Affordable Wedding Dresses - Crochet

Bear with me; I know that when most people think of crochet, granny blankets spring to mind. But crochet can actually be delicate and stylish and it can look great in a wedding dress, as shown by LeAnn Rimes' wedding brunch crochet dress. You can either go for a fully crocheted dress or select one with just a touch for a fun vibe.

Crochet was big in the seventies and a crochet wedding dress definitely provides this feel, so select a crochet dress if you want a retro, bohemian vibe.

I've found a range of cheap crochet wedding dresses that are ideal for your big day.

Vintage 60s Cotton Bohemian Crochet Lace Wedding Dress - Etsy

This is a proper retro looking crochet wedding dress. The gown, from Kitsch Bitsch Vintage, is fully crocheted in a dark cream colour. It's cotton and stretchy, so will fit well. Plus, it comes with a free slip to go underneath so you don't have to flash that much flesh.

It looks lovely with the flower crown and bouquet, go for a similar look at your wedding for a sixties feel.


Priced £262.65

Mollie Crochet Mesh Maxi Dress - Boohoo

This crochet maxi dress from Boohoo is only £30! It's the cheapest on the list and probably the cheapest of all of the Affordable Wedding Dresses that I've featured.

It's got just a subtle crochet detail on the chest and the mesh skirt, this gives it a summery, beach feel. In fact, it would be perfect for a beach or garden wedding.

Priced £30

Miss Evita Crochet Wedding Dress - Etsy

This is an example of a glamorous crochet wedding dress. I love that this is a classic bridal silhouette and it's made more interesting with the crochet overlay. It's ideal for a bride who wants a touch of bohemian look but still wants a stylish wedding look.

£299.92

Miguelina Lilac Crochet Maxi Dress - Nieman Marcus

This all-over crochet maxi dress has a lovely texture and feel. It has a shorter slip underneath so, you get a long dress but you can also show off your legs.

The capped sleeves and boat neck are very flattering and provide a timeless silhouette while the crochet makes it quirky and fun.

Priced £370.98

Journey Bohemian Luxe Sheer Crochet Wedding Dress - Etsy

Another Etsy crochet wedding dress; Etsy is a really great place to find both handmade and vintage crochet clothes. This one is a light, all-over crochet that gives it an ethereal feel. I love the long sleeves and sweeping skirt.

It's got a sexy low back which gives it a modern touch.

Priced £599.23


That's all for this week, check back next Monday for more affordable wedding dresses.

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Reblog - 42 Things All Noughties Teenagers Will Remember

I jut had to reblog this; it is scarily true.

Originally posted on Hannah Gale

1. Smirnoff Ice, WKD and Archers. Tiny bottles of sugary alcohol that made you talk to boys, throw up and get told off by your parents. Goody.

2. Spending an entire week waiting for the next episode of The O.C. Fancying Seth Cohen, wanting to be Summer Roberts, and feeling awkwardly not sad when Marisa died. Oh.

3. Stripy highlights. Big blonde chunky strips through your over-straightened hair that made you look like the fourth member of Atomic Kitten, the somewhat cooler version of Kerry Katona.

4. Denim everything. Denim jackets, the perfect denim mini skirt, denim pedal pushers, denim handbags. Firmly believing Bewitched were on to something.

5. Teaming said denim mini skirt with (faux) UGG boots, dolly shoes or bright pink Converse and feeling like you’d finally nailed looking cool on non-school uniform day. Well done you, high five. All the boys will fancy you now.

6. Finishing off said ensemble with a super slicked back ponytail that took at least ten minutes to perfect, as well as half a can of hairspray, three scoops of mousse, a comb and two brushes. Then, teasing two strands of hair out. Chav chic nailed to an absolute tee.

7. Begging your mum for a belly button piercing and then wearing crop tops that displayed your emerging alcopop gut forevermore. In a dreamy world you’d have the dangliest, sparkliest belly bar out of everyone in school.

8. Inflatable chairs. Inflatable chairs that you sat on once.

9. Spending months pining over JD’s new McKenzie and Nickelson pieces. Must. Have. New. Baby. Blue. Hoodie.

10. Pay As You Go mobiles. One good solid all-evening text convo with a boy totally rinsed your credit and you’d not be able to contact anyone for a week (apart from on the landline, obvs).

11. Texting said boy on your Nokia 3310. The same Nokia 3310 that had a week long battery life. Dreamy.

12. Going to McDonalds after school just to hang, and devouring a Chicken Premiere. The queen of all the Extra Value Meals, RIP.

13. MSN Messenger. All evening, every evening.

14. Spending days picking the perfect dramatic-yet subtle-song lyrics for your MSN name.

15. Spending a similar amount of time determining your top 12 MySpace friends, sorting out the HTML to your profile background and choosing a profile page song. I mean, yeah, you definitely spent the same amount of time on your homework, so there’s that.

16. Putting a boy’s name in hearts in your MSN name. That, ladies, was when you knew you were definitely in there. Nice work.

17. Having to end an MSN conversation because your mum needed to make a call on the landline. BUT NOW HOW WILL I FLIRT WITH MY SCHOOL CRUSH?!? Evening ruined. Huff.

18. School books. Could be carried in a drawstring JD bag. Could also be carrier in a teeny tiny bag that only had room for cigarettes, a chewed pen, gum and one rolled up book.

19. Buffalo trainers with FLAMES on the side. Enough said.

20. Collecting smelly gel pens. Although not being able to write in the banana or coconut scented ones because they was basically white. Good one, pen company people. Good one.

21. Wasting (totally not wasting) entire weeks of your life to The Sims. Making the perfect family, setting your house on fire, having your children taken away by social services and wanting Mortimer Goff to fuck the hell off.

22. Relying on Destiny’s Child, Ashanti, JoJo and The Sugababes for life advice. And though my heart can’t take no more, I keep on running back to you.

23. Reading Jacqueline Wilson’s Girls In Love, Girls Under Pressure and Girls Out Late. Then being thoroughly confused and upset by the TV version. WHAT ARE YOU?! Why is Ellie not fat? Why Is Magda black?

24. Being groomed on Habbo Hotel. Oh.

25. *SPOILER ALERT* That moment when Zoe Slater found out Kat Slater was her mum.

26. Knowing one friend that got so paralytic they had to get their stomach pumped. And being thoroughly glad it wasn’t you and you weren’t grounded.

27. Plucking your eyebrows so that they were one thin line, made up of approximately 7 hairs. Exquisite.

28. Your fave jeans were a pair you’d customised yourself with fabric triangles to change your straight-cut jeans into a very snazzy pair of flares. These were soon replaced by a pair of bootcuts with sexy written in diamanté across your bum. Yep.

29. Bored on a Friday night? Nothing better than pranking people’s home phones. Teehee.

30. Your perfume cost approximately £5.95. Because So… Kiss Me was all you needed. Thanks for that, Superdrug, you life changer.

31, Exercise consisted of your brother’s Playstation teamed with your dance mat. It’s mind-boggling that you’re not a back-up dancer for One Direction right now. Seriously, do they not know that you can dance forward, backwards, left and right?!?

32. It’s summer. What do you wear? A halter neck top complete with a New Look push up bra of course, duh. Sexy and stylish.

33. Buying all your ‘grown up’ clothes from Jane Norman. Skin-tight dresses, big plastic buckles on your tops and flared jeans. Then using the shopping bag as a very stylish overnight bag. Go you.

34. Obvs teaming the above with your heels from Faith and Dolcis.

35. That time Bombhead’s mum died in Hollyoaks he kept her body in the house for weeks. Errrrr….

36. Wearing your French knickers and thongs higher than your jeans and school trousers. Because that’s how to make boys fancy you don’t you know.

37. Feminism was Frankee’s F.U.R.B. Fuck all the cryin’ it didn’t mean jack, well guess what yo, fuck you right back.

38. Wearing your GAP jumper with pretty much every outfit for about 7 months, and being ridiculously jealous of the girl you saw around school wearing the pink version.

39. Truly believing that hoop earrings made every outfit just that little bit better.

40. Reading consisted of the best, glossiest mags ever: Elle Girl, Mizz, Sugar and Shout. They helped you through every period/customising clothes drama. Babes.

41. That moment when you realised there was a Sabrina The Teenage Witch marathon on a Saturday. Best. Day. Ever.

42. Downloading 146329 songs from LimeWire and Napster and essentially being the sole reason why HMV and Woolworths both shut down.

2000-2009, thanks for being such a jolly good sport.

Rag Rug: Stage One

I've recently moved house and, as I'm sure you'll know if you've been in the same situation, it seems to be soaking up money. Even though I've been given a lot of hand-me-downs, the bills keep piling up (literally, there is a rather high water bill that I am ignoring and hoping will go away).

The bedroom has bare floorboards, which look lovely, but are rather cold. Instead of buying a rug I've decided I'm going to try and make one to save on money and use up all the fabric I have lying around. I was inspired by this tutorial from Jaime at www.our-everyday-art.com.

She uses a non-skid rug mat as a base but I couldn't find one that was affordable so I got a metre of Hessian Sacking from Minerva Crafts. Sacking's been used in rug making for centuries; it was normally combined with scraps of old textiles and clothes that were cut or torn into strips. That is what I did with my fabric. They're approximately 8cm long but I wasn't being exact, that's the beauty of this sort of project, you can be messy.

I then threaded them through two holes in the Hessian. You can use a hook or a 'prodder' to do this but I found that scissors were just as good. I then tied the fabric in a knot to secure it.

I left a gap of a few threads between each piece of fabric to stop the hessian unravelling.

It's pretty easy but very time consuming, those three lines took me two hours. But it's quite therapeutic to do sitting in front of the TV. I'm hoping it will look good when it's finished, check back in about ten years to see the results!

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Liberty and Levi

I hope you've all had a lovely bank holiday weekend. I've recently moved to the countryside and actually now have a garden. This, coupled with the emergence of the sun, meant I spent most of the time shivering outside on a towel pretending it was thirty degrees.

I also took a little time out to cruise the internet and saw that Liberty has another collaboration; it's already teamed up with Nike and now it's also joined forces with Levi's to create the Levi's X Liberty collection (I say now, it was actually back in April, but I've only just seen it).

Levi's X Liberty

Floral Carlin Print Western Shirt - Levi's X Liberty

This one makes a bit more sense to me than the Nike thing, Liberty and Levi's are both well known and respected clothing companies. In a way, they are also representative of their countries; Liberty, with its London location and classic prints, is a part of British history. Similarly, Levi's conjures up images of rural USA and has been a constant staple in the changing fashions of America.

The combination of the two is quite powerful and makes for an interesting collection. There are only a small amount of items but most bases are covered, with a number of trouser styles as well as a shirt, dress and crop top.

Floral Carlin Print Mandarin Dress - Levi's X Liberty

Floral Carlin Print Bustier Top - Levi's X Liberty

I particularly like this bustier, it's a good festival look, if only I had a flat enough stomach to wear it!

I think the collection's missed the mark on a couple of items though, especially the anorak. They're tried to combine beauty and functionality but haven't quite melded it. Plus, whoever heard of a denim waterproof jacket?

Floral Carlin Print Hooded Anorak - Levi's X Liberty

Overall though, I like this collection. The two Liberty prints used, Carlin and Kerr Bandana, were specially designed for the range and contrast nicely with the antique look of Levi's denim.

The only problem is, again, that the items are out of my price range. Still, a girl can dream.

Find out more about the Levi's X Liberty collection here.

P.S I've just noticed that Liberty and Levi sound like two quite obnoxious children's names. Or the heroes of a children's book series.

Dolls and Daydreams

Just a quick post.
My friend is pregnant with her first baby and I've been looking for presents to get her that aren't the usual pink or blue rubbish. I came across these sewing patterns by Dolls and Daydreams.

Teddy Bear Sewing Pattern

I'm not brilliant at sewing but I reckon I could learn for these.

Pocket Prince Knight Sewing Pattern

I love how they've got an old fashioned feel, without any sparkly bits, but are also modern. I can imagine one of these becoming a much loved favourite toy.

Little Red and Wolf Sewing Pattern

I have a few months until the baby's here so I can get practising.

Elephant Sewing Pattern