Pretty Pastels And Florals From Primark

This weekend we took a day trip down to Southampton, my mum stock up at Fabric Land there for her sewing business and they have great shopping there. We also have family there which is why we go so much, otherwise it'd be a long trip for lycra. It was really hot all weekend but especially Saturday, and while I'm trying to snap out of dressing for winter 24/7 I still find myself wearing black jeans and cardigans almost constantly. As I did that day, black jeans, black strap top and black and pink mini kimono - which was light, but still.

So after we got four huge bags of lycra we dumped the bags at my brother's place and headed to Primark. I spent four years of my life working there, some at this store actually so going in midday on a Saturday does not worry me. I know how to shop in Primark, I know how it lives and how it works...I know where the good clothes hide and how the sizing works. Something, I probably shouldn't be too proud of but I am, it's like a marathon and if you don't take it seriously - you won't survive. 

It's nearing the end of the month but I still couldn't resist spending £57 on a few items of clothing but mainly accessories. The first item I found was a blue skirt which fell just below the knee, and I mean 'just'. The thighs don't really come out often so this skirt covers them just enough that I won't wear tights. I love the vintage cute and fullness of this skirt (£10), it also has a pretty and subtle floral pattern which gives it a nice bit of texture without looking like curtains...although I'd still wear a skirt made from old curtains. 

I've seen some prom dresses by Scarlett & Jo in Evans which I love the look of, but want something a bit lighter for the day so tried to re-create the vibe of the look. I found some of their basic round neck tops for £3.50 each which sits really nicely under the skirt. It also covers a good amount of my chest without any spillage - always a bonus, but still looks flattering.

I've always stayed away from belt, why? No idea! But I'm definitely a lover of waist belts. I picked up these beauties from £1 to £2.50 each. I'm not going to lie, I bought a couple of these because they're Figaro colours...the others because they'd look pretty with some of my rockabilly dresses. I teamed the outfit with the back and gold bow belt, it fits really well and is really cute. Must find other things to wear the others with! 

A few of the other things I bought were two chunky floral and pastel necklaces. They make quite a statement and not normally something I would go for but I think they're really summery and WILL make an effort to wear more jewellery. I love the wire headband I picked up, I have a couple proper ones at home but this was a nice light one to wear, I have a weird shaped head and the bigger ones can often shift around but I'm hoping this one holds a bit better.

 

One of my favourite purchases was this mint satchel bag, again, most of what I bought was to match my car. I have zero shame and I don't care. I will not be happy until I find a mint coloured dress with the perfect cut...but I may just make one. 

I bought a few other little essentials that weren't noteworthy but I find that place so good for all the little thing, there are gems there but you do have to hunt if you're not a size ten and 5"8 to get things to fit as you want when you have a particular idea like I did. Luckily, I found exactly what I was looking for. We also stopped for a quick bite to eat at a new American style diner Buzz in Southampton, do the biggest portion of non-sharing wings I've seen, alco milkshakes and epic burgers. My favourite was the chef's gourmet special - anything with a slab of goat's cheese is a winner in my books. 

There were also these amazing wedding cars on Above Bar Street...totally want something
like this in my life.

Hopefully there'll be more posts of me looking like an actual girl...probably still in black.

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Mesh Sleeve M & Co Prom Dress and Victory Rolls

This weekend I had a leaving do to go to so of course I wanted something new to wear. I did have it in my mind that I wasn't going to spend any money but it wasn't completely out of the question...

I went into town in the morning with the Mothership for breakfast and to get some bits and she was looking for a dress so we went into M & Co. I'll be honest it would never usually have been my first choice of shop. No particular reason I just never venture far from Primark or New Look. I'm still in a student mentality where anything over £15 is just too much.  However, the last few times we've been there I have awe struck by the gorgeous dresses but didn't really have an excuse to buy one. They actually fit me too, getting anything in high street stores to fit a bust over a D cup can prove difficult. 

So when we were having a little browse I happened to find myself in the sale area and walking myself to the changing rooms with this beautiful little number. I love it because it reminded me a little of the style of dress Adele wore the the Brits when she sang 'Someone Like You', not that I remember or anything... I'm also a sucker for a black rockabilly dress.

 Sorry about dodgy Instagram photo

It was £30 in the sale down from £49, which considering it's labelled as a prom dress, is pretty decent in my books. The dress itself falls just below the knee, my favourite kind. It was light but still had a lot of body in the full skirt with an almost faux petticoat and had a lovely sweetheart neckline. I'm one of those who don't like their upper arms out too much so to find one with a mesh top with sleeves was perfect. Polkadots are my favourite pattern so that was a winner straight away and it also came with it's own belt to tie into a bow which was handy as I find I do need to belt dresses and my bust is bigger than my waist so I need to pull it in to keep its shape.

The zip went up really easily, I did need a second pair of hands to do the button at the top but I do think I could have done it up myself if I didn't have a second pair available. I just love the dress - and after seeing it on instagram one of my lovely followers snapped it up too! The only thing I had to add was a little modisty panel to my bra as I can be a little booby and it was a works do I wasn't sure how they'd hold up so I added it just in case. I'm starting to love sharing outfit posts so hopefully I'll continue to get braver. I get a lot of inspiration from the gorgeous Fuller Figure Fuller Bust - check her out, total lady crush. 

I teamed the dress with red lipstick, victory rolls and red heels. The lipstick is from the Kate Moss collection by Rimmel shade 1 (£3.99) outlined with Barry M's red lip liner (£2.99). I've started to team these two together and I'm loving the shape and full colour they give. I do like to have the choice to rub a lipstick off and this isn't one that will stay on and you have to practically scratch off your lips with a brillo pad (make up remover wipes usually do the trick though!), but it does hold up extremely well. 

Excuse the shameless selfies... #sorrynotsorry #yesihastaggedthat

For my victory rolls I usually use V05 Plump It Up Dry Backcomb Spray (£3.79) and go to town on it. I wanted a smoother look as I have noticed it can look a little wispy in places so I bought some V05 Soft Moulding Wax (£2.99) which actually way pretty good. I always think of wax as a product only boys use, but I found it helped with a bit of structure to the rolls and helped me control them a bit better. I was also able to brush it out when I woke up bleary eyed in the morning from the night before and could leave my friend's house to get to mine without looking like a total psycho indulging in a bath and collapsing in bed.

I always use Eye Studio® Lasting Drama™ Gel Eyeliner In Blackest Black by Maybelline (7.99), it's the only way I get my winged eyeliner shape and I like the control it gives, it also lasts all day which is always a winner. One pot usually lasts me about six months and I wear it every day sometimes re-applying if I'm going out so you can't argue with that. 

I do need to find some new heels though, these were just cheap ones I found online and when heading for the taxi one of the heels broke off! Luckily I have some flats in my bag so I didn't have to do the crazy tipsy uneven walk to the taxi rank, but I do need to find some that aren't too high but also have a strap across the top - any ideas?

This basically gives you an idea of how the night went...

 

Red Stag, my FAVOURITE

 

Image credits - Superdrug

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My First Week Of Summer

It's not even the weekend at the week has been pretty good so far if counting from last friday. The sun is finally out, I've been able to put the roof down in the Figaro (Elvis) almost every day which has been brilliant and when you have a convertible is kind what you live for. 

Sometimes it's the simple things in life...like making your own hair clip. I've ordered some bits from Janine Basil which I can't wait to turn up, check her out I'll do a post when I get them. It got me inspired to make my own so I used an only cherries patch and I just glued it to a crocodile clip and it worked pretty well I must say! Looks very good done up with my victory rolls. I wore it out to drinks with my friend and it looked pretty sharp, I won't lie.

On the Saturday I saw my cousin for a couple of hours and she was visiting for the weekend to see One Direction so I met her for lunch. I also managed to pick up some bits from Primark and this cute dress which only cost £7 in the sale, no bad! I just can't wear short dresses so it's nice to see some slight longer lengths being stocked. The sun was out again so couldn't resist a quick selfie 

with Big Ben. 

I wasn't very well on Sunday so I didn't do much but we did start watching Orange Is The New Black so that's what I'll be doing for a little while, it is my new obsession. I did however clean my car in the morning and I quickly put up the new sun screen I got for my car...come on, you gotta love it!

I got the new Passenger vinyl delivered this week which is simply STUNNING! I will have to do a post just for that on it's own, the sound is beautiful and the artwork is gorgeous, never been so in love with a vinyl sleeve. 

Couldn't resist posting a classic dinner photo, I will never be able to be a vegetarian, I mean seriously look at them.  Ribs from The Golden Lion in St Ives.

I picked up these little beauties in Tesco has anyone else tried them? I'm not too good with lipstick for day wear and get on much better with tinted lip balms like these Maybelline Baby Lips, I bought Pink Punch, Cherry Me and Peach Kiss. They're really moisturising and taste great, new addition to the satchel.  Have a great weekend coming up no doubt there'll be pictures coming soon!

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Blue Dot Donuts, New Orleans

In America we all had certain things we all wanted to devour. For my brother it was ribs, my mum wanted fried green tomatoes and I wanted crawfish. My sister-in-law however really only wanted one thing while we wanted dozens, she wanted doughnuts. There had been a lot of research and one play my brother found on Tripadvisor with good reviews was Blue Dot Donuts in New Orleans on 

Canal Street, so there we had to go. We also discovered it was owned by three policemen, and there was even a policeman in there...we're such losers we wanted to take pictures of the poor man.

We took the trolley up, it only took about 15 minutes and was super easy, and let me tell you - you see some sights. It was brilliant as you start to go through some of the neighbourhoods and it's so interesting to see local guys coming on and off, love to people watch. The trolley stopped right by the shop and as soon as we crossed over to walk in a total stranger shouted over 'Buy some donuts! They're amazing!', as if we needed any more encouragement, we practically broke into a run. Crazy British (and one Norwegian) people that we are, when you see doughnuts from anywhere other than Greggs, you run. We had heard that they run out by 11am sometimes so we were there for 10am, not even that hungry after breakfast but we weren't going to miss out.

The shop itself is a cute little bright blue house, and it just sucks you in. We literally were like kids in a sweet shop. I have to be honest, the rest of us weren't too bothered about getting doughnuts, that is until you walk into the friendliest shop in the word and get the best service, things soon change. And the hunger awakens. 

So in we walked, totally confused on how things worked, no real reason I think we were just overwhelmed by the sheer amazingness of it all, yeah, that's a word. There were so many flavours we had to be talked through it a couple of times, I think they thought we were quite funny - you know the 'it's so fluffy' girl in Despicable Me? Yeah...that was us.

The first doughnut (I say first, because there were of course more to follow) I chose was the maple bacon log. By the point I was totally converted to maple syrup and I'm a strong believer in putting bacon with baking and wish England did it more. It was a good choice, no, an epic choice. So sweet I felt my fingers turning into sticks of rock but then you get hit by the saltyness of the bacon and it's just - wow, stupidly delicious. By now I was already overloaded with sugar by choosing one of the biggest dougnuts, I then of course needed to buy a box...yes I absolutely did. 

We met the owner, who I believe was called Ron, I did write the names of everyone down but I of course lost it. He was really lovely, kept giving us freebies just to try because we were so in awe of it all. He was so proud to show off their products, we actually had to refuse some in the end. Although he did give us a HUGE, and I mean a HUGE apple crisp cake donut.

 I'm pretty sure the box I bought only cost me something ridiculous like $3.50, I mean really?! I probably would have paid that for one, they got a big tip from us. We must have stayed for an hour just chatting to them, one of the bakers came down and showed me his dough boy tattoo..that's a true story. I just loved it there they were brilliant. 

 

I chose a blueberry iced, apple crisp, chocolate iced cake with peanuts, chocolate iced with rainbow sprinkles and then a couple of handfuls of donut holes - powdered sugar, apple fritter bites, cinnamon sugar, glazed and chocolate dough glazed.

Look they even do dog treats!

I so wish there were places like that here, don't get me wrong, we do have Krispy Kreme so it's not just doughnuts from Tesco, but that sort of customer experience doesn't exist here. Open a UK branch! I'll run it for you! I'd be lying if that one visit didn't make me want to move there and help them make doughnuts all day long....sigh.

Run, walk, ride, drive or fly like we did, just GO, seriously. Go now. 

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