Jean Genie

It's taken over six years, but I've finally done it.

With a wiggle and a squeeze, a huff and a puff, I managed to get into my pre-children jeans.

Woo hoo!

For those blessed with good genes and a fast metabolism rate (p.s. I hate you), this might have been a doddle. But having three kids in six years has taken its toll on my waistline, which has been up and down more times than a tarts knickers.

Last year with my family completed, I made it my goal to get into a pair of my favourite jeans that hadn't seen the outside world since I stopped wearing them whilst being six months pregnant with Minxy.

It's a wonder that they're still in fashion considering Natasha Beddingfield was number one at the time. Luckily, you can't go wrong with straight-legged dark denim.

I read somewhere that if you want to achieve your diet goal, put a picture of yourself looking fabulous on the fridge to ward away temptation. Hanging my jeans on the front of my wardrobe was the visual equivalent.

Having kick started my goal by joining Weight Watchers, I initially dropped a decent amount of baby weight. Then I signed up to do a 10k charity run to keep the momentum going.

Running regularly kept muffin top at bay, plus I joined a local group of mums who ran around the area twice a week. Before long, I was really getting into this exercising lark, and I signed up to do The MoonWalk with bunch of friends. We're going to walk a half marathon around the streets of London this May. At Night. In our bras. Yes, we are crazy, but it's all in the name of raising money for breast cancer causes.

Anyway, all this running about has led to busting those baby pounds once and for all. Well, nearly.

Plus, there's nothing like catching the vomit bug from your children, followed by excruciating toothache to decrease your food intake.

I still have a little way to go mind. When I tried on the jeans, I did that sucking in your tummy-whilst-bent-double thing in order to get the button to meet the button hole.

And I actually couldn't walk that comfortably. Um, or sit down. But you know what? I blinking did it, and in a few months I'll hopefully be slinking around in them properly.

The old me is just a matter of months away....

You've been framed

Woah, doesn't time just fly by?

For the past month, I've been working on a project for the house.

I have a big blank wall that has been waiting to be filled with pictures.

For years.



You know what it's like, you have a gazillion digital pictures on your computer and keep meaning to print them out and frame them.

But you never do.

Before you know it, another year has passed. A thousand pictures later, you're back to square one looking at them, but not doing anything with them.

Then there is that fear lurking in the back of your mind. What if one day your computer just died?

All those memories were gone. In an instant.

Wah!

We've done the sensible thing and invested in some whizzy bang back up thingy, but what if that went kaput?

Double wah!

This year I decided enough is enough.

So the conclusion is: Must. Print. Them. Out.

It was actually the fabulous people at Photobox who got me motivated.

After submitting a picture of the children taken from a recent photoshoot, they sent me a complimentary canvas. It was beautiful. Thanks guys.

The quality was fantastic and I would highly recommend them, plus starting at a affordable £22.99 for a canvas print (excluding postage) you could treat yourself or loved ones without breaking the bank.

Receiving the picture made me think 'cripes, the kids will be at uni before I get this wall completed.'

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I'm a little bit artsy and a little bit crafty. And as we're still in the midst of an economic crisis, I'm trying to think up fabulous ideas on a limited budget.

Along with lovely shiny frames I already have, I've been buying up old frames and giving them a new lease of life.

It's dead simple and the result looks marvellous.


All I've done is repainted the frame using a tester pot and covered the mount with some cool wrapping paper.


These were originally gold with a white mount. Now they are a lot more interesting to look at.

Easy peasy.

You can do it too. All you need to do is buy some frames - pick up good quality (but affordable) ones from car boot sales, charity shops, gumtree, freecycle, and eBay.

Take out the picture and you're ready to go.

Everyone has tester pots lying around. So make use of them.

Nice wrapping paper doesn't have to cost the earth. Places like Paperchase, Scribbler, and independent shops all do nice individual sheets of paper. Or just trot to the supermarket and pick some up from there.

You could even use fabric or wallpaper samples for a contrast.

The plan is to continue to 'upcycle' some more frames, print out our pictures, and finally mount them all at the same time.

It's going to take a while, but I'll show you the results when I've finished.