Customize your creations with Spoonflower

When I used to study Fashion at TAFE, one of my favourite parts of designing garments was choosing the fabric.  Different patterns, colours, textures, weave, and materials can drastically alter anything you have put on paper, and availability was another matter! If you wanted to be sure that a print existed, most of the time you had to design it for yourself, and find somewhere to quickly print it, and for a decent price!
Sadly for me back then, a wonderful website called Spoonflower hadn't been crated yet.

The basic concept is that site give you the ability to put any designs you might create and print them onto fabric, and not just quilting fabric either. Yes there is a large array of cottons and linens to print onto but there's also some gorgeous dress making fabrics too. You can order a swatch book to see what each fabric is like for $1.
They don't just sell designs on material either, you can also have them printed up on wallpaper. Imagine your own cute creation on the walls of your babies room? A feature wall created by you anywhere in your home.
The most awesome thing? You can sell your designs! Come up with something truly gorgeous, it doesn't have to be intricate, set up shop, enable your design to be sold and it's just that easy, your awesome creativity can earn you money. Of course if you want your designs to be available to just you, you can do that too. Best way I've ever know to have a one of a kind anything!

After discovering the site only this year it's already on high rotation. Because of its expansive array of indie designers you never know what you will find on any given day. Within seconds you can find something perfect, that speaks to you, that you simply have to have. With over half a million members, there's almost endless options!
Highly recommended for days when you have the chance to be sucked into another world. This is a hobby I won't be finishing anytime soon.

Go and check them out!

Thrift Challenge update - Day 13

(I'm currently embarking on a Thrift Challenge  so this post might not make much sense, please check out the details here! Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway!

We've made it over 12% of the way through! Hurray indeed, though I do have to admit that while I've refrained from my biggest spending weakness of clothes and makeup, I've been putting the money elsewhere, still following the rules, but the loopholes are glaring at me ... Even though this fortnight has been rather brutal for bills, I have a set amount I've always put aside for bills each fortnight but this fortnight the amount I need almost doubled. Ouch.
Because we haven't gone grocery shopping for a fortnight, I haven't taken my lunch to work. Some days where dinner the night before has rendered leftovers (Satay chicken and rice? Perfect!) but on others my kitchen has been pretty useless. We're going grocery shopping today though, so now I know to look out for things I can bring for lunch, we might improve a lot.
I also went ahead and bought some craft supplies, Fabrics to make presents and I may have gone a little over the stipulation of "only what I need to finish a project" When the shipping is expensive and I'm ordering from overseas I kind of allowed myself some le-way to stock up at Hancocks of Paducah. I have to admit I'm not impressed by the service so far, I ordered more then a week ago, and according to my account it still hasn't shipped. Wait, let me correct, ONE product, out of the 29 I bought has shipped according to my account, however they've sent me emails saying it's out of stock and I'll be refunded. WTF!

All in all though, I haven't dug into my fortnightly credit card payment which is something I would normally do, so I will still call this fortnight a success. it's the boy's turn to pay for groceries this week, It's been too hot to stay home without air conditioning so we've still been out to the shops and bought nothing. I admit I was sorely tempted by the perfect canvas backpack at Typo. I've seen a flurry of cute backpacks recently but they've either been designed with vinyl details, or too expensive for words. This simple backpack would be great, but I think in keeping up with my challenge, (and harking back to my original sewing adventures where I actually did make a heap of cute bags in my teens) I might just be able to justify buying some fabric and making my own backpack to create a tute.

What I spent:
Hancocks order - $150
Dumplings x 2 - $20 (Hey! We're moving offices this week, I won't get to eat these dumplings again after next week!)
After work drinks - $15
Other various food - $20 (packing up office building, need quick energy boosts a lot.)

What's in the kitty:
Still $60, like I said, bills cleaned out me.

Lessons learnt?
Bills suck.
Slack postage is frustrating.
Hot weather is hard to deal with, without a trip to the air-conditioned mall.

Personal Planner Giveaway!

This competition has now closed, please check out my Giveaway tag to see if I have anything else running at the moment!

Hey guys! I mentioned in my previous post that I would be hosting a giveaway very soon and here it is! I'm very excited to be bringing you this competition sponsored by the wonderful folk over at Personal Planner.

You may have heard of these guys before, and I have to admit that trying out one of the planners has been on my agenda. (See what I did there?) So what makes them so awesome? You get to personalize them in stacks of ways to create something that truly fits with your life. Want a space to jot notes on your fitness regime? Bam! You got it. A wide choice of colours and personalization options? You bet! With some very user-friendly design software you could have your planner ready to go in no time at all, and exactly how you'd like it. They print and deliver the Planners right to your doorstep too.
On top of this they also have a top notch customer service team that will take care of all of your enquiries when you make an order.

So the competition, Personal Planner have very kindly offered a free Personal Planner to one of Bought by Birdette's lucky readers. All you have to do is tweet about the giveaway using the below rafflecopter form, so quick and easy!
Also it would be greatly appreciated if you would take the chance to like Personal Planner on Facebook, (We love our likes, check Bought by Birdette out too!)

Good luck everyone!



a Rafflecopter giveaway

100 days of Thrift check in - Day 6

Hey would you look at that! I have a post to write! In all seriousness though it has been quite a busy week, lots of long days in the office leave me in a mood to do utterly nothing when I get home. In fact the boy has bitched me out since he cooked more then I did this week, though two of those nights were merely me asking him to cook, and then eating scrambled eggs around 8 when I decided I had waited long enough.

So how has the challenge been coming along? Well it is day six today and it's only early morning. So far I've found this weekend to be quite easy to get through, but that's because it's too hot to leave the house. During the week I had issues, I bought lunch more then I brought it, I'm just not used to having to having to prepare something to bring in. Leftovers are great and all but in this house they're normally snapped up by the boy, and even then we're moving offices in less then a fortnight, so I had to have last meals at some of my favourite places. I am going to be very, very sad when dumplings are no longer within walking distance.

I made a gift for my latest Niece/Nephew who is due in a few weeks, My sister is being a pain and won't let on the gender, We have a theory it's a boy though as her husband is way too happy for it to be another girl. Mind you, the gift is incredibly cute, and so easy to whip up, I bought the kit from Voodoo Rabbit over a year ago, and it was about time I used it. The results are rather cute.

Dr. Seuss Rattle Toy Cube

What I spent:
Dumplings - $10
Pizza - $10 (Boss shouted a beer to go with it)
Japanese Donburi: $12

What's in the kitty:
$60

Lessons learnt?
Plan ahead for lunch. No really, 8:00 am when you're already running late is not the time to scrounge around the cupboard.
Going through old project piles can yield surprising results.

Keep an eye out! We're going to be running a competition early next week and I'd hate for you to miss it!

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!