Strawberry dressing

Simplicity!! 

I think that is what I like about summer dressing- just throw on a top and a skirt or just a dress and you are good to go.

No worrying about matching a cardigan or finding suitable shoes for that longer skirt or trousers or finding your jumper layers weirdly over that shirt!

A charity-shopped top which has been worn and loved for a few years, some lovely collar clips from Katie, a second-hand Cath Kidston skirt from Depop (bargain at £6!) and those much-loved spotty Primark shoes I blogged about a few weeks ago and that was it!

It's nice to feel light and not weighed down by garments or heavy fabrics- that's what makes it even better. Much as I will hear the blogging bandwagon start up about enjoying layering up in cosy knits as they sip their Pumpkin chai lattes, there is nothing I like better than those thin layers and good old-fashioned water!

How do you feel about Summer dressing versus Winter and Autumn?
xx

Style Imitating Art outfit- Arrow shirt collar by J.C. Leyendecker

Here we are again at another Style Imitating Art outfit.  This week's host is Salazar at 14 shades of grey blog.  She chose this interesting piece.

In the words of Salazar, our host this week, "This is an ad for Arrow shirt collar by J.C. Leyendecker, one of the most famous American illustrators before Norman Rockwell – in fact, Rockwell considered Leyendecker his idol and mentor. Leyendecker is best known for his “Arrow Collar Man”, which is modeled after his partner, Charles Beach."

It lends itself readily to an outfit by featuring people so who am I do ignore such an obvious hint.

Here's my outfit. I did try taking photos outside but the heat was intense that I gave up swiftly.

I went, obviously for a white collared top and decided to add a black silk ribbon from another top to it to mimic the lady tie worn by the female in the picture.

I decided to take my cue from the man's dark green patterned tie and wear this green patterned maxi skirt I had made in Bali 12 years ago this month- It was good for the warm day as it is very light

 You can spy my rose-gold bracelet in the picture to mimic the lady's jewellery and I also wore my grey cotton pumps- there are some brush strokes of grey around the edge of the painting.

Finally, I mentioned the other day, that I have several of these wired hair-bands so I decided to add this peachy one to finish off the outfit (AND keep my hair out of my face- much needed right now!

What do you think? How might you have interpreted this picture?

If you want to join in, you still have time.
Email Salazar at 14shadesofgreyblog@gmail.com by Tuesday night in order to feature in the round up. And do go over and see how everyone else interpreted it!

x

5 brooches and friends #67

Hi there,

Hope your evening is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

As you read this, I will be at my musical camp playing a large-scale piece for orchestra by Janacek.  I currently am doing my usual, "Hate packing!" avoidance and the time is getting later and later. Actually, I have begun packing but finishing it is always torturous!  I am praying for good weather for camping as I don't feel very good about camping in the cold with a cold! 

Anyway, it seems a rather long hiatus since my last 5 brooches post so here we are with some brooches and necklaces to share!

A Kimchi and Coconut space rocket entitled, "Fly me to the Moon" seemed a vaguely appropriate choice for this Clouds and aeroplanes dress.

 As well as the rainbow earrings, I thought I'd wear my two cute Book pin badges from Fable and Black to go with the pastel rainbow shirt.

 The same two pins accompanied my Cath Kidston book dress alongside this Bookish Owl in specs!

The Tatty Devine Macmillan pin badge I appropriated from my Mum seemed a jolly choice for this bold-checked shirt.

 Finally, no Cath Kidston dinosaur dress is complete without petite flying fox necklace and Stegosaurus felted brooch.  This brooch was actually a finger puppet I crudely sewed a broochback to when I bought it a few years ago!

Do you spy any favourites here?

Have any brooches been gracing your lapels?

xx

Taken into Mustardy

I know, I know, it's a bad pun, but you don't come here for comedy!

How are you today?  Well, I hope!! I am fine- well and happy, just rather tired.  I think I should probably head straight off to bed when I finish typing this.

Sometimes, I wear an outfit which I want to photograph. Even if the light is terrible, even if it is dreadfully late when I reach home.  This was one of those occasions. 

This vintage blanket skirt was bought a long, long time ago for £5 from the jumble-sale style stall at Spitalfields market, East London. It always looks different in photos to real life!

This is the first time I paired it with this charity-shopped mustard jumper.

Here's the view of the landing in my new house.  I'm giving you taunting, sneaky little views, aren't I!?   I did try taking a picture with the ostentatious chandelier our predecessors left for us but alas, it cast a blurry halo around my head, so you get the spare bedroom door!

And what resplendent outfit would be complete without a wise owl? None, I fear!

I seemed to be having a colourful skirt week but then I spoilt it all today by donning a boring breton striped jumper and black pinstripe trousers (with toothpaste necklace!) 

I hope all is well with you!

Much love,

Kezzie xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara in Name of the Doctor

Hello there!

How are you?  Well, I hope. Although my singing voice is definitely not up to par and I am really trying hard not to lose it, plus the throat is sore- it is MUCH better than it was and my speaking voice is fairly normal now.

Anyway, I am going to catch up on my missing Advent posts all in one go tomorrow but here is my TARDIS Tuesday.  This was all a bit last minute as I failed to do it at the weekend.

Below is one of my favourite Clara outfits of all time.  This beautiful Tartan Hobbs dress is very much in my style.  Alas, it is hard to find second-hand and is usually very expensive.  I have gone through a few incarnations of this in TARDIS Tuesday but I am hoping this one is the best so far.

Image found on this Pinterest but belongs to the BBC

Here's my one..

It has taken a while to create after much sifting of tartan dresses on Ebay.  This one ended up costing me £4.50 including postage in the Summer.   I added the collar which was bought from Ebay.

Her real necklace is also from Hobbs and is a cute Dormouse but I just added the circle necklace I wore last week.

 A tea short seemed appropriate as I had been nursing a cup of tea as I completed various admin tasks at my desk after school including writing a musical reference for a pupil's secondary school application! I hope she gets in!

Image borrowed from The Mirror but ultimately belongs to the BBC

Much as I would love to own the real dress, I do like this alt and a nice girl told me I looked beautiful today in it which was very sweet! I think most people were astounded by seeing the legs! I usually wear leggings.  Fear not though, I was wearing shorts underneath the dress!

This was one of those 'Denouement' episodes where all was revealed about who Clara really was, so it was a huge deal when it showed!

What do you think of this outfit....or that episode?!

xx

Style Imitating Art- Celestial skies

jghg
I have failed to be organised enough to come up with an outfit for Style Imitating Art for a good few weeks so I am pleased to have remembered this time!  Erin at Loop Looks chose this image for our inspiration this time.

Source by M.Caballero

Isn't it a beautiful sky!  I knew INSTANTLY what I was going to wear.  I have this Miss Patina unicorn-collared top with Constellation and starry print (with cute starry buttons!) so I knew that this was perfect! Bizarrely it looks blue in this picture whereas it is more purply in real life.

Black Merino wool thermal long johns from Aldi plus an old black skirt were included to represent the silhouette colours and I just added the brown boots because. Black would have been better but I was in a hurry on Sunday morning!

 Here's a close-up of the shirt. Alas, I had positioned the collar wrong so the Unicorn's face is obscured. Not to worry- he's not really necessary for this interpretation.

What do you think?  Head to Erin's blog to see how others interpreted this picture.

What would you have worn from your wardrobe for this?

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara Oswald- Sleep no more

This week's TARDIS Tuesday is a very simple one!  Just a collar shot.

In an episode called 'Sleep no more' Clara Oswald wore a navy blue jumper with a pleated chiffon collar top, a blue scalloped skirt and a triangle necklace.

This outfit is very much my aesthetic! I am complete sucker for a pretty collar!

This is a photo of the outfit I took at the Doctor Who exhibition! Yes, I stood next to the costume!

Here is a close up of the collar, jumper and necklace.

 And here's my version of it!
My jumper was a Zara one I bought for a few pounds second hand and the navy pleated collar comes from an Urban Outfitters top I also bought for £2. The necklace is indeed the same necklace and I bought it from someone for £2 second hand!  Obviously, my version is a simple match but I very much like it!

Now all I need is a pretty blue scalloped skirt!

Hope you are well!

xx

Daisies forever.

 Daisies are one of my happy things. I think that is true of many people.  We remember long Summers playing on school fields making daisy-chains- the innocence and the lack of responsibility of childhood is synonymous with these ubiquitous flowers. My school had a vast field considering its suburban background and my memories seem to be filled with Summer upon Summer of idyllic times spent upon that field. I work near my old school and I am still filled with excitement when I see it now. Even though it has had some building on it, school places being extremely lacking in that borough, it is still astonishingly large for the area!

 I remember the searching for this dress (I'd seen it advertised on Matalan) led me to discover the lovely Laura, blogger at www.adaisychaindream.com - I searched for Daisy dress and found her blog- so consequently, when I wear this, I think of her!  When I wore this a week ago or so, I decided to wear this collared dress as a top with a black skirt: 1) because I wanted to give it a different look and 2) it really is rather short!

 Don't know WHY I decided to jump but behold the manic facial expressions as one tries to achieve great heights with the self-timer.  You're welcome. I think a skirt which fits my waist better AND higher would have looked better so this is something else to experiment with at a later date.  The mustard cardigan here, bought from Mistraal in Wallingford a few years ago has ended up being a real workhorse in my wardrobe this year so far- it has been worn pretty much weekly since January.

I'd better leave this here.  Things to do....

Take care,

Kezzie xx

Style Imitating Art- Mon mon cats

Monmon Cats painting of Kuazaki Horitomo.

Greetings!

Hope you are well!

All is fine here.  I have returned from a delightful weekend at my Dad's.  SO wonderful to spend time with him and my family, particularly lovely to have lots of time with him! He's so patient and kind, he inspires me!

As they dropped me back at the station, I found one of those old pianos you can play in the station and I sat playing tunes at it for 5 minutes. I played a song called 'Refiner's fire' or Purify my heart by Brian Doerkssen which I know from church and a minute or so later, one of the workers at that station came up to me and smiled and asked if I was playing 'Refiner's fire' - it made her happy to hear it. I departed on that train with a smile on my face.

Today, here is my outfit for the Style Imitating Art challenge with Salazar

Of course, when I saw that the picture featured a white cat with some black features, it was a no-brainer that I wear my Miss Patina cat collar blouse (errrrr, one of my 4 Miss Patina cat blouses...)

I decided to pair it with this black and white stripy River Island pinafore dress

 As I added my home-made shrink-plastic cat brooch (which I originally made for a Doctor Who cosplay), I felt that I was missing a splash of colour so I decided to add this red lady tie under the cat collar for a pop of colour and I'd already got on my red slingback pumps.

 Had it been a colder day, I might have added grey tights and I was going to wear my Erstwilder message in a bottle brooch as an allusion to the bottles in the background but forgot in the end.  Never mind, I was pleased with my look anyway.

How might you have interpreted this painting as an outfit?  Leave a comment and tell me what you'd wear from your wardrobe! And head over to Salazar for tomorrow's Round-up to see what everyone else did!

xxx

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

5 brooches #54

Hello there!

I hope your Saturday was blessed with being a halcyon day of sunshine like mine was...despite the headache, I enjoyed a pleasant walk in the woods with CBC and our friend, then dinner in a pub and a silly film night.

Back home now, trying to catch up on broochage over the past month!

This pair of brooches was really awkward to photograph ON so I took the jumper off to photograph! This owl is my favourite of all my Erstwilder brooches- he has such a benevolent facial expression.  The heart is part of a pair of collar clips from Punkypins...

This set of brooches and earrings used as collar clips was from a while back... The earrings are charity-shopped and the owl and Niffler pins from Rosebud Casson and Hannah Hitchman respectively..

The Perfect pin badge came from Primark as part of a set of £6 pins reduced to £1 for the lot. I ended up with two sets so i wore them as collar clips.

Bit of a Doctor Who, Clara Oswald cosplay here as these are the genuine screen accurate collar clips she wears in 'The Caretaker'.  I've liked them for a long time but not bought them. It was only when Lady Bird Likes' Zoe Bateman announced she was closing her brand and selling off what was left that I saw it was my last chance to get them! And at only £6.00 in the closing down sale, rather than the previous £16.00, it seemed a good opportunity.  I have still not added a button hole to this shirt so I used a planet pin to make this blouse high-necked.

And that's your lot. I am aware there are not 5 brooches here, nor are there 5 photos.  Aw, well, this little series has its name, we'll stick with it, even if it doesn't do what's on the tin!

Any favourites here?

xx

Dinogirl

 Evenin' all!
Hope that your day was enjoyable, happy and fun.
Mine was... ok!

I thought I'd share this dress which I ordered back in October and tell you a bit about it.

I first saw @VintageStyleMe on Instagram back in August.   They handmake dresses to order.   I thought this was a nice idea and had seen this dinosaur print on their dresses.  However, I was going through my, "Noooo, I have too many dresses, must not buy, must not buy!" phases (I wish these won the war most of the time).   Then I read an article on the lady who runs Vintage Style Me's blog where she talked about the difficulty of running an independent clothes business where she has to compete against fast fashion and how she cannot compete with a clothes chain who can sell dresses for £5 or similar.  She wrote about how sometimes, just one sale in a week can save her and allow her to pay her bills etc and selling one dress can be a lifeline.  I can't find the article on the blog, it doesn't seem to be working right now, or I'd link to it.  It was written so eloquently and honestly and stuck in my mind. I kept hearing those words over and over again in my head. More often than not, I buy my clothes second hand or occasionally from brands such as Miss Patina,  Cath Kidston, Palava Folk though I do frequent Primark and Topshop and Asos.

 Still, it remained in my mind for a while every time I saw an Instagram post and I kept looking at the website.  Finally in October, they had a promotion of 40% off any dress which in my mind tells me that I should have bought it full price, since that would support the principle that was running in my mind.  However, I am a sucker for a bargain so I ordered. I went for their 'Design your own dress' option which is a bit more expensive than the 'ready designed' ones. Usually £59. I chose the dinosaur dress and went for a more fitted Skater dress, rather than their ubiquitous smock style which doesn't suit my shape. I am a total collar addict when it comes to my clothes (in case you hadn't noticed) so I opted for a cute collar and cuffs and a slightly longer length.

Bear in mind, it DOES take a while for this option to be made and arrive.  It was posted on around the 21st December when I was in South Africa and it hadn't arrived when I got back from there. I contacted them and said they'd posted it but obviously it had been lost in the post.  They said would make another one which made me feel terrible. My original intent of supporting an independent business had somewhat backfired.

They were really quick and it arrived a week later and here it is.   It is made out of a sort of Barkcloth material- quite textured.  However, wearing it here on that Saturday, somehow I have managed to rip it partially down the back seam.  It seems to have frayed there after my doing that. I did hear a rip noise when I was pulling down my sleeves (you know when 3/4length sleeves get stuck by your elbows and you're putting on a cardigan).  I hope to do something about it.

Nonetheless, despite the comedy of errors, it is a nice dress and very different and I am very glad to have ordered it.

I added dinosaur collar clips in case you didn't realise!

Do you buy independent?

xxx

5 brooches #53

Evenin' all! 

I hope all is shiny and bright and bushy-tailed in your home!

As I write, I am at my first orchestra rehearsal since November!  We are playing Hadyn's Surprise symphony which I am rather gleeful to play as I've never played the proper version, only a primary school version.  It's the one with a big surprise at the end of a phrase...

I adore playing music from the Classical era (1780-1820) as it has such sumptuous melodies and such a light buoyant feel!  Think Mozart and Hadyn!

Play it as you are reading! It will brighten any mood!

Anyway...onto the broochage.

Here's yesterday's book dress but with a different top and brooch.  Drink tea and read books. Yes please!

Double broochage here for the eagle-eyed.  A balloon and a tiny cactus on my favourite tank top.

My trusty old DIY Scrabble brooches giving a little inspiration!

Finally,a pair of pins for my lapels...both presents. The violin was a Christmas present from my penpal Lucy and the heart-shaped one from my Deputy Head teacher!  She buys great presents!!!

xx