For the third year running I'm taking part in A Buyer's Archive inspired by Elise, to keep track of my spending on clothes and accessories.

I only made one purchase this month.

Pre-loved H&M bag £4.75
I've taken to wearing this bag in the crook of my arm, like The Queen. If it's good enough for Her Majesty, right? As an earthy tone, it's not a colour that I thought would fit particularly well in my wardrobe but there was something about the style and shape that I liked. I didn't want to leave it on the shelf in Sue Ryder. That said, I've already used it more than I thought I would. I've decided that bags with two handles are easier to use than those with just one. I might not be able to team this with the cooler tones in my wardrobe, and I might very well find myself building the odd outfit around this bag, but a good bag is worth the effort.


LAST YEAR


H&M California t shirt £8.99
I love this t-shirt. It was worn four times last year and then put away at the end of the summer. It didn't see the light of day again until I put it in my July Capsule, when I wore it twice. This month it's been out once which gives a total of seven wears. I'm not sure it'll reach 30 wears, the hem is becoming wonkier every time it's washed. Time will tell...

H&M sunnies £6.99
Another great purchase. I wear these a lot.

New Look bra £6.99
This has been worn a lot. It was unusual to find a triangle bra with a back fastening (they seem to be 'in fashion' at the moment so they've become easier to find). I've taken to wearing triangle bras as I can't seem to find a wired bra that fits comfortably, unless we're not supposed to be able to breathe normally when wearing one?

Pink New Look t shirt £6.00
This is actually a maternity top. I bought it because it was in the sale and I had an inkling that I was pregnant. 'I can get away with wearing it as a normal top, if I'm not' I told myself. I wore it twice as a legitimately pregnant person. I have no hankering to wear it as a normal top now. All such clothes have been put away until I can face deciding what to do with them. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

Charity shop purchases

Hobbs skirt £6.00
This still hasn't been worn, so it's going into my September capsule. I don't think it'll be something that I wear frequently but it's too pretty not to give it an airing every once in a while. And as long as it fits it'll stay in my wardrobe.

Oasis jeans £2.00
I wore these 30 times during my Winter Capsule alone, so they've earned their #30Wears badge of honour. I'm not about to stop wearing them anytime soon, they have plenty of life left in them yet, and they're getting that lovely soft, lived-in feel to them.

Tu top £2.49
Worn 12 times so far. I've mended this top three times, and since it's most recent wash it needs to be mended again. It's all down to the seams of the ruffle fraying time and time again. I could just chuck it in the rag bag but I like it, and it doesn't take long to mend.


Total for August £4.75

Total so far for 2018: £247.41

Total at this time last year: £394.88

Left of £600.00 budget: £352.79

Making pom pom wreaths has become a bit of an obsession recently. I'm spending far too much time turning balls of wool into little fluffy spheres and making them into one big soft circle!


They're so easy to do. I use pom pom makers. I ordered mine from Amazon but you can pick them up in other places too. If I didn't have these, I'd be using the old two pieces of cardboard method and I can guarantee that the obsession wouldn't have taken hold if I was doing it that way. It would take far too long.


I purchased some wire rings to use as a base. I started with 10" and have since used 14", 12" and 8" too. My very first wreath was made using a simple ring of cardboard. If I were to do that again I'd wrap the whole thing in wool, ribbon or fabric before tying on the pom poms, just to make it a little prettier.


I make a large selection of pom poms first and when I have what I think is enough, I begin tying them onto the ring. Generally I like to have an odd number of the largest size, so that it doesn't look too symmetrical, but this one didn't work out that way.


I don't like them to be too neat and precise so when I space them out I make the spacing random. I tie them on until all the space is filled, making more if I need to.


Then I step back and gaze at it a while. Sometimes I add another pom pom here or there, sometimes I remove one or two and make alternatives. This goes on until I'm happy with the end result.

And then I start all over again...

So I can look back at these after they're sold and in their new homes, here are all the wreaths I've made so far.

They all have names. My friend used to name each piece of furniture she restored and sold. When I started making these I knew that she'd love them so I named them all in her honour.


Rose


Holly


Merry

Dee


Robyn


Ivy


Berry

 Blythe

Candy

Belle

Dorothy

Luna

Hattie

Fizz

Buzz

Dasher

Violet

Dancer

Dolly

Rara. I spent a very enjoyable afternoon making this with my youngest nephew and two nieces. It's for their Grandma (aka Rara) to hang up for Christmas.

Lottie

I've shared the sheep. Here's a little more of The Royal Norfolk Show, mostly poultry and flowers. And a few more sheep.

The Royal Norfolk Show is very much like the Suffolk Show, or the Hadleigh Show, (or any other county show I imagine) both of which I've visited in the past few years. Lots to do, see, eat, drink, watch, photograph, spend your money on, but they don't seem to differ wildly from each other. The Hadleigh Show is on a smaller scale but that's actually quite nice, I feel I got to see it all. That said I still got lost in the car park, and once I'd found my car, I then couldn't find the exit (I really shouldn't be allowed out without adult supervision).

A Silkie Chicken. Very pretty, if a little on the alien side.


Not simply an angry bird, this one was thoroughly pissed off. If those eyes don't 'say sleep with one eye open' I don't know what does. I gingerly took this photo fearing I might lose a finger.


This is called a Belgian Hare, but it's actually a rabbit breed. I couldn't remember the name so I Googled 'dark brown hare'. Google assumed I'd made a typo and the results came back with lots of pictures of brunettes. Rude.


This is a rabbit. This is it's face. No, really.


A Lionhead rabbit if my memory serves me correctly.


And this guy. How does he get a good night's sleep? Beware of horns? No kidding!


The flower tent had 'Instagram worthy' written all over it, and yet I failed to post any to my feed. I was happy to simply capture it in a photo (or several).


Vintage John Deere. Andy's Dad has one that will, hopefully, look like this when the restoration is complete. It's a slow process given that they have so little time to work on it.


And just because I can't stop with the sheep, here are a few looking amused, although in reality they're really just chewing their food.
           

They make me smile.

The first full weekend of the month saw England play (and beat) Sweden in The World Cup. I watched the game alone as Andy was gearing up for harvest and working all day, everyday. He hadn't started working into the evenings but as kick-off was a 3pm, he missed the game.

I sat down with an elderflower spritzer and picked up my knitting (standard practice when watching football, yes?). I can't just sit and watch football, I have to have something else to do (I used knitting to ease the tension of the England vs Columbia penalties). By the end of the game I realised that I'd finished my third lion. Apt, right?

It seems like an eternity ago already, it's a shame we didn't make the final, but didn't the England team do us proud?

The Sunday was all about pom poms and writing blog posts. I always have 20 - 30 posts in draft, some which need updating as time goes on - my seasonal list, or my Day Zero updates for example, and others that I just need to get on and finish!


The following Saturday was Latitude. I camped at a site in Dunwich with friends on the Friday and Saturday nights. On the Friday I made my way to the campsite to help set up the tents in the afternoon. Whilst my friend returned to Ipswich to pick up his kids from school, I spent a few hours on the beach. I read, I napped a little, and I made a sea bouquet for our tent - something every tent should have!

The evening consisted of a BBQ on the beach, and sitting around a bonfire until 1am catching up with friends I haven't seen for far too long.


The next day we didn't get to the festival until 2pm and our first stop was to find food! I don't feel like I explored as much of the festival as I normally do. I didn't go into the forest at all, and there were lots of new things that I just didn't get time to check out.


I did meet up with Sophie though, and we fell back into our normal Latitude routine of bouncing between the Radio 6 tent and the main arena, with trips to the bar in between. I then found the friends I'd arrived with and headed to the main stage to watch The Killers. They were awesome. The 2 hour wait to get out of the car park however, was no fun at all. It was chaos and there was not a single warden around to help. Luckily I wasn't driving so I was able to get some sleep in the back of the car.

On the Sunday I got up surprisingly early considering I didn't get to bed until almost 2.30am. The day consisted of slowly packing up the tent, whilst drinking mug after mug of tea, and making my way home.

Andy was at work until late and I arrived home to an empty house with a touch of the festival blues. I made a pom pom wreath to keep myself occupied.

I'm hoping to go to Latitude for the entire weekend next year. I feel like I missed so much by only going for one day, but I did enjoy the camping tremendously. It's years since I've been.

The third weekend of the month was one I decided would be just general pottering and with a little being sociable thrown in.

The Saturday was all about pom pom making, and in the evening I went to friends house to watch a scary movie. The film was IT, which was rather good and thankfully not as scary as I thought it would be. Then we watched a documentary about a haunted farm house in the middle of nowhere. It was terrifying, and then I had to drive home to my farmhouse in the middle of nowhere... I had to have a cup of tea and a sit in the garden with my friends until I felt brave enough to drive home alone. In the cold light of day this seems ridiculous, at nearly 1am in the near pitch black it seems totally reasonable.


Sunday I made more pom poms (have I mentioned how addictive it is?) and Andy was working close by so he popped home for lunch, which was a lovely and unexpected surprise. Later I nipped to my  brother's for a while and came home with an abandoned knitting project to frog and make into more pom poms.


The final weekend was dedicated, once again, to pom poms. I made my biggest one yet - 14". Saturday was Photo An Hour and Sunday consisted of more pom poms and the making of a Malteser cheesecake for my nephew's 18th Birthday BBQ the following day.

...................

It was my wish at the beginning of the year to avoid that Sunday night feeling of a weekend wasted. My goal was to have a plan in place for the coming weekend by each Friday evening. July seems to have been largely dominated by pom poms (if you're wondering about the pom poms you can read more here. Long story short - I had a load of green wool that needed a use, I decided pom pom wreaths were the answer, and I'll be selling them on a craft stall in September, October and November), but it's also been a good month for seeing friends I haven't seen in far too long.

For my summer capsule wardrobe I decided to have a monthly edit, instead of keeping it the same for three months. Doing so means I can swap things around each month and wear more of my summer clothes.

My July Capsule was lovely, full of lots of colour, and things I don't get the opportunity to wear very often. For August I removed a few things that need mending, a few things I didn't wear and added some new (to me) items and some things I purchased last year that have yet to be worn.

With the glorious weather we've been enjoying it's been lovely to wear my summeriest of summer dresses and skirts. I'm hoping this month will be more of the same, we've had some rain and a few grey days, can we have the sun back for the rest of the month now please?

I realised in July that I probably didn't need 36 items for 31 days, but I couldn't bring myself to eliminate anything more from this month's total of 34. I have too much that I love and want to wear. Which isn't a bad position to be in really.

This is the first week in my August Capsule.

I couldn't wait to wear my new (to me) cropped jeans and wore them two days in a row - some might say that you shouldn't be seen in the same thing twice, but I couldn't care less, they're so comfy!

The lace top in the first outfit is one I purchased in May last year. When I realised this it immediately went into the capsule. It works well with the high waist of the cropped jeans.

The next day I wore them with a pre-loved top that's been around a while. I wore this for two days in a row too, again firmly sticking two fingers up at anyone who tries to tell me 'you can't be seen wearing the same thing twice'. Absolute piffle. Why can't we all just agree that everyone wears their clothes more than once and it's insanity to pretend otherwise.

I also wore my sequin top and denim shorts for the first time, and used my newest purchase - a mustard coloured shoulder bag - because I couldn't wait to give it an outing.


As the week drew to an end I wore a long floral maxi. I've not worn this before. I bought this imagining I'd wear it on a faraway beach at sunset (this beautifully illustrates the dream world I inhabit most of the time). The last time I was walking on foreign sand was in the Sahara, and this would've been most impractical. Before that I was in Zanizbar for my best friend's wedding 9 years ago. My point being that I rarely find myself on distant shores, so pottering about in it at home and nipping to the shop will have to suffice, and let's face it, in this heat I could be some where abroad.

What's your favourite item in your summer wardrobe?