I Bought No New Clothes In 2017 - Here's What I Learned And Why I Kept It A Secret

Hello everyone.  I hope you've had a lovely holiday and had time to catch your breath and relax a bit. And if you have a little time to spare I would like to share my first post of the year with you. I promise it's a goodun! I can't believe I actually managed to do it. I also can't believe I managed to keep it a secret for the whole year!

But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start from the beginning.

It was Christmas time last year..no wait, 2016 (!!) and I was searching for bloggers who wrote about secondhand fashion. I found a fair few, but none matched what I was looking for. Many were old and abandoned blogs, some were rarely updated and others had started in an area that caught my eye, but had since moved on in another direction. This brought to mind the old chestnut "be the change you want to see". I mulled this over for a while and concluded that as most things in my wardrobe came straight out of a high street store, with the exception of one or two eBay finds, I couldn't be that change myself. 

That said, around the same time I had started buying and revamping second hand clothes from charity shops to sell in my Etsy shop. I loved the feeling of giving something old a new lease of life, making it a one of a kind item that someone else would love while also helping to keep it from landfill.
And that's when the idea of challenging myself not to buy any new clothing for a whole year came to me. It seemed like a no brainer given the new direction I was taking the shop in and also, how could I expect other people to embrace second hand fashion and not see it as icky if I wasn't doing it myself? But I doubted my willpower and was reluctant to make my intention public in case I ballsed up in the first month, yet I really wanted to give it a go. So I decided to jump in and just not mention it to anyone. 

The start was easy, which I had expected as it was new and shiny and the novelty was fresh.
Then in the spring we moved and I forgot all about it. And I mean completely. So completely in fact that the memory didn't return until Alessi went back to school in the autumn.
I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when I remembered, (kitchen, knee deep in laundry) and to say I was angry at myself was an understatement and I realised in that moment just how much I had wanted to see it through.
Here comes the best bit though and where it gets interesting. As I cast my mind back to work out just how badly I'd fallen off the wagon, I was amazed to find that I hadn't. Not even a little bit! The swing from extreme anger and disappointment to elation was so sharp I gave myself mental whiplash.

I sat down and wrote out a list of all the new items of clothes I'd gained during that period. They were all second hand from eBay, bought in a charity shop or gifted to me by friends. Nothing had been new. I was over. the. moon. Not just because I had managed to stick to my challenge, but because I had managed to do so without even consciously thinking about it! That was back in September and for the next few weeks I basked in a smug glow of how easy I found this and how good it was and oh wasn't I doing well! And then I got a little carried away and started taking things further.

By this point I needed some new clothes. Not in an "oh I'm bored of my wardrobe, it needs updating" way, more in an "oh all my clothes have holes in them, but I will not buy myself anything else because I. AM. AWESOME!" kind of a way.
Ok that wasn't actually my inner dialogue, but with hindsight I feel that it should have been. I had become a self righteous wanker frankly. Luckily however, thanks to the whole keeping it a secret thing no one else had to endure this. So I continued to wear my tops and trousers with the holes and ignored the water getting into my boots and told myself that I was doing just fine. I kept reasoning that I could make do and mend, but in reality there just wasn't enough time.
And don't forget that the now funny, but then not so much irony to the whole thing was that I was putting in a lot of time and effort making pretty things for the shop while all of this was going on.

I can laugh now, in fact I am. But at the time I had started to grow quite resentful and I didn't even stop to ask myself why. In fact it wasn't until I thought about writing this post that I started to dig deeper in to how I felt about it all.
I realise now that I did take it too far towards the end. The challenge was to only buy secondhand, (with the exception of underwear and if necessary, shoes) not to stop buying clothes altogether.
That said I'm glad I did take it that far as I have learnt so much from the experience. Mainly that I won't be doing it again.

So to round up, here's what I learnt from the whole year.

1) Shopping in charity shops can be a nightmare if you aren't prepared

If I go in with no idea of what I'm looking for then more often than not I will come out with something I don't want or need. It might seem like a faff, but look in your wardrobe, have a think about what you need and then using that as a guide, go and look for it. DO NOT be afraid to leave empty handed. I do that now more often than not and am much happier as a result. It means that when I buy something, I really do like it and will want to wear it again and again.

2) Use changing rooms!

I'm speaking from bitter experience here. I hate changing in shops, but I've learnt the hard way that you need to know how an item feels when you're wearing it. Not just to make sure it fits, but to check out how it moves on your body, it's texture and simply how it looks on you as opposed to the hanger. Top tip: when trying on tops, jackets, dresses etc, always cross your arms over your chest, then raise them above your head. This pulls the fabric taught as you move and will tell you how comfortable the item will feel as you move about.

3) eBay can be a bit of a gamble

People aren't great at providing measurements, usually you just get a size, 10, 12, 14 etc. If you don't have a standard sized body (for example I'm petite and even petite sizes can be a little big on me) then you will need to dig a little deeper to find out if clothes will actually fit when you get them.
Also colours can be different than pictured and don't get me started on the amount of times I've received items that honk of perfume.

4) Buying new is not a crime

Probably my biggest take away from this whole experiment. In fact next year I will be buying new occasionally and already have a few things on my wish list. While I will continue to buy secondhand as my first preference, sometimes I will need something new and I feel that as long as I do so thoughtfully and use a bit of common sense it's fine.

5) You can have a lot of fun revamping secondhand clothes

This is another big lesson that I'm taking away from this whole experiment. At the start of the year I put so many things that I loved back on the rail just because it wasn't quite right size wise. I want to prioritise more time to work on my own wardrobe in 2018 so I will be able to alter anything that isn't quite right. I might even start posting some tutorials if there's a demand for it.

And there you have it. My not so dirty little secret is out and I'm already looking forward to more charity shop delving this year.

So what about you? What are your thoughts on buying secondhand? Do you find buying second hand icky or a lot of fun? Do let me know, you can find me over on Instagram or Twitter and I love a good chat.

x

Time flies

Well hello there.
It never ceases to amaze me how much I miss writing this blog when life gets too busy to update it. I can't believe the last post I wrote was about the chicken swap. That feels like a long time ago now.
So I guess this will be another update post, with the hope that I can get back in to updating more regularly again.

Obviously one of the things that's new here is that we now have Titch back with two new chickens. Although they no longer feel new. Meet Tufty Sue and Snowball. I don't think I need to point out which one is which.

Since getting these hens the change in Titch (the original chicken) has been amazing. She had been at the bottom of the pecking order and bullied by the other two. Now though, she is the leader of the gang and a proper cheeky little boot she is too. Snowball is a little fluffy dream. She's so friendly and will often creep in to the conservatory while I'm working and fall asleep on my lap (or feet if I push her off). She's even jumped up on my shoulder and settled down happily. Not so happily for me though as each time I'd start to relax she would peck my ear. Not that it hurt, but it would give me a start if I was concentrating on something! And then there's dear Tufty Sue. She's at the bottom of the pecking order, but not bullied. She's just cautious and follows the example of the other two. If they are relaxed so is she. If they aren't however, then even if she doesn't know why she's not ok, she'll carry on not being ok along with them. Divvy thing.

They've all settled in brilliantly and it's amazing to see the difference bantams make to a small garden as opposed to regular sized chickens. For a start, they're not big enough to scratch up the grass or dig holes. Sometimes I move their coop to give them fresh grass to peck at, but mostly just leave it where it is and let them roam the garden when we're home. They like to hang out by the house which means the patio gets covered in poop if I don't clean it every day. Sometimes it feels like a faff, but then if I had a dog or a cat I'd be cleaning up after them too, so really not so much. Especially as I can just hose it off or throw the droppings on to the vegetable patch. I say vegetable patch, the slugs ate everything a long time ago so really, it's just a patch.
And that's them.

In other news we finally got around to sanding the living room floor after pulling up the fugly old carpet. I had thought that the wood had previously been treated as it was so dark. Nope. Just years and years of grime. It also had that horrible tar-like paint that old floors have around the walls. Luckily though, it wasn't too much of a nightmare to sand down. Here's a before pic.

And this was it after Dan and my brother had spent the a whole day sanding.

I've wanted wooden floorboards in my house for as long as I can remember so I am head over heels in love with it as you can imagine. Of course it will get cold in the winter. This is the problem with old houses. The space underneath the floorboards and ventilation bricks in the walls means that we're going to have some wicked drafts in the winter if we don't draft proof it. That will happen though, but we have to wax them first. We're getting there. Slowly.

What else? I've put myself on the waiting list for an allotment. The garden is really Alessi's domain now and other than flowers, there's not really room to grown veggies without taking away some of her space so I thought, why not? Not to mention that any veggies wouldn't last long with the chickens around. The waiting lists are over a year long and I may not get one at all, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least try. And in the meantime I can keep growing the odd thing in pots. I'll figure out the chicken proofing next year!

Work wise, things continue to grow which fills me with pride, but this summer I really struggled to stick to my 'keep things simple' resolution. Although unlike previous years I quickly recognised the signs that lead up to burn out and took my foot of the gas a bit. As a result, I got back on track. I finished the autumn stock last week and I'm now enjoying a well earned holiday. I say "holiday" although the shop is still open, but not having to worry about the sewing part feels like such a luxury right now. And I really wanted to clear the decks so that I could focus on Alessi before she starts school next month.

Oddly, I'm not feeling the way I thought I would be over Alessi starting school. I was expecting to feel sad, but I'm actually really looking forward to it.
I'm nervous for her. I want her to enjoy school so I do worry about that a fair bit, but otherwise, I'm not sad that my baby has grown up or that she will soon be at school instead of here with me. That's not to say I didn't have a wobble though.
It was in the lead up to finding out which school she would get in to. Most people I know were excited or nervous to find out, but I just ignored it and didn't even bother to look on the day. It was Dan who looked during his lunch break and let me know. And then came the tears! So I did have a wobble. Maybe I've just had it early? Since then I've come to feeling that it's the next natural step for her and if weren't time that led me to feeling that way, then it was Alessi herself.
She is so done with nursery now. My bouncy little girl who used look forward to going and would run off without giving us a second look, now no longer wants to go. It's boring and babyish she told me one morning. And it's not just nursery either. I'm finding it harder to keep her entertained at home at the moment too. She's outgrowing her old games, toys and the things she used to like to do. She's ready for new challenges and realising that has made me a lot more laid back about the whole thing. If anything, I'm looking forward to seeing what the latest version of my daughter will look like. What things will catch her imagination and interest. Where her spark will lie this time. Watching her grow up is by far one of the most fun things about being her mum and yes, sometimes it's also heartbreaking. Thankfully though, right now it's mostly just the former.

So that's pretty much where we're at at the moment.
A mixture of enjoying the last of the summer and preparing for the next season and all that it will bring.

Project update

Never again will I take on three projects at the same time.

Never again will I take on any 'project' when I already have my hands full.

Back last winter..autumn? I've no idea, but way back then I had the genius idea of taking on three personal projects as well as everything else I had on at the time. I wanted to revamp some basic pine bedside cabinets we had knocking about, revamp an old dining table and make myself a coat for winter as I can never find one on the high street I like. Here's how I did.

Winter Coat

Yeah, this didn't get done. I got as far as ordering the brown tweed fabric and loved it for a few days. Then I draped it over the dress form and something in my brain went "no". And that was that. I fell out of love with it and instantly lost any motivation to make it. So it just sat there and sat there until eventually sometime in January I realised the project was well and dead and gave up.No winter coat for me.
I now need a spring coat, but this I'll be buggered if I'm going to make one. This one the high street can provide!

Bedside Cabinets

Eventually, they got done. The plan initially was to stain them, but as I started I realised that it looked awful. At some point we had spilt something on them which was invisible when left as untreated wood, but once the wood stain was on, repelled the stain and made the finish look bloody awful. And yes, that was after cleaning and lightly sanding the sodding things. Back to the drawing board.
I wanted to give up on these too at this point so I just went for a plain white, nothing fancy. It did the trick. Once some new drawer pulls were added I have to admit they do look much better.

Living Room Table

And last, but not least, the living room table. I had a grand plan for this one, but just couldn't find a way to get what I had in my head in to a workable (and cheap) reality. So as my motivation was greatly waining (it was a running theme) I took the left over paint used on the cabinets and slapped it on. A bit of varnish on the top to prevent staining and it was done. I'm not over the moon with the look to be honest. It's too much white. And I had to take the tiny metal feet off the bottom as they were ripping up the carpet so it looks a bit weird in my opinion.
But I reasoned that I could add colour with table cloths and that's what I'm currently doing. I bought a cheap wipe clean one from eBay and although the look is a little more 'shabby chic' that I'd like, I've got to admit it's better than it was.

So there you go, two out of three. I'll take that as a win.

I'm not giving up on my projects altogether though. I just need to be stricter with myself and make sure I only do one at a time and really think about whether or not it will be a labour of love or just a labour. With that in mind I've decided that my next project will be a dress for myself.

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you'll know that Dan's company work do is coming up so I've decided to make myself a dress for that. I've bought a pattern. It's simple, I absolutely love it and I now have some fabric to make it with. No fancy patterns or tricky to handle materials. Just a nice, simple, blue dress. I'm hoping this project will go better.

I'm actually posting regular progress updates of the dress on my Facebook page if you'd like to see more. The idea was to keep me working on it even if the motivation started to wane. Thankfully though this hasn't been a problem yet.

Touch wood!

My project 'not much of an update' # 1

Do you remember back in November of last year, I optimistically set myself not one, not two, but three different side projects? Right before one of my busiest times of the year no less? Yeah, that was smart. Well unsurprisingly I've made little progress on any of them. 

1. The bedside cabinet revamp - These are now in our living room to allow ventilation to get to our cold, mould trap of a wall. I've sanded the units down, but otherwise they remain untouched.
2. My winter coat - I have the fabric I need. I've draped it over the dress form. I've even paired it with my gorgeous faux fur stole in the hope it would ignite some motivation, but other than that I've done little else other than look at it.

3. Our ugly dining table - I attempted sanding it, but had underestimated what a bastard sanding away all that lacquer would be. Then when I did get down to the wood beneath, I found that it wasn't worth the hassle. It's tough, but not very pretty. So I made the decision to paint it, trawled Pinterest and came across this.

SOURCE: Pinterest

I won't be doing this as such. Instead I will paint it blue and make a tablecloth to add the rest of the colour and floral detail. Given the current rate of progress with these projects though, the tablecloth will have to wait.

I'm aiming to write another project update in a few weeks and by then I'm hoping to have finished the bedside/livingroom cabinets, cut out my coat pieces and at least bought the paint for the table. 

There. I've said it so I must do it. 

Pallet Shelf

This has been one of those projects that just went on and on and on. I originally picked up the pallet last year, but soon realised that nothing was going to get done during the wet winter weather. 

Some projects are best left to the summer months and this is definitely one of them!

But obstacles and bad weather aside, it's done and up and ah meh gerd, I loves it.

This is what it looked like beforehand. A standard pallet. Second to the weather, the biggest obstacle was figuring out how I was going to use it, which bits I needed and what was going to go where. Once I had that figured out it was just a case of pulling the thing apart. 

This happened in fits and starts as some parts of the pallet were solidly held together, others were quite flimsy and splintered. In the end I opted to just saw out the bits I needed.

Then it was simply a case of sanding, staining and screwing the thing back together. How best to mount it on the wall also caused me some confusion. I chose split battens which I feel distribute it's weight better than hooks or nails.

Bob's your uncle! One pallet shelf all done and dusted, and it only took me ten months! 

All I can say is that Pinterest has a lot to answer for.

Granny Square Love

Stop whatever you're doing and stare in awe and wonderment at my crochet prowess!

Or at least, have a quick look and think something along the lines of "ooh, that's nice. Well done." That would be nice too.

I started this last winter which is why the colours are quite dark and berry-like. As this is the first time I attempted to crochet a blanket..or anything for that matter, it was pretty slow going. I became a lot neater and quicker towards the end, but it was frustrating to start with and I lost interest in it several times!

At the moment it's a very small blanket, more of a sofa throw really, but I intend to add more squares to it to make it bigger over time. It's one of those things that once you've got the swing of it, it's kind of hard to stop!

I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that I have finally finished what once was my never ending project!

How to give a cupboard door it's sexy back

A while ago I did a pretty up job on our living room cupboard door and then promptly forgot to blog about it. Far too busy sitting back and admiring my handy work you see.

So seeing as I'm currently juggling a granny blanket, making a Sunday roast, updating this blog and drinking a cup of tea (I know, I'm a multi-tasking extraordinaire), here's a very quick looky at the before and after pics. 

Before (Obviously. The fact that it's lying on my decking and not attached to the door frame kind of suggests as much.)

This is what it looked like when it was attached to the cupboard door frame. That corner never looks as clutter free as this normally. I'd just finished painting the wall so all crap had been moved to another corner instead.

And et voila! 

What do you mean you can't see a difference?

 Look! 

See?? 

Oh gawd, ok so I realise it doesn't look that much different, but I promise you it does in real life. It's been sanded, varnished with a warmer coloured wood stain and had new knobs added. It's got it's sexy back, although you might just have to trust me on that one. 

Living Room

This week I have been painting the living room.

It's taken me ages because I've been doing it bit by bit, around cats, furniture and husband. But today, I finally finished the three walls, skirting boards and ceiling.

BEFORE

AFTER

I know, it looks very blah in the second picture, but trust me, it looks better in real life. Brighter and warmer. Over the next couple of months we'll be wallpapering the wall behind the sofa and adding some colour with curtains, cushions, pictures etc.

I wanted to make the room look like a blank canvas and I think I've managed that. The next step will be to make some new curtains ready for the winter months. For now though, I'm just going to breathe in the paint fumes and enjoy a job well done.