The Summer Student

If your finding yourself increasingly short of money, and with no new fun things to wear, have a go fannying around with stuff you already own. Cut the sleeves off old tshirts and sew lace around the armholes for example. It’s a lot cheaper than going out and buying something new.

You can also make your own printed tshirts by recycling a plain old one, designing your own motif, printing it off onto transfer paper then ironing it on to your shirt. Bish bash bosh. 

One thing I’ve started to experiment with recently is making accessories. There are heaps of places on the internet that sell beads, buttons and trinkets at really low prices. All you have to do is stick them together in an original kind of way and you’re sorted. You could even make some money on the side by selling them at boot sales or from an ebay store. Genius all around.

Some of my most highly recommended crafty stuff retailers:

Tongue tied- apparently lacking in stock at the moment but the basics are there.

The Bead Shop- does exactly what it says on the tin.

E-Beads- SO much stuff.

And it’s always worth going to a textile shop to have a look at the material remnants on offer to see if they’d be useful in creating anything fun.