My Cath Kidston Room

A couple of months ago Cath Kidston (CK) ran a competition to design a room in a shoe-box. I'd kept the email about it for other reasons and it wasn't until a few days before the competition closed that I spotted the bit about the contest at the bottom of the page and so Mum and I set about making a room in an evening! It was one of the most fun contests I've ever done, getting to come up with ideas and do little craft things in doll-house size! As creative as I am, I've sadly had to let that part of my life go, over the past 10 years with being ill. I no longer sew or draw or anything like that and it is something I miss dearly, but I know I would get increasingly frustrated at not being able to do it, so it's better I stick to things that I can do. Anyway that aside, it was fun for an evening and I was super impressed (even if I do say so myself) at how fabulous our room turned out and how thrifty we were. We didn't win the competition (we were robbed I know!), but I thought you might be interested in seeing what we came up with.

Our room was a sewing room/shop and we printed out CK prints to use as wallpaper for the walls. We covered the 'floor' in plain paper and added a 'rug' made from another print-out and snipped at the ends to look authentic. We finished off the house with CK fabric over the top and CK ribbon trim.

The centre-piece of the room was our wardrobe. It was made completely by hand from mirror card and CK paper. We made a clothes rail from two dressmaking pins taped together and even little hangers from wire, which I thought were adorable. I printed out miniature images of CK dresses and we hung them on the hangers.

Next we made a desk from an old CK tin of mints using thread spools as the legs. I printed off a couple of images of CK carrier bags and we found a little tape measure, threads, sewing machine, scissors and fabric that my Mum uses for card-making to place on the table.

Our wee worker got a makeover with a little CK sash we made from the selvage of CK fabric.

I wanted to drape some CK fabric over some dollies mannequins we had, but ended up making little dresses for them.

We used an old CK box of matches for this cabinet and rolled up CK fabric to look like bales of material. We even cut a plastic pole to size and wrapped fabric around that, which looked so 'real'.

An old wooden thread spool was used to make a little stool, we covered it in ribbon and fabric with some padding on the 'seat'.

We finished the room by adding some CK badges on the wall to look like decorative plates.

Made a little picture from card-making stuff.

Added some bunting using thread and CK papers...

and even a lampshade from mini cake cases and a cotton bud which hung from the ceiling.

What do you think? Not bad for a few hours work I reckon!  We still have the 'room' sitting in our house and everyone that visits is always very intrigued by it! 

I'm Almost Back

Hi! Still no computer and I'm starting to want to strangle the guys in the shop-no joke! It feels like we're being held to ransom though, because we've already been charged for the initial work they did and now our computer is sitting in bits (with them), so we could take it back and lose the money we've already paid and have a computer in pieces or wait until they properly fix it. Not much of a choice really. They assured me it would be ready on Saturday afternoon, but I've been hearing the same story for weeks. My parents are on their hols now though, so nobody can pick it up this week (I can't carry it by myself). So it'll be another week, I'm afraid. I thought I could try blogging a little in the meantime. I don't have my camera installed on my sisters laptop and both my camera memory cards are now full of photos I've taken in the past few weeks anyway-but I figured I could at least blog items that don't require 'real' photos. I do have limited time on this laptop though, so it may not be every day. I'm trying to keep everyone updated on my facebook page-it's been easier to use that during this, so you can find that link to the right. I've been missing you all!!

So, it's sale time and rather than bagging myself some half price fashions, I end up buying twice as much as usual and therefore buying more and although technically saving money in reality I've spent just as much (if not, more)! My room is like crazy messy, shoe boxes and dresses hanging everywhere. There's going to need to be a serious cull to find room for all the new purchases. I've been buying some lovely vintage inspired dresses from Jasmine Guinness at Very.co.uk
Tonnes of Florence & Fred dresses in the Tesco sale. I already owned most of the collection anyway, so just stocked up on those I didn't already have. That latest package is actually still sitting unopened-I haven't had the chance to try them on yet.
Some New Look and Dorothy Perkins dresses again...can't quite keep up with exactly which DP ones as I've bought so many and returned some and kept others! Here's the NL ones though. I did also get the cherry print prom dress, but it was insanely tight, so that had to be returned.
I actually had a rather unpleasant 'sales' trip to Dundee last Thursday. It was super busy and I hate when it's like that with long queues and people not looking where they're stepping (hello! I'm down here!). So other than a cute monkey necklace in River Island (they didn't have any of the shoes I was looking for in my size, damn the 3's and 8's!) and a ring in Topshop, it was pretty unsuccessful. So I decided a quick trip into Schuh was required and picked up the glorious Irregular Choice Abigail's Party in the pink bunny print. Honestly they look like size 3's, such a dinky little shape but fit perfectly (just go for your usual size). I'm holding out for loads more IC pieces...keeping an eye on sale prices!
Oh I almost forgot I bought the Can't Touch This t-bars from ASOS too. Really cute!
What else? The peachy coloured Croco by Vivienne Westwood Anglomania & Melissa also from ASOS. Stunning in the flesh, much better than the online pics you see, highly recommend them. I also ordered the lilac skull Lady Dragon slingbacks last night from Hervia and I don't believe you've seen the mint pair that I purchased a couple of months ago too?
I've also got a couple more dresses on order from the new Barbara Hulanicki range at Asda. Not having constant access to a computer meant I missed out on my size though...I was holding out for a free delivery offer and by then the 18's and 20's had gone in the polka dot. I have another dress from the BH range and it was generous in size, so I've ordered the 18 in the floral one (as they are similarly shaped) and seeing as the navy dress is a wrap, hopefully an exact fit isn't as essential and the 16 will do.

When I got my computer back briefly a couple of weeks ago, I quickly ordered these PPQ for Office shoes, called Menna. Really great for summer. I'm sure there have been other items, indeed there has been, I recall buying some jewellery from Miss Selfridge and a couple of animal rings from New Look. I have my eye on some AMAZING shoes right now, so more about them later.
It's so nice to be back, even if the blog isn't back to it's full capabilities. Unfortunately The Shoe Girl Diaries will not be updated, as it's impossible without a camera and my computer. So, let me know if you've been buying some sales bargains or have got your eye on some of the new season stock that's already filtering into the shops (gets earlier each year doesn't it?).

A Cath Kidston Christmas

I got such a shock this morning when I was (rudely) awakened (by a digger removing snow from the side streets). The snow here was starting to disappear, but another heavy snowfall all morning left thick, deep powdery white stuff over everything. It's stunning when it looks like that, the trees are especially beautiful I think. Anyway, Christmas isn't far away at all now and I'm pretty organised (only have 1 person left to buy for, 14 got). My Mum is a massive, massive Cath Kidston fan, well I love her stuff too actually. Mum treated herself to some of the new Christmas range and I thought it was all so pretty, it deserved to be photographed (this is the first of me getting around to sorting through these images I took in October-and yes, mother really was that organised, with some of her presents wrapped back then)!
Spot ribbon £1.75 per drum (green or red), 20 gift tags in tin £9 and gift wrap £5 per roll.
Set of 3 bell baubles £12, set of 2 wooden tree angels £5, dog decorations £4 each (terrier, Stanley, poodle).
Christmas print napkins £3.50, Christmas Trees half apron £16.00.
They're all lovely! How's your Christmas shopping going? Wrapping and writing cards is my job for this week!