Life in the slow lane

Bon soir!

It's been a quiet old weekend on the blog, although I'm sure you were out having too much fun to notice my lack of blog postage!

I wish I could tell you I had some sort of mind blowing weekend to justify the laziness, but it's quite the opposite. My weekend was so uneventful it was almost comedic! Let me put it into perspective. 'Highlights' of the weekend included counting up my two pots of pennies, dishing out home remedies for cat cystitis to a Twitter follower, making Watercress Soup (Yummy, but I think I put a bit too much pepper in it), overdoing the Wii Fit, re-organising my wardrobe and giving 3 bin bags of clothes to a charity shop. I do love weekends like that though. It's nice to just potter about doing jobs here and there! Alex & I also watched Due Date which had some funny moments!

My pennies amounted to £22 which was pretty wild! I decided to use some pennies to buy a few lines on the Lotto. I figured I'd have the power of irony on my side, so might've won some money. I'd planned out the headlines and everything... 'Kentish pauper turns pennies into millions!' Alas, we only got one number. I tore the ticket in half in a fit of rage. I just want to be slightly rich! Is this too much to ask?!

Anywho, I'm not a total hermit, I did go out for drinks with my Topshop posse on Thursday night which was fantastic. I didn't get any decent pictures because I'd drunk too many Pig Fuckers (the unfortunately named bargain cocktail of choice!) so was too busy rabbiting on about nothing to take pics. Well actually, I only had about 3 all night, but they are so fruity and lovely, you just don't realise how much booze is in them! And it doesn't help that I'm a massive lightweight!

Here are some pics from these recent hijinx:






These are the nails I've been rocking lately. I used my gorgeous Top Turquoise Models Own nail polish (in my top 5 polishes of all time), and my white Models Own/Wah Nails pen.



And here's what I wore to uni today:



(Tee - Wallpaper Rose, Skirt - H&M, Socks - Topshop, Boots - Chazza shop, Clocklace - Urban Outfitters)

It was a verrry long day of watching everyone's presentation's of their Final Major Project concepts. My head is killing me after staring at the screen all day. And my bod is on fire from the Wii Fit session too. I always forget to cool down until it's too late! You know it's definitely too late when you can't pull your tights up because of the pain. All in all I'm in the wars today, so shall be spending the rest of the night curled up in a moaning ball watching TV with Alex!

I have a hefty to-blog list for the next week. But also a jam-packed schedule of nights out (well, one!) and going home to see the family. But I will do my best because I have a new Naughty Step perpetrator to share with you all, and hopefully the return of a weekly feature of mine...

Back tomorrow!

♥

Diet Coke x Nails Inc Review

I forgot to post about this amazing offer when I was under a pile of dissertation notes, but as far as I know it is still available at Boots stores until stocks last!



Basically, when you buy two bottles of Diet Coke at Boots, you can choose a free shade of Nails Inc 'Catwalk Collection' polish worth £11. There are four shades to choose from; Perfect Plum, Cool Caramel, Delicious Denim and Heavenly Heather Grey.

Diet Coke kindly sent me a set to try. Scroll down for the gory details!





My favourite is the Denim shade. A creamy one-coat wonder, and a really unusual shade. Utterly lovely!

Heather Grey is another unusual shade. I don't think I've seen anything quite like it! I really liked it, and it's another one-coater.

Perfect Plum is a lovely burgundy red shade. It required two coats and I did get in a bit of a mess applying this one. I always get in a mess with reds, but after a clean up session, it looked fine.

Cool Caramel was a beigey-nude shade which looked best after two coats.

The Verdict: All of the shades lasted a good few days before chipping (using a Nails Inc basecoat and Seche Vite topcoat) and generally applied smoothly. I think the shades are lovely, and at essentially a couple of quid a bottle, this is an amazing deal, so let's not be fussy!

Have any of you picked up any of the Catwalk Collection yet? Which is your fave?

Off out with my Topshop buds now. Very annoyed that I've put 2lbs on in the past couple of days and am now about to pile a load of alcohol calories on top! Will have to be extra super good as of tomorrow!

Hope you've all had a lovely week so far! ♥

What I did last night

[Worst title ever on this blog. Soz, Alex is pressurising me to post so we can catch up with GypWedz!]

Last night, after a spot of aggro with the jobsworth tosspot at the train station who made me miss my train (forcing me to buy a ticket then and there, even though train was on the platform*!!), I arrived (late) to the VoucherCodes 'Fashion Revolution' party at the swanky Soho Hotel. It was basically an excuse for bloggers and journalists (and Hannah Ashworth from Hollyoaks, apparently!) to hang out and get merry. And take embarrassing photobooth pictures! More on that in a tick...

Here's what I wore. The pictures were taken at about midnight when I got back to Canterbury:





(New Topshop dress, Topshop jacket, H&M belt, Charity shop boots, 17 lippie in Showbiz, fittingly!)

I saw some familiar faces (Winnie, Kristabel, MJ, Jazzabell, Alice, Miss Woo, Fritha, Sherin) and some new ones too (Elisabeth, Jackie, Clara and Harriet!). I have probably forgotten people too, as I have the worst memory ever. Because I was late I only had about an hour to chat to people, as there was a screening of Marie Antoinette at the event at 8pm. Bloggy events can often be a bit frustrating as there's never enough time to chat to everyone that you want to. Someone NEEDS to organise some sort of blogger speed-dating so everyone has the chance to meet each other! If I had an organised bone in my bod, I'd do it! Any takers?

Well, I suppose I'd better share the ridiculous photo booth picture as I know they'll turn up somewhere else... I got a bit rained on on the way there, so my hair was doing a convincing impression of... something very scruffy and mop like, which was just great! Oh, and if it looks like I've hogged the limelight, there was no screen to judge where to stand, so my mop has unintentionally obscured Miss Woo and her pal!







The last pic is the debut of my lesser-seen (on here, at least) talent for pulling crazy faces! A gift Kristabel clearly possesses too!

All in all, It was a really funny night, and lovely as ever to have a chance to hang out with other bloggers.

True to form, it wasn't long before the glamour of an evening schmoozing with bloggers and journos wore off and I was on the train eating a smoked salmon salad on the train with my bare hands. I'm not a neanderthal... I was just unlucky enough to buy a salad that didn't come with a fork!

I always seem to end up in some ridiculously juxtaposing situation at/after events like this. I don't think I told you about the time I went to the Tea & Cake PR press day and dropped my cupcake on the floor, and then tipped my Malibu and Coke on the floor whilst bending down to pick up the cake. A double whammy of shame! The room literally fell silent. I made a swift exit and spent the rest of the night in a sticky icing stained dress, smelling faintly of Malibu.

Love, your pal, the village idiot of fashionsville.

♥

* - After he made me buy the ticket, I got through the gates only for the train to pull away as I was pressing the button. I was SO angry, I stormed out of the station and said, 'I hope you're happy, you jobsworth pr**k' to the old sod. Very out of character, please believe me, but he was just so smug. GRRR.

Pussy galore!

FREEDOM!

I handed in the dissertation on Friday (after 2 all-nighters!) and have spent the weekend catching up on sleep and writing huuuge to-do lists now I have time to actually do stuff. My final major project starts tomorrow, but it isn't due in until May so I am still considering myself free as a bird bird a little while longer!

I decided to dress quite nicely on hand-in day (I'd been in my pyjamas for about 5 days before hand!) as me and my uni pals were going to Wetherspoons afterwards for food and drinkies. I didn't get a picture of my outfit at the time, but have re-enacted it, as it is my new favourite outfit! Plus, you'll be spared the dead-in-the-eyes expression you get after being awake for 48 hours... On reflection I do look quite eye-dead in these pics too. Oh well!






The pussybow blouse is courtesy of A|Wear, who kindly gave me some credit to use on their online store. I absolutely love it. It ticks all the right boxes for my figure. Baggy enough to hide my jelly belly, but polka dotty and pussybowy enough to look pretty and keep me from veering into frump territory, as I so often do! Do you ever get it when you like an item so much you're counting down the days until it's socially acceptable to wear it again without looking like a one-outfit-wonder/skank? This is that.

I actually went over my spending limit because I found some other lovely bits including this Angora cardigan and these bargain Ray Bans-esque sunglasses for £4! I also found a cheeky free delivery code too (AWearFreeShip) to help justify my extra spending! The quality of the items I received was great, and the pricing was reasonable (£25 for the cardi, £30 for the blouse). The only thing I would warn you about is the sizes seem to come up a bit big. I am sending the cardi back for an exchange for the size 10 instead. So if you're between sizes, opt for the smaller one.

The good thing about A|Wear giving me some credit to use on the website is that I got to experience the ordering process, rather than just telling their PR what items I would like. I didn't experience any hiccups whilst ordering, I found the site easy to navigate and my items arrived swiftly and nicely packaged in a rather exciting metallic pink packet! I was also sent an email to let me know my order had been shipped, which is always a nice touch. All in all, A|Wear is most definitely worth a look if you fancy a change from the usual high street/online suspects. Especially seeing as the delivery is free at the mo!

In keeping with the pussybow theme (AKA - any excuse to pay homage to my feline friends), I wore my little kitten locket from Claire's accessories and a cat brooch I found in Snooper's Paradise in Brighton.

Off to bed now! First day of uni tomorrow and then I have my friend Jen round for tea and Glee, so may not have time to post, but will do my best! ♥

Disclaimer: I would never post about freebies unless I genuinely like them and think it's a product you might like too. I never feel obligated to write about a product I'm not fussed about, much to the irritation of some PR's!

An Outfit(ter) post!

Hola!

So, one week until my dissertation is handed in! Whether it will be finished is another matter, but at this point I just want it out of my life! I had my last tutorial for it today and my tutor said some lovely lovely things (my writing style was 'perfect', appaz!), so I'm feeling quite confident about it now. I stayed up until 4.30am on it this morning. I find I work easier throughout the night and having a lie in than waking up early to do work. Jeremy Kyle and This Morning are always too distracting!

So, these are the bargains I picked up at Urban Outfitters last week. They were both a tenner, down from a collective price of £150-ish! The blue playsuit is a tad risque for me, as it is a bit of a bra flasher, but it doesn't really show in real life. I'll probably wear something under it anyway... I'm not sure parading a doughy, white midriff it is ever an appropriate style decision! And the leopard dress needs a bit of taking in, as it's a size large, but I really like it. Thinking I need to chillax on the leopard print front for a while now... It's becoming the sole criterion I look for in a garment!





I'm going to go and chill for a bit now. I have the weekend off work so I will be cracking on with uni work big time, but for tonight I am going to sort out my SHAMEFUL nails (chipped grey polish and various lengths!) and watch 'Dinner for Shmucks' with the boyf. (EDIT: Alex has just seen me type that and has informed me he doesn't want to watch it with me now, because I shouted at him for trying to talk to me whilst I was blogging. It was his own fault!)

Thanks for all your kind comments wishing me luck with the diss. Much appreciated! Good luck to anyone else that has deadlines looming, there seems to be a lot of it about! ♥

Best Coast's best video!

I don't really rate the song, but the video for Best Coast's new single is absolutely hilarious! Adorable!

Lolcats, hipstamatic-esque camera effects, slightly disappointing indie music... All the ingredients for a hipster heart attack! If Tumblr crashes tonight, you'll know why!



Isn't it great? One of their songs called 'Boyfriend' plays at work and although it's not really my thing, it is rather cute.

And now, back to the dastardly dissertation. Getting there, slowly. I've got a meeting with my tutor tomorrow to go over it, then a week to crack on and get this baby wrapped up.

And then I will be back with aplomb! And I will be resurrecting Tuesday tips at the soonest opportunity. I have a good 12 weeks worth of amazing ideas so far and am always on the lookout for more (feel free to share!), so keep your eyes peeled :)

Missing you awf'ly xx

Dressing up, dressing down

Hey all!

So sorry for the blogging delay. I've been all over the place this week, what with the Topshop presentation and my dissertation! I'm also trying to eat healthily, so dinner time takes about 2 hours out of my day. Not cool. Anyway, my hand-in is fast approaching which means A) I need to get my arse in gear and write 6000 more words pronto, and B) Once I have done this, I'm all yours, as my next deadline won't be until May! Can't wait to have some time to implement all the little bloggy changes I had in mind.

So, I presented my fragrance concept to Topshop on Friday. I was a bit of a stuttering fool at points but I THINK I got the ideas across! The ladies I presented to were really lovely so that helped. They seemed really positive about the idea, but obviously it would be a multi-million pound project for Toppers so I'm not exactly holding my breath! Either way, it was a really great experience to go to Head Office and present to them, so I'm chuffed I got the opportunity to do that!

I WISH it wouldn 't have been hideously inappropriate to have taken photos for the blog, because I had to walk right through the design department to get to the Marketing department. There were big cupboards full of different material, and huge moodboards of future trends. Not to mention a whole lot of amazingly dressed staff! A bloggers DREAM. At least I will always have my memories!

Here's what I wore (with my Topshop aviator jacket over the top):



(Dress - Topshop, Boots - Charity Shop)

Sorry I look a bit srs, my face didn't want to play ball last night.

Here's what I wore to work yesterday. Not exactly blogworthy, but never mind. Comfy-casual is a must when working a Saturday in Topshop! I'm wearing the little clock necklace I bought in Urban Outfitters the other week in Brighton.





(Cardi - boyfriend, Tee - Topshop Sale, Jeggings - Topshop)

I have some new Urban Outfitters sale bargains to share with you in my next post!

Off to Topshop again now. And then doing my dissertation tonight. Lots of my favourite people are in at work today so I'm hoping for a day of minimum stress and maximum lolz, so hopefully I won't be too frazzled for my dissertation later.

Wishing you all a day of maxilolz too! Back soon! ♥

PS - Thanks for all of your good luck wishes for the presentation on here and Twitter, it genuinely did make me feel less nervous about it! xxx