Labels: clothes, dip dye, DIY, everything stops for tea, ombre, reworked, shirts, studs, Vintage
I'm not sure if any of you saw my previous post on my new shop Everything Stops For Tea - check it out here if you didn't and would like to! I've finally had time to get around and restock the shop... and it's nearly all sold out again! Here's a few things which are left which I put on the other day.
Click on the photo and it'll take you straight to the item online!
This one above is my favourite!
Just a quick post, but thought I'd share with you all what's left for sale. Each item is reworked entirely by hand.
Labels: DIY, everything stops for tea, Handmade, New Layout, online, Personal, shopping, Vintage
It's been nearly three months... three months TOO long! I've got around to relaunching, and doing a new blog layout, what do you think? I got a bit bored of the plain black and white before. I hope you've all been well, and i'm sorry that this post is really quite boring & random - just a general update on bits! Whilst I've been gone, I've finished college which was a relief, and I've had a lot more time to spend on things that I love doing. I've been planning on doing it for a while, but... I finally had time to spend on building a little business! It's called 'Everything Stops For Tea', which sells all of the vintage clothes I've reworked. I've had really great feedback from it so far, so it's all quite exciting! About half of the things below have unfortunately sold out (so many things which I wanted to keep for myself), but just a little taster of whats in store at the moment...
So in love with the pink denim dip dye shorts. You can access the shop by going to....And keep upto date with all products in the process of being made on INSTAGRAM: RUTHHOWSAM And also... for all you lovely blog readers.. if you enter the unique code below, you can get 15% off all orders over £25!'XRUTHLOVES15'Just a quick mini post, but this is it now... regular posts back in action! It's lovely to be back.
Labels: Christmas 11, DIY, Handmade, How to, Made by Ruth, Textiles, Tutorial
I'm getting far too carried away with all of this DIY textiles stuff! I made these lovely decorations today, and they only take about 30 minutes each. Not so much a step-by-step.. more just ideas to get you inspired! I've seen really similar things in places like Accessorize, Laura Ashley & by Cath Kidston (for £10+) - just make them yourself!
Forgot to add - I stuffed the doll with standard fluffy style stuffing, but I ran out, so just used scrunched up tissues for the heart! Works exactly the same. You could use sponge, too. Just anything to pad it out with!
Labels: Charity Shop Finds, DIY, Faux Fur, Fur, Made by Ruth, River Island, Topshop, Vintage
For the past two or three years, I've loved peter pan collars. I've never been a massive fan of faux fur until this year, me and my leopard print coat are literally inseparable! I saw these collars on ASOS (above) when they brought out their new A/W collection a few months back - I really think that they make the whole outfit. All of the outfits would be really boring without the cute collars. I've been looking for a good (but cheap) one for quite a while, saw the perfect one at a vintage fair but it was £45!! I went to St Lukes charity shop today, and found this b-e-a-utiful gem. Only £1. 
I think it was originally part of a coat, it had these handy little elastic holes on it, which I'm guessing attached onto some buttons or something. I love the colour of it, and it's so soft!I picked up some ribbon from eBay (3meters for £1.30), and just threaded it through the holes to tie it, like the ones above from River Island. 
In my sewing box, I found some old plastic pearl bracelets, which I think I bought from Primark a few years ago for about £1, cut the string up and used the pearls to embellish the bottom of the collar 
Also got my hair dyed back brown and cut again, quite a while ago though! A lot cheaper than the vintage £45 one, and you can't even tell the difference!
It's raining again! I should probably be doing a lot of work today, it's my last day of half term before going back to college, but instead, i'm blogging, watching Skins and celebrity juice, and messing around with my camera (my fisheye lens finally came)! A while ago, I picked up this pocket watch from a carboot sale for £2. I really loved it, but it came in a box, smelt like dirty old smoker men. It was on a chain with a clasp to hook to a pocket, so I took it off, and picked up a cheap thin gold chain from Accessorize in the broken box for 20p. It was only 20p because the original pendant was missing, which was good! I always have a rummage in the broken box, things are so easy to fix with a gluegun and some thread, and picked up a keyring which was also broken - and took the key off it. It had a small bow on and the actual ring for your keys, which I binned. 
I can't believe how pretty the pocket watch is, it's got lovely little floral and bird patterns engraved, for only £2!! It took about 5 minutes to do, so much better than buying an expensive one from somewhere like Topshop :)Who else can't wait for carboots this summer? Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Labels: Charity Shop Finds, DIY, TopshopCurrently listening to:Ellie Goulding - This Love Today is.. cold, boring, it's 3.44pm and I'm still in my Pj's. What better is there to do on a Sunday then look at all the things you want, can't afford and would never buy because of the price tag. To be honest - It's what I spend the majority of my time doing, not just Sundays. I came across this gorgeous Topshop Dress for £36.00. Not such a bad price, but compared to £4.40 - I know which I'd rather pick. I went into town with my friend Lily, we had Starbucks and Subway (we do it every Friday after college), and then nipped into Cancer Research. I didn't expect to really find anything, and with only £7.22 on my card, didn't expect to be able to afford anything, either. Until I came across this green polka-dot dress - it's a size 18, incredibly long and very baggy. I really liked the colour green - perfect for this summer (planning a little in advance, I know). It's supposed to be the other way around to the picture, it has a really low-cut neck, but switched around, I liked the shift style square neck. I wanted to adjust it, make it shorter, maybe add a collar. So, I had a shot at it, I'm quite pleased with the outcome.Sorry about the crappy lighting! By the time I'd taken the finished dress it had done dark Before - leftAfter - right
The lace and buttons I used are from a market stall were I live. Bag of 4 buttons - £12m of lace - 50p
Vintage headscarf - £4, LushDenim jacket - £13, PrimarkHorse-studded belt - £3, PrimarkKnee-highs - £1.50 - PrimarkBrogues - £28, TopshopLipstick - £5, Coral Queen by Rimmel 
Sorry about the horrific pictures of me. I couldn't be bothered to put loads of makeup on, so just put a bit of lipstick on. The bag is one I haven't yet shown any of you! My boyfriend bought it me for Christmas, it's a reworked vintage bag by Alice Takes a Trip. I love love love it! I'm really pleased with the dress, what do you think? It's so much cheaper than the Topshop one. Who said you can't get 50's style polka-dot peter pan collar dresses for under a fiver?Love,Ruth xo
2nd post in a week - i'm getting back into this :) I nearly bought the floral peter pan collar dress from Topshop yesterday! It was so tempting. I planned on saving my money - but; ended up spending pretty much the same price as the dress - £30 - on random stuff. I have a tee from Topshop - well; it's a Tee And Cake vest, and I love it. It's of RUN DMC; you might have seen it in there. I can't stop wearing it, but £22 for a vest is a lot!I went into Primark - and decided to make my own. It's easy, you should do it!
The t-shirts were £3 each - and i'd pay about £15 for these! I literally cut off the sleeves (and the hem) and the hemming at the bottom and around the neck; and then stretched and pulled it to make the edges roll, and then sliced bits in with my scissors :) They look so nice with a pretty black lace bra underneith :) Topshop, on the cheapI love Primark.Obviously - in Primark it's necessary to go around the whole shop - so also made a trip to the accessories section, and went a bit crazy when I saw all of these pendant necklaces. The pendant necklaces were £1.50 each - and the bracelet was £2. I have a good feeling that they're going to sell out, there exactly the same as the accessorize ones! Grab them now! x
Guess who's back back.. back again, Shadys back.. tell a friend.. Naaaaaah not really, but my exams are practically over, so I'm finally back to doing what I love most. I have ICT on the 21st, and after that, you may see a dim gray cloud slowly covering Britain - the smoke of well-highlighed AQA English anthology's burning - that's right, burn in hell Carol Ann Duffy (not you, that's too mean, your poems). On the whole.. I'd say exams have actually gone okay.. but saying that, I've probably just jinxed it and i'm going to come out with an array of D's - D for darn good? Not quite aha! I hope that all your exams have gone okay, if your 'fortunate enough' to have done any that is..
So, during my absence, quite a bit's happened! My sister got married, it was a lovely day, and she looked gorgeous, then I went to see none other than LADY GAGA and happened to be on the front row, a few meters away from her.. she's so hot. Then I got my hair cut, well I should say half-shaved.. it sounds stupid but I love it! It's in the style of Kimberly Wyatt, and apart from that, I've just been revising, working, and doing other boring things which occupy me.
The other day, I visited a St Luke's hospice fair with my Nannan (she's awesome), and came across some gorgeous floral material for £4 (but i managed to get it for £2), and originally planned on making a dress out of it, but there's so much material, I could make about 836 dresses out of it! Instead, I created a floral with crochet detail crop top which Im in love with! Take a look:
Oooooh yeah, that's my sexy new camera! It's my baby.
Cut it
Pinned it
Sewed it
Added the detail = Bam, crochet crop top :)It took long enough though. Around 4-5 hours. Agh. I need a sewing machine. Whatcha think?
Sorry for the massive essay above. I've missed my blog :') I'll reply to any comments regularly now, it's officially back on, so please please please follow, as soon as people get back into it, I will be announcing the winner of the giveaway I opened before (again, sorry about the delay!)
Have a lovely day,
Love, Ruth
November 2009