickets, meals out etc.  Volunteering to go without those little luxuries that I normally take so much for granted afforded me a stark reminder about the world of difference there is between want and need, and it also taught me a lot about my own spending habits.  Those are lessons that I hope I’ve continued to bear in mind ever since, and while it was a good and interesting challenge to take on at the time, I’m not in the same place anymore.  I’ve pared down my belongings tenfold since this time last year, and I’ve also become a much wiser spender, partly because I’m now a struggling student, and have to keep a much tighter rein on my finances than before.

That’s not to say that I consider myself nigh-on perfect with no bad habits remaining to kick into the gutter (seriously, seriously not the case!).  It’s just that right now, there’s nothing on my mind that I really want to give up, so I’m simply not participating.  There are still changes I’d like to make in my life, but most of those relate to adding things in, rather than cutting anything out.  I’d like to use my sewing machine more, for example, and to spend more time creating things with my hands.  I’d also like to become a little more committed to exercise, and to make sure I get to bed early as many nights of the week as my social life will permit.  As far as I can see it, however, these are lifestyle changes that need to be phased in gradually.  Cutting something out of my life that I don’t actually want to get rid of permanently isn’t going to aid me much in bringing new habits in.

So that’s where I’m at this year.  No challenges, just the continuation of a happy normality.  What about you?

Image above from Flickr – vanherdehaage.

Well whaddaya know – the lovely and talented Carly from Carly Makes Stuff has tagged me as a stylish blogger – honoured I am, I tell you!

The rules of the game are thus: all ye who are tagged as stylish bloggers have to spill seven interesting beans about yourselves before passing the baton of nomination on to seven others.  The world becomes a marginally happier, more knowledgeable place, blog friendships are developed and sealed and everyone gets a unicorn.  Well not quite, but it’s a bit of fun at least, right?

So in the spirit of full disclosure, here are seven things you might not know about me:

1) I am one of five children.  I have one older sister, one younger sister and two younger brothers.  I can clearly remember the day my youngest brother was born as I threw a colossal strop when my parents informed me that I couldn’t go out that night because they were off to the hospital.  The thirteen year-old and profoundly childish me was apparently unable to concede that having a new little person come into all of our lives was far more important than me being allowed to go and watch trashy horror films (of the ‘I know what you did last Summer’ variety, cringe) at my friend’s house.  A charming little madam, I’m sure you’ll agree.

2) I’m a secret singer.  When I’m home alone I often sing so loud that I’m sure the neighbours must hear and reach for the earplugs.  I’ll sing anything, but show tunes and anything by Annie Lennox are my two favourites.  I also love a blast of ‘Over the Rainbow’ a la Queen Judy herself – it doesn’t half get those lungs a-pumping!

3) I used to keep a stack of books twelve high on my bedside table and read bits of them at random.  I kicked this habit as part of my quest for a simpler life and now I strive to read one book at a time without deviation, which is often quite difficult as I’m very easily seduced by new ones.

4) I wear trousers roughly once every three months, and less frequently if I can get away with it.  I’m a skirts and dresses girl to the absolute core of my being.

5) I find choosing food a real battle.  Sometimes I’ll walk out of the supermarket without buying anything, simply because being faced down by so many different options freaks me out to the extent that my powers of selection are paralysed and I feel a chronic, biting need to escape.  This can happen with the simplest of things, such as a chocolate bar, a flavour of ice cream or a bottle of wine.  Don’t get me started on the difficulties I have in restaurants.  Funnily enough, when it comes to clothes and shoes I’m ultra decisive (as well as very, very particular).

6) I am stupidly passionate about cycling and libraries, both of which I consider to be extremely important, potentially life-changing things.  I am also, however, stupidly passionate about a whole host of unimportant things, such as floral prints, battered tan leather, mismatched crockery and wicker baskets.  It’s all about balancing them up, you know?

7) I can happily drink twelve cups of tea in a day.

So there you have it.  I’m a skirt-wearing, multiple sibling-ed, tea-dependent, choice-phobic, vociferous bookworm.  Among other things!  I hereby pass the stylish blogger award on to the following ass-kickers…

• Rachel of Go Placidly
• Charlotte of Blueskies Blog
• Rebecca from Bexpress Yourself
• Ginger Jane from Self-conscious Posturing
• Sarah from From the Rooftops
• Grania from Crumbs for Dinner and…
• Red Boots

And…you’re welcome ladies!  I look forward to reading lots more about you!

Yesterday I had cause to make my first visit to Hobbycraft, the UK market’s latest attempt to convince us that retail parks are cool places to hang out. In case anyone hasn’t heard of Hobbycraft, I think it can be accurately described as a sort of supermarket for creative types. This place sells every kind of material, tool and accessory the would-be crafter could ever hope to purchase, and then some (anyone who has ever struggled with having too much choice would be well-advised to steer clear, by the way).

What struck me as I entered the floodlit aisles of this stadium-sized mecca was just how many ‘hobbies’ (I’ll try to use the term loosely) it caters for. It doesn’t only sell sewing, knitting, cross-stitch and crocheting materials by the truckload, but it also does a remarkable trade in cake decorations, model aeroplane kits, art supplies and stationery. Hobbycraft seems to have opened up a colossal umbrella and is now attempting to usher anyone who has ever done anything even tangentially creative beneath it, promising to cater for their every need, past, present and future. It seems to think that people who paint, people who build models and people who bake cakes are one and the same, and that it’s therefore more than acceptable to bunch us all together like sheep from separate flocks. We’ll all end up at the slaughterhouse in the end, who cares that his fleece is marked blue and mine red?

On top of this, I really found myself struggling to work out how Hobbycraft managed to dream up its catchphrase which if I rightly recall was something along the lines of “the home of great ideas”. I doubt I’ve ever found myself in a place that’s less inspiring, and the only idea that came to my mind as I wandered up and down the soulless aisles was that I wanted to get out of there fast. And that was before I discovered how freakishly over-packaged, not to mention wildly overpriced the stock is. £10.99 per metre of printed cotton fabric (I regularly buy similar stuff for less than half that in my local fabric shop). £9.99 for a modestly-sized bag of what can really only be described as odds and ends for the sewing box – the type of thing you can glean for gratis from old clothes, nice packaging and left-overs from other projects. Hobbycraft seems to think that going to the trouble of putting all those little scraps of fabric, ends of ribbon, feathers and beads into a plastic bag and then presenting them to the customer in clean, warm surroundings somehow justifies their charging a tenner for what is essentially a pile of scrap that anyone with a talent for re-using could throw together for free. It’s the complete antithesis of thrift, and it’s laughable.

I also really hate to think of the impact that the Hobbycraft presence is probably already having on the many independent haberdashers, art suppliers and stationers there are to be found across the country. One of my favourite shops in Edinburgh is the fabric store, an Aladdin’s cave of material, ribbons, buttons, lace and sewing supplies, all reasonably priced, and all piled high on ramshackle shelves in a profoundly chaotic but somehow completely beautiful fashion. It’s a family business, and I seriously struggle to think of an occasion on which I’ve come across a set of retailers with a more robust knowledge of their own trade. These people barely need to measure the fabric when they cut it for you, so keenly trained are their eyes. They also know pretty much every single price off by heart, which is admirable given the vast array of things they stock. It’s a pleasure to linger in such an environment, and I often find myself staying for well over an hour, just to soak it all up and let the ideas flow.

Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, the same can’t, at least in my short-lived experience, be said about Hobbycraft. While the staff seemed nice enough, they displayed little enthusiasm for their work, and their faded, cheap-looking “Hobbycraft” sweatshirts spoke volumes. If Hobbycraft really is the home of great ideas, why don’t they start by creating a staff uniform that’s a little more original and a little less DIY store? A decorative badge wouldn’t go amiss at the very least – it’s not like they don’t have every type of material conceivable to the human imagination at their very fingertips. If these stores are supposed to be places to feel inspired before you go off and spend hundreds of pounds on supplies for projects you’ll never get round to, the least this company can do is put some effort into its presentation.

But it’s not about inspiration, is it? Not really. They might want us to think so, but Hobbycraft is really little more than a cynical attempt on the part of the market to capitalise on the recent renaissance of craft-based hobbies and creative enterprises. The ‘make do and mend’ culture has never been more popular, and as a result, never has it been so potential a profit-spinner. I doubt Hobbycraft will ever attempt to brighten up its stores, or inject even a modicum of enthusiasm into its staff. Those things cost money, and are therefore diametrically opposed to the spirit of the entire operation. Better to pay the workers minimum wage (I’m guessing), churn out the cheapest and most generic-looking stores and uniforms possible and just watch, cigars in mouth and brandy glasses in hand, as those monetary savings morph into nice, chunky dividends. Like magic, right? Who needs creativity when there’s money to be made?

And therein lies my biggest grievance about Hobbycraft’s very existence. It’s a sham. It’s not about creativity, it’s not about flair, originality, inspiration or ideas, much as its tagline would have us believe. Hobbycraft is about making money, and making it hand over fist, to absolute hell with the annihilation of everything many of us creatives hold dear.

And that, in itself, is why I won’t be going back.

Image above from Flickr – mrjoro.