Coffee is my drug

4th January 2012 - Long Overdue

2012-01-04T22:31:00.001Z

I know I haven't written in yonks, not for any good reason really. I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and is sufficiently plumper than this time last month, because I know I am! I've had loads of work this term, made more pressing by the fact that it's my third and (gasp!) final year of uni. Three years is just the right amount of time to settle in somewhere and feel you know what you're doing - and then it's time to leave. I'm applying to drama schools at the moment, which is quite terrifying, so if I get in then at least that's another year to be spent avoiding the real world. I have my first audition on Friday, so I've been preparing for that recently. I'm also doing a play in London next week called 'Party' at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden, so if you live in London you should definitely come and watch. It's a comedy about some students who think they can set up a political party in their garden shed. Needless to say, they're not the brightest bunch!

I've also recently been avoiding blogging because Blogger seems to have completely and utterly messed up my layout and stuff. I changed my template, searched loads of help articles and even dug into the hidden depth of HTML and I still can't fix it. Basically all the stuff in my sidebar is fixed and I can't move it around or change it. I can't even delete it from within the HTML itself - every time I try I get an error message. And as a self-diagnosed neat freak (technical term there) I can't stand it when everything's messy. So the Pages tab is now down there for some reason and I deleted everything I could from the sidebar in an attempt to sort the problem out, to no avail. I used to have lots of links to stuff in the sidebar, including lots of lovely blogs, but that's all gone now, for which I apologise. I've been tempted to delete the blog and create a new one, or transfer it all over to a Wordpress blog to get rid of the issue but it all seemed like to much effort to be doing with right now, so for now it will remain a mess. Grrrr, stupid Blogger platform.

Although I haven't been posting though, I have been doing some fashion photography for Epigram, which is my University's newspaper. So I thought I'd post some of the photos up here. The first one we did was at the start of term and was all about reworking different trends. The second one was a kind of grungy style shoot done in my creepy basement (cobwebs and grime occasionally come in useful, who knew!) and the third was a Christmas shoot, also done in my house (although thankfully not said creepy basement).

Here's some of my favourites from the first photoshoot. The model is Suzi, the stylists Cesca Clayton and Lizzy Bullock and make-up artist Coco Creme. And obviously I took the photos.

I will post some images from the other two shoots soon, and hopefully I'll post more regularly again!

Thanks for reading, Harriet. x

'Mondays is for drinking to the seldom seen kid'

2011-09-19T12:42:00.000+01:00

'Hi!'

Hi there, I've just moved into my new house at uni so it's safe to say I am avoiding unpacking. Firstly, I hate it when my room is messy, but I know that when I start unpacking I will have to do it from start to finish, which will be exhausting, hence the procrastination. Also, I've been slightly preoccupied by the many things that are not working in the house. The first time I tried to: make a cup of tea, cook dinner, have a shower were all disasters. And I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time in the creepy basement trying to turn the mains electricity back on. Not good. Last night I started cooking dinner (vegetarian enchiladas in case you were wondering) only to find half way through that the oven didn't work. I was already having to light the gas rings on the hob with matches because the ignition was broken. Don't worry though, the enchiladas quickly turned into fajitas with sauce on top and were delish! It's safe to say that I'm slightly resenting my house at the moment. And the house is actually lovely, it's just that nothing seems to work properly. So it's my landlords I'm resenting really. They had all summer to fix everything but it seems they didn't have time. They did, however, have time to come and collect the playstation that we were told was for watching DVDs on (I was getting really excited at the prospect of singstar nights as well!) but not to sort out the deathtraps that are the front and back gardens. Seriously, it's like a jungle out there, you have to battle with killer brambles to leave the house. Not cool. As for the title of this post - this Monday is enough to make me start drinking in the AM. Alright, I'm not actually that badass, I'm drinking tea, but WITH SUGAR! Ah, yeah. And I'm listening to Elbow, funnily enough.

Ok, rant over. House sucks, landlords are shit, you get it. Apart from that, I'm getting ready to start my work experience tomorrow, which is exciting. I'm spending just over a week working with mystreetchic.com which is a Bristol based fashion website. I'm not really sure what I'll be doing yet, but I think it involves writing some articles and also taking street style pictures of fashionable ensembles on the streets of Bristol. So, if you live in Bristol you may see me wielding a camera around at some point over the next week. I know, I make it sound so chic don't I?

Obviously, this being a fashion blog, I can't ignore the fact that it is London Fashion Week at the moment. I think half the fun of LFW is seeing what everyone else is wearing, as well as what's parading down the catwalk. Although that's exciting too :) Obviously I am sadly not at LFW, instead I am in Bristol wearing the world's cosiest jumper (stupid cold house) and jeans... what, not blogworthy? I'll have you know that I often get compliments on this jumper. I definitely stole it from my Mum, who was not impressed. But hey, I say that if you don't wear something for ten years it's definitely fair game. In other words, you snooze you lose.. MINE NOW hehehe :)

I've also been lusting over clothes I wish I could afford, as usual. And if I weren't waiting with baited breath for the day my student loan presents itself in my bank account (please hurry up!) this is what I would be buying...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Mm, I know, so much navy and red and green. Yes, I want to look like one of Santa's elves. That's totally one of A/W 11's hottest trends. No but seriously, velvet ankle boots and velvet dungarees? Yes please. And as for the cosy jumpers I can tell you that they will come in very handy living in this ice cube tray, formerly known as my student house. I also really like these, but they didn't really fit into the collage:

1 & 2

I know, how many dungarees does one girl need? But look, this one's a dungaree dress. Completely different. Yep. And I'm also just a sucker for moustache t-shirts and anything shiny, hence the t-shirt. So, there's some clothes that I definitely can't afford. Oh well. Here's what else I'm loving recently:

1. Collecting recipes on Pinterest

2. Marimo moss ball pets on Etsy. I know, how can someone be this cool? Go on, click the link. You know you want one too.

3. Terrariums. Yet more greenery. But so cute, I'm going to make one. How cute are these: 1 and 2

4. Matte nail varnish top coat. I bought a cheap one from Boots, brill.

Thanks for reading, and check out mystreetchic.com over the next week or so, you never know you may see something by me on there!

Back to school checklist

2011-09-07T22:58:00.001+01:00

(Pinterest)

So, another September has rolled around and although I won't be going back to school it still has that air of anticipation and fresh starts. For me, and probably lots of other people my age, September holds that 'New Year' feeling much more than January because it's always the start of the academic year. New school shoes, pens and pencils, fresh uniform (if only midi skirts were in when I was at school; skirt length was a constant battle between the teachers and 99% of the student female population) and if you're lucky a nice new pencil case. And I know I'm not the only one that gets excited at the prospect of stationary! Well, even though I won't strictly be going back to school, I will be going back to uni for my third (and final *shudder*) year, so I will be indulging in some new stationary! I'm not sure whether my budget will be stretching to new clothes, especially with the daunting realisation that this time next year I won't be about to receive a nice little present from my dear friend Student Finance! But anyway, these would be my back to school essentials.

As you can tell, I enjoy the "classic schoolgirl" look. Kilts and mini skirts are staples, as are collars of all shapes and sizes. Add a makeshift bow-tie with ribbon and you'll look the picture of schoolgirl innocence. I especially like the colour combination in the far right look.

(1, 2, 3, 4)

For a bit of a twist, add a splash of bright colour or better yet, some leather - ooh how riske! Ok, so I probably wouldn't wear leather to school or uni but it's still a great take on schoolgirl chic, is it not?

For those who can pull off a midi skirt (read: not me because it would cut my already vertically challenged frame in half and I would look like a torso stuck in two tree stumps.) I love these two looks. Midi skirts are more serious than minis but not as dramatic as a maxi. They have a certain studious quality about them (nope, just me?) that says, I'm here to work but I'm going to look good doing it! What could be more perfect at this time of year. These two outfits are both very Autumnal too, yum.

(1, 2, 3, 4)

Obviously you're going to need a stylish way to carry all your school books and supplies in, and I've found the perfect satchel and backpack to take you through Autumn and Winter. Go for a polished look with a chestnut satchel, or casual with an earthy backpack.

(1 & 2)

But if you're far too sophisticated for all that schoolgirl nonsense (I know I'm not!) then the other way to do back to school this September is to bring out the chalk and go schoolteacher chic. Still fun, but just more grown up, and ever so academic. All these outfits need are a desk and a stack of books and you have the makings of a stylish day at work. These skirts are perfect for September when it's not yet bitterly cold but you need something appropriate for work or school. Wear with a blouse first for a smart and chic look and then with knits later on to keep you warm in those notoriously chilly classrooms!

(1 & 2)

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

And here are a few cute back to school essentials that make me smile. I mean, just look at those paperclips! I got back from Edinburgh on the 31st and then had to sleep for a week! As soon as I came home I got ill, which was inevitable really. My immune system isn't great as it is, so after a solid month of late nights, hard work and a small (not to mention damp) basement flat crammed with too many people, I had already resigned myself to the fact that it would hit me as soon as I got home. But I'm feeling much better now so I'm busy preparing for my last year at uni (eek!) and other stuff. I'm also having a love affair with Pinterest right now, it's kind of addicting!

Thanks for reading,

Harriet

Friday 19th August

2011-08-19T15:27:00.001+01:00

Arthur's Seat. We took a picnic up there last week and watched the sunset :)

So this is a little check in, I'm still in Edinburgh, still in a little bubble away from the real world. It's so bizarre, whilst people were rioting in London and other cities Edinburgh was just blissfully unaware, or so it seemed. It honestly took about 3 days for news of the outside world to reach me. I still don't really understand what happened or why, it's probably one of those things that is hard to get your head around after it's happened, but I hope everyone in the affected areas is ok.

Meanwhile, up in good old Scotland (rainy as ever, of course) I've basically been in a routine of: get up, eat, go out and hand out flyers, eat, do the show, drink & eat, sleep. Obviously fuelled with much caffeine! It's fun, but exhausting and repetitive, not to mention cramped. The play is still going well, we've had a couple of good reviews, one from ThreeWeeks which I'm really happy about. We think the Scotsman was in last night too so fingers crossed for a good review from them! Also, the playwright, David Greig came to see it the other night because he has two other shows on here at the moment. Obviously we were all really nervous and excited because the play is so great we wanted to do it justice. Thankfully the audience was full and they were really enjoying it and the cast were all brilliant, probably because they had so much nervous energy! After the show we went down to the bar and he bought us all a drink and stayed chatting with us for quite a while and told us how much he enjoyed it! We were all so pleased, if we've impressed David Greig then we're happy! Just waiting for some more reviews to come out now, and in the meantime trying to get audiences in!

My mum is visiting next week, which is exciting! I'm trying to write a list of all the things she should see because there's so much to choose from! I'm hoping we get time to do a bit of shopping too because Edinburgh has sooo many great shops, but I haven't had a chance to go anywhere yet.

Anyway, I better go now. Thanks for reading, sorry it's not very interesting at the moment!

Thursday 11th August

2011-08-11T12:34:00.000+01:00

This is a picture from the top of the Empire State Building, it was about 40 degrees at the time. New York was great, we did loads of stuff in Manhattan and Brooklyn. One of my favourite things though was the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. I had to queue for about an hour and a half but it was so worth it. I had an audio guide which described loads of the shows as I walked around and had interviews with people who knew him well. The clothes were just amazing, and it was presented throughout a series of rooms, with lights, multimedia and a soundtrack which made it really atmospheric. You can't take pictures inside otherwise I would have to show you a few of my favourite bits but I did buy a set of postcards with some great images on the front.

New York was really great, we had some really nice meals out, we saw Daniel Radcliffe in 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying' (who knew he could sing and dance?!) and did some sightseeing and shopping around the city. The weather was crazy though, it was so hot the whole time, and because it was the city it was really muggy and uncomfortable heat, but it was still a nice change from the UK.

Edinburgh, however, is a different story. I've been here for about a week now and it has rained about 60% of the time. On the days where it hasn't rained it's been really warm and sunny but when it rains, it bloody pours! Our show is going really well, although we need some more reviewers to come in. We've had two reviews so far but they were on the first and third nights before we'd really warmed up and got into the swing of it. We got a 3 star review from Broadway Baby and a 4 star review from ThreeWeeks. That's good, but I know we can do better, and the cast are capable of a 5 star review on a good night with a full audience, so I'm hoping for another reviewer soon.

I've seen a few shows so far, a couple bad but most have been really good. I saw some comedy the other night and one of the acts was 'the boy with tape on his face' who does his whole routine with tape on his mouth, so instead of speaking it's lots of physical theatre and audience participation. It was really funny, especially after a couple of drinks!

Sorry for the lack of updates but it's very hard to find time out to do anything here. I'm living in a three bedroom flat (which is damp and cold, nice) with 9 other people for a month so everyone gets pretty cramped and on top of each other. Most of the time we're out of the flat, either advertising 'Yellow Moon' on the mile (we made a massive moon out of wood and painted it) or seeing other shows. And, of course doing our own each night at 7pm.

In fact, I'm off to see a dance show soon so I better go. Hope you're all well.

Harriet

Wednesday 20th July 2011

2011-07-21T01:11:00.001+01:00

Not feeling well today so I've been in bed all day, but this is what I wore yesterday. The shoes are a recent Primark purchase, which I was very impressed with because even up close I don't think you'd know they were from Primark unless you'd seen them there. I'm going to try and get an early night tonight as I really don't want to be ill in New York! I think I'll try and get a good night's sleep and then get up and pack in the morning. I'm so excited! I can't wait to get there!

So even though it is definitely still summer it's that time of year when the Autumn and Winter collections are revealed and I am one of the many (I hope) who get very excited at the prospect of Autumnal colours, boots and layers! Some people say you should live in the moment, but there's just something about the future that looks better isn't there?! In reality it will be grey, rainy, slushy and impossible to maintain one's hairstyle come October, but right now those months hold the promise of woolly jumpers, fires and most importantly hot chocolate... mmm :) Perhaps if British summers resembled anything close to what we imagine them to be like from the depths of winter (BBQs, picnics, drinking icy drinks in the garden whilst wearing summer dresses that compliment a sunkissed tan) then we wouldn't all be so keen to move on into Autumn. While the picture of toasting marshmallows over a blazing fire might be a tad romanticised, our British winters are on the whole a lot more reliable than our summers! Which makes planning a winter wardrobe a lot more enjoyable...

Anyway, although it's mad to be thinking past August right now I thought I'd post a few pictures of the A/W collections. I especially love the dalmation themed show at Topshop Unique!

Marios Schwab

Aquascutum

Burberry Prorsum

Topshop Unique

I love the black dress in the last image, especially with those tights! Right, off to bed, night.

Harriet

Tuesday 12th July 2011

2011-07-12T22:10:00.003+01:00

Image credit.

If only being busy looked this stylish. And if only I my desk were in the middle of a luscious field, although I'm not sure it would be conducive to a productive environment! Another day, another pathetic excuse. But I really have been busy. I won't bore you with the details but it's mainly consisted of preparations for Edinburgh this August. I know it will be fun and worth it when I'm there but at the moment it's all a bit of a headache. Aside from that, I'm in Wales at the moment with my grandparents and I've sprained my ankle today. So I'm sitting with my leg up watching TV and figured I should stop making excuses not to update! I hate getting out of a routine with something, so as soon as I get home I'll try and get into regular posting again. I've got lots to post!

I went to the south west blogger meet up in Bristol a few weeks ago and I'm so glad I did! The girls were all lovely and we had a great afternoon eating far too much, shopping for far too long in Primark and then chin wagging in Starbucks. We all had so much fun we forgot to take many pictures (bad bloggers!) but I think there may be one or two...

In other news I moved into my new student house last week, which is always fun. I am an organisational freak so the prospect of sorting out a new room and deciding where everything goes is actually rather exciting. I lead an exhilarating life, I know. I'm not actually living there at the moment as I'm away most of the summer but at least I've got the keys now and moved some of my stuff in so I won't have to do it all in September.

I also need to decide what to pack for New York, which I'm so excited about! (New York, not the packing... although packing has its merits) I'm trying to decide all the things we're going to do and I want to squeeze as much as possible into the week we're there. I'm staying in Williamsburg so I'm looking forward to seeing Brooklyn as well as Manhattan; I've only been to New York once before and stayed in Manhattan and did the usual touristy things. I will definitely be taking pictures galore and hopefully will try to get in a few outfit posts as well, where better to be stylish than NYC?! I'm sure as soon as I get there I'll feel like SJP or Blair Waldorf, with a substantially smaller wardrobe (and budget!) I'm sure!

I'll be back soon, thanks for reading. I'm now trying to compile a Harry Potter quiz for my Mum. She's a teacher and they're having a Harry Potter day in school on Friday. I'm trying to decide how hard I should make the questions... maybe I'll be really mean haha! I won't even mention the final film as I'm finding it difficult enough to contain my excitement already, without exploding all over the internet as well!

Red Hot!

2011-06-05T16:39:00.002+01:00

I don't know about the rest of the UK, but in Bristol it has been a hot weekend! We had a BBQ on Friday night out in the sunshine, it was perfect. I also went to the Zoo with my brother on Friday as well, which was nice. My favourite bit was the Feed the Lorikeets section where you could go in and these lorikeets (little rainbow birds, they look a bit like parrots) come and sit on your arm and drink nectar from little cups. As soon as we went inside one decided to sit on my head, sadly there's no photographic evidence as we were too stunned to act quickly, but it was hilarious. My brother had to prise me away because I just wanted to stay there and feed them all day!

Finally re-dyed my hair today, I've been meaning to do it for ages! I don't know why but the colour I use is rarely ever in stock so I've been looking out for it for ages. Either it's really popular and sells out quickly, or nobody ever buys it so they never stock it. Either way, it appears in Boots and Sainsbury's really sporadically, but I happened to spot it the other day. This is what it looks like now I've dyed it (literally a few hours ago, so it's very bright!)

If any of you live near Bristol then you may or may not know about a new fashion website that's recently launched, called mystreetchic.com. They're having a launch event at Cabot Circus next Saturday where you can get your hair done in a topknot for you, as well as manicures and makeovers. Here's a link to the event page - here. I'm definitely planning to go down and take advantage of free makeovers so maybe I'll see some of you there!

Second year is over!

2011-05-31T00:23:00.002+01:00

So I've actually finished my second year of University... this is scary. This time next year I will be an actual adult. Ok, I'm an adult now but I'm still a student, I don't have a real job or a house and I can still drink wine from a mug, which in my opinion is not adult behaviour. The prospect of life after university is a very daunting one. I think if I had a set career path that I wanted to follow it would at least be a bit easier to know which direction I'm heading in. Right now I sort of know what I want to do, but I don't know how to go about doing it. I know I want to work in film, theatre or fashion. But that doesn't really make it any easier. There are a million different ways I could approach those sorts of careers, and I have no idea how I'm going to do it. I'm hoping my final year will be a time where I can really concentrate on working out my next move, but I'm also dreading the prospect of having to make those big decisions! I wish I could stay at university for a couple more years! It's an ideal lifestyle, I have freedom and independence because I live away from home, yet I don't have the pressure to find a job, instead I get to study what I love and socialise with my friends. Wow, we have it good!

So anyway, I'm sorry for the hiatus in posting, but this last term at uni was the most hectic yet! I had essays due in as soon as I got back (which I get back this week, eek!) then a film project due and then a performance the week after. So now I'm kind of recovering in the aftermath of those things. It's kind of exhausting going from being really busy to being free! On Friday I handed in my last pieces of work, so now I just have to sit and await the results! The film and performance projects were really fun and I really enjoyed doing them, but it was a very intensive period, in the week of our performance we were rehearsing 10-6, 7 days of the week, which is a long time to spend with a group of excitable people! It was fun, but very tiring.

I've barely had time to think about what I'm wearing, which is why there have been no outfit posts (aside from not having time!) When rehearsing I tend to think of what will be the comfiest thing to wear for 12 hours, and will take me from rehearsal to pub (I mean, after all the hard work we deserve a few drinks right?!) so usually what I end up wearing doesn't really make the cut to be photographed!

I have been lusting after lots of clothes recently, especially when it was really warm, but as I'm saving money for the summer I have resisted buying anything (so unlike me, I don't know how I've managed!) but recently the weather's been a bit crap so the summer dresses have returned to the back of the wardrobe.

The other day someone I know through a couple of friends at uni has offered to take some pictures for me the next time I do an outfit post, which is a very exciting prospect. Those of you who get annoyed at the wonky tripod and the awkward self-timer will know what I mean when I say I often get jealous of those lucky people who seem to have talented photographer friends or boyfriends who follow them round and take pictures of them in the most flattering of lights, in the most forgiving of angles and with the most beautiful of backdrops. The guy is a really great photographer so hopefully I'll ask him to do that sometime soon as it would be great to have some good quality photos for a change (as I seem to mention constantly, my uni room is just not ideal for outfit post pictures).

I will leave you now as I am off to bed, but before I go here are a few inspirational images of what I wish my summer could look like...

I think the first set of clothes are just so summery and bold, and the second lot would be perfect for those holidays on the beach where you just want to sunbathe and read trashy novels. And I always love a bit of nautical by the sea!

Sorry for the absence, but I'm back for good!

I should be writing..

2011-04-30T00:58:00.001+01:00

I should be writing an essay right now, but just a quick post before I get back to it! Thought I'd post this outfit because it's a bit different to what I wear most days. My mum took this for me before I went out to see my friends the other night. It was a brilliant night, we had a meal then took part in a pub quiz. We lost miserably, which I'm still quite bitter about, but it was really good to see everyone. I even saw a friend I hadn't seen since she left sixth form two years ago, and now she's engaged! God, that made me feel old! Then I remembered I'm only 20, being engaged definitely is not on my agenda at the moment! I think the only things on my agenda presently are family, uni, friends and edinburgh. Ok, so maybe clothes feature heavily in my agenda too, but that would just look superficial if I wrote that wouldn't it!? ;) So, on to the outfit:

Those are the wedges I was rabbiting on about the other day, they're super comfy too :) On a separate note I woke up to three things being delivered for me the other day. Getting post is one of those perfectly normal things that makes me really happy. Even when I know what's inside them, it's still fun to open packages. The first was my graze box, which I've been getting for a while now and are really yummy. The second was some more Sally Hansen Salon Effects, this time in Frock Star, which are basically very glittery! And the third was a beautifully wrapped item of clothing that I bought from the lovely Jazmine of Jazzabelle's Diary. I'll keep that a surprise until I wear it one day, but look how nicely wrapped it was:

I really like the Salon Effects that I bought, mostly because I hate waiting for normal nail varnish to dry (I normally forget and touch it or something and ruin it) and also because there's no way you'd be able to get such a detailed pattern on your nail, even if you had it done properly or something. My friend got Minx done on her nails and she said they were great, but I think they're pretty pricey too. She got them done for free because a friend needed to practice on people, so I think these Salon Effects are a good alternative if you don't have a celebrity budget to splash on your nails! The flowery ones I had on stayed on for a good 10 days, I'll see how long these stay on but I'm pretty sure I'll be buying these again!

I'm going back to Bristol tomorrow, so I'll probably be running around packing like a mad thing in the morning. I hate packing the night before, it annoys me to have to leave out things I'm going to need in the morning. So instead I tend to do it all in a mad rush the day I'm going anywhere. Although, the advantage is that I've learned to pack up pretty much everything I own in about an hour. And for the amount of rubbish I have (and insist on taking to and from uni) I think that's quite impressive. Right, now I'm debating whether to get a good night's sleep, or to try and crack on with this essay. My brain feels like mush, maybe it's bedtime!

It's a ring thing

2011-04-26T23:07:00.001+01:00

Current obsession - chunky rings. Big, crystally looking stones set in gold and silver are really appealing to me right now. There seem to be lots around on the high street, as well as online shops like ASOS and smaller individual shops. I only wish there were more stretchy and adjustable ones around so I could buy more for my little fingers! Take a look at these jewelled delights; kind of yummy, no?

Another obsession is definitely animal jewellery, and particularly anything with with a rabbit on it, very appropriate for Easter :) In the past few months the high street has been literally overflowing with rabbit-related jewellery, which is great because there's lots of variety about, but it also inevitably means that consumers will get sick of it much sooner. Just like owl-themed jewellery and cupcakes...

Remember how fashionable cupcakes were a couple of years ago? Every wedding cake was replaced with cute bite-sized spongy things covered in far too much icing and floral decoration, and dedicated cupcake bakeries literally sprang up on every street. We were bombarded with recipe books, online communities that exist to discuss their latest cupcakey creations, cupcake clothing and jewellery, the list goes on. Literally, they were everywhere. At one point it did seem inevitable that cupcakes would take over the world (me, exaggerate? Never.). And then one day some sane person who'd had enough of all this faffing around with dainty little pansy cakes (and probably just wanted something he could cut a portion size of his own choosing without people saying 'are you going to eat three of those?!') said, "how about we return to eating cakes of all shapes and sizes? How about we stop this discrimination against the normal-sized cake?! We can buy one bigger cake for the same price as these showy mini cakes and eat it slice by slice over an extended period of time!" And the world turned around and said, "you know what, you are absolutely right! That, good sir, is a bloody good idea! Now cut me a slice and stick the kettle on."

Ok, so that may or may not have happened, in my opinion it most likely did happen; but you catch my drift - cupcakes have gone out of vogue recently. Maybe it's the credit crunch. Anyway, my point (I think it got lost somewhere along the way in all that icing) was that fluffy little animal jewellery will probably be "out" by this time next year too. Nevertheless, I'll probably still be wearing mine proudly, whilst I scoff another vanilla cupcake (but they're just so adorable and miniature!!)

Today I had a long overdue haircut at Steph's Salon (aka, the kitchen by my mum - it's great, you can pay her in hugs!), and by long overdue I mean it probably should have been cut in about 1999 because that's how straggly and long it was! I've been quite busy with work and drama stuff lately, especially sorting stuff like accommodation for Edinburgh, and I have two essays due in next week. So I'll try to blog as normal but it may not be that interesting as I will most probably be sitting in my room day after day drinking copious amounts of coffee and crying at my inability to write the essays and my hideous habit of procrastination which has led to me writing them a week before they are due.

As my abnormal ramblings above clearly illustrate, it is most definitely time for me to shut up and go to sleep, and hopefully I won't plague you again with any more fabricated tales of the cupcakes' demise. Soz guysss! Night!

Happy Easter :)

2011-04-24T17:13:00.001+01:00

Helloo, I hope you're all having a nice Easter weekend and consuming unhealthy amounts of chocolate! I haven't had any yet because I went out for a meal and am so full I might explode if I so much as look at any more food! I am looking forward to my little lindt chocolate rabbit later though, they're just so cute and yummy!

So I went shopping yesterday with my Mum and bought some new shoes from H&M. I got the black wedges, and then a pair of tan sandals with a heel. I wore the sandals today when we went out for lunch. We went to Hotel du Vin in Cheltenham, and it was delish. I had soup and then this goats cheese and pear tart kind of thing. It sounds a bit strange but was so good. You know when you really want to keep eating something because it's so yummy but you know you will literally burst if you don't stop... yeah, well thankfully I didn't burst, but I definitely had to loosen my belt! How embarrassing! Anyway, moving swiftly on... here's what I wore:

We were kept entertained throughout the meal by two women sitting behind us, clearly gossiping about their sister (we think, we were trying to work it out!). I know, I'm so nosy, but it was pretty funny!

Have a good bank holiday everyone :)

Shoe Lust

2011-04-23T01:43:00.001+01:00

Hello all, I've been busy discovering new blogs, amongst other things, which is why I haven't got round to posting this until now (when I should be asleep!). So here's a quick update: I'm back home from Wales now, my plans for the rest of my holiday basically consist of - essay writing, planning a holiday, uni drama stuff, blogging (I hope!) and most likely procrastinating by online window shopping!

I was having a little look at H&M's new website (mentioned here previously) and decided to have a look at the shoes. For someone with lots of clothes, I have comparatively few shoes. This is probably partly due to the fact that I have stupidly small and narrow feet, so even when shops make shoes in my size, they quite often don't fit. I also think that nice cheap shoes are harder to come by than nice cheap(ish!) clothes, and therefore I end up spending money on more items of cheaper clothing, than investing in more expensive shoes. I suppose, for a budget like mine, H&M is somewhere in the middle. It's not Primark, and it's not Topshop/Urban Outfitters/Office etc. Whilst Primark shoes tend to fall apart (except I have found a few good pairs of heels that fit) and the price of Topshop shoes put me off (although I have never found a pair that fit me, so I don't have to worry about that really!) shops like H&M seem to be a good compromise. So I thought that, although I shouldn't be spending any money at the moment *sadface* I was tempted by the promise of a good alternative to the aforementioned. And boy, were my eyes in for a treat! Look at these babies, I don't know whether I'll be able to resist. They seem to encapsulate lots of styles I've been looking at recently in much more expensive shops. I think for something that is not often as prominent as the rest of an outfit (because who is really looking at your feet all day...?) I would rather compromise slightly on the design and brand, for something more affordable and student budget-friendly!

Floral heels - £29.99

Tan wedges - £29.99

Black wedges - £24.99

Flat sandals - £14.99

Pink heels - £29.99

I've chosen mainly spring/summer shoes, but I had to put the black wedges in because I seem to be obsessed with them at the moment. I think this little collection would see me right through spring and summer for all occasions! If I had to choose two pairs it would probably be the two pairs of wedges (height and comfort?! Yes please!) so I may try them on if I see them in store. At under £30 you can't go wrong really can you? That's twice I've mentioned H&M in the past few days, I should be a brand representative or something!

So, now I really should go to bed, but before I go I'll leave you with this...

What can I say, the sunshine makes me happy! This was during a pathetic attempt at an outfit post that was going horribly wrong. 'If all else fails jump around like a loon', that's the saying right? Or something like that...

Wild Horses

2011-04-20T21:51:00.001+01:00

So I'm in Wales at the moment, and one of the things I always look forward to when I come here is going to find the horses and ponies that live freely on the common by my grandparent's house. If you give them polos, they will literally follow you to the ends of the earth! Sadly I didn't have any treats so went empty handed today, but they still let me stroke them :) It was boiling hot and really sunny so I brought my camera with me and my brother caught a really nice moment on camera. I went up to one of the horses and it kind of looked at me for a minute, then must have decided I was alright and proceeded to lie down next to me! Because these aren't tame horses I'm always a bit wary, but they're so beautiful I can't resist going to find them.

Last night I tried out Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail strips after reading about them on The Dainty Squid recently and so far I am absolutely loving them. I've tried Nail Rocks from Topshop and these were ten times easier to apply and i feel like they're going to last a lot longer too. They don't feel like they're another layer on top of my nails, more like nail polish that they're really stuck to my nails. I'll let you know how long they last because that might determine whether they're worth buying again, but so far I'm pretty sure these will become an obsession. I'm already wondering which other patterns to try. I got Girl Flower to start with because they looked so pretty. The only downside was I had to open both packets to find strips to fit my nails so I couldn't keep them for two uses, so I used the leftover ones to do my big toes and my Mum's thumb nails, which was fun :) I did try to persuade my Nanna to let me do hers too but she wasn't having it haha!

Image credit

These aren't my actual nails, I found this image online because they give a more accurate idea of how they look. My nails are quite short and I've been biting them recently so I thought you probably don't want to see those! Having them nice and pretty is motivating me to stop picking at them though, so I'll see how long the strips last and show you before I take them off.

I'm not sure where you can buy them in the UK but I got these from Ebay, for any UK readers who want to try them too!

Goodnight everyone!

Day Trip

2011-04-20T00:45:00.001+01:00

Today I ventured out in the beautiful weather on a little excursion to Bourton-on-the-Water, a delightful little town in the Cotswolds that has a little river running through it with bridges. Apparently it's the 'Venice of Britain', but I've never heard anyone refer to it as that. It's really pretty and cute though, and is often filled with families and old people, so you know it's going to be a wild day out! This is the type of thing me and my friends like to do; go for picnics and stuff, it's like we've descended into middle age already or something. Surely we're meant to be out drinking and behaving badly or something? But no, instead you'll find us doing something perfectly wholesome like buying sandwiches and doughnuts in Tesco before driving 40 minutes into the countryside to sunbathe and chat.

It was pretty awesome though. We bought our little picnic (delish, btw) and then went to Bourton, where we spent the afternoon basking in the heat and moving every now and again to follow the sun. Then we went into some of the shops to look around and got ice cream. It actually felt like summer.

And it wouldn't be a summer excursion if I didn't get at least a little bit burnt. I didn't even realise it was that hot, but I tied my hair up halfway through the day and my neck caught the sun a bit. To be honest it's not hard for that to happen, it's like I'm part vampire or something, my skin shouldn't see the light of day. My friends like to sit next to me because I make them look so much more tanned in comparison. It's usually not a problem but like I've mentioned before when it comes to summer and I get my legs out they have a tendency to blind people. But nonetheless I went for it and wore shorts today and allowed my legs to get accustomed to the sun. I don't think it shows, but at least they didn't burn!

Anyway, I took some pictures of our little day out, sadly there aren't any great pictures of Bourton itself, I was too busy getting snap-happy taking pictures of my friends, but you can see how nice the weather was :)

Me sitting in the old car/buggy thing at the motor museum (we couldn't pay to go in and see 'Brum' so we just took pictures outside in true student fashion) See my blinding paleness?! I wasn't making it up!

The ducks! We gave them some of our leftover picnic :)

Those kids kept ruining the shot so I just gave up and took one anyway!

There was actually another reason we were in Bourton today as well. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of Geocaching, but it's quite hard to explain, so I'll just link the website and if you're interested you can have a look, but a quick way to sum it up would be to describe it as a kind of treasure hunt. But with sat navs. Anyway, it is so much fun, I absolutely love it! So we were trying to find geocaches in Bourton today, but due to a lack of organisation we had no sat nav, which pretty much made it impossible! That didn't stop us however, and we got a few odd stares while I stood on one of my friends to look in a tree...! I'm sure that's really made you want to find out about it now (not!) but I swear it's amazing, you should all google it and let me know if you do it, or if you already have!

Sorry this has been quite a wordy and long post, I had a few things to talk about but I'm planning to do another post tomorrow, so I hope you're all well and haven't fallen asleep reading this yet :) I'm in Wales at the moment visiting family as my Grandpa is ill, but it's still nice to be here even though it's in unfortunate circumstances. I'm hoping to do some horseriding while I'm here, which I'm really looking forward to.

I took another lookbook picture the other day, so here it is. It took ages to take that one picture, my face kept doing odd things and then the sun would go behind the clouds and I'd be in complete shadow, but it turned out ok in the end I think. I got the skirt for Christmas, it's a snakeskin print which isn't something I'd probably go for but I really like it!

I really will shut up and go now, but before I do I must say how I've been counting down the days until Gossip Girl, 90210 and One Tree Hill were all back on.. I'm literally obsessed with those shows! For a drama student I have pretty poor taste in television it seems but I am a complete sucker for trashy American teenage programmes. So I can't wait to catch up and find out what's happened, I'm sure I'm not alone either!

Thanks for reading!

Little Red Dress

2011-04-16T19:27:00.001+01:00

Hello hello, I've had quite a busy day today seeing as we finally got our offer from a venue for our play for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, so I've been doing lots of emailing and organising this afternoon! I'm really excited though as it looks like I'll be in the same place as last year, and it was a really nice place to be.

So it looks like it's sunny again in the UK so I decided to break out the little red dress before the weather had a chance to change its mind again. Apparently it'll be warm for this weekend at least, which is as good an excuse as any to go and meet my friends at the pub tonight for a drink and a catch-up. So here's the dress I bought in Topshop the other day; as you can see my legs aren't quite ready to be bared, so they're still in tights until it's a bit warmer. Every year I tell myself I'm going to do a bit of fake tan for the summer so I can get my legs out, but inevitably I rarely bother. I tend to blind people with my white legs though so maybe I should make an effort this year. I do get jealous of people who get a nice light tan easily as soon as the sun comes out, it just makes wearing bare legs a whole lot easier. I don't mind being pale at all, but there is a limit to how bright you want your legs to look when they're on display! At the moment I don't think they're fit for the public, I'll have to get some Dove summer glow lotion on the go I think.

So I hope you're all enjoying the sunshine, I know I am. I found this image on Lauren's blog, La Petite Fashionista, and it just made me want to get in a car with my friends and go on some epic roadtrip somewhere. I would love do that across America one day, I think it would be so much fun to be free to roam wherever you want for as long as you want!

I also found this yesterday. It's a colour vision deficiency test. Apparently one in 225 women and one in 12 men have colour vision deficiency of some sort. I wonder why it's so much more common in men? It does explain why so many of them get dark navy and black confused though! The better your colour vision, the lower your score, and I scored 0 so I have perfect colour vision.. sweeeet! So try it out and see how yours is. Right, I'm going to enjoy a well-earned rest now, have a nice evening everyone! :)

Productive Day

2011-04-14T16:14:00.001+01:00

I'm having quite a productive day today; I'm doing lots of little annoying jobs that need to be done like tidying my room and sending emails. I've also been playing with apps on my iPad (ok, so not THAT productive!) like the Old Camera one. I didn't realise it was an iPhone app so it's small on my screen but it still takes old-looking pictures, which is always fun! It puts random different effects on pictures so it's quite a cool way to waste time, not that I'm wasting time or anything... Anyway, these are two of the effects, I think I like the first silvery-blue one best but they're both quite nice :)

I love the jumper I'm wearing today, well if I'm honest I've been wearing it pretty much every day since I've been home for the holiday, it's just so comfy! It's a really nice muted green colour and is just the right thickness for this kind of weather. I got it in the ASOS sale a few weeks ago, I think it was reduced from £60-something to £25, so it was a bargain! It's the ASOS White label, and just feels like a really good quality jumper, so I'm glad I bought it.

In other news, H&M have changed their website and it's up and running today, so have a look because it's much more aesthetically pleasing and easier to navigate than their old one. The mobile website is still annoyingly hard to browse but I do think the main one is vastly improved. I remember when they opened their online shopping website I was really excited because I like H&M clothes but sometimes find shopping there a bit of a mission as things are never organised that well, at least in my local H&M. But the website was a massive let-down as there never seemed to be stock on the website that I had actually seen in store, as well as it being visually unattractive and hard to navigate. I haven't fully explored the whole website yet, but so far it seems to be 100% better than their first attempt! This should be good for everyone who, like me, likes their clothes and prices but doesn't always like shopping in-store.

Right well I better get back to my to-do list before I ruin my productive streak, but before I go here's a reminder to enter Sofia's latest giveaway of Lauren Conrad's 'Style' book. Even if you didn't watch her on The Hills, you have to admit, that girl has style! Have a good day everyone :)

Casual

2011-04-13T20:08:00.002+01:00

Had a fun day today, I went into town with my Mum and spent my birthday Topshop voucher from my brother as well as getting a few other bits and pieces. To be honest, it just goes to show the sad state of affairs at the moment if I'm getting excited about going into town, which, if you've been to Gloucester, you'll know is nothing to be excited about! I am definitely having a very relaxed holiday so far, which is one way to put it, although the prospect of shopping is always exciting really!

In typical British fashion it started chucking it down today, immediately after I took this photo. I knew my prediction yesterday would be correct. Not that I'd checked the weather or anything... *cough* So this is the rabbit t-shirt my housemates got me for my birthday and I love it! I only wish I could wear my rabbit necklace and rabbit ring at the same time, alas I fear that would certainly be overkill! Also, this is the first time I've posted a look of myself wearing trousers. Someone once asked me on formspring if I ever wear trousers, because I only ever post pictures where I'm wearing skirts/dresses/shorts and I hadn't even thought about it before! I do wear trousers, all the time! Jeans, leggings, trousers, jogging bottoms (although I don't think you really want to see what I wear when I'm lying around watching tv!). But for some reason I never like to post looks including trousers. Perhaps it's because I'm really short and they aren't as flattering...?! I have no idea! But anyway, these jean/jeggings (sorry if you hate that word, I'm not particularly fond of it myself) are quite flattering so I thought I'd push the boat out and post this even though it's not that interesting. I also thought I'd share a rare smiley picture too as for some other unknown reason I always try to pull of (usually unsuccessfully) the moody model stare haha!

Look, a smile!!

Oh I thought I'd quickly show you what I bought as well! I got this red spotty dress from Tophop with my birthday voucher, you can just see the top half there because I wanted to show you the little scalloped collar. I think this will be a staple summer dress for me! It's not too short either so I can wear it in the day and to uni, and as it's sleeveless it will probably be really nice as it gets hotter.

I also got Camomile eye make-up remover from the Body Shop, two nail varnishes (Barbara Day - Tesco) and Maybelline Collossal Mascara because they didn't have the Max Factor False Lash Effect one that I usually get. Hopefully this is good too, but I do really like the Max Factor one. Oh and the Starbucks thing is a packet of 12 instant coffee sachets that they've started doing. I used to work for Starbucks so I got to try the products and this is way nicer than normal instant. I love coffee so this is good for when you don't have time to make a proper pot or if you're out and about (they clearly brainwashed me while I worked there because I seem to be plugging their products on my blog! I'm not getting paid to say that haha!) I know, you didn't really need to see all that extra stuff but like I said, I lead a boring life at the moment and the little things make me happy!

Have a nice evening, I think I'm going to watch a film or something, any suggestions? I watched Brokeback Mountain for the first time the other day (I know, been meaning to watch it for AGES!) and I loved it! I have a massive list of films I want to watch but can never decide. I might have to watch something rubbish and trashy, I feel like as I often watch lots of 'quirky' and 'highbrow' films as part of my degree that when I watch something for fun I just want to see something where I can switch off and just enjoy it!

A bit of sunshine

2011-04-12T15:36:00.003+01:00

It's actually been sunny and warm in the UK this week for once, which is nice, although I'm pretty sure it'll be raining by Thursday. Anyhow, a bit of sun is always an excuse for the summer wardrobes to make an appearance in the UK; seriously sometimes I see people in flip-flops in February and I just think 'Are you absolutely mental?! Your toes are definitely going to fall off because it's still snowing, so stop kidding yourself that because we're out of the negative degrees then summer must have arrived early!'

Also, I seem to be one of those people that is always on the chilly side, even in my own house. Maybe I have a cold heart haha! Anyway, so although it is still not warm enough for flip-flops (that's right, put them back in the cupboard!) I thought I'd wear this summery blouse. White always feels like such a summery colour doesn't it? Still resolutely wearing the battered old boots though! It'll be a while before I'm out of those.

My Mum took these pictures for me, which is why my face looks a bit odd; she kept laughing and making me laugh too, which is not that attractive when caught on camera. Trust me, these are the best of the bunch, the rest were pretty funny to look at though! Right, I'm off to do some Edinburgh-related work, have a nice day in the sunshine everyone :)

New design

2011-04-12T02:10:00.002+01:00

I was getting a bit bored with the old background and header so I decided to make a new one, which will hopefully be here to stay. I've been debating getting a tattoo recently and I've been looking at thousands of bird tattoos so I think that's why I decided to put birds on the header!

Don't worry, it won't be some hideous flamingo plastered over my back or something, I was just thinking something really small and discreet that you wouldn't have to have on display all the time. I'll let you know if I do decide to do it, but for now here is a collage I found that is sort of along the lines I was thinking...

I just saved this on my computer and can't find it again so if this is your collage let me know and I'll credit you!

Also, my friend from uni has just re-opened her blog so have a look - http://wendy-in-disguise.blogspot.com/

Bye now :)

Cute things!

2011-04-08T13:13:00.002+01:00

I do have some proper posts coming up now that I'm home for the Easter holidays; the last week of term was pretty manic! Although I thought I'd do a quick post now to show you the top I'm wearing that I got from ASOS and this ring I bought from H&M the other day because it's the cutest thing ever and it will probably never leave my finger now! I am obsessed with rabbits, so I couldn't resist, but just look, how sweet?!

I definitely have a love for all things cute and cuddly, especially rabbits! For now Nibbles the hamster will have to do because I can't really have any other pets at the moment. I think he pretty much fulfils the cute quota though, he's swinging from the bars in his cage like a monkey right now, I think he's trying to convince me hamsters are just as cute as rabbits. Bless, I'll have to upload a video of him doing it sometime because it's really funny! He swings around from the roof of his cage and then just lets go and falls onto the floor. Silly hamster.

'Look at me! I'm cute and fluffy too!'

Anyway, enough of me blabbing on, have a nice weekend everyone :)

I'm so old!

2011-03-23T23:48:00.003Z

What a dramatic post title! Ok, I'm not that old, but I really can't believe I'm now 20! It was my birthday on Monday, and it came as a bit of a surprise! It sneaks up on you doesn't it? The fact that you're not a teenager anymore! Oh well, I guess adulthood and maturity is fun right..? Right?! Nah, in fairness I still feel about 17 (and probably look younger!) but I had a nice birthday.

My brother visited me at the weekend with his friend because they went to a gig in Bristol, and then my Mum drove down on the Sunday so I had a nice weekend with them. I opened my presents on Sunday with my Mum because I wanted her to see me open them, and I had uni 9.30-5pm on Monday anyway so I thought it would be nicer to do it with her. I got some lovely things, and from my housemates too. My Mum got me the blackmilk galaxy leggings I mentioned on here a while ago, as well as Eve Lom cleanser (which is fantastic by the way) and other nice things like jewellery. She also brought me some pink tulips and the best cupcakes I have ever eaten! They are literally divine, I can't stop eating them! My friends got me a t-shirt from H&M with rabbits on it (makes me so happy!) and these really pretty pinky-orangey shorts from Topshop. They know me so well!

Since then it's been a pretty hectic week. Hectic should literally be my word at the moment. The annual meetings to decide the committee for next years' Spotlights and DramSoc (the two drama societies at Bristol) were on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was so nerve-wracking! I got Vice President of Spotlights, which I am so so so excited about, and my housemate got Vice President of DramSoc, so we'll have a very drama-y house next year! The one today went on for 4 hours! FOUR HOURS! It was so tense as well, but I'm really happy for my friend, and me of course! Will be a very exciting, but challenging final year at uni!

Anyway, I HAVE to go to bed because I have 101 things to do tomorrow (..almost!) but I apologise for being so absent! I've been just about managing to read everyone's posts, but every time I plan to write one something gets in the way. So I'm sorry this hasn't been that interesting but I thought I better post something while I had the chance! I'm currently reading Eat Pray Love, which has got me thinking. The author is describing this spiritual journey that is full of meditation and relaxing and eating good food that sounds so amazing, and I keep imagining that I should be trying to find time to relax in a productive way (that sounds like an oxymoron but it makes sense in my head!), you know like not just watching tv or whatever, but doing something that's good for you. Then I either remember all the other things I SHOULD be doing and end up worrying about that instead. BUT, I have the best of intentions, so maybe when I finish the book I'll try and adopt some of her techniques. Hmm.. maybe I could jump on a plane to Bali?! How amazing would that be?! For now, this will probably have to do:

Harriet :)

Something I thought I'd never say...

2011-03-09T09:12:00.002Z

Image found here

Now, as a young student on a pretty average student budget (I can afford to treat myself to some clothes every now and then without having to live off tinned tuna and whatever else has been lurking in the back of my cupboard for about 4 months, but I don't have endless amounts of cash to flash) I tend to shop in the standard high street shops: Topshop, Urban Outfitters, H&M, Zara, New Look etc etc. To be honest, Topshop and Urban Outfitters do test my financial limits but I am very partial to Topshop in particular. So, as far as students go, I think I'm a pretty loyal customer.

So it was with dismay that on Saturday night as I was walking home from a night out with my housemate and some friends we passed the Topshop window display of Cabot Circus and, I have to say, we just had to laugh. Now, I'm all for the retro trends, and vintage fashion, and I know the 70s is supposed to be very "in" at the moment, but that is not an excuse to recreate every single item of clothing that went out of fashion for a reason. It also does not mean that everything from the 70s is now suddenly fashionable again (yes, put those knee-length patent white platforms back where they came from), and definitely not always flattering. Some things most definitely belong in the dusty wardrobes of decades past, people!

What were the offending articles in Topshop, I hear you ask? Well, the thing is it wasn't even the individual items of clothing that were horrible, it was the way they were put together in various combinations that made the manequins look like frumpy middle aged women, sad art teachers trying to be hip, tree huggers (and not in the good way) and the worst case was one that literally looked like a giant doily. To quote my housemate - "I don't know whether to wear that or rest my cup of tea on it"

I have to say, one of these trends is flares and palazzo pants. I do try to like palazzo pants, but I'm afraid I just can't. I do accept that if you are 6 and a half feet tall, and very willowy they will flatter you, but so will everything else! Also, the vast majority of us do not look like that, so let's not encourage people to wear these monstrosities. I won't even go into flares, because to be honest I'm not even sure the leggy models look good in them. If you must wear them, fine but please at least warn people first so they can avoid being seen with you... I joke, well unless they're denim flares, in which case you shouldn't even leave the house. Of course there are always exceptions to the rules and if you are one of those fortunate people who can break the rules and look good doing it, I would love to be proven wrong on this. If you think flares are the way forward, by all means I'd love to see :) But I know I, at least, will be an ever-faithful member of the skinny jeans cult.

What I'm trying to say is there are ways to emulate trends without completely copying a whole look. I love, for instance, the floppy 70s hats that are cropping up left right and centre at the moment. They look great with any casual outfit and wavy hair, but there's no danger of looking like you've just stepped out of a time machine and are thoroughly disorientated.

Ok, I'll stop hating on Topshop and the 70s now, especially because I do really like Topshop normally, they have lots of nice clothes in right now, maybe they should display those instead! I am particularly loving chunky block heels at the moment, it took a while for them to grow on my but they really make an impact and flatter my legs. I tried some nude coloured chunky mary-janes in New Look the other day, but didn't buy them in the end. Maybe when I have some birthday money perhaps. I've still got my eye on the Forever 21 miu miu-esque ones, although they are always sold out in my size, if not completely. I hope they come back in stock soon!

(I don't think the picture really does them justice, they look nice on though)

So pretty, please come back in my size!

I hope my little rant didn't offend any devout followers of the 70s trend, I may have exaggerated slightly for the purpose of this post. Maybe it's secretly just because I don't like trends that I can't wear because they don't suit me, I don't want to be left out now do I?!

I hope you're all having a good week, three days left of my play still and it's going really well! I hope you all had yummy pancakes yesterday, I had mine at about midnight but they were worth waiting for. Hopefully there's still some mixture left and I can have some for breakfast, mmm :)

Yellow Moon

2011-03-08T02:32:00.001Z

I have been very off the ball as of late, for which I apologise! I've had a whole host of blog post ideas, and neither the time or motivation to actually do it! This will change, I promise. After this week is over I have one less thing on my plate, which will give me a bit more time to think about other things.

I'm currently producing a play called Yellow Moon for one of the drama societies at uni. Tonight was the first night and it went so well, I'm really happy about it! We sold out as well, which I didn't expect as ticket sales got off to a slow start. Hopefully this means we'll sell out most of the other nights, which we need to, to make sure we break even! We ended up spending a little more money than we intended, I won't go into figures as the thought scares me a little...!

Anyway, we have 4 more nights and then we can all relax (and hopefully get a little crazy at the afterparty!) I'm also operating the sound, which isn't a massive job as there aren't too many sound effects, and the main ones come at the end, but there was an awful moment when I thought it had all gone horribly wrong... The theatre is actually part of the pub below it, and the staff had kindly (not) decided it wasn't important to mention that they were having a quiz, which involved playing loud music. So at one point we could definitely hear the music coming up the stairs and I couldn't work out where it was coming from. It was quite muffled and distorted and my hearing is unfortunately not the best so I started panicking like a mad thing, thinking I had somehow started to play the music without touching anything. I frantically checked the sound board, which showed nothing was playing, and became verrrry confused! The others definitely realised where it was coming from before me, but as I said, my hearing is not the best and I was pretty nervous in case I messed up anyway, so I naturally just assumed I had! We got them to turn the music off but we could still hear the obnoxiously loud quizmaster through the ceiling. I don't think it interfered too much, but it nearly gave me a bloody heart attack!

We're taking Yellow Moon to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, so although the play will be over there's loads of organising to do for that, although at least there's a lot more time in which to do it. Here's the poster for Yellow Moon, which I thought I'd show you because it's very pretty and I love it :) One of the directors, my lovely and talented friend made it.

After this play is over, the next play I'm producing is in the last week of March, but my friend (and housemate) is also producing with me and she is pretty much the epitome of getting things done, so hopefully it will be less stressful.

My Mum, brother and grandparents are coming to see the play tomorrow so I'm really excited to see them. I should definitely be asleep by now, because I've been feeling ill and horrible and overtired all day, but I wanted to catch up on everyone's blog posts before going to bed!

Thanks for reading,

Harriet x

Fashion Sins

2011-02-27T19:34:00.001Z

Ok, I have to be honest and come clean about something. I don't think I can really call this a fashion blog anymore. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm qualified to be giving anybody fashion advice. Because, for about a week now I have been committing such a fashion offence I can't pretend any longer. I've been spending about 75% of my time in a onesie. Yep. Ask my housemates. I actually look forward to coming home from uni so I can put it on. It's also not just any onesie. It's a rabbit onesie. It's grey, has a hood with rabbit ears, and a heart-shaped tail. No, there will not be pictures. So, why am I admitting this heinous crime? Because, well, I'm prepared to accept the consequences... it's just too damn comfy. I love it. It's the perfect ensemble for any student house. When you can't afford to put the heating on it provides that much-needed warmth and comfort. Plus, who doesn't love rabbits? They're cute and cuddly and have little fluffy tails for God's sake! So, yes I'm prepared to accept the fashion pack's scorn in order to benefit mankind by spreading the word. The onesie is the way forward! I advise you all to invest, mine was a mere £10 from Primani, perfect on a student budget. And you know what, I think the fashion industry is cottoning on. On Friday I went to a student fashion and dance show in Bristol that was done in aid of charity, and part of the catwalk show was dedicated to onesies!! You have no idea how happy this made me! The ones they were wearing were sadly over £100 so I won't be investing in those, but it was still great (and pretty funny) to see them as part of the show.

So, now I've got that confession over and done with I hope you'll all forgive me. In fact, I hope I'm not alone in my love for the onesie! Have any of you been sporting the other animal ones in Primark at the moment?!

Harriet :)

This is my excuse

2011-02-13T13:55:00.001Z

So I know I'm an awful blogger because I haven't blogged for at least a week now, so this is my sorry excuse! I've got lots of reading at the moment, which never ceases because as soon as I've finished one week's reading it's time to start on the next. This pile does not even come close to the amount I've got at the moment, because we also have loads of articles to download and print out, which has bled my poor printer dry :(

Also, I've been ill this week. My housemate got really ill a few days ago and it seems it's definitely going around. We're all getting ill and I really don't have time to be in bed at the moment! So I'm hoping I've had the worst of it now. I'm producing a play at the moment and it's on in a couple of weeks so I'm really excited about that, but there's quite a lot of things still left to sort out. We really want to take it to Edinburgh this summer for the Fringe but the proposals to get funding are on Tuesday and I just don't think we have enough time to sort it all out and get a really good proposal, because I know lots of other people will be proposing too. I definitely want to go back to Edinburgh this summer, last year it was so much fun!

So, as this is meant to be a fashion blog (although I'm not very fashionable as of late, joggers and jumpers are my best friends) I'll leave you with these beauties. I'm in love with chunky block heels at the moment, and these ASOS ones tick the box.

Thanks for visiting, now back to my reading!!

Harriet :)

Tired!

2011-02-04T19:11:00.001Z

This is just a quick post because I'm shattered, but thought I'd show you a picture of how my GaGa outfit turned out! It was a really good night, although I'm so tired from going to bed so late (or should I say early?!). We've just been to the pub for lunch today and then watched a film in my room, so it's been a nice relaxing day to recover together :) You can't see my whole outfit in this picture, but I'll put some more up later. I took this quickly before we went out so I could email it to my Mum and show her.

As you can see I was getting into the spirit of the theme with my ridiculous pose there! But it was a really fun night, although my feet did take a beating from my heels. Well, I'm off to snuggle up under a blanket and do some of my reading, it is technically reading week after all!!

Thanks for reading,

Harriet :)

GaGa-Land

2011-02-01T13:55:00.001Z

I have a reading week this week, so no actual lectures or anything, which is nice. I've got a couple of really short essays to do and quite a bit of reading, but the good thing about that is you can do that anywhere. I took a few books out of the library and now I'm home for a bit, so I've just been watching tv and doing absolutely nothing for a few days. Now it's actually reading week I should probably, you know, read. So I'm going to do one of the essays today and then get cracking with my reading list. I am going back to uni on Thursday (not sure for how long) because of my housemate's birthday. He's having a Lady GaGa themed night, which I'm sure will be bonkers, so I don't want to miss it! I'm planning on making my costume without spending much money and I've finally decided how I'm going to attempt this. Now, I have a lot to live up to, because for my housemate Alice's birthday I went as an Avatar, which worked out really well.

So I have to make sure this is as good! I'm thinking of doing a kind of GaGa inspired costume, take different things from some of her outfits, rather than copy just one. So I'm going to attempt to make the origami style dress that she wore, do the crazy hair and make-up, probably with the lightening bolt on the face, and obviously it wouldn't be GaGa without killer heels :) I don't think I need to actually spend much money on this, which is a major bonus (being a poor student and all!), the only things I really need are super-glue and some kind of bright eyeshadow, and I think I have everything else I need! I'll definitely post pictures to let you know how it turns out. I may not be able to sit, or possibly move, in my outfit, but as long as it looks good eh?! ;)

So kind of like this, but black and white, and probably falling apart knowing my skills! No, it will be good, I promise. Hopefully.

And then hopefully something like these - massive eyelashes, and possibly a lightning bolt! If I could be bothered/had the money, I would definitely invest in a blonde wig to go all out, but I can't afford one right now, and I don't want to get a crappy cheap one. Also, it would probably be reaaally hot and sweaty when we're out, so I think I'll just stick to my own hair for now! I just spoke to my friend on the phone and she's doing the same as me but the black and gold one, so at least we can help each other out!

So, I'm now going to get on with my work and also watch the latest Gossip Girl - give me their wardrobes <3 Hope you're all ok, thanks for reading :)

Harriet x

Spring is on the horizon...

2011-01-28T19:38:00.002Z

I know, it's wishful thinking to be writing a post about spring, and if anything downright reckless; wouldn't want to jinx it would I? I like spring, it mostly means two things to me: firstly, my birthday (I'm practically going to need a zimmer frame for my birthday this year - I'll be a shocking, and probably decrepit, 20 years old) and also, it means spring wardrobes.

Now, in my mind, spring wardrobes mainly consist of floral dresses, tops, (just about anything floral really), along with light cardigans and jackets and (dare I say it) seeing a lot more bare legs on the streets. In the springs of my dreams, boots are banished to the back of the wardrobe, and glove & scarf combos have long since been forgotten about. Well, the harsh reality is that spring wardrobes (at least for me) are really just the winter ones minus scarves.. well, sometimes not even minus the scarves. I suppose it depends where you live, but here in the good old UK, where rain is a permanent fixture, and the glimpse of the sun sends the locals running for their flip-flops and shades (despite the fact it's probably still about 3 degrees max) spring is a slow progression out of the harsh winter that generally is a disappointment year after year.

With that said, there's no harm in wishful thinking eh? Maybe this year will surprise us, and maybe global warming will treat us to one benefit? The chances of this are highly unlikely but nevertheless I'm getting bored and restless of layers, and have been browsing the spring collections online. So this is a little visual roundup of what's emerging for the coming months. I don't think I've actually included any florals here, mainly because they are an inevitability for the S/S collections, and you don't need me to show you them. There are two images, the first are all from Topshop, and the second is a mixture of ASOS, Topshop and I think NastyGal. I know it's not a broad range but they're the online shops I normally browse through. So, enough chit chat, here they are. I've provided links to the clothes, but some have disappeared from the websites since I found them, in which case I've linked to similar items, but some are definitely still in stores.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

1, 2, 3, 4 - not on website, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

So, remember I said I was having trouble with my Internet? Well, I won't retell the story in case I have a nervous breakdown at the mere memory of it (yes, I'm a drama queen) but the end result is actually pretty good. Apple are giving me a new laptop, hopefully within the next couple of weeks. However, they didn't hand it over happily; I did have to tell them I wasn't leaving the shop unless they promised me a new laptop or some compensation. In fairness, if I did that to me, I would give me pretty much anything to leave the premises too, so they didn't really have a choice! But, anyway, all's well that ends well.. for me at least! So for now I've still got my old laptop to do work and stuff on, but hopefully it won't be long until I have a new one that should, fingers crossed, not break!

I think the point of that story was to tell you how I got to buying this little beauty:

I had seen it in Topshop, on one of the many trips I took there whilst waiting for my laptop to be "fixed" (can you sense some bitterness there?) and had resisted trying it on because I couldn't justify buying any more clothes at the moment, especially pricey Topshop clothes. However, when I was walking around in a rage after the Apple saga, with a look that was probably clearing a path for miles ahead, I decided that yes, I would try it on because I damn well wanted to. I am a firm believer in retail therapy - it never fails to cheer me up! Good for my wardrobe, not so good for my bank balance. Oh well, extreme cases such as this (I know, imagine me in a real "extreme situation", what would I do - buy a car?) demand such purchases. This was literally my reasoning to myself. So I tried it on, and it looks really nice with a belt :) I also bought a little gold rabbit necklace, which I can't find on the website, as I am obsessed with rabbits. So, I do have a slight case of buyers' guilt, but it cheered me up massively, and I know I'll get my money's worth from it. And the final reasoning to myself, is that at least it cost less than a new laptop!

Another thing I've been eyeing up for a while, and definitely will not be purchasing in one of my retail "therapy" sessions, are these BlackMilk galaxy leggings:

They're quite pricey, at $70.00 so I think they will definitely have to be a birthday present or something, but they're cool aren't they :)

Right, one more thing before I go. I've done something that I was dreading for a while, but thought might be inevitable. I've told a couple of friends about the existence of my blog. AHHH!! Ok, so it's not that big a deal, but I thought they would laugh at me for about an hour and then tell me we could no longer be friends. In reality, they asked to have a look and then said they liked it. They might well have been laughing inside their heads, but at least they were kind enough to pretend to my face! So, if you're reading this Lucy and Alice then HELLO!! Now go away.. I joke ;)

Thanks for reading, Harriet x

Phew!

2011-01-20T21:12:00.001Z

Wow, lots has been going on! Firstly, possibly the most irritating thing for a blogger has happened to me recently. My Internet has BROKEN! Yes, you heard me right. I know. Well, I consider myself quite the techno-nerd, but even I am stumped. My Internet has completely broken. No matter where I am, it doesn't work for more than a few minutes at a time. If I disconnect my airport and then reconnect it works normally for a couple of pages and then crashes, it's quite bizarre. I have AppleCare and called them the other night and thought I had fixed it, but nope, it's down again. They're closed at the mo, so I'm going to call again in the morning. So I'm writing this post, then hopefully will be able to get the Internet running again in a bit to post it :/ I'm not sure whether images will upload, we'll just have to see!

So, I had a presentation today at Uni, which went quite well I think. It was a group thing, and we decided to dress smartly and look all professional for it. Everybody kept asking, 'Did you all plan to wear that?" and saying we looked nice, so that's good :) I wore this brown snakeskin print skirt from Topshop and a sheer black blouse, which looked pretty nice. I did try and take some outfit pictures today, and the other day, but I'm not joking they looked awful! There is nowhere to take pictures in my house here, and I always look terrible! I can't seem to get the whole outfit in properly. So there are a couple of pictures, and you'll just have to take my word for it that I have been wearing nice outfits recently ;)

To relieve some pre-presentation stress the other day I made cupcakes and biscuits with my housemates. It turned out to be an epic night-long project where we made enough sweet treats to feed a small army and decorated them all in pink icing and plenty of sprinkles and sparkles! They tasted amazing too, and I can assure you they haven't lasted long!

Depending on where you're from you will have heard about the architect who was murdered in Bristol before Christmas and found on Christmas Day. Well today, in the early hours of the morning, they arrested someone two roads away from me. I walked home from uni today, pleased with how my presentation had gone, to see the road blocked off and loads of police and vans everywhere, as well as television crews. When I got home I watched the news and saw them reporting from my area. It's really scary to think that someone who could be a murderer was where I walk to and from uni everyday, often in the dark and alone. It's also horrible to think about the woman's landlord, who has had his life turned upside down when he was arrested on suspicion of murder, but wasn't actually charged. I find it scary to see how the media and public can be so quick to pass judgement on somebody, when they might not have done anything at all, but can also see how easily it happens. I just hope whoever murdered Joanna is charged soon, for her family's sake. I also want to feel safe walking around the streets again! I am constantly looking over my shoulder at the moment, and thought somebody was following me home yesterday.

I am pretty exhausted after lots of work this week, so I think I'm going to chill out for a couple of days and watch rubbish and eat rubbish! Then it's back to the library on Sunday, and I have a lot of reading to do before the next teaching block begins. I'm excited for the new units I'm studying but I think there's going to be lots of work too! I also have quite a bit to do for a play I'm producing, so it should be a busy but fun term. Thanks for reading guys :)

Harriet

P.S. When she brought me back to Uni my fabulous Mum bought me a coffee machine that has a timer on it, so I've been setting it to when my alarm goes off and waking up to fresh coffee every morning. Can I just say, to anybody who struggles getting up in the morning like I do, this has got to be the best idea I've had EVER! It's brilliant, and so much better than instant :D

Bristol & Hair

2011-01-15T23:40:00.001Z

I'm back at uni in Bristol now, I came earlier today with my Mum and have just finished unpacking! I hate packing in the morning and then unpacking a few hours later, it feels exhausting! Anyway, I thought I'd just put up a quick picture of my new hair, I dyed it the other day. I used Schwarzkopf XXL Real Red colour and it's pretty much what I wanted. The other colours just weren't bright enough! It's not a great picture because it's dark outside and I look pretty tired (which I am!) but you can see it's quite bright :)

Anyway, I hope you're all good, hopefully I will be getting into a good posting routine even though I'm back at uni, despite the fact I hate taking pictures in my room here. I do love my room, it's very big, but I always look a bit ill or tired in pictures I take here, because the lighting is strange. I might not post until after Thursday now because I have 2 essays and a presentation due before then (who said drama students don't have real work eh?!) that I haven't actually started yet (eek!) but I'm not too worried, I think it will be ok. So I'll try and post sooner, but it might have to wait until the weekend. Also, I finally have coat-hangers to put clothes in my wardrobe this term! Yay! I know, how silly of me to forget them last time. Also, in my determination not to forget them this time I have brought far too many, so I have an excess of them lying around in my room now!

Right, I'm off to sleep now before a busy busy day of work tomorrow! Thanks for reading :)

Harriet x

Coffee = good

2011-01-06T18:37:00.001Z

Today I started the day with a big mug of coffee, which instantly equals a good day, or at least morning! I'm in quite a good mood (as you can tell by my dopey smile) because before I went to bed last night I thought I'd check one more time online to find out if my last essay had been marked. I got a massive surprise, because it had been marked and given a 74, which is a first!!! This is the first first (lol) I've got in an essay, and it's quite a safe first too, so I'm really ecstatic about it! I was pleased with it when I wrote it but often that has no relevance to the grade. I've done well in essays that I thought were rubbish and gotten quite rubbish results in essays I thought were quite good, so I've learned to try and not think about them after they're done. It's also given me a boost because I know I can do it now, and I'll have something to compare to in the future when I write more essays. I was starting to get pretty fed up when I constantly got relatively average to low grades, and there also seemed to be no correlation between each marking, so this has really cheered me up and spurred me on to work as hard for my next essays.

I've also posted a new look on Lookbook, which you can see here, so hype it if you like it (right hand sidebar) :)

I just made some yummy chocolate chip cookies, which are pretty delish if I do say so myself :) I think we're going to go out to eat tonight so that will be nice. I'll probably eat looads and collapse in front of the tv when I get home so I thought I should post this now before I'm incapacitated!

Also, I'd just like to say a big thank you to those who read my blog. I read so many blogs and don't always comment but it means a lot to me when people comment on my posts :) I've made more of an effort to comment on other people's posts and tell them what I think of their words and pictures now that I know how much I appreciate it, so I hope you can all do the same for me and other people whose blogs you read. Let people know your opinions, if you have something positive to say it can really give others confidence!

Thanks for visiting,

Harriet x

Sniff

2011-01-05T21:00:00.001Z

Sorry for the low-quality photobooth picture, but I wanted to post a picture today but I didn't have an opportunity to take any in adequate light. Honestly, I swear it seems to get dark about 2pm! And even when it's light it's an odd bluey light that does nothing for my pale complexion ;)

So I'm not feeling very well today. I wasn't feeling great last night which has been made worse by struggling to get any sleep at all last night, even though I tried to go to bed early and get lots of rest. I think my sleeping patterns have become rather odd and I'm finding it difficult to sleep. I have however got the Sleep Cycle app that everyone has raved about and it does seem to make waking up easier. However, there's a difference between waking up and getting up! I'm sure it will be really useful when I'm back in Uni and need to get up but while I'm on holiday I wake up feeling quite refreshed but then think... do I really want to get up right now?! The prospect of getting up in the cold and doing not a lot is not as inviting as staying in my warm bed and this has led to my bad sleeping habit at the moment! I need to get out of it before I go back to uni though or I'm going to get a shock!

So despite feeling ill I went into town with my Mum today. I got two belts from primark, just plain black and brown £1 ones that I needed, but I also got a lens for my Canon film camera. It's a lot better than my old olympus one and I'm really excited to take some good pictures with it. Although I'm wondering how I share them online.. if anyone could help me with this I'd be really grateful! Do you just scan the printed images in? I do have a scanner built into my kodak printer but I'm not sure how good it is at scanning proper photographs. And I'd quite like to have copies on my computer as well as hard copies, so if anyone knows the answer to this please feel free to tell me if I'm being ignorant!

I also tried to find hair dye that I've been looking for for quite a while. I've been trying to dye my hair properly ginger since about March now but it never goes light enough. I can never see real ginger dyes in shops. I think the problem is I always go too red and not bright enough. The red does look quite nice but I want it to be a bright, natural-looking ginger colour. I am really quite pale anyway and have greeny-brown eyes so I think it would suit me well. Anyway, I've been looking at colours online to see if some brands do have colours that I just haven't seen in the shops. I decided to go for Schwarzkopf Real Red or Hypnotic Red and see which looked brightest in the shop. I've already used two of Schwarzkopf's colours before (Hot Cinnamon and most recently Cool Scarlet) and I think they're quite good. Red is the fastest fading colour so although they do fade relatively quickly I think that's more to do with the colour than the brand and this is just as likely to happen with any brand. But I went into 3 different shops today, including Boots (with a pretty large hair dye section) and they had all run out of the two colours I wanted! The woman in Boots said that "everyone" had dyed their hair this Christmas and they were waiting for more to be delivered! I find it hard to believe that EVERYONE in my town has dyed their hair a festive red colour but oh well. It was just typical that they still had the other red colours but not the ones I wanted. Hopefully this means they're good if everyone has bought them and I'll be able to get one soon. I'll post some before and after pictures when I do it next. I'm not sure if I should buy a product that removes colour from the hair and use this beforehand. I think this is meant to help the new colour get to your hair, but as it's already dark red at the moment (it hasn't really faded to a light colour, most of the lengths are quite dark) I'm not sure whether this would help or hinder going to a brighter colour. If anyone has any suggestions on this too please let me know!

I also got a new sketchbook today and I'm going to try and draw/write/doodle in it every day or most days as this is probably beneficial in some way to feeling all creative and artsy-fartsy ;) I've done the first page but I've left my paints in Bristol so I'll have to wait until I go back before I can do it properly.

I hope everyone's not feeling too much of a post-Christmas slump with work & school etc and that you're not ill like me! Hopefully I'll be posting the outfit I wore today, tomorrow (if you follow me!) because it was too dark to photograph today so see you then :)

Harriet x

An excess of images

2010-12-31T20:06:00.001Z

I'm sorry if this is an excess to you, but I quite like a visually interesting blog and mine sometimes lacks lots of photos. And as it's New Year's eve, when better to take a few pictures to show you what I'm enjoying right now and will be in 2011?!

My Mum and I went in to town today to get out of the house and have a look around. We ended up spending a lot of money!! As opposed to normal, she spent a lot more than me! In fairness, most of what she bought was stuff for the house that we needed, so that doesn't really count but she also bought a nice jumper dress in Warehouse. I bought a velvety t-shirt in the Topshop sale that I'd had my eye on for a while and some underwear too. Then I bought a pack of 3 rings in Oasis (on sale for £3), which are quite simple but nice. I always get excited when I find rings that fit my fingers and buy them even if they're not that special because I can never buy rings in most of the places I shop because my fingers are too small. But one of them has a little bird on it, which I really like. Then I got some eyeshadow in Marks & Sparks (which Mum kindly paid for) as well as tights which I desperately needed as I always rip them! We also popped into Wilkinsons because my Mum had decided she was on a mission to get lots of stuff for the house (apparently it's a New Years thing, a bit like a spring clean... only in winter..) and I found these Union Jack cushions that are really nice, sort of velvety. So we bought one for me and one for my brother. Oh, and also some pretty notecards in Debenhams. I also decided to treat Nibbles the hamster and bought him a bag of sunflower seeds (his favourite) and a couple of things for his cage. He must like them because he hasn't moved from the little grass & hemp house since I put it in there. He's just sitting in it eating sunflower seeds! Cute :)

Then I also thought I'd show you things like books and dvds I'm enjoying at the moment and will be reading in 2011, as well as the essential products I'm using at the moment and other bits and bobs :)

All three were Christmas presents: I finished Never Let Me Go the other day and recommend it, it's touching and sad and I can't wait to watch the film. I saw 500 Days of Summer when it was released and really enjoyed it, if you havent seen it already then do: a funny and touching comeback to the stereotypical rom-com. I especially love the musical sequence!! I'd never heard of He loves me, he loves me not, but knew I'd enjoy it because Audrey Tautou is in it. I watched it yesterday with my Mum and it didn't disappoint. In fact, I was still thinking about it today, it's creepy at the end!

And two books I'll be referring to in the year to come. Delia's cookbook was another Christmas present which will be used not only in 2011 but for a long time I don't doubt! Let's be honest, Delia is the queen of the kitchen! I don't particularly love her as a person (soz bbz), but I have to admit you can't go far wrong with Delia and she knows her stuff. The Arthur Miller biography should come in useful this coming term as I am doing a unit on American Theatre (which I can't wait for!) so I'll probably be studying several of his plays.

I'm loving my shearling backpack from Zara, using my new jewellery stand, spritzing Marc Jacobs' Daisy, wearing Cath Kidston-esk pyjamas from Primark (steal!), adoring my long sparkly necklace from Topshop, listening to Ellie Goulding's Bright Lights album, patiently waiting to get a lens for my Canon EOS 50e camera (which I bought for £10 from a charity shop, BOOM), vandalising mirrors with the 'Read My Lips' marker that was in my stocking this year, and last but not least worshipping these beauty products, from left to right: Jo Malone shower gel (yummy), Clinique 3 step skin care regime, Clinique Sparkle Skin exfoliator (magic!) and Aveeno moisturiser which I only discovered recently (where have you been all my life?!) Phew! Lots of pictures!

And the best things about Christmas are most definitely sitting by wood burning stoves (preferably with a cup of something hot) and Christmas trees with their lights on...

Right now I'm salivating over the smell of my Mum making lasagne. I'm not going to lie, she makes the best lasagne in the world. You might think your Mum makes the best lasagne... but I guarantee you she doesn't ;) Thanks for reading, I hope you all have good a New Year's Eve, whatever you're doing.

Harriet x

It's CHRISTMAS!

2010-12-26T22:51:00.002Z

Ok, so I admit, I did wake up several times throughout the night on Christmas Eve. We are staying at my Aunt and Uncle's in Nottingham for Christmas this year and I have young cousins, which is always exciting and fun around Christmas. So we got up quite early and came downstairs, waited nervously outside the door of the living room and then went in and opened presents whilst drinking tea. It was lovely. I love watching my Mum open presents I've bought her and I think I did pretty well this year, I got her the new Nigella cookbook that she asked for, lots of other books, including a special edition of 'The Great Gatsby' (her favourite book) and some other little bits. I also got some beautiful presents this year, a leather aviator jacket from ASOS that I asked for, lots of stocking things from my Aunt & Uncle (they also got me the blouse I'm wearing in my Christmas look), some dvds and books and more clothes. I felt so spoilt, but it was such a fun morning. In the afternoon we had the most epic Christmas Dinner ever, it was so scrumptious!

It's nice being with extended family at Christmas, I think it creates a nice busy atmosphere. Christmas is the one time of year when you don't want the house to be quiet! Since my Dad died nearly two years ago I appreciate my family a lot more and it means a lot to be with them, especially at Christmas. I also love it here because they have a dog, two cats and a guinea pig and I love animals. We can't have pets at home because my Mum is allergic to pretty much anything with hair or feathers, and as much as I say I love ALL animals, reptiles don't appeal to me and I just couldn't have one of those hairless types of cat because they're just ugly. Sorry cats, but it's true. It's a good thing they can't read or use a computer otherwise they might have been upset by that... We did have fish that lasted quite a while but they're dead now and I also had a rabbit for quite a few years. I say to my Mum that the first thing I'm going to buy when I move out is another rabbit :) I have a hamster at the moment, called Nibbles.

I can't wait to post lots more looks of my new clothes (and old, now that I'm home and have better lighting) so an early New Year's resolution is to post more, because I don't post nearly enough at the moment! I hope you like the new look of things too, I thought I should change it up a bit and it would motivate me to post more! Right now I'm going to watch some rubbishy television with my family and read my new book ('Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro) Hope you've all had a lovely Christmas too! Here are some Christmas snaps!

Harriet

Busy, but nearly Christmas!

2010-12-10T21:08:00.001Z

I'm ridiculously busy at the moment! Today I finally finished editing my films for our unit project next week. I was in a group with my friend Steph and our project turned out really well, we're so proud! They're being screened next week so we've been busy for the past fortnight filming and editing but we're both so organised it was a dream team and we've finished right on schedule. I know some people are having to go into the department over the weekend to finish editing - so glad we don't have to do that. I also made the poster to advertise the screening, which I'm pleased with. The screening will consist of the whole class's films being shown in various locations through the department - some in the cinema and some in other parts in an installation format. We all have individual titles (ours is 'To and From') and the whole project has been named 'There's no (place like) home'. The unit has been about globalisation and it's been really interesting. Most of our projects focus on the idea of displaced people or individuals, hence the name of the project.

I've also had essays and things for the other side of the course, so I've been busy busy busy. I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet either, so I need to get on that asap! Although I have no idea what I'll be buying yet as I am extremely poor at the moment! Oh, the life of a student! And to top it all off they're going to increase tuition fees to £9,000 a year. Great, just what we need to encourage more people to go to university, get a good job, improve the economy and make our country better for future generations. Or not.

I have thoroughly exhausted my emotions about the education cuts and fee rises in the past fortnight and only have this left to say. Nick Clegg is a coward and a liar. I know he is in a coalition government, but that does not make it ok to completely disregard a pledge that he made to his voters. To be honest, I would rather it was Labour who were doing this, because at least we wouldn't have been lied to. I doubt that the Lib Dems would even be in power if it weren't for them courting the student vote, and this is the first thing they do. Well, it's just going to ensure they're not in power again for another 50 years. Congrats.

Anyway, moving on from my bitter attitude towards Cleggy, I think I'm going to relax and watch some TV :) Has anyone seen this week's Gossip Girl?! Loved it! There were a couple of bits that annoyed me but I won't mention them in case you haven't seen yet and want to watch.

Bye for now

Harriet x

Finally a new look!

2010-11-21T19:42:00.001Z

I haven't posted a new look for a while, mainly because I hate taking pictures in my room, as you can see the lighting is horrible so I look incredibly pale (which I am) and there's not really a plain bit of wall to take it against. So the pictures never look as good. I need to do them in the morning when the light's best, but being a student I rarely surface before midday. Actually that's a complete lie! I'm always up early for lectures etc, but I never have enough time to take pictures because I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Anyway, this picture isn't great but I thought it was about time. Finally got the perfect boots from River Island with the money that was in a money bank I've been using since Christmas last year. So that's quite impressive I think; they were £75.00 and I love them :) This look is also on lookbook.

Thanks for visiting x

Wow, I forgot what the real world is like!

2010-11-07T00:25:00.001Z

So I've been a bit MIA for a few weeks now! I am sitting in my living room at home and writing my first blog post in a while. So apologies for that. But to put into perspective how busy I've been and to excuse my absence somewhat... this is the first time I've been home since I went back to uni, which was 5 weeks ago now. That may not seem that impressive, but last year I came home from uni quite a lot, and I don't think I've ever gone more than 2 or 3 weeks without seeing my Mum. But I've literally had so much work and other stuff to do that I haven't been back home. I also have barely been on lookbook or any of the usual blogs and websites I follow. It's also been great to be this busy though, I always find I'm much more productive when I've got lots of things to be doing.

I study drama at uni and this year I've been doing way more extra-curricular stuff than last year. It was so scary to be a first year before and I was pretty terrified of getting involved last year (I was also a bit preoccupied with the social side of uni!!) But this year I'm doing a lot more already. I don't know whether it's because I'm a second year and I feel more confident now or whether it's just knowing how to organise my time a bit better but I'm enjoying everything about this year so much. I just produced a show with my friend Katie, which went brilliantly, and have got two more projects coming up as well as a lot of reading and work for my actual course, so it's all exciting but stressful right now.

I'm also having to deal with living in a house this year, something that's been both brilliant and at times not so fun. I'm living with 5 other people and we're a really close group of friends. We have a great house and we're in a great neighbourhood and for the majority of the time I love living there. However, I am quite a clean-freak... and some of my housemates are... well, let's say messy. Ok, it's not that bad because one of my housemates (the messiest) often does these massive clean-ups and the place looks great afterwards, I just don't like the state the house gets into in between his clean-ups! I just have to turn a blind eye to it though because if I spent my whole time cleaning it to how I'd like it I would never leave the house!

The other week our house got picked to be on Radio 1's student tour show with Fearne Cotton. Let me just say.. IT WAS AMAZING. FEARNE is AMAZING! I love her! She's so lovely and we had the best day! If you're interested you can go on the Radio 1 website and on Fearne's section there's pictures and videos etc of me and my housemates in Bristol. Fearne and the production team came round to our house for breakfast (which we may have slightly burned, but to be honest we were so excited we forgot there were croissants in the oven!) and then we went to the Union and took part in the show throughout the morning, which involved various challenges, one being Gig Date that I took part in! For that part of the show me and my housemate Lucy did a blind-date-style challenge which ended in us going to the gig that night (the Klaxons - SO good!) on a double date with two random guys who participated. Let's just say the whole show was hilarious and we had a brilliant day. My housemate Josh (who is the funniest person I have ever met) clearly made a big impression on the producers because he's practically a regular on Radio 1 now! Ok, slight exaggeration, but he's been on Jo Whiley's show twice now, just because he's funny to talk to! How cool is that?! I don't even mind that he gets all the attention because he is so hilarious to listen to.

And one more thing before I go! Due to the crazy busy lifestyle I've been leading for the past few weeks (ok, not crazy, just busy!) I did not even realise that I had won Lily Melrose's Alexa-esque bag giveaway!!! Thankfully, she had kindly waited a few days for me to get in touch, thinking this may have been the case. So thank you so much to Lily for doing this generous giveaway! She is sending it to me this week, and this gives me an excuse to finally do some more lookbook pictures.

Thanks for visiting, Harriet :)

Back to Uni

2010-09-24T13:32:00.001+01:00

I'm going back to university tomorrow, I'm so excited, I really can't wait to be back! Holidays are nice, but it's not even sunny anymore, and nobody is about, they've all left home already. So I am fully ready to be back at uni. I'm going to be on my own for a bit because my housemates aren't back until next week, but there will be other people around, so it should be fun.

I have no new looks at the moment because I have been lazing around the house in leggings and t-shirts pretty much all week! Also, I'm not sure when I'll have Internet at my new house, it may be a week or so. But I'll still be able to get online at some point. Also, I didn't pass my driving test :( which is a shame. It was all going quite well until we were on a country lane, which I really don't like because it gets all windy and can be quite dangerous. Anyway, I was slowing down when a rabbit ran in front of the car and I changed from 3rd gear into 4th by mistake when I meant to go into 2nd. So the car started juddering about and I was really confused because I didn't realise I had gone into 4th. So that's why I failed. But apart from that the drive was fine so I should pass next time.

Harriet

"Sorry I'm bad, sorry I'm blue."

2010-09-18T01:13:00.002+01:00

Blouse and shorts are from Topshop, belt from H&M and the shoes are from New Look.

The title of this look is from a song by Buckcherry. I can't wait to go back to uni, life is pretty boring right now. I mean, I'm not complaining about holiday haha! Don't get me wrong! But I have been on holiday pretty much since the 27th May. I didn't come home from uni straight away, but I haven't had any technical work since then, so it has been a long holiday. I went to Edinburgh for a week for the Fringe Festival and also went to Portugal for 2 weeks with my family but apart from that I haven't been doing much. I couldn't work because I was away for a month in the middle of the holiday, so work couldn't take me back, and all my friends have been working so it's been a quiet holiday. So I'm really looking forward to getting back to Bristol and having a busy life again! It'll probably hit me hard when I go back, I will have forgotten what it's like to be so busy! The only thing I've really been doing recently is having driving lessons. My test is on Monday, I can't wait to finally be able to drive (if I pass!) because all my friends have been driving for about two years! I really should have started learning earlier. Better late than never though I guess! Well, we'll see on Monday if I've passed!

I got really excited yesterday because I got a new lens for my 35mm camera. I got home and was couldn't wait to try it out. I got an Olympus OM10 camera a few months ago on ebay for quite a good price, however recently I've noticed the film advance (that you use to wind to the next picture) has been getting stuck every now and again. It usually sticks for a bit and then starts working again. I thought I would just have to deal with it because it's an old camera. But when I tried to use it yesterday, it's completely stuck so I can't use it at all. I'm so gutted. It will cost more to fix it than to buy a new camera. I don't want to just give up, especially seeing as I've just got the new lens, but it's annoying because I can't afford to spend loads on equipment and it should have lasted a bit longer than that!! The annoying thing is that it wasn't like I damaged it or anything, it just happens to them sometimes. So, I'm going to take it to a camera shop and double check that it is definitely broken, and then I think I'll buy a new one. I want to get another cheap one on ebay because I can't afford to spend a lot of money, but I don't want the same thing to happen again! I'm trying to find ones that look reliable and in good condition. I also want to buy the same one again so the lenses fit it, and because it's relatively cheap. I also want to get it soon because I was hoping to use the dark rooms at uni to try and develop my own photos. That could be interesting. I can just imagine myself tripping over equipment in the dark, swearing and getting developer and all sorts of chemicals everywhere! Well, I'm sure in reality it will be a lot more professional than that... hm. Yeah.

Well, that's my annoying camera story, hopefully it will be sorted soon and I can start using it or another one soon!

Thanks for visiting, Harriet x

Autumn Winter 2010

2010-09-14T16:27:00.005+01:00

So this is the crazy collage of the type of thing I'll be buying this Autumn and Winter. There's no way I'll be able to afford everything on here but I'll hopefully be getting a few things. Some of the pictures can just be used as a general idea of the type of thing I'm looking for. I really like the two watches I've included, they're both from ASOS. The clothes are mainly a mixture of Topshop, Zara, River Island, H&M, New Look and a couple of other online shops like missguided.com and secrethandbag.com There are other things I'll be wearing this winter that aren't included because I already have them, such as my faux fur coat, brogues and satchel. Back to uni essentials!

The Perfect Boots

2010-09-13T20:27:00.007+01:00

So, I haven't got any new looks at the moment because I haven't really been doing much. I've been wearing my comfiest clothes and generally staying at home this weekend. I went for a drive with my Mum the other day, the first proper drive I've done in her car. I think she was surprised! She said I was a better driver than she'd thought, which is kind of a backhanded compliment, but it's better than her saying the opposite I guess haha! So I'm having a driving lesson every day this week to prepare for my test next Monday. I think I should be ok, I just hope I don't make some stupid mistake like forget to make a final check at the end of a manoever or something and get a fail. Eh, I'm sure I'll be fine.

Yesterday I helped my Mum dig up the border in our garden because we were planning on planting some bulbs and other plants. We didn't quite get around to that because we spent the whole time attacking the brambles that had completely overtaken the garden and spread everywhere. Their roots were so deep, it took ages to get them out. I woke up today and my legs are killing! I feel as though they've had a serious workout, like I'd run a marathon or something! And the worst thing is, my Mum says hers don't hurt at all!! Shows who was doing the serious grafting then eh ;) So I had a plan today that I was going to do loads of things after my driving lesson.. Bake some scones or some macaroons (or both!) and hopefully do some adjusting of clothes that I've been meaning to do for a while. That completely went out of the window when I discovered how much it hurts to walk. So, I've been sitting in the living room for most of the day in an old cosy jumper of my Mum's, drinking jasmine tea, watching trashy films and reading Vogue. What an easy life I lead eh?! I'm bored at the moment but I bet I'll be missing these days of lazing about when I go back to Uni in a couple of weeks!

So I've been compiling a wishlist of clothes that I want to buy (or more likely, hope, dream, imagine I could buy) this season, but I've hit a snag. I don't want to finish it and say, this is it! This is what I want! Because.. I can't find the perfect boots. I know what I want, I've seen many almost-perfect versions of what I want. I want an ankle boot, fur or sheepskin lined (faux, so as to have a hope of being affordable) with maybe a buckle or some kind of detail. I know, I hear you cry, they are everywhere at the moment! But what I can't decide is whether I want black or tan (I love tan, but I have tan ankle boots, maybe black would go with more.. but I already have black biker style boots etc etc) because I don't want to be buying two pairs of expensive boots this season, I think realistically I will have to settle for one nice pair. And the other thing I can't decide is heel height. I think the ones with a heel, maybe quite chunky, look nicest, and are more flattering on the leg.. but are they the most practical? I want to be able to wear them everyday, and being a student, I don't wear heels in the day. I am extremely short, and oh how I wish I could wear heels every day, but I think I would just look like I'm trying too hard. But then I'm wondering if a low heel would be the best of both worlds. And this is what I'm finding hard to get, the right combination. Something that is affordable but looks well-made, not too high, nor completely flat, the right colour (because the wrong shade of tan can very easily look tacky) and with a nice-looking (and feeling) lining. And ultimately, that will fit me and that I can wear on a daily basis with skinnies or tights and dresses etc. So, here's what I've narrowed it down to so far. Hopefully you can help me, and this will help anyone who's also struggling to decide which boots are right for them this year.

River Island, £39.99 (I think this is a good price) They only have a size 7 on the website at the moment though. Maybe they'll have a 3 instore.. it's always a gamble with Topshop and River Island though, their 3s always seem too big. That's why I'm thinking a furry lining would be good, might pad them out a bit!

Topshop, £95.00 Aren't these beautiful?! Imagine those with a skirt and leather jacket, beautiful. But there is obviously no way I could wear these in the day, and as much as I love them I don't think I could afford them even if I was going to wear them all day every day, let alone the few occasions I think I could actually wear them.

River Island, £39.99 Again, I think these are a good price, I'm not sure about the colour though. I sometimes think a tan this bright, especially with that really pale sole can look a bit tacky. Am I right or am I being overly fussy?! Also, not sure if I want a suede look, was thinking leather might be nicer. Both the River Island boots I've shown so far also come in black. I don't like these ones in black at all, the contrast with the sole is too big. The other ones are nice in black though.

New Look, £34.99 I think these are lovely, a good price and are very similar to the Topshop ones at a much nicer price! I would love these! But, I'm not sure where they would fit into my wardrobe.. I don't think I could wear them in the day because of the heel, but I couldn't wear them out in the night because I think they'd be too warm and I wouldn't wear a boot to a club. I suppose they'd be good for semi-casual evenings out, but I don't have too many of those. It's either casual for the day, or dressed up for the night, there's not really an in-between where these fit. What do you think?

Ok, these are amazing! They're only £29.99 from New Look and they look much more expensive than that in my opinion. These aren't really a serious consideration for me (although I would love them) but I just put them in here to show you how nice they are! I think I'd wear them with a patterned dress and big chunky scarf. These also come in black but I think this is a really nice deep reddish brown.

Ok, these are the last ones from New Look, they're £29.99 and is it just me or are they the perfect combination of what I'm looking for? Of course they are, which is what everybody else realised before me, and why they're out of stock. LOL. Typical. But, I'm sure they'll still be instore and they must be really popular so they'll get more in, so I'm not too worried. I think New Look have got some really nice shoes and boots this year and their prices are so much more student friendly! Especially with the 10% student discount on top! These also look great in black too, and for that price I could probably afford both over the course of Autumn and Winter! I think they'd be a bit nicer if they were slightly more tan, but the good thing about this colour is it's not too loud, it would go with so much and be stylish but not too much and so I could probably get away with the heel too. If you go to New Look's website the brown version of these are shown in the main picture on the left. I think they look really nice here, a comfortable height and perfect for this season. I think that image shows them in a better light so if you're unconvinced I suggest you have a look there :)

These ASOS platform boots are £45.00 which I think is quite good because they seem like good quality shoes, however they don't really fit my criteria. They are the sort of shoes I would buy if I were the type to wear heels on a daily basis. Perfect for Autumn.

These are also from ASOS and are £55. They are neither brown nor black but I think the colour is lovely and they are suede. The faux fur trim also looks really nice and cosy. Once again, the heel is a bit high and they are a bit out of my price range considering all the other things I want to buy at the moment. I would definitely consider them as a Christmas present or a sale buy though, the heel would definitely give me a bit more height, I just wonder if they're comfy enough, as I'm not used to wearing heels in the day. Also, the problem with ASOS is that you can't try on before you buy, and because I have such awkward shaped feet (small size 3, nowhere seems to fit, and narrower & shallower than average) it's always a risk with buying online. Those cage-type shoes never work on me because there's always a massive gaping hole where they should be clinging to the front of my foot.

I think these boots from Office are pretty perfect right now in terms of practicality and understated style. They look comfy and classic and like they would last forever. They're £65.00 which isn't too bad if you think you'll wear them for a long time to come. They don't fit in with my category of fur lined, but they are very nice. They also come in black.

These are also from Office and come in both black and brown. They don't look that exciting, which is why I would struggle to spend £87.00 on them, but they do look comfy and casual and perfect for wearing everyday. The only problem is they look like they would be a bit long for me in terms of the toe. I guess I would have to try them on. I definitely don't think I could afford these as well as buying various other things I want to in the next few months, so if I were to choose these I would probably get them as a Christmas present.

So that's about it really. For someone looking for boots who has a bit more money to spend, Aldo and Zara have got some nice boots that I didn't include because there was no point. I couldn't bear to look at even more expensive ones though! So, out of these ones I think the first ones from River Island and the ones from New Look that I've shown in both colours are my favourites in terms of price and everything else. However, if I can I will definitely be treating myself to the buckled high ones from New Look too! If I could convince myself to wear them I could definitely be persuaded! Haha! It would probably mean sacrifices of other things though.. like food. No, I'm kidding, but I probably wouldn't be able to buy other stuff. We'll have to see. Which ones do you think I should get. It would be typical that the two I actually am considering buying are either sold out or not in stock in my size. Luckily, the New Look in Bristol has a good shoe selection, so I might be in luck!

Sorry for this very long post, hopefully it will help me come to a conclusion about these boots.. I haven't even tried to decide on flats yet! ;) Anyway, if you've been struggling with the vast choice of ankle boots at the moment (because let's face it, we really are spoilt for choice this year!) then I hope this has shown you a good selection of high street choices available! Let me know your thoughts and if you have any other suggestions. I'd love to know your opinion on the whole "heels in daytime" issue I'm having. Do you think the kind of chunky low heel I've shown here is alright for walking to lectures and general daywear, or would you say that for a student, heels are strictly eveningwear?

Thanks for visiting, Harriet. x

Grey day and another page of my WTJ

2010-09-10T20:03:00.003+01:00

This is my sixth look on lookbook now, I'm not sure about this one, I couldn't get the lighting quite right anywhere. But these shorts are very comfy and even though it's grey and dull outside, it's still warm enough to wear shorts. I wore a skirt yesterday with long socks and when I was in town I was so hot! It's a funny time of year here because it looks cold outside but as soon as the sun comes out from behind the clouds it gets really warm!

Here is the other page I've done so far in my Wreck This Journal. I chose the page where you have to poke holes in it with a pencil. Here's the result. You can't see the holes too well, but they're inside each of the hearts.

Right now I'm in the living room with my Mum, we're about to watch some rubbish on tv and I'm also flicking through Vogue and all the images I have on my laptop of things I want to buy this season. I also have two other posts lined up, one about shearling and another about satchels. If there's anything you'd like to see on this blog, please let me know! I'd love any suggestions. If you'd like me to do any reviews or posts about specific things it would be great to hear your ideas. Also, feel free to ask me any questions about myself or fashion in general.

Harriet x

Lazy

2010-09-08T22:57:00.002+01:00

Today I've had a really lazy day. I didn't have a driving lesson this morning so I had a nice long lie-in and then stayed in bed reading and going on the Internet. I've been deciding what I can afford to buy this season, lusting after certain shoes, bags and clothes, and thinking that I really should apply for a job at a clothing shop. It would be so beneficial to me! Think about it, an allowance to spend on clothes to wear as a uniform, discount on clothes and you'd get to have first pick before your size runs out! Maybe I should apply to Topshop or somewhere like that when I go back to uni.

I did another page of my Wreck This Journal today (read my first post about it here) so I'll be posting a picture of that tomorrow and hopefully a new look including my new shoes :)

And one last thing, I'm really liking this faux fur gilet from Topshop (£50), I haven't seen any others this length yet and I wonder if anywhere else has got something similar at the moment. I think the pom-poms are really cute, I'd also love a knitted hat with pom-poms on this year! Very cute :) I think the gilet would be perfect for Autumn, before you need a really heavy coat, but it still has a wintery feel about it. I think it would look nice with either skinny jeans and a long-sleeved top for a casual look or a cute dress, ankle boots and over-the-knee socks for a pretty but still casual look.

Shopping!

2010-09-08T00:52:00.006+01:00

Well, remember how I said I was popping into town with my friend and was going to try not to buy anything?! Well, that turned into an impromptu trip down the motorway to Bristol to go shopping at Cabot Circus, because apparently we don't have enough shoes in Gloucester! What can I say, a girl can never have too many shoes can she?! To be honest, I wasn't really going for anything specific, because I didn't want to spend much money, but I thought it would be fun to go anyway, and I love Bristol, I'm obsessed and can't wait to move back so I jump at any chance to go there really!

Anyway, my whole plan of not spending money didn't really, well, go to plan! I think I have a bit of a problem when it comes to clothes, because I just can't seem to say no, or resist. And even when I'm being good, like today, I still seem to spend more than I should! I bought these be-a-u-ti-ful wedges in New Look today. I didn't really used to like wedges but the more I've thought about them I've come around to them and when I tried them all on today I thought they looked amazing! Also, they're almost but not quite ankle boots, so they're still a shoe but they support my ankle more than normal heels, which is good for my feet because normally I can't get shoes small enough so I end up falling out of them or something! So hopefully these will be even more comfy than normal! I just wish I could wear them everyday! Somehow I don't think uni and the hills I have to navigate will agree with them though! Here's a picture, I don't think they look very special in the pic but they look lovely on!

*Just looked at the shoes and this pic and think the shoes are darker than this but it's late so I'll find the right colour tomorrow!

Also, I have been looking for a nice shearling aviator jacket (I know, just following the trend, but after seeing Burberry's I became obsessed, and they're so beautiful) that's within my price range and I thought Topshop's was about £300, which frankly, is lightyears out of my budget! I'm not sure where I got this price tag from because now I can't find it on their website.. maybe I dreamt it! Anyway, the point is I saw this jacket, which is neither real leather nor real sheepskin, but actually feels lovely, for £78!

Let me tell you, I got very excited! When something I thought was out of reach suddenly became obtainable, well, I couldn't hold it in, I was literally jumping up and down. Ok, I didn't jump up and down, but I did in my head :D So although I can't buy it right now, it's definitely going to be mine in the near future! I think it's the nicest high street one I've seen so far, and it felt so cosy and warm :) So either I'll try and save up, or it will have to wait for Christmas. But either way, I shall be wearing it when the weather gets cold enough to need it! I don't think I've been this excited about a jacket.. ever! I normally get excited about coats, shoes, bags, never really jackets. It's funny, I never would have bought those shoes or be interested in this jacket before, I guess my style is changing.

So, those are the two main things I thought I'd post about. I got a really cute and simple gold cameo necklace in Miss Selfridge that was reduced to £2, very pretty :) So it was a really nice evening, I'm glad we were spontaneous and decided to go. We had a meal at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which do amazing chips, so yummy! And the burgers are good, obviously! And it was such a coincidence but my uni housemate who is from Manchester contacted me to ask about the hot water at our house in Bristol and she had decided to come for the night too, so I was able to see her for the first time since term ended! We went to our house and showed my friends round, they really liked it so hopefully they'll visit. So, all in all it was a great day and I'm sure I'll be posting looks with my new stuff very soon!

Florals :)

2010-09-07T14:16:00.001+01:00

I thought I should try and wear this top more because otherwise it was a complete waste of money, you know when you have clothes that you really love and think they're so nice, but you never actually wear them because you're not sure how to or don't have the confidence? This is one of those outfits. I don't really have a specific style so one day I'll be wearing a dress, another day I'll be wearing shorts and a nice top and then some days I'm wearing jeans and a big jumper and I never really know where some outfits fit. I don't want to be too overdressed for a normal day (especially when you can't keep it up everyday) but then don't want to be too underdressed for a different occasion. Phew, fashion is hard work! ;)

So anyway, the top and shorts are from Topshop, the cardigan is from Urban Outfitters, the belt and boots are from Primark and the tights are by Henry Holland, I got them from River Island.

I saw that fashion my legs blog had included me in their "this week's favourite lookbook legwear looks", which is nice :) I love patterned tights and cool socks so that was a compliment. The annoying thing is I find that no sooner have a bought a pair of tights and worn them once that they seem to get a million holes in straight away. I've learned that the more expensive tights from Topshop are just as likely to rip as the £2 ones from Primark, so I tend to try and not spend too much on tights if I think they're not going to last. These Henry Holland ones seem to be much thicker and look much stronger than most others so I thought they were worth the money. It's funny because I had some really nice stripy tights from Topshop that lasted about one wear and then the bow tights from Primark in my look "That secret that you know" have lasted for ages! I guess price isn't always representative of quality.

So I'm about to go into town with my friend and this has been relatively safe recently because I've been practically broke and therefore known I can't spend much money. However, what I forgot was that I have a rather large overdraft which I have never gone into, and I know my student loan will be in my bank account in a month's time. So it's very tempting to spend money now! I'm going to really try and be good and not buy anything but I can't promise anything! I've got a whole wishlist for Autumn/Winter so I'm going to have to pace myself and work out what is going to have to be crossed off!

I know nobody's commented here yet but I hope a couple of people have been reading. I can't wait until my 10 days on lookbook are up and then I can finally post on the lookbook forums and start interacting more on the site! Hopefully that will also direct a bit more traffic to my blog, because it's nice to write to people, and not purely just for myself.. makes me feel a bit weird, like a diary, but that's visible to everyone! Anyway, I'll stop babbling now and get to the point. If anyone is reading this, what's on your Autumn/Winter wishlist this year, what are your must-haves and your would-likes? Thanks for visiting!

It's late but I'm awake :)

2010-09-07T00:38:00.002+01:00

I really should go to bed, I have a driving lesson at 9am, but I think I'll have a little midnight snack before I do, hehe! I thought I'd write a post about something non-fashion-related because, after all, this is meant to be an everything-mashed-into-one kind of blog isn't it?! So, I thought I'd recommend some really great films that you may or may not have seen. I'd never really watched many anime films until this year when I became interested in the work of Hayao Miyazaki. To be honest, when I thought of anime, all that popped into my head was pokemon (haha, don't pretend you didn't go through that phase too!). But I decided to buy some of his films from Amazon and they're really great. I realised that I'd already seen Princess Mononoke years ago with my brother, which was funny, and my Mum once took me and my brother to see Howl's Moving Castle (which is great) and we were the only three people in the cinema! She likes to say that we still managed to argue about where to sit, this may or may not be true! But anyway, last night we decided to watch Spirited Away, which I didn't know is the most successful film of all time in Japan. And it's a great film. So, those are my three Hayao Miyazaki films that I'd recommend. It's always fun to try something different, especially with films, you might find a whole genre you didn't know about!

Miyazaki's films are really imaginative and creative, I think if I had to pick a favourite, it'd be between Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away. The stories are really touching and the anime is beautiful. They're quite appealing to children because the content is very pg-friendly, however they're still really lovely films to watch, maybe as a family or just on your own. I could definitely watch them over again.

So, I may do some more of these posts, depending on if I think of things to recommend. I don't know, maybe music or more films etc. And you could always comment (if anyone's reading this!) and recommend things back or tell me if you've seen any of these!

Thanks for reading :)

The world's like a science

2010-09-06T15:53:00.001+01:00

She & Him are a great band that I discovered this year through a friend. I can't stop listening to them on spotify, I'm pretty sure I know most of the words to most of the songs now! I had a bit of a drama with my camera today. I thought I'd take some pictures of this outfit because I really like it and wear it all the time, but my camera had other ideas. Firstly, it took me ages to find a good place to take the photographs, there seems to be nowhere in my house to do this other than the stairs. I don't like it when there are cluttered backgrounds in pictures unless it's been really planned and somehow adds to the photo. So after a million years of taking some shots I finally went to upload the pictures onto my laptop only to find out that they were in an "unreadable format" or something. I have had this camera for a few years now and always upload the pictures onto my laptop, and this has never happened, so I was very confused. It was like all the photos were cut up and half-processed, really weird. I'm not sure why it happened, but I couldn't salvage any of the photos so I took them again, having finally found a good place to do it. So, what I thought would take about half an hour has probably taken about 3! I wouldn't normally mind but I'm meant to be making our dinner for tonight! So after this post I better get to it!

The top I'm wearing has really nice chain detail on the neckline and breast pocket, which is cute. The top and shorts are both from H&M, the belt is from Topshop, the tights are from M&S and the heels are from Primark. I went to about 4 different Primarks around the country to get these shoes because the last pair in my local shop had something wrong with them and I really wanted them. I find it so hard to find shoes to fit my feet and it's actually quite good that places like Primark tend to have quite small shoe sizes. I can no longer buy shoes in places like Topshop, either my feet have shrunk or their sizes have got bigger. And somehow I don't think my feet should be shrinking at the age of 19. Why have their sizes got bigger?! I can't even buy flats there, let alone heels! Anyway, these heels have lasted quite a while and are pretty good quality when you think about how much they cost (£19).

That secret that you know, that you don't know how to tell..

2010-09-04T18:18:00.006+01:00

I love Bon Iver :) It's just such great music to relax and listen to. This lyric is from Blood Bank. Anyway, this is what I wore today. Except, I changed my shoes to tan ankle boots because they were more comfy. But I couldn't be bothered to take another picture. I'm going out tonight with my friends so I'll probably take a picture of what I decide to wear. I'm thinking of doing a post about my Autumn/Winter wishlist. There's some things I can't afford, and there's some that I just have to have, I may have to sacrifice food. Haha, I wish I could do that, I spend way too much money on food when I'm at uni. I can't wait to go back, only a couple more weeks really. Technically I could move in now because I have the keys to our house and stuff. But I'm sticking around at home until at least the 20th because that's when my driving test is. I know, I should have done this like two years ago when everyone else did! But better late than never eh?! I hope I pass.. squeezing in lots of lessons right now to make sure I'm ready. So after that I can move back to Bristol, where it will be even harder to resist shopping and spending all my money on lovely new clothes!

Casual Cardigan

2010-09-03T16:55:00.000+01:00

This will be my second look on lookbook, which I'll be posting tomorrow. I'm getting a bit excited about finally being a member and so I'm hopefully going to be posting a lot. Until my 10 days are up and I can post on the forums I have no idea how anyone is going to see any of my looks and be able to hype due to this whole "karma" setting they've got going on, but I'm sure if I'm patient somebody is bound to stumble across me at some point! The shorts I'm wearing are from H&M, the over-the-knee socks are from River Island, the lion-print t-shirt is from a small shop in Bristol called MyYard and the chunky knitted cardigan is from a charity shop near where I live.

Wreck This Journal

2010-09-03T16:14:00.001+01:00

I bought this book from Amazon the other day and literally couldn't wait for it to arrive in the post. My Mum also wanted one when I told her about it, so now we both have one. I saw someone mention it in the forums on lookbook so I decided to investigate. I googled the book and spent literally hours browsing through all the photos of people's WTJ. The idea is that to "wreck" is to change in some way, so by "wrecking" the journal you are doing lots of things to it, such as stamping on it, painting over it, cutting it etc. The book is full of instructions on how to "wreck" each page. However, it's quite a challenge (for me, anyway) to "wreck" the book. I'm worried about messing it up, I want it to look visually appealing so the point is to challenge perfectionism and just go for it! So far I've coloured in the front cover, done the page that says "colour this entire page" and the "trace your hand" page. I don't think I would have been as interested in the book had I not seen all the images on google of what was possible. The instructions are more like guidelines and you can do whatever you want to the journal. So I'm trying to "wreck" in a way that is still productive by breaking down my desire for perfectionism, but also that I can enjoy looking at it after. I'm also going to document my progress by taking pictures of the journal at various stages. So, here is my WTJ so far, I urge you to look at other people's attempts on google, they will inspire you!

First look on lookbook!

2010-09-03T14:35:00.001+01:00

So I've joined lookbook and this is my first look. It's a bit Autumnal for the weather right now, but my house is always chilly! The shorts and top are both from Topshop, as is the turban/headband. The brogues are from Aldo and the satchel was my Mum's. She got it in Greece when she was my age. The jewellery were gifts from my friend, I think they were from Accessorize.