Outfit- We're going on a bear hunt!

I know it's not Christmas anymore, but I have ONE more outfit I didn't share!

Technically, I wore it in November though so it doesn't QUITE count as a Christmas outfit.

My orchestra puts on a concert especially aimed at children.  For the first 10 years of doing this, the wonderful Kathy Clugston from Radio 4 used to be our narrator- she's best pals with our principal Clarinet player (and she told me I was her favourite flautist!) but she moved to Belfast a couple of years ago so we had to do without her.  The main piece in the programme was Ian Stephens' We're going on a bear hunt based on Michael Rosen's story and David Benson Phillips' Playschool original version of this.  We performed it with Kathy a few years ago- there's a picture of me hugging the bear in the blog post I did.  This time, we were asked to wear All Black with sparkles. I was disappointed as this is usually my opportunity to wear my coloured posh dresses.

Still, I DID have something slightly subversive to wear.  Remember my red velvet dress I recently found in the charity shop?  Well, at the time, it was also accompanied by a Black velvet version with a white collar embroidered with snow flakes.

I decided to get away with wearing that.

To add sparkle, I wore my silver sparkly Lorelai L-Q star earrings AND to match the theme- a glittery bear brooch!

I wore this with my trusty Clarks Brogue books (this was their inaugural outing actually).

It was a fun, comfortable outfit to wear.  We went out for a meal at Nusa Dua, an Indonesian restaurant near Leicester Square after the concert so it transported well into an evening out- I hope!!

What do you think?

xx

Christmas outfits 2009 #2- the charity-shopped velvet dress

In a week of outfits, I thought I'd share yet another one of my Christmas garments which are being let out for good behaviour!

I swear I only ran into the charity shop for a quick glance. I'd been to the library 2 weeks ago and I went to have a look in the Essex ambulance charity shop in the town square.  In there, I found two beautiful brand-new velvet Christmas dresses from Hellbunny in my size. at £5 each, when these were still available at £30+ each, it seemed a temptation too good to ignore.

A dress doesn't need too much styling- it's most of the outfit but I thought I'd share how I wore it to a birthday party for our friends' 2-year old at their house.

 The dress is a beautiful wine-red velvet with candy cane and foliage detailing on the collar.
I wore it with black leggings and my Clarks men's burgundy brogue boots.
It seemed a wonderful opportunity to wear my genuine 1930's red velvet cap to go with it and finally, some pretty mirrored green star earrings from Lorelai LQ

A dark velvet dress reminds me greatly of childhood dresses.  That's no reason not to wear one!  I'm a great one for nostalgia!

xx

Sun dress

So many of my favourite items of clothing are second-hand, I don't know why I am still surprised by it. I live in an area where clothing is disposed of after little use and people seem to bin what I like! I am not complaining.

Here's a picture of me from holiday in Tuscany in the garden of our villa.  I am wearing a Henry Holland dress (charity shopped) and it was such a good fabric for a dress on such a muggy day. A light cotton Broderie Anglaise.  We had a massive rain and thunderstorm a few hours after taking these which was a welcome relief. I was very much revelling in being able to get my hair up in a neat bun that day. Neat for me. I am not good at hair.

I'm not sure I'll get to wear this much more this year, more's the pity!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Sleep No More Clara...with a cameo from Ang Almond!

Today, I am excited to share a completely updated cosplay with you!
It is a particular favourite outfit of mine worn by my favourite Clara Oswald! It's a combination of things I love: a Peter Pan collar, navy blue, turquoise blue, a cute skirt and a pretty necklace! It is worn in a very weird and scary episode entitled, Sleep No More.

My photo from the Doctor Who Experience

You can see I have attempted this outfit twice before:
Here, I only showed the top half.
Here, I did the whole outfit.
It's quite an expensive outfit were one to have bought the elements new.  The collared top underneath and the skirt are from a French designer called Claudie Pierlot and they are quite pricey. The Merino wool jumper is from Gap and is fairly expensive. The shoes, not pictured, are from Other Stories which is, again, expensive and finally the necklace is the only relatively cheap part which is from various high-street shops including River Island, H&M, Topshop etc.

Image borrowed from Worn on TV

A lot of DIY has gone into my updated version of this outfit and I am grateful to another Cosplay, Katie, who bought the same skirt and did a DIY project on it which gave me the idea, other cosplayers who IDed items and then the wonderful Ang Almond who has customised two items from this outfit for me!

I am super proud of this outfit!  

Let's talk about the 'boring' elements of it first.
I've worn the same Screen-accurate necklace both times I have featured this outfit and I was fortunate to buy this one for £3 plus postage from someone second-hand.
The jumper is also Screen-accurate which I didn't have last time I did this. I happened to find it on eBay brand new in my size and I paid about £20 for it. It's a lovely warm jumper.
I don't have her shoes but I am wearing another pair of screen accurate shoes of Clara's in the picture.
Now onto the exciting bits which Ang helped with:

Both the top and the skirt are very hard to come by.
The top is distinctive for its pleated collar.
I found 2 M&S navy blue crew-neck t-shirts in the charity shop that were brand new with tags at least a year ago and I also found a Neck navy blue pleated vest top in the charity shop which was in a really similar pleated material so I bought it intending to try and fashion a collar out of it at some point. I mentioned in my sort of "Things I want to do this year post" and Ang, who had volunteered to embroider Question marks on my shirt for a previous cosplay offered to do this for me. I was so grateful!  I think that the top wasn't being as helpful as it could be, she told me in the card she sent along with the finished article.  She made me 2 of the t-shirts as I had bought 2 of them and it seemed a shame to cut the top up for just one collar so I have a spare.  Alas, I can't seem to get it to lie properly when I put it over the top of the jumper!

The second item which Ang helped with was the skirt. Trying to find a match for Clara's skirt is quite difficult. I wore a plain blue scallop skirt from ASOS but then I discovered a white skirt with black patterning by Missguided.  I managed to find a girl selling the skirt AND a matching jacket (donated to charity) for £4 and then I bought a Posca paint pen and then proceeded to colour the skirt in with it!  It was one of those tasks that you start and think, "WHY on earth did I think this would be a good idea?" but since I'd started, I had to finish! I made sure I was doing it at times that were otherwise dead times like when I was waiting for CBC at Snozone in Milton Keynes and on a journey in the car to Oxford and so that made it all more bearable. It was extremely irritating though as the nib kept catching on what was quite fibrous, fluffy material!  Eventually it was done though though, it took so long and I did have to keep going over it to try and make it less blotchy. It actually looks worse in pictures than it does in real life luckily. If I wanted to spend any more time and money on it, I could get another pen and touch it up but I don't really want to! My friend used 3 pens on hers and it looks the perfect colour!!
Ang, then amazingly, managed to add navy material to the bottom in slightly larger scallops to mimic the skirt of Clara. I'm not sure how she did it so neatly. My friend did her own one and it doesn't look nearly so neat!

You can see Ang's post, her own TARDIS Tuesday, where she writes about how she did it!
Thank you SO much Ang for being such a huge part of this cosplay!  The kindness of blog friends never ceases to astound me.

What do you think?

x

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

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

5 brooches #44

Brooches, brooches, brooches. Roll up, roll up, roll up!

 On this day for school, I was aiming for Pirate chic with a stripy top and a scarf round my neck.  The message in a bottle from Erstwilder plus the first brooch I think I ever owned, a parrot brooch bought by a family friend when I went through my parrot obsession aged 10!

I wore these cactus pin badges on my lapels but this was the only photo I remembered to get. 

Luckily, I just threw the dirty top on the spare room floor (slattern...), so I could grab it to try and take a slightly better (only slightly) photo.

 I've had this pearl leaf brooch for over a year now, purchased in a charity shop for less than a pound (possibly year and a half) but I have not worn it due to the fact that the catch was bent so I couldn't get the pin out.  CBC solved this by pulling it up with the prong of a fork so I wore it for my concert...

This is the Macmillan cancer charity brooch from this year, designed by Tatty Devine.  I admired Mum's and asked her if she would pick me one up if there was another one in her local M&S- mine didn't have them). She very kindly gave me hers so she would get another one. I paid her for it. Hope she managed to get one!

Any good brooch vibes going on for you this week?

xx

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

Watermelon collar

 It has been so delightful this week to be able to wear summer dresses! I've had a mad week with late evenings. The school concert on Monday (went very well), Exhibition evening last night (also went well). I thought I'd share one of my outfits.
This is one of my many Closet London dresses. It is now sunny enough to wear them without a blouse underneath!
I wanted to wear this cute collar from @fairytalecollars on Instagram.  I wanted a watermelon one for ages! So cute!

 It's hard to believe that I only have 2.5 days left at school this year! Crazy in fact!

 Not much else to say today!!!

Hope all is well with you and thank you for your kind comments!

xx

Red and Blue

Greetings! Interrupting my long stream of German holiday reminiscences for some lurid pattern-mixing! Just a quick post as I am grappling with 3 part counterpoint.  I am doing something mad this Saturday and I know it is not going to end well because the thing I am doing, you don't do with only one week to try and teach yourself all the facets in order to pass this. But I am doing it anyway. And probably going to fail. But at least I am having a go and trying to be some of not-wasteful as it were. If I don't mention it again, you can assume I've failed it.  

Of course, I am procrastinating because when something is hard, you try to avoid it.

So, better get to it or at least back to it!

Going for some TARDIS-blue happiness here with Tiger beret, Primark cardie, Tesco-skirt and charity-shopped collared top. All very bright at least very cheery!

Wish me luck!

xx

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!!

The Buyer's archive 2- April 2016

Hi there!

Joining with my second edition of the Buyer's archive with Elise and some other lovely ladies!

I thought this would be a good way to make my look at my spending (and hopefully shame me into spending less!). I thought it would but it seems this month, I did worse than last month- I truly and utterly went mad! Honestly don't know what went wrong with me! On the flip side of it, I got some incredible bargains!

Onto the shame:

 I went to TK Maxx with my sister after going out for dinner at the end of the Easter holidays and bought her some running gear as a birthday present. As I was looking, I spied this light denim shirt by SH Denim which was reduced to £13.00.  I also bought this shirt in the Helen Rollason charity shop for £4.25 from Next that week. Didn't need either but have already worn both a few times. Both fit really well.

The next few items were all bought in old my local Barnado's - they ALWAYS have really nice things in there- that's where I bought my tap shoes.

 The Newlook white collared top was £2.49 and I thought it was a great staple top for work in the summer when I want to wear a skirt with a sleeveless top (we're not allowed to wear strappy tops). I lack basics for summer like this as I always go for patterns.
To demonstrate the above point, this George floral and polka dot top was £1.99.

 I made a bee-line for these polka-dots. I can spot a me-pattern a mile off,hidden amongst items. This skirt was so pretty- mint polka dots, coral scalloped hem, red waist-band AND pockets- brand new with tags. Only £1.99!

The next item was probably my item of the month. I saw this Emily & Fin dress hiding amongst a whole selection of beautiful Monsoon dresses and I was so excited as I had loved this dress when I saw it on A Million Dresses blog. Emily & Fin dresses are made of 100% cotton, fully lined with pockets.I already have this dress in a different print. I couldn't believe it still had its £65 price-tag on. At £9.99, it was more than an average charity-shop dress price but it was a great saving on the original price!

As I was paying, I saw this necklace hanging on the pin-board and I saw it as something I could butcherize into a cute set of punctuation brooches! I don't wear big chunky chains like this but 99p for 5 potentially cute brooches-hurrah! They are all sparkly or mirrored!

 I thought that was it for the month.  I wish I hadn't been so weak..

That was the end of my Barnados splurge!

 The next item was from Age Concern and I really didn't need it. It still had its £17.99 price tag and cost £4.99. I thought this one was a better dupe for my Caretaker Clara cosplay so bought it. Probably shouldn't have but they let me in after they weren't supposed to and I felt somewhat obliged to buy something!

I'd totally forgotten about this purchase. I bought this Deer Arrow set of brooches for £4.50 + £2.00P&P from Ebay.

The last purchase was from Donna's instagram- a brand new Lindy-bop dress covered in retro TV's and radios. £18 posted.

The total is not as bad as I thought at  £64.19 but when you are saving for a house (and you have WAY too many clothes), it's much more than I should have.  Plus I bought a fair few books which I'll share in another post.

What have you bought this month?

If you head over to Elise's blog, she will let you know who is taking part in the Buyer's archive.

Here's Hazel's .  By the way, I am aware that I am somehow indirectly responsible for other participants' purchases this month! Oops, sorry Donna and Hazel!!

xx

Beige

 Beige gets a bad press amongst us who blog clothes on l'internet.  There's a whole anti-beige movement due to the rather bland nature of it and the sense that a certain age you are expected to dress blandly and beigely. I confess, though I haven't openly joined the anti-beige brigade (because some people LIKE it, I'm not going to judge.It SUITS some people), I am not fond of it as it makes me look sallow and washed out and *whispers*, sometimes can make people look like they have no clothes on in it.  But it's ok on this caramelly hat and on the cuffs of this Orla Kiely dress.
I think Julie asked to see the dress as you caught a glimpse in a past 5 brooches!

 I confess, I have ummed and ahed about whether to keep this Orla dress over time- it's not typically and obviously Orla plus it is rather like a sack on me. But the fact it is 100% cotton, very, very comfortable and has a Peter Pan collar has kept it in my wardrobe.

How do you feel about beige?

Dress Orla Keily x Uniglo
Wedges- Clarks originals
Belt and hat- Primark

Blanket cover

 It's been a long time since I wore TARDIS blue overtly.Voila, TARDIS blue in profusion!  I wasn't going to make the mistake I made last Sunday with church being freezing so I pulled out the big guns with this vintage blanket skirt. I wasn't cold. Result.

 And I find it hard to find things to wear these Irregular Choice, Poetic Licence shoes with so a minute bit of yellow was my cue!

 I really enjoyed church this morning.  We had a visitor from the cathedral who talked on going from being a disciple to an apostle.   I think one of my favourite books of the Bible is 2 Timothy which he read from.  It was the source of the first Christian song I wrote and even now, I read it and think of how encouraging its message it is.  Paul was encouraging a young Timothy in his walk with faith in Christ.  Encouragement is something really important to give each other.
Being an apostle is taking that step from following to sharing your message of faith.

It's so easy not to take the time to encourage, whether as a Christian or not.  You doubt your own self and abilities and it can be easy to forget to encourage other people in whatever.  Telling someone they are doing something well, that they can do it, telling them of the good things that have happened to you, and encouraging them in new paths. Telling someone you are praying for them, offering help and time.  A church friend has been a great source of encouragement for me this month in his family's selflessness in offering CBC and I a place to rent.

You here encourage me.  I think the encouragement that we as bloggers can give each other is very important.  Shamu, a regular commenter on this blog, has show through his poetry on his blog, that he has a constant struggle with acceptance and friendship in life (I hope you don't mind me saying that) and frequently shows gratitude for the encouragement he receives. Reciprocally, he is very, very good at encouraging people through comments, kindness and appreciation, even if his tights excitement is a little bit on the edge! :)  Lovely Laura, at Daisychain dream has struggled with eating disorders over the years, and I know as blog friends, the fact she trusts us to tell us of the struggles is an encouragement to us and we should encourage her in her journey.  Ally is finding her path presenting as a female and our encouragement of her in this is so important to building confidence. I've mentioned before, that Ally is a hugely important force of encouragement and good in the blogging world.  I could go on, but I suspect I will lose you. Every one I have come across in blogging needs encouragement. Encouragement to continue, encouragement for energy, for time and for struggles they have encountered. It is a privilege to be able to make a little contribution towards those struggles with a word here or there.

I've met a lovely new blogger this week, Ellie at This Country Girl's journal (I was her first commenter!) please go and say hi and comment on her blog to encourage her in her first month of blogging!

I hope all is well with you. Is there anything you need encouragement for? Or is there anything I can pray for? Just let me know!

xxx

Off to link up with lovely Patti who is the original encourager of beautiful bloggers everywhere with her link Visible Monday. I'm also glad it is Hat Attack with beautiful Judith because I am wearing my favourite Cloche that CBC gave me for Christmas 2 years ago!