TARDIS Tuesday- Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

It's been quite a few weeks since I partook in a TARDIS Tuesday post. I've been so busy and the weather has not made it easy to choose one of the outfits but today, I am returning to a favourite Clara outfit worn in Series 7 by Jenna Coleman. Last worn on the blog in July 2022

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

The print on this dress is of sequins but looks like flames, molten lava and all sorts from a distance!

 I love this collar dress and it will probably remain my 2nd favourite Clara outfit apart from her tartan Hobbs dress.  It looks very creased here! Ooops!  

I've worn this as my Christmas dress for quite a few Christmasses but never out to a Summer engagement due to the synthetic nature of the material.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- The Husbands of River Song

Hello there!

Hope you are well!

This week is a busy one for me with rehearsals, school events and concerts every day and in fact, this continues into next week as well!

I am performing with Orchestra of the City on Friday in Holborn. It's the first time I have performed with the orchestra- my friend Debbie plays flute 2 with them and she asked me which I'm really pleased about!   We received an email on Saturday saying that the dress code was 'All Black with Sparkle'.

This made me very happy because I have a few contenders for this (actually cosplay related in several places) which would fulfil this criteria.

The first one of these is worn by River Song, played by Alex Kingston, in a Doctor Who Christmas special from a few years ago and is very sparkly and beautiful!

theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho

BBC Doctor Who Twitter

Although it is not completely black, I think you would get away with wearing this for a concert with the dress code.

I have not actively collected River Song clothing, it's often a bit too over the top and glam for me but I saw someone (who is a musician!) wear this dress on Instagram and I thought that I would love to own this as I would get use out of it for concerts and I thought the shape would work for me.  However, I didn't really ever search for it as I knew it was originally an expensive dress.

A couple of months ago, something made me have a search for it on Vinted and I found this one, priced at £5.00.  It was a size 12 which I wondered about. I am more of a 10 (sometimes 8, depending on stretch) on my top half but bottom half,am more of a 12.  I decided that at £5.00 (plus about £4.00 extra including postage and buyer protection), I could probably take a punt on it.  It arrived and I tried it on. AH, I loved how it looked but it is quite roomy on me though because it has formed cups over the chest area, I can get away with it though I would prefer to fill out those cups for it to feel totally secure.

I tried it on Saturday night in advance of the concert (still haven't decided on which I will wear) and CBC loved it!

It has quite a daring back so you can't really get away with wearing a bra underneath. I think you can see it's a bit big here.

I feel super glam here!  Should I go with this one, feeling a bit big (could always wear a short-sleeved black cardie on top) or should I go with something which fits me a bit better!

If I find this in a 10 or 8 at a reasonable price, I would definitely buy it!

Hope you are well!

x

TARDIS Tuesday- Spyfall!

This week for TARDIS Tuesday, I decided to revisit a cosplay (last seen in May 2020) which was begging to make use of my parched garden as a backdrop since the original was set in South Africa!

It was an outfit worn for the party of a millionaire in a very James Bond episode. As you can see, all the characters donned their own version of James Bond's suave outfit.  I'm focusing on Yaz's one on the left:

Image borrowed from:
http://www.multiversitycomics.com/tv/doctor-who-spyfall-part-1/

Image borrowed fromL
https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/yasmin-khan-spyfall-pt-1-and-2-bow-necklace/

She wears:

• Sequin jacket with satin lapels and tie by Paul Smith
• Reiss white scallop neck top (IDed by me!!!!!!!!!!)
• Tiffany Bow necklace
• Black trousers
• Black boots

The first item I started with was the sequin jacket.  The real one is very expensive and it's an item that I am unlikely to search for as the one I've got is just as good! My one was from New Look and I found it on eBay for around £5-9 (can't remember what exactly!) 

My blazer had no tie but I still have the black silky dressing gown cord from my teenage dressing gown which worked well!

The top was relatively easy to identify. I looked for a white scalloped top on eBay and found the screen accurate one as the scallop lace detail about the neckline is quite distinctive.  It's quite a glamorous top and originally cost £125 originally- mine had the original price tags on. So. Much. Money.

That's the only parts of this outfit that were bought especially for the cosplay (and will be good concert items).  The black trousers are those ubiquitous Asos ones that get worn for any skinny jeans or black trousers that are needed and the boots are Clarks Mens desert boots.

I thought I'd make an honourable mention for the necklace. I am wearing a silver cross necklace from Edith May jewellery (made by my friend Annie).  It's not a bow but it has a similar sort of formation and shape. I actually own a Tiffany Cross which in retrospect, I could have worn but I like this one very much!

It was very hot wearing this jacket out in the sunshine but I survived! I ended up keeping my hair like this all day as it felt cool and also makes me feel like a squirrel when I have my ponytail all busy and bouncy!

Would you wear this outfit?  How would you change it to make it more you?!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday meets New Year's eve- triple outfits!

Hello there!

I hope you are well.  Well, it's all a bit crazy, isn't it.  Lockdown again.  My school was due not to open to anyone but key workers for the next 2 weeks anyway as my London borough has one of the highest Covid rates but still, the thought of not being back at school is a bit desolate.  I found online teaching (creating online lessons) hard last time and it was really good to be back in the classroom last term teaching practical music.  In case you are interested, I am taking the Year 5 key worker bubble on Thursdays and Fridays in a jobshare with the French teacher (she will do Mon, Tues, Wed)-we've got to teach the same lessons in person that the class teachers will be teaching via Zoom in person.  It seems we will have 10 children at the moment in year 5 but who knows how that will pan out.

Anyway, I'm feeling too anxious about that to talk about it at the moment so let's go onto something more pleasant:  New year's eve!

As we were about to start a board game, I sat there in my red Cashmere polo neck and jeans and suddenly thought, "I'm blooming well going to dress up!" So, I ran upstairs and in the space of 5 minutes, had changed into...

I started with my charity-shopped blue sequin skirt which hasn't been worn this year yet- I added a black Monsoon v-neck top and a cashmere charity-shopped black shrug.  I added my Esoteric London star tassel necklace and my Lorelai recycled bubblewrap earrings plus some Cobalt and gold peep-toe shoes.

This was lovely and getting dressed up made it feel really extra special.

BUT, after the takeaway, I was really stuffed and the waistband on my skirt is quite tight, so I decided to go for a quick-change into...

I kept the jewellery and shoes and changed into this satin blue jacquard dress. I bought this second hand for £10 from Lorelai who made the earrings a few years ago. MUCH more comfortable. It has a lovely low back which I forgot to photograph.

Later, just before the stroke of midnight, I decided to change one more time into another glam dress...

This dress is my TARDIS Tuesday entry in the trio- it is a a dress very similar to Clara's dress from Mummy on the Orient express. I've yet to have the opportunity to wear it out so this seemed a good one.

Image borrowed from The Ultimate Guide to the Fashion of Doctor Who

As usual, New Year's eve messed up my sleep patterns for the start of the year so that's not the best!

Which of my three outfits is your favourite then and why?  Did you wear your glam rags for a stay at home celebration? I must confess that dressing up glam really did make a difference!

Festive outfit 4: The original Christmas jumper

I intended to share these outfits over the weeks but I somehow got busy, CBC wouldn't let me use his computer and so, despite having uploaded pictures, didn't actually get around to posting them! Since I took them, I might as well actually post them!

Here's my original Christmas jumper- this was bought by my little sister when she worked at Next - we both have it and I love it because it is a very thin, soft cotton sweatshirt material! 

As I've mentioned, I always like to style my Christmas jumpers in a different way than just with  jeans or plain trousers. I've pretty much ALWAYS wear it with a skirt or a dress.

Here, I paired my jumper with my charity-shopped Tartan shirt dress and my charity-shopped Clarks red desert boots and navy leggings. To add a bit of additional sparkle, I added my green-mirrored Lorelai LQ earrings again.

Here, I thought I'd share my previous blog photos of how I have worn the Christmas jumper to prove I tell no lies!

With a Tartan skirt and boots

With polka dot shirt dress and bronze lace-ups

With an African print cotton dress, snowball headband and er...slippers!

Festive outfits 1- Styling a Christmas jumper

I have a work colleague who has enough Christmas jumpers to wear a different one every day in December that we are at school (that's probably about 20?).  My collection is much more limited. I've somehow accrued several Christmas or winter-themed items of clothing over the years- most of these have come second-hand- I think only maybe three items were actually bought new (and one was handmade from an independent maker). I thought it would be fun to try and post about these this week to show how I like to style them.

We had a Christmas jumper day on Wednesday at school as it coincided with our Christmas dinner. I'll share that another day.  Today, I am going to share what I wore on Saturday to a Christmas party we went to in Taplow.  It was a wonderful party- it was so wonderfully me that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was hosted by two friends from our music camp that actually, I don't know so well but got to know better this year as they were the organisers of our camp.  We ate delicious homemade food (including amazing butternut squash chunky soup), we sang a myriad carols from the Carols for Choirs books in sometimes 8party harmony (for at least an hour and a half) and for me this was so special because I haven't been able to do that with a choir for a few years because the churches I went to didn't do that and also because I just keep losing my voice during this season due to overuse and fatigue.  God gave me my voice today for me to enjoy singing! Also, the people at the party were all so nice and my type of people and finally- we played boardgames - Articulate and Snatch (a derivative of Bananagrams) as they are avid boardgame fans. Also, our team won Articulate! Hurrah!

When we have had Christmas jumper days at school, most people combine theirs with jeans. I never do this! I like to style mine differently.

My jumper was from M&S originally and I bought it in the January sales about 4 years ago and its best feature is the big sequinned Christmas bow. To compliment the colours of the bow, I added one of my Clara items- this woolen red Tartan skirt bought second-hand from eBay.  With this, I wore M&S leggings and my Clarks originals red leather desert boots (charity shopped last year) and some Fairisle socks I received as a present a few years ago.  Festive accessories came in the form of red and gold bell earrings and my Rosebud Casson robin necklace (a freebie!)

I decided to share my outerwear like the wonderful Sheila does too.  My F&F duffle coat is another Clara item (secondhand) and my red furry scarf comes from when I used to live in East London.  The red beret was also charity shopped!  I much prefer wearing my Christmas jumper like this rather than just slung over jeans. If you like wearing your Christmas jumper like that, that's brilliant, but I like the creative challenge of trying to combine mine with more varied items!

Comfy and cosy for a Christmas house party!

What do you think?

xx

Advent Calendar Day 12: Christmas glitz

Everyone always talks about their Christmas party outfits.  Since I have a terrible shopping habit anyway, I don't set out to buy anything special for Christmas- I just tend to go through my many clothes to find something for going out.

This Saturday, CBC and I returned from our mortgage meeting (yes, we have had an offer accepted on a house....) with 5 minutes to get ready to go out to the pub with our friends who were picking us up.  

I rifled through my wardrobe and drawers to unearth the following items worn.

I've only worn this beautiful sequinned teal skirt once before- for a Eurovision party.  It was charity-shopped with my flute-girls and they totally persuaded me to buy it as I was worried I might not wear it!  The top is a Bardot-necked top from Monsoon that I paid full-price for about 8 years ago- it's rare I buy full-priced Monsoon.  The shoes are from Asda, a few years ago.  My Punkypins snowflake necklace is the ultimate party glitz.  Although it only took me 5 minutes to put together, I thought it worked quite well.

Tonight (this is written on Sunday), I have a Christmas dinner out with my old church friends so I hope to be wearing something glitsy and fun again. As before, sourced from my many items!

What is your Christmas party outfit this year??

xx

Eurovision revisited!

Howdy! 
I am sorry for a little bit of a boring with my stream of outfitty posts- I've got 2 mammoth book catch-up posts  and the odd few holiday and excursion posts to share but I can't seem to finish them off today! So instead, I thought I'd share my Eurovision day a couple of weeks ago.  A friend always has a Eurovision party which we've enjoyed on several occasions.   He really makes an effort with flags everywhere, score cards and a feast.





I knew that since it was Eurovision, a slightly over the top outfit was the order of the day.  I'd been waiting to wear the amazing teal-sequinned skirt I found in a charity shop a while back and knew that it had to be that! Plus my Crown and Glory purple glitter hair bow.   I'd been wondering what to wear on top and I decided to take Donna at Polka Dot Pink's suggestion to team it with a breton-striped top- you know very Euro!    Of course, the visual theme this year was a building bridges sphere, so my planet Earth necklace seemed appropriate as well as some tacky Irregular Choice shoes!



Finally, I added in a navy blazer that I found with Hazel and Sophie on our charity shop outing. 



We headed off to North London.  The deal is that we all bring a dish or dishes representing a country.  We went for a sort of Euro mezze platter combining items you might find in Greece and the Balkans etc.  These plates made ALL sorts of mess in our house but were very much appreciated.

The baked fennel was really delicious and this comes from someone who HATES fennel!



Here you can see the highlights of the main courses, even before some people arrived with their dishes. Since everyone had made enough for everyone there really was far too much!  I even had a Pimms!



SO much laughter! So much banter and great fun.  Some people were really extreme in their scoring.  One of the guys had a new boyfriend who was from South America and he scored one performance 50 out of 50 and 2 for something else!  My personal favourite was Italy but I really liked our UK Electro Velvet I'm still in love with you.

CBC and I were really excited for the interval act as it was the wonderful Martin Grubinger who we'd seen live at the Lucerne Festival in 2013. It was a shame that more wasn't shown- he is an amazing performer to watch!


I am a relative newcomer to Eurovision- I only watched it for the first time in the year that Norway won with that cute violinist Alexander Rybak who sang I'm in love with a fairytale.  I think it is such fun!  Especially when you have a party with friends!  If you've not experienced Eurovision, I'd say, definitely try it out with friends and a sense of humour!

Do you like Eurovision?
xx