Summer Favourites

So, I've been a bit of a naughty blogger this summer and seriously lacked in enthusiasm to post anything on here. I've gone from 27 posts in July to 8 (9 if we include this one) in August. I can hear the internet yelling ''shame on you!"... Anyway, I'm back to college on Monday and summer will, in my head, officially be over. Booo :( I thought I'd compile a 'summer favourites' post to give you a glimpse of why I've not been posting :)

Television If I told you that my entire summer has been spent watching Not Going Out repeats, I wouldn't really be lying. Equally, I wouldn't be lying if I substituted Not Going Out for Pushing Daisies. I pretty much never watch TV during ''the academic year'' so summer has very much been spent lazing around and watching TV. When we were in France, my brother and I spent every single evening watching the DVDs in the picture :)

Personalising Somewhere, once, I saw that someone had created a 'washing line' of cards, photos etc, and hung it in what I think was their kitchen. I'm not even sure why, but I decided I wanted to do the same in my bedroom. From left to right: The CHS World Challenge Team 2010; Fern and I at prom; Croatian countryside; Rachel 1 and Rachel 2 at Magna (v. old); My handprint; Sarah, Beth M, Fern and I on prom night; two thank you cards from extended family; a Valentines card from Talor (my Psychology friend). The pegs are a mix of craft pegs and pegs I bought in Poland ''because they looked pretty'' :)

Jewellery I've been incredibly good about buying jewellery this year and barely bought anything, with the exceptions of the three (technically four...) rings pictured and a bracelet in Poland that matched Jade's. The first three rings you can see are all from Bijou Brigitte, which is a German brand that has recently opened a store in Wakefield, and the fourth is from Asda. The necklaces pictured were all made by me, and if you scroll back a bit you'll find tutorials and other posts about making jewellery yourself.

Nails The only thing I can justify wasting money on is nail polish, and that's because I know I'll use it. From left to right: Beauty UK Frozen Kingdom; Boots 17 Chaperone; Boots 17 Baked Cherry; Accessorize Khaki Folly; Models Own Utopia; George at Asda Deceit; George at Asda Indigo Dazzle; George at Asda Troll; George at Asda Starry Eyed. The George range has absolutely been my favourite - only £1.75 and the polishes seem to last for quite a long time considering how cheap they are. The bottles are a little small but for the price it's reasonable. My most recent purchase was the Beauty UK Frozen Kingdom one, which I LOVE, and despite the name, it really isn't wintery.


Being a Geek The two notebooks pictured were customised to say 'Notebook' and 'Thoughts' in lots of different languages. Geeky? Yes. My drawer isn't usually that messy, by the way. I've also been teaching myself Swedish, hence the whiteboard...which actually is completely out of date now as that was the first lesson I gave myself and I know everything on there now. A post on that will be coming soon, language geeks :-)

Beauty While I can justify spending money on nail polish, I really can't when it comes to make up. I don't know why, I just can't. This summer I've mainly been wearing the lighter shades of the eyeshadow, the Rimmel Flash Eyeliner or the brown eyeliner, and a lipstick that's not actually pictured (yay for good photography). The lipstick pictured is actually a replacement for one that I bought twice, which broke both times I purchased one. The one pictured, Beauty UK's In the Buff, replaced Collection 2000's Crystal Gloss Coral Crystal - the colour is fairly different, but it's does its job and, most importantly, doesn't literally fall apart when being used. 

Hola Magazine This really shouldn't count as a 'summer' favourite, as I only purchased it recently. However, I have discovered that WH Smiths sells copies of Hola magazine in some of its branches. So far, I've spotted it in Barnsley (random, I know) and York. Obviously, I've purchased both times :) This one I bought in York and I was pretty impressed with myself for actually knowing of one of the celebrities it did an article on (Paulina Rubio). Stress free Spanish revision is the best ;) I've had the other issue I purchased for well over a year, so it was nice to find something up to date, haha.


Party Planning Finally, the big one - party planning. My 18th birthday is on the 18th of September, and I'm having a party on the 10th to celebrate :) There are no prizes for guessing why the picture is related, but I'll be impressed if you can guess why (Fern, you know why, so you can't take part :P). My mum is a bit of a nightmare when planning something - I keep mentally comparing her to the nightmare mother of the bride situation you always see in films, haha. I'm VERY excited for my friend Rachel (yes, same name) to come up from Melton Mowbray on the train as we haven't seen each other in about 4 years. I'm also excited to see some of the extended family again because it's been a while. I'm also hoping that after a long first week back at college it'll be something nice to look forward to :)

So that's been my summer. I'm back to college on Monday (nooooooo) and dreading it. That place is seriously depressing. I'm also going to look into the ridiculous spacing problem going on with Blogger at the moment, because I know the paragraphs are all messed up and it's been winding me up for ages.

Besos ♥ 
Rachel 

Diamonds are a girl's best friend...and beads...and charms...

I got back from France late last night after 16 hours of travelling. I'll do a post on that some other time. Right now I'm mainly thinking about one thing: jewellery.

Since my purchase of some craft pliers at some point last year my love for creating pieces of jewellery has continued to grow steadily. In fact, I've found that I haven't purchased a necklace in a long time, and I only really wear necklaces that I've made myself now. Why? I'm not really sure. Firstly, I just seem to prefer wearing homemade jewellery, it just seems more personal. I'm not really one for expensive jewellery, clothes, shoes, bags etc. Secondly, I just find that jewellery in the shops at the moment (even my favourite - Accessorize) is so...fashion conscious. I know that's the point of it, but the nicest things in the shops are always ruined by something that the designer's just attached to make it fit a line, and you usually find that it adds at least a fiver to the price. Aside from that, I'm bored of seeing the same jewellery reworked in shops. 

Homemade jewellery, on the other hand, is exactly what you want it to be. If you have the time and the patience, you can make yourself something for less than it would cost in a shop and without the annoyance of bits you don't like attached to it.

There is a point to all of this, I promise.

While in France, we had a day trip to Dinan - a little medieval town somewhere in Brittany. We went because I found out that my favourite bead shop, Yum Yum Beads, from Leeds has a shop there - La Perlerie. Well, we walked about for hours looking for it, and it turned out to be at the bottom (almost) of a massive hill. Now, if you know me, you'll know I don't like hills...ha. It was so worth it, though. Firstly, the woman that served me was English, so it didn't even matter that I completely lost count of how much money I was spending and I didn't have to interpret her French because it was all in English. Yay! Secondly, they had so much more than the shop in Leeds. Seriously, I could've bought everything. I spent about €22 but could've spent way more if I'd wanted to, there was just SO MUCH to choose from.


One problem, though, I didn't take my pliers, so I couldn't make anything while in France. What did I do today? This...

You may be looking at the second picture and thinking ''what on earth is that?'' - don't worry, I'm not sure myself. I was attempting to work out how a ring I bought a few years ago was made and I think I got close, but this attempt was, well, terrible. It's also already broken because I cut the nylon too short and couldn't tie it properly. Oh well, you live and you learn. PS: My nails are George at Asda in the shade of 'Troll' with a top coat of clear polish, it dries matte otherwise. The necklace I made is a stack of beads on a headpin on a 'silver' chain. Yes, the headpin is bronze. No, I didn't think about that until I'd finished making it. Again, oh well. 


So, forgive me for my slightly materialistic post, but I think a girl should be allowed to go a bit mental for jewellery every now and then, don't you? ;)


Besos ♥ 
Rachel   

Jewellery Tutorial! Rings and Pendant Necklaces

Yes, FINALLY! I had a lazy day today where I spent at least 70% of my day on the sofa watching Not Going Out series 1 and 2 while making jewellery. I bought a new blouse/top yesterday and wanted something that would match the green in it... so I was on a mission to make something with green in it. I'll show you what I made after the tutorials.

RINGS
One of the easiest pieces of jewellery to make as long as you have something to stick on it. To be honest, I have only made two rings due to a lack of things I like to stick on them, but they're so simple you don't really need practice, just a plain ring with a ring back, something to stick on them and some super glue.

Just superglue the charm to the ring back and leave it to set. With both of the rings I've made I left them overnight before attempting to wear them and they were fine. I've so far only had one incident with a pendant falling off the coin ring I made, however when it got glued back on it's been fine ever since. Just make sure you glue it properly and leave it to set for long enough. You should be fine.

NECKLACES
My favourite type of jewellery to make. The tutorial I'm going to give you here is actually a more complicated way of making a necklace, but it includes the simpler way too so you'll have both ways. I'm going to do it through a series of pictures and I'll stick the instructions in the captions.

Step 1 So, here is what you need (I'll list stockists at the end of the post): a necklace chain (preferably with fastener already attached); a jump ring (you may want a few just in case it gets too pulled apart); a headpin (the thing the blue Swarovski crystal is threaded onto); a bead/pendant with two holes that can slide onto the headpin; craft pliers.

Step 2 Take the headpin and curl it round so it forms a loop at the top - do this by using the craft pliers. If you have done it correctly, the bead/pendant you have threaded onto it should not be able to be removed or fall off. Then, take a jump ring, prise it apart, thread it round the loop and then close it up again - also using the craft pliers.

Step 3 Thread the jump ring and attached pendant/bead onto the necklace chain. In order to do this, you may need to remove the fastener and replace it once you have attached your necklace charm. To do this, prise the jump ring attaching the fastener to the chain open, remove both the jump ring and fastener, thread on the charm, then reattach the jump ring and charm and close the ring up again, making sure the fastener cannot fall off.

So, there you have it, jewellery making made simple and easy (: Here are the two necklaces I made today...

This little charm was originally attached to a chunky charm bracelet the lovely Keyana got me for my birthday last year. I loved the charms but knew I'd never wear it as the chain was so thick and heavy. So, being crafty and clever ;) I decided to take the charms off (I also saved the bracelet just in case). For some reason I quite liked the little crown charm when I came across it today and decided to make it into a necklace. This is a good example of just using a jump ring and no headpin to make a necklace. Anyway, the crown is a kind of bronze effect charm - I didn't use flash as it ruins jewellery pics in my experience so you can't really tell.

I didn't use flash on this one either but for some reason it's less orange. Hmm. Anyway. This is the piece I made to match my new blouse/top. The flower is either leather or faux leather and I believe I bought two of them from Yum Yum Beads (link will be further down). The chain for this necklace is REALLY short and is no longer than it appears in the picture as the length cannot be adjusted. This was by choice as I want to be able to layer it with a slightly longer necklace when I wear it.

Here is a short list of my favourite jewellery making suppliers:

Yum Yum Beads

My Vintage Charms

Hobbycraft

[I have no idea why the Hobbycraft link won't change colour, but it still works]

Both Yum Yum Beads and Hobbycraft have shops in Leeds. Yum Yum Beads also has a shop in Dinan (Brittany, France) which I am dying to visit when I go to Brittany this summer. Hobbycraft has lots of stores here in the UK. As far as I'm aware, My Vintage Charms is only an online shop. All of these shops stock/sell both pendants/charms/beads and all of the 'technical' stuff like the chains and jump rings etc. I'm not sure if any of them sell craft pliers as I bought mine from the small craft shop at a local garden centre, but if not, I'm sure doing a quick online search will bring up lots of options.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, please let me know if you have any questions at all (plus, if there were bits that confused you, I'd be happy to try and explain again) by just leaving a comment and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Besos ♥ 
Rachel 

PS: Just want to give a quick shoutout to Joy over at Boris says... Please go follow her, I've followed her on Blogspot and Twitter for a while and love her blog. I seem to be getting a lot of visitors from there too so hello to all of you and thanks for visiting :)