Posts written in May, 2012

Only one day to go before the Jubilee celebrations kick off! If you haven’t made your Jubilee crown yet, it’s time to dig out your craft materials and get going. I had a scout around t’internet and found this excellent Daily Telegraph video about how to make Jubilee crowns. Here it is: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/the_queens_diamond_jubilee/9261968/Queens-Diamond-Jubilee-street-party-how-to-make-royal-crowns.html. But you…read more

Four days off work – fantastic! But what if you’re out of work or short of cash? It’s relatively easy to keep yourself entertained as an adult. When you have kids it’s more of a challenge to keep control of the purse strings, especially when everyone and his dog are rolling out the red carpet…read more

Enjoying the sunshine at last? Dying to hit the shops for your new summer wardrobe… but horribly broke? There’s a surprisingly simple solution to help you cut the cost of summer fashion. And it’s all about creative de-cluttering. Here’s how it works. First take every piece of clothing you own out of your wardrobe and…read more

Last week I mentioned we’d be road-testing how it feels to have a car-free week, to see if we can cope without wheels. We kicked off our test at the weekend. Here’s how we managed for the first two days. Like most cities and towns, Brighton & Hove wasn’t designed for cars. It was built…read more

Wow! The sun is shining, the drinks are flowing (albeit a cup of tea), my husband’s taken our 3 week old daughter on her first ever trip to Tescos, and all I can hear whilst chilling out here in my back garden are the sounds of chirpy little birds and a distant tractor, churning up…read more

Pinterest is great fun. I’ve spent hours exploring it and getting inspiration from people all over the world. This is one of my favourites and right up our street: a pretty, practical garden light, perfect to hold tea lights on a summer’s evening and made from the simplest, cheapest imaginable bits ‘n’ bobs. Here’s a…read more

I’m a great one for making recipes up from scratch, being congenitally incapable of following instructions without gilding the lily and buggering it up. Some of my creations – it has to be said – are thoroughly horrid. But last night’s DIY pasta sauce was splendid, if I say so myself, and cost less than…read more

I’m having fun with knobs. I’ve discovered a rich seam of beautiful door and drawer knobs on Ebay, in junk emporia and charity shops. The modern fitted desk units in my home studio are really posh, and were here before we moved in. But the drawer and cupboard handles were horrid. So I took them…read more