You can't have a rainbow without a little rain

This quote is very appropriate right now.

 

Source: Pinterest

Sometimes you feel like you’re stuck in the middle of a thunderstorm of bad things. That’s kinda how I feel right now. I’m going back to work on Wednesday after a long holiday in which I didn’t achieve even half of things I wanted to! I’m attempting to lose weight which is not working whatsoever. And I feel like the world is conspiring against me as I’m full of anxiety!!

Well isn’t this post a bundle of joy?

Actually my point is yes. Yes there is joy to be found here! I may not have done some of things I wanted to over the summer, but I’m planning super exciting things, such as Christmas!! And I started a blog!! That was definitely a rainbow moment!!

My point is you need to look through the rain of bad things and see the rainbow of joy that is happening all around you!! When you realise that there is always something to be happy about you will become a happier person.

One of my goals for this year was to be happier and I think I am because I have learnt to recognise the happy things in every day!!

Why don't you think about it and see what happy things have happened to you today?

See you soon!

Bethany x  

Birthday Bunting | Crafty Friday

Hello everyone!! Today I am going to give you a quick tutorial on making a bunting. This is my first sewing DIY for you; I’ve made it on my sewing machine but you could hand sew it. If you do choose to hand sew it bear in mind that it will take a lot longer to make.

I work in a nursery and was asked if I could make a birthday bunting for a wall display. Obviously I choose the fabrics to suit this but you can choose any fabrics and write anything you want on it, making it fantastic for any occasion!! You could also make a bunting without any writing on it, I have several plain ones around my house!!

You will need:

• A sewing machine or hand sewing things 
• Fabric scissors and pins
• Fabric of your choice
• Felt for the lettering
• Letter stencils (not necessary but makes things easier)
• Paper, pen, pencil

The first thing you need to do is gather everything you need and make a template for the bunting triangles. I just cut a triangle out paper for my template but you can use card or print a template from the internet.

Next I used a fairly blunt pencil to draw around my stencils onto the felt. If the pencil is to sharp it will pull on the felt and not draw very well. You will then need to cut out the letters, be careful using the scissors!!

You then need to work out how many triangles you need for your bunting (two triangles for each bunting flag). Trace these onto the fabric and carefully cut them out.

Very carefully pin the letters onto the triangles and sew them on. Be careful if you’re using a sewing machine!!

You then need to sew the triangles into the flags, don’t sew the top together you need this to put them the right way round, which also happens to be the next step.

The final sewing step is to attach the flags into the piece that is going to hold them all together! You can either buy something called bias binding or fold a long strip of fabric and make it yourself, which is what I did. Insert the flags into the strip of fabric and sew along it.

Finally display your bunting somewhere that everyone can see and be proud of your beautiful creation!!!

I hope you enjoyed this DIY, comment if there is something that you would like me to do a tutorial for!!

See you soon!!

Bethany x

Yellow Stickers | Thrifty Thursday

Hello everyone!! Here’s my second Thrifty Thursday post, hope you like it!

One of the ways that I save quite a lot of money is buying food (and sometimes other things) with yellow reduced stickers on.

Here are some photos of yellow stickered bargains that I have bought in the last few weeks, across three shopping trips.

As you can see from the photos sometimes there is quite a large saving on the original price. I’ve even bagged fruit and veg for a penny each!!! Morrison’s and Tesco’s are the places that I tend to go to but other supermarkets use yellow stickers too!! 

Each store has times that they tend to reduce fresh items like fruit, veg, meat, and flowers, usually in the evenings and before they close. Other items like the tin food and tea bags are just total pot luck!! Some stores have a specific area for reduced foods like this; they are normally almost out of date or in dented tins and broken boxes. Other foods like the tin of sardines I got for 9p don’t go out of date until 2018!!

That’s it for today!! I hope some of you can get some good bargains and save yourself some money!

See you soon!

Bethany x

Blackberry Jam | Thrifty Thursday

Hello everyone! I have decided that Thursdays are going to be Thrifty Thursdays. 

There are a number of reasons for this, to begin with growing up my family never had lots of money to spare so we saved money where we could. Now I’m an adult and I’ve got bills to pay and other expenses I have realised how important it is to save money where possible.

One of the things that I have been thinking about was making jam. Although the cost may actually end up being more than buying ‘value’ jams, homemade jam tastes amazing and makes wonderful gifts!

On Tuesday me and my mum went for walk close to where I live and we picked wild blackberries. This is obviously a very thrifty way of getting the fruit for your jam! It is also super fun!! I also must say NEVER pick and eat fruit that you do not recognise or that may be contaminated.

To make it simple I’m going to write a step-by-step of what I did after foraging for my blackberries.

What you will need:

• Something to collect berries in (large bowl)
• Bowls for washing the berries
• Airtight containers
• Two large pans
• Glass jars
• Lids or a sealing kit for the jars
• Metal tongs/spoons/ladle

The first thing that I did was put the blackberries into airtight containers, this draws out any bugs that in the berries and makes that easier to wash. I put them in the fridge overnight.

The next morning I washed the berries in a bowl of cold water and picked out the bad ones. I ended up with a large bowl of good berries and a small bowl of bad berries which I put out for the birds. I then put the good berries into a bowl of cold water to soak for 30 minutes before using them.

After 30 minutes I drained the berries and weighed them. I needed 1kg of berries, the blackberries weighed just under 1kg so I added a few strawberries that I already had.

I also weighed out 880 grams of granulated sugar and 80ml of lemon juice.

Next I filled one of my pans with water and put my jars into in, I turned it to a high heat to boil the jars to sterilise them. You need to be very careful when doing this as the pan, water, and jars will be very hot.

I then put all of my jam ingredients into the second pan on a medium heat; I stirred the ingredients until the sugar melted. It looked so tasty!!

Once the sugar has melted turn the heat to high and boil for 30 minutes. I ended up cooking mine for longer as this was the first time I had ever made jam but I don’t think that it really needed the extra time.

When the jam was ready I carefully took the jars out of the pan using the metal tongs and stood them on a clean, dry tea towel. I then ladled the jam into them.

There are a number of ways you can seal jam jars, it’s a good idea to Google it to see which method will work best for you. I used Kilner jar seals which are wax disks and cellophane disks that seal the top of the jars. You can buy the sealing kits from Amazon and in some stores.

When the jam had cooled I put pretty paper circles that came with the Kilner kit onto the jars! They just look so pretty and would make the most AMAZING gifts for Christmas or any occasion!!

I hope you enjoyed this thrifty post and if there is any information that I didn’t include or that you would like to know, feel free to comment I will get back to you ASAP!!

See you soon!

Bethany x