Twinkle Toes

Oh dear.



I really did not realise this dress was so short. Inappropriate workwear effort by moi!



From eBay it came and to eBay it shall return. I don't think it'll be made any more decent by wearing it with leggings instead of tights and it's too long to look good layered up over jeans or a skirt. Ah well.

At least I have twinkly shoes to cheer me up! Check out the sparkle:



And the velvet:



And the cosy lining:


Dress - Topshop via ebay
Sparkly tights - Marks & Spencer
Sparkly shoes - Rocketdog


I did originally buy these as a Christmas present for someone and then decided they were far too pretty and promptly bought her something else instead! Hehe. I wasn't going to let them go once I'd got my sticky mitts on them. Sparkly shoes are the best.

Minty Floral Fun

I was a victim of The Changing Room Horrors yesterday. I tried on 3 dresses in the massive Manchester Primark: one was the most bizarre fit ever, one was pretty much see through and the other one was alright but a bit shoddy and not worth spending £17 on. So far, so average, at least for a Primark trip.

Then I made the bold move of trying on dungarees. Big mistake. Huge mistake.

Admittedly, this cute polka dot dungaree dress almost looked nice. If it hadn't been about 6 inches too short, I'd have bought it. But I also tried on the dungaree shorts (ohhhh, that wasn't a pleasant reflection in the mirror) and the proper full length dungarees (it would have been funny if I hadn't been virtually crying at how awful they looked). No matter what the style, they're clearly never going to suit me and it makes me sad. It also makes me curse my stupid body shape that just won't suit anything at the moment unless it's a particular cut of dress.

Looking at the bright side, at least I have some nice frocks to distract me.

This pretty one came home with me from the trip to Warwick. It wasn't one of the hundreds that Sarah was getting rid of, it was one of Char's castoffs. I love having generous friends with lovely taste in clothes.




These glittery shoes are so much fun that they're almost distracting me from the destruction of my dungaree dream. Sparkly toes!

Dress - Topshop, via Char
Cardi - H&M
Jewellery - all from various Dorothy Perkins sales
Flats - TK Maxx
Bag - c/o Brit Stitch

Project Polka Dot

I MADE A FROCK! ALL BY MYSELF!

Why yes, I am shouting about it. I'm flipping proud of myself.

At least, I am now.  It's taken a while to appreciate the finished article, mostly because it took me about nine years to make it and I'd been staring at polka dots so long that I was sick of the very sight of them.

Why did no-one tell me that cutting all the pieces out takes so long?  I naively thought it'd take about half an hour to snip a few bits of fabric.  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, good one Alex. Admittedly I had the twin handicaps of a marauding cat getting in the way and an utter inability to get my head around patterns (I take one look at the instructions and my brain goes NERRRGGGHHHHHHHHH), but still.

Helpful.

 I was drained. Drained, I tell you.  The pieces remained cut out but unsewed for a good number of weeks before I could muster up the energy to crack on with it. Never let it be said that I'm quick to finish a project.  Then when I did start, I reckon I spent more time moaning about how hard it was than actually sewing.  God love all of you who put up with me during the process.

Those of you who can actually sew are probably laughing at my utter feebleness.  It's not even a complicated pattern. But trust me, when you don't really know anything about sewing and are still a bit shit at the basic stuff like, ooh, sewing a straight line, it's HARD. So it took me ages to finish it.

I did, eventually.  Yay me, right? Celebrations all round, wearing it to bed because I loved it so much? Not really. I'd been looking at the bloody thing so long that I honestly wasn't excited about the fact I'd eventually finished it. I sewed the final stitch, ironed it, flung it on a hanger and went to bed feeling a weird mixture of disappointment and relief.  (I've been assured that this is normal with crafty projects)

It's now a few weeks later and I'm sure you'll be happy to know that the feeling of gloom has lifted. I love my frock!

I don't particularly love these pictures of it though - it was a Bad Face Day. Also, apologies for the fuzziness. The picnic bench I prop the camera on was in the sun: the brick wall was in the shade. It's not a good combo, even when you edit the crap out of the photos afterwards.  I only had ten minutes to grab the photos though so it's this or nothing.

I shall attempt to distract you from the crappy photos with better ones.

Look, look, POCKETS.

And look, look, darts and pleats. I'd never done either of them before I started this.

Dress - Simplicity 2444 (with a thinner waist bow and about 4 inches off the length)
Cardi - Topshop
Heels - Dorothy Perkins sale

If the frock looks familiar, it's because I also have it in toile and Victoria Plum fabric, courtesy of Char. She gave me the pattern and told me it'd be easy to make it myself this time. HA! Bet she was regretting that when I was trying to get her to explain darts to me via a stream of stressy texts.

Hideous Frocks

Lots of shops sell frocks. Lots of shops sell really nice frocks.  But almost all of them will have one or two absolute horrors lurking around as well and it's time we all pointed and laughed at them.  I did this with ugly shoes back in the day and it seems time to reprise the feature for another wardrobe item. Why should shoes have all the fun?

Now I'm not slagging off the shops or anything.  On my infrequent recent shopping trips I've seen an awful lot of nice dresses around. It's just too cold to start buying spring/summer stuff at the mo but when it warms up you can be sure I'll purchase a frock or three.  H&M have got one or two beauties, once all the stuff made from nasty fabric has been ruled out. You can almost guarantee I'll always find something I like in the Closet and Billie & Blossom ranges at Dorothy Perkins. I like the simplicity of Vero Moda. I'm even finding myself lusting after a lot of the Primark spring range.

It would be easy to do a wishlist full of pretty things, wouldn't it? I'm gonna make you look at hideous things instead.  Muahahahahaha. It's much more fun to mock them than it is to coo over nice stuff.

It all started when I was browsing the Boohoo website (I bought an awesome jumper which I will feature soon) and came across this:

 I christen it the Slutty Flintstone

And this is kinda normal I suppose but a) PEPLUM and b) BEIGE PEPLUM. Madly unflattering, even on a teeny tiny model, plus ewwww peplum.

Missguided are very fond of a cutout, aren't they?

As if this wasn't nasty enough, it's also got a socking great exposed zip down the back.

More sensible to just go out in your bra, surely? You can't possibly call that a bodice.

ASOS sells so many things that you're never too far away from something great, or something utterly vile:

For just £338 pounds you too could dazzle in a fricking AWFUL drop waist swanhead lady dress.

This reminds me strongly of that dress Julia Roberts wore in Pretty Woman. No, not the posh polka dot one. The hooker one.

I want to like this frock, at least from afar. But when you get closer it is essentially an apron and a collar attached to some see through mesh and frankly I'm not that fashion forward.

Even Dorothy Perkins, usually fairly tame and inoffensive when it comes to frocks, has some weird choices in at the moment.

Snot green neoprene? Really??

What's this all about please?  A minging zip AND drawstrings AND a deeply odd skirt. I am baffled.

Unsurprisingly, Topshop wasn't short of options either:

Take one tablecloth, form it into a shapeless sack, et voila!

I'm all for a bit of #wardrobezoo action but I can honestly say that I've never thought "You know what my wardrobe is lacking? A dress with a shark eating my tit."

Erm, shameful confession. I was in full mock mode for this one, just because it is so in-your-face and stripy and PINK (I loathe pink), but I would totally wear it. I can't help myself.

I would also buy this from Glamorous in a heartbeat if it weren't for one thing.

WHERE DO YOUR BOOBS GO??? The bodice is practically a set of braces.

Answers on a postcard please.

Black & White

I suffer from Small Wardrobe Syndrome.  The effects of this furniture based problem are that you have to keep half your clothes in the ironing pile and the half that do live in the wardrobe are crammed so closely together that you can't see what you own.  I don't own anywhere near as many frocks as Sarah, Sarah or Char but it's still a battle to get into my wardrobe. 

I'd completely forgotten about this frock, and with good reason.  The wardrobe is not only small, it's very dark (the lighting in my house is weird - there's one light in the bedroom and it's right over the other side of the room, right by the window) and I mostly rely on the brighter colours and patterns leaping out at me when I'm browsing.  I found this lurking between a maxi dress and a sequinned party frock and went "Aha! Cute frock alert!"

It's also the perfect match for my amazing new pair of shoes.

They're not too big - I was just leaning forward to press the camera buttons.

Aren't they fab? They also come in red or grey, but both of those shades have a pinkish heel and you know my dislike for pink.  So I went for the black pair and I love them.  The vamp is a really interesting shape and although they're on the high side for a pair of daytime court shoes for me, the heel is chunky enough to make them quite comfortable.

If you want to see the red pair then hop over to Char or Rai - they've both got them on today!  Spooky.

Dress - Primark

Cardi - Topshop, present

Shoes - Irregular Choice Bowtiful

I shake my fist at January's poor light levels. When I was taking these photos it was a choice between cranking down the settings on the camera to make it not appear pitch black, or whacking the flash on and looking like a startled bunny. I went with the former and have just ended up with slightly blurry photos where I look moon faced and super stern. And I looked pretty(ish) for once in real life. Honest I did!

Damn you weather.

50 Shades of Green

Woe is me.  Alack and alas. Boo McHoo  Etc.

No, that's not my reaction to being told that I look like a leprechaun (which did actually happen today).

I am sad because they have moved my picnic table!  My trusty picnic table that I used to prop the camera up on for all my outfit photos.  IT HAS BEEN MOVED.  How very rude.  I had to call the tripod into use today.  Now for those of you that regularly use tripods, I imagine this would not be so bad.  For me, it was.  My tripod is from Lidl (who even knew they sold them?!) and has a worrying habit of unexpectedly collapsing one leg, causing me to hurtle towards the floor to rescue the DSLR from sudden death.  It scares me to use it.  Also it doesn't even fold down properly and I do not enjoy having to try and smuggle it around in my handbag.  Even with a bag the size of mine, it is hard to be subtle about it.

In other news, I am not convinced about the dress.  I wanted it muchly, especially after Sarah's amazing illustration, and managed to track it down on ebay.  I had visions of looking all minxy in my minidress but in reality I look more like I'm dressing up in one of my mum's tops.  Ok, not a top belonging to my mum because she's even shorter than I am, but you get my drift, right? It is a bit unflatteringly large and long sleeved.  Bah.

Dress - Topshop, via ebay

Shoes - Irregular Choice, via ebay

Scarf - vintage

Tights - Dorothy Perkins

So take pity on a girl please.  Quick, hit me up with decent (and fairly cheap) tripod suggestions.  I'll have to try and resolve the clothing issue myself.

An Outfit Post Abroad

I do sometimes think it would be lovely to live in a permanently warm climate. Then I go on holiday, come back with painfully sunburnt upper thighs (remembered to apply suntan lotion everywhere but there) and remember that I actually don't cope that well with dressing properly in hot weather. It would be impossible for me to look even halfway presentable - I'd always be sweaty, covered in suntan lotion or sand or have my hair tied back up so it didn't annoy me. I'm much safer in the UK.

That's a long winded way of explaining why there aren't very many pics of me on holiday wearing anything very nice. I managed a few though:

Please ignore my matronly upper arms. They only ever see the light of day on holiday.

I should take all my blog photos in cloisters.

Or on cathedral roofs.


Dress - Primark via ebay
Sandals - Primark
Sunnies - Marks & Spencer

Beachfront ones are more tricky though. It was so windy this night (hence the scragged back hair) and I kept getting blown off balance whilst trying to stand still and have my photo taken.



Dress - Peacocks via car boot sale
Cardi - Topshop, present from the ever-lovely and generous Char
Shoes - Dolcis
Watch - shop in Barcelona
Ring - Dorothy Perkins sale
Bag - H&M via car boot sale
Toenails - Barry M Spring Green


And despite the fact that this is a total out-take shot (I should have a special folder entitled Alex Arses Up The Self-Timer), I am showing it to you because...duh duh duh... I found some green trousers! Aren't they quite fantastically green? Expect a proper outfit post featuring them soon.


(Pa demanded credit for his photography so here goes - thanks Dad! Awesome holiday companion that you are.)