Thanks to the girls at The Culture Vulture ,I blagged myself a free goodie bag from tonight’s event at my local Urban Outfitters!! Love it, love it! Urban Outfitters had been one of my very favourite brand since I first stumbled across it in Santa Monica in 2000. I remember the day when I spotted this guy overloaded with Urban Outfitters bags in central Leeds…if I did not spot the shop ten meters down the road, I would’ve chased after him to ask where did the bags come from! The edgy fashions, the quirky household stuff, lomography cameras and mad bags (remember my speakers clutch?).

Tonight was their christmas special – with 20% discounts throughout the whole store, the place was HEAVING. I couldn’t even buy anything…as I could hardly move to the queue. Sigh. Anyway – as promised, here’s my goodies!

From left-right: leopard print linen scarf, Levis’ 501 cutoffs, set of 3 headbands, two pairs of pseudo Raybans, patchwork dress, purple thighs, LEE 120 years anniversary bag and salt-and-pepper shakers

Sooooo fab! The only glitch is that the cutoffs are way too tiny, and the thighs are definately not my size – I am not very tall, but it’s made to fit girls up to 5ft 3! So I’m going to have to figure out what to do with them – I see a giveaway coming up! I squeezed into the pretty patchwork dress that only came in one size….loved the salt&pepper shaker. Incidentally, I purchased the exact same salt and pepper shaker in Sydney back in 2006 as a gift . The pseudo-Raybans are cute – not something that I would ordinarily purhcase for myself, but I do think its cute. So is the scarf – I so really needed something like this but had just not gotten around to buying one.

Definately very random – but I love it nonetheless!

I love it I love it!! Firstly, I loveee Urban Outfitters….dead chuffed when they opened up a store in Leeds. And then they started stocking Lesportsacs (for about 2 seasons anyway)….and now you have this:

Hybrid clutch bag with intergrated speakers. Lipgloss in a speaker? How fab is this?? I can now keep my ipod in it AND plug the ipod in as well. No batteries required, which makes this speaker slightly softer than usual, but you can’t fault it for what it is – portable speakers on-the-go. Enough space inside for money, keys, lipgloss and of course, the ipod.

And at only £4.99, I heart you Urban Outfitters!!

I’ve mentioned earlier that I am going back to selling earrings due to my financial downturn. Well – I’ve got kinda sick of the regular dangly earrings due to the amount of time I spend on a pair of really intricate earrings. One pair of properly twisted chandelier earrings takes me about 1/2 hr to make, with very little return as I sell them too cheaply to warrant that amount of work. It is pretty and I do wear my own suff, but I think there is only so many designs I can achieve. Therefore, I have changed my direction.

Introducing polymer clay.

Polymer clay is very much like plasticine/ Play-Doh. I had always loved plasticine – I remember when I was young I used to yearn for Play-Doh sets and the amazing things the little pressers churn out. However, I was never the proud owner of a Play-Doh set – my parents always told me that they cannot afford it, but I think that they just can’t fanthom forking out RM40 for some tubs of plasticine that can be purchased for RM2 per color. Anyway, I digress (as usual!).

To cut a long story short, I have started creating beads using bars of polymer clay. I make them into unconventional beads, and work with them on the basis that I would with my usual pearls and crystals. Due to the large size of it, I use it as a drop earring instead of my usual intricate designs – the design is in the bead itself. You can shape whatever you want from the polymer clay very much like plasticine, put a loop thorugh it, bake it for 15 minutes, glaze/varnish it, and voila, a bead!

Cupcake earrings complete with icing and sprinkles

Piglet cell phone charm. I love the texture of this bead as it looks slightly grainy-resembling wood!

Bacon and Egg cufflinks set. I love mini food! Bacon wore this to work today and he has lost both the Egg and the Bacon in a meeting room somewhere. Hmm. My glue is obviously not strong enough, will be looking for proper metal glue.

My row of toadstool beads, all ready to be made into whatever I want. Reminds me of the Smurfs colony.

Candy cell phone charm. This is currently on my phone. Inspired by the picture of the giant candy I posted earlier.

Rubber duck earrings!!! I love them! But then again I would – seeing that I have developed an obsession with them.

Another pair of cupcake earrings, this time without sprinkles but tomato-red icing.

This is my latest pair – half the size of the other cupcake beads that I’ve made, therefore more attention to detail and very delicate. There is a mix of red and orange sprinkles on them

Apologies for the superbly bad quality of the pictures, it was taken last night. I will be having a proper photo session with my new goodies hopefully this weekend. Slightly peeved at the moment – the person had not got back to me to confirm if I have a space at this weekend’s market. AAAARGH!!!!!!!

If you’re wondering why am I not selling soaps in the market, well, I have now come to a health and safety hurdle before I can sell them in market place. What remains of my beloved cleanducky.com remains to be seen, as I am now very busy job hunting whenever I manage to get hold of bacon’s laptop. I had so lovingly spent long hours creating it, and it will be a waste to let it go. I am however still taking orders…so if you are happy to donate to me, please click on to cleanducky.com!. Paypal payment is up and running – I just had not have time to work out my marketing plan. I may well do it when I am sitting on my redundancy payment in a few months time!

Click me for free beer……mmmm

because I love my UK readers – giving away free threshers group beer! So, free beer !!Expires 9th September

I want that dress!!!

Well, the bacons go shopping.

Not the market, but NEXT infamous 50% off half yearly sales. This happens every summer and winter, with the crazy people at Next opening their stores at 5am on the first day so crazy buggers like us can go scouraging for bargins

5.20am : The roads are still clear and dawn is breaking. I was hoping that the store would be fairly empty so I don’t have to push my way in.

5.23am:Wahlau.

5.30am: Look at all the bedhairs grabbing onto stuff like its going for a song.

Its not actually that dirt cheap, seeing that NEXT is fairly Topshop priced.But with the 50% off, it makes every item affordable…and with the changing room not being open, people just grab it all and take off with it, returning items that do not fit the next week.

We left at 6.10 after grabbing:

3 pairs of curtains
4 photo frames
1 lampshade
1 bustier
2 skirts

Seeing that none of my curtains matched, we headed towards ANOTHER NEXT to continue with the damage

6.19am: This was even worse.Apparently Toys R Us down the road were having a morning madness as well

This is proof that even men likes 5am shopping madness

4 queues, all snaking around the store.Like free only…

8.15am: After 1 hour’s queuing, the end was getting near…

Our damage

Total Damage:

5 pairs of curtains
1 bedsheet
4 photo frames
2 lampshade
1 bustier
2 skirts
2 shirt set w tie
1 pair cufflinks
1 bra
2 necklaces
1 coin purse
2 bath & body sets
1 wedding hat
1 coffeetable (!!)

I know, I know, no proper pictures of what I had actually bought. Comming up soon – I had put up the curtains as well.We were home by 8.30, breakfast by 9 and in bed by 9.30; totally and utterly shopped out. Hopefully this will stop any further shopping madness for at least a month…

At 4pm (yes, we went back just to check) – it was all over.