Second week at college and a bunch of "What I wore" pics

Yesterday was my second week at college and I loved it as much as the first. Our tutor was there this week. When I was telling Grant (who doesn't enjoy studying at all) about the class and my homework he was just cringing and said he couldn't imagine how anyone would enjoy doing this. I said to him, "That feeling you have now? That confusion as to why anyone would want to do that? That's the feeling I get every time you tell me about stuff you deal with at work." Isn't it great that we are all made differently!

Anyhoo, here is what I wore to college yesterday and below are some more recent outfits.











Cardigan: passed on from a friend (thanks, Rachel)
Floaty chiffon blouse: charity shop (thrift store)
Black t-shirt: Matalan
Jeans: Matalan
Necklace: Matalan (on sale)
Bracelet: can't remember
Black leather shoes: Shoemarket

What I wore to a BBQ on Monday:



(That black half-circle is my lens hood - I took this pic in the mirror.)





Excuse Daniel raiding the fridge behind me! LOL



Blue and white top: Sainsbury's (on sale)
White t-shirt: Sainsbury's
Jeans: Matalan
Necklace: Clarks outlet store (on sale)
Bracelet: can't remember
Brown leather sandals: Hush Puppies
Sunglasses: can't remember

What I'm wearing today while I'm shopping with my girlfriends:









White blouse: Sainsbury's (on sale)
Green cardigan: charity shop (thrift store)
Jeans: Matalan
Brown cord jacket: Next outlet store
Necklace: Matalan (on sale)
Bracelet: Clarks outlet store (on sale)
Brown leather shoes: Clarks outlet store (on sale)
Handbag: charity shop (thrift store)

And I had to include what Grant is wearing today. He's been Super Dad this week, doing loads around the house before I even get to it (I've had a busy week and have been away for 2 days visiting my friend Laura) so today he's going back to bed while I go shopping!

Chocolate fudge sauce

This sauce is sooo delicious poured over ice cream. I tried freezing it and it doesn't set solid in the freezer but I guess it would still keep for a couple of months. Or you could just eat it all in one go and then wonder why your jeans don't fit anymore.



Chocolate Fudge Sauce

225g butter
30g cocoa
600g sugar (I know, right?!)
1 can evaporated milk
2 tsp cornflour
1 tsp vanilla extract or flavouring

Mix all ingredients except vanilla extract together in a saucepan over medium heat until melted together. Bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and mix in the vanilla extract.

Bookcase makeover

I've been itching for a furniture makeover project for a while. I decided to buy a bookcase that I could store our photo albums in. I looked at a few on eBay and eventually bought this one for £16 and collected it after college on Thursday afternoon:





Alas! The shelves were just a smidge too short to fit the albums!



I decided to use it in the guest room as it was prettier than the side tables we had cobbled together (more on that later) and provided more storage.

I primed the bookcase and painted it with three coats of antique white paint. Grant didn't want me to distress it and since he rarely feels strongly about decorating stuff I conceded.



I even used the same handles on the drawers after they had their own makeover:



I spray painted the handles silver and rubbed some black acrylic paint into the grooves. When I polished the black paint off some of the silver came off too, revealing the gold beneath. Here you can see a plain spray painted handles and one after distressing:



Here it is in the guest room, topped with a patchwork runner that I made today. I've been wanting to make a patchwork table runner for ages so when I decided to make a runner to protect the surface and had a rummage in my fabric box I was thrilled to find enough bits of fabric in the right colours to make one for the bookcase:







Remember the nightstands that used to be beside the bed?



We made them by cutting a 60cm x 92cm kitchen cabinet in half. Well, I put the cabinet back together again by fastening leftover cabinet doors to the sides and it is the perfect size to house the albums that wouldn't fit into the bookcase. I still need to add a proper top and some trim to the front edges but here's how it looks so far (as you can see, Daniel has moved into the guest room to escape his brother's escapades at bedtime):

What I wore to church yesterday

Blouse: Asda
Black skinny belt: can't remember - it came with another item of clothing
Spotty skirt: charity shop (thrift store)
Freshwater pearl necklace: a gift from my in-laws
Bracelet: inherited from my maternal grandmother
Black shoes: TK Maxx (on sale)

Sneak peek

Project reveal coming soon!

My first day at college

Yesterday was my first day at college, the first day of my course (Certificate in Counselling Concepts). I arrived on time and managed to get a parking spot, which I had been a bit anxious about as the car park isn't really big enough. I made my way to the classroom where a few of my classmates were waiting outside the locked classroom door. We immediately started chatting. Soon everyone had arrived. After talking for a while we started wondering where the tutor was and one of the women went to find out. Eventually another tutor came to let us into the classroom and explained that our tutor had been unable to come, something had come up at the last minute, so she would be taking our class.

We did some getting-to-know-you excercises and went through what counselling entails, what skills are required, what the outcomes of counselling should be, etc.

I just have to say that all 9 of us in the class just immediately clicked and we all got on like a house on fire. Even the tutor commented on how remarkable she found it that there was such warmth and friendliness among us and we were so comfortable with each other even though we'd only just met. Everyone in the class is just so lovely. There are 8 women and 1 man and we range in age from 22 to 58.

I completely loved the first class, I had a ball! I can't wait for the rest of the course and I am so glad that I signed up for it!

Naturally I had to include a picture of what I wore:



Top: charity shop (thrift store) (it's lovely floaty material with flared sleeves)
Black t-shirt: Matalan
Bootleg jeans: Matalan
Black elastic belt: Matalan
Necklace: a gift from my in-laws
Bracelet: Dorothy Perkins
Green shoes: Asda

Craft cupboard clearout

A long overdue project - look at how messy my craft cabinet had become:



Unfortunately it always has to get worse before it gets better - here's my table after unpacking the top shelves:



And now for the before and afters - top shelves before and after:





Bottom shelves before and after:





Aaah, so much better! Please try to ignore my cousin's waffle iron on top of the cabinet; it's going to stay there until I visit her ... although, it's just occurred to me that I have a whole almost-empty shelf inside the cabinet and I could put it there. Duh!!

Back to school

I popped into Preston College today to get my student ID as my course starts tomorrow. I'm very excited!

Palindrome

This is amazing. The whole text is like a palindrome (a word that reads the same backwards as forwards, like "radar") except the meaning becomes completely opposite.

Grantism

A few weeks ago I had just woken from an afternoon nap and Grant came into the bedroom and lay on the bed with me to chat. He was asking question after question and in my fuggy just-woken state I grumpily asked him to stop asking so many questions. He said, "Is it like being pecked by a duck?" and then fired one more question at me, "Would you rather be attacked by a horse-sized duck or 50 duck-sized horses?"

I stared at him for a second and then burst out laughing at the complete randomness ... especially when I realised that I'd actually been thinking what my answer would be. What a nutter.

(My answer: 50 duck-sized horses. How much damage could they do, right?)

Shoe cabinet

You've seen my hallway before:



Do you see that little white cabinet behind the door (Hensvik from Ikea)? (By the way, the plastic bin next to it holds Grant's work boots.)



We use it to store shoes in but I'm sure you can imagine how few shoes we can fit in it with the one lone shelf that is included. We did cobble together extra shelves but because we only stuck the supports to the sides of the cabinet with adhesive they soon fell down.



Today I used some scrap boards to make legs for the supports so that they were better supported:



I then cut some boards to the correct length for the shelves and used spray adhesive to stick them to some leftover plastic fabric (extra from my tablecloth). I used my staple gun to wrap the fabric around the boards:



I made sure to place staples at the joins on the sides to hold the boards together:



Voila, one shelf done, one to go:



And done! The fabric is creased from being folded but will soon relax and smooth out. I was going to paint the shelf supports white but since you hardly see them I won't bother:



Ta-da! Top shelf is Noah's and holds his trainers, crocs and school shoes (which double up as church shoes). The second shelf holds a pair of trainers in the next size up, waiting for him to grow into, and my shoes. The shelf below holds Daniels trainers, crocs and school shoes and the bottom shelf is for Grant's crocs and trainers. The rest of Grant's and my shoes are upstairs; the boys each only own the three pairs mentioned - trainers, crocs and black shoes.



It took me about half an hour to literally double the storage space in this cabinet and didn't cost a penny. Well worth the time! Now if I can only train my children to park their shoes in the right spots instead of just chucking them in then my happiness will be complete.

What I wore to church today

Have you ever wondered why I do these posts? If you haven't then rest assured, others have. I do them for a number of reasons, none of them being that I am a fashionista. (I actually am very fashion challenged and have to spend time studying the way other people put together outfits to try to learn how to create my own. And now that I've typed that sentence I realise how sad that is.) So, here are my reasons:

1) I really only pull myself together and make a real effort to polish up once a week so I might as well document it.

2) If I am stuck for what to wear in future I can look back for ideas.

3) Looking at the photos I can see better what actually works and is flattering, and what just works in my head when I'm looking in the mirror (but doesn't work in real life).

4) I have been inspired by other bloggers posting what they wear so I thought I'd give a little back.

5) Some people are wary of buying colourful shoes as they don't really know how to wear them or wonder how much wear they would get out of them - I like to show how I wear my colourful shoes.

6) I like to show that most of my clothes are from outlet stores, bought on sale, charity shops (thrift stores) or off eBay - you can buy cute things for very little money.

7) Because it's my blog and I can!

So without further ado, here's today's outfit:





I used a little green shimmer makeup (along with brown) for some spring sparkle.



Cardigan: eBay (new)
Cream top: Can't remember
Brown and cream tweed skirt: Next outlet store (on sale - £4)
Shoes: Asda
Green glass necklace: Matalan (on sale)
Bracelet: can't remember