everybody else's girl

staple

2012-01-27T18:10:00.000Z

Dress: Staple via ASOS; jacket: River Island; bag: Accessorize; skull necklace: Topshop; cross necklace: Urban Outfitters.

I have a real thing for shirt collars at the moment. Theoretically, I shouldn't really suit a buttoned up collar, as I have a reasonably sizeable chest and an annoyingly chubby, round face, but I find that I strangely kind of suit the buttoned up look and the cut on this dress means that the collar sits at just the perfect height. The dress was another of my well-planned sale purchases from ASOS some time last year, I'd loved it ever since it appeared online, although at originally £85 it was a bit steep. So I naturally waited around with it sat in my Save For Later list until it went down in price to a measly 22 quid. It's pretty much my go-to dress when I feel like being comfy/simple as the loose, maxi shape is very forgiving. The only issues I've had with it are that the fabric is a slightly annoying crinkly texture so it can look as though you haven't ironed it in a while, plus it's gone a bit bobbly where my bag sits on my hip but other than that it's probably one of my favourite dresses ever, which is saying a lot. I only wish I'd got it in black as well!

And no, don't worry about me freezing my bum off only wearing this with a lightweight jacket in the middle of winter as these photos were taken back in November when the weather was a lot milder and I could get away with only a few layers. I can't wait until its spring again and I don't have to worry about coats and scarves and gloves anymore!

Finally, it's my blogs 2 year anniversary on Monday so I am hoping to finally hold a little giveaway for all you lovely people who've kept following all this time, as well as all of you lovely newbies as well, so watch this space!

leopard print

2012-01-21T15:12:00.000Z

Coat: Topshop; top: ASOS; necklace: Topshop; skirt: River Island; bag: ASOS; brogues: ASOS.

I have become more drawn to leopard print these past couple of seasons, I used to avoid it pretty much outright as it reminded me a tad too much of my emo/scene kid days (check out the two links if you fancy a laugh at my expense) where leopard was the print of choice. However I've found that in small amounts and in more of a monochrome palette I've found that it works really well. This first outfit was another of my weekend shopping outfits, my mum and I had to photograph it really quickly as we were a bit pushed for time so it would have been nice to photograph the shape of the top more as its a lovely slouchy square-cut (a bit like this) that actually works really well layered over the shape of the skirt, but I didn't get the chance.

Jacket: River Island; top: H&M; skirt: Topshop; belt: ASOS; bag: ASOS.

This second outfit was actually taken a few months ago when I had first come home, my mum and I went to the Hepworth gallery in Wakefield after meaning to go ever since it opened earlier in the year but we just hadn't got around to it. I would recommend it to any of you who are interested in art or sculpture, the building itself is amazing and the exhibitions are actually quite varied and cover all sorts of movements and eras. There's also a really nice cafe offering lovely local food which is always a bonus! Anyway as you can see I'm liking my rust coloured coats/jackets at the moment, there's something about the colour that just makes it really versatile. The skirt is another example of leopard print that I have in my wardrobe, this one is much more of a subtle, ditsy leopard print which is a really lovely variation on it, again in a colour palette of black and grey which I think makes it that bit edgier. What do you guys think?

favourites

2012-01-13T16:15:00.000Z

Coat: Topshop; fur collar: Topshop; shirt: Acne; skirt: H&M; brogues: Topshop; bag: ASOS; ring: Topshop: skull necklace: Topshop; cross necklace: Urban Outfitters.

I went into Leeds on Sunday with my mum to pick up a few things and have a look in the sales and this is what I wore. I paired my new Acne shirt with my faux leather midi skirt. This skirt has been worn to death recently, it's definitely one of my favourite purchases of last year, it's perfect for cold weather plus it's kind of water proof! The Acne shirt is pretty much perfect as well. Comfortable, flattering and the silk is lovely and cool, which is nice when you've got used to synthetic materials making you overly hot and sweaty all the time.

The only notable things I picked up while shopping were a pair of new pyjama's since my old ones are all full of holes (does anyone know why they get so holey when you're basically wearing them while surrounded by soft squishy things? I just don't get it!) or really short on the legs from shrinking in the wash (I have two pairs of Cookie Monster pj's that have both met with the same fate) plus my mum and I bought up a load of Paperchase wrapping paper, as it was all on sale for a bargainous 80p a roll, ready for next Christmas. It's nice to feel prepared!

worth

2012-01-06T21:37:00.000Z

Acne "Worth" Silk Sleeveless Shirt from net-a-porter.com

A beautiful Acne shirt that I treated myself to in the January sales. I've wanted an Acne piece for a while now plus I've been looking for an oversized sleeveless shirt so when this turned up on Net-a-Porter for £60 I just couldn't help myself. It had originally been reduced to £100 but I waited to see if it would end up being reduced further and thankfully it was. It's something I know I'll get plenty of wear out of as it's such a simple, staple piece plus the light, airy silk will be perfect for spring and summer. I'm really looking forward to pairing this with one of my many midi or maxi skirts, so hopefully you'll see an outfit post featuring it very soon!

bits and pieces

2012-01-05T22:17:00.000Z

I've got a few catch-up posts to do, so I thought I'd start with posting about some of the things I got over the Christmas period. Apologies for posting this now, I'd imagine that Christmas is probably the last thing you all want to hear about now it's over, but please just bear with me! First off I was very lucky to win the November Glossybox via a competition run by Motel a few weeks before Christmas. I've never had a Glossybox before so I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about. If I'm honest I've never been one for pampering myself with various beauty products, mainly due to laziness and the belief that no matter how much preening I do it's hardly going to actually make me pretty, but receiving a few free items has definitely altered my opinion somewhat.

Any way on to the contents of my box, obviously I've never had one before so I'm not very sure on how they work, but on their site I saw that they detailed a number of products, however I only received a select amount. As I said I am unfamiliar with the process so those of you who are regulars will have to let me know how it works. Personally I'm not sure the £10 a month subscription fee is worth the number of products that you get really, but that's just me. Still the items I got were lovely, it included Nail Rock Nail Wraps in Black and White Stripe, Philip Kingsley Elasticizer Pre-Shampoo Treatment, Arbonne FC5 Cooling Foot Creme, Dead Sea Spa Magic Facial Wash and Illamasqua Freak Eau de Parfum.

My favourite item has to be the nail wraps, they're so easy to use and great for us lazy types who aren't up for doing complicated nail art ourselves. I put them on in time for Christmas Day and they've lasted quite well up until now. I had to replace a few of them that started to peel a little but other than that I would definitely recommend them! As you can see they aren't exactly perfectly applied (also I apologise for my dry, bitten fingers, that's what worry does to me!) but I imagine application is something I'd get better at with practice! I'd really love to try the black and white polka dot set so they're next on my ever-growing wishlist. Another item that I really love is the Dead Sea Spa Magic face wash, it cleanses my skin beautifully so I've been using it twice a day and it's almost run out! I reckon I'm going to try and get my hands on the regular size as I'm not sure I can manage without it once it's gone! I was also really looking forward to testing out the Philip Kingsley Elasticizer as my hair has been feeling really dry of late so I was hoping that this would help improve the quality and texture, however the sample size really wasn't enough for it to work properly. My hair is ridiculously thick so I ended up using the entire tube on my hair, yet it hardly covered it so I didn't really feel any difference which was unfortunate. I imagine if I had more it would have been a lot more effective but I don't really have £20-£30 to spend on a hair treatment that may or may not work at the moment!

I also thought I'd share some of the Christmas presents I got (plus the card I made for my sister) because I'm pretty pleased with them, plus one of them will hopefully have a positive impact here on the blog...

Yep, I finally got a DSLR! It's a Nikon D5100 and I'm chuffed to bits with it, I physically hugged the box when I opened it on Christmas Day! My dad had been sneaking around getting me and my brother a DSLR each, seen as my brother had been moaning about wanting one as well, which meant my dad could go into Jessops and have a good haggle (two of his favourite things to do). He also got my sister a Sony Handycam so I can't imagine what he actually spent in there, a bit of a discount is the least they could do! The Glossybox pictures above were all taken on my old camera, whereas the shot of my nails was taken with the DSLR and I'm really pleased with the improvement in quality. I'm looking forward to improving my outfit shots as well.

Further gifts include: 1: Sony Docking Station; 2: New Look Leather Jacket (yes I know I already have a perfectly nice biker but this one's cropped!); 3: Super pretty tea-light holder from my auntie and uncle; 3: Blu-rays of Captain America and The Fifth Element (probably my favourite film, it's mental but I love it); 4: New Protest the Hero album and an old Queens of the Stone Age album I've wanted for ages; 5: Necklace from Topshop, although this one technically wasn't a gift as it was an after-Christmas purchase (i.e. a gift to myself!); 6: Made cards for my family, this is the one I made for my sister (i.e. photoshopped a pink santa hat onto a drawing I did of my rabbit, then surrounded it with scribbly polka-dots); 7: Midi dresses from Topshop; 8: Max Factor Lip Tint and cute little cross earrings from Urban Outfitters, both from my sister.

As you can see I've been playing around with my new camera taking these pictures, I still have very little clue on how it actually works therefore I'm pretty rubbish with it right now, but I'm hoping I'll get better with practice and probably a lot of studying of the accompanying manual. Wish me luck as I'm probably going to need it!

Finally I just wanted to thank those of you have read and commented on my last post, it means so much to me that you've taken the time to read and respond. Writing a post like that is like my own form of therapy, getting all those niggling worries out and into writing takes a weight off my mind like you wouldn't believe, so thank you so much for your support.

an evaluation

2012-01-01T23:58:00.000Z

Seen as though we have reached a new year I thought I should let you all know what has happened in my life since I last posted. Things have changed quite drastically and not in a way that I particularly relish in talking about, however I would like to continue with this blog so I think it's important that I am open and use this blog as a platform for expressing myself, which is what I intended to do when I started it almost 2 years ago. In November I came to the decision to leave university. It was not an easy choice to make and it's really quite painful to think about what I would have been capable of achieving if it wasn't for the poor state of my mental health. However it was really the only direction I could take without continuing down a path that would have eventually made me even more unhappy. It sounds kind of contrary, but I know the decision I made was for the best, even though I hated to have to make it.

University is something I have worked my entire life towards, pushing myself through school and GCSE's and A-levels, achieving the best grades I could, trying to maintain the high standards that others set me and, most of all, that I set for myself. I have always been a perfectionist, even when I was four years old my teacher told my parents that I would sit with the waste paper bin next to me ready to throw away what I was working on when I thought it wasn't up to standard. I have felt this way for as long as I can remember but have only come to understand it much more recently. However, my ability to actually control it and not let it consume me is still shaky at best. It hasn't exactly helped that the education system, to me, is somewhat flawed in the way it supports people with mental health issues. There is a real "one size fits all" mentality, and I feel as though it's at its worst when it comes to mental illness. It seems the majority of people have very little understanding about how it feels to suffer with these issues, making it incredibly difficult for those who do suffer to get the help they so desperately need, but this is understandable. After all no one really wants to know how it feels to be deeply unhappy, it is not something that we go out of our way to experience, so naturally it is a very difficult thing to relate to.

Depression is something that I feel is not well represented in society, fundamentally, anyway. We are told that something like 1 in 4 of us will experience it at some point over the course of a year, yet discussing it is still a taboo subject. There is also a real difference between the kind of depression that stems from, perhaps when someone falls on hard times or loses a loved one as opposed to clinical depression. I am in no way saying that one is any more valid than the other, and both should still be classed as depression and treated as such, however I feel that there needs to be more awareness of the difference between depression that is an entirely normal human reaction to something bad happening in their lives and the kind that has no tangible trigger and is seemingly endless to the sufferer. Suffering from the latter and trying to share this with others has often felt almost impossible and it is something that has ground me down over many years now. Often on telling others about suffering from depression their perception changes, we try to pretend that it doesn't but it is human nature to form judgements on others based upon ourselves and the impact they may have upon us, whether its socially, mentally or physically. Granted the changes are not always negative, you may find that someone once aware of your condition is more supportive, but my own tendency towards paranoia leads me to wonder if this stems from pity and not the genuine desire to help. And really shouldn't we all treat everyone with care and kindness regardless of their mental state? The fear that the person you confide in will judge you harshly, or even just treat you differently, is something that sufferers are often faced with and it leaves you in a vicious circle questioning whether you should seek support and risk an unwanted reaction or keep quiet and suffer in silence.

Talking about this issue here on my blog, although I'm not sure if it is particularly welcome, gives me the opportunity to discuss some of the things that have been weighing on my mind recently, as well as allowing me to make my own step in trying to make mental illness a subject people can talk about more openly. I know this tiny post is pretty insignificant on the scale of things but it feels better to know I have been open about something that I have been so secretive about in the past, and I hope with the time I have now I can maybe look at a way of furthering a cause that I feel so strongly about, or at least just do something that may help others and at the same time help me to feel more confident in myself.

If any of you wish to look into this issue further I think the Time to Change campaign run by Mind (a UK organisation) seems very informative. If any of you know of any other organisations I could also look into don't hesitate to let me know in the comments.

P.S. I wish you all a very, very Happy New Year. Normal and fashion-related posting will begin again next week.

colour block

2011-10-02T20:58:00.000+01:00

I've been back at uni for a couple of weeks now and everything seems to be going really well so far, although it has been really busy so I haven't had chance to post anywhere near as much as I would have liked obviously! Anyway those of us in the UK will know that we've had a bit of a mini heatwave these past few days, although it absolutely chucked it down today unfortunately, but this outfit was from Wednesday when the heat first really kicked in. I decided seen as though the weather was so nice that I'd actually give the concept of colour blocking a decent attempt, seen as though I've wanted to try it properly all summer but just never quite had the confidence to think I could really pull it off. I'm glad I tried it though, because I actually really like the result! I paired it with nude accessories to tone the colours down a bit, I got the bag from ASOS a few weeks ago as it had gone on sale and I really fancied a new, proper leather bag for going back to uni, and the loafers I got from River Island as I have been distinctly lacking in a nice pair of flat shoes, which aren't boots, for way too long so I had to get them! I hadn't intentionally got the shoes to match the bag as I'm really not a fan of the whole "matchy-matchy" look but I think breaking it up with bold colour like this works pretty well and doesn't make the matching too obvious. What do you guys think?

Top: H&M; skirt: H&M; belt: ASOS; bag: ASOS; shoes: River Island

history

2011-09-02T16:02:00.000+01:00

I can't believe its been over 4 months since I last posted. I want to apologise to you all for having gone MIA here for so long and also say a great big thank you to how many of you have stuck around and kept following. You really have no idea how much it means to me, so thank you so much.

To put the past 4 months or so in a nutshell, in April my mental health took a turn for the worse and I had to withdraw from uni. Not only that but one of my rabbits was diagnosed with cancer in June and then died only two weeks later. To say it was a horrible, horrible time would be a huge understatement. However, after taking the time to get better and reassess things I decided that I wanted to go back to uni and resit 1st year again, so I could have a fresh start. I'm gonna really, really miss my friends who are moving on to 2nd year but I'm looking forward to going back with a lot more confidence and a more positive outlook. I'll still be living in my flat and I plan on living there for as long as I can and I also plan on paying a lot more attention to this 'ere blog!

So, anyway, I thought I'd share with you a few sets of photos I'd actually managed to take over summer, so this post is gonna be a bit of a bumper edition! First off is some pictures from July when me, my mum and my dad traveled a bit around Northumberland and visited a gorgeous little village called Corbridge. The weather that day was amazing and we had a really posh Sunday dinner in a local pub and then went for a walk along the river which you can kind of just see in the first picture. We also went on a bit of an expedition to find Hadrian's Wall and after driving a long way we managed to find a section of it we could stop by and have a look round, in the second picture you can see me stood on one of the turret sections of what would have been a fort I think. Always nice to have a bit of 2000 year old wall to stand on for outfit pictures isn't it?

Top: Metallica; skirt: Primark; bag: ASOS; sandals: Office; belt: ASOS; sunglasses: 17 @ Boots

The second set of pictures was again from sometime in July when me and my mum just went for a walk in one of my favourite places, Golden Acre Park in Leeds. As you can probably see I have been favouring the maxi length recently as over the past few months I've ended up putting on weight and I've just felt more comfortable wearing longer skirts and dresses.

Blazer: Vero Moda; vest: H&M; skirt: Topshop; belt: ASOS; bag: ASOS; boots: Urban Outfitters

My last set of photos are from when my mum, dad and I spent the weekend in Bath. We visited the Roman baths (there's a bit of an unintentional Roman theme going on here) for what must be the third or fourth time because my mum loves it there. I love it as well, it just has this really amazing atmosphere that's really hard to explain. It was quite a warm day so I went for a slightly shorter (and longer!) skirt by the brand Love that I got from Topshop and a black bustier top from H&M. The bustier was originally covered in embellishment but my mum and I spent one day a few months ago painstakingly removing them all, as I'm really not into sparkles. Now that its just a plain bustier top I literally wear it all the time, so expect to see it a lot more in future!

Skirt: Love @ Topshop; top: H&M; belt: ASOS; bag: Accessorize; sandals: Office; cross ring: ASOS

Just on one final note I wanted to thank you all so so much again for sticking by this little blog while I've been away, knowing that there are people here who are still interested in what I get up to has been a real motivation towards getting my self back on track, so I am really grateful for that.

Anyway hope you all have a great weekend!

coral

2011-04-03T22:32:00.002+01:00

Nail polish: 17 Lasting Fix Nail Polish in Pink Grapefruit; Ring: Diva at Miss Selfridge

No photo diary this Sunday, instead I thought I'd show you my current nail colour and a new ring. It was my 19th birthday on Friday so I've spent most of my spare time either attempting to do uni work or planning my birthday, hence the pretty short post! Birthday night highlights included quite a lot of rose wine, wearing my Meadham Kirchoff for Topshop dress and shedding glitter EVERYWHERE, photos of myself which I was reluctant to share even on my private facebook let alone on here, plus a bit of a general drunken fail on a bouncy castle! Make of that what you will!

Anyway the nail polish I'm wearing was actually a freebie I got during freshers week in one of the numerous bags of crap they give you which I just hadn't got round to using until now. I'm kind of wary of buying brands like 17 purely because the quality couldn't possibly be as good as the more expensive brands, but I was really pleasantly surprised! I love the bright colour and it applied really well and dried quickly, and considering they're only £2.99 instead of the £5-£10 of the likes of Models Own and Nails Inc I think I may just be converted!

paris photo diary

2011-03-30T00:01:00.000+01:00

1: the Seine; 2: random lovely building; 3-4: ornate gate at the Palais de Justice; 5: more buildings; 6: the Seine again; 7-9: one of the bridges along the Seine had all these padlocks along it marked with peoples names; 10: le Grand Palais; 11-12: Gucci and Elie Saab store at the other end of the Champs-Elysees; 13: couple of guys spotted on the Champs-Elysees, I love his worn leather trench; 14-16: more Champs Elysees; 17: some street dancers near the Arc de Triomph; 18: sneaky street style shot, love the fur detail on her coat; 19-20: the Arc de Triomph; 21-23: the Givenchy store on Avenue George V, now desperate for a Givenchy bag; 22: the house of YSL; 23-24: Parisian vintage shopping; 25: vintage aviator jacket for 120 euros, serious WANT; 26-27: more vintage shopping; 28: me (obvz); 29-30: Pompidou Centre; 31: rooftop cafe in the Pompidou Centre; 32: went vintage shopping in Paris, instead bought a top from American Apparel; 33-35: the Eiffel Tower at night; 36: me and some of the girls on my course on our last night in Paris!

Serious overload of pictures here, I apologise for any difficulties in loading them all! We spent more time in Paris than in London so that obviously meant more opportunities for tourist-y photography. As you can see, I have more proper street style photos of guys than I do of women, it just felt a lot less scary approaching men to ask for their photo than asking women really! There were so many girls I would have loved to have photographed though, but it was just really daunting to go up and ask them so I just ended up taking sneaky ones instead like some crazy, stalker person.

Also as you can see we visited the house of Yves Saint Laurent, purely by accident mind, as we went inside thinking it was a store to find two very scary French women just sat behind desks in an empty reception area. We asked if it was a store, they just said "non" and looked at the door. That told us! The Givenchy store next door was completely amazing though, I am now totally craving one of their beautiful black leather bags, much more so than any Alexander Wang or Mulberry bag, although I would also put up with a Proenza Schouler PS1, kthnx. We also went in the Balenciaga store on the same street which was really amazing as well.

The vintage shopping in Paris was prety impressive, the bargain bins with pieces for 1-3 euros were an experience to say the least! However I didn't really spot anything I just had to have, besides the aviator jacket, even though it isn't really "on-trend" anymore anyway, so I decided not to invest in anything. No, instead I just spent my money in American Apparel on an overpriced top, which albeit lovely, probably wasn't the best way to spend my money really. But at the time my reasoning was that it would be better value for money to buy it in France than in the UK because of the exchange rate, and it was a lovely coral-pink colour and my wardrobe has been seriously lacking in colour of late so I caved. Oh well!

We also went to the Pompidou centre which was another interesting experience. We started by going all the way up to the rooftop cafe for a drink and basically spent the entire time we had to look around the gallery there instead because the service was SO SLOW! Literally it took an hour to get a couple of cups of tea and a coffee because we were being served by these waiters who were basically male models, and as much as they were lovely to look at, they weren't exactly efficient. So instead of getting to see the art we just got a cuppa and left which was a shame as I would have loved to have been into at least a few of the galleries!

Aside from the odd slip-up though, I had a really amazing time in Paris, it is definitely an impressive city that everyone should visit at least once in their life, and hopefully I can go back again and visit even more of the sites that I didn't get the chance to see!

london photo diary

2011-03-27T21:04:00.000+01:00

1-4: stores I visited on Old Bond Street; 5: Dover Street Market; 6: sneaky snap of someone outside Dover Street Market; 7: more Dover Street; 8: lovely old building, can't remember what its called now though...; 9: couple of guys we found on Savile Row; 10: Burberry store; 11: Browns, loving the Christopher Kane in the window; 11-12: collected some jersey samples from MacCulloch & Wallis; 13: finished off the day with a bit of Dirty Dancing at the theatre!

I'm so sorry that these photos are so late. I arrived back from my trip just over two weeks ago now but haven't been able to post about it until now, as I've spent the last two weeks in a right state about my uni work and just life in general to be honest. However I'm feeling a lot more positive about it all now and from now on I swear I will be a much better blogger, as well as a much better fashion design student!

Anyway here are my photos from the London trip, mainly of buildings/store fronts as photography in pretty much all of these stores is verboten (that's "forbidden" for those of you with even less knowledge of German than me). I would have loved to have taken numerous pictures of all the beautiful things especially in places like Acne, Alexander McQueen, Dover Street Market, Burberry, Issey Miyake and Browns Focus but sadly this wasn't the case. Maybe if I was a super famous blogger with an epic DSLR camera and invites to fashion week I could convince the shop assistants that taking photos in their store would actually be greatly beneficial to them but sadly, again, this isn't the case. I'll just have to carry on nicking said images off those super famous bloggers until I'm allowed to take them myself!

Expect Paris photos tomorrow!

photo diary #2

2011-03-06T18:20:00.000Z

1: outfit from last week (dress: ASOS, jumper: H&M); 2: a meal I randomly came up with, roasted tomato red pesto chicken and spinach pasta; 3&4: my process boards and research work for a menswear jeans project at uni; 5: pocket and fly detail of my jeans toile; 6&7: some new purchases plus old pieces I'm going to start wearing again. Pic 6 from left to right orange top: Topshop (old); cream dipped hem dress: ASOS (old, as seen here) sheer maxi shirt dress & sheer oversized shirt: New Look. Pic 7 left to right; pleated skirt: River Island; black top: ASOS; 8: guess where I'm going!

Two weeks worth of photos here, although I haven't had chance to take that many but this is what I've got. You know when a week or so goes by but it feels more like a month?? That's what happened to me the week before this one. I had a ridiculous amount of work to finish (on the jeans project illustrated in pics 3-5) and basically spent almost all day every day in the sewing room at uni finishing a toile and then a full pair of jeans. I then ended up missing the critique session and hand-in date because I was so exhausted. I had completely lost what little energy I had meaning everything kind of backfired. Thankfully, this week I managed to put things right by having some time to myself to recover as well as hand in the project, so I can now put it behind me as one of those all-important "learning curves".

So that's why I've been really very quiet on here for the past two weeks. Unfortunately you won't hear from me again for another whole week though, but that's for an entirely different and considerably more enjoyable reason. As some of you may have guessed from the last photo, I am off on a trip with uni to London and then Paris until Saturday! We first go to London tomorrow until Wednesday then we get the Eurostar to Paris and spend the rest of the week there! Our brief is to do lots and lots of market research, which basically just means going into every designer shop/department store physically possible, plus we have to source some fabrics and try our hand at a bit of street style photography. So it's safe to say I'm just a bit excited! And it'll be nice to have a week of doing something a bit different so I can come back refreshed and ready to get on with my other project. So, until then, à bientôt!

P.S. I just had to mention the really amazing post that Blair wrote about unhappiness and blogging. I really admire her for bringing this up as I also suffer from depression and anxiety disorder. This is something I have always kept to myself in the past for fear of people seeing and treating me differently, but her post and all the supportive comments left by her followers made me re-evaluate my reasoning behind this. So I thought that, as a starting point, I would write this here just to prove to myself that I should not be ashamed of something that I cannot help about myself and that there is no reason why I can't be open and honest about it to others. Hopefully this will be my next step in learning to manage my condition and will allow me to feel happier in myself in the future.

photo diary #1

2011-02-20T23:12:00.000Z

1&2: some very helpful books; 3,4,5,6&7: research for my current project; 8: colour/fabric scheme for said project; 9: listening to Mother by Tori Amos.

Thought I'd start doing a photo diary post at the end of each week to sum up what I've done. As you can see this week's interesting events mainly consisted of doing uni work every now and again, while the rest of my time was spent doing normal, boring things such as eating, sleeping, watching TV etc that aren't really worth recording. Let me know if you want to see more of these posts and I'll make it a regular feature!

make this easy

2011-02-13T00:29:00.001Z

I'm really not getting any better at this whole "posting regularly" thing, am I? I was going to post this on Wednesday but, again, random things ended up distracting me and I've only got round to posting it now. I'm sorry, I promise I'll be better at this very soon!

Anyway, like I said this outfit was from Wednesday, although it's something I've worn quite a few times before now, between washes obviously! The skirt is actually a dress that I got from Warehouse in a sale about 3 years ago for £20. It's a wrap dress and has a really low cut bust so unless I wear something under/over it I basically end up flashing my bra, so at the moment I've opted for layering this ASOS jumper over the top, which is another of my more recent sale purchases. I love this jumper as it's cropped at the front but longer at the back so its a perfect layering piece especially over dresses such as this one. I obviously then paired it with my usual accessories and my camel coat, it's my favourite piece of outerwear right now so expect to see it a few more times on here until spring properly shows up!

Coat: Topshop

Dress: Warehouse

Jumper: ASOS

Belt: ASOS

Boots: Debenhams

P.S. Please excuse all the wires in the background, its where my telephone is plugged in and I probably shouldn't unplug it...

P.P.S. Also please excuse the fact that my nails are dire in these pictures, those of you with keen eyesight may notice that one of my nails is almost entirely devoid of nail varnish while others are not. This is why there are no hands/rings/nails pics for you this time, sadly. I also really want a couple of new rings so I don't keep showing you the same ones all the time!

tumblr

2011-02-07T23:09:00.001Z

Just thought I'd let you guys know that I now have a tumblr. I'm mainly going to use it for uni based things, research and inspiration, like a sort of online sketchbook. I may also throw in the odd bit of generic fashion posting as well, but at the moment I'm gonna concentrate on the uni work side of things. If any of you are interested in my inspiration and ideas then you are more than welcome to follow!

Also just wanted to apologise profusely for how shitty I've been at posting, every time I've planned on taking outfit photos something or other has got in the way, which is really annoying as there are loads of outfits I've worn that I really want to post here! Anyway I promise I'm going to be better and post as much as I can. Hopefully I'm also going to start doing some more photo diary type posts, so look out for those soon as well!

tonal

2011-01-25T00:18:00.002Z

An outfit made up almost entirely of Topshop coming up, I swear the Topshop sales (and ASOS for that matter) are the bane of my life. Although sales are pretty much where I get the majority of my wardrobe, which although still costly, I like to think it is considerably better than coughing up full price for things as soon as they come out. Both the coat and jumper are recent Topshop sale purchases and they are literally perfect for each other, albeit a little too warm for the slightly improving weather, but I can get over that for now. As you can see this coat is the one I mentioned in my previous post, my parents took me to the Metro Centre when they came to visit at the weekend and there it was sat on the rail in my size, calling out to me. Also in the trend of "things I've mentioned I wanted in previous posts and have now somehow managed to acquire" I also got the skinny boyfriend belt from ASOS as you can probably see, which I mentioned here. Like I said, Topshop and ASOS are the bane of my life.

Coat: Topshop

Jumper: Topshop

Skirt: Topshop

Belt: ASOS

Necklace: c/o devore le beau monstre

P.S. I've tried to lay out my photos a bit differently, hopefully it's worked! *EDIT* Yay, it worked!

transition

2011-01-20T23:15:00.001Z

I got these leather shorts quite a few weeks ago now, when I was still back at home in Yorkshire, from the vintage section in Urban Outfitters in Leeds. It was possibly one of the best moments of my life when I wandered over to the sale/vintage area and they had literally like a dozen pair of leather shorts all for £21.99. Thankfully I managed to find a pair that actually fit my annoying much larger-than-average hips/bum/thighs plus with my student discount on top of the sale price they were a serious bargain. Yay for me! Anyway, although I have worn them LOADS, I hadn't managed to get photos yet, but yesterday I finally had a bit of time when I wasn't rushing back and to around Newcastle, or feeling much too tired and sweaty after doing said rushing to actually get some photos where I don't look completely crap.

I paired the shorts with some neutral layers as a nod towards spring which will hopefully turn up sooner rather than later. I love winter and winter fashion but I am looking forward to when it's a bit milder in terms of temperature so I don't have to worry about massive coats and scarves all the time. I've been wearing a ridiculous amount of black recently and I feel like I need to get out of it so I don't look like I'm constantly in mourning or something, but I've just been drawn to it all winter and I can't seem to shake it off! I was hoping that the addition of this coat to my wardrobe would help inject a bit of colour during this transitional period but it sold out while I dithered about worrying whether I could actually really afford it or not, even if it was in the sale. However, now I shall never know... unless I manage to hunt it down instore somewhere!

Rings: ASOS & Topshop

Nail polish: Cherry Pie by Models Own

Shorts: Vintage via UO

Shirt: H&M

Jumper: H&M

Coat: Whistles

Boots: Debenhams

Necklace: c/o devore le beau monstre

P.S. Have you noticed my cool oh-so-subtle lens flare in these pics. Does that make me like a proper fashion blogger now?? Even if it was purely by accident?? You should check out this post here for how you're SUPPOSED to use lense flare!

P.P.S. I'm almost at 150 followers! Love you guys! There may be a giveaway in the works soon, just need to work out what I could actually give away....

pieces of me you've never seen

2011-01-13T23:48:00.000Z

I've been meaning to post this for quite a few days now, but just hadn't got round to it. Maybe it's been because of my daily routine of uni for an hour or so in the morning, then home to my flat to watch back-to-back Come Dine With Me (the Australian version though! still entertaining but not the same without Dave Lamb!) followed by a bit of Jezza Kyle and then Friends and/or Scrubs as well. Such an exciting life I have!

Anyway as I had mentioned in a previous post, here are some pics of my now fully inhabited flat. I absolutely love it, I never imagined that I'd be able to live somewhere that is so perfect for me while I'm still in only my first year of university. I basically have the most incredible parents ever, who have put so much into helping me and supporting me in any way they can, and I am so grateful to them for everything they do for me. Sorry for getting all soppy on you guys but it's late and I'm feeling emotional! I'll also extend my thanks to all of you who follow, read and comment here on my blog, you are all genuinely amazing and have given me so much more confidence to just be myself, which is really what I set out to achieve with all this. So thank you all so much!

Anyway, hope you like having a bit of a nosy around my new flat. Let me know what you think!

Oh so humorous coaster my mum and I picked up from Joy. Hahaha.

My mannequin. She's called Diana.

The ubiquitous mirror shot:

Cardigan - Urban Outfitters

Tee - Metallica

Skirt - Topshop

Mirror - Argos!

the old and the new

2011-01-04T15:38:00.001Z

I really need to get better at posting outfits on the day I actually wore them, I suppose that should probably be one of my new year's resolutions. Or at least a blog resolution anyway. So far my resolutions for this year are not to be late all the time, lose some weight and have more confidence in myself. I could list off many others but we all know how most resolutions are made to be broken, so I won't bore you with them all.

Anyway this outfit was from New Years Day, like I said I really need to improve on posting outfit photos nearer to the day I actually wore them! I'd just got this dress from the Warehouse website, which was originally £85, for the tiny sum of £20! It was part of a graduate designer collection by a girl called Daisy Craver in association with the British Fashion Council Colleges Council which I'd had my eye on for a while now, but at £85, it was a no-go. But then obviously when it went in the sale for £25 and I could use my 20% student discount PLUS get free next day delivery, I snapped it right up! I paired it with a really ancient cardigan from Dorothy Perkins as it was the only piece slouchy enough to look right with all the draping and then finished it off with one of my mums old belts that only fits because I had to make another hole in it right at the end. There comes in my resolution to lose a bit of weight! Or maybe just buy a new boyfriend belt!

Dress - Warehouse

Cardigan - Dorothy Perkins

Belt - Vintage (mum's)

Boots - Debenhams

Bag - ASOS

Rings - ASOS & Topshop

I reckon this dress would look ultimately better with a really long, chunky, waterfall-style, drapey cardigan layered over the top and a knotted black boyfriend belt to cinch in the waist. And maybe some kind of chain body harness as well. Sadly I don't have any of these exact items in my wardrobe as of yet, so this combination will just have to do for now!

Also, I apologise for looking so moody in these pictures. I suppose there was just something about this ensemble which asked for some form of "cool nonchalance" or something like that!? Or maybe it was just that I wasn't in a very smiley mood at the time!

P.S. Just realised I hadn't really wished you all a Happy New Year on the blog yet. So Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had a really great time and are looking forward to a brand new year! I know I am!

gold dust

2010-12-30T16:37:00.000Z

So here's what I wore on Christmas Day. I had a bit of an issue with this dress when I opened it on Christmas morning as I had a good look at it to admire the construction and the lovely flimsy layers of fabrics when I discovered that one of the sleeves had not been sewn into the armhole seam! It was only the outer lace layer on the right sleeve which had been missed but for £95 for a designer collaboration garment, I was incredibly disappointed! I would expect something of a pretty decent quality at that price or at least an efficient quality check as it left the factory!? However because I just loved the dress so much and I knew it had sold out online (pesky Topshop putting it on sale for £50 only days after my parents..sorry, SANTA, got it for me!) I got out my needle and thread and did my best to sew it on without taking the actual dress apart. I imagine I could have done a better job of it with more time/patience but I wanted to get on with the rest of the day and, most importantly have my dinner, so a speedy repair would have to do!

Anyway I wore the dress with my new faux fur tippet from Topshop which was also a Christmas present from "Santa". I think the grey colour of the fur goes perfectly with the dusky pink of the dress and I accessorised with my new rings and my new biker boots. I got these boots a week or so ago and I am obsessed with them. I've been looking for the right pair of biker boots for months now and after trawling practically every site/shop I could think of I finally decided on these from Debenhams by their Mantaray brand. I guess they're not the most interesting of boots but they were exactly what I was looking for in style, shape and detail and for £40 for real leather I can't complain about the price either! The fact that they're super comfy and actually very appropriate for the weather at the moment is also an added bonus!

Dress - Meadham Kirchhoff for Topshop

Tippet - Topshop

Rings (from left to right); ASOS, Topshop, ASOS, Topshop, gift from aunty.

Nail polish: Nails Inc. X Cadbury's Dairy Milk in Cocoa Bliss

Boots - Mantaray at Debenhams

Overall I was pretty pleased with my Christmas outfit this year, and the fact my dress shed glitter around the house making me some kind of oversized, giant Christmas fairy was actually kind of a cute addition, although it was annoying for my dad who had to hoover it all up in the end!

christmas

2010-12-29T21:59:00.002Z

Here are some of the presents I received this Christmas; two Topshop rings from my sister, Zombieland DVD from my brother, jewellery box from my aunty and uncle, Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb Extreme perfume, Meadham Kirchhoff for Topshop dress plus a grey faux fur tippet from Topshop that can be seen ever so slightly in a few of the photos (both of which I wore on Christmas Day, outfit photos to come).

Plus I also got chocolate, a coffee giftset ready for my new flat, a super cute Bunnies 2011 calendar, vintage patterns from my aunty and a fashion-related book from my other aunty and uncle.

So I had a really lovely Christmas, and I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who commented and wished me a Happy Christmas! I hope yours were all lovely as well! Christmas dinner was amazing and after both second and third helpings, along with probably a little too much of my new favourite tipple (raspberry vodka and lemonade), I then proceeded to fall asleep on the sofa while the brother watched one of his numerous Top Gear/car related DVDs which I think we all immediately regretted buying him as soon as he opened them. I have to say I was very pleased with the present I got for him though, it was only small, but it was a book called "Pets with Tourettes" and he literally wet himself laughing every time he turned a page, which was nice. For those of you with an incredibly crude and juvenile sense of humour I found it here to give you an idea of it.

I was also very pleased with the present I got for my sister which was this scarf/hood thingy featuring cute fluffy pom poms from ASOS. She has been a poorly little thing these past few weeks and my whole family are convinced its because she has a penchant for wearing as little clothes as possible (not in a slutty way, just in a teenaged "I can't be bothered to get dressed properly" way), so we all ended up getting her lovely knitted woolly things to help keep her warm!

We finished our night by watching whatever was on TV, which included something about the Greatest Christmas TV Ads, Family Guy and the newish Starsky and Hutch film. Random, but thats how Christmas is supposed to be, right!!?

everlong

2010-12-24T23:01:00.000Z

I get really excited about Christmas, I basically behave like an overgrown child. I literally can't wait to sit round the Christmas tree with all my family first thing in the morning opening presents and then consume my entire body weight in food and drink. That's definitely my idea of a good time.

Anyway I had these outfit photos from last Sunday that I wanted to show you all. We went to my grandma's for her 80th birthday and consumed lots of yummy food and I played with my cousins. I wore my Primark velvet dress which I layered with a sheer floral shirt I got from New Look a month or so ago. Its the perfect oversized shape and the sheer floral print is so gorgeous and for £19.99 it was a bargain too! You can't see it too well in these photos but hopefully I'll get some better shots of it soon as I've been wearing it practically every other day! As you can see I'm also wearing the necklace I won from devore le beau monstre which has now replaced the ASOS necklace I wore everyday as my favourite necklace!

Dress - Primark

Shirt - New Look

Jacket - River Island

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Boots - Debenhams

Necklace - c/o devore le beau monstre

Just to add to the Christmas spirit I thought I'd show you some photos of our Christmas tree. For a few years now I have decorated the tree and taken it on as my "thing" mainly because I'm such a control freak when it comes to stuff like this, that just I shout at anyone who tries to help. So it's always been left to me, but I really enjoy it anyway and I love it when it looks nice!

I thought I'd throw in a couple of pics of some pressies as well and the tag on my present from my sister. I actually already know what she's got me (two rings from Topshop!) as me and my mum picked it out when we were doing our last bit of Christmas shopping on Tuesday. She's been poorly so she hasn't been able to go out and get me anything so I ended up picking it out for her haha! It meant we could also get student discount on it as well so it was a win/win situation really!

Anyway I hope you all have a really, really lovely Christmas and I'll be back in the next few days with updates on what I got and what I wore. So until then Merry Christmas everyone!

brick by brick

2010-12-21T00:24:00.000Z

Hi guys! I'm finally back from my considerably extended blog hiatus and there's loads for me to catch you all up on.

First of all I finally managed to get outfit photos the other day, these are from when I went up to Newcastle on Friday last week to make another visit to my new flat and sort a few things out. I'm really sorry it's taken me this long to post again, as I said previously I have been so preoccupied with finding somewhere new to live and sorting all of that out that I haven't been able to put as much effort into my blog. Also every time I planned on taking outfit photos my camera would be out of battery or I'd just forgotten it altogether, so that's been a pretty big fail on my part.

Anyway I'm also finally getting round to showing you all the Topshop maxi skirt I've been raving about in a number of my previous posts, so here it is! It has literally been my go-to item for weeks now and this combination I'm wearing here has to be one of my favourite ways to wear it so far. I've paired it with my big cream cable-knit jumper tucked in and my Primark shearling-trim denim jacket, along with a leopard print belt I got a few weeks ago from Dorothy Perkins for like £4 or something measly like that! I'm sorry that the pictures aren't great but it was dark when I took these (well my dad took them actually, hence the slightly bemused expression in a few of them and the "experimental angle" in the middle picture) so the lighting was a bit crap and I had to resort to using the flash.

But having said that you're also getting a bit of a sneak peek of my new flat in Newcastle! As you can see it has this pretty cool feature wall in the living room/kitchen which I am hoping will lend itself very well to outfit photos in the near future! I would show you other pics of the rest of the flat but to be honest its looking very, very bare at the moment and I'd rather show it off when its a bit more cosy and homely once I've moved in properly in January.

Jumper - Second hand (mum's)

Skirt - Topshop

Belt - Dorothy Perkins

Jacket - Primark

Boots - Debenhams

Necklace - c/o devore le beau monstre.

crucify

2010-11-27T19:02:00.000Z

Nail Polish - Nails Inc X Cadburys Dairy Milk Bliss in Cocoa Bliss

Ring - ASOS

I finally got round to painting my nails again, I have been neglecting them for weeks and it's actually felt kind of bad looking down at my nails and not seeing them coated in some colour or another. I thought I'd try out one of the nail varnishes I won that I mentioned about here. I went for the chocolate brown colour and although I was at first unsure about whether I would like this colour, I actually really love it. In the light it's sort of a combination between brown, black and grey and although its kind of metallic its also kind of matte as well, which I really like. Also it applies SO much better than my other cheaper nail varnishes! But considering it should have originally been like £11 (?) that's kind of a given.

Also I finally invested in a few rings! I bought this cross ring from ASOS a week or two ago and I love it, as well as this one which I'm also wearing now that I haven't got a picture of. I would have liked to have got the double finger cross ring but it had sold out :( I have always had trouble with rings as most don't seem to fit my super-duper chubby fingers but I'm going to do my best to find some that fit me because I really love wearing them!

winter inspiration

2010-11-25T18:13:00.001Z

What I love right now: anything leather, sheer maxi's, draping and layering, leopard print, fur, chunky knitwear and copious amounts of black.

Credit : ElleUK

Credit: 1. Josefin A LOOKBOOK 2. love_aesthetics CHICTOPIA

Credit: ElleUK

Credit: 1. Veronika B LOOKBOOK 2. FashionHippieLoves

Credit: Dee Larsen

Credit: PURE LOVE

Credit: 1. Janice S LOOKBOOK 2. STOP IT RIGHT NOW

Credit: YOU WALK LIKE A THIEF

Credit: 1. Fashion Zen 2. Wayne Tippetts

Credit: 1. The Stylish Heart 2. Late Afternoon

Credit: Frou Frouu

Credit: 1. Frida J LOOKBOOK 2. PURE LOVE

Also just thought I'd let you guys know that you may not hear from me on here all that much for the next week or two, I'm going to do my best to post but it probably won't be all that frequently. Basically, as I had sort of briefly mentioned in my last post, I have been having some trouble with where I live at university and I think I'm going to be moving out. So I'm currently still at home at the moment trying to find a new place to live that I can move into within the next couple of weeks, so I'm going to be pretty busy trying to sort that out.

P.S. The saga of my giveaway luck continues as I won a vintage cross necklace at devore le beau monstre! Can't wait until I recieve it so I can show it you all!

blood roses

2010-11-19T14:40:00.000Z

Sorry for having gone a bit AWOL this week, I've actually been ill so I've spent the week at home and just haven't been in the mood to post. I've neglected my twitter as well, but expect a lot more pointless ramblings on there from me from now on, if you wish to follow!

Anyway being at home has really helped me to sort my priorities out and, although I sometimes don't really think the whole "student" lifestyle is the best thing for me at times (as in the drunken, filthy, Lord of the Flies sort of existence that seems to be what sudents have turned into these days) I know what I want to do and what I want to achieve and that's all that matters in the end. Did any of you feel like this about your student days, or still experience it now, or is it just me???

Onto lighter things anyway, this outfit was actually from last weekend, as you can see from the poppy marking Remembrance Day. I'm wearing a Topshop dress that I picked up in the mid-season sale a few weeks ago for £20. I was never sure if I liked this dress when I'd seen it at full price but I spotted it in the sale, tried it on and I had to have it. It's a lovely shape and colour and goes so perfectly with my fur coat as well! As you can also see I've picked up a new necklace as well to wear with my usual cross one. It's a skull one from Topshop which I got when I went shopping with my mum last weekend in White Rose Shopping Centre in Leeds. I'd basically been looking for one of those maxi skirts and had no luck there so I cheered myself up by buying the necklace.

Dress -Topshop

Coat - Vintage

Necklaces - Topshop & ASOS

However, I did finally find the skirt I was looking for at Topshop in the Metro Centre in Newcastle and it is now mine! It was the "Posh" one (on the bottom right of the collage in this post) and I am so happy with it! I ended up getting it for only £10.50 as I used the £30 gift card I won from the Style of a Fashionista giveaway (thank you so much again!) and I got an extra 10% off with my good old student discount too! It's completely gorgeous and exactly what I was looking for so expect to see it in outfit posts soon!

So until then, I hope you all have a great weekend!

red

2010-11-07T23:33:00.001Z

I came back up to Newcastle today, just thought I'd show you a few bits and pieces that I've been up to. First off I've been learning to knit and below is the start of a purl sample, so far it seems to be going quite well. Secondly I managed to get to Topshop in Eldon Square today, I scoured the shop for one of the skirts I posted about previously but I had no luck. Apparently they haven't had any maxi skirts in for months? I seriously doubt this. Anyway I'm not giving up that easy and I will keep checking the one in Newcastle as well as the shops in Leeds when I next go home. I decided to buy the lipstick to cheer myself up, it's actually a bit darker than it is in the photo as I had to resort to using flash, but anyway, I really love it!

Also, I won another giveaway today! This was one by LDNfashion.net via Twitter and I won a set of Limited Edition Cadbury's Dairy Milk x Nail's Inc. nail polishes! It seems I'm a lucky girl at the moment, maybe I should buy a lottery ticket this week too...

P.S. Thank you so much to Laura at Romance Is Boring for featuring me on her blog!

remember, remember

2010-11-05T15:19:00.000Z

..It's the 5th of November! What are you all (well those of you in the UK anyway) doing for Bonfire Night? I'm back home in Yorkshire at the moment so I'm hopefully going to have a lovely weekend with the family as we're visiting my grandma tomorrow for some Bonfire Night celebrations with fireworks and yummy food, not sure if I'm doing anything in particular tonight though!

Anyway on a completely different note, some of you may be aware that I won the amazing giveaway at Style Of A Fashionista for a £30 Topshop voucher a couple of weeks ago. I was ridiculously happy and excited to say the least and that excitement probably increased two-fold when I recieved it at the beginning of this week and I now get to decide what I'm going to buy with it!

As you may have seen in this previous post I was raving about how much I wanted a sheer maxi skirt and Topshop have just brought in a black pleated sheer maxi skirt that seems perfect! They've also got a softer version without the knife pleats which I like as well so I'm hoping to get to my nearest shop ASAP and see if I can find at least one of these skirts to buy with my voucher! However I do also have some back up ideas in case A) they look poo on me or B) I can't find them instore anywhere so I thought I'd do a little bit of an ideas post for you all to see! Obviously I will only be able to buy 1 or 2 items with my lovely voucher but there are so many other pieces I want as well I just couldn't narrow it down! Please do leave comments/advice on what you think I should get, I'm feeling very indecisive at the moment!

All items from Topshop. Sheer pleated maxi skirt (furthest left) £45 and "Posh" Maxi skirt (furthest right) also £45.

Also just thought I'd remind everyone to please follow me on Twitter if you aren't already! I can at times be humourous and/or insightful so please do follow!

army dreamers

2010-11-03T17:44:00.000Z

I've so far not had the best week, what little time management skills I have have really gone out the window these past few days, which has left me feeling a bit stressed and worried if I'm honest! However I'm going home tomorrow for the weekend which should hopefully give me a chance to recharge my batteries or whatever it is I need to do so I can come back to uni and get myself back on track!

Anyway I had these photos from when I went out on Sunday. This was when my family were still here so my sister kindly took pictures of me, she seems to be developing a real eye for it! Considering that it was Halloween I honoured the day by going a bit gothic, so I wore this burgundy velvet dress I got from Primark a few weeks ago which I then paired with my army jacket and a snuggly ASOS snood along with all my usual black and gold accessories. I really like this dress, it's actually a lovely shape and fit, my only problem with it is that the long sleeves really chafe on the insides of my elbows and leave me with a sore red patch there whenever I wear it. I suppose it's just down to the lining of the velvet not being particularly soft and I suppose it's to be expected from somewhere like Primark, still if it didn't do that I'd probably wear it so much more as I love the shape and colour!

Dress - Primark

Jacket - Urban Outfitters

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Necklace - ASOS

Snood - ASOS

Boots - Schuh

As we were out on Sunday we also went out for a bit of lunch at Marks & Spencers (well actually we ate out pretty much all weekend apart from when I cooked for me and my sister on Saturday night but anyway that's beside the point!) In Newcastle they have a proper restaurant set up rather than the usual cafe I'm used to back in Yorkshire and they have seriously lovely food! I had a lasagne, but they've got all sorts of other gorgeous things as well as their amazing melt-in-the-middle chocolate puddings that they serve with ice cream AND cream! I didn't get a picture of it but you can imagine how yummy it is!

They also have Coke in glass bottles, which is probably the only time I actually really enjoy Coke. Why is it that it tastes so much better out of a glass bottle anyway?

fade to black

2010-10-31T23:57:00.000Z

Again, I'm so sorry for being a crap blogger at the moment. I feel like I should also apologise for apologising so much as it seems to be something I've done now at the start of every post, but still, I am very sorry! I was meant to post this outfit on Friday but just didn't get round to it and then my family came up to Newcastle for a couple of days so I've been busy shopping, spending time with my sister and eating a bit too much! As they were staying for the weekend I thought it would be fun for my sister to stay in my room while my parents stayed at a hotel nearby, so she could experience a bit of the student lifestyle, even though she's quite a few years off it yet, and also just have a bit of a laugh and eat lots of junk food without mum and dad telling us off haha! As it turned out we weren't very good at the whole pigging out thing as I'd cooked us some enchiladas on Saturday night that we had with some other Tex Mex based snacks but we were so full we had to throw a lot of it away! I absolutely hate wasting food so it was possibly the hardest thing ever to have to throw away what I'd so lovingly made!

Anyway, as I said this outfit was from Friday, it's not the most interesting thing I've worn but I had to rush out to uni on at 9am to finish off a sample I'd been doing in our Garment Construction module and I didn't have much time to come up with anything more creative. So I just threw on my black maxi skirt with my favourite faded old Metallica tee and my shearling trim denim jacket. I also had straight hair because I basically couldn't be bothered to curl it!

Tee - Metallica

Skirt - Matalan

Jacket - Primark

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Necklace - ASOS

P.S. Am I the only one who isn't all that bothered about Halloween?? Still, happy halloween to those of you who are!

love, love, love!

2010-10-23T17:51:00.001+01:00

Apologies for the pretty sporadic posting of late, uni life is really getting in the way of blogging but I'm doing my best! This outfit was from Wednesday, which is my day of lectures, and I decided to wear my Luella t-shirt that I've had for a couple of years now that has yet to be seen on this blog. I don't know if any of you will recognise it at all but it was from the Autumn/Winter 2007 show and can actually be seen in this look here. I'd bought it on the Luella website when it was on sale, although I can't for the life of me remember how much it was, I could take a guess but it would probably be wrong, so lets just say it was considerably discounted! It was the start of my little collection of Luella pieces which includes this bag, a dress similar to this one but longer and in black and a shirt similar to this one but in black and white polkadots, all of which I've bought at outlet stores or on sale, because I could never afford the normal retail prices!

I've kind of been in love with Luella ever since her Spring/Summer 2007 show with all the cute graphic prints and that quintessential British, girly-meets-punky kind of style that she became so famous for. And you can probably imagine how bummed out I was when she ceased trading during the recession last year, so I like to think the Luella pieces I have are a sort of investment and might be worth something more in the years to come! I would also very much like her book to add to my collection as well, so mum if you're reading this, that's one less Xmas present you have to think of! ;)

T-Shirt - Luella

Shorts - Next

Jacket - Urban Outfitters

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Necklace - ASOS

I went with a bit of a Luella-esque look, which was a mix between girly and military, by pairing my tee with floral print shorts and my new army jacket. I got this on sale from Urban Outfitters the other week and I love it so much! However it's not the warmest of jackets and it's suddenly got super cold up here in Newcastle so I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to wear it! I think my faux fur is going to be my coat of choice for the next few months to be honest!

P.S. Today, we discovered that there are maggots behind the cooker in our kitchen. Both dead and alive. So I have been slightly freaking out all day. I don't get why they're there because we keep the kitchen really clean?! And we can't get it sorted out until Monday as maintenance aren't available until then! It's the halls' fault anyway because they didn't even bother cleaning and filling the gap in the floor before we all moved in and now we have to live with maggots! It actually makes me feel really quite ill!

fantasy fur

2010-10-18T19:42:00.005+01:00

As I mentioned in my previous post I went home this weekend and had the loveliest time. I spent Friday and Saturday just sat around watching our new TV, eating ice cream (Ben & Jerrys obviously), playing the Wii with my sister (Just Dance 2 is definitely worth having a go at, so much fun and such good exercise!) as well as getting to sleep again in my lovely double bed! Gosh I missed it! Then on Sunday I had to pry myself out of bed and travel back over to Newcastle and this outfit was from then. These pictures were actually taken in Newcastle by my mum outside the Laing Art Gallery, which I have yet to have a look round even though I live about 5 minutes away from it!

Anyway I'm wearing my amazing faux fur coat that I had mentioned briefly in this post here, which I got at a vintage fair last month in Harrogate for a bargainous £19! This has probably got to be the best £19 I've ever spent as this coat is completely perfect. Its just the right shade of brown, not too dark and not too light, while being the perfect oversized shape with perfect length bracelet sleeves. Not only that it is so warm and comfy, it's going to be an absolute essential over winter! Although I've worn it a considerable number of times so far I haven't actually worn it in an outfit on this blog yet, but I suppose its better late than never!

I decided to wear it in quite a vintage-y but also grungy sort of way yesterday, so I paired it with my nude, zip-detail slip dress from Topshop as well as a pair of biker style boots. This is another item which has yet to appear on my blog, even though I've had these for probably around 2 years! Weirdly enough I'd actually bought these boots for a halloween party so that I could dress up as Alice in Resident Evil, where I wore said biker boots with a red silky midi length nightie I got in the market that I customized to have an asymmetric hem. It wasn't exactly my best work but I suppose I did kind of look like her, even though I always had to inform people of who I was dressed up as! Is it just me, or is that the most annoying thing about fancy dress? If you're ever at all orginal in any way, no one ever has a clue who you're supposed to be and you end up just getting a load of funny looks! Anyway, I digress. I haven't actually worn these boots since then as I felt like they made my legs look fatter than usual so I steered clear of them, but then I started seeing other people wearing biker boots with pretty dresses and skirts and I just wanted to give them another go. So, here they are! I'm still looking at getting perhaps a cheap-ish ankle length pair, but these will do for now!

Coat - Vintage

Dress - Topshop

Bag - ASOS
Necklace - ASOS

Boots - Debenhams

something old & something (kind of) new

2010-10-14T21:00:00.001+01:00

I think I have only ever worn trousers in an outfit post once before on this blog (which was in March here) I suppose it's actually quite an accurate representation of the frequency of which I wear trousers/jeans because I just don't find them as comfy or flattering as dresses and skirts. However I do wear them on the odd occasion and the other day I finally pulled out these khaki peg/harem hybrid trousers I got from a New Look sale probably about 4 or 5 months ago, which I was yet to wear. My reason for not having worn them yet was that, at the time, they were a bit tight on my legs so I was going to lose some weight before I wore them. And although I'm pretty sure I'm the same size now as I was then, they actually seem to fit really well now, so I thought I should really start wearing them more!

Anyway, I decided to pair them with my trusty cable knit jumper which I sort of tucked in at the front and then left untucked at the back, to get a bit of that dipped hem effect I love so much. I also love the fact that this jumper was free off my mum considering a similar style is £48 in Topshop! Having said that I've seen plenty of these sorts of jumpers in various vintage shops, there must have been at least a dozen in Blue Rinse in Leeds when I was there last! Anyway, I then also paired this look with my leather jacket and usual accessories to kind of give it a bit more of a grungy edge, because although I love the muted colour combination, I definitely needed to throw in a bit of black as well!

Jumper - Vintage (mum's)

Trousers - New Look

Jacket - River Island

Belt - Topshop

Boots - Urban Outfitters

Right now I'm really looking forward to going home for the weekend tomorrow as we have a new TV that I really want to check out and I've also really missed playing on the Wii, which is kinda sad but, oh well! I will also hopefully get out of the house at some point and get some pictures that aren't taken in my badly-lit room at uni and then I will also be able to pick up the things I've bought online this past week (namely three new dresses, an army jacket and a replacement for my ASOS cross necklace which broke the other day!) I know that I really should be living on a budget now I'm at uni but all the mid-season sales are just wayyy too tempting!

repeated

2010-10-12T23:20:00.000+01:00

Yesterday's outfit was a similar combination to the first outfit in my last post. I wore my new Primark jacket again paired with another floral dress, this time one from ASOS that I bought in the sale last week which my parents brought up for me when they visited at the weekend. I absolutely love this dress, the shape and print are lovely and I completely ADORE the dipped hem at the back. As some of you may have noticed I have actually developed a bit of a thing for dipped hems (some examples here and here) but this one is definitely my favourite one yet. The shape is just perfect, it has lovely, slightly frilly sleeves as well as a cute cut out detail at the back which I unfortunately forgot to photograph, but it's such a gorgeous, comfy dress that I felt really good in, which is the most important part really!

Dress - ASOS

Jacket - Primark

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Necklace - ASOS

Bag - Luella

Anyway, I'm much happier with my photos this week and I think I am definitely going to stick to using Photoshop to edit them next to each other like this, as well as just generally improve the colour/get rid of my university-lifestyle-induced dark rings beneath my eyes as well haha!

Also, just wanted to say great big hello to all my lovely new followers and everyone who has been commenting, you guys really make my day and I'm so glad that you're all enjoying my posts! Expect another outfit tomorrow as well as hopefully a few photos of some things I've been doing in class soon!

hours

2010-10-10T14:14:00.000+01:00

There is literally not enough time in the day for everything I need to do! Every time I've tried to post this past week something or other has got in the way, whether its been trying to do uni work or just generally not feeling in the right mood to write a post, something has always got in my way, and I am so sorry for that! It also doesn't help that I'm feeling pretty uninspired right now, doing work seems to be a real uphill struggle and when I'm trying to keep up with everything else thats going on as well, it just gets sooo hard to do anything! I also think my blog needs a bit of a revamp too, in terms of layout as well as photography as I'm still finding it pretty hard to get decent outfit photos, again my lack of feeling inspired is also affecting this too sadly!

Anyway enough of the complaints though as I have a couple of sets of outfit photos from the past week which I thought I'd just post even though I'm really not happy with the quality/composition of the photos. I'm trying a bit of a different format with them in putting them next to each other though, so please let me know what you think!

This was just a quick outfit I put together last Sunday, I recently bought the shearling trim denim jacket from Primark and I thought it would go quite well with my floral sundress from Topshop.

Dress - Topshop

Jacket - Primark

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Necklace - ASOS

Then this outfit was from Wednesday and it was kind of inspired by some of the looks in my last post. I wanted to wear one of my maxi skirts belted at the waist and this grey Dorothy Perkins one was the best for that. I then just wore it quite simply with a plain black vest top and my leather jacket. I think this outfit would be just that little bit better if I had a black bustier/bralet style top to pair it with, but I have not had much luck so far in finding one in black thats not too expensive, so the search shall continue!

Vest - ASOS

Skirt - Dorothy Perkins

Jacket - River Island

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Necklace - ASOS

I will hopefully also post some shots of work I've done in the past couple of weeks (mainly moulage or draping on the stand to those of you who aren't clued up in design vocab!) later today/tomorrow as well as some other general shots maybe, so watch this space!

want/need

2010-10-01T17:52:00.001+01:00

I am currently desperate for a long skirt. Not your usual jersey fitted type or a hippy, tiered type but one of those long, high-waisted slightly 50's style skirts in a sightly sheer fabric that drapes and swishes in all the right places. Here are few looks that I absolutely love involving said skirt in some form or another.

Photo Credits: 1. Death by Platforms 2. Jess Loves Fred 3. ElleUK 4. Jess Loves Fred

I've seen that Zara have a few of these skirts in at the moment like this one, but I'm just not sure any of them are perfect enough to warrant spending £30-£40 on. There is also the amazing American Apparel one but at £52 that really is a no-go. I'm hoping I will one day just happen upon one in a vintage/charity shop for a few pounds but until then I think I'll have to do without. Same for aviator jackets, until I find a reasonably priced, preferably vintage one somewhere I think I'm just going to have to steer clear for now. Is there a gorgeous A/W piece you're desperate for right now but just can't find at a reasonable price?

getting into the swing of things

2010-09-28T21:22:00.003+01:00

It's been my second day of classes and lectures today and so far I'm really enjoying it! It's hard work, we spent literally all day yesterday doing loads of different experimental drawings, which maybe didn't go as well as I would have liked, as it felt like I'd forgotten pretty much all of my basic drawing skills over summer! And then this morning we had our first go on the industrial sewing machines, which was scary and a bit stressful to say the least, but I'm sure once I'm a bit more used to everything I'll enjoy classes even more.

Anyway I managed to get some outfit pictures done today! Granted they're not very good as I had to take them in my room in my flat so the lighting isn't great, but I will hopefully work out the perfect way to take them soon, but for now this will have to do! I went with my signature grungy layered sort of look today by layering one of my black maxi dresses with a top I got the other day in what remains of the sale in the Topshop in Eldon Square in Newcastle. I love the draped, swingy shape as well as the burgundy colour, and for £7 it was a bargain too! I decided to belt it to change the shape a bit and then threw on all my usual accessories with it, as well as my leather jacket for that extra bit of grunginess (if that's even a word!)

Dress - New Look

Top - Topshop

Jacket - River Island

Belt - Urban Outfitters

P.S. Please ignore the fact you can see into my bathroom in the mirror! Will shut the door next time ha!

back

2010-09-26T23:47:00.002+01:00

Hey guys! So sorry about what is now a 2 week absence from the blog but as some of you may have picked up on, I have now moved to Newcastle to start at Northumbria University! I moved in the Friday before last and I have been so busy since then that I literally haven't been able to even contemplate trying to post until now. Anyway I thought I'd just show you a few photos of some of the new things that come with Uni life as I am still trying to work out the best way to take outfit photos, as I can no longer sneak outside into my garden and have a bit of a pose in front of my camera and tripod, so some general snapshots of things will have to do for now!

My new bedroom!

The view from my window, I can see the Baltic!

And the all important wardrobe!

Apologies that the quality of these pictures isn't all that great, I took them when the light was fading a bit so they've turned out a bit grainy :(

Also thought I'd include a couple of shots from my first induction week on my Fashion Design course, everything seems really good so far and I start properly tomorrow, which is pretty exciting, however I'm not looking forward to the early 9:00 am start!

We'd been doing group work where we put together a storyboard inspired by a set of fashion images, and we then had to create a 3D shape on the stand using only old shirts! We then had to present our work to tutors and the rest of the class for a bit of an informal crit session.

Anyway, hope you've all had a good weekend and I'll be back soon with hopefully more outfit posts, a bit of street style inspiration and maybe even some of my work!

last minute procrastination

2010-09-12T16:07:00.005+01:00

I should really be doing my uni project right about now, but I had these outfit photos from yesterday which I wanted to post so I will do this first and then do my work! As you may be able to tell in the photos, I had my hair cut yesterday, only a very minimal trim mind! I have actually been really considering trying the ombre effect on my hair, so I'd asked my hairdresser if he'd do it for me and although he said he would, he said he was pretty reluctant to as he doesn't want to spoil the natural colour and condition of my hair. And to be honest I don't blame him for being reluctant, as I can have a pretty extreme reaction to anything different that's done to my hair, as I am very particular! What do you guys think, do you reckon I'd suit it?

Anyway, on to my outfit, I had decided to wear my Topshop floral dress and I paired it with this oversized kind of green-grey coloured jumper which I've only worn once before here in a kind of similar way, although I much prefer this combination of colours, this floral print just works a lot better with the colour of the jumper. I also wore this with a new cross necklace that I got from ASOS, I forgot to get any close-up pictures of it, but its made out of a cream bone-like material. I really love it but I'm still on the look out for the perfect oversized gold cross, which I'm hoping I will just one day happen upon in a vintage shop somewhere for a couple of quid! Oh and I wore my wedge boots again today, and it was actually not too painful! I think maybe these wedge boots may be quite comfy after all!

Dress - Topshop

Jumper - Vero Moda

Necklace - ASOS

Bag - ASOS

Boots - ASOS

P.S. This is in fact my 100th post! Woo!

how do they do it?

2010-09-09T00:27:00.001+01:00

This was Monday's outfit, as I mentioned in my previous post I had no luck in finding the right garment for my uni project on Sunday so I had to go into Leeds on Monday as a last resort to find something! I ended up wearing heels for a third day in a row and god did I regret it! Why is it that all these other bloggers can wear heels every day and not grimace in pain in all their photos? I even wore my "comfiest" wedges that I've worn on quite a few nights out and haven't had much trouble with, but I literally had to be helped round by my mum! They broke as well which was pretty annoying, but to be fair they were only £20 from Matalan and can probably be fixed quite easily really. I'm so disappointed in myself for not being more hardy about it and just moving through the pain like any good fashionista is supposed to, but it was really painful and I had a considerable amount of blisters as well! I will not let it put me off my heels though, and I'll keep wearing them and hope that one day my feet end up so dead and numb that I don't feel it anymore!

Anyway enough whining about painful feet, and on to my outfit. I wore one of my many Topshop sale purchases, this one is a khaki trapeze-shape shirt dress which I layered with my lace shirt dress. I was going to wear it with just an oversized beige cardi but the weather's still too warm for heavy knitwear strangley, so I went with the lace shirt. I think the colours work really well together as they're both kind of similar in tone. I'd put on my ASOS wedges to take these photos because I couldn't bear to wear the others for any longer, and the ASOS ones actually felt like heaven in comparison! Oh and also, I used my new ASOS bag as well, actually it's not that new as I bought it to use as hand luggage when I went on holiday but then remembered I had a bigger bag that would be more useful, so I hadn't got round to using it since then basically! It was only £11 though, so I don't feel too bad that it's just been sat in my room for a couple of months!

Dress - Topshop

Shirt - Topshop

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Bag - ASOS

Boots - ASOS

Also thought I'd show you what I finally managed to find after going in about 4 vintage shops in Leeds. It's this really pretty little knitted top with absolutely loads of embellishment, which is meant to be from the 50's I think. I got it in a vintage shop called Upstaged Vintage, the owner there was soooo lovely and helpful, which was so great after a long hard day of traipsing across Leeds into all those different shops and not finding anything!

Look at how pretty it is! On one last note, I have finally started to use Twitter! I've actually had an account for aaages but I just never used it, but I did my first few tweets (tweet, is that right??) today and will hopefully try to keep up with it! So you can follow me here if you want to!

english country

2010-09-07T20:58:00.003+01:00

This is what I wore on Sunday, I went to Harrogate with my mum to do some vintage shopping as I have a mini project to do for uni which involves finding a vintage/antique/thrift piece of clothing which has elements of interesting textiles, knit, embroidery or embellishment to then draw and use as inspiration for the textiles module that we start in the second week of uni. Sounds reasonably simple, but when you're as perfectionist as I am, finding an appropriate garment which has a number of these features along with it being complex enough to inspire whatever it is that we're going to be doing is actually really hard! So even though I went to a vintage fair and 2 separate vintage shops, I didn't find anything that seemed right, although it wasn't all awful because I did get a very nice faux fur coat at the vintage fair for £19! Bargain!

Anyway on to the outfit, I decided I wanted to go for a bit of an English countryside look, but still with a bit of my own touch on it, so I wore my mum's old cable knit jumper with my floral cullottes along with my heeled lace-up boots that I wore with a pair of cream socks. I quite like the effect of the cream socks with the black boots as it kind of looks a bit like a shearling-trim, well, from far away anyway!

Jumper - Vintage

Shorts - Dorothy Perkins

Boots - Schuh

Socks - New Look

Monday's outfit and the result of two days of vintage shopping to come tomorrow!

birthday celebrations

2010-09-07T00:55:00.001+01:00

First of all, I am very sorry for not posting at all this weekend (and also posting this so late tonight!) but everytime I've sat down to write a post I've ended up distracted by some thing or other, so sorry about that! Which means I actually have 3 sets of outfit photos to show you, so I'll start with my first outfit which was from Saturday. It was my sister's 13th birthday and we went out for a meal, along with a bunch of her friends (I really don't remember being SO LOUD when I was their age!) so I felt like dressing up a bit. I decided to wear my floral playsuit along with my pale pink blazer which I'd actually kind of forgotten about over summer, it's kind of been wedged in my wardrobe behind a number of other things so I've not really worn it very much, which is a shame as it is super gorgeous! Also I usually find blazers too warm and bulky during the summer months so I kind of avoid wearing them really. However I will hopefully still get some wear out of this one in the coming autumn! I also wore my new ASOS wedge boots, they are really gorgeous, although they do pinch slightly so hopefully they will kind of mould to my feet better with more wear (please!!!)

Playsuit - Topshop

Blazer - Vero Moda

Belt - Urban Outiftters

Bag - ASOS

Boots - ASOS

Stay tuned for Sunday's outfit tomorrow! :)

start as you mean to go on (or not!)

2010-09-03T22:51:00.007+01:00

I've been a bit naughty these past couple of days as I've bought two pairs of shoes, when really I should be saving and living on a budget in preparation for moving to uni in just 2 weeks! I really think I'm going to have to completely avoid the high street and all online stores while I'm in Newcastle, or otherwise I probably won't be able to afford to eat. Speaking of which I've actually been cooking for my family a lot this past week, because my mum's been poorly and I also really need the practise ha, and tonight I made the yummiest risotto. It was a recipe from one of those recipe cards you get from Sainsbury's, I always get so excited when I find new ones in store, it feels like I'm a kid and collecting Pokemon cards again or something!

Anyway back to the shoes, first off I got a pair of sandals from Office which were actually a bit of a bargain for £13.50 so I don't feel too guilty about those ones. But I also bought yet another pair of wedge boots from ASOS which were £65, so they were a bit more, but I did use the 15% off code which brought it down to about £55 instead. I justified the purchase with the fact that they're leather and closed-toe so should be perfect for the cold, wet winters of England with thick tights and socks, and should hopefully be quite comfy too so I can get loads of wear out of them!

Office, ASOS

So onto today's outfit, I didn't really do anything particularly interesting today, I just went into town to run a few errands so I went for a reasonably simple outfit. I wore my floral Warehouse midi dress that I'd posted about a while ago here along with my denim gilet, that you've seen on here all too often haha! I also wore my new sandals as I wanted to get a bit of wear out of them before I have to pack them away until next summer!

Dress - Warehouse

Gilet - Vintage

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Sandals - Office

I also now have a student account which means I now have a considerably large overdraft facility which seems to be constantly taunting me at the moment. I do not like how it makes it seem like you have money when you really, really, really don't! How do you all manage to avoid that pesky overdraft, especially when you're a student, or do you all just use it with gay abandon and worry about it later?

leeds festival

2010-08-31T12:46:00.002+01:00

Hey guys! Well I'm back from Leeds Festival, I actually got back on Sunday night, as we left after Guns N Roses finished as we didn't particularly want to hang around in the campsite and end up set on fire or something! I had such a great time, but I was definitely glad to get home and have a shower and sleep in my own comfy bed! In terms of the bands my highlights were probably Pendulum, me and my friend weren't even in the actual tent because of the amount of people but we still had a good old dance anyway, and then Weezer on Saturday, because the lead singer was just hilarious and then Queens of the Stone Age and Guns N Roses on Sunday night. Although theres a bunch of controversy surrounding GNR and Axl Rose's strop about curfews, it was actually so fun just to sing along to all their classic songs, and I just love Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme and I was so happy when they played A Song for the Dead to close their set. Anyway here are a few pictures:

In the crowd for Dizzee Rascal.

I'm wearing:

Dress - Topshop

In the crowd for Guns N Roses (a few rows from the front!)

Hope the rest of you had a good bank holiday weekend!

busy, busy, busy!

2010-08-25T23:59:00.002+01:00

I have been so so busy these past few days with organising all my uni things, like accommodation and finance all of that, and I've had to get it all done in the space of a few days as I am off to Leeds Festival tomorrow! I'm super excited and will hopefully get one or two photos to share with you all when I get back next week!

Anyway this is what I wore yesterday just to run a few errands and do a bit of shopping. I wore my new pale pink maxi dress I got in the Topshop sale, which I mentioned in one of my previous posts and layered it with my sheer gingham blouse and my leather jacket. I actually really quite like dressing for this transitional period between summer and autumn because it means I can layer more but still wear everything with bare legs, because as much as I love my opaque tights I do really like being able to ditch them for a couple of months and show off my tan (or what now remains of it anyway!)

Dress - Topshop

Blouse - Urban Outfitters

Jacket - River Island

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Boots - Urban Outfitters

Bag - ASOS

results

2010-08-20T23:09:00.002+01:00

So I got my results yesterday! I would have posted this earlier but I was out most of yesterday and then I've kept getting distracted today as well, so sorry its a bit late! You will be glad to know I did really well although I was a tiny bit disappointed with my results in Art and Textiles, although I wasn't all that surprised that I didn't do as well as I might have hoped as it's been a bit of an uphill struggle with them this year, mainly because I try to work quite conceptually and it doesn't translate well in A-Levels. So anyway, I got A* in both Business and General Studies (neither of which I was expecting but it was a very welcome surprise none-the-less!) and I got an A in Textiles and then a B in Fine Art. My place was also confirmed at Northumbria University to do Fashion Design, so I will be off to Newcastle in just a month's time! So I'm quite scared but also super excited at the same time!

Anyway this is what I wore to get my results, I'd actually been called by college on Wednesday to ask me to come in early so that I could have my photo taken for the local paper along with some other students, so I had to make sure I looked half decent so I wouldn't look crap in the paper! It took me ages to decide what to wear but I finally decided on wearing my denim shirt tucked into my floral shorts and I wore it with my usual accessories along with my flat boots paired with socks, which I think was a bit of a nod towards A/W, I can't wait to start wearing A/W stuff properly!

Shirt - Topshop

Shorts - Next

Bag - ASOS

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Boots - Urban Outfitters

P.S. Just wanted to say thank you so much to all of you who are following and commenting and for wishing me luck in my results, I'm really pleased with them so the comments must have paid off!

counting down

2010-08-18T13:31:00.002+01:00

This is what I wore yesterday. My mum, sister and I went shopping and we ended up spending a lot more money than planned! We started out in a shop called Joy and I got an oversized grey hoodie on sale for £13.50 ready for Leeds Fest and my sister got this super gorgeous draped floral dress, which I am very jealous of! At the moment Joy also have this offer on where, when you spend more than £75, you get a free maxi dress worth £35, and as we ended up spending well over that, we got the free dress! It was just a plain black jersey maxi, and as I already have my fair share of those, this one went to my sister, who admittedly looks better in a maxi dress than I ever could! We then went on to Topshop and I went straight for the sale where I got a khaki trapeze-shape shirt dress for £20 and a pale pink maxi for £10, while my sister got two Rare dresses for £10 each. My sister also got a black cropped blazer as well which was full price, it's her 13th birthday in a few weeks so she was being treated, lucky thing!

Anyway on to my outfit, I've been desperate these past couple of weeks to start wearing more of the A/W trends and I tried to incoporate this into this outfit. I had wanted to wear this with an oversized knitted jumper but it was too warm for that (which is definitely a wierd thing to say about the climate in England!) So instead I paired this dress I got from Matalan which I'd mentioned in this post with a crop top I got in a Topshop sale a while ago. I haven't worn this very much as the shape is kinda funny, but I really love the studding detail on the shoulders, and I thought it worked pretty well with the dress. I also wore my Topshop wedge boots out today and paired them with grey socks. I'd kinda hoped it would stop them from rubbing but it didn't sadly, I think I'm going to have to either layer up a couple of pairs of socks to stop them from rubbing or try out the technique of putting plasters on your feet where it rubs, soaking your feet in water and then wearing the shoes so that the leather moulds to the wet plasters, because I love these shoes so much and I want to wear them so much more!

Dress - Matalan

Top - Topshop

Bag - ASOS

Socks - H&M

Wedges - Topshop

P.S. Tomorrow is my A-Level results day and I am really scared about it right now! I never usually get so scared about results but this year has been a real struggle for me and I have worked SO hard, so I will be pretty devastated if I've done badly. It's not that I won't get into uni if I don't do all that well as I don't really need that many UCAS points to get in because of the nature of the fashion course, but I have such high standards for myself that anything less than a B will be really devastating! I got all A's last year so I'm hoping that'll keep my grades up, but the feeling of uncertainty is really starting to get to me now!

holiday in Ibiza: part three

2010-08-13T19:51:00.004+01:00

So here's the final part of my holiday photos! On the second to last night, I wore a dress by Dahlia which I got on sale from ASOS last year. I love how this dress has this gorgeous draped skirt in a grungy print and then has contrasting panels at the bust with cut-out details at the sides, and I especially love it when I've got a tan! To let the dress stand out I just paired it with some bracelets and my cut-out sandals.

I'm wearing:

Dress - Dahlia

Sandals - Urban Outfitters

Anna's wearing:

Dress - Topshop

Sandals - Office

On our last day we just lazed about by the pool again and did loads of swimming, I thought I'd throw in a cute picture of my dad and sister mucking about as well as me with my hard-earned tan. I'd kind of hoped my tan would be better considering I've had two weeks in the sun but I ended up not going as dark as I had hoped. Oh well, there's always fake tan to keep it topped up!

On the last night I decided to wear my maxi dress that I had had mentioned in this post. I had planned on wearing it earlier in the week but then decided to wear other things so I only had chance to wear it on the last night. I paired it with my studded belt, bracelets and gladiator sandals, so I think I had a bit of a grecian vibe going on! The only problem with this dress is that when you've eaten quite a bit of food (which could not be avoided as the evening meal was a buffet) the fabric and shape is not very forgiving, so I really had to suck my tummy in so I didn't look so fat!

I'm wearing:

Dress - Topshop

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Sandals - Barratts

Anna's wearing:

Top - Topshop

Skirt - Topshop

Sandals - Office

Then this is what me and my sister wore on the way home, we'd bought some "I Love Ibiza" t-shirts which we customised. Me and my friends had done this when we were in Kos and my sister had wanted to do it on our holiday too. I suppose it's kinda cheesy in a way, but I think its a really fun little memento of a lovely holiday, and maybe you'll even see the top working its way into a future outfit post or two sometime!

I'm wearing:

Top - DIY

Skirt - Matalan

Sandals - Urban Outfitters

Anna's wearing:

Top - DIY

Jeans - Topshop

So that was the end of my holiday and now what I have to look forward in the coming weeks is finding out my A-Level results (definitely NOT looking forward to that one!), Leeds Festival over the August bank holiday weekend and hopefully starting at Northumbria University in September, which although exciting is also REALLY scary at the same time!

holiday in Ibiza: part two

2010-08-13T14:15:00.003+01:00

Apologies for not posting this yesterday as I said I would, but I didn't get the chance! Anyway here is the next part of my holiday photos, as one of you asked we were staying in Santa Eularia, so it was the slightly quieter, more cultured end of things!

So we spent one of the days wandering around the town a bit more and had a look in some of the shops and we also had a look at the market. There were lots of stalls packed full of jewellery and trinkets and various other things. I really loved all the leather cuffs and bracelets and I was also looking out for some sort of rosary or cross necklace but most of them were silver, and as you may have realised, I'm definitely a gold girl!

I'm wearing:

Dress - ASOS

Bag - Elle Freebie

Then in the evening I finally got to wear my crochet dress from Topshop which I posted about here. I paired it with very minimal accessories, just my bag and a few bracelets as I didn't want to lose the effect of the cut-outs by layering it with a belt and necklaces.

I'm wearing:

Dress - Topshop

Bag - ASOS

Sandals - Barratts

Anna's wearing:

Dress - H&M

Hairband - Miss Selfridge

Sandals - Office

Here are a few more pictures of us at the pool the next day.

Then in the evening I decided to pair my floral shorts I got in the Next sale just with a plain black vest and my usual accessories. I also decided to leave my hair straight as I was a bit late getting ready, as I wasn't feeling very well, so I didn't have time to style my hair properly.

I'm wearing:

Shorts - Next

Vest - ASOS

Bag - ASOS

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Sandals - Urban Outfitters

Anna's wearing:

Dress - Miss Selfridge

Sandals - Office

Then the next day, as well as sitting by the pool me, my mum and sister wenr for another walk and wandered along to the beach for a bit of a paddle in the sea. We stopped off for some photos by some very pretty flowers as well.

I'm wearing:

Shirt - Miss Selfridge

Anna's wearing:

Top - Topshop

Scarf - Miss Selfridge

We had planned on maybe spending a whole day by the beach but it seemed like we would have to get up very early to even be in with a chance of nabbing some sunbeds as there weren't all that many of them really! So we just went for the next best thing and paddled in the sea for a bit. At least I could avoid getting absolutely covered in sand, it just seems to get everywhere!

I'll finish my post here for now and I'll hopefully post the last part later today!

holiday in Ibiza: part one

2010-08-11T22:45:00.003+01:00

Hey everyone, I'm back again from my second holiday in Ibiza with the family! I had actually got back home yesterday so sorry that this post is a day late but, oddly enough, I ended up developing a pretty bad cold while I've been away and when I got back home yesterday I felt soooo rough and just ended up going to bed early! Still I had an absolutely amazing time despite coughing my guts up most days, and as I promised here are some pictures. I thought I'd post these in a few parts as I've got quite a few typical holiday shots to show you all as well as a week's worth of outfit shots so bear with me!

First off we have the pool, which although on the small side was just right for a really lazy week in the sun. There was a bit of competition for the sun beds though, I'd usually be out as soon as the pool opened so I could get a good spot!

Anyway as soon as we arrived we got out and had a wander around the town and checked out the beach. I just threw on a vest and this floral skirt I got at my local River Island for £4.50 when I went for a last-minute holiday shop. Bargain or what?!

I'm wearing:

Top - ASOS

Skirt - River Island

Bag - Freebie from Elle magazine a couple of years ago!

Anna's wearing:

Tunic - Topshop

As you can see the view as you walk along the seafront is pretty gorgeous!

Then once we'd checked out the town and the beach we headed for the pool and had a session on the sunbeds until we needed to get ready for dinner.

I didn't manage to get photos of the first night's outfit but I just wore my floral Topshop playsuit as seen in this post with black accessories. On the second night I decided to wear another Topshop floral piece, this time my knot-back detail dress with tan accessories. I also went for a bit of a different hairstyle, which I basically nicked off my friend Lizzy as she wore her hair like this a lot when we were on holiday and it looks gorgeous on her! So I thought I'd give it a try and see how it looked on me and if it was any quicker or easier than my usual hair style. I basically just clipped all my hair to one side and had kinda hoped that it would dry naturally in nice waves but because of the stubborn nature of my hair I ended up having to blow dry and style it anyway!

I'm wearing:

Dress - Topshop

Belt - Topshop

Sandals - Barratts

I liked the end result but it kind of ended up being more complicated and long-winded than my usual hair routine so I didn't bother trying it again! Let me know what you think of it though!

Anna's wearing:

Dress - Topshop

Sandals - Office

The next day was yet another pool day and me and my sister went for a swim to cool off. It definitely worked as the pool was freezing!

The third night's outfit was another Topshop dress, this time this one-shouldered body con one which I paired with my studded belt and black sandals. As you can probably tell by now, I don't go for particularly complex outfits when I'm on holiday, as I figure it's too hot for layering and most of the time fashion is completely lost on most of the other people at the hotels we go to anyway, so I just go for an on-trend dress with quite simple accessories, so I feel good about myself but not too overdone!

I'm wearing:

Dress - Topshop

Belt - Urban Outfitters

Sandals - Barratts

Anna's wearing:

Dress - New Look

Necklace - Topshop

Flower - Topshop

Sandals - Office

Anyway I think I'll finish my post here for now and go to bed as I'm still feeling a bit rough, expect part 2 tomorrow!

Holiday in Kos!

2010-08-02T14:54:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone, I'm back! Although I actually got back from my holiday a few days ago now, I hadn't really had the chance to post about it on here yet but I've got a spare few minutes now so I thought I'd show you a few photos just to give you an idea of what we got up to. Unfortunately I only managed to get pictures on the first couple of days as I, rather stupidly, managed to drunkenly fall in the sea while holding my camera, so it didn't switch on for the rest of the holiday! Luckily it was my old camera so I still have a fully functioning one, but I was pretty sad I couldn't get any more pictures. However, I have nicked a bunch off my friends though so I'll probably throw in a few of them on here too!

P.S. Unfortunately I won't be updating again for another week as I am going to Ibiza with my family tomorrow! Hopefully I'll get some proper outfit photos to show you all when I get back as well as come back with a completely ridiculous tan! So please stick around and I'll be back to normal posting sooooon!

Outfit Post: Lace and Denim

2010-07-18T00:13:00.000+01:00

I have decided that I should probably apologise for wearing this denim gilet so bloody much recently, I imagine it must get really boring seeing it in practically every post, but it just seems to work with everything I pair it with, so here it is again! I wore it with my lace shirt dress and got the tights and boots back out, as those of you in the UK will know, the weather has gone a bit downhill recently and I didn't feel like going for bare legs today.

Anyway I wore this to go shopping today as I had quite a few things to get in preparation for my holiday such as toiletries and make-up and also had another look round the sales and actually found a nice pair of floral shorts in the Next sale for £10. I usually don't go for much of the stuff in Next, which I think is mainly due to my stint working there last Christmas and getting so tired of looking at all the clothes so I just can't stand the sight of anymore floral smock tops or glitzy tunics, but these shorts are actually a really nice shape and print so I thought, why not?

Oh and I also got a new phone today! It's the HTC Wildfire and although I am yet to play with it, as it is currently on charge, I am very excited at the prospect of having a lovely new phone that is not scratched and old and battered to play with!

Dress - Topshop

Gilet - Vintage

Bag - ASOS

Boots - Urban Outfitters

Necklaces - Topshop, ASOS

Temptation!

2010-07-16T15:27:00.003+01:00

Even though I've said that I can't buy anything else now for the rest of the month, as I am very much lacking in cash, I then spotted this Low Luv by Erin Wasson necklace on sale at my-wardrobe.com! I want it so badly! And even though it's now £49 instead of £98 I really don't think I'm going to be able to justify spending what little money I have on this, although if I did get it I know I would wear it to death!

Also the kind people at ASOS have gone and given all their facebook fans a code for 10% off all sale items (the code is ASOSTREATS if you didn't already know!) which, although it's not a huge discount, I'm one of those people who has to use a discount code even if there's not necessarily anything I really want to buy! It always feels like such a waste not to use it! Anyway I put together a few of the things that I'm tempted by in the ASOS sale, which I have so far managed to resist, although I'm not sure how long that is going to last!

From Clockwise; Smock Dress: £18, Vest Dress: £8, Leggings: £9, Bag: £36, Jumper Dress: £27, Bag: £11, Embellished Dress: £28, Belt: £8