Category Archives: Sabrina’s How To

How to make Birthday Bags on a Budget

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How to make Birthday Bags on a Budget – it can be done!

My son recently had his birthday and a part of me was disheartened by the fact that I couldn’t afford to throw him a birthday party, one where his friends could come. We had family things going on all week but nothing with his school friends.

After talking to him about it one afternoon a week before his birthday, I asked him if he would like to do anything for his birthday on the day besides attend school, He said that he would like to share his favourite things with his school friends. I thought it was a lovely idea so we chatted about what sort of items he would include. After a lengthy conversation I decided we could do some birthday bags, and I hunted around for the best bargains. I was on a strict budget to I checked where things were on offer and started making a list.

So how do you make up a birthday bag?

You need either a birthday bag or a party bag, there are many varieties available online. You can get them usually with a handle so they are perfect for little hands to hold.
I also chose to buy the plastic cones because I didn’t want Oreos to break up and/or go stale in the bags. This worked perfectly to break things up into sections, the Edibles and the Toys.

How do you stick to your Budget and get the best value?

✩ Sabrina’s Top Tips ✩

There are several ways to stick to budget and also find the best deals, here are my tips.
1. Decide your budget and make a list of what you need to buy.
2. How many are you buying for? Sometimes it’s cheaper to buy 50 bags than 20, bare this in mind.
3. Watch out for “lowest price in 30 days” and other useful slogans on offers.
4. Compare supermarkets online before you go out to do the shopping.
5. Use supermarket offers if you have a discount card with them.
6. Visit budget stores and compare the items you have seen online.
7. Always read the online reviews and filter by most recent as well.
8. Bulk Buy – Depending on whether you can reuse an item in the future for something else or even sell the remainder of the items on, bulk buying can be beneficial. (For us the Oreo’s were cheaper to bulk buy and so were the party bags). My son will happily eat any leftover biscuits let me tell you.
9. Work out the maximum you would like to spend, divide that by how many you are buying for, let’s say it’s 20 children. So divide your budget by 20, and you will understand how much it will cost to do a bag per child. Once you’ve made some essential purchases work out what is remaining of your budget and only spend what you have left. It might be that you have to buy a massive bag of sweets and divide them by hand into little sweet bags like I did with the Oreo biscuits.

Think smarter with your money and not buying things simply for convenience.

Why did we choose the items?

Picking for a mixture of genders is always tricky, but I don’t know a child who doesn’t love stickers and sweets / chocolate biscuits. Oreo is the choice because my son has food allergies but luckily he can eat original Oreo. The cars were because they were pull-back and super cool but also a car is gender neutral in my eyes, same goes for the bouncy balls. I asked all the parents (or my son told me) what peoples favourite colours were, and then labelled the bags and added the toys in accordingly. If I had someone who loved Red they got a red tie on their biscuit cone and they got a red car and a red ball. I would’ve loved to have included bubbles too but they would have sent me over budget. You could swap the bouncy balls for bubbles if your child would prefer those.

What did we include in the final bags?

20 Pull Back Cars cost £7
35 Bouncy Balls cost £7
Stickers cost £2.00 (50 sheets)
Oreo Biscuits cost £4
22 Haribo Sweets (Individual Packets) cost £3
100 Sweet Plastic Cones cost £3
40 Happy Birthday Bags cost £4

I divided the stickers between the children’s bags and kept the rest for my own reward charts at home, meaning each sheet only cost me 4 pence. Bargain!

Total Spent: £30.00
Total of Children: 16
Cost per Child: £1.79

I don’t think this was too bad, 16 happy children for less than £30 (as we had leftovers) and it was much cheaper than throwing a birthday party. My son got to share his favourite items with his friends too!

We have also got left over bouncy balls, birthday bags, cone bags, 6 sweet bags and 4 cars. The leftover pieces we can use whenever we like or give away at other occasions.

At the end of the day you can’t put a price on a child’s happiness and my son was over the moon to help me give out these little bags of joy to all of his friends at school, so that they could all celebrate his happy birthday together.

Thank you for reading this blog post today, I hope you have found it interesting and perhaps got a few useful tips in case you ever decide to do bags for your child’s birthday or a birthday party.

I hope I see you here again soon!

✩ Sabrina ✩

How I Helped My Child Fall in Love with Numbers

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I am a huge believer in passing on knowledge to people when it might be useful to them, and for many years I had considered being a teacher. However my life took a different direction once I went off to university. It didn’t stop me from coming up with things that others may find handy though, it was just one of many reasons I decided to start my blog all those years ago.

After I became a parent I found I was coming up with lots of hacks and tips for my son that other parents might also find useful. This particular blog post today is all about NUMBERS! My son learnt his numbers 1 to 10 very quickly thanks to my tips and tricks, by the time he started preschool at 3 he could count to 31. He is now 4 and thanks to my encouragement he can count to a whopping 500!

The fab thing about my tips is that you may already have some of these items laying around in your home that you can use, and if not you can make your own cards like I have also done. Check out online second hand and local shops if you don’t have anything, as well as asking friends who may have slightly older children if they could have a clear out for you. Let me tell you about how I introduced and taught my son about numbers.

Child Clocks or Numbered Blocks

Your baby may already have toys with numbers on, things for age 6 month plus normally have various things on them, you may find a mix of nature and numerical combinations or well known characters with basic shapes and or numbers too. Toys and playmats also sometimes have numbers, those talking toys certainly will, but teaching your little one how to recognise a number visually is important.

You can easily get wooden toys that contain clocks on them or boards with numbers that can be removed and set out in a numerical order. These toys are great for learning the starter numbers (1-10) but also for starting with basic mathematics too. I bought my son a board of numbers and he has a wooden clock as well gifted by a relative. The blocks in my image above were bought online and are of the brand Infantino, these BPA free plastic cubes have an array of animals and numerical variations on them such as dots and actual written numbers. They were some of the first numbers my son saw as a baby.

My son would like to count things around him, so say I gave him 4 smiley faces for his tea I would ask how many I had given him, soon he started counting everything. 2 swings at the park, 7 birds on the fence, 5 sheep in the field. And so on, and lots of praise and encouragement when they get something right is also essential. Make learning a fun thing to do and participate in.

You can also begin time telling by showing them a phone or a watch and asking them to find the time. If they have a child’s clock they can match that time. A children’s clock may just have turn-able clock hands or some have the digits that are also removeable too. For example it might be 10.30am so you ask them what that would look like on their clock and see if they select the numbers appropriately. Making it fun means that it is more likely to sink in to their mind. If they have breakfast at 7.30am every day, you could ask them what the time is on the kitchen clock if you have a steady routine, or if bedtime is 7pm too.


The Home Calendar Block

My calendar block is also a clock! Many of us will have a Calendar block at home, these blocks rotate daily and allow children to understand the passing of days into months. When my son was two I introduced him to my block set, and every single morning before breakfast we would rotate the blocks. I started by giving him one and me the other, I would say something like “Today is the 17th so we need a 1 and a 7, I have the 7, can you find me a 1 please?” And his interest developed from there. Soon I could ask him to find any of the numbers from One to Thirty One and he could place them on the block correctly. For the past two years we have done this every day and he has learnt to count up to 31 just by doing the calendar. My son also asked me why the months were different numbers, why it didn’t go up to Thirty Two and such, it sparked an interest which lead to me making his flashcards up to 50 numbers.

Flashcards – Bought or Homemade

Flashcards are great, you can buy them from most online toy retailers, or if are creative and have pens, like me you could make them. My son has 50 of these homemade numbers now, and thanks to some games he can count up to 500. He does number work at school, and even got an award recently for how good he was with counting numbers. Making it colourful and fun is inviting the child to participate. Always encourage but never force your child to learn, do it on their own terms when you are at home. Plus if it is fun they will be more likely to want to repeat the exercise. My son is currently doing writing practice for his letters and numbers and coming on great thanks to wipeable board books which I highly recommend because they are reusable.

Originally I only made ten numbers but my son was soon asking for more, and the more he enjoyed counting them and laying them out in their order, the more I wanted to continue making and encouraging that growth in learning.

When my son turned 3 I also made a set of flashcards that had the number and the written word such as One and 1 on them, this was so my son learnt the word associated with the number in preparation for reading and writing them.

Other Fun Number Related Activities

Playing Dominoes is another fun learning activity which requires the counting of numbers, and games like Yahtzee, Playing Cards or Rummikub are also fun to start with children of a going to school age.

However you keep using numbers in your child’s life, know this, you are helping them learn through play.

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Thank you for reading this parenting related blog post today. I have tons of parenting tips and hacks across my blog and social media. I even do a Monday Mum Hack on Instagram.

Search #SevernSabrina and #SabrinasMondayMumHacks

Hope to see you here again soon.

✩ Sabrina ✩

Fantastic Quality Magnetic Weekly Whiteboard from Tesco allows you to Plan for the Week ahead with ease

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Hello and Welcome to my blog!
Today I am writing up another product review for you from a recent purchase that I really felt the need to shout about.

The Tesco Magnetic Planner Board was only £3.00 in my local Tesco Extra store. Not only is that great value for money, but it is high quality throughout. As a whiteboard it’s both easy to write on and easy to see with the contrast in white board and black pen.

Inside the cellophane you get the white board planner with the seven days of the week and space to write on the other side. You find two magnetic strips with sticky tape attached so that you can align them and stick them down to suit your needs. Having this board on the fridge in the kitchen is a great idea for keeping track of meals. But you may want to use it for appointments or children’s activities, it’s so versatile.

I bought this to be a meal planner, and was pleasantly surprised when I opened up the pen to find that not only does it write well and smooth, but it has a sponge attached on the lid part so that you can use it to rub writing out once you’re done! That means no more wasting kitchen roll towels cleaning off the board! Another big tick for me! You can also recycle the cellophane the board comes wrapped in at your local Tesco too.


Something else very useful is that the pen does have a designated stand and loop to go into at the top of the board, however there is also a magnet attached to the pen lid squared off part too! Meaning you can even have the pen anywhere on your fridge. Handy!

My final thought about this planner is how well it’s design has been thought out, it doesn’t take up too much space because it’s only 16cm wide by 23cm high. Even if you have a small kitchen like I do, it’s still ideal. The only way I would see you needing more of these would be if you had many children and you wanted to keep track of each one with multiple activities and appointments, which isn’t a bad thing at £3 a board you could get several.

As a mother who has a son with multiple food allergies I always write down the meals that we have had either together or separately because if any reactions were to occur I can refer back to the board that way. I have chosen to buy this so that I am not using as much paper, as I had previously written out my meal planners for the week on a Sunday and then clipped them to the fridge. This board is far more practical and if plans change it is easy to alter it too.

My Final Product Review Scores

Quality 5✩
Product Design 5✩
Product Cost 5✩
Features 5✩
Versatility 5✩

That’s a score of 5/5 and it means I highly recommend this product.

My TOP TIP would be to use this as a meal planner, you can also do one
board per child as an activities board, you can have one board as a family
board which looks at appointments and schedules. The list is endless but
you can decide what you would use yours for, and now thanks to me you
know where to find one!


Thank you for reading this product review today, I hope
I have inspired you to get a planner of your own.

Let me know what you would use yours for!

This product is my Monday Mum Hack for Monday 20th of February
too, why not check out my video on my Instagram.

✩ Sabrina ✩

Sabrina’s Chunky Pasta Sauce Made in 5 Minutes

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Sometimes all we want is a quick evening meal after a long day, so we decide on a fast cooking protein and/or carbohydrate like pasta but we then need a sauce. Only we open up the cupboards and find no jars in sight! Well fear not if this is you every once in a while! Because with my 5 minute sauce you’ll be serving up your food in no time!

Pop your pasta or rice or whatever else on to boil in the background. Then search your fridge and cupboard for any of the following items;

Tomato Puree
Salsa (Mild or Hot)
Chopped Tomatoes
Salt and Pepper
Italian Herbs or Herbs you like or Garlic too
Vegetables – Frozen or Fridge in rough chunks
Onion – Diced (Optional)

Step 1. If you have any onion fry this off in a saucepan until soft.

Step 2. Add 200ml of water to the saucepan now and add a small cup of chunky vegetables per person, easy if it’s out of your freezer but in case it isn’t… Any veg will do like peas or carrots! Just make sure if it’s fresh it’s washed (and carrots peeled) and then cut into small chunks. Add more water now just enough to cover the vegetables and bring it to the boil.

Step 3. While your veggies cook you need to make the sauce part, take all of your chosen ingredients out and put them next to your cooker, also get a tablespoon to measure with. Open any tins that you have like chopped tomatoes and wait for the veg to soften.

Step 4. Once the Veggies are soft carefully drain the water away from your saucepan, then place it back on to the cooker and begin to add the sauce elements.

Step 5. Add in 2-3 Tablespoons of Salsa, 2-3 Tablespoons of Tomato Puree.
Season to your taste with herbs, pepper, garlic etc. A sprinkle of salt is all you need.

Step 6. Mix this all together and now add in your chopped tomatoes, stir well, then return the saucepan to the heat and cook for another couple of minutes until it is hot throughout.

Step 7. Serve with your chosen accompaniment like Pasta, Rice or a Meat like Chicken.

Sprinkle some (I have Dairy Free) Cheese on top too if you like! Delicious!

Thank you for reading this Recipe Blog Post today!

I hope you have a great start to your week.

If you make my chunky pasta sauce I would love to know what you thought of it!

There are tons of Recipes here on my blog, check out the category here
called Sabrina’s Cooking in Minutes.

✩ Sabrina ✩

How to Dress your Home for a Beautiful yet simple Autumnal look with Décor on a Budget

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I love everything about a crisp Autumn day, the colours of nature in the trees, the warm sunshine and the cooler air. Wrapping up in warm clothing and taking a walk in the countryside cannot be beaten at this time of year. But how can you bring that beauty of Autumn into your home in simple yet beautiful ways and on a strict budget! Well here is how I do it!

Throw – Dunelm

My Items I bought on a Budget for Autumn Décor over the last few years

Glitter Pumpkins – Poundstretcher – £1
Plastic Light Up Pumpkin – B&M – £4
Artificial Autumn Leaves – The Works – £1 a bag (50 leaves per bag)
Wreaths, Craft Items and Wooden Pieces – The Works / eBay – 50p – £5
Autumn Fleece Throws – Asda £6 / Tesco £6 / Dunelm £7+
Artificial Pumpkins / Pine Cones / Acorns – eBay – £4-£12 depending upon how many pieces you want and which country you decide to order them from (China prices are cheaper but you’ll wait around 3 weeks for the delivery).
Autumn Cushions – Autumn Designed Cushions or Cushion Covers – Amazon / eBay / Dunelm £3 – £9

(Some of the items in my pictures I have purchased from years 2020, 2021 and 2022 and only similar items may now be available from their respective sellers).

Glitter Pumpkins – Poundstretcher
My delightful Cat in a Scarf Cushion from Next from 6 years ago.

I love nothing more than to cuddle up on my sofa with my cushions and fleece throws, getting cosy as the cold nights draw in. I have a whole box filled with throws, I have some for every season. It’s the turn of my Autumn throws like the one above, it’s navy and orange design emanating the colours of autumn.

Autumn Basket

I used an old wicker basket that I had laying around to create an Autumnal display. Inside I placed artificial leaves, pumpkins and acorns, with some pine cones. Take some leaves and gently slot them in around the outside, so that no matter what angle you look across at it you will see an autumnal theme.
You can use any spare Basket or even a Box you have laying around, paint it if you wanted to! And any size works too, the smaller your item the less things you’ll need to fill it up.

Autumn Basket from above
Light-Up Battery Pumpkin Clear – B&M (2021)

Autumn Wreath

An autumn wreath is simple to make from some of the items you’ve already bought for decorations like the pine cones and artificial leaves. You can also go on a nature walk, gather items off the floor (do not remove them from hedges or trees) and dry them out on a towel over the course of the next week. My wreaths are from The Works and eBay. You can buy them as Metal, Rattan or Wicker, but I try to buy plant based ones where they are sustainably grown and made when possible.
To make a wreath take your circle base and then using a glue gun attach a selection of artificial leaves as a base layer for your other items like pine cones and artificial pumpkins. Leave it to dry for at least a day before hanging it up, or lay it flat as a centre piece of a table for example. You could stand a vase in the centre of it to continue the theme.
I used some Wooden items as decorations for my indoor only wreath as well, which I picked up from The Works over the past two years. The Owls are a particular favourite of mine.
I am proud with how both of my wreaths have turned out. See my images below.

Homemade Wreath I made 2021

My outdoor wreath is a metal ring that I have glued a selection of items including the artificial leaves and pumpkins, small pine cones and artificial acorns.

Homemade Wreath I made 2022

Thank you for reading this Lifestyle blog post today, I hope you have enjoyed looking at my Autumn décor and I do hope I have inspired you to decorate your own home – even if it is on a strict budget like mine has been over the last few years!

Your children may also enjoy making some Autumn Craft pictures with dried autumn leaves that can be painted and printed, or simply glue a nature picture together in autumn glory and all the colours you can find. It’s so easy to do a nice printed picture using dried shapes from nature and you can even display it in your home after as part of the seasons décor.

✩ Sabrina ✩

Autumn Craft Printing for Children

How I Am Making the Return to School Easier for Everyone

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Anyone who has ever put a child in school will know that there is so much to remember that it can make your head spin. For example, last weekend I labelled shoes, 37 items of clothing, 7 lunch boxes and a variety of other smaller items. Your child will have a Bag, a Lunch Box or Bag, quite often a Book Bag, a PE Kit and Bag as well as maybe other things to take in with them too. It’s a lot of work for one person (a single parent like me) to handle, and there are time saving ways of doing things and ways to make it easier on yourself too. Let’s see what ideas I have below and what I have done during these last two weeks in preparation for school starting up again.

Yearly Wall Planner and / or Yearly Diary
Get a year long wall planner and some little round stickers to keep track of everything, make a key at one side and then add any appointments, school trips, swimming days, special dates (like those where additional things are required like dressing up or concerts) and keep updating it every time you know a knew agenda item. This is useful as well for the non-school days and other important reminders too such as Dentist, Doctors or Opticians for example. I think I would be lost without my wall planner.

Weekly Planner
A weekly planner is also something that I have on my dining room table, it’s so that on a weekend I can prepare for the week ahead, read up on any paperwork sent home from school on a Friday and let my child know what is expected of them for that upcoming week. It could be school photo week or they are expected to bring an item in for show and tell, but we will know not to forget because of the planner. I can also arrange this planner in a way that has both adult and child organised, as well as meal planning if I have items to be used on a certain evening. A useful item and much better than a phone calendar you may forget to look at, but if you sit down to eat as we do together as a family, the planner is there for you to go through so everyone knows what is what and where and when.

Labelling – It is so Important!
Label all of your children’s items for school including their lunch boxes, clothing, bags and shoes. There is nothing worse than them going to school and losing something, and because it’s not labelled it’s unlikely to be returned to you. Schools tend to have lost property boxes that are checked at the end of every day or the end of the week and the items appropriately returned, but this cannot be done without labels. I used a permanent laundry pen to write on my sons clothing labels, and I used stickers for the more solid items. Consider using their full names or even getting their own personalised stickers printed as I have done. Especially if your child has a popular first name.

Use the halved sticker hack for getting your children to put their shoes on themselves and to ensure that everyone knows which shoe is who’s. The sticker inside hack allows them to put their shoes on the correct feet every time and it’s genius. Simply cut a large sticker in half and place either side of it into the shoes. When the shoes are correct the sticker will match and the child will know that they have the shoes the correct way to go on their feet. See my photo below for inspiration.

Clothes Piles per School Day
Fold up any school clothing into “day piles” in their bedroom on a weekend ready for the school week ahead. This hack of mine is so useful, I did it over the summer too with day clothes as I was getting my son to practice getting dressed by himself. It’s so that I don’t have to police every single item of clothing going on every morning. My son has pants with the days of the week on them, and because that’s the item he will put on first he then has a pile beneath that. So you start with a pair of pants with his daily school uniform laying under it. Pants, Socks and Trousers, then his Polo Shirt last and his jumper is always downstairs and the last item to go on (to save any breakfast getting on it). It’s also so much easier on a Sunday to just make these piles up and put them in the correct bedrooms ready for the week. If you have to wash midweek, even doing two piles of clothing is better than searching drawers first thing on a Monday morning for that missing sock.

Save On Washing – Remove at the Front Door
This is always a good one! Take off their school jumpers and any “still clean” uniform pieces as soon as you get home through the door before they have time to get messy and creased. Hang the jumpers up especially on hangers close to the front door ready for the next morning. This helps save on the clothes washing and the ironing by hanging them up safely as soon as they take them off. And it’s always a good idea that a school jumper be the last item to go on in a morning routine anyway, after breakfast and teeth brushing so that it stays cleaner for longer.

Something else you can do to save on washing is always wash with full loads, if that means you get to Thursday and it isn’t full yet then why not consider wearing those similar colours yourself so as to fill up the load space.

Mini Cool Blocks
Investing in some mini cool blocks so that the children’s lunch food stays fresh is important during the warmer months of the year. I place a block under a removable plastic section of his large Sistema lunch box, or I place it at the bottom of the small cool bag I send with him. It’s important if he’s wanting chicken for his lunch which should be maintained at a low temperature to prevent it going off.
These are great for adult lunches and days out throughout the year too.

Practice Makes Perfect and Less Stressed Children
Practice the opening and closing of lunch boxes, bags with zips and coats too. We are getting to that time of the year where bags need to be closed from the weather and our coats need to be zipped up. During the summer holiday we might not have used those items very much so it’s good to refresh your children’s memories by having them practice doing these things again.
Lunch boxes are another one, as they might have a new one this term and you’ll need to make sure they can safely open and close it in order to get at their food or snacks. It’s important that your children drinks enough water while they are at school too, so get them a reusable water bottle that they really like and will continue using throughout the day.

Thank you for reading this blog post today I really hope that you’ve liked it and found at least one of my ideas to be useful. By getting yourself and your family into good habits like these early on, it will make sure you have more time and energy to deal with anything else that happens. Because life nearly always throws you a curve ball when you just about have everything under control am I right?

I hope I see you again for another of my parenting articles, I hope you have a lovely month of September with (I also hope) minimal stresses.

Best wishes,
✩ Sabrina ✩

Sabrina’s Top Twelve Ways to Save Money, Spend Less and Use Less Energy Around the Home

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Welcome to todays lifestyle blogging article “Sabrina’s Top Twelve Ways to Save Money, Spend Less on Electric and Use Less Energy Around the Home”. With the rising cost of living and lots of other prices changing, I figured I would share the ways in which I, Sabrina, a single parent, save money on a daily basis. And by drilling some of these into your head and completing them daily, you will soon see how great they are and hopefully I can help save you some money! Lets begin!

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✩ Close Your Curtains – either to keep the heat inside during colder months or to keep the heat out and keep your home cool during hot days. I often see people not closing their curtains in an evening and I wonder if they know how much energy they’re losing. As for the summer it works the same way, don’t open them in a morning to let the heat in, just leave them shut and return to a much cooler room than if you had opened them.

✩ Time your Showers – We can all be guilty of letting the hot water run over us and our minds drift off into a tangent of thoughts and procrastinations. However by either setting alarms or by playing a timed playlist on your phone while you shower, you will be saving yourself water and electricity and even time! I personally have a selection of 30 minute music playlists, and I know that when I reach the final song my half an hour of bathroom ablutions time is up! Give it a go yourself and see how you get on.

✩ Close Your Doors – even by pushing your doors within an inch or twos gap of the frame will prevent lots of heat escaping in the winter. I usually pop a door stopper on the other side of said door once we are in (for example) the lounge with no intention of moving for an hour or two. This stops children or pets pushing the door open too far and letting your heat escape into a hallway for example.

✩ Invest in some USB Chargeable Lights – So I have several of these around my home and various types. I have bars in the hallways so I don’t have to bother turning any lights on, they have sensors so when you walk within range they just pop on. Useful for saving money on electricity! Also great if you forget to turn lights off because these USB ones turn off after 30 seconds to 1 minute (depending on brand). Other chargeable lights include ones that are freestanding and you simply charge them up and then turn them on and let them drain down. One that I have takes about an hour to charge but lasts up to six hours – great in an evening if I don’t need much light.

USB Chargeable Motion Sensor Light Bars

✩ Light Bulbs – one weekend or day off pop around your home with another person. One goes up a ladder and checks bulbs and the other writes down on a piece of paper what types and if they are energy saving and how many watts are the maximum. Then, next time you’re out shopping go and buy the bulbs that are energy saving and cost less to run. These bulbs usually last for ten years or up to 10,000 hours – whichever comes first!

✩ Watering a Garden – if you spend water from inside your home to water your garden it will slowly start to become a lot of expense. Instead buy one or two black dustbin type plastic barrels (roughly £14 each) and they come with a lid too! Use a watering can to dip into them and remove water as and when you need it. Set them up in a part of your garden where rain water can easily fill them up. You’ll be surprised how fast they fill on a rainy day! Use the water from the butts for your garden plants before turning your home taps on! It will save you money on your water bill especially if you’re on a meter.

✩ Buy or Make Draught Excluders – I have one on the inside of each door of my home, they keep draughts out and stop your heat escaping through holes under doors. If you cannot afford one because they often retail at around £15 these days, and you are good at seeing! Then you could always try and make one out of some old clothes and some stuffing. Might be fun to do with your children!

Draught Excluders for Doors

✩ Buy Thicker Curtains or Lined Curtains ready for Winter – I bought lined curtains for £15 in the fabulous Dunelm sale last year. And I also built a pole above my front door and put two curtains up there as well. One reason was to keep the heat inside during the winter because doors easily let your heat escape. Two is also from a security aspect, if you have a window next to your front door then people may be able to look inside easily, a curtain across prevents them from seeing anything.

✩ Invest in Fleece Throws – I love a nice comfortable throw, but by putting a couple where you frequently sit down will also save you money. I have one folded up across the bottom of my bed, I have two on my sofa. If I’m cold in an evening I will put that over me or around me and not touch the thermostat on the heating. Maintaining an optimum temperature for your heating is also a great start, then use other things such as wearing another layer of clothing or by covering yourself up with a throw while sitting down to help save the pennies. Fleece Throws can start from as little as £4 each in places like Tesco and Dunelm, I bought 3 at £6 each last year. They are large ones and one covers both mine and my sons legs when we sit and watch television in an evening. Fleece throws are also easy to wash and fast to dry due to the material.

✩ Clothes Airers and Camping Pegs – no I’m not mad! I’m letting you in on my clothes drying secrets! So for £20 or less you can buy a large freestanding clothing airer at a supermarket and a packet of camping peg hooks from a local do it all shop. You’ll be able to dry more clothes outside this way and in more weather types simply by pinning the airer down to your lawn with the pegs. This way it doesn’t blow over, but you can easily pull up the pegs and pick up the whole thing to move it indoors if the weather takes a turn. I regularly do this with small thinner items all year round if it’s windy and the sunshine is out. Any reason to not use the tumble drier I will surely take it! You can save lots of money by drying even half a load of washing outdoors.

✩ Turning it OFF! – I’m a big believer in “if you aren’t using it then turn it off” and this goes for lights, appliances and electronics. There are only 6 things that are always on, either because they are constantly running or on standby in my home, they are the Broadband Box, the Sky TV Box, the Boiler, the Washing Machine, my electronic Doorbell and the Fridge/Freezer. Everything else is off, I only put the oven or microwave or drier on when they are actually going to be used. It saves me a ton of electricity by turning things off at the socket and not leaving them standing idle – plus with a small child you don’t want them turning on appliances that might get hot! So there are double reasons for clicking that off switch on the wall. It’s the same with main lights, if you leave a room just turn it off. Finished cooking dinner and done with that Oven? Just turn it off.

✩ Grow Your Own – Every year I try and grow things but this year I am pulling out all the stops to try and grow more fruit and vegetables. Combining my rain catching water tubs with a watering can, I can easily water the tubs I have created. Follow me on my social media for updates on this because I will be documenting photographically just how well we do through the Summer and into the Autumn. Even if you have a balcony not a garden, you can get vertical planters nowadays where you can grow things such as herbs, raspberries or strawberries, tomatoes and chill peppers. I don’t have a patch that I am able to dig up, so I am simply using pots to grow everything. Check out my Instagram for more photographs on how I am managing to do this. Also, teaching your children (if you have any) about the importance of nurturing something while it grows is an excellent life lesson.

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Thanks for reading this blog post today. I would love it if you would get in touch, write a comment below if you found any of this useful or you liked some of my ideas. Do you have any awesome ideas yourself for saving money?

If you implement any of my hacks yourself I would love to hear from you on here or on social media. You can tag me #SevernSabrina if you want me to see it too.

Have a great remainder of June!

✩ Sabrina ✩

World Bee Day 2022 on May 20th

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Happy World Bee Day!

Here is a Photo montage of Bee’s that I have taken this past year…
as a Nature Photographer I am constantly making images.

AWESOME FACTS ABOUT BEES

Bees are insects that have 6 legs and 5 eyes.

Bees have been around for approximately 30 million years.

Here in the United Kingdom we house around 270 species of Bees.

Worldwide there are more than 20,000 species of Bees.

Honey made from Bees was found inside the tombs of Egyptian Pharaoh’s and it would still be edible today.

Honey Bees communicate with one another through dancing moves!

Bees can fly up to 20 MPH!

Male Bees are called Drones.

Female Bees are called Worker Bees.

The Queen Bee can lay up to 2000 eggs a day and a hive will only have one Queen.

A Honey Bee will only make 1 Tablespoon of honey in their lifetime.

Some species of Bee are solitary and live alone except for reproduction moments, these often live underground too!

On average a Bee will fly 32,000 miles in their lifetime and visit more than 1 million flowers!

Honey Bees live in Bee Hives where they work together to make Honey.

If a Bee loses its stinger it will die – so make sure not to hit them and let them just fly around you and fly off again – once they realise you’re not a flower you won’t interest them anyway!

SABRINA’S HOW TO MAKE A 3D BEE!

I thought what better way to immortalise the Bee than to make your very own 3D craft version of one! I came up with this last year but sadly I missed the deadline for World Bee Day 2021, so I have saved it all for today! World Bee Day 2022! They are fairly easy to make and I will now tell you exactly what you need before we begin the how to method!

One Sheet of A4 Thin Yellow Card or Thick Paper
One Scissors
One Piece of Cereal Box Card
Pens – black and brown
A Permanent Pen – Black with a Fine End (for the Wings)
Double Sided Sticky Tape
A Piece of Thin Plastic (mine was off some toy packaging) (for the Wings)
Two Circular Objects to Draw Around – 1 for the Small Bee Head and 1 for the Body Circles

Step 1. Cut All of Your Circles Out – You need 1 head, 1 main body out of box card and four out of the yellow card. The yellow and the body have to be the same size, but the head needs to be 1/4 of the size. Put some double sided sticky tape on the cereal box card circle because this will be your base to work the rest up on. Put the other yellow circles down on a flat surface ready for their details.

Step 2. Draw some sections on the 4 yellow circles that will become the Bee body, you will need to have 3 sections that are lined horizontally and similar in size to each of the other matching circles (See image below). Colour these in Brown. The best thing to do is to have them on top of one another, mark the section the same and attempt to line them up with the opposite side. With the small Circle that is yellow (the Bee head), you need to draw two large Oval Eyes in Black, and then do some vertical lined streaks in brown so it looks like fur. Leave the top section of it Yellow, we will be sticking it to the body shortly.

Step 3. Stick the Head to the Body using double sided tape with only 1/4 of it attached to the Card and the rest sticking out. Now place the Bee in front of you, with the head facing you (facing South). You want to now take one of the striped yellow body sections, choose the one that is least lined up. Put some double sided tape on the back of it and stick it down on to the main card body, covering the edge of the head, with the stripes going horizontally across the Bee body. Place this beneath something heavy for a few minutes so as to stick it all into place while we do steps 4 and 5.

Step 4. Take your Plastic now and Scissors and permanent pen. You want to draw out two identical wings, Bee wings tend to have some ridged ends but you can just do ovals with a pointed end if you’re not confident (See Images below). Look at my Bee montage at the start of this blog post for wing inspiration! Once you are happy with the drawing cut them out, and make sure they’re the same size by overlapping them and trimming any overhanging edges.

Step 5. Draw some lines down the wings with the permanent thin pen, try to match the Bee wings (again take inspiration from my pictures at the start but be creative too this is your own Bee!) and match each other, make the same marks on both wings by having them side by side as you create the lines. Place them off to one side to fully dry. (If you use normal pen on plastic it will likely rub off).

Step 6. Now it comes to the tricky part, you need to take your Bee body parts and fold them in half, all three of them with the coloured lines on the inside of the half fold. Make sure that the centre is through the middle of the horizontal lined sections. Do this for all three and also make sure they are folded the same across the sections so when stacked together they are the same (or close as you can).

Step 7. Once you have folded them and they do match best they can, you need to take two of them to start with, and place some double sided tape strips on the one side of each one, so that is one taped only the left underside and one taped only on the right on the yellow underside of each of them. Take a look at my photograph below for clarification on the folds and the tape.

Step 8. Take your folded Bee body circles and place one on either side of the main Bee body with the head. Line them up with the circle that is already on it, the one you put the tape on the left underside goes on the left, and the right taped side on the right. When you push the body middles together they should be flush and straight in the centre and aligned with the head. Make sure the stripes line up and are horizontal to the head that is facing south, and the crease line for your folds should be straight up from that facing north. If this is accurate you can now remove the double sided tape, stick one side down at a time, to the main body. Then do the opposite side (see Step 7 and 8 images) and this leaves you with the other half of each circle standing up on end. The final circle you still have will go in between them causing the body parts to stand up 3D.

Step 9. Attaching the final circle on to the body is just about lining it up. First you need to put some double sided tape on to the pieces that are already attached to the Bee body that you stuck down in Step 8. (See image Steps 9 and 10 to clarify this next step). With the double sided tape now in place but not removed the tabs yet, you first line up the circles, look at it and think do the edges match and is it horizontal across the body? If the answer is yes then remove the tape tabs and stick that final circle on to the top of the Bee in between the other pieces.

Step 10. Press and hold the Bee body firmly now, gently run your fingers down each of the sides to press the circles fully together and ensuring the tape grips flush. Once they look like they are fully stuck with no gaps anywhere you can now make sure your wings are dry from earlier.

Step 11. Take your plastic wings from before, line them up with where you want them to go on the Bee body (they are usually attached to the middle section of a bee’s body). Then take two thin strips of double sided tape and match those up on either side, stick down the tape. (See Step 10 and 12 image for wing tape placement).

Step 12. Attach the wings now and make sure you press them down on to the tape for at least a minute to ensure the plastic gets a really good grip. Hold the Bee upside down and make sure they don’t come loose, if they do then press again.

Step 13. Tidy up any lines on the Bee and trim any edges with scissors that aren’t in line to neaten her up. Then you have your Queen Bee! You could hang her up somewhere or make her a little hive…

HAPPY WORLD BEE DAY!
You now have a friendly Bee to live in your home and remind you of their importance, coolness and cuteness.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP THE BEES?

Make a wildflower pot, planter or corner of your garden and attract bees and help them with their pollinating. You can get wild flower seeds free with some things such as “30 Days Wild) and Brands often give them away with food products too.

Don’t pull out all of your weeds, leave a few because bees need them especially because weeds are usually the first flowers of the new season.

If a Bee comes into your house leave it alone, open some windows and let it find its way out, do not attack it or attempt to catch it because it may sting in fear and then it will sadly die. Most Bee’s will head straight back out a door or window when they smell the fresh air.

Visit a local Apiary and But Local Honey products when possible.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE A CRAFTY BEE HIVE?

What You Will Need

Tiny Craft Wooden Bees (Found in The Works craft shop)
A Narrow Sided Box or a Lid from Something (Rectangle is best)
Disposable Dehumidifier Pot Lids – doesn’t matter what colour as you will Paint them
Brown Paint and a Paintbrush

Step 1. Paint your box and the humidifier pot lids you have collected, they should be brown or a mixture of brown and black and yellow.
Step 2. Leave them to dry somewhere flat overnight at least.
Step 3. Place something to resemble honey and nectar between the lids, maybe tissue paper?
Step 4. Stick the Two (or more) lids together to form mini hive type structures.
Step 5. Stick the lids into the box and stick your Bee’s around. Done!


Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post today, I hope you have enjoyed it. If you make any Bee’s please share your pictures with me on social media, use the hashtag #SevernSabrina and #SabrinasHowToMake or tag me on them using @Severn_Sabrina or @SevernWishes Blog.

Have a wonderful World Bee Day 2022!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Sabrina’s Easter Craft Ideas 2022

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Happy Easter! I hope you’re having a wonderful long weekend!

If you’ve already been out and about and are now looking for something to do within your home to keep the children entertained, then why not check out all my craft pieces below, show your children and they might want to give them a go! They are all really easy and just need a few minutes of your time as the adult to deal with some scissor cutting and poking holes, and then they can begin! You won’t need any fancy craft equipment for any of these either, just gather the following items on my list below and you’re good to go!

If you were wondering what it cost me to make all of the craft items I have done in recent posts it was about £15. That includes all of the double sided tape, various packs of white and coloured card, good quality colouring pens, craft balls and pipe cleaners among other things. But I have lots of them left over from these purchases too for use in future craft projects. I actually have more crafty items in the works and I’m still using up the same items and haven’t needed to buy any additional ones.

Sabrina’s TOP TIP: Making up a Craft box is a great idea, it will keep everything neat and tidy. Throw in left over pieces of card, toilet rolls and crafting left overs. I recommend a Really Useful Box or a similar one which has a tight fitting lid. These are also really strong and stackable for easy storing away.

✩✩✩ What Will We Need for all these Projects ✩✩✩

Toilet Rolls
Cereal Box Cards
Pens to Decorate
Scissors
A Pen or Pencil
A Ruler
Pipe Cleaners
Fluffy Craft Balls
Coloured Card
Googly Eyes
Double Sided Tape
Pritt Stick or PVA used sparingly

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How to Make Sabrina’s Fluffy Craft Easter Animals

These cute and fluffy animals were made using cereal box card, double sided tape and a bag of craft balls! In all it cost me about £2! And we have a ton of balls left over which we can use as flower middles and things like that – I use them in other projects too. This one is easy for little children, you do the templates and then add the glue on and then they can go to town with all the sticking!

Step 1. Draw on a cereal box, inside on the flat side piece, whatever shape you like, a Rabbit, a Chick, an Easter Egg, whatever you like or your children want.
Step 2. Cut out your templates, make them as big or as small as you like.
Step 3. Use PVA or Pritt Stick or Doubled Sided Tape to coat your template with glue.
Step 4. Provide a clean and flat surface for your little ones to sit and stick the fluffy craft balls to their card template.
Step 5. Add googly eyes or card beaks or any other items you want to finish them off.
Step 6. Let them dry overnight, place a piece of kitchen roll or newspaper on a flat surface, add the template, add another layer of tissue or newspaper, and then place a heavy book on top overnight to flatten them down and help the balls to stick.
Step 7. Next day you can display them around your home.

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How to Make Sabrina’s Toilet Roll Flowers

My easy toilet roll flowers are so simple to do! They only take about ten minutes to make once your toilet roll is decorated and dry. You could make a load of these, if you have a kitchen roll tube you may even get 3 flowers worth of petals from one tube! I would like to try and make a Rainbow of these!

Step 1. Let the Children decorate their toilet rolls and let them dry.
Step 2. An adult then cuts the toilet rolls into equal width pieces to make the petals.
Step 3. An adult also then uses the pointy end of their open scissors to poke holes that are 1cm up from the end and through both sides of each petal. (See my photo).
Step 4. The petals can now be opened out and gently threaded on to a pipe cleaner through the holes made with the scissors. Push them on until they hit the middle of the pipe and keep adding round.
Step 5. Curve the Pipe Cleaner round as you go, after each petal, and then after the final one is added you push the ends of the pipe back through the final petal holes to neaten it up. Line it up spaced between the petals while it is flat on a table and then push a fluffy craft ball into the middle.
Step 6. Hang your flowers up around your home on ribbon or string for a nice decoration.

Step 3 – 1 cm in from the petal end
Step 3 – making holes through the petals
Step 4.
Step 4 to 5.
Step 5.
Step 6.

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Step 2 – Cut the Decorated Roll into 5 Pieces

How to Make Sabrina’s Toilet Roll Easter Bunny

My cute toilet roll bunny’s are great for the Easter break! And they should stand up all by themselves! They are a little trickier than the flowers, but lots of fun still! They all start with a decorated toilet roll anyway so make sure you just save them up and get little ones to colour them in.

Step 1. Children decorate toilet rolls and let them dry.
Step 2. An adult cuts the toilet rolls into 5 pieces, a base, two ears, a middle and a head. (See Photo).
Step 3. An adult uses the pointy end of scissors to poke holes in the pieces, each one is specific. So…
Base is one hole, central on one side. Middle piece is two holes, one top one bottom just push the card flat together and the scissor end straight through. The Head piece needs one hole in the base at the centre, and off centre at the top it needs two holes. Each ear needs two holes, both on the same side at either end before the point. (See My Photo).
Step 4. Using a Pipe Cleaner push it on to the base and bend the end, attach the fluffy tail.
Step 5. Add the Middle to the pipe cleaner, push it down until it is flush and flat against the base.
Step 6. Take the Head piece, thread it on through the single hole, make it flush on the Middle piece of roll and then push another fluffy ball down the pipe cleaner until it sits in the middle of the roll.
Step 7. Push the pipe cleaner up through one of the holes in the top, and curve the pipe cleaner round, make sure the bunny parts are all flush and together for the body.
Step 8. Add each ear by pushing the pipe cleaner up through one side with the holes on, in through the bottom hole and out of the top hole, bend the pipe cleaner round and then through the top hole of the final ear and down through the bottom hole.
Step 9. The final step is to push the rest of the pipe cleaner down through the second hole on the bunny head, if you have more than 1cm of pipe left cut it off, then push the last 1cm into the fluffy ball within the roll bunny head, this neatens it up and gets the pointy end of the pipe cleaner hidden away.
Step 10. Adjust your bunny feet base and middle parts so that the bunny is aligned and he should stand up all by himself!

Step 3 – use my guide to make the necessary holes
Step 4 – Base and Tail
Step 7 and Step 8 – Threading the Ears

My bunny making video tutorial can be found on my Facebook page if you get stuck which is right here

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How to Make Sabrina’s Circle Petal Flower Card

This one is nice and easy and once all the cutting out is done, children can stick them down however they like to design their own flowers.

Step 1. Fold a Piece of Card in half for your card base.
Step 2. Draw around a circular object many many times on some different pieces of coloured card.
Step 3. Cut out these circles carefully and assemble flat.
Step 4. Every circle needs to be folded in half.
Step 5. Assemble your Flower by arranging the petals with one side sticking up to make it 3D.
Step 6. Cut out a small circle in a bright colour for the centre of each flower.
Step 7. Once happy with the design either pritt stick or double sided tape each petal down to the card.
Step 8. Make leaves or stems from card, or use pens to decorate your card.

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Thank you for reading this (long) Craft related blog post today, I always showing you my latest “Sabrina’s How To Make’s”! And if you have any questions for me about how to do something you’ve seen on my blog then please comment below on this post and I will happily answer them for you. I hope that you have seen something you would like to try and make yourself!

If you do make any of my craft items please tag me on social media using the hashtag #SabrinasHowToMake I really look forward to seeing them!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Check out my previous How to Make Craft posts for these beautiful 3D paper flowers!

Sabrina’s How To Make Paper Flowers for all Occasions

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Hello and Welcome! If you’re a regular visitor to Severn Wishes Blog then you’ll know that I love to do lots of Art and Craft! If you’re new here then hi, and after this blog post please check out the remainder of my fun Crafts in the section here.

Paper Flowers are a wonderful alternative to buying fresh ones, the beauty of these homemade gifts is that they won’t wilt and have to one day be thrown away, these can be treasured by the loved one receiving them, forever! Give a single flower or make a bouquet it’s up to you!

What Do I Need?

A Ruler (30cm)
A Pen or Pencil
Pipe Cleaners various Colours
Thin Coloured Card or Thick Coloured Paper
Pens for Decorating the Petals (optional)
Fluffy Craft Balls (Flower Centres)
Scissors

My Step by Step Visual Guide is really easy to follow, but I also uploaded videos to my social media if you would prefer to follow that! Carry on reading for my step by step and photographic guide.


SABRINA’S STEP BY STEP GUIDE

1. Cut Squares from your chosen Coloured Card. For example I made my Orange Flower with a 7cm, a 8cm and a 10cm Square. Three Squares is an ideal amount of layers but you can do just two or even more layers if you wish. Assemble these squares on a flat surface ready for the individual folding process. (See my images below for additional guidance).

2. Fold each square you have in half to form a rectangle, do this by folding the bottom line up to the top line and line up the crease and push flat. Repeat for every piece you have.

3. Next, you fold each rectangle back into a square shape by folding it from the left to right and flatten and crease down flat once again.

4. Finally you will have all your layers into folded squares, and these now need to be made into Triangles. But to do this correctly for the next steps you must not rotate them at all during the folding process. Make sure that you fold the bottom right corner of your squares up to the top left, flatten and crease.

5. Next you need to draw a petal shape on every flattened triangle, make sure not to rotate it from when you folded it when you draw on it, otherwise it won’t cut intact during step 6.

6. Now you need to carefully cut out your shapes, gently follow the line and then discard these cut offs for the recycling because you don’t need them.

7. Time for the moment of truth, open out the flowers gently and slowly so as not to tear them. Lay them out flat and make sure they are an entire piece.

8. With the crease lines facing at each compass point you need to mark the petals that are in the South East corner of each flower. (See my images below if you are uncertain).

9. Carefully cut these petals away from the flower, be sure to only follow the crease lines of the folds when you cut and don’t be tempted to cut it too low in the centre, just enough for the spare petal to gently come free. You don’t need these now and these spare pieces can all be recycled at the end of your crafting session.

10. Next step is to mark the petal on the right of the one you just cut away, on each of your flower layers, and then stick a piece of double sided tape or a blob of glue on to that mark.

11. Doing each layer one at a time now, gently place the flower into your hand, and with the other hand carefully fold the petal on the left side over the petal on the right side. The creases and folds we made at the start should allow you to do this easily, if not gently fold the creases again and try again, the flower should (with some gentle persuasion) create a 3D flower with the shape similar to a cone. Push down on the glued part and make sure that you have aligned the petals and that it is stuck down. Repeat this for all flowers and layers that you want to make.

12. Carefully lay out each of the Flower layers now that they are 3D. You now need to decorate them if you want to with lines or dots before we assemble them. If making them with small children you may want them to decorate at Step 10, before you make them 3D.

13. During this step you want to use the end of the Pipe Cleaner you have chosen to gently pierce through the middle of the Flower layers, take one at a time, and force the pin end of the Pipe Cleaner directly through the centre where the creases and folds meet. Once all of the layers are pierced you can now arrange them in order of size.

14. Assemble your finished Paper Flower by sliding the layers on to the Pipe Cleaner, you do want to leave about a 4mm bit of the pipe cleaner poking out so that you can push on a coloured fluffy craft ball (if you have one) and this neatens the whole look of the flower plus it covers the pointed end of the pipe cleaner.

15. Adjust the Petals by rotating the layers slowly on the pipe cleaner stem until you are satisfied with the flowers final look. I hope you are happy with your flower! You can play around and add other things too if you like! Be creative and I cannot wait to see yours! Tag me! #SabrinasHowToMake

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Thank you for reading this Craft related blog post today, I always love doing my “Sabrina’s How To Make’s”! And if you have any questions for me then please comment below on this post and I will happily answer them for you. If you make some flowers please tag me on social media using the hashtag #SabrinasHowToMake and I really look forward to seeing them!

✩ Sabrina ✩