Update

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to stop leaving my wonderful readers in the lurch. I have been very slack with Bought by Birdette lately and I sincerely apologize. I'm not going to make excuses, I lost my drive to write. At this point in time I actually have quite a nasty hand injury that is hampering many everyday activities. (You should've heard me squealing in pain when my memory laapsed and I went to open a jar, ow!) So we'll still be slow for a little while, as typing isn't too bad, photo editing is another kettle of fish.
I've been thinking about introducing a few new topics into the fray to help reinvigorate my drive to write, so you may see more craft and cooking popping up, turning Bought by Birdette into a more lifestyle based blog until I truly find my niche. Also most certainly more personal style posts, I love doing these, I just need to find my confidence in front of the camera!
Otherwise, I would love to take this opportunity to ask all readers to please let me know what you like and don't like, do you have a particularly favourite post that I've done? Have I taught you something new?
I' really hoping to bring a lot of readers out of their bubbles on this one, and I'm aiming to get at least 20 responses. Don't think I wouldn't love to hear from you because really I would!
Thank you for reading.

Follow Bought by Birdette on Bloglovin

Just a quick one to keep us in touch into the future.

If you haven't heard the news already, Google Reader is going to be ceasing on July the 1st. meaning that anyone who subscribes to Bought by Birdette and any other blogs through Google Friend Connect or Google Reader will have to find another feed reader to stay up to date.

A great blog feed site that I would have to recommend for anyone looking to keep in the loop with favorite blogs is Bloglovin, Please take a second to follow Bought by Birdette on Bloglovin before the time is up, I would hate to lose contact with any awesome readers in the transition.
Thanks guys!

100 days of Thrift Challenge

Yeah, you read right, Birdette has overdone it! I've decided it's time to do something a little more serious to try and clean up my financial situation and while things are not dire, they're certainly not improving. You know when you get to the stage of I'm-flat-broke-but-don't-remember-what-I-spent-it-all-on-AGAIN you need an intervention.

"Boring! Why on earth would I keep reading? Isn't this blog all about shopping??" I hear ya. However this won't change the content of Bought by Birdette all that much as I don't plan on restricting my window shopping! There should actually be more content then usual as I'll be reporting back on my progress and posting about the things that I've been tempted to break on and my progress towards my goal.

So what exactly does this entail? I will begin this Payday, Tuesday the 8th of January and conclude on April 18. Here are the ground rules I've decided on.

Allowed Purchases:

• Gifts (Birthdays etc, and I do recall a wedding coming up later this month)
• Materials to make Gifts
• Materials to complete any craft/DIY projects I've already started, nothing from scratch
• Necessary toiletries (shampoo, toothpaste etc)
• Magazines (Hey, a girl still needs her past-times  I won't be buying any more then my usual amount I still won't admit to ...)
• One Haircut, but no blow-drying
• Groceries (food, cleaning products, but nothing too extravagant, I do not need to buy a box of pricey icecreams)
• Medication and doctors if required
• Rent and bills
• Bus tickets
• Limited entertainment, one date night/movie per fortnight to keep from going insane.

Grey Areas:

• Makeup (Colour make up is banned, but Foundation, Concealer, Moisturiser type products and Hair removal etc are only allowed if completely out)
• Lunch is to be brought from home, can only be bought in unusual circumstances (working out of office, left in the fridge etc)
• Beauty services are banned, but one massage per month is allowed if required
• Laybys are allowed if I find something I truly cannot live without, to be fully purchased at end of 100 days.
• Takeaways are still allowed, but only once a fortnight
• Giftcards and vouchers may be used. I will have my birthday during this Challenge
• I have been hunting a Buffet sidetable for months, If I find the perfect one second hand or on special, challenge be damned
• For the sake of keeping up appearances, purchases for things like friend's parties and the odd after work drink are allowed, but to be kept to a minimum
• Should I choose to sell anything while on this challenge, money garnered from that can be spent.
• Blog necessities, I'm talking things like business cards and tech support are allowed, purchases to write about are not.

Completely banned:

• Coloured make up, no shadows, no lippys, I have more then enough
• Clothes! This will be the hardest thing to stop buying, I'm always finding things I want to add to my wardrobe, so this ban will hopefully make me see what I already have and use it to the fullest!
• Accessories
• Books. My only exception to this is the yearly Lifeline Bookfest and that's only because it's yearly and for charity
• Stationery
• Pretty much everything that hasn't already been mentioned. Items from the grey area and banned list are what generally bleed a hole in my wallet, I'm sure I'll think of some stuff to add to the grey area over time

So I couldn't possibly do all of this without some sort of goal and reward in sight could I? This is where I'll have a problem again as I've always been an instant gratification type of person. For every day that I survive the challenge I will be putting $10 into a savings account, to be used for reward at the end. Considering I normally give myself a pretty generous budget of just under $400 per fortnight to spend on whatever -and still usually blow it- this will still give me an extra boost to pay off my credit card debt as well as provide an ample incentive to stick to my budget.

So hopefully that's everything covered, Feel free to join me in my endeavours  and if you do decide to do something similar, Let me know. I'd love to see how others are going, I actually found the inspiration to do this from fellow bloggers so keep in touch too!

The Best of Bought by Birdette 2012

Hello everyone! How did you enjoy the holiday period? We're glad to be back in business here at Birdette Headquarters to bring you all a wrap up of the most popular posts of 2012. Did your favourite make it in?

Most read Beauty Post:

How to Hair  - Serena van der Wooden's Ponytail

Always a goodie, sad to see it for the final time on TV last week but unfortunately for Gossip Girl lovers the show just wasn't what it used to be.

Most Pinned DIY:

Make Your Own Easy Fabric Bunting

A surprising success, and I do have to admit I still haven't entirely finished mine! It's about 7 metres long, I just keep running out of tape or missing flags to finish it off! I know there's a few more flags somewhere... lol.

Purchase of the Year:

Zara Plaited Leather Shopper Bag

Still a Favourite for readers all over the world, this classic bag is high up on many shopping lists.

Best Discovery:

Trilogy Rosehip Oil

If you don't already own this, I still highly recommend you give it a try, nothing else has helped me with my uneven skin tone more.

Best Tips and Tricks:

How to make your Eyes Brighter

How very well timed! I can imagine more then a few of us will be sporting bleary red eyes after partying tonight! Here's how to minimize the the appearance

It's been a good year here at Bought by Birdette and we're very happy to have you all as readers! You've been steadily growing and spreading the word and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you. If you don't already, please take this chance to follow us to keep up to date. You can choose from Twitter, Facebook, Google Friend Connect, or Bloglovin, and please keep in touch! We love to know what you're loving, and want to see more of. (Comments and Shares! Yay!)

Thanks again for an awesome year and your continued support, I hope you all have a fantastic New Year, Be the best you can be, and take care of yourselves.

Happy Holidays from Bought by Birdette!

Hello Lovelies, Just a quick one to let you all know I'll be out of reach for the next few days. Celebrating the Holidays in a remote area of Queensland in a house that's entirely solar powered.

I hope everyone has a wonderful break, take care of yourselves, and stay safe.

I can't wait to get intovthe sales on my return!

Source: Pusheen

Link Love - Web design help

Going to go in a different direction for link love this time around. It's not a topic I'd usually cover but web design is something that helps when you are putting together stuff like blogs, websites and even Twitter and Facebook pages, it's never a bad thing to learn in this technology based society called the internet! So here are four cute resources I thought I'd share. They're user friendly and at least partially free too, nothing to sign up to, just click and go! Just make sure you have a read of the terms and conditions.

1001fonts This is a really good resource to check out for fonts, as they've been created by a bunch of different people, it's worth checking each once you have downloaded them to make sure you can use them for commercial  use.

Call me Victorian You'll find heaps of great clipart shapes and labels for use on this site, great for labelling pictures, creating banners and all sorts of nifty graphics. they all have a nice classic edge to them, with a splash of detail to keep away the boring!

Pugly Pixel Is a Blog style resource site and contains a wealth of knowledge and tools for modern web design, I really like her flag labels and graphics, and that the site caters to not just those who just want the graphic and be off, but also those who want to learn a thing or two with tutorials. She also has a fantastic marketplace,and a very generous commercial use license, this is most definitely my favourite. <3

Subtle Patterns Lastly this is a really extensive textures site, again with a very nice commercial use license. Here you will find stacks of textures and patterns that are easily manipulatable into whatever layouts and colours you like. sometime you just need a little something!

I hope you have found something you like and can use here? Do you have any graphic resource sites that you love? Please reply with a link because I would love to check them out!

Bought by Birdette on Pinterest!

Yes I have fallen into the newest and amazing internet networking craze, and so far, so good, I'm enjoying it! Check me out by clicking the red button over on the menu and please add me if you have Pinterest yourself! I'd love to see what you all are doing on there.
Hope to see you there soon!

We've had a facelift!

I am back from holidays and feel renergized and good, today is my birthday too so I'm feeling old but ambivalent.
Kind of old news, but better then never. It took some time for the full effect to unroll itself to the masses.

Announcement time! ( "Hurray ..." I hear you all saying.) We've given Bought by Birdette a facelift to go along with the launch of our domain. We can now be found at www.boughtbybirdette.com

You like? I aimed for more simplicity as the focus should be on the content, and nothing else.
Let me know what you think!

On holiday!

Hey guys, I've landed in Melbourne to visit family and go shopping, I can't guarantee regular posts for the next week, but I'll do what I can.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a happy new year out there! I started this blog just under six months ago now and it's continuing to grow and thrive. Ultimately, what I want to ask you for now, is to let me know what you want to see more of, what I should give a miss and if you enjoy a post I really want you to tell me about it! So I'm enabling comments. There are also the little tick boxes at the bottom of each post so you can simply click your response to a post.

Thanks again for all your support, and don't forget, you can follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook and tell your friends about me!

Like Birdette on Facebook.

Yup, the day has come. Over on the right hand side you will find the option to like me on Facebook, along with Bloglovin and  Stumbleupon. Please add me, as I shall be putting up something very soon that will tie in with Facebook.

Tell you more soon <3

Bought by Birdette now on Twitter!

Hi everyone!
Today has been a wet day in Brisbane, the sort where you just want to stay in bed and listen to the rain on the tiles, also a perfect day for doing some more set up on the internet take over!
You can now follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/birdettebuys Come visit me soon!

I miss my pink Dell!

So my computer is still in the shop, well at least in the hands of my friend who is run off his feet at the moment and hasn't the chance to fix it yet. I'm dying to put up posts about the stalls I checked out at the Young Designers Market and I hope to get at least some of them up over the weekend working off the boyf's computer. I miss my photoshop!
I also wanted to tell you that there will be extra Young Designers Markets on during MBFF next weekend, check here for more info.

New Design!

I got sick of crediting someone else, and she may look kind of like a zombie, I haven't done any art in years. So shut up! lol.
No doubt I'll get over her and put something else up soon.

Bought by Birdette, now on Bloglovin

Hey guys, I'm now available on Bloglovin. For those who don't know yet it's a site that lets your wrap all the blogs you read into a nice little package. I'm new to it myself so I'm not the best person to ask, but check it out, it might be just the thing you're looking for to organise your blogs.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

New on the blog

Yes I will keep fiddling until I am happy with it, which will be the fifth of never.
I just added a feature on the bottom of every post that lets you tell me what you think, Love it! Yawn and Huh?
Also added a feature on the sidebar where you can Like me on Facebook or Tweet me to your followers. I'd love to grow my readership so please pass me on if you like what you see!
Please don't forget that I'd love to hear your suggestions and ideas for posts as well, if you have a site you'd like me to feature, and event coming up in Bisbane, or a shop I should do a post about please let me know and I'll do my best! Just email me at boughtbybirdette@hotmail.com.
Thank you everyone!

New Poll, please take the time to answer!

Busy day today!
I just redid the poll on the right side of the page, the answers I had before weren't really working for me so I changed them. Please take the time to vote as it'll help me get to know what you guys are interested in and hopefully I can cater better to your wants.
Thanks!

Moving house hiatus

Sorry guys, nothing of real interest today. Removal truck day and it has been go go go. Though it has given me some moving house tips that I can share with you later. For now I have to calm the kitties down, and rest my aching back.

Email Birdette!

Hey guys,
I just created an email address for any questions my readers may have, don't be shy I'd love to hear what you think. Also anything that you think I should look into and post about would be great!
The link is just in the sidebar to the right.
I'm looking forward to it, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Moving house, Ugh.

What a time to start a blog, I'm going to try and get some pre-written posts happening so I can just click and they're up.
My boyf and I are moving back into his mother's house to housesit while she takes a three month trip around Aus, This is our cheaper option, but we will have a tiny amount of space compared to what we have here, so, a lot of things will need to go into storage.
For now, here are this morning's efforts.

On the left we have the 'I need to lose some weight to fit back into these clothes' pile. in the middle the summer clothing pile, and on the right we have all the coat hangers they were occupying. All going into storage. This doesn't include the massive salvos, and sell on eBay piles.

Does anyone out there have any great advice for moving house and storage? (Or a nice house is Brisbane that will be available in three months? lol)