Right, it's high time I got back into the blog. I know I have been MIA for a good couple of weeks and have paid for it as I've lost a couple of followers :( I just got so swept up with Christmas and New Year, with lots of family fun and parties, and now snow! I can only apologise and promise I'll be better this year. Please forgive me?
I've not taken full advantage of the sales this year, I don't know, I've just not been brave enough to hit the high street this year, but I have managed to pickup one our two bargains, like this dress for £15 and these shoes for £25. Has anyone else managed to grab any bargains? Did you guys throw yourself into the sale spirit?
If you follow me on twitter or instagram, you'll know it's been snowing in London - FINALLY is all I can say, I love it when the parks are covered in beautiful white snow, and you come indoors covered in frosty flakes. Have you guys had snow in you part of town? And do you love the snow?
Sorry I've been absent again for quite so long, life keeps getting in the way! As many of you know it was The Queen's Diamond Jubilee here in the UK, it was a long weekend of celebrations starting on Saturday 2nd June to Tuesday 5th June. Communities and neighborhoods came together to celebrate in the streets 60 years of The Queen's reign. Now I'm not that overly royalist but I got really swept up in the moment and this weekend I took to the streets with a Union flag and celebrated in style with street parties, swing parties, dancing around the living room to the Jubilee concert and watching the Queen wave and the flyover in Hyde Park - it was so much fun and typically English with our umbrellas, and now I'm sad to see it end. How did you guys celebrate?
There were however consequences to so all the fun - I had my iPhone stolen again :( that's a record 3 times within 6 months.... boooo!
Here's a quick snap of an outfit I wore during the Bank Holiday Weekend (red white and blue of course!):
Sorry for not updating in so long; life got in the way, though I am really going to make a conscience effort to blog more.
Highlights from the trip included: catching up with family I haven't seen in year, food food and more food, the sunshine, exploring KL as a tourist rather than being driven around by my Aunties.
My cousins plan to come visit later in the year, so there will be another mini reunion and I'm already excited!
1. NYE meal at Petek Turkish restaurant | 2. Clock Striking midnight on NYE | 3. Choosing a movie | 4. Movie snacks and Super 8 | 5. Homemade hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream | 6. My Mumma's home cooking
Nails - No7, I'm Exquisite & Barry M, Black Nail Effects
I decided to try out the one odd painted nail that I've seen around, and I quite like it, what about you guys?
It's definitely the time of year to dust off the wooly hats and gloves, it may be gloriously sunning outside, but there sure is a definite chill in the air. I love this hat, I picked it up in the Summer sale from Accessorize for the bargain price of £3. Has everyone else started to pull out their woolies?
If you follow me on twitter you'll know I have finally got my hands on a Diana Mini, I used two GroupOn vouchers where you pay £20 and get a £50 lomography voucher, so I got me a camera and flash for the super bargain price for £40!
I chose the mini because I love the effects you can achieve with this camera and it's all on 35mm film so alot cheaper to process that my 120 film that my Holga takes. Its also small enough to keep in my handbag so I can take it where ever I go. What's you favorite toy camera at the moment?
I'm off out this evening to celebrate my sisters birthday, I hope you all have a great weekend.
Here are some pictures from Abi, Jackie and my trip to Cambridge last Friday. It wasn't the best day to go as the weather was gloomy and rainy, but we had it planned for a while so decided to go anyway.
We had so much fun - scoffing scones at Auntie's, sipping giant hot chocolates, guzzling fruit cider, rummaging through the haberdashery section of John Lewis, not to mention taking in the glorious and historic sights of Cambridge and it's Colleges. We also decided to partake in one of Cambridge's traditions - punting down the river, turns out the sellers do not like you asking around for better deals - we almost got caught up in an argy bargy!
Typically when the time came to go punting the heavens had opened and it was raining, we decided to push on and go punting anyway. Our poor guide was drenched through and through, our seats were soggy which meant soggy bums, and not many photo's were taken due to the rain. It was still so much fun and by the end of the tour the sun came out to play and it was really warm, though we all had wet patch bums for the remainder of the day.
Before we went home we stopped off in Bill's the most colourful and cosy cafe/store I've been to. The main menu was desserts only, though they have boards up with a small selection lunch and dinner courses, the walls were stuffed full pretty looking jams, colourful and cute packaged juices and many more beautiful looking condiments - I highly recommend you take a visit if there is a Bill's near you.
I definitely went dressed for the weather:
Cardigan - Vintage/Ebay | Top - H&M | Skirt - Joy | Necklace - Accessorize | Tights, Ring & Boots - Primark
My chunky knit cardigan kept me nice and warm - I'm kinda glad I can start wearing them again, though very sad the Summer seems to have come and gone in a blink of an eye. In my bag I also had a rain mac and umbrella so stayed reasonably dry for the day except for my toes and butt!
Top - Topshop | Skirt - Primark | Leaf Ring - Aldo | Necklace - Portobello Market |Shoes & Turquoise Ring - H&M
This is an outfit from a week or so ago, just after I got may hair trimmed. I'm slightly obsessed with maxi skirts still! Whoever said short people can't wear them was lying!
As so the hair, he didn't take that much off my hair, but the blow-dry was AMAZING! My hair never felt so smooth, silky and bouncy - and I've never had so many compliments on my hair in one day either!
I haven't managed to re-create the superb job he's done at home though, my hair just turns out a bit more fluffy! Does anyone else have the secret to salon finished hair at home?
Yesterday the family and I decided to head off the the river for some Sunday Lunch. It was sunny when we arrived, so we started off outside, but then it started to rain so we quickly moved inside. We went to the Crabtree in Hammersmith, a fabulously decorated Victorian pub right on the river front with a lively atmosphere and a delicious menu - if your in the area I highly recommend you take a visit.
Apologies for the lack of post everyone, I've been rather swamped at work, but not to worry, I have next week off so expect to see more of me around here! :)
Anyway as promised in my last post, here is an update of Abi, Mark and my adventures last weekend... warning - hugely photo heavy post!
The day started when Miss Abi and Mr Mark picked me up from my house, and Mark revealed part of the surprise - we were off to the largest market in London. It was all very exciting, though as we grew closer to our destination, Wembley, and the huge hustle and bustle of the market, it quickly came apparent this was not our kind of market. It was filled with knock-off designer handbags, fake MAC make-up, phone covers, curtains and all other kinds of goods, I mean if your into that kind of thing, great, though we were not.
We made sure we wandered down every isle, just to see if there was anything that took our fancy, but unfortunately not, and after all that we all forgot to take a single photo. doh!
Our next destinations was Brick Lane Market - now this was my kind of market, stalls upon stalls filled with hand made clothes and jewellery and racks and racks of vintage clothing.
We chowed down at one of the food stalls and wandered the streets taking an obscene about of photographs, taking in all the sights sounds and smells of the wondrous London market. After hours of browsing, the stalls started to pack up and the sky began to turn orange we decided to head to Spitafields Market for a drink in Las Iguanas a chain of Latin American restaurants that serve killer cocktails, Abi and I went for a Cherry Fizz (Cherry Brandy, Gin, elderflower cordial, lemon juice and cranberry juice), and Mark went for a Virgin Pina Colada - if you would like to know how to make one of their scrumptious cocktails just click here. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.
And here is what I wore for the day, the weather man promised 26°C and he didn't lie, it was such a glorious Summers day, and the perfect chance to finally wear one of my dresses that haven't really had the chance to make an appearance this Summer
Yesterday I attended a wedding of two friends from university down in Portsmouth - where we went to uni. It was such a lovely day and strange to be back in the Portsmouth with all the old crowd.
The ceremony was beautiful and the church was so cosy and drenched with light bursting through it's stained glass windows. My favourite part was when they were signing the papers, a friend of the groom played the song from Scrubs which got a giggle, followed by a song Foo Fighters and Green Day - not your traditional wedding music, but great anyway.
The groom also had three Best Men and his own wedding cake! Or should I say a three tier pork pie - Amazaballs!!
Unfortunately I was having such a great time I didn't get a chance to get a snap of my outfit, but here is wee idea of what I wore:
All items you guys have seem before on my blog. I did contemplate buying another outfit for the wedding, however I decided I have enough clothes to choose from!
Today I spent the day wandering the town with my uni friends exploring our old haunts and some new ones - Southsea Castle right on the sea front. Henry VII built this castle to protect the port of Portsmouth, it's only small but was nice to see, considering I never visited through my 3years of being in Portsmouth.
What did you guys get up to at the weekend?
I'll leave you with the song the Bride and Groom had for their first Dance:
Wow-wee, what a weekend! MASSIVE WARNING - super picture heavy post!
As some of you may know Monday is my Birthday, however I didn't actually have anything planned for the weekend as I was meant to be in Ireland for my cousins Christening, but due to the ridiculous ticket prices, I had to pull out rather last minute. Anyway, as I was saying as I had nothing planned for the weekend, I thought it was going to be a boring ol' weekend sat as home for most of it by myself, man how I was wrong.
It all started on Friday when my bestest bud Jac happened upon 2 free tickets for the Boom Boom Club, an outrageous, quickly and rib tickling night of comedy, dance and cabaret.
The club was held in the perfectly weird and wonderful Old Vic Tunnels, a maze of old musty railway tunnels hidden away from the public eye, but with great acoustics and bars tucked under bridges it made for the perfect venue. Unfortunately The Boom Boom Club played its last night their on Saturday, but the Old Vic Tunnels always has something going on. The acts included a guy reading extracts from Mills and Boon, Miss Kitty Bang Bang who we last encountered on our trip to see the Burlesque Hurly Burly show and a band which played kind of Russian sea music - all completely memorising and fabulous to see. There were many rooms to the Tunnels, with a lady swinging on a Crescent Moon, a man balancing on his hands on two poles to a lady dangling from the ceiling on a hula hoop.
It can only be described as a tantalising night out with a difference - I highly recommend you check the show and venue out!
Saturday saw me and Ma off to Southbank to visit the Vinatge Village, part of the Vintage Festival which was on this weekend. The Vintage Village was just around the corner to the Royal Festival hall and free to get into.
It was like you had died and gone to vintage heaven! There were stalls upon stalls of vintage goods from clothes and accessories to furniture and crockery. There were women with fabulous 1940's curls and red lipstick, and men with pristine moustaches and walking canes. An amazing sight to see, topped off with a mini fairground and candy floss.
There was even a salon where you could have your hair done, which I just couldn't pass up:
Fabulous no? We spent the entire day wandering in and out of stalls, ohh-ing and ahh-ing about all the vintage delights on display.
In the evening I went to meet Jac and her hubby for drinks - they had paid to get inside, so popped out to say hello - both looking fabulous.
By pure luck someone was on their way home and offered me her ticket for 1/2 price (£30) - still a bit steep, but judging by the village I just had to go in.
It had floors and floors of vintage stalls and we boogied the night away in the the various bars, Let it Rock with its old school Rock'n'Roll, the Disco Balcony bar overlooking the River Thames and two floors of the Torch Club, one backed with frilly skirts, brogues and couples who really knew how to swing, the other with giant disco balls and a big band. An absolutely awesome event that I'm sad to see over.
Today was a slightly more relaxed day, spending with my friend in her back garden chilling out in the glorious sunshine, eating BBQ sausages and munching on my mini Birthday cake. I then popped home this evening to find yet another cake waiting for me. WOOHOOO I'm so caked out right now!
And here's a what I wore today - I managed to keep one of the curls in too!
Dress & Flower Ring - Primark | Sandals - Custom made in Vietnam | Headscarf - Vintage (from Vintage Village)
So all in all an absolutely amazing weekend, and it goes to show you don't need to plan everything to have an exciting adventurous Birthday.
I will be continuing my celebrations all week (yes that right I have a Birthday Week), so keep you eyes peeled for more Birthday related posts, and all you UK peeps don't forget to enter my BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAY.
Did you guys have an awesome weekend?
Speak Soon xxx
PS. Here's something to Swing out the weekend in style - Ondrej Havelka & His Melody Makers
On Friday I collected my brand spanking new glasses and I love love love them!!! It was 2 for 1 in Specsavers and I get money off from work so I got 2 pairs for the impressive price of £75 - what a bargain. I'm randomly quite sad I only have to wear them for computer/TV use because I really want to wear them 24/7. What do you guys think?
Sadly all my plans for Sunday went completely tits up, but I still had an awesome day. I still went to see a sneak preview of Captain America, which is exactly what you would expect it to be, cheesy, funny and action packed, the CGI isn't to shabby either - I recommend going to see it if your after a fun-no-brain-required-film, thumbs up from me.
However my friend I was meeting for lunch canceled as it was his last day in the country and he had loads of rushing around to do. If you follow me on Instagram (the most awesome app ever) you'll know that instead I had a scrumptious Sunday Roast and sipping mixed berry Cider in Angel.
I then met my Ma for a bit of a wander around the fabulous (but overpriced) vintage and antique shops in the glorious and very much missed sunshine of London.
My plans of being a +1 for the Noah & The Whale iTunes festival were also scarpered as my friends plane from Edinburgh was delayed and she couldn't make it to the gig in time and after a certain point they give your tickets away :( sad times, but hey-ho what you going to do, so I decided to make do with the sunshine.
Dress & Boots - H&M | Necklace - Forever 21
My friend bought back this gorgeous necklace from America - I'm so happy there's a Forever 21 opening here in London.
Nail Polish - Barry M (Mint Green) | Sunglasses - Primark
And though completely coincidentally I love how my sunnies and nail polish matched perfectly yesterday!
It's my Birthday next Monday, and I'm super excited so expect some Birthday related posts coming up...
How was everyone else's weekend? Did everything go to plan?
