I have found a series of new blogging loves over the past few weeks, and one of my favourites is One Pearl Button, which is written by Alli, otherwise known to me as inspiring-creative-genius-lady.  I was particularly drawn to her ’20 Minute Skirt’ tutorial (link here), and decided to try it out last night using an old dress, the fabric of which I love but the shape of which I’ve never been a fan of.  Here’s how I got on!

I don’t have a proper ‘before’ picture because I actually unpicked the top half of the dress last week, when I decided to do this, and neglected to take a photo of it.  So here’s the bottom half of the dress, cut to the length I wanted (v jagged like – I’m not great with those huge sewing scissors) and ready for a new lease of life…

…and here’s a snap of the project halfway through.  Alli explains it much better than I can, but you really just make a waistband from a thick strip of elastic, sew two lines of loose-ish stitches around the top of what will be your skirt and gather it together until it’s roughly the same size as your waistband.  You then sew the waistband to the skirt, using a zig-zag stitch all the way round.  My finished stitches are atrocious – I don’t think my machine appreciated being worked so hard!  Nevertheless, I got there in the end and…

…ta da!  One new skirt, all ready for an evening out!  As I said, the stitching around the top of mine is terrible, so I’ll probably wear a thick belt or a scarf around my waist to hide them.  Overall, I’m pleased as punch with the effect.  I’ve always been in two minds as to whether to give this dress away, given that I really love the pattern and the feel of the material (very sheer, with a silky lining on the inside).  Perhaps somewhere in the ether of my subconscious I knew that it was destined for a new beginning.  Thanks to Alli and her fantastic tutorial, here it is!

My second fruit and veg box arrived from the farm last Thursday, packed full of colourful and delicious-looking goodies.  The contents haven’t changed much from the last time, although I did receive a melon instead of a grapefruit, and a bunch of beautifully red radishes in lieu of an aubergine.  Although I’ve only received two boxes thus far, I’m already finding them to be incredibly useful devices as far as meal-planning goes.  I know lots of people make meal plans religiously but it’s not something I’ve ever really taken seriously myself, not that I doubt their thrifty credentials in the slightest.  Now that I’ve got the veg box as an incentive, however, I’m finding it much easier to discipline myself into planning ahead.  If I want to get the most out of each box, and use everything up before it turns, I’m going to need to be a bit savvy about what I cook, and when I cook it.  Here are a couple of things I’ve made this weekend:

This was the yummy salad I had for lunch on Saturday.  It consisted of various types of leaves (the box always contains two big bags of mixed greenery, none of which I can formally identify), fresh tomatoes, sliced radish, mushrooms and cucumber, with a slice of home-made herb bread and a slathering of honey and mustard dressing.

And these are the stovies I made for dinner this evening.  Each veg box has contained a large bag of potatoes, so I’m now constantly racking my brains for interesting ways to use them up.  These ones I boiled and roughly mashed with salt, pepper, mayonnaise and wholegrain mustard.  I then added roughly two cans of tuna, mixed with one red onion and more mayonnaise.  A sprinkling of parmesan cheese on the top and you’ll be safely at the door to carbohydrate heaven.

More meals from the veg box later in the week, I’m now off to the sofa where I can fully embrace my mash-induced lethargy…

Prior to last week, I had never been on a caravan holiday before in my life. Perhaps somewhat understandably, I was therefore slightly unsure of what to expect. With the benefit of hindsight, I’m now somewhat ashamed to admit that visions of chemical toilets, DIY sewerage systems and beds made of nails had been filling my head slightly more than anyone would deem healthy in the run-up, obscuring rather effectively the excitement I was feeling at the prospect of being by the sea for a week, spoiled with as much time to read and write as I liked and as much fresh air to soak into my lungs as my respiratory system could handle.

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried a jot. I’m happy to report that static caravans (I’m no expert on the smaller ‘attach to your car and have all motorists hate you’ type – from what I can see they don’t look terribly comfortable) are totally delightful places to live for a week. We had our own bathroom – shower, fully-functioning toilet and running water; a kitchen replete with almost every trapping of domestic comfort (there was even a toastie maker!) imaginable and the biggest, most luxurious double bed I’ve probably ever had the pleasure of sleeping in. It really was blissful.

The first thing we did on arriving (well, actually it was the third thing – the first thing we did was run around madly whooping with delight at the sight of our temporary abode and the second was to make a cup of tea) was to remove the battery from the clock. One of the main ‘points’ of our holiday week was to do exactly what we felt like doing exactly when we felt like doing it, with only very fleeting regard for the hour of day. Removing the most obvious means of telling the time was initially intended as a symbolic gesture but it ended up allowing us to sink deeply into ‘holiday mode’ whereupon we would sit and read, or write, or talk, for ages with no clue as to what time it was and absolutely no guilty feelings of the ‘best get on and do X’ kind. I distinctly remember being struck at several points in the week by how delighted I was simply to be in a caravan as opposed to the office, playing a board game as opposed to doing research, drinking a cold cider as opposed to yet another cup of tea and munching all sorts of delicious snacks at all times of the day. I can honestly say that it knocked the socks off of any experience I’ve had abroad as far as relaxation was concerned.

Despite being completely in love with the simplicity and the fun of caravan living we did venture out and about a number of times. I am peripherally aware of the Fife area but it was nice to have the chance to explore it in more detail – there are some beautiful coastal towns dotted along the coast and the surrounding countryside is equally pleasing. On Wednesday afternoon we took a trip to St Andrews, following which we built a fire on the beach by the caravan, drank beer and looked at the stars. We spent Friday afternoon hiking around the coast before finding a seriously cute village with a tiny deli selling delicious lattes and the nicest chicken tikka baguettes I have yet come across. We also got some local strawberries for the walk back, which made trampling through swathes of knee-high nettles a much more bearable experience! To round off our week we went to nearby Anstruther and its much-loved fish and chip shop (apparently the UK’s best – one couple love the place so much they held their wedding reception there) for our final meal.

All in all, we had a wonderful week. It wasn’t flashy, it wasn’t glamorous and it wasn’t in any way culture-fuelled either. That was OK though. Often I find that a trip abroad brings with it an intense pressure to go places and see things which, unless you’re careful, can mask the simple pleasure that the experience of being in new surroundings can bring. We could actually see Edinburgh from our seaside spot but that didn’t detract at all from the fact that we were ‘on holiday’ in every sense that mattered. We only had to glance across the water to remind ourselves that work, home and daily life were all most definitely miles upon miles away.

So if anyone is interested in the idea of a ‘staycation’, I would strongly advocate a UK-bound caravan holiday. It’s a fantastic way to experience all of the good things about time off minus the stress, hassle and expense of flying abroad. It was by far the thriftiest holiday I’ve ever been on – a week cost us £137.50 each, and all of our other expenses were routine – food, drinks, fuel etc. I think it probably helps to do a little prior research on the location, what the site has to offer and also what the caravan you’re renting comes with. We struck gold with our let – the couple who own that particular caravan quite obviously cherish it and treat it exactly like a second home. That really added to our experience – we played their board games, watched their DVDs and used the teabags and cooking condiments they had left for us. The place really did feel like home almost from the first evening and we were both terribly sad to leave it on Saturday. We’re already thinking about when we can go back – if that’s not the sign of a holiday well enjoyed I’m not sure what is!

***Newsflash*** I’m finally uploading my own photos!  These are some of the shells I collected on the beach for a future craft project – of what form I’m as yet undecided!

While reading yesterday’s Sunday Times Style magazine this morning (which I can do because, y’know, I’m on holiday and all that) I noticed a reader letter about wedding lists – the subject of last Friday’s post here on TC. Here it is in full:

“I am attending a wedding in the summer, and the bride and groom, while saying “Your presence is enough”, have given details of an upmarket online travel company, so that contributions may be made towards the cost of their honeymoon. I have, over the years, spent a small fortune on John Lewis gift-list purchases of china and crystal, however, I find it rather distasteful to be asked to contribute cash towards a honeymoon, especially when they do not even have the decency to say what we would be contributing towards. I have no idea whether they are planning on spending their honeymoon building an orphanage in Rwanda, or gorging themselves on pina coladas on the Costa del Sol. If I do not wish to give cash towards the holiday, do you think it would be acceptable to give a honeymoon gift, such as a good book to read on the beach or earplugs?”**

This letter appears on the ‘Mrs Mills’ page of the magazine which, as any regular readers will know, is pretty tongue-in-cheek at the best of times (in fact, it’s usually downright hilarious). But the underlying theme of the question is an interesting one. Is it acceptable to mandate that your guests contribute towards the cost of your honeymoon in lieu of a material wedding gift?

My initial guess is that if you decide that dictating to your wedding guests is an acceptable thing to do in the first place then asking for cash contributions to your honeymoon is actually quite a smart idea – particularly if the couple concerned already lives together and has no need for traditional wedding presents a la John Lewis’ over-priced, aspirational consumer chattels. Perhaps having guest contributions means that a couple can afford to go on the honeymoon of their dreams or, in some cases, that they can go on a honeymoon at all. Which isn’t really something I’m inclined to sniff at, truth be told.

On the other hand, if you are stubbornly opposed to the idea of the wedding list in the first place (as a not-insubstantial part of me is) then the chances are you’re probably equally, if not more, appalled by the prospect of being asked to stuff a few tenners in a card to bankroll someone else’s jaunt abroad, even if that someone else is your best friend, sibling, boss etc. I can relate to this – call me a prude all you will but there’s something about the thought of being asked for nothing other than money that sits rather uneasily with me. I’ve never been into either the giving or the receiving money as presents at all – I usually think it’s a bit of a cop out of the time and effort it takes to give someone the perfect gift – ‘I saw this wad of notes and thought of you dear.’ Charmed, I’m sure.

So again, I’m not sure which camp I fall into here. While I’m firmly in favour of the idea of giving experience-based gifts as opposed to material ones, there’s something telling me that slipping some cash into an envelope with the words ‘Bon Voyage’ written on the back is most emphatically not the solution to the wedding list problem, even if you are told exactly where the money is going and what it will be used for. Perhaps by the time I come to get married myself I will have formed a more concrete opinion on the subject of wedding lists. Or perhaps I will adopt what is undeniably the best idea I’ve heard so far. Apparently some friends of Holly @ Shopaholly asked their guests to give a single copy of their favourite book as a wedding present so that they could get their collection going. I have to say, this is probably one of the most charming things I’ve heard in a while – it really does warm my heart to know that, contrary to everything I’ve read and heard about £400 toasters, matching side plates and five types of bath towel, there are still people out there who are actively willing to do things differently when it comes to planning their nuptials. Good on them.

That, I think, brings wedding week to a close. I’ve not covered absolutely everything – I’d probably have ended up smothering myself with the nearest pile of organza if I’d gone on much longer – but I at least hope I’ve done enough to make it clear that getting married doesn’t have to mean that thrift suddenly takes a back-seat to financial promiscuity. In fact, it is now becoming my solid belief that the thriftiest weddings can be the most beautiful, the most original and by far the most memorable. In my book at least, over-the-top hen parties, mono-style designer dresses and John Lewis wedding lists are each over-rated, unimaginative and above all, expensive. Undertake any or all at your financial, creative and spiritual peril!

**For anyone who’s interested, Mrs Mills’ reply took the following, ever-so-slightly sardonic form:

“This is a deplorable trend, almost as bad as those people who expect you to sponsor them for a charity bike ride across Barbados in aid of the Help the Orphaned Donkey Fund. Do not give in. Buy them a toaster and eat the receipt.”

Image above courtesy of Flickr – vipeldo.

My friends who got married in November had never lived together before their nuptials.  In fact, the Groom lived at home with his parents (and, so I’m told, had his packed lunch made every morning before work by his Dad)!  Their wedding day therefore signified not only the start of their married life, but also the beginning of their living together.  In order to furnish their newly purchased marital love nest and to get them off to a good start in terms of having enough pots and pans, tea towels and bed linen to survive the first few months of their cohabiting life, the couple in question registered a John Lewis wedding gift list.  I was round there for dinner on Wednesday evening and blimmin’ eck, didn’t they do well out of it!  The house is a shrine to John Lewis’s finest and it’s lovely, albeit not really to my taste (it’s all just a bit too new if you get my meaning).  Truth be told, I’m slightly terrified of breaking something or spilling tea on their new cream carpets.

So wedding lists.  Good thing?  Bad thing?  Devil’s spawn?  There’s no denying that this is a subject that really divides people, from my experience into two camps: 1) ‘wedding lists are sensible and practical, all hail the wedding list’ and 2) ‘wedding lists are greedy and presumptuous, get it out of my sight before I register them for a piece of my mind’.

Personally, I can’t fully align myself with either school of thought.  I guess I can see both sides of the argument really.  On the one hand, people will always give wedding presents.  It’s part of that beautiful thing we call social convention I guess.  And so with that comes the idea that rather than leave people to their own devices and end up with thirty sets of hand towels and no dinner plates, perhaps it’s a good idea to let guests know what things you would like or need and allow them to work it out from there.  There’s a (substantial) part of me that thinks this is perhaps a good way to do things, especially if you’re trying to be thrifty.

The other good thing about a wedding list is that it makes choosing a gift very easy for those people who, again because of either social convention or family politics (yawn), will attend your wedding despite not really knowing you all that well.  In a sense it’s fair to give these people, who probably have no incling as to what your personal tastes are, a bit of a nudge in the right direction so that everyone comes out happy and no one has to spend hours searching for the perfect gift – we’d all rather be kicking back in easy chairs with cups of tea and good books after all, right?

Having said this, the spontaneous, romantic side of me that couldn’t care less about practicalities and also shuns thrift every now and then (shame on me) *absolutely detests* the wedding list.  I think it’s presumptuous, pushy and, dare I say it, a tad unethical.  It strikes me in many ways as just plain wrong to be prescriptive about gifts – surely there’s an element of surprise inherent in the idea that simply goes out the window when the gifter is offered a list of desired objects from which to choose, the giftee knows exactly how much everything costs and where it was sourced and the whole thing is laid out in the invitation as though it were some kind of contract of sale.  It upsets me that weddings can be so businesslike – where does the romance, the suprise and the outright joy go, huh?

I guess the answer is, I don’t know where I stand on wedding lists.  In some ways I like, or at least can understand them, while in others I can think of few things worse than robbing my wedding guests of their choice as to what they buy (or make, PLEASE MAKE!) me.  Perhaps the solution is to create a list but to encourage people to deviate from it if they have a better idea in mind.  That works, to an extent, although it means being prepared to first make a list and second actually tell people about it.

Hmm, maybe it’s best to just ban gifts and encourage people to bring food and drink instead.

Image above from Flickr – Phil Gyford.