Product Review | PitRok

I was recently given the opportunity to try a new deodorant. I have used aerosols for atleast 15 years and thought it may be worth trying an alternative as I know aerosols aren't great for the planet. They are also a little wasteful as the fine mist sprays far and wide so not all is applied to the underarm where you want it. I haven't used a roll on for a long while so was a little apprehensive as to whether I'd get on with it, I'm a little lazy so waiting ages for something to try doesn't really appeal to me. So what did I think?

                        

PitROK Berry Burst Roll-On Deodorant 50 ml for £4.05


This is really lightly scented and pleasant to wear. My underarm skin felt lovely and soft and most importantly it didn't feel sticky and didn't take too long to dry. This is a little more expensive than the spray I currently use, however over the past few weeks the product has hardly gone down in volume, so although it costs a little more on the outset it lasts much longer than a spray bottle.

                        

PitRok Crystal Natural Spray Deodorant 100ml @ £4.05

This deodorant isn't scented. It is a moist spray unlike the aerosols, it takes a similar amount of time to dry. The lack of scent is good as it doesn't interfere with your perfume like some strong smelling deodorants can. 

This is also better value than the roller version above, with twice the amount of product for the same price. As it's a spray you probably do waste a little, but it's no where near as much waste as with an aerosol can.

Again, this kept my skin feeling nice and cared for.

                                   

So to summarise, these were a real hit. If I'm feeling lazy or in a complete rush I reach for the aerosol, however all the rest of the time I am using these as they are better for me and the planet.

And what's more these dont contain any nasty ingredients such as parabens SLS/SLES propylene glycol or silicone and they aren't tested on animals.

Cookie x

Craft Projects for 2016 | Pinterest

For the past 2 years I have been pinning ideas to boards on Pinterest, however I haven't taken things any further.  

This year I want to give some of the projects that I have pinned a try, why bother pinning them unless I am going to do something with it. I am so happy to go on Pinterest and pin and pin and pin, so for a change I want to take a break from that and try some of these fab ideas out.

So I am going to try the below, I think one thing that might help me to commit to doing these is to assign a day/time, for instance each Sunday I will complete one of the projects.

The above looks so simple and appears to use minimal materials, and made in mass could be really beautiful decoration on fabrics and crafty projects.More details on this project can be found here

Again the above looks to be fairly simple, hopefully it doesn't just look easy, but I wont know until I try it. Instructions are found here, yes they aren't in English but the photos look quite explanatory. 

Yet another fabric embellishment, I have chosen these to ease me into some small crafty projects as I think I will be more likely to stick with it and commit the time to it if I think its going to be a quick win, For more information see here

I love these cute little button decorations and the use of crochet is great, I think these are a nice quick project. Again the instructions aren't in english, however the web page is easily translated, and I am familiar with crochet so with this one I can see just from looking at them how to do them. For more info see here 

So this one is a little different, I'm sure most of us have an old light bulb somewhere or will soon be in possession of on. See here for instructions, in Hungarian, however these can easily be translated.

I hope to have tried at least one of these little projects by the end of the first quarter.

I'd love to hear if you have any projects in the pipeline or if you have tried any of the above.

Cookie x

A couple of sites to keep an eye on for freebies / coupons

I thought I'd just quickly share with you a couple of sites that you can use in order to get freebies, win items and even find printable coupons.

So here we go, lets get started.

One of my absolute favorites is SuperSavvyMe

1. https://www.supersavvyme.co.uk/

The website is full of fantastic lifestyle ideas and eliminates the need to buy expensive magazines which tend to cover the same topics. This site also has regular competitions, scroll down the home page and there are usually 2 or 3 to choose from,

All you need to do is sign up and then you can enter competitions and giveaways, along with SuperSavvyCircle which is their product testing panel, so far I have been sent free Flash cleaning fluid, Unstoppables laundry beads, Febreze and also an Ambi Pur wall plug in.

I have also received multiple freebies and prize wins from them,

This website is purely about products from the P&G range such as MaxFactor, Olay, Ariel, Pantene and Flash to name a few. As such they also offer some great money saving printable coupons too. Definitely worth a look.

2. https://www.mymail.co.uk/home

Each month this website offers new printable vouchers, sometimes meaning you can pickup a free product, for instance I printed a £1 Covent garden soup voucher and the soup was £1 in Tesco. Win!

3. Tesco Club card

OK so, this isn't a website but you can sign up online here http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/

With this you will receive tailored coupons based on what you buy and also they are known to send god threshold spend coupons, I have just had a £7 of a £50 spend coupon and also one for £7 off Tesco finest meats (I bought a joint costing £7.48), therefore got 1.87kg of pork shoulder for £0.48p

The great thing about the above sites is that they all offer coupons and deals which require little effort unlike the orchard at tesco ad BzzAgent which are great but require a little more effort. Although SuperSavvyMe is similar to BzzAgent, it also offers free coupons, competitions and giveaways that dont require the extra work that a Word of Mouth marketing campaign requires.

Cookie x

Brand V Budget | Food | Natural Yogurt

One basic weekly shop item that I like to save on is yogurt. We have a little tradition of having fruit, yogurt and muesli/granola as a weekend breakfast.

So this is something I currently buy once a week, but depending on my diet at the time I may buy more. For instance if I am being careful I have been known to use this in smoothies, salads (to make the mayo go further calorie wise), and as a 'dessert' alternative (with honey), I've even used it to make white sauce for lasagna and moussaka.

I always used to purchase the Yeo Valley yogurt, and on several occasions it wasn't in stock so I had to use an alternative, usually Tesco's own brand standard version, then I got a little brave and tried the value one, to be perfectly honest I don't know why I didn't do that sooner.

See below for a comparison of the yogurts I have tried and what the annual cost would be. Just to be clear the only ingredient in each of the below yogurts is Milk, as I would hope, watch out however as some of the low fat yogurts on the shelves contain thickeners such as modified maize starch (cornflour I think).

All low fat natural yogurt is fairly runny, all I do, say if I want a thicker consistency is strain it myself. It might sound like a lot of work but it's much cheaper than thick Greek yogurt, and the strained ones are much nicer, but more expensive than those that contain thickening agents. To thicken, I place a non fluffy clean tea towel or piece of muslin cloth in a sieve, I then balance the sieve over a large jug/bowl, add the yogurt into the tea towel and cover, leaving in the fridge over night. In the morning you will have a really thick, creamy yogurt! Truth be told I went through a phase of making my own yogurt, but it's a fairly lengthy process and it's so much easier to just buy it.

1 pot per week @ £0.45 (52 X 0.45 = £23.40 PER YEAR) 

1 pot per week @ £0.90 (52 X 0.90 = £46.80) 

£23.40 more expensive than Tesco Everyday Value over the course of a year

1 pot per week @ £1.50 (52 X 1.50 = £78) 

£31.20 more expensive than Tesco Own Brand over the course of a year

£54.60 more expensive than Tesco Everyday Value over the course of a year

And, here's the end result, I can afford to spend a little more on a healthy sugar alternative such as date nectar or agave nectar (derived from cacti), and a really delicious granola or muesli.

Now you've read this, is this something you currently save on? If not, is it something you will consider on your next supermarket shop? 

Cookie x

Brand Vs Budget | Food | Crumpets

I don't know about you but I'm partial to a crumpet or two at the weekends. It's something I really only buy once a week as I don't have time usually in the mornings, but come the weekend they feature in 'Brunch'

I have always bought branded crumpets until last week when I picked up some Tesco Everyday Value crumpets just to see.

The first thing I noticed is that they contain less calories, because, yes they are smaller. With ordinary crumpets they are really thick and I think having tried the cheaper ones that they don't need to be so thick. I still have the same amount of crumpets but for less calories and less pennies, that can't be bad!

So, to be perfectly honest the cheaper ones are smaller but aside from that I didn't really notice a substantial difference and I am happy to continue buying the cheaper ones as opposed to the branded product. 

Whats the price difference you ask?

WARBURTONS

98kcals per crumpet
£0.89 per 6 = £0.15 each
£0.89 X 1 per week 52 = £46.28 per year
I have 3 per week X 98Kcal = 294kcals
294Kcals per week X 52 = 15,288 calories per year (not including the butter..)

TESCO EVERDAY VALUE

73Kcal per crumpet

£0.37 per 6 = £0.06 each

£0.37 X 1 per week 52 = £19.24 per year
I have 3 per week X 73Kcal = 219kcals
219Kcals per week X 52 = 11,388 calories per year (not including the butter..)

The saving from buying the Tesco own branded product 

Money = £46.28 - £19.24 = £27.04

Calories = 15,288kcals - 11,388kcals = 3,900kcals (nearly 2 days worth of calorie intake for women)

For me that's a great monetary saving which is also helping my waistline, whats not to like here? You still get your crumpets, you just get a little less and overall they cost you much less.

Cookie x

Brand Vs Budget | Beauty | Cotton Wool Pads

For years I used Boots for all my beauty essentials, including cotton wool pads.

I thought I'd write about these because they feature at least twice a day, every day (I use a minimum of 3 each day) in my routine so over the year they are something I get through a lot of.

So let's start with the more expensive cotton wool pads, these come from boots and cost £1.69 for 100 which isn't crazy expensive, also you can usually pick these up on Buy One Get One Half Price meaning you get 2 packets for £2.54 with the deal.

Without deal                            
£1.69 for 100 = 1.69p each pad            
X3 used each day =5.07p each day       
365 days =18.51 each year                 


With deal   
£2.54 for 200 = 1.27p each pad
X3 used each day = 3.81p each day
365 days = £13.91 each year

Now for Tesco, 1 packet = £0.55p for x 80 pads

£0.55 for 80 = 0.69p each

X3 used each day = 2.07p each day

365 days per year = £7.55 each year

The difference £13.91 - £7.55 = £6.36 (providing you get the buy one get one half price deal, otherwise that's £10.96 saved!) This might not seem a lot but think about how long you have been using cotton wool pads and how long you may continue use, for example over 10 years it could be a potential approximate saving of £63.60, which all adds up.

Also on the subject of the difference, I see no great difference in quality between the 2 of these products, they both do exactly the same thing for me, the only difference is the Tesco one is cheaper! and for me that is a win win situation, why pay more than you need to? That's an extra £6.30 (or possibly £10.96) to spend on the and other things each year.

Cookie x

Five Favourite Frugal Feeds

Some of my favourite meals are seriously cheap to make. I am a proper foodie so for me food comes first, it's just a bonus that they're cheap to make too!

1. Lasagne/Bolognaise/cottage pie/Chilli - One thing that I think is worth paying more for is meat, especially mince, I pay more for extra lean mince because basic beef mince is so fatty and I don't want to put that in my body. You can pick up a big  pack (750g maybe?) of extra lean beef mince in Tesco for £5, I only cook for 2 people so this usually gets divided into 3 batches. I fry it off to start with along with onions and garlic, I then split it out and do the individual dishes with it, one for that night, perhaps one for the one for the freezer. This usually makes about 5 meals, I don't like to eat too much mince and processed meats so I bulk this out with blitzed celery and carrot which makes it very healthy but also it goes a lot further and adds to the flavour. Mince is so versatile and you can do so much with it!

Multi tasking with the mince, some are for the freezer

Traditional, comforting cottage pie



Spaghetti Bolognaise with plenty of parmesan and garlic bread

Tortilla Chili Bake

Adding lots of veggies

                   Chili with tortilla chips and an array of dips                              

2. Macaroni Cheese - I love cheese, plain mac and cheese, or even mac and cheese with broccoli and cauliflower, it's so cheap to make but really tasty and a good veggie option if you don't want to go to too much effort.

If you want it to be even quicker and cheaper you could even jazz up a tin of macaroni cheese, I do this occasionally when i'm feeling lazy. It's really simple, 1. open tin, 2. I mix in a little salt, pepper and a good helping of nutmeg and give it stir/mix, 3. I pop it in a foil tin or tray any will do, 4. I grate cheese and pop it on top and finally 5. I stick it under the grill for about 5-10 minutes or until gold and crispy, believe me its quick, really cheap and you wouldn't recognise it as tinned mac!

3. Jacket Potato with Tuna and cheese - Really simple, nice, basic food that accompanied with salad is a perfect easy evening meal. You don't have to stick with tuna and cheese, there are so many budget fillings out there such as beans!

4.Vegetable soup - Got loads of vegetables knocking around? Perhaps one of several  different types vegetables? Group them all together. This is a fab way of using up leftover veg or even items in your veg drawer that may have otherwise been ignored/neglected.

5.Roast Chicken - a great Sunday lunch option, a whole chicken is usually cheaper than individual parts such as breasts. Just season to your preference and cook and est, there is usually chicken left over for sandwiches or salads the next day. Also you can whip up a lovely fresh chicken stock from the carcass, this is perfect for your vegetable soup or even a risotto or dish.

Covered in Sumac, parsley, lemon  and smoked salt

What are your favourite budget meals?

Cookie x

Frugal forages | Blackberries | Tomatoes

About 2 weeks ago I dragged my other half along blackberry picking.

It's very spiky, so be careful - but there was an abundance of these along one of our quiet roads on the island.

We were probably picking for about half an hour and we got near to 900g of berries, for nothing!

                           


Over the next week this made 2 Blackberry, apple and date crumbles and a pie - best of all the blackberries didn't cost a thing.

If this is something your interested in its definitely worth a go, last year I got a huge haul of these that I ended up freezing a large batch and making jam to last for months.

This is somewhere between pie and crumble, I didn't have enough pastry for the top, so thought on my feet. With some salted caramel ice cream this went down a treat.

Mmm Pie!

Finally, on the subject of foraging I have harvested the last of my Romanian Dwarf tomatoes, here are the lovely and sweet little beauties.

Did you grow any goodies this year? Or perhaps you've been foraging, please leave me a comment below.

Cookie x

Little update

Dear readers,

Just a quick message to let you know that I will be reducing the number of weekly posts that I do, I have been posting 4 times per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) and whilst I am enjoying this I am finding I have little spare time.

So, I will now aim for 2 posts per week, as usual I will post these at 12:00 UK time, and these will now be 1 on Monday and 1 on Friday.

I realise that my posts have been very review heavy too, and I will continue with my reviews because I love it, but I will also be focusing a little more on frugal/lifestyle/foodie posts too.

If I have a lot of reviews to complete at any one time I may do some ad hoc posts outside of my usual days, these would likely be on a Wednesday or a Saturday.

Please let me know what kind of posts you would like to see more of, if you have any suggestions comment below- I'd be really grateful.

Thanks for reading

Cookie x

Frugal Cookie | What I do | How to be FRUGAL/Savvy

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick post to recap on some of the things I now do since challenging myself with frugal living.

Firstly a little about why I am doing this, it's not to be cheap, it's to be smart and efficient with my money. I want my money to work harder for me, essentially I love spending and buying new things, however I need to be careful. With adulthood there is responsibilities such as mortgages, bills, rent, etc, basically, enjoy being young! Enjoy living rent free and appreciate the benefits it brings while you can - that would be my advice to you.

Before buying our house I spent most of what I earned without much thought about 'what if?', these days I have to save for things that may or may not happen such as the need to replace a boiler or a detrimental piece of machinery or furniture within my house. It's worth being sensible, redundancy is very common in today's current situation and I've been there before.

Don't get me wrong, I still splash out on things but in order to do this I make sure that I'm saving in other areas.

Here are some of the things that I have done to date, hopefully these may even give you some inspiration too.

1. Streamlining/ getting the best deal

• Swapped from a mobile contract costing £35 per month to a PAYG top up of £20 per month.
• Less visits to the hairdresser, gone back to natural roots and rather than paying £60 every 6 weeks I am now spending £30 - £40 2-3 times per year.
• Less visits to beautician and home waxing saving £25 per month
• Selling lots of clothing, furniture and things that are no longer required on local facebook groups
• I am shopping smarter, I have swapped certain products for cheaper brands and sometimes even a stores own brand, there are some things I wouldn't dream of swapping and other things where I wish I'd done it sooner! I am also using coupons and vouchers wherever I can, take a look  at in store magazines such as that from Boots, Tesco and pets at home as they usually contain some great coupons.
• SUPERSAVVY ME - Frequently has coupons for Proctor and Gamble products such as Pantene, Ariel and many well known brands. They also run a lot of competitions and do several giveaways each month.

• MYMAIL - Printable coupons, sometimes for the amount that the product is on offer for, therefore sometimes FREE.

• CARING EVERYDAY - Printable coupons from Johnson & Johnson brands.

2. Freebies and Prize Wins

There are so many Freebies out there it is unreal! Online there are many freebies, see below for some of the sources that I have used.

• SOPOST - This  is a fantastic freebie tool, businesses use this company to distribute free samples of their products to the general public and potential future consumers. I have received in excess of 10 great beauty and food freebies this way. Some SOPOST are obtainable by entering a persons email, others you will need facebook for and some you will need twitter for, the idea is you send one to a friend and they send one to you. Obviously in order to receive the item you will need to provide your name and address.
• GOOGLE FREEBIES - I googles freebies in UK, you will come across lots of resources which will point you in the right direction of the latest freebies. Here are just some of the websites - http://www.latestfreestuff.co.uk/ , https://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk/ , http://www.freestufffinder.co.uk/

3. Review and Campaign freebies | (WOMM) Word of Mouth Marketing Campaigns
 
I have received a considerable amount of free items to review from the below links.
 
With these websites all you need to do is sign up and provide information about yourself and your shopping habits, they will ask you to complete surveys from time to time, usually this is the gage whether you are compatible with a  product and whether they can then offer it to you to test.
 
Once you receive  your free product you then normally have around 60 days to try it and spread the word about your experiences. There is also activities such as sharing on facebook, twitter, submitting photos and videos and more.
 
The more surveys you do and the more active you are the more chance you get for future campaigns, I have found I go for ages without being offered one and then all of a sudden I get 3 invites.
 
The campaigns can be for anything, to date I have received lots of food items (they will usually send vouchers, especially for fresh food), body and skincare items, I even received a Dyson hoover worth £420 form a campaign, I would recommend doing this if you like to try new things, or even if you just love a freebie! Remember though, if you don't complete any of the campaign activities afterwards it is unlikely that you will receive further items.

• BZZAGENT UK
• ORCHARD AT TESCO
• TESCO HOME PANELS 
• SUPERSAVVY ME 
• TOLUNA
• AMAZON REVIEWS -  For this you just sign up to the website and you will need to have an amazon account. There is some free items and some really discounted items which you can have in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. I have just started doing this and have received a few freebies this way, thanks to Amber for the great idea (check out her blog here)
• BLOGGERS REQUIRED - This is a great resource, this lists blogger projects that you will need to apply to, if you are accepted you will usually be sent an item to review, each project will differ make sure you read the description to see if its definitely something your interested in.
• BRANDBACKER - This works in a similar way to bloggers required, you will need to apply to trial a product, therefore you will need to sell yourself with an effective pitch.

4. Surveys

You can make a few quid completing online surveys, however this can take time so I personally don't do these as I work full time and for the return I would get its not worth giving up my evenings.

•  INBOX POUNDS - Along with paid surveys inbox pounds also does paid emails, they will send an email into your inbox and you can get a penny for clicking on the link - this takes a long time but it does mount up and it's very little effort, I am on nearly £20, yes it's taken me a year but all I have had to do is visit a few websites.
• TOLUNA

5. Reviews for companies

Another way that I have received quite a lot of review items is by approaching companies asking to try products in exchange for a review. I also welcome companies contacting me to ask me to review items, if you would like to send me something to review please feel free to get in touch by email: rebellious_cookie@hotmail.com

6. Be inspired

Finally I haven't being doing this alone, there are so many people who have influenced me along the way from thrifty friends and relatives to YouTubers and bloggers alike. I will be putting up a post soon sharing some of the best frugal/freebies bloggers and YouTubers around, please watch this space.

I hope this post have gone some way toward inspiring you to use your money a little more wisely and perhaps to seek out relevant freebies where possible. As always if you have any questions please feel free to comment below or contact my by email (details on my Contact Me page or above).

Please leave me comment below if you could like me to expand on any of the topics I have mentioned above. I do plan to do some more posts going forward where I go into more detail on certain aspects such as sourcing review items and WOMM campaigns.

Cookie x

Holiday Essentials

Hello Lovely readers,

So, as you know I've recently returned from my holidays, below are some of the essential items that I took with me.

1. Clinique factor 50 Sun cream for face, I use this sunscreen all over. Its one of few products containing SPF that doesn't irritate my skin. I would recommend to sun cream to all where necessary! 

2.Clinique sunkissed bronzer and brush - I use this in colour 2 all year round and it just gives a healthy glow. It helped mattify my shiny head in the sweltering heat on holiday too!

3. The body Shop Moroccan Rose perfume, smells like summer - it's so fresh and light and is absolutely gorgeous with a light citrus scent running through it.

4.REN BB Cream in Fair-Medium, I have recently started using this and it's wonderful. It adjusts to my skin tone and although it looks quite orange at first glance its a really natural colour once applied. I really love this product and it was a perfect holiday item which also contains SPF 15.

5.Mark Hill Holiday hair serum - I have had this knocking around for ages and it is the perfect holiday hair serum which contains SPF for your hair, you protect your skin and your hair is just as important!

6. Gaimo espadrilles - these are so comfy and were great for wandering around. I bought these in TK Maxx, they cost just £10.00 each and they were an absolute must for my holiday, the only downside is that only half of my feet are tanned and there is quite a distinct line on them.

              

So, those were just a few of my essentials which I would have been lost without.

What is your ultimate holiday essential that you absolutely can't be without?

Cookie x

I'm Back!

Hi All,

I am now back from my holiday so I have quite a bit of catching up to do, but first I will share with you a holiday update.

We spent 7 days in Lanzarote and I have to say it was great, I couldn't of asked for better weather - I nearly tanned..!

There was lots of excursions and shopping and as a bonus it was relatively cheap. We did pay for excursions and there's some things we saved on and others that were more costly and could have been done cheaper with a little more thought (small things). I will take this away and not make the same mistakes again.

Where we saved

Flights, Accommodation and transfers - We got a great initial deal, flights, villa and transfers were booked in bulk as we went with friends so there was 4 of us to share the villa and transfer costs which was a significant saving. If you were to go for a villa as a single couple it would cost quite a bit more and it worked out similar in price to a nice hotel. - For us the villa was a must, it's quiet and much more intimate without the worry of lots of people, kids running around and fighting over sun loungers! It's great traveling with friends also as it was great company and an all round laugh.

Food - In general the food was so cheap in all of the restaurants and cafe's, it was also really affordable in the supermarkets and some evenings it was nice to just stay in and have a BBQ as a group, I estimate this could have been done for less than €5 per head which is pretty good! I can definitely understand why people move to the Canary Islands and Spain.

Alcohol - Is really cheap in the shops but quite a bit more expensive in the restaurants and bars (not as expensive as the UK though), we had lunch the other day for €15 and then spent the same on a drink each.

Makeup - There were lots of fragrance and makeup shops offering great discounts (on reflection these were better than the airport discounts), I bought a lovely pink Guerlain blusher compact for €31.95 (approx. £23.50 currently), this blusher, this brand in fact isn't available where I live. I would therefore need to buy this online, and it retails at £33.50 (€45.50 at current) - so in all a great little bargain.

Where we spent

Excursions - We went Kayaking and snorkeling, this was approx. a 4 hour excursion and cost €65 each, The other excursion we did was quad biking and this worked out at €90 each, both of these were great fun and totally worth it!

Toiletries - Make sure you take what you need as I forgot a couple of items and needed to purchase extras. I forgot Vaseline for my lips, I cannot go to sleep without this (this and hand cream!). We brought a bit of sun cream but we ran out and had to get some more, likewise with body wash and deodorant.

Supplies at the airport - A tiny travel size bottle of deodorant for men in the airport WHSmith costs £2.50 which is absolutely ridiculous, but we needed so we paid!

My other half got a cushion for the plane, but if we'd planned ahead we could of got a better deal.

Taking all the above into account there are small lessons to be learned, because when you really need something you are willing to pay through the nose, so the trick is to be prepared!

I arrived home and I was so excited to see all the review items that I have received through the post.

Keep an eye out as I have a few reviews on their way!

Cookie x

Handmade gifts - Wedding

What do you buy for someone you haven't seen for a while? Some who has everything? Someone who you've only recently met? Or someone that you've known for years..?

If you know exactly what to buy as a wedding gift for all of the above, then well done, you must be full of great ideas!

For me the gifts that I like the look of are those that are folky and somewhat hand made/ finished, check www.notonthehighstreet.com there is so much great inspiration on there.

Something that I think is valuable is time, and this part of the gift that I have given on some occasions, anyone can buy a voucher or even choose a gift and purchase it, however I believe that making something is a little more special. It shows that you care enough to go the extra mile and invest your time and attention in something that you hope your friend will love.

So, I have made the below item twice, for 2 good friends of mine and really hope that they liked them. The frame was a really good find. The first one (white one) was the perfect size to accommodate my cross stitch fabric, the other one however needed  little work, good job I'm living with a joiner who was able to assist in making the frame deep enough to house the fabric.

The cross stitch is the part that takes the time, but its great because you can be really creative or you can keep it simple, you can play around with the colours and design depending on who the gift is intended for. This doesn't have to be a wedding gift, you don't have to write Mr. & Mrs. you would use initials, or even just symbols, whatever means something to the intended recipient.

What I love about hand crafted items is that you have pretty much total control, also its individual, someone else wont have given the exact same gift because each one is individual

They are ideal for on the mantelpiece or decoration anywhere in the home.

What do you think? Do you ever give handcrafted gifts? How do you feel about receiving them? I know everyone is different, some may think I am doing this purely to be cheap, however if you take into account my time, effort and materials its not cheap and your always told that 'it's the though that counts', I'd definitely be interested in your opinion. - Please comment below!

Cookie x