
Blogger Swap Shop Party with VoucherCodes
I bloody love a good rummage through a rail full of vintage togs. Whether it’s in Beyond Retro or just my local Oxfam, there’s always the joyful prospect of uncovering a treasure- like the time I found a MaxMara coat for £30- SORRY ABOUT ME! So when VoucherCodes sent me an invite for their Winter Blogger Swap Shop Party I was more than a bit excited- and not just because they’d promised there would be mac & cheese there. So, slinging on a new cream vintage jumper and a slick of my new favourite lippy (Kiss Of Life by Kate Moss for Rimmel- literally the same colour and texture as MAC’s Ruby Woo but a mere sliver of the price) and OFF I TROTTED!
The idea for this genius event is everyone digs around in their wardrobe for five items of clothing or accessories that they no longer use. You bring them along, and exchange them for a set of ‘stamps’. Then, once the rails are bursting, you get stuck in and trade in your stamps for other people’s swaps! Whatever’s left over at the end then gets donated to charity. WINNER.
I teamed up with the lovely Hannah, the brainchild behind the brilliant Crafternoon Cabaret and whilst the rails were being dressed, we had a wander round.
Obviously the first port of call was the bar. The boys from HireTheBarman were busy mixing up elderflower and gin cocktails, so I mean, it was always going to be a great night really wasn’t it?
As well as keeping us nicely watered, there was a veritable DELIGHT of delicious things to munch too. WARNING: this next bit contains pictures of the fittest mac and cheese you’ve ever seen- courtesy of Anna Maes. Don’t do anything stupid like lick your computer screen now.
Once the rails were open, it was every woman for herself! Luckily though, there was so much booty on offer that I think everyone came away jolly pleased with their wares. We did one lap then settled in for some other treats whilst the hullaballoo died down a bit. And NO we didn’t just hang out by the bar (though we did have a few pit-stops there.) We teamed up with fellow blogstress Katy and went to meet the lovely gals from Vanity Van who supplied us with glittery Christmas lips!
As I previously mentioned, Hannah runs a bitching event once a month called Crafternoon Cabaret– I went once and made artwork out of buttons all whilst indulging in some daytime drinking (my favourite kind.) Given that I had a craft EXPERT on hand, it seemed silly not to go over and have a go at the activities on the craft table, all supervised by Sew Over It, who were there sewing monograms on everyone’s new items. We settled down to make some nice, easy headbands. Within minutes I had superglue all over my hands and was STRESSED.
However, with a bit of help from Hannah I NAILED the hairband situation.
The picture she’d taken of me was uploaded to Instagram and hashtagged and the lads from Rife were printing them out as polaroids. So we played a fun game of INCEPTION because we’re really mature and not annoying at all.

Me holding pictures of me holding pictures of me holding pictures of me (lipstick by Rimmel, jowls by me)
Those fabulous birds are the creation of an AMAZING balloon artist called Twistina who made all manner of inflatable accessories. I’d never seen a unicorn made out of balloons before!
As well as our swaps, we were TREATED to a goody bag with bits and bobs from Boden, Dorothy Perkins, House of Fraser and Matalan to name but a few, including some gorgeous Christmas decs!
As for the rest of my haul…
I did RATHER WELL! Some of my favourite items were:
IT WAS A BLOODY BRILLIANT NIGHT! Thanks so much VoucherCodes- you really know how to throw a party! To have a little video glimpse of the bash, have a gander at this! Ten points if you spot me. I’m the one being a bellend. As per.
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Making Lately | Crafternoon Cabaret Club
March 27, 2015 at 3:01 pm[…] or create a long, complicated, photo based game of INCEPTION as Katie and I did at the Voucher Codes swap shop!). Watch this space for how that goes but I’m hoping it will be the perfect springboard to […]
Being a social blogger | Crafternoon Cabaret Club
April 6, 2015 at 11:01 am[…] all the gin cocktails, got our lips painted with glitter, ate mac and cheese and basically had a completely awesome night with lots of awesome people! It was a brilliant experience so I’m trying to be much braver […]
maxine
April 20, 2015 at 2:56 pmLove the ice cream hat. Stumbled across your blog from another blog….and so it goes. I would love to meet up with other bloggers. I launched a month ago and would love some advice and support on how to keep it all ticking along. I really want to make a success of this! So any pointers as to when the next event it would be amazing. Thank you so much