I’m excited about joining my fellow OolaMoolas in helping you live the good life on a modest budget. Designer shoes? I’ll find them for half the price. (and probably buy them myself!) That cashmere wrap that’s perfect for your mum’s birthday? I’ll point you towards the best places to buy it from.

It’s not all pretty shoes and flirty dresses though! I’m a gadget addict and love finding the latest product to save time, money and space at home and on the go!

Just let me know what you’re looking for!

I live about an hour outside of London, so I’ve got plenty of ideas on how to save money if you live outside the capital. Feel free to challenge me to help you find something, using the challenge form.

Image from Flickr User: Jacob Bøtter

The good news is, the zipper flower is done. Ish.

The bad news is that it just about defeated me and I’ve finished this project with one zipper amoeba and a whole new appreciation for Velcro, snaps and ties.

Zippers are a tricky business, and to turn one into a flower, well, I think that takes a little more dexterity than your correspondent here could muster. Only those who play fast and loose with the whole representational thing are likely to call my little craft a flower. It is a zipper amoeba.

Here’s how I did it, along with a few tips on how NOT to do yours.

First, I consulted a very handy tutorial on craftster.org. Once I had an idea of what I was doing (or thought I did), I gathered my crafting components: needle, thread, scissors and zipper. I had run out of black thread and so had to buy more, which nudged my costs above the £5 mark, but not too far out of reach: all in, my bill was £6.30.

Everything you need to make a zipper flower

A small, but very important, note on zippers: zippers come in several varieties, and one to watch out for is the open-ended zipper. This means that the zipper is not stitched together in that fabric section below the bottom of the zip, and as such can literally come apart. Steer clear of these — you want a regular zipper. The open-ended zipper only leads to trouble… trust me on this one.

Now to the actual crafting. The tutorial instructed me to open the zipper and loop the base bit of one half into the first of several petals. Here I am getting that first petal into position.

Stitching the first petal into place

Once that first loop of zipper is stitched, you’re meant to move on to a second and third (see craftster.org’s tutorial).

However, for me and my open-ended zipper, this is where the trouble began. You should have the zipper as unzipped as possible, with the little handle bit down, but if you have an open-ended zipper, every time you do this, the damn thing flies open and comes apart. Very irritating indeed.

Curses, foiled again! The double-ended zipper breaks...

I tried stitching the bottom bit of the zipper together but that didn’t help, so eventually I just resigned myself to the finicky task and tried to keep the sighing and growling to a minimum (we at OoolaMoola always try to maintain a dignified appearance whilst crafting).

Eventually, after much effort and one complete re-stitch, petal two emerged.

At last! Stitching the second petal into place.

From here, my challenge was to stitch as many petal loops as possible out of the first half of the zipper — I managed four.

Then I repeated the process with the second half of the zipper (cue a cacophony of open-ended zipper-related huffing and tutting) for a petal or two, and rolled the last bit of zip into a centre for the flower. I found this part rather difficult.

Meet the zipper amoeba

Again, I call your attention to the craftster tutorial as an example of how it should look, as mine looks a lot more… well… homemade.

Final step was to flip the ‘flower’ onto its back and stitch the underside together to sort of squish it into a more floral shape. If, like mine, your thread breaks several times mid-craft, this is a good opportunity to go over any less secure bits so the whole thing doesn’t fly apart the first time you wear it.

The underside -- time for some serious reinforcing.

And behold, here it is in situ, a zipper flower only a mother could love!

My mum gets ready to step out in this season's latest zipper amoeba

It would probably look better on a darker coat with gold or coloured buttons, but I think this gives you the gist of things.

So… the verdict

I’ll be the first to say it: this was NOT one of my more successful forays into the world of crafting. I’ll wear it at least once — I have to! — but it is unlikely my zipper amoeba will be a winter wardrobe staple.

As a wise man once said, you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. YOU may be a maestro of zipper flowers — and for £6.30, you’ve got very little to lose and possibly much to gain by giving it a go — but me? I’m out.

Spent: £6.30 and a LOT of dignity

Saved: Hmmm…

In this post I am going to show you how to make three different types of edible Christmas treats, that when parcelled together with a bit of decoration can make a gift that is both impressive and yummy. Observe! My ginger biscuit, peppermint cream and chocolate truffle Christmas tree! (for want of a snappier name)

What do you need to make this sweetie stack?

For the packaging you will need a sheet of card (holographic or glittery works well), cellophane (you can usually buy this pretty cheaply from card shops, as I did mistakenly last year, thinking it was bargain silver wrapping paper) and ribbon.

Ah, but what do you need for the sweets themselves? Luckily, most of the ingredients are probably lurking in the back of your kitchen cupboards already:

For the peppermint creams

400g icing sugar (£1)

1 egg white (96p for six, so 16p)

2-3 caps full of peppermint essence (67p)

dash of lemon juice (jiff lemon cruelly left out of shot)

For the chocolate truffles

275g as-dark-as-possible chocolate (£2.00)

170ml double cream (75p)

For the ginger biscuits

100g brown sugar (76p)

150g butter (£1)

300g plain flour (39p)

1 tsp baking soda (found in back of cupboard hysterically out of date, but I don’t think it really matters)

1sp ground ginger (79p)

1 egg (16p)

You will also need a cookie cutter. The only one I had to hand was shaped like a Star of David, but that worked quite well, as not only does a star make a rather good ‘tree’ shape when you pile the sweets up, it means you can make your sweets double up as Hanukah presents too!

Anyway, start with the peppermint creams.

Whisk the egg white in a bowl, add a small dash of lemon juice and then slowly add the icing sugar.  Incidentally, a spoon is far more effective for the mixing than the stupid milk whisk used in the photo.  Once you have created a thick paste, add in the drops of peppermint essence and knead gently.

You should end up with a delightful pepperminty dough. Get out a rolling pin and roll to about half a cm thick and cut out your shapes.  Leave them somewhere flat and covered with cling film to harden. Now onto the chocolate truffles!

This is almost hysterically simple. Break up all the chocolate and put it in a large bowl. Heat the cream on the stove until it is nearly boiling and pour onto the chocolate. Stir like a madwoman until the chocolate has all melted and you have what the professionals call a ‘ganache’ and I call ‘calorific heaven in a bowl’. Not going to lie, this sounds simple but in reality I almost got RSI from stirring, so if it is taking too long or you start to fear for your wrists, give it a quick blast in the microwave to speed up the process. Once you have a dark, smooth bowl full of chocolate, leave it on the side to harden for about an hour and a half.

Next: Biscuits!

Mix together the sugar and the butter. A food processor is probably best, but failing that (and assuming you haven’t buggered your wrists making the chocolates) hand stirring works too. Avoid using an electric handwhisk,  as this turned out to be an utensilFAIL on par with using a milkwhisk to make peppermints.

Add in the egg and mix some more. Then add the ginger, baking powder, a pinch of salt and slowly mix in the flour.

You will (hopefully) end up with a dough like the one pictured above. If not, try adding a bit more flour, or even the egg yolk left over from the peppermints. It should be kneadable basically, and once you have had a good punch, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for twenty minutes.

Heat your oven to 180 degrees C/gas mark 4.  Then roll out the dough to about an inch thick and cut with the cookie cutter you used to make the peppermints.  Place on greaseproof paper and pop in the oven for about ten minutes. Observe above, using the powers of photoshop - before (on the right) and after!

*have a cup of tea and a sit down*

Hopefully by now your truffles will have set. You can check by feeling the bottom of the bowl and making sure it’s totally cold.  It might take a bit longer for the mixutre to harden, depending on how cold your house is; fortunately a giant Christmas tree blocking the radiator meant mine set pretty quickly.  Don’t attempt to make the sweets until the mixture is totally ready, as it will result in a chocolate goo-fest.

Cover a tray in cling film. Then dust it with sweet powder - you can use sugar, you can use the icing sugar from before, but I found some hot chocolate powder in a cupboard so used that.  Then take a teaspoon and dig out a small amount of ganache.  Coat it in the powder and carefully ball it with your palms as per the photo above.

Now you have all your amazing sweets, it is time to make them look less like a Sugar Addicts Annonymous party spread and more like presents.

Take a biscuit and cut a square of card quite closely around it.

Carefully stack your sweets. I went for a biscuit, mint, biscuit, mint, chocolate pyramid formation, but it’s really your call.

Carefully place your stack onto the cellophane and cut a large square around it.  There should be enough wrapping for you to cover your sweets and have a nice plume at the top.  Please ignore the supremely festive black hoodie and wonky thumb, the Flatmate who I usually call upon to hand model was unfortunately out Christmas shopping, leaving me alone to my own pudgefingered devices.

Finally you will need to tie the cellophane with ribbon to complete the gift, a tricky, delicate affair that left no hands free to photograph, sadly.  Repeat, until you have created your sweet stacks and voila! You are done!

I made seven stacks, but could have technically made eight were it not for several unfortunate peppermint breakages and an early collision between a biscuit and my mouth somewhere around the time when I was waiting for the chocolate ganache to harden.

Cost of ingredients = £7.68

Cost of wrapping (£1.99 cellophane, 20p cardboard, 50p ribbon) = £2.69

Cost of equivalent sweet stack in shop = £5.00

Total money saved = £29.63

But this year, I’ve got a bit of a problem. You see, I did a bit of a closet re-org last weekend and I counted EIGHT black dresses… none of which I’m prepared to part with. I also counted a great deal of non-black dresses, leading me directly to the conclusion that this year I will NOT buy a new dress.

What to do? Accessorise, my dears, I must accessorise… and happily enough, I know just how: with a zipper flower.

The raw materials... a zipper. Photo by Uwe Hermann @ Flickr.

Over the past few months, I’ve spotted zipper flowers on a few well-accessorised fashionistas around town. They’ve also been featured on some crafty/style blogs, like The Best of DIY and Chictopia. I even spotted a couple for sale in Topshop, but they don’t come cheap — the one I liked was £25!

Clearly, a bit of craftiness is in order if I want to update my party wardrobe on the cheap (and chic).

Can it be done? Absolutely, and I’m setting a spend limit of £5. I’ll post back with my results and the official OolaMoola zipper flower how-to.

Sockmonkeys make great toys for children (or, if your sewing skills are less robust) thoughtful presents for adults. I mean, that’s the joy of handmade things after all, so long as they aren’t utterly hideous beyond all redemption, the receiver will be so touched that you actually spent time -  time that could have been spent googling your name or chewing your nails -  thinking of them and repeatedly pricking your finger with a needle, they won’t care if their gift looks like a slightly wonky gangbanger (see below).

Anyway, I digress. How to make a Sockmonkey.

You will need socks (duh), pins, a needle and thread, cotton wool (or something to stuff it with) and buttons for eyes. Geek that I am, I scoured charity shops until I found eye-like buttons and had to suffer the ignominy of a shop assistant cooing about the invisible child I had just bought a smock for in the process, but really any will do.  Child sized socks actually make quite good sized monkeys and take a little less time and stuffing, but don’t bother with knee socks unless you want a really long limbed chimp and have a box set of 24 or something to sit through.

Take one sock and turn it inside out. Fold it in half and pin.  Sew two inverted L shapes, ending about a centimetre away from the heel. You can use a sewing machine for this, but I am a glutton for finger pricks, so did the whole thing by hand. Then cut in the space between them.

Click on any of the photos to be taken to my Flickr account to check out my badass *cough* bad *cough* stitching in more detail, incidentally.

When you are finished with step two, take out the pins. Carefully turn the sock inside out through the hole under the heel (monkeycrotch!) until the sock is the right way around again and you have a sort of Y shape with a saggy bum area.  Take your stuffing and carefully stuff through the monkeycrotch until you end up with a figure shaped like the one below.

Sew up that monkeycrotch et voila! It’s a torso with legs. Bwess.

Now take your second sock and turn it inside out. Cut off the toes and heel but keep the latter. Sew another L shape from the ankle to the toe end and cut off. This will be your tail. For future reference, the remaining ankle part of the sock will be the arms, whilst the ‘under foot’ bit will be the ears.

Take the tail and carefully turn it inside out. Then stuff it. Unless you are supremely thin fingered, a chop stick or pencil might help with this bit.

You will next need to make the arms. One arm will be an ‘L’ shape like the arms and tail, but the other arm will have to have both sides sewed together. Much pinning and cursing will happen at this juncture.  After this little bit of tedium is complete, turn and stuff the arms like the tail.

Once you have made your little sock appendages, you will need to sew them onto your monkey at the appropriate places. I think in retrospect I attached my arms a little far back on my monkey, but eeeey wonky is cute (as my dear old Mum always reassured me)

You will now need that heel, as it is your monkey’s snout. It looks best if you put a little bit of stuffing underneath it to pad it out, so sew the top half, put the stuffing in, pin and then sew the underside. Now it the time to employ all your badass sewing skillz, as these are the most visible stitches.

After the snout is done, you will need to sew on the eyes. You should also pause for a moment and consider the fact that an ankle design plus a coloured toe makes your monkey slightly resemble a gangster rapper.

Nearly done.. now, for some ears to make your creation more chimp and less pimp. Take the remaining part of the second sock (the under foot part) and divide like so. You will discard the long bit, but a couple of C shapes and some gentle turning should result in a pair of ears.  Sew them onto the sides of your monkeys head. You will then probably want to sew a mouth and nostrils, but at this point it’s all about freestyling (ie, you will probably find a better way to do this than me and my sausage fingers did)

*drumroll*

Monkey!

Total Cost, 1 Sockmonkey:  £2.29:

Socks: £0.70 (£2.00 for three pairs)

Cotton wool: 99p (enough for three monkeys)

Pins: 10p (in like, 1987, I found them in the junk drawer)

Child’s smock with eye-like buttons from charity shop - 50p

Your friend’s face on Christmas day: Surprised, flattered, possibly a bit let down if they were expecting designer makeup.

Total Saved: £7.71

(based on average price of sockmonkey in store, £10 )

I wanted to kick off my Christmas shopping early this year, hopefully with a few inexpensive and unique gifts. Every year I end up needing more hostess/thank-you gifts than I expect to, so I had my eyes open for suitable fare.

Let there be fairy lights

The SoCF was just as billed – a glittering, twinkling celebration of gifts, crafts and all things consumable. There was nary a high street label in sight, and most stalls were staffed by, if not the people who made the goods, certainly the people who ran the business. This made shopping a little easier, as you could get a bit of information about the goods for sale and where they come from.

Of course, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my favourite bit was the little cafe at the centre of things. My shopping sidekick E and I headed there first for some mulled wine and mince tarts – sustenance, you see – before braving the crowds and wading into the melee…

Time to hit the list

Calling to mind an earlier OolaMoola challenge, E’s handbag budget was £100. She was looking for something pretty, big enough to hold a Mac and some paperwork, and, most importantly, “grown-up and professional”. Tall order.

Luckily for us, the SoCF was teeming with handbags that fit the bill. The event attracts a lot of small businesses and artisans, so the goods on offer tended towards the unique and high-quality, but fortunately lacked the hefty price tags similar bags sport on the high street.

E bought a beautiful pink and black handbag from Timepieces, a brand that specialises in Italian imports. Leather-lined, many-pocketed and multi-strapped, it fit the bill and came in at £5 under budget. Success – and a fiver for the mulled wine fund.

Handbags by Timepieces

I tried on, but didn’t buy, a gorgeous silver butterfly ring by jeweller Kimberley Selwood. I loved her stuff, especially this delicate piece, but alas jewellery was not on my list.

Silver butterfly ring

I’ve read that velvet is *the* fabric this year, so when saw a Jane Means ribbon stand I took a minute to look for some lush velvet ribbon I could use to tie my hair back. I spent £5 on four lengths of ribbon (two of them velvet – score!).

Ribbons from Jane Means

I also found a few packets of festive napkins and similar items to set aside until the inevitable hostess gift panic moment.

All in, the SoCF provided a refreshing alternative to high street Christmas shopping, though it was a more chaotic experience than the tried and tried wine-and-a-laptop online shopping special (a favourite of mine). Worth a visit next year? Absolutely – even with the £15 ticket price.

Let the Christmas shopping commence

OolaMoola is giving away four weekend tickets to the Spirit of Christmas Fair in Olympia this weekend. The event has been featured in Home & Garden magazine and is stacked with gifts, glitter, and all manner of delicious Christmas treats.

The Spirit of Christmas Fair

Here’s what you’ll find at the Fair

This year, more than 600 companies will have some sort of food, drink, gift or service on display. The list of who’s coming features lots of local, ethical and handmade brands like Chameleon Earth Fair Trade leather goods, luscious Cowshed body products and Gwendolyn Carrie handmade shoes.

Even if you’re not up for shopping just yet, the Spirit of Christmas Fair is the perfect place to take in your first taste of festive spirit, with wines (mulled and otherwise!), chocolates and all manner of seasonal treats to be had.

Our tickets come courtesy of jewellery designer Kimberley Selwood, whose gorgeous new Plume range will be on display. Here’s one of her cuff bracelets — I think it’s really delicate and unique… something for the stocking, perhaps? (One can only hope!)

A Kimberley Selwood cuff bracelet

How to get in on the action

Tickets are valued at £15 each and are good for admission on Saturday or Sunday. We’ll give the tickets away in pairs so you can take a friend with you to soak up all the seasonal festivity.

To win yours, hop onto Twitter and be the first (or second!) to retweet our Spirit of Christmas Fair tweet. Good luck… and happy shopping!

Down our way, in the London mummy-ghetto that is East Dulwich, the NCT nearly-new sale is a hotly anticipated date that finds its way into the diary weeks in advance. I had been warned by a couple of friends that I should turn up early to bag the good stuff. I can’t usually be bothered to queue for anything, but when it comes to shopping for The Noodle, I’m a willing slave.

The queues were long and the morning so cold that I regretted my sweater dress and boots and wished for a ‘duvet’ coat - the kind you see Spanish tourists wearing in London whatever the weather. I froze for 40 minutes, whiling away the time on Google reader and surreptitiously sharpening my elbows.

At 11am sharp, the doors opened and the hordes rushed in. It was organised chaos, with mums just about managing to be polite to each other as they scrabbled over jumpers, coats, trousers, toys and even bigger items like a brand new Bugaboo. There really was some great schwag to be had.

I had set myself a budget of £40 and hoped to find some warm clothes and new toys for The Noodle. I’m pretty pleased with what I came out with:

1 pure wool Benetton cardigan (£4.50)

3 pairs of tights (£1.50)

1 wooden shape sorter (£3.50)

1 bag of duplo including a bendy caterpillar (£4.50)

1 pair of pompom slippers (£4)

1 pair of dungarees (£4.50)

1 sleeping bag (£2.50)

1 wooden bead puzzle (£2.50)

Total: £27.50

When I got home, I took real pleasure in hunting for the same articles online to find out how much money I’d saved. I discovered that the overall value when new is £174.00. Bargain! And I came out unscathed - all in all, a good morning’s bargain hunting.

Here’s a video of a slightly more spacious NCT sale than the one I went to:

To find out where the next NCT sale near you is, go to their Nearly New Sale Finder and put in your postcode. The added bonus is that most of the money goes to the charity to support new parents, so you can feel warm and fuzzy as well as a little bit smug.

This week’s challenge comes from Petunia, who asks us to “Find me a cheap (NY cheap) manicure in central London, please!”

Photo from Flickr -- thanks Bex.Walton

Fair enough – I would love to solve this challenge! The low-cost, high-gloss New York manicure has got to be one of my top 25 favourite things about New York. Finding one in London would be an OolaMoola coup!

New York mani? In a New York minute!

New York City is filled with clean, bright nail salons staffed by highly efficient nail wranglers who deliver a top-quality manicure in under 20 minutes, and for well under $20. What’s more, most of these salons are open from early until late, and are happy to accommodate drop-in clients.

A cheap and cheerful mani is a New York must, but I’ve yet to find anything comparable in London. Granted, we live in a pricey city where beauty services in particular are priced especially high… but really, how hard can it be?

Here’s what I’m looking for

New York manicures generally run at about $10-$15. With today’s exchange rate, that’s somewhere between £6 and £9, but I think we should factor in a cost of living adjustment. With that in mind, I’ve taken a look at the Big Mac Index and I think it’s safe to say I’m looking for a manicure for £10 or less.

I expect the trickiest bit of this challenge won’t be finding a budget-but-brilliant mani for under £10, but finding it in Central London – ideally, within zone 1. To wit, I’ve done a little research and already found a £10 manicure, albeit in zone 2: Sajna Beauty Bar.

Photo from Flickr -- thanks Dplanet

The first contender for the title

Sajna offers a regular manicure for £10 and a French manicure for £13.

The salon is open from 10-8 on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It’s closed on Tuesday but open 10-7 on Saturday and 12-6 on Sunday. Sajna Beauty Bar is located at 48a Clapham High Street (no website just yet); 0207 501 0001.

There’s a second contender on this list, but I can take no credit for this one: Herbal World in Wimbledon also does a £10 manicure, as flagged up by StylishMoola in August.

I recognise that while the price may be right (ridiculously right, in fact), the locations (gasp! South of the river!) may not be. So I’ll turn my search to regions slightly more North and East, and of course scour Central London to see what I can find…

Pockets everywhere -- a top trend for Autumn/Winter

The not-so-fine line between fashion and faux-pas

I think it’s fair to say that some men tend to be a little more wary of fashion than they need to be. I’m not sure whether it’s a fear of looking foolish, or like they care too much, but I think a lot of men are – needlessly – genuinely afraid of trying something new (even when that something new is only marginally different to the something old they’ve been wearing since time immemorial).

I had occasion to shop with a man last week and I found myself in the all-too-familiar territory of ‘I don’t do stripes/orange/patterns/v-necks/[insert other]’… but honestly, what is fashion for if not a little fun?! Boys, it’s time to man up and try a little fashion with your function.

What to wear now

Let’s start with what not to wear – and this is a short list. Sure, there are a few things your average professional, non-fashion-addict male might want to avoid, namely Givenchy’s hot-pink vision of masculinity, or at the other end of the spectrum, Vivienne Westwood’s thug lovin’ look.

But these ensembles aren’t there for nothing – the trick is to take a nod from these runway looks (colour? tough metallic accessories?) and then work it into something, well, a little more wearable.

So without further ado, I’m going to set out a few trends I plan to hunt for when I hit up The Exchange (more on that later):

1. Pockets – they’re everywhere, and the more, the better (see above photo).

2. Satchels! According to the Spring shows, often a tasty preview of the A/W trends, messenger bags are out and underarm satchels are on their way back in. Could 2010 herald in the era of the murse? Time will tell… but either way, I won’t be sorry to see the back of the overworn, bum-slapping messenger bag trend (even if I do have a luscious Ed Hardy number in my cupboard).

3. Military detailing – good for the boys as well as the girls.

4. The scarf – an autumn must.

Where to shop now (ok, soon)

Now that I know what I’m looking for, it’s time to hit the shops. My first destination is so hot it isn’t even fully open yet: The Exchange at 72 Gloucester Road.

The Exchange is a secondhand clothing store that specialises in high-end, highly stylish fare. This new branch opened two weeks ago, but its menswear section won’t be open until the store’s grand opening on 5 November.

Earlier today I spoke with Maria, one of the fashionistas behind this venture, about what shoppers can expect to find in the menswear section of The Exchange. She tells me they anticipate stocking everything from casual wear to suits and outerwear, and plan to feature casual and couture brands including D&G, Gucci, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent and Seven For All Mankind.

The Exchange buys secondhand clothing, provided that clothing is in good condition (either brand-new or hardly worn) and is no more than three seasons old. Maria makes it clear that high-end is a must: designer and boutique labels only – nothing from the high street, please.

Clothing is priced at about one-third of the original price, which means you can expect to find current, cared-for couture for up to 75% off. This means it should fit an Oola Moola budget perfectly.

Now, to amble over to The Exchange on the 6^th or 7^th and see what’s shaking on the shop floor…

The Exchange

72 Gloucester Road, SW7 4QT

020 7376 7277

Monday-Saturday 11-7; Sunday 12-5