Showing posts with label Punkypins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Punkypins. Show all posts

Monday, December 26, 2016

Creating a festive outfit

Creating a festive outfit doesn't have to be about wearing a Christmas jumper or even a Christmas dress, it can be about whatever you want it to. I am not a fashion or style expert and I have always done my own thing and you should too.

The end.

However, how I did that here was in the cunning use of bright colours and patterns.

 This beautiful dress is from Palava Folk (once called Poppy England, then Bryony&co) and it is handmade in England.  100% cotton, pockets, lined. What's not to love. Even better, I bought it in their summer sample sale at about 70% less than the normal price.
I thought it worked as a festive dress because the lolly pattern was quite synonymous with Christmas baubles and also made me think of the Land of Sweets from the Nutcracker ballet
 The gorgeous skies in Blackmore as I took these photos.


 I took the bauble idea and wore this personalised Christmas decoration as an oversized pendant. This was a free gift from Punkypins which I received last year with an order.
 I added these wonderful parcel bow earrings from Hazel which were a simple touch without being too overpowering...
The final detail was my Croc shoes. Although turquoise wasn't an obvious choice, I felt it worked well!


And that's how I created a festive outfit! How would you have created one?

xxx

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Advent Calendar Day 14: 5 brooches and friends #49: Christmas themed.

For today's Advent post I thought I'd share one or two Christmassy brooches I've worn in December..
 First up are the Sprout lover and Sprout hater pin badges which I won from @hannahhitchmanart on Instagram- you can find her on Etsy.  She created these wonderful pin badges which go perfectly with the Sprout shirt I bought at the Christmas fair!
 Sprout lover...
 Sprout hater...
 The next duo are technically speaking, not Christmassy, but I always think of this jumper as my 'While Shepherds watched' jumper and decided to add a Wise Men star and alien in Spaceship to the ensemble!
 This lovely Mistletoe brooch was a surprise gift from the lovely Lisa at Jumble and Jelly. She sent me two Christmassy brooches. I've worn the other one but its picture is on my tablet so I need to retrieve it! It worked so perfectly with this top!
 Here's my Punkypins Snowflake necklace up close!!! I love its irridescence!
The Penguin and toucan aren't Christmassy but the little penguin is! He was a Charitypin from last year!

More than 5 brooches but 5 pictures (if one doesn't count the Sprout pin close ups as pics!)

Have you worn any festive accessories!!

xxx

Saturday, October 01, 2016

5 brooches #41

Hello my dears!

I hope you are well!
All is fine here, just rather tired.  I have a busy weekend coming up. That choir concert I mentioned last week tomorrow, plus viewing some houses in the morning. On Sunday, I am playing for the church service which means a 9am rehearsal and then we are going canoeing in East London and finishing up swimming at the Olympic Aquatic Centre!

Anyway, before that, fancy some broochage?

 I rather love the Emily and Fin dress I wore here and felt it wanted some orange accessories so I teamed my You Make Me design brooch from Etsy (available in 6 pretty pastel shades)  and added my lemon slice necklace. I can't remember where I bought this!
 I had to photograph these two pins off rather than on as I hadn't a chance to photograph before changing into something else.
You might recognise the shapes of the left pin brooch. It was a pewter souvenir pin from the Giant's Causeway visitor centre from my cruise
The right hand pin, the Tudor rose, was also a souvenir from the cruise but from my next day's stop and adventures. Can you guess where we went after Belfast? You'll have to tune into my next cruise update to find out more.
A combination of two pins here.  The unicorn is a Punky Pins one and the pretty cloud comes from @FairytaleCollars on Instagram.    The necklace came from my Gloriously Glittery mystery box on Etsy also.

Any favourites here?
Have you worn any great brooches recently?
xxx

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

5 brooches and friends #40

Greetings to ye!
I hope your day was enjoyable. As you read this, I shall be purchasing about 70 recorders for my Year 3's who have all sent me money to buy them their own recorders.
The moment where I hand out their recorders and they come up one at a time to fetch is one of great joy for me. To see their excitement inherent in their face as they try to play it cool and walk nonchalantly when you know that they are all super-excited is fabulous!!!

Anyway, I digress. Onto the broochery!
 This ringed beauty came from Topshop and essentially cost me 50p. I was delighted to get such a nice-looking resin brooch. It looks like Erstwilder!

 The balloon necklace comes from You Make Me design on Etsy.    The pretty sewing machine necklace came from my flute friend Lara who I helped with her first craft fair. It is so pretty!
I know you saw this yesterday. This deer came from Gloriously Glittery on Etsy also as part of my Lucky Dip.


Here's the 'And friends' part of the post. This 'Love you to the Moon and back' is from my old favourite Punky Pins and also came as part of a Lucky Dip.  So many older ladies have come up to me and said how much they love it!

These adorable Collar clips of a Bee and Daisy came from the lovely Katie who sent them as a belated birthday. I adore belated birthday presents, especially when consisting of plastic jewellery!!!
And that's your lot.
Hmmm, since it was my 40th post, maybe I should've have done a giveaway. I might wait for 50 so stay tuned as you might win something at some point!

Any favourites?

xxx

Saturday, August 20, 2016

The bliss of solitude

Greetings,
I know some of you are keen to hear about my cruise adventures but I have failed to prepare my posts yet about this.   I always find holiday posts quite an onerous task, especially when there are countless photos to sift through!

I've been back since Monday morning and the week has, on the whole, been largely uneventful. This has been helped by the beautiful weather.
 But honestly, despite its lack of action, it has been a great week. Just being able to have a whole week doing nothing so much. With other holidays, there is always the pressure of limited time- feeling you need to do something meaningful with it; to having interesting tales to tell; to socialise.

Yet, a simple week is often what I yearn.
 Monday was spent putting away clothes, washing and hanging clothes, watering a 12day unwatered garden.. I felt a bit bizarre - like I was still on board a swaying ship and kept bumping into things and needed to gain my balance. To be honest, I do keep getting dizzy moments still, but it's fine.

Tuesday, with glorious sunshine, was a day of gardening with extensive mowing and clearing of weeds at the end of the garden. There was also reading in the garden and watching Ugly Betty DVDs. I also made a huge vat of chickpea and vegetable stew from all the way out of date vegetables festering in my fridge which still looked ok.

Wednesday, again waking to beautiful sun, my friend L from my flute trio came over early to bring me the two crocheted orders I had commissioned from her and she stayed for about an hour for a chat too. It was really nice to have her round, chatting in the garden.  (I frantically tidied up before she came).  I don't know about you, but I find it hard to make friends in my 30's and I really like L and really would like to get to know her and her husband more.  After that, I wrote letters to penpals, read a book and watched more Ugly Betty and weeded the front garden.

Thursday, with yet more sun, I spent the day with my sister and niece- after picking apples in my garden, we went out for lunch, went blackberrying and then came home to mine. I cherish any time spent with my sister. It is so fleeting these days so this was very special to me. After she went, I watched more Ugly Betty...
 Finally, today, I woke up and attempted to post on Instagram (which is being utterly bizarre and has posted the same cucumber picture 6 times), and then headed off to school. When I arrived, I had the most wonderful surprise.  I'd asked one of the caretakers to do a couple of things for me. When I went into my room, not only had he done those perfectly but he had built me a whole load of new shelving to house the instruments (and all the additional clutter from my old room). He'd obviously worked so hard at it, for days, thought it out so well. I was so touched at his hardwork and told him so emphatically when he came in later (cringing because the other caretaker had told him I was there, just in case I wasn't happy).  I spent about 4 hours sorting out and arranging the instruments in the order I was happy with.

After this, pleased with my room, I headed off to my friends from my old church. I had loaned their daughter some of my books when she was young and they were returning them to me. It was nice to catch up with them and hear their news.  Subsequently, I headed to my family friend's house (she of whom I have talked much) to visit her.  I ended up climbing to pick fresh figs from her fig tree which was lovely and quite funny trying to reach them.

Eventually, I came home, ate more vegetable stew and watched Ugly Betty.
It's been a simple week, but one I have enjoyed

About the outfit. This was the Henry Holland dress I charityshopped a few weeks ago. It is very comfortable. I wore it with the charity-shopped Christy's vintage panama hat I bought for CBC, my Punkypins Impossible Girl necklace and Goodnight boutique Adipose brooch. Hey, you can still dress cutely, even if you are just monging in the garden!

What have you been up to this week?

xx

Tuesday, August 09, 2016

5 brooches #36- Pins

This week's 5 Brooches all comes in one photo. It is quite popular to wear a selection of enamel pin-badges on ones' denim jacket so I decided to jazz up my £1 charity-shop denim shirt I've been throwing on as a cover-up since May.

All of these haven't featured on 5brooches so you might not have seen them.

The tooth is so cute and came from Topshop in the sale, as did the Rose.

The little squirrel was my souvenir from Triberg in Germany. Gretchen Joanna said that I might find a brooch in Germany and she was right. CBC and I always buy a red squirrel souvenir if we see a red squirrel.

The Drink Me bottle came in Punky Pin's new venture, Happy Flair's inaugural subscription box- I haven't had any more than the first box but I was pretty pleased with this sweet pin.

Lastly, I bought the duck from the RSPB Rainham marshes shop- it is one of those charity pins.

It's quite fun to wear a whole selection together.

Which one do you like best? Do you know any pins?

xx

Saturday, July 23, 2016

5 brooches #34

Hello! Welcome to this week's edition of 5 brooches.

No new friends today, all old or already seen favourites on different tops!
Punkypins favourite, Mr Geometric Triceratops makes his lovely reflective return on a stripy dress!

CBC absolutely HATES this brooch. I brushed past him in  a small gap and it spiked his back! This is one of those vintage tin brooches painted with enamel. They're quite heavy but I wanted a natural-looking brooch with this maxi dress!

R2D2 hasn't been seen for a while but he was great for a really simple plain outfit worn for school! I photographed him off rather than on! I made him for when I went to see the latest Star Wars in December.

Penultimate, old favourite, Mr Foxy, a happy Charity-shop purchase was perfect with an orange top and a skirt with tigers on!

Lastly, the return of the yellow tin canary from Re, Corbridge.

Have you worn any brooches this week?

Denise wore a whole selection of pretty brooches- my favourite is the Welsh spoon!
Ann wore the perfect accessory, red sailboat brooch on her lovely green stripy dress!

Monday, June 27, 2016

Sometimes I scream for ice-cream

Well maybe not, but sometimes I am a grumpy rat even if not a screaming rat.

CBC is VERY GOOD at trying to make interesting plans for the weekend. Inevitably though, they are often thrust upon me last minute. Or I have a headache. Or both. I am an ungrateful wretch but I do find it hard to be grateful when I have a headache. I just feel like the proverbial bear with a sore head.

Like yesterday.  CBC went off to cover some cello teaching for someone.  And then he came back and invited me out on a walk with his boss linked to World Challenge. I don't know why I was so grumpy about it except that I had a headache and it was raining and I had a headache.
 We went and although the headache did not subside, it was really good to be outside and walking.
He also wanted to go to the Leigh Folk Festival afterwards.

I don't really like outside festivals. It's a combination of crowds, no where to sit, being stuck in roasting sunshine, amplification and just the slow speed at which you can progress anywhere. And I had a headache (did I mention that!??!)

Yet, despite this, he was right that it was good to be there, although we didn't see alot and so we went along today after church. And despite my still being a grump and it being very hot, we saw some really wonderful music.  Cardboard Fox and Nick Pynn were amazing. So sometimes, it is worth being dragged out unwillingly.
Not much to say about the accompanying outfit except I wanted this Emily and Fin dress was SO LONG! I fell in love when I saw it on various bloggers. I resisted for a year and it sold out of course. But sometimes the odd Ebay search is fruitful and I got myself a new one for a third of the RRP in January and have bided my time to wear it.

Of course, I had to pair it with my DIY Ice-cream cone brooch!

Hope all of you had a good weekend.
xx


Thursday, May 12, 2016

5 brooches #43

Hello there!

I hope you had a lovely day! I had a nice swim after school which always makes me feel better! Definitely a water baby!
The day was, on the whole, a successful one. Just finished eating a delicious ratatouille with Bulgar wheat and Quinoa!

But enough of that- onto the brooches!
 You actually should have seen these in last week's post- don't know how I didn't notice there were only 4 brooches, not 5! Hence this week, you get 6!  The Collar clips come from Kate Gabrielle and they rank amongst my favourite brooches! Worn with a Poppy England (now Bryony and Co) blouse!


Up next is another vintage scarf clip (charity-shopped a few years ago).  It is perfect for this silk daisy scarf as it is really too short to tie!

And here's a flatlay I did with it, my Punkypins daisy collection and my Matalan daisy dress (which incidentally, was the reason I first discovered Laura at A Daisychain dream as I was searching on the internet for this dress!

 This next one, the biscuit, is actually a me-made one. Well me-made in the sense that I found an object, got some glue and brooch back and married the three together! The rubber came from Mr Wolf and is far pretty to be used for its original purpose!
 I don't know how I failed to photograph this glittery Trophy brooch up close! but at least you can see it! You can also see the amazing Present bow earrings that Hazel sent me for Christmas!!
 Here's my Topshop glitter bear brooch.  This, surprisingly, causes consternation amongst the kids at school!


Lastly, here's my Deer Arrow Caravan and Car making their debut.  And I had to share the print of the skirt I was wearing with it!!!

Have you been wearing any brooches recently or spied any corkers?

Brooches elsewhere:

http://polyester-princess.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/tuesday-i-got-friday-on-my-mind.html#comment-form Polyester princess wore a cute elephant brooch. She also bought 3 gorgeous ones at the Fleamarket in her current post!

http://www.annasislandstyle.com/2016/05/a-tale-of-two-jackets.html  Anna's got a denim jacket filled with cute pins and brooches!

http://www.polkadot-pink.com/2016/05/neighbourhood-watch_8.html Not a brooch but Donna has the sweetest Fox necklace!

http://vintagevixon.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/finnished-my-marimekko-mini.html Vix has MADE the most cool Steampunk brooches out of old watches and their parts!!! So creative. She is a vintage, recycling marvel!!

Thursday, May 05, 2016

5 brooches and friends #28

Hi there!
Welcome to 5 brooches!  I LOVE polling days! It meant a day working from home so I could work in the sun, with a garden to sit in! What a perfect day for it.

On we go.
 The first brooch- simple silver glittery acrylic feather was the simplicity needed against the busy background of this closet dress.
 Here's the friends aspect of the post. I love my Punkypins Sloth necklace but I was wearing him to the swimming pool and I put him inside my shoe to stop it getting broken in my swim bag. Post swimming, I forgot, put my foot in shoe and trod heel-first on it and now it has this crack-line near it tail. It hasn't cracked but he looks less picturesque now! Terrible photo but just in case it cracks and breaks, at least it has had its blog debut (which considering how long I've had it, is seriously remiss of me!)
 The budgie hasn't been seen on here before- I bought him along with my tin canary and sheriff badge from Re, Corbridge. I'm really fond of him!

Last but not least, my Saxophone brooch lives on this olive corduroy blazer now so expect to see the two always combined!

Any favourites?  Have you enjoyed any brooch-wearing this week, either by you or another?
Polyester Princess had the perfect brooch to go with her floral outfit

xx

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Sailor heart

What ho, tis I, Le Kez!
Hope that your day was successful and fun.
I had a slightly bizarrely successful afternoon which only resulted from me going off on a tangent!
In year 3, I went to teach a lesson. I was introducing the concept of Time Signatures - which would then lead into them getting the feel of time signatures, learning to conduct in those time signatures, listen to some music to identify time signatures and then answer some other comparison questions between 2 songs- Tomorrow the Fox and 'Didlan' (based on The Ashgrove folk tune).

Anyway, I introduced it by asking them what comes first on the stave in music (the treble clef).  I asked them what that told us (that it was a high-pitched instrument playing).  Then, as a reminder, I asked what the name of the clef was that means it's a low instrument (they dutifully answered 'Bass Clef') - I then added the Alto clef as a tangent which was greeted with "Cooooool!", "I love this!"  (??????)
I then started to say as a mere note aside, that a key signature comes next and somehow got into explaining key signatures, how they work, what sharps and flats are and what they mean etc' and somehow, they were highly enthusiastic about this and were really getting into this (I'm talking boys and girls who can be a bit disruptive) and were just amazed to be learning all this (I think I maybe did ok by starting the Alto clef comment by saying, "You don't need to know this, but I know some of you like knowing harder, extra information," which meant everyone wanted to be THAT person I was inferring) .  So we had this massive tangent on key signatures and sharps and flats and enharmonic equivalents and they were just bizarrely really with me on it!!  There was no distraction, no one who had to be called to order or made to face the correct way. We're talking a solid block of music theory!
When I introduced the time signatures, the delight of learning how to conduct and what conductors are really doing was a delight!! 
When they came to do the listening- everyone was totally focused.  Bizarre how that happens sometimes. I usually find them really hard work. That said though, they are quite a musical class- they are probably one of the best singing classes in the school.


Anyway, if you have survived that long and waffly tangent, well done, have a gold star, biscuit and a cup of tea, you deserve it!
I thought I'd share 2 pictures of two of my Charity shop purchases which featured in 'The Buyer's archive' post. The gorgeous Topshop sailor jumper from Sue Ryder and the heart skirt from Barnados!  Just needed the tiny addition of some navy knitted tights, gold Toms and my Punkypins Bee necklace and I was good to go! 

I love my new tree with its crops of daffodils! What will I do when they all die!?!? I've never quite had such a happy blogging posing spot!

xxx

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

5 brooches and friends #26- monsters, maths and Kryptonite!

 


Hello there!

Welcome to this week's brooches!

The first one is another fun one from Punky Pins. I took advantage of a pre-release cheap price from their Instagram and ordered this Kryptonite pin! Love a science brooch!
 ...oh, and it glows in the dark!

It made me think how fun it would be to make a TINY periodic table brooch- wouldn't be hard to do on shrink plastic! Squares and writing- I can do that!

 From Maths to Science.  Here's my pi day  Cutie-Pi homemade brooch on its first journey!
From Science, to Maths to Sci-Fi, here are a set of Doctor Who mini-badges which I got free with a magazine when Series 3 was out!
 Daleks, Cybermen and their catchphrases!
And the Judoon and the Face of Boe. Interestingly, I am watching Series 3 in which both of these feature as I type!  I wore all 4 on my pockets for school one day. Another coincidence is that I am wearing this dress as I type!

And finally, the Punkypins necklace I wore on Saturday showing my allegiance to Northumberland.

You're probably better at maths than I and realise that this adds up to more than 5. Oh well!

Have you seen any great brooches this week?

Char wore her beautiful Erstwilder Pterodactyl brooch this week in the perfect pastel ensemble!
She also wore the same bear brooch as mine from last week but in a much more stylish manner!
Polyester Princess wore a beautiful vintage deer brooch in this homage to orange here
Louise shared her brooch collection on a pretty pin board here



P.S. Have you gone and read my 11th Blogiversary post yet. There's bribery in the form of a giveaway if you go and read it!!! You have until Wednesday at the very end of the day to enter!