Halloween! Pumpkin Picking, Painting and Sugar

It must be the most be the most basic thing to ever say, but I look Autumn. I pretty much wish that Halloween could be all year round and when I see the leaves start to fall it just makes my little dark heart happy.  

 I always like to have a few Halloween decorations up, bring me all of the pumpkins, the skeleton candles and the cute little lanterns, I’ll use them all. This year we had some of our nieces over to paint some pumpkins, we call this particular group the ‘niece babies’ as they’re the smallest ones. Girl gang goals all day. 

First we had to get some pumpkins, but this time it was my me and the bearded wonder getting it done as it was a bit wet and horrible. We always go to our local pumpkin picking farm, Freshfields. Did I think to wear proper shoes? No. Did I be sensible and let the bearded wonder go and pick them himself whilst I stayed in the car? Also no. I was not going to miss out, wellies or not. I love going to pick them yourself as you get so much more choice of size and colour which is great if you have a specific design idea. It’s usually great for kids as they have stuff going on and you go and get all of those cute pumpkin patch pictures of your kids. I was offering to take pictures of a family doing it as they didn’t have anyone else with, because let’s face it. That’s why we’re all there. Cute pumpkins, cute pictures. 

You know, I really thought it would just be cute when they came around to paint them. Get the niece babies around, do a little Halloween high tea (for the gram, of course) and let’s make some memories! Turns out, getting four little girls together, filling them with sugar and giving them paints was maybe not my best move, but it was fun and I’d like to think it’s something they’ll remember for a while. 

I did a little trick or treat board I saw on Pinterest where you will cups up with bits and bobs and glue them to a board in a pumpkin shape. I forgot about the ‘tricks’ and mostly did sweets, whoops. But it entertained them for a few minutes and was really funny to watch, counting it as a win. Is there such a thing as too much sugar? #auntieoftheyear.

Once they’d gone and we’d cleaned up the expected carnage I started to work on the Halloween treat bags for the girls in my team at work. I always love to give out some treats and make a big deal at this time of year at work. We all dress up and it’s just a little fun morale booster we love to get involved in. I did a supermarket sweep in Morrisons and got some tiny ‘ghost pumpkins’ for their desks, a chocolate apple and lots of little retro sweets. I also ordered some fabulous Hocus Pocus inspired chocolate from Chunkydunkchocs whiwh were incredible (if you don’t know you need to get to know). All packaged up into a Halloween pumpkin goodie bag and they looked pretty impressive at the end if I do say so myself. 

I wore an Interrobang skirt from a few years ago and drew a few spider webs on my face and practically skipped into work for my favourite day of the year. Does anyone else get as excited for Halloween? What do you do at home/work that makes it a bit more fun and not just for the kids?

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Is It Nearly Christmas? Navabi Dress Review

Now you may say it’s too early, you may say it’s bad luck even, but I don’t care. It’s approaching the festive season and I couldn’t be more excited. Party dresses? Baileys? The Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special? Bring it to me. We’re heading into my favourite time of year so let the leaves fall, bring the cosy nights and reruns all evening, I want it all. 

What is never too early in my opinion is planning your wardrobe for the party season. Whilst I have some favourite dresses I keep and wheel out most years I also like to try something new and see what’s out there. I find this can be quite tricky when you’re plus sized as there’s not as many stores and not as much choice available for us. There are often a lot of returns, so having to fork out for several at a time to find the right one and often the quality is just lacking. Am I right? I sometimes dread going into shops only to be disappointed so I am a big fan of shopping online, even if I do have to get more than one at a time to find the right fit. 

This is a reason I was thrilled to be asked to review a dress from Navabi. I first became aware of Navabi through the fabulous plus size goddess/blogger/instagrammer Danielle Vanier. Everything she wears looks incredible and she launched her very own range with Navabi, so inspirational and is just one of her acts of showing the world that plus size fashion deserves a place and the space that every other straight size line out there has. Danielle, we thank you. 

So this is how I came to discover Navabi, I loved that there were options out there that were more designer led rather than just cheaper fast fashion. A place where you could buy some quality pieces that you weren’t worried about how many washes you’d get out of it. From my experience there aren’t that many high end high street options for us plus size ladies so Navabi really helps fill that gap in the market. 

I’m a big believer of not shying away from colour, when I was younger I wore only black. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to wear black, I love to feel like a Disney villain, but I have now embraced colour and especially contrast. Life is too short to hide in the back in something I want to hide myself in, I have bright red hair and I feel most confident when the dye is fresh and the clothes make it pop. So it seemed obvious for me to review a green dress, I’ve actually never owned a fully green dress that would make me feel like Poison Ivy, so the choice was easy. 

A few days later and the Manon Baptiste dress was here. What a thing of beauty, green cotton lace, little sleeves, nipped in at the waist with a ribbon belt and a fabulous swishy skirt that made me feel like the cute little octopus in Finding Nemo. It’s knee length which is my favourite, I struggle with floor length glam dresses and to be honest, I just love to twirl. I’m 5”2 so it was an inch or so below the knee for me. The arms are always a worry for me, I feel like plus size retailers often don’t have proper fit models so the arms are always too tight and you feel like you’re bursting out of a sausage skin. They fitted wonderfully and I feel like I could have done the macarena in ease at the office Christmas party. Winner. 

The dress isn’t too heavy so you don’t feel like you’ll end up sweating buckets on the dancefloor and end up running to the looks to put paper towels under your bra line...no? Just me? Cool. But heavy enough to still give you that swish and feel like it’ll withstand a mixed load after a night out. The dress also has 3% elastane  which I prefer as it hugs a bit more comfortably. 

The ribbon tie belt is a really nice touch, I might jazz it up with some sparkles but I’m not sure yet. It’s just a loose piece so you can adjust the tightness yourself or not use it all, because of the lace on the dress you don’t really notice the belt loops so could easily get away with not wearing it if you didn’t fancy it.

There are so many gorgeous pieces on the site but the party dress section just has to be my favourite, the Manon Baptise dress is also currently on sale at £91 also so go have a nose! Meanwhile I’ll be itching to get my decorations up, chilling the Baileys and practicing that perfect Christmas party hairstle from Pinterest...only two months to go!

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I'm Back! Let's Catch Up.

I’m back!

So I haven’t blogged for a while now, things take over, life, decorating, Instagram stories (speaking of which, come and have a follow). So I woke up today with the fire burning to get back into it. So here I am. I need to revamp the blog a bit so I’ll be doing that little by little and changing direction. 

I now live with the bearded wonder and have done for a while actually, my current obsession is decorating. Over the past two years we’ve worked hard to transform the house of magnolia and brown to a more colourful/mid century/Jetsons inspired wonderland. I say wonderland because frankly, I think it’s fabulous. I just can’t stop. So I’ll be doing some posts to show some before and afters, some DIY jobs we’ve done and some absolute bargains we’ve found online. 

I’ll still be posting about some hairstyles that I love, my hair was so long for a while that I just couldn’t do anything with it, so I’ve had a load chopped off so this should resume. Let’s also not forget about the fashion, you know I love weird and wonderful outfit, this has not changed.

Here's a few pics from the last couple of years, have a nose, I'll be back! 

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