STEAL OF THE WEEK: BOOKS FROM CHARITY SHOPS!

When I went camping with my boyfriend recently, we pootled along to some nearby towns and villages to see what we could find in the charity shops. Tom tended to browse through the bric-a-brac and furniture, whilst I would mostly gravitate towards the books. And I came away with a fair few!

Five of these books I picked up for £1 total(!), and the other paperbacks ranged in price from 75p to around £1.30. The hardback Andrea Levy novel was £2, but the cover is super pretty and the blurb sort of enticed me to buy it.

What's the best bargain you've ever found in a charity shop?

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STEAL OF THE WEEK: £3 DRESS FROM PRIMARK!

This post is a little later than planned, but I couldn't not tell you all about this amaaazing bargain from Primark! Originally priced at £13, this adorable embroidered dress was reduced to £7 in the end-of-summer sale. It was the very last one of its style on the rack, and was thankfully in my size. Phew! I very gladly tried it on (just to be on the safe side), and found that it fit beautifully. I emerged from the changing rooms beaming and queued up to pay for my wonderful new dress. When I got to the till, the price was corrected even more and the dress came up as only £3! Bargain or what? I just love it when that happens!

What bargains did you pick up in the end-of-summer sales?

STEAL OF THE WEEK: SALE ITEMS FROM H&M.

The weather's cooling down in England at the moment, so I thought I'd tell you about some amazing bargains I found in the sales, which are perfect for autumn. I paid a visit to H&M and they had this crazy deal on: 2 for 1 on all sale items! I found this lovely dark green/teal jumper for £7 almost immediately, and I kept searching - I had to find something else to get for free, of course! I'd almost given up when I caught sight of this beautiful bodycon monochrome snakeskin-style print skirt. It was only £5 and I fell in love with it instantly, but was unsure whether I could pull off such a bold print. I tried it on and was pleasantly surprised with how it looked. It's a very flattering fit and it comes down to a modest length, especially on shorter ladies like moi!

What have you picked up in the sales recently?

STEAL OF THE WEEK: JEWELLERY FROM MATALAN.

A few weeks ago, my parents said they were going shopping to Matalan for some last minute stuff for our holiday, so I tagged along as well, thinking I could find a couple nice things in the sale section too. Browsing through the clothes and shoes, nothing really jumped out at me, but when I hit the accessories section, I went a bit crazy!

STEAL OF THE WEEK: CRAFT SUPPLIES FROM THE WORKS + 20% DISCOUNT CODE.

In the UK, there's this shop called The Works (link to their website here). I kind of accidentally stumbled into one of their stores whilst holiday shopping and found that they sold quite a large selection of books, stationery and craft supplies at seriously reduced prices. One amazing offer that I noticed was The Song of Ice and Fire entire book collection for £29.99 - reduced from £65!

So naturally, my parents and I spent a long time looking around for some more of these fantastic deals. My mum grabbed three cookbooks for £1.99 each, one of which is for students - that one'll definitely come in handy in September ;) - and my dad picked up a motorbiking book. I grabbed some craft paper and materials in this vintage design for 99p...

…and a small canvas for £1.99.

I also spotted this really cool book called Textura: Valencia Street Art. It's about the graffiti and wall art all over the city of Valencia. What persuaded me to buy this book is that it's written in both English and Spanish - two columns of text, each written in one of the two languages. As I'm going on holiday this year to Spain, I thought I'd try and gain some of my Spanish vocabulary and translation skills back, by reading the Spanish and then if I get stuck, I can take a sneaky peek at the English! The RRP for this book was about £25, but I somehow snatched it up for £3.99!

This is all I bought in the store, but the person at the till also gave me a points card to register when I got home. This was the moment when I realised "omg they have an online store I'm totally gonna buy everything they have" and I pretty much did just that! I ordered a load of craft supplies and other bits and bobs from their website, which probably would have cost me about £20-30 if I'd got it all from Hobbycraft. As it is, I only paid £8.77 for all the stuff I'm about to show you! So here goes:

I got this really cool London Underground wrapping paper for 59p...

…ten sheets of this really good quality black card for 99p…

…these little flipbooks with cute designs inside, each for 99p…


…this cool textured paper in five different colours for 99p…


…these pads of paper in different designs, each for 99p…



…this 2014 calendar and diary for 25p (both together!)…

 

…and lastly this magazine with tons of Photoshop tutorials inside for £1.99.



I'm absolutely chuffed with the stuff that I ordered, especially because they were such bargains! If any of you are interested in ordering things from their online store too, it says on their website here that they ship to mostly just the UK and Northern Ireland, but they can also deliver to the rest of Ireland, Canada, Australia and the USA.

Once I'd actually made my order, I got sent a code for 20% off your first order to share with friends, so I thought - why not share it on my blog? To get this discount, just type into the promotional code box at the checkout: RCF20, or alternatively you can click this link here. This discount code expires on 19th August 2014, so get your orders in quick if you want to benefit from it!

Also, occasionally The Works will have a week or a weekend where they'll give you a code for free delivery on all orders or a different percentage discount, so keep your eyes peeled for these on their website, as they might be better than the 20% code I've given you. I don't think, however, that you can use multiple promotional codes on the same order, so just calculate it all out to see which code would be better for you :)

Have any of you bought stuff from The Works before? If not, where do you go to get cheaper books and craft supplies?

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post and all opinions are my own.

STEAL OF THE WEEK: £1 JUMPER FROM PRIMARK!

This is actually a men's jumper, but I saw it and instantly loved it even before I saw the price - I couldn't believe it was only £1! Well, I suppose they were just trying to get rid of the wintery stuff to make more room for the summer fashion. The jumper itself isn't too thick but it's still wonderfully cosy, and it'll make a nice addition to my collection of jumpers for when I go up north next year for uni!

STEAL OF THE WEEK: BOOKS FROM WHSMITH OUTLET.

I was casually going round the Designer Outlet Village at Cheshire Oaks and thought I'd pay a visit to the WHSmith store. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, just having a browse, so I kinda bumped into the clearance section by accident. They had a specific offer on that caught my eye: 3 for 2 on all books in the clearance section. So I was having a nosey at what books they had and I luckily spotted these three by Michael Grant. Bzrk and Fear are both paperbacks and Light is a hardcover. I had some of the books in the Gone series already, but not Fear and Light, so it just made total sense to pick them up - besides, the rest of the books in the clearance didn't really appeal to me very much.

When I turned each book over, I was shocked but super pleased to see that they were only £3 each! They weren't damaged in any way at all, so I'm not really sure why they were in the clearance section, but I wasn't about to complain! So those prices put together with the 3 for 2 offer meant that I only paid £6 for three brand new books - a complete bargain! This was even cheaper than Amazon, which is where I normally order my books from!

STEAL OF THE WEEK: IPHONE 5S CASE.

I was very lucky to have my previous phone upgraded to an iPhone 5S, so, of course, that meant I had to buy myself a cool new case! My previous phone case was in the style of a cassette and I knew I wanted to get something similar but not exactly the same. I knew I also wanted a silicone case again because it's really grippy and makes the phone feel more sturdy in your hand. When I saw this one on the internet, I knew it was the one for me!

I bought this case through Amazon, but it is actually from a company called Online Best Digital. I paid £1.79 for it and it had free delivery. On the Amazon website, it said that delivery would take between 7-23 days, however mine arrived in the post after 5 days, which was brilliant! My new phone is white like the case so the two go perfectly together. Overall, it was a complete bargain and a fantastic buy - I would definitely recommend this case to other iPhone 5 or 5S users! There is a link to the case on Amazon here.

STEAL OF THE WEEK: PUSH PINS FROM PAPERCHASE.

I paid a visit to Paperchase and picked up this pack of push pins or drawing pins (whatever you like to call them!) for £1.75 - reduced from £2.50. I am aware that you can get a pack of 200 from stores like Staples but those shops don't tell as cute stuff as this! In this pack, there are 18 little raindrop-shaped pins in assorted colours like purple and blue and there are two larger stripy cloud-shaped pins in similar colours. I got these because they go really nicely with the colour scheme of my room. Now I just need to find myself a board to use them on...!!

STEAL OF THE WEEK: PURPLE CUSHION FROM ALDI.

I spotted this gorgeous purple cushion in Aldi (the home of bargains) for £2.99. I would have been happy to pay the original price of either £6.99 or £4.99 (I can't quite remember which!) because it looks a lot more expensive than it actually was! This is probably because it has this baroque-style pattern on it in a sort of shiny material, that looks different shades of purple when it catches the light differently.

I chose this cushion basically because my room is mostly purple (however, I will be changing the colour of the walls soon to white/grey/cream, but keeping the rest of the purple decor). It came with the inner cushion inside it already, and there is a zip across one of the longer edges so that you can remove the inner to wash the cover if need be. I think it goes quite nicely in my room, especially with this particular set of bedsheets. I will definitely be adding more to my collection of cushions in the near future!

STEAL OF THE WEEK: DENIM JACKET FROM M&S.

Not long ago, I went shopping with my mum, and whenever I go shopping with my mum, we always have to pay a visit to M&S. Most of the clothes that are sold in this particular shop are for more mature women; not usually for young people like myself. On occasions before, I have managed to find the odd gem that looks quite youthful in this store. So, we were routing around in the final reductions section when my mum found this denim jacket. When she showed it to me, I immediately fell in love with it. 

It is a light blue denim jacket, very slightly cropped, with quite a large fit. What I mean by this is that it isn't fitted; you could quite easily layer things up beneath it in the winter. Before we found this jacket, I had already been looking around for one and successfully purchased a different denim jacket from H&M. That jacket was darker and of a slimmer fit and therefore, I think, slightly more formal than this one from M&S. I did decide to get this jacket as well because of the difference in colour and fit. Also, who could leave a denim jacket that cost only £8 - yes £8! - on the rail? I believe it was reduced from about £35, so it was a complete bargain!

It was only when I got home that I also realised that my new jacket had two inside pockets as well as the two on the outside! This makes it even more practical and wearable in day to day life for me.

 I really love the pattern of the material inside the sleeves of this jacket!

STEAL OF THE WEEK: MOVIES FROM ALDI.

I only realised that Aldi sold DVDs very recently, despite having gone shopping with my parents there for many years. Usually they sell quite a lot of films that have been released over the last few years at the extremely reasonable price of £2.99. However, last time I went in, I picked up a couple of films at £1.99 each - they had been reduced even more! If you live in the UK, I would definitely recommend paying Aldi a visit for very cheap films - cheaper than Amazon in most cases. They would make brilliant stocking fillers for Christmas!

STEAL OF THE WEEK: TISSUE PAPER FROM PAPERCHASE.

The other day, I paid a visit to Paperchase to see what they had in the sales. All the stationery in Paperchase is so adorable; I couldn't possibly just walk past the shop! I managed to find this pack of 3 sheets of tissue paper (each 50x75cm in size) for only 40p! It had been reduced from £1.75 so, of course, I couldn't just leave it there! I think I will use it to wrap up smaller gifts for my friends when it gets to their birthdays.

I really love the colours used in this tissue paper: turquoise, mint, plum, lime green, grey, etc... and it also incorporates the phrases 'time flies' and 'tick tock' in a calligraphy-style font amongst the many different clock faces, which adds a little extra something to the overall design.