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Health and Beauty

Use your creative skills - and save money

Customising and making from scratch means you can create unique pieces - and spend less too. By Janet Palmer

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More patterns

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Clothes for free

Make do and mend doesn't have to be boring. Try these ideas for customising your old clothes to bring them bang up to date.

● Sew an old chiffon scarf to a V-neck cardigan to create a fashionable tie-neck top.

● Don't throw away a wool sweater that has shrunk in the wash. Shrink it further by washing it on a 60-degree wash and use it to make trendy felted accessories. See how to make a felted scarf

● Use oddments of soft silk or printed fine cotton fabrics to trim a T-shirt or knitwear. See our sewing projects for fabric scraps

● Give a plain chainstore garment a designer look with new buttons. They don't have to be the same - the mismatched look is currently very popular. Look in jumble sales or charity shops - beautiful old buttons are often worth more than the garment itself.

It's a wrap!

● Wrap presents in newspaper and tie a brightly coloured ribbon around for a chic gift. Or you can use comics to wrap children's presents. See our ideas for getting creative with gift wrapping

Ideas for your home

● Old furniture often has more character than new. Look in charity and secondhand shops for bargains. Shiny pine or dark stained wood is no longer popular and can be inexpensive. Sand pieces down, then paint with a combined primer and undercoat, before one or two topcoats - shades of white work well. Read Ways to transform old furniture

● To save buying a large tin of paint, use test pots for small items. These are usually emulsion paints, so, if a durable finish is needed, spray with a clear acrylic coating to finish.

● For a frame that's too large for a photograph, buy a card mount from John Lewis (www.johnlewis.com, 020 7629 7711) or your local frame shop. Read our ideas for framing and creating pictures

● If you can't find the right colour of bedlinen, buy white cotton and dye it yourself. Large items such as sheets or duvet covers are best dyed in the washing machine.

● Give a boring brown tray a new lease of life with a lick of paint and a stylish antique finish. Paint it with two or three coats and sand down on occasional high points, edges, and in small areas of the flat surface with medium sandpaper, to mimic natural wear and tear.

Make your own greetings cards

A card that someone has taken the time and trouble to make means so much more and will cost a fraction of a shop-bought one. And it needs no artistic talent - just cut out letters from magazines or colour supplements and glue onto a plain card. Try Hobbycraft (www.hobbycraft.co.uk, 01202 596100) or Lakeland (www.lakeland.co.uk, 01539 488100) for packs of blank cards and envelopes. See our great ideas for greetings cards to make, for occasions throughout the year