Rainbows to herald the sun

Oh, WHAT a joy the sunshine was this weekend in South-East England. We were all rather taken back by it and made the most of it.  The traffic to the coast was heaving since everyone wanted a piece of the seaside. That's the funny thing about where we live now, we can do that more easily.

Thus, on Saturday morning, when getting dressed (ahem, about midday, mainly because CBC arrived home at 11.15am and I had spent every moment from the time I woke up, cleaning, tidying, putting away to make it look all lovely when he got back. I wasn't quite finished by the time he returned so I was still hoovering around him!), I wanted something bright and ebullient to acknowledge the sun!  It WAS, however, still a little chilly, despite the brightness.

I began with a daisy dress but then, when looking for a black skirt to go over the top of it, I found this charity-shopped, rainbow, knitted skirt and knew that superseded any other clothing plans!  I added simple black long-sleeved t-shirt and red cardigan and then my newish charity-shopped Clarks Originals red boots.   The obvious jewellery choices were my lovely Lorelai LeQuilliec rainbow earrings (which were a birthday present from myself to myself almost exactly a year ago!) and my Nickat sequin necklace and a simple turquoise hairclip.  

Simple, a bit quirky and definitely not the type of outfit being sported by the women of the seaside town we went to for late lunch with our friend.  There, you are smooth, coiffed and blend in!

What do you think?  Too much or just right for a sunny day?

xx

5 brooches #71

Hi there,

Hope you are well.

I've worn (and remembered to photograph!) a few brooches this week so I thought I'd share them.  There aren't exactly 5- there seem to be 6 but never find- the post title fits!

Let's start from the top right and go clockwise:

1.  I bought this 'Connect 4' tank top from DinoprincessChar an age ago but it always annoyed me that it didn't have a top button so I decided to use the Jazzy Lapin bee pin that my friend M gave me for Christmas in the button hole!   I added the Rosebud Casson bee pin that I won in a Instagram competition to keep it company and a Topshop star brooch from a sale a few years ago.

2.  Dressing like an art-teacher. This Seasalt paint-sample shirt was a delightful charity-shop find last year.  I added the pencil earrings our new Deputy head gave me for my birthday last year (we used to do a job share together years ago) and added the cute face brooch that our old Deputy Head gave me for Christmas this year.

3.  This WhiteStuff heart shirt just needed a simple adornment with this Lorelai Le Quillec brooch.

4.  Finally, the Joanie Clothing 'Avid Readers' jumper works with this old Fable and Black 'Drink tea and read books' badge.  I always like promoting reading!

I know some of you don't really like this style of dressing or accessorizing- that's cool, it just happens to be something I enjoy- it doesn't mean I regard anyone's dress sense as any different to mine. But, which one might be your favourite?

x

5 brooches and friends #70

It seems an age since I have shared a brooch post or a jewellery post.  I used to do this quite frequently!  I thought I'd share 5 pics of a few brooches and items of jewellery I've been wearing.

Let's start from the top left going clockwise.

1.  I bought my Kitty in specs jumper a long time ago and I hadn't worn it for ages.  The charity-shopped Oasis blouse was the perfect colours to wear with it and I wanted to add a little pin on my collar so I added this Fat Kitty thundercloud from the No Such Disco.

2.  Not a brooch but a turquoise sparkly acrylic bow necklace from Lorelai La Quillec.  Bought this before Christmas.

3.  Before Christmas, my Tatty Devine polar bear brooch seemed a good idea for pre-Christmas.  Cats and bears?

4.  Wore my deer dress and accompanied it with the perfect set of brooches- the beautiful Middle Mist Makes deer brooch I won in an Instagram competition (her brooches are beautifully hand-felted) and two beautifully hued knitted brooches from Hazel!

5.  My festive (but I wear it all year) sequinned Robin brooch needed even more shiny bits so I added my Nickat  Online sequin necklace!

Are there any favourites here or are you a fan of the more simple touch?

x

Something beginning with S part 2...

***Before the main point, I spoke to Y this morning and she did go home and listen to Hildegard Von Bingen and said it DID help her sleep!  Hurrah!***

If you read my last post, you will see I was invited to a dress up party where the theme was 'Something beginning with S.'

Did you guess which outfit I chose?

So....I chose SPACE as my 'S' with some other Sub-categories of S within the outfit.

Stage no.1:

Go through extensive 'Novelty Tat' jewellery collection and collect anything with a sort of SPACE theme... goodness, I have a lot!

Stage no. 2: 

Fetch silvery/space footwear choices:

Silver sparkly welly boots bought in Charity shop with Mum last week.  Also grab Hush Puppies silver heels just in case feet get sweaty...

Stage no. 3:

Fetch main garment:  Galaxy space dress from Red Herring at Debenhams bought delightedly in sale from Debenhams around 3-4 years ago.

Grab charity-shopped  Silver Sparkly shoulder bag.

Fetch Sparkly gold Crown and Glory head-dress to represent the Sun as the centre of the Solar System

Stage No. 4:

Fetch garments for warmth.
Silver Sparkly Topshop jacket from charity shop and Silver sparkly leggings also from charity shop.

Stage no. 5:

Attach brooches to jacket.

Stage No. 6:

Straighten hair

Stage no. 7:

Add Sun halo and Star earrings and Space ship necklace.


Stage No. 7:

Don jacket featuring:

• Sputnik
• Geordie La Forge from Star Trek
• BB8 from Star Wars
• Saturn
• Other Spheres.
• Others without S

Stage no. 8:
Stand, smile and pose for the snap!

And would you like to see CBC's costume?

Yes, he is the Swimmer being attacked by a Shark!

What do you reckon?

If you were going to an S party what would your ideal costume be if you could get it/make it?  What would you costume be like me, that came from your own wardrobe?

xx

P.S.  How many S's are there in this post?

5 brooches and friends #68

Hi there,

It's been one of those frantic, scrabbling catch-up weeks.  Thus, I don't seem to have the brainpower for anything too thought-provoking or long-winded so I am sharing some recently worn broochage and necklaceage!  Yes, that's a word. I like to go in for a little nomenclature occasionally!

So, onto the main event:

I wore this book-themed dress on Wednesday with this Jane Austen quote pin saying, "I declare there is no enjoyment like reading,"  This is what Miss Bingley says to Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy to be provocative in Pride and Prejudice.   Accompanied by Mr Foxton and a book dress!

For the party on Saturday, I wore this necklace from Down the Rabbit Hole on Etsy!  I do like how ridiculously long it is! Worn with ice-lolly dress.

Sunday saw me wearing another fox with a cottage dress. Lots of foxes in country gardens.

On Monday, I wore Tik Tok from the World of Oz (from Sugar and Vice Jewellery) with a simple navy top and maxi skirt.

Finally, Tuesday, I wore this Fat Kitty bomb necklace with more kitties!

Any favourites here?

Hope you are well and I will try to visit anon!

xx

Style Imitating Art- Monkey trading cards

Greetings!

Monkey trading from the Quadrupeds series (N41) for Allen and Ginter Cigarettes

Here is another round of Style Imitating Art!  The curator this week is new host, Daenel from over at Living outside the Stacks.  She chose this interesting piece of art in the form of a Cigarette trading card.  Lots of details in here to make use of for the inspiration:

Monkeys, parrots, foliage, trees, coconuts, pink vintage fonts, a yellowy background, grown, green, the texture of the palm tree- it certainly offered lots of scope.

But I was puzzling over what to wear all week.
It was only as I was putting away washing last night,that I spied this old pair of Primark Summer trousers, that I realised, I had a basis for this outfit. I last wore these for Style Imitating art about 5 years ago for Woman walking in an Exotic forest .  They had the right sort of coloured foliage in the background even if the slightly more lurid flowers were not so fitting.

I added a brown vest top and cardie (ahrgh, not very well matching in this light!) as a nod to the coconuts and monkey fur.

My accessories were all a nod to the parrots in the background:  I have my oldest brooch, the top jewelled parrot, owned since I was about 11, the earrings (also that long I think!) and the two tin brooches of Budgie and Kookaburra bought in Corbridge.

What do you think? Can you see the inspiration?  What would you have chosen from your wardrobe?

If you fancy joining in, AND PLEASE do, send your picture by tonmorrow, to Daenel livingoutsidethestacks@gmail.com.  Bev gets a very special gold shiny star for joining in NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE after my plea for people to join in. Please go and comment on her post so she keeps joining in and because her outfit is brilliant!

xx

Queen of Hearts

Hi there,

Last week, for Valentines Day, I decided to wear a Heart-themed outfit, as is often my want. I own a few things with a heart pattern so it seems nice to unite them for the celebratory day.

CBC and I gave each other a card and spent a lot of the day sorting out things in the house.   

 Here's another view from my house- by the front door! We have a longish, thin, tiled entrance hall.

The skirt and top were both second-hand and are in compleemtary shades.  Comfy too!

 In the jewellery stakes, I wore a Heart balloon brooch from You Make me Design and a Tatty Devine heart lolly necklace!

 And these earrings featuring the White Rabbit in his Hearts costume.

It wasn't my intention to snuggle up to the Moose/reindeer but I thought this was quite funny!

Did you wear a themed-outfit for Valentines at all and if not, anything special?

xx

5 brooches and friends #65 -4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie.

Hello there,

How are you? Well I hope!

I have another instalment of brooches and friends for your perusal.

This cute little blackbird was from Rosebud Casson last year. I love Blackbirds so I really like wearing this one- especially teamed with Robins!

Yet more birds! I bought these from a cute Shabby chic shop in Writtle a couple of years ago- they remind me of soap!

My sister bought me this cute Erstwilder cherry lattice Pie-brooch for my birthday last year.  I liked it with this red combination.

The dress features Partridges and pear trees. The heart from Hello Crumpet has little to do with them except for colour scheme!

Last but not least, here is my pencil necklace, worn with my Cath Kidston pencil dress!!

Maybe not four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie but there is a certain amount of truth in the title of this blog post! 

Have a great day!

xx

Strawberry patience

 Do you know why I love Charity shops so much!  Because you can so often get something you wanted first time round in there if you are a patient.  I posted about my Topshop coat that I found in the charity shop that sells for £90 on eBay because it is a Clara cosplay item- sometimes it is something like that but often, it's just something you really wanted!

 Henry Holland dresses are one of those things that I always get excited about if I see them in a charity shop- this Strawberry flora one that I have often admired.  Patience meant I found it for £3 in the charity shop this Summer!  It is a size 12 which means it is a little baggy on the top, but my heart felt sorted that out easily!

Whilst I am TRYING not to just buy pretty things in a charity shop because I think they are pretty (because it is ok to think something is pretty and not have to own it) or indeed online (So many Lindybop dresses I have loved this Summer but not bought, even when they were in the sale with extra 25% off), if it is one of those, 'really-wanted-it-first-time-round' items, then I will make room for it.  And cheap Clara Oswald items of course!

If you're thinking you've seen my necklace in brooch form before, you would be right, but I'll tell you more about that in another post soon!

Hope you are well.

xx

Pencil it in!

 As you may have realised by now, I am a complete sucker for a novelty print and a bit of matchy theme dressing!

 Thus, I found it fun to christen the lovely brooch Lily gave me with my Cath Kidston pencil print dress (an Ebay win). I combined it with a Cath Kidston necklace with similar colours to the pencils and a much loved charity-shopped cardie! From a distance, it looks fairly sedate then up close, you realise the madness!

We've had a good day today.  Waking up fairly late, I spent the morning doing chores and tidying, then went to the library to return 2 books and pick up one that I've had reserved for ages (I was 12th in the queue for it!!!!!!!!!!) . On the way back, I popped into two of the open charity shops and ended up buying 2 items that would be good for Clara Oswald cosplaying and also ended up buying a 2nd book on Wildflowers because I am sick of not knowing what things are and felt sorry for the market stall holder!

When I returned home (with delicious milkshake), we headed off to the Leigh Folk Festival where we watched Emma Reid and Rob Harbron. Emma went to school with my husband but she lives in Sweden now so we try to go and watch kids when she is over here.  She is an amazing folk fiddler. As we browsed the stalls, it turned out one of the ladies from the support team at work was running a Vegetarian Indian food stall and gave us some amazing vegetable bhajis (I don't like Bhajis but I LOVED these!)   After that, CBC went to get his hair cut and I had a quick scout into the charity shops and returned to watch an Irish trio. 

We headed down to walk by the beach in Leigh and as we walked back to town, walked into my lovely work colleague who lives nearby who had mentioned she was going to watch something at 7pm! 

Finally, we came home and a friend came round.
All in all,  a pleasing day with a good balance!

xx

Style imitating art: Red Cockerel in the night

Evening peoples!

I'm doing that procrastinating thing again where I know I have loads of blog post to write up but they are the really arduous ones, so I keep putting it off (April book reads I'm looking at you. And May Book reads. And Doctor Who Exhibition).  Therefore, since I clearly don't want to be writing those posts, I am instead 

This week's Style Imitating Art inspiration came from a painting by Marc Chagall's 1944 painting, Coq Rouge dans la Nuit.

This photo of “[ C ] Marc Chagall – Coq Rouge dans la Nuit (1944)” by cea + is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The thing that hit me (and I am sure you too) first was the beautiful Cobalt or TARDIS blue, to give it its appropriate name on my blog. I have several items of clothing in this beautiful shade. However, this Dorothy Perkins dress I own, with its bird and foliage print seemed perfect as it seemed to reflect the inclusion of different beings and objects on top of the colour.  The Monsoon cardie may seem a bit too matchy-matchy but I rather like the all encompassing colour going on here.

The goat-playing a cello (I'm going with cello rather than violin despite there not being a spike!)  was easy to represent with my violin brooch from my penpal Lucy.  I don't have a Red cockerel brooch so I substituted it for a red bird brooch which was a freebie from Ladybird likes.

You may notice the girl has red heart on her attire so I added my elasticated  belt with a heart clasp.  Finally, just a touch more red  with my slingback shoes since it is the colour of the Title character!

Not a bad representation of it, methinks!

Head over to Jen's blog to see how everyone else interpreted it!

How would YOU have interpreted this!??!

xx

5 brooches #58

Hello there!

It is rather a while since I have done one of these posts so I figured I should share my lovely brooch collection and their various outings!

 My computer is doing that irritating thing again where it turns the picture sideways.  Please turn your head to the side! I decided to go for all dog accessorising with my Dalmation jumper by wearing the lilac resin dog brooch with the fantastic K9 enamel pin that the wonderful Melanie bought me for my birthday!

 Horrible chin shot!  I added the Primark patch-like brooch to my acrylic Cloud glitter brooch as well as a Tatty Devine necklace for OTT accessorising!

Last up we have the combination of resin Fairy brooch (bought in Whitby from the market hall) and my Cat ice-lolly necklace!

Any favourites here?

Worn any brooches? Do share if you have!

xx

5 brooches and friends #57

I found this 5 brooches post labelled as #50 in my drafts box and decided that I might as well post it since it somehow was missed at the appropriate time.

I still remain amazed that my little sister bought me this Sugar and Vice necklace for my birthday when I really wanted it! Was such a surprise!

These two pins were a subtle accessory for an all black outfit.  The cute little Niffler pin is by Hannah Hitchman on Etsy and the K (which is upside down) was one I found at Vintage Emporium in Hexham last year.

I can't believe I never posted this.  This tortoise is very sweet from Bad Design Studio.  Their brooches are very reasonably priced at £3 but annoyingly, the brooch finding has come off the back of 2 of their brooches and I need to reglue them!

And finally, here's my Impossible Girl necklace!

Have you worn any brooches recently?

Check out Ann's post- she is always finding vintage gems in the brooch stakes!

5 brooches #56

Hi there,

Hope you are well.

Apologies for not posting. It's been a rather busy week with things on in the evenings and the suchlike.  I had a very busy birthday on which I had to eat my dinner on the train between staff training and orchestra rehearsal and then didn't get home till hideously late because the train I usually get did not stop at the station we had to get out at and went on for another 30 minutes before stopping and no more trains went back the other way, so we had to pay maximum fares on our oysters, pay a taxi fare, then CBC had to pay another train fare the next evening to rescue his car and hope he hadn't got a ticket. Was all rather a late disaster!

But, anyway, onto brooches...

 Here's Fat Kitty from the Nosuch Disco.

 Here he was in context with lots of other round patterns. And a lobster for good measure...

This day was a Bee day with a Primark sequin pin plus my bee pin from Rosebud Casson which I won in an Instagram competition when I explained how bees were important to me because of my Grandad. I bought this same pin for my Mum for Christmas and my sister also won one in the competition, so we all match now!...

I sincerely do!  The food I most missed when I lived in Indonesia! This came from Kate Gabrielle!

And finally, Balloon brooch from You make me Design on Etsy.  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze along with the bunting!

Any favourites here?

xx