Made With Love by Kat

The sun is out, everyone's feeling romantic and you too can buy wedding jewellery as featured in County Weddings . Yes, that's right, the lovely people at the posh wedding magazine have featured me on all their websites . Hurrah! Champagne all round! You can read the article here

Budget? What budget? Here's how to make your craft stall (see my last post) for less than a fiver*. To make the display board You will need: Foam filled board, available from most craft shops. Although for some reason we just had some at home under the bed. Vintage style fabric - I bought mine for 70p out of the offcuts bin at Nortex Mill on Chorley Old Road in Bolton A tinfoil roll middle (the bit that looks like a giant loo roll) A heavy recipe book stand, preferable iron. These are actually quite expensive, but if you can't borrow one you can justify it to yourself because it'll look lovely in your kitchen. A roll of gaffer tape Glue or double sided sticky tape Feathers and paper butterflies to decorate - make your own or cheat by buying them from a craft shop, look in the "make your own cards section" To make: Cut the foam filled board into the desired shape. I rounded off the corners, but a big rectangle will be easiest. Place it on top of your fabric (iron t...

Well the craft market at the Midsummer Festival this weekend didn't go brilliantly for me thanks to the rain, but lots of people did take business cards so hopefully they will go home and order online from the cosiness of their houses. But look how pretty my stall looked! And all made on a budget of about 50p, proving that you don't need to spend a fortune on display things: Of course, the highlight for me was lovely Thomas, the Clydesdale horse who had his shoes remade (they were huge! ) and gave small children rides up and down Churchgate. He was adorable.

This month's InStyle magazine has a feature about the return of sailor chic (as if it ever went away!) They didn't ask me for my two penn'orth, but if they had I would have suggested this little lovely : Aptly, it's called Ahoy There!, and it's available to buy now. On a completely seperate note, for those of you who were wondering about the braised eel.. here it is:

Two days ago my boyfriend and I were doing very late night shopping in Tesco (much more fun than shopping at the usual hour) when he turned to me with a very serious look on his face. "Kat," he said. "Did you replace the batteries in my clock and set it to the right time?" I'll admit I was a little bit thrown, having absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Turns out that the clock in his kitchen that hasn't worked for at least a month now is not only ticking away merrily, but has mysteriously been set to the correct time. Well it wasn't me. I think he's got a personal poltergeist. We also saw a tin of Japanese braised eel, which I was so pleased by I took a picture of it. I'll post it later, along with photos of what I made last night for my craft stall... bunting's brilliant. Incidentally today's my birthday. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.

I'm feeling quite giddy today. First off I've dicovered two new blogs that I absolutely adore. The first is the adventured of Widget the sock bunny, chronicled daily at Widget's Year - Diary of a Sock Bunny But what's this - no updates for the past few days?! C'mon Widget, I NEED to know what you've been up to! Incidentally you can buy Widget and his pals from The Warren @ Folksy The second discovery is the Domestic Sluttery blog. As a soon-to-be homeowner, I like their style when they say: "Domestic Sluttery is a new way of life. Written by women who cook, decorate and design (usually with a glass of wine close to hand) without giving up our lives. "We want to make your home your own, without doing very much at all." Hell yeah - pretty house, minimum effort? Sounds good to me! I'm also very excited because I'm going to see the stage show of Quadrophenia with my adorable boyfriend tonight, it's my birthday on Thursday and the Churchga...

When I'm not making jewellery I do have a day job - I'm an arts journalist at The Bolton News . Like most jobs it has its high points and its low ones, but I must say that today was probably one of the most fun days of my life - I spent it filming a baby T-rex. That's right - an actual dinosaur (sort of). See the results below (turn your sound right up for maximum effect...):

It's been a day of discovery today. I discovered Shop Handmade UK through Twitter ( follow me @made_with_love ) and signed up to their fabulous directory. I wasn't sure whether to file myself under "jewellery - fashion or "jewellery - designer", but I decided that as my prices are much more reasonable than most "designer" items the former would be best. You can visit shop handmade here: I also discovered that it's much harder to be interviewed than it is to be an interviewer, although I very much enjoyed talking to the lovely Amanda Griffiths from Lancashire Life. Hopefully the photographer will be able to make me look pretty when she comes (I'm the most unphotogenic person ever, which I find weird as I look nothing like a drunked Quasimodo in real life). And the last thing I discovered was the Poppy's Pretty Place blog . It's a lovely little account of doing up a house, and like me Poppy is looking for thrifty ways to improve her home....

It's the Lancashire Life interview this afternoon - hopefully after years of interviewing people hopefully I shouldn't be too bashful and inarticulate when it comes to talking about myself. I was practicing this morning in the shower, and if they ask about my influences I shall talk about the faded glamour of F. Scott Fitzgerald novels, the pictures I get from galleries and theatres in my job - at the moment I'm particularly influenced by the ballet - and pirates. Grown up whimsy, in a nutshell. If they ask about anything else... I'll have to wing it. Fingers crossed! In the meantime, I thought I'd share this with you: It's called Wonderland and it's available at http://www.folksy.com/shops/madewithlove

Time for the June giveaway! Anyone who makes a purchase throughout June will be entered into a draw to win a lovely set of three luxury handmade feather and button gift tags (pictured in the last post below). See them here.

... I wanted to share with you... All available at my Folksy shop now. Right - off to compile my birthday wishlist!

Three weeks since my last post! It's not laziness I promise - like a real grownup I've been househunting! I've found the most gorgeous little place in Horwich and hopefully I'll be in within a few weeks. However, like most people, I'm scraping around for pennies so I'm looking for thrify hints and tips on how to decorate my house and garden - recycling ideas, dirt cheap suppliers in the North West, that sort of thing. C'mon people, don't let me down, put your ideas in the comment box below... On a different note, it's only a few weeks now until Bolton's Midsummer Market on June 2oth and 21st, so anyone who will be passing the Bolton area should pop down to Churchgate, have a chat and maybe even treat yourselves. I'll give a 10% discount to anyone who mentions that they read this blog x