LIFESTYLE: PRELOVED BLOGGERS EVENT MANCHESTER

This weekend I headed to Ziferblat for the first time for the Preloved Blogger’s event in Manchester, hosted by the lovely Terri from Hello, Terri Lowe. I was a little bit nervous but a lot excited, especially with signing up to the event quite last minute due to a space cropping up. I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the weather in Manchester was this weekend, and so I donned a very Spring appropriate outfit, which wasn’t all black for a change(!), and headed into town.

Upon arrival, the staff at Ziferblat told me to make myself at home while I waited for the event to start – I was early as usual! I’d be wanting to go to Ziferblat for such a long time purely because I loved the idea: you pay for the time you spend there, not how much you eat or drink. The large open plan room was filled with an assortment of tables and chairs, ranging from comfy couches to wooden dining table chairs. There were lots of games and books at your disposal, and of course a huge range of cakes, cookies, coffees and tea. I was surprised to see that the Ziferblat kitchen looked like an actual kitchen in somebody’s house! It was so laid back; people were just helping themselves to mugs from the cupboards and making themselves a brew. They even had decaf tea so that was a huge thumbs up from me.

Once the other bloggers started to arrive, we made our way into a seperate room that was solely for us bloggers. There was a table with lots of goodies on top, like cupcakes, goody bags, exciting Look Fantastic boxes and a couple of crafty items that hinted at what we’d be doing during the afternoon. After the Preloved team introduced themselves and we all had a bit of a ‘hello’ chat, we dove in to the first craft of the day: a DIY body scrub.

I’d been wanting to create my own body scrub for a while, especially with it having only three ingredients, so I was super happy to be doing so. We mixed coffee, brown sugar and coconut oil together, which after a bit of hard work and coconut manipulation, turned into a thick grainy paste. It smelt quite nice too and I can’t wait to use it! We then moved on to creating some Pinterest-esque keys, through using a selection of nail polishes and ribbons to decorate them. I’m rubbish at most crafty things, so my key wasn’t the prettiest of them all, but I had fun making a mess anyway!

I really enjoyed the fact that this event was so laid back and relaxed, instead of some events that have a super rigid structure and you feel like you can’t really settle down and have a chat. It was lovely to be able to talk to the other bloggers and have a laugh while cracking on with the DIYs, while munching on the gorgeous cupcakes too! Thank you to Terri and the Preloved team for letting me come along so last minute and for organising such a lovely event with some really generous goodies. This wasn’t my first event with Preloved, read about that one here. and I hope it’s not my last! If you haven’t heard of Preloved (where have you been?!), they are an online site where you can list and sell items for free, and definitely find a bargain or two. A little like Gumtree, but better and more attractive. You should definitely check them out!