Wedding belt DIY

Hello!

It is gloriously sunny here at Twirlybirdie headquarters this morning.  It makes a nice change from the heavy cloud we had been having quite a few days of before.  As I am planning on getting married next summer I have been trawling through pictures of pretty dresses and general wedding paraphernalia on-line for ideas.  I really liked some of the pretty wedding belts that I've seen.  They seem to be exactly what's needed to jazz up what would otherwise be a pretty yet plain dress.
I decided that seeing as the belts could be hundreds of pounds I would have a go at making one myself, much like I have been doing for my veil.
This is just an experiment seeing as I have no idea what shade of white or style my dress is actually to be, but I thought if it was successful maybe I could bring it wedding dress shopping with me this summer!
I bought a few bits and pieces from our local fabric shop: white ribbon, beads, and rhinestones.  From a local bead shop I bought some craft glue and a silver pendant I thought would look quite cool.
I decided to make it tie back because you never know how your belly is going to feel on the day!  At first I hadn't bought enough ribbon for it to be able to tie nicely at the back (1m) so I went back and bought 2 metres instead which was plenty.
I decided the pendant needed blinging up so I glued some rhinestones on to it.  Once this had dried I glued it on to the belt.

Gluing on my rhinestones.  It was tricky but made easier with these bead tweezers.  I placed a small dot of glue on the pendant and then placed the stone on top of that.

I then lay the pendant face side down on the ribbon so I could see where the glue needed to be placed on the back of the pendant.  Then I carefully added the glue to the back where it would be touching the ribbon and placed it facing up on the ribbon.

The next day it was sunnier so I took these pictures to make sure the stones would sparkle nicely ;)

I tried it on over my Zara dress.  I'm pleased with it so far.  Now I just have to decide what, if anything I'm going to add to it.  I kind of like it's simplicity even though it's not what I originally had in mind.  I've bought some extra beads to add some more bling but I may try and make a second belt that's more blingy as well.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post!  I had fun making this belt and now I'm tempted to glue rhinestones on to everything!

Life lately: flowers, food and decorative touches

Hello there!

How are you?  I thought I'd share some photos I've collected up over the past week.  This is a plant I got as a birthday present from my dance coach at work.  Isn't it lovely?!  I just have to figure out how to keep it alive!

The weather has been really temperamental lately.  One minute it's bright sunshine and then literally twenty minutes later it's dark and cloudy with periods of rain.

On the weekend my fiancé and I sat down to watch a movie and I made salted caramel popcorn using this recipe which I found on the awesome Domestic Sluttery blog.  It was delicious and I wolfed it down far too quickly!

I found this awesome glass bottle on sale at a massive discount in a home ware store I can never usually afford anything from.  I just need some flowers to put in it now!

This cute heart cushion was also a sale find in another store.

 After eating so much cake and chocolate for my birthday I felt the need to have a little health kick so I made this spinach, cucumber, warm pea, and linseed salad.

It was good but today I made it again adding sweetcorn and balsamic vinegar and I liked it even more :)

Well that was a peak in to what I've been up to these past few days.  There's a warm sweet potato shepherd's pie in the oven so I'm going to go and eat that now!

Till next time :)

Twirlybirdie

New hair, Garnier Color and Shine in Chocolate

Hello!

I hope you are well.  I dyed my hair again last weekend after a long period of leaving it to grow naturally.  I hadn't dyed it for so long because of a really bad episode of eczema that had affected a few parts of my body including my scalp so any potential irritants were off the menu big time!
My skin has been calm again for a few months now and I was feeling really dowdy with my natural hair colour (quite a pale sort of mousy brown).  I decided it was time to use another semi permanent dye to give my hair some vibrancy again.
I chose the shade Chocolate 5.35 from the Garnier Color and Shine range.  I've used this range before and really liked the results but never used this particular shade.

I did an allergy test as you always should 48 hours before and all was fine so I went ahead and let my personal colourist (fiancé) do the dyeing.
The result was quite a bit lighter than I had expected.  I wanted a warm brown but it was a bit more warm red brown.  I usually go for quite a red colour dye so didn't mind the red in the colour and feel that it warms up my face.

 These photos were taken almost immediately after my hair was dried and I hadn't even properly brushed it yet.  I'm very pleased with the results.  The difference is actually quite natural and subtle but I can really notice it when I look in the mirror and I feel like I look much fresher.  I like semi permanent dye as I don't feel like it's as damaging as long as I don't do it too often and I still feel that my hair retains some of the colour for quite a while.

Till next time :)

Twirlybirdie

Birthday nails, BYS in Red Carpet

Hello there!

I hope your week has started off well.  I actually haven't had such a busy time recently so I've been trying to rest as there's a really busy couple of months coming up soon.  I already posted about some of my birthday presents.  I also got a few new polishes.  One of them was by BYS in the shade Red Carpet.  I decided to try this one first and was really impressed by the colour and the formula.  I put on two coats of this lovely dark red and a top coat and it was glossy and opaque.  My nails never normally last me long at all and it took this a few days to chip which surprised me.  It also seemed to dry relatively fast luckily as I'm a fidget.

I applied some Misslyn nail stickers which I had been given as a present for my birthday last year and haven't used up yet.  I really like the effect and I love the deep red colour with the rose gold of my ring.
I also got this cute set of Nails Inc Minis which I am looking forward to testing out once this nail varnish comes off.  It has it's own caviar base and top coat in the set which I've never tried before.

There's two pretty shades of pink: pastel and fuchsia, and a bright red.  I really want to try the fuchsia shade next!

Till next time :)

Twirlybirdie

Pretty pastel things

Hey there,

so you've made it to Friday, phew!  I hope you have some lovely things planned for your weekend.  I have lots of cleaning and sorting out to do as well as some language study.  In the mean time I wanted to share with you a couple more pretty things I was given for my birthday.

One of them was this cute hair band.  I have no idea where it's from but I love the pastel pink colour and the super cute gold bow.  It's very me.  I'm really feeling pastels right now, I suppose because of the start of spring!

I also was given this cute little cake icing set.  I'd been looking for icing bags recently because I had got back in to baking a bit but hadn't got my hold of anything yet so this came at just the right moment!

How perfect is this cake icing set!?  I'm looking forward to decorating some cakes with this soon!  

So far a running theme of girly gifts.  I suppose that's how I must come across.  I didn't really think of myself as a girly girl when I was growing up but something has obviously changed over time!

I have a few more presents to share with you guys soon.

Till next time

Twirlybirdie :)

Pretty Swan Print Apron by Clover

Hello there!

Did you have a nice weekend?  I really did as my Mum and sister came to visit me and I celebrated my birthday!  I had a lovely day which involved having friends over for drinks and cake; and I got some awesome gifts.
One of those was this super cute swan print apron which was bought for me by my sister.  I have needed an apron for ages as I frequently ruin my clothes baking but this is almost to pretty to bake in!

My sister said she got it from a vintage style boutique in London and the little label on it says 'Clover'.
I've never seen anything like it before but it's very me!  I already wore it to prepare my birthday cake for the party.

Twirlybirdie :)