Grey & Gloomy

Life is feeling very grey and monotonous at the moment. I blame February. Stupid month. I dressed to match my mood today. Grey, grey, grey...

Sorry for looking super narky in all these photos. I realised when pulling together all the outfit pictures for the previous post that I miss taking outdoor photos and I really love my trusty old brick wall as a backdrop, so out I headed on my lunchbreak. It was COLD, hence the cross expression.

Shorts - Gap sale
Wedges - River Island sale
Tshirt (not seen) - Jigsaw, via charity shop
Elbow patch jumper - Christmas present - H&M (see, I love the rust one so much I had to get this colour too!)

Coat - Tu

Earrings - Dorothy Perkins sale...I think...

Ring - Christmas present - made by MerCurious

It's a funny outfit this one. I feel like it doesn't photograph terribly well because the jumper is really unstructured and the shorts are looking baggier than last time (does this mean my thighs are shrinking? Hope so!). Anyway I love all the individual parts of it so I'm going to keep wearing it and you'll just have to take my word that it looks better in real life, m'kay?

Plus there's a little bit of new(ish) shoe lust going on. I have a feeling that the law of ankle straps should probably apply to these wedges - ie don't wear anything that cuts your feet off at the ankle as it makes your legs look stumpier. Frankly I really don't care. I love them and they are incredibly comfortable. I know I sometimes say "oh these heels are comfy" and what I mean is, by the standards of heels they're good but my feet will hurt after a while because that's just what heels do. Not with these though. They're better than most of my flats.

A Year Of Blogging & A Giveaway

Today is my blog anniversary. Well technically it's not, it was yesterday, but I broke the netbook charger and so couldn't blog, grrr. I also have 200 followers (205 to be exact) and have written 200 posts (well, 199, but I couldn't think of anything to write about to squeeze in before this). I think that spells GIVEAWAY TIME. But before that, a nice round up of a year of outfits. I've had fun looking back at all my posts and approving/cringing at what I was wearing. Remember when I swore that I would never EVER look ok in shorts? Roll on a few months and I've got them on all the time!

February:

March:

April:


May:



June:
Discovered a nasty little anonymous comment under this telling me I looked even more fat and stumpy than normal. Pfft to you anonymous coward. Nothing wrong with being short and fat.

July:

August:


September:

October:

November:

December:

January:


So that's a year's worth of my favourite outfit photos. I really must wear the stripy shirt/maxi skirt combo more often - I'd entirely forgotten about it. And I must stop looking at the floor! I didn't realise I was so bad for it but practically every picture has my eyes glued downwards.

Anyway, if you're still awake after all that - GIVEAWAY!!!

First anniversary being paper themed, prize number one is a shiny Amazon gift card with £15 on it, or equivalent value if you're non-UK based. Sadly I couldn't stretch to the whole set of beautiful copies in the above picture.

Obviously I can't specify what you spend it on but books would be nice! If you don't already have a wish list as long as mine and want some suggestions as to what to spend it on, I'm happy to help. I read an awful lot so I'm hopeful I can suggest something good.

Must stop buying prizes that I want to keep myself! The next prize is a Liberty print shopper bag, specially designed for Comic Relief. Subtle print isn't it? I was expecting some obvious red noses but they just look like cherries. Oh and a v. pretty floral snood type thing.

Vintage bag, silk scarf and some costume jewellery.

Benefit lip shine, some funky nail files, a nice vampy nail varnish and a couple of Lush goodies (Dragon's Egg bath ballistic and Ma Bar bubble bar)

So that's four prizes, four different winners. I'll close the giveaway and pick the winners in a week - midnight on 14th February (not December! Don't know quite what made me produce that typo!). Dead easy to enter - just be a follower and comment on this post.

It's just a little thank you from me to all of you who have made the past year so much fun.

Battling The Slump Monster

Hands up who stayed up till stupid o'clock this morning reading a book that they just couldn't put down? Just me then? Oh well. As I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep, the Slump Monster came a-calling far earlier than usual today. He doesn't usually attack me till well after lunch but it was about 11am today. Groan. I attempted to ward him off with coffee and an iced bun but it failed gloriously.

(incidentally, are we all in agreement that my cup is awesome? Good, thought as much)

I even took advantage of a rare moment of sunshine and went for a lunchtime walk around work. We pratted around in fine style.

Not me.

Cousin It (aka me standing in the ha-ha)

The Mersey


Even the fresh air didn't wake me up for more than about an hour. It doesn't help that I'm doing loads of computer based stuff at the moment and it's making me go a bit squinty eyed.

Be gone evil monster.


February is a notoriously busy month at work and this year will be no exception. I will try and keep up with blogging but my brain will probably have melted by the end of the month so I was pondering doing something easy. Anyone up for a hat/headwear challenge week - 7 days, 7 different looks? I have all these unworn hats on my hatstand and they're starting to look at me with little pitiful "wear me" faces.

ps - There's a giveaway coming up at the weekend. Promise. I'm tracking down prizes as you're reading this.

Shopping & Guilt

I realised at the weekend that I'm turning into my mother. This is not a bad thing - she's ace. However it does mean some strange outbursts in shops. I picked up a poor defenceless item of clothing in Topshop and shrieked "how much??!!” at it. Am I a skinflint? Very probably. I think I’m quite set in my ways now though; I’m not going to pay £35 for a badly made tshirt, no matter how nice it is. I’ve had a good think about it and I can’t remember anything I’ve ever bought (with the exception of my glasses which are vital and worn every day) on the clothing and accessories side of things that has cost more than £100. I don't even own many things that cost over £50.

I’m currently majorly in lust with this Monsoon beauty:

It’s £95 though. Very much a case of “HOW MUCH??!!” And it’s only polyester. For that price I'd expect something a little bit nicer. I’m sure that someone will explain to me that I'm being a moron and polyester doesn’t automatically equal cheap and nasty but really, £95?? My sensible head is winning out at the moment; it’s massively impractical, I would never have an opportunity to wear it and I’d probably ruin it within about 5 minutes. Isn’t it beautiful though?

I think I’m missing that shopping gene that allows people to spend an awful lot of money on clothes. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t look down on people who choose to spend their money on stuff like that – it’s yours, you've earned it, do what you want with it! I can’t personally develop the mindset that it’s ok to spend a lot, plus I just don’t have much spare cash flying around after rent, bills and savings are accounted for. Money is always tight, especially when I’ve had to shell out for virtually a whole new wardrobe over the past year or so.

Or perhaps I’m just not a natural shopper. I suffer real shopper’s guilt when I spend a lot, especially on impulse purchases. They often go straight back, although the odd item has stayed in my wardrobe (ie the £75 green velvet coat I bought last year). Curiously enough, I felt no guilt whatsoever when spending the same amount on these shoes. Further proof that life really is all about the shoes? Or maybe I just like them more. I wish I knew how to avoid the guilt though. Shopping should make you feel happy, not full of remorse for spending on things that you're perfectly entitled to buy yourself.

So if I baulk at paying High St prices a lot of the time, you can quite rightly assume that anything designer is automatically out of my price range, unless I’m jamtastic enough to track something down in a charity shop or be sent it by a lovely friend (thanks again to Christina for my Ghost frocks!)

I find Kate’s blog particularly interesting on the topic of affording designer clothes. She’s all about living within your means and investing in pieces that will last a long time and get worn often. I just can’t work out how I can get to the stage where I make my brain think it’s ok to spend more on fewer things, even if they will be super versatile and long lasting. In principle I’m fully supportive of it – I don’t really shop much on impulse and like to track down the perfect thing – but it’s the price issue that stops me in my tracks every time.

I’m interested to know your thoughts on this. I know a lot of you are as bargain hunty as I am but blogland is full of haul posts and expensive looking outfits. Do any of you often spend a lot on things, or I am just influenced by living in a city where people treat shopping as a competitive sport? Anyone want to fess up to the highest price they’ve paid for clothes/shoes/accessories? And most importantly, can anyone who does buy designer explain to me how to banish the guilt?

Dressing For Dinner

I'm back! I'm sorry about the lack of blogging this week. The course I was on was brilliant and utterly fascinating but it was pretty much non-stop and left me totally worn out afterwards. The weekend has been equally busy, what with shopping all day yesterday and then celebrating my mum's birthday today so I haven't had a minute to fire up the laptop.

I need some sleep before my brainpower returns so in the meantime here's a very quick outfit post, just something I wore for dinner on the course last week. I've had the top for ages but I don't think I've blogged it before. It's a really tricky shape for me to wear - I've tucked it in and tweaked it a bit here. I know it still looks a bit boxy but it's tons better than the unflattering shape it falls in naturally. The underlayer is quite clingy and the fabric is gathered and a bit pouffy around the hips - not a good look on me!! If I'd tried it on before I bought it I might have thought twice about it but it was one of those things that I saw on the rail (only £10 in the sale!) and loved so much I just had to buy it.

Top - Uttam @ Dorothy Perkins
Cardi - Hawkshead
Skirt - H&M

ps - dress code was "tidy" - how on earth do you interpret that? I figured that as long as I didn't have my skirt tucked in my knickers I'd be ok...