Make it: Kate Spade Inspired Glitter Accessories

It is without doubt the time of year to add some sparkle to your accessories.  Today I have three simple DIY's that are inspired by one of my favourite designers Kate Spade.  Not only are they are so simple and look amazing but they are also budget friendly.  One A4 sheet of glitter fabric is more than enough to make all three accessories,  I am going to show you how to make simple shoe bows, earnings and a statement clutch bag.  I have used an old clutch bag but you could easily make a simple zip-topped pouch using our make-up bag tutorial. 

You will need: Glitter fabric, shoe clips, earring backs, pink ribbon 3mm and 15mm wide, a black clutch bag, glue, chalk pencil, a scrap of felt and scissors. 

For the shoe clips:

Step 1. Cut two strips of glitter fabric approximately 3.5cm wide by 25cm and fold the two short ends into the centre and glue them in place.

Step 2. Take a short length of 15mm pink ribbon and wrap it around the centre of the glitter bow. 

Step 3. Glue a shoe clip in place on the back, to the bow at the top.

Step 4. To make it more secure glue a small piece of felt over the top of the clip. 

These bows are so simple to make and they would make really cute brooches too, or you could attach them to gifts to make your Christmas wrapping look extra special.

For the bow earrings:

Step 1. As with the shoe clips you want to cut two strips of glitter fabric approx 4.5cm long by 1cm wide. Fold the edges to the middle and glue them in place. 

Step 2. Wrap a small length of 3mm ribbon twice around the centre of the glitter bow and glue the ends. 

Step 3. Glue a small earring post (or clip) to the centre back of each bow. 

For the statement clutch bag:

Step 1. Decide what word or phrase you want to have on your bag, then using a chalk pencil mark out the letters you need on the reverse of the fabric with a chalk pencil. Remember to flip the letters so they are the right way round when you turn the fabric back over. 

Step 2. Cut out each letter.

Step 3. Glue the letters to your clutch bag.

And that's it, a simple and fun way to sparkle up any outfit this holiday season especially if you are on a budget, as the supplies for all of these DIY's cost under £10. 

What holiday parties are you going to this year? Are you throwing a holiday party? If not don't worry because these would also make great gifts for your party animal friends! Don't forget to #livelovemake to show us your DIY's from our blog, 

Sammy xxx


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Live it: Sammy's Christmas Tree 2013

I can't help it, I am a Christmas person, any excuse to put a truck load of sparkly stuff in my home!

I always love posting pictures of my tree, to me it means it's officially Christmas in the Claridge household. 

This year my theme is black, white and gold, I have my white tree from last year, but I limited my colour pallet, re-used a lot of decorations from my collection and added a few new home-made ones too. I made theses sparkly diamonds out of 5 gold pipe cleaners at 10p each, cheap and cheerful. 

I bought some rustic wooden hearts from Hobbycraft and painted them white with a different black pattern on each one, they make a great addition to the tree, and a bargain at around £1.75 each (including ribbon and paint)

The only ornaments I splashed out on this year was these little ceramic owls, they were £3 each from our local Shaw Trust charity shop, so they made me feel good as the money was for charity and how cute are they! The stars are another home-made addition to the tree, I used air drying clay and a cookie cutter. Then painted them white, with gold liquid leaf paint on the edges.

I am so happy with how my tree turned out this year, I love the way it glows in our lounge and I can't wait to put all our family and friends gifts under it on Christmas eve. Here is a quick look at some of the other decorations I have put up too. We have some paper snowflakes in the kitchen, as well as glitter stars over the mirror with a tinsel bauble garland. I made some extra clay stars and strung them up to make a garland over the doors in our lounge, I used some letter stamps to emboss 'wish upon a star' onto the middle, this may be my favourite decoration, I think I may make it a permanent feature.

This Christmas is going to be different for us this year as it will be the first one without my Grandpa who passed away in March. He was such a huge part of our celebrations and we will miss him loads, but I know he will be with us in our memories. He wouldn't have wanted us to be sad and miss him, so we are scheduling lots of games and movies to keep us entertained. In honour of G'pa there may even be some very bad carol singing. 

I hope you enjoyed that little peek at our decorations for this year, I would love to hear about your decorations, If you have posted any pictures, pop a link in the comments so we can head over and take a look. 

Have a magical, festive weekend

Sammy xxx

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