Lazy Oaf S/S 2012 Lookbook

East London creative label, Lazy Oaf have just released their Spring/Summer 2012 lookbook shot by Bella Howard, and I am officially loving it. The shoot itself has a Wildfox vibe (giggling girls, bed poses, white tiger!) but minus the smut and plus the fun factor. Lazy Oaf are all about bright, quirky graphic prints, and next season sees fruit, flowers and cats (YAY!) as the key focus. The styling here reminds me of the 90s I remember (not the plaid shirt, moshpit 90s that fashion usually recalls): bright and busy prints, bunches and towering Spice Girl platforms. Well, I only dreamt of the latter because we were too poor for Buffalos, but I still had girl power in spades! And don't lie, we all had those t-shirts with the hand prints on the boobs. They just weren't cool until now:

I have too much love for Lazy Oaf and can't wait for these pieces to drop (especially the cat tail t-shirt!) The prices aren't exactly bargain basement (around £35-60 for tees and dresses), but for an uber cool statement piece from an independent label, I am willing to cough up! 


What do you think of Lazy Oaf and their new lookbook? 


♥

Valentines Bits To Buy & DIY

Evening one and all, and welcome to my bumper Valentines post! 

This first section is a bit of an alternative gift guide. There's no real structure: there's crazy stuff, cute stuff, guy stuff and girl stuff. Who says valentines gifts need to be a lovey dovey heart fest? Hopefully you'll find something a bit different to buy your beau or something to ask them to buy you! Failing that, maybe you'll have some laughs at my finds...

♥ Bookrest lamp, £37.95, ClickShop (I would love to get this for Alex!)

♥ His 'n' Hers Tongue Scrapers, £6 Urban Outfitters (EW! My friend Jen would totally dig these, though.)

♥ My Side, Your Side Pillowcases, £26.75, Not On The High Street

♥ Pick Master, £19.75, ClickShop (How cool is this?! It turns anything into a plectrum!)

♥ Pug Egg Cup, £8.50, Maiden (Just Aww.)

♥ Cat Egg Cup, £10.95, Liberty (    "      "   )

♥ Tea Infuser, £14, Urban Outfitters  

♥ Mug, £17.50, Sweet William Designs @ Not On The Hight Street

♥ Love Beanstalk Pod, £12.49, I Want One Of Those (This is insane. It's a plant which grows with a love message imprinted in the leaves! Watch the vid via the link if you want to find out more!)

♥ Gemma Correll Card, £2.50, Soma Gallery

♥ Anatomical Heart Jelly Mould, £6.99, I Want One Of Those (SO flipping cool!)

♥ Kissing Disease Plushie, £6.95, GIANTmicrobes (Who knew germs could be so cute? Loads of awesome plushies on the website, a must-see!)

♥ 7/10 Card, £2.75, Lazy Oaf

♥ Bee My Honey Balm, £4, Paperchase

I've been bookmarking various DIY projects for a while to share with you all as I think handmade Valentines gifts can be a lot more meaningful, and let's face it, cheap! 

The first one is my own project, although I haven't shown the exact design I shall be giving to Alex as I know he won't be able to go a week without stalking the blog and spoiling the surprise! 

So, I have been making magnetic bookmarks! They are a handy alternative to ordinary bookmarks as they don't fall out. You can also line it up along the side of the book so you can remember what line you were on! I got the idea from some children's bookmarks I saw in WH Smith and thought I'd give it a go...

The pretty lady graphic is from Eat Drink Chic, and is shown further down this post in its original context! I changed it a bit to make it into a foldable bookmark, and made my first ever PDF printable if you'd like to make use any of the above designs yourself. Just click here to open it, and for instructions on how to make your own Dymo label designs! 

To start out, I printed my designs on card. Mine was 240gsm, but I think thicker would be ideal! 

 

After folding the designs in half, I stuck on 2 pieces of magnetic tape on either end of the reverse of the bookmark, so they match up and close neatly. Done! (My tape cost £1.25 on eBay, but you'll want to try and request express delivery if poss!)

Here are some other amazing ideas from around the web (click the links to find the full tutorials):

Filling a pill box with little treats and love notes! Aww! Kinnnnda late for it now, but if you get your skates on, maybe your loved one can eat a few days in a row! ;) 

Eat Drink Chic created these amazing printable bits and bobs for a Valentines Couch Picnic Date! I love the little 'Admit One' tickets!

This Origami heart bookmark looks a bit fiddly but the end result is so cute!

These Coffee Cup Wrappers are from Eat Drink Chic. I don't have coffee cups (MUST get some!) so I can't really use this one but it's too adorable not to share.

They also turned the design into a little card and envelope:

Adorable printable giftwrap (the doggy one is my fave!):

Oh hi, DIY heart nail polish!

This printable lunch bag is really sweet, and the design could be printed onto anything, really. A card or gift bag for example!

Find these cute ladies and loads of lovely printables here! 

This croc is on the above link, too! Sounds a bit fiddly for me, but looks so cool! You can put sweets in his body! 

A great roundup of retro valentines printables on Heart Handmade

I can't get over how cool this scratch card idea is! I found another technique for making scratch cards here, too. So fun! 

I think these handmade chocolate wrappers are a cute idea. Don't think my boyfriend would appreciate the girly factor, but you could do something cool with it like use a map or comic strip or Playboy depending on your beau's interests! ;) 

Yes, it's another bookmark tutorial (can you tell my boyfriend is a huge bookworm?), but this one is built in with the valentines card! Two birds, one stone.

These felt Fortune Cookies  are a super cute way to show you care! Maybe a fun alternative to valentines vouchers? (ie. 'This entitles you to 10 minutes of back-scratching, moan-free!) There is a crochet version of this on Youtube for those who can! 

And I'm spent! 

I think this is the longest I've ever spent on a post, so I hope you've found some inspiration here! Do you have any cool ideas of your own to share? Spill! 

♥

Every Girl Has a Molly

When I'm scanning my Google Reader and catching up on posts, one blog always captures my full attention. Vintage Is The New Black is the blog for NoirOhio Vintage, an incredibly popular American vintage store on eBay. It's run by a lady called Maggie and modelled by a lady called Molly.

Something I've realised to my surprise lately is that I'm not fussed about shopping for vintage... One too many times I've wandered into vintage shops almost robotically but found that I either can't be arsed to forage through endless rails, or I am put off by hefty price labels. To be honest, I much prefer hunting out my own bargains in charity shops and car boot sales! 

So, plugging this store is not the purpose of this post (although the postage prices to the UK are quite reasonable, I must say!) No - I treat NoirOhio like a favourite style blog. A go-to for outfit inspiration. The stunningly styled Molly, seems to be able to pull off any look. She also proves that bright lipstick makes every outfit look at least 57% cooler. Noted.

I'm in such a style rut at the moment and feel like, for various reasons, nothing suits me and I'm not worthy of the 'style' proclamation in my blog title. But a scroll through this blog tonight has reminded me of all the different styles I love, and how underneath my samey disguise, there is a girl who adores versatile style. I must stop losing sight of this and mix things up a bit, like I did during my Wardrobe Wake Up. Maybe sometimes we need a style crush to revive our crushed style..! 

I'm not saying I'm going to turn into a cool and svelte goddess like Molly overnight (or ever, let's face it), but god damn it, I refuse to bore myself any longer! 

♥

New Clinique Purchases

After asking my Twitter followers for some advice on which foundation to invest in next, the one that came up a lot was Clinique's Even Better. Never one to throw money at a product without proper research, I went to Clinique and got a couple of sample pots to try out at home. 

When I was sure I was happy with it, I headed to Clinique in my local Fenwick's store and saw that there was a deal on. If I bought one other product that was skincare, I'd get a fairly epic free gift. I decided to get the Take The Day Off makeup remover, after trying it and loving it all that time ago when Clinique did loads of free samples with Glamour Magazine. Full reviews below!

Even Better

What I love about this foundation is that it has a dewy finish. I've always used matte foundations in the past, but after becoming transfixed on this picture in Glamour recently, I've been craving a more natural finish. This foundation applies like a dream (I'm currently alternating my ELF Powder Brush and Real Techniques Stipple Brush to do so) and doesn't sit on the skin at all. It just evens everything out and makes you look like you have perfect and radiant skin. I like to set it with a bit of powder just to take a tiny bit of the shine off and help it last longer. The only down side is it isn't quite light enough. I'm using the lightest shade Alabaster, and I do find I need to blend some down my neck a bit too just to prevent any lines. It still looks very natural, though and will be perfect when I've caught a bit of sun, too. 

Take The Day Off

I can be a bit of a lazy oaf when it comes to removing my mascara fully every night. It seems to take so much effort to remove every trace (even using really good removers like my No7 one) that by the time I've got it all off, my skin is sore and I've probably gained a few wrinkles from all that manhandling of the eye area! Anyway, this remover is not like that. You shake the bottle, apply some to cotton wool and it melts makeup off in a few sweeps without any effort or discomfort. It also cuts through lipstick easily, too. It may be £15.50, but this stuff is like Cillit Bang for your eyes and if it takes the stress and discomfort out of my nightly wrestle to remove mascara, it is a darn good investment in my eyes. (Don't excuse the pun, it was a bloody good one!)

Le free gift:

I was bowled over by the freebie! I'm not sure if this is still available at Clinique counters now, as it's unclear on the website, so I won't dwell on it too much. The products I'm most pleased with are the Airbrush Concealer, the travel size eye makeup remover, the superbalm lip gloss, and the eyeshadow duo. 

It did come to £44, which made me wince a bit, but I do still have money in my christmas money fund and a decent foundation and makeup remover are two things I do believe it's worth investing in! 

Are you a fan of any of Clinique products? What beauty products do you think are worth investing in? 

♥

Meadham Kirchhoff x Nail Rock

Meadham Kirchhoff's Spring/Summer 2012 collection was a loveably barmy explosion of kitsch. The models resembled dolls as they shuffled in their flatforms down the catwalk in candy colours, frou frou frills and cartoon prints. The collection is almost sickly in its unashamed girliness and I adore it. Can I afford any of it? Of course not. Well, maybe this kitty tee if I gave up Nando's for a while... 

So I was thrilled to learn that they were teaming up with Nail Rock to launch a collection of nail wraps inspired by their SS/12 collection exclusively for Topshop. The array of cartoon illustrations (including one suspiciously naughty design..) all come in one pack and are due to launch in the middle of February, retailing at £8. 

I tried the striped Nail Rock wraps that came in a Glossybox I was sent as a sample a while ago and despite my reservations, I actually thought they were incredible! They were easy to apply (as long as you follow instructions to the letter), and lasted forever (around 2 weeks if we're being literal, here) without the need for a topcoat or anything! I only wear a couple of wraps at a time as 'statement nails' so I can make the pack last longer.

I cannot wait to add these adorable wraps to my collection. Fingernails crossed they launch in time for LFW so my hands can look on-trend even if the rest of me doesn't! 

Are you a fan of Nail Rock wraps? What do you make of the Meadham Kirchhoff ones? 

♥

#zomgbloggerbash

On Monday night I popped to the much tweeted #zomgbloggerbash - in IRL terms, this hashtag refers to the launch of the amazing collaboration between Zoe from The London Lipgloss and Rockalily Makeup. Because I was rushing about like a ninny trying not to miss my train, I forgot my camera, so here are the few snaps I caught on my mobile/stole from others! 

Some of the Rockalily range for us to swatch

Ms Rockalily herself, ReeRee Rockette, getting us to smooch and sign a canvas. The logic being that she can sell it if one of us gets famous and get rich! Or hang it on the wall to look pretty if she gets rich first! Needless to say, she was one hilarious lady :)

The gorgeous blonde model of Rockalily lippies (Banbury Cross) was at the event and did a burlesque performance! I had already disappeared off into the night by then to catch my train home. Boo! 

There was a mini photo studio with loads of wigs and pin-up style gear to try on! The wigs are made by Wonderland Wigs and actually looked SO real considering they, er, weren't! 

I think I had it on back to front, but here's me rocking the pink wig! I have sort of fallen in love with it. It's only £20 on the website, and there's a minty green one too! I am never bleaching my hair again so if I do want candy hair, a wig is the only way to go, really! What do you think..? (Thanks for the picture, Jemma!)

That's me wearing the ZOMG! lipstick in the last picture, too. Such a gorgeous shade! It will be available on the Rockalily site very soon...

It was a fun night, and lovely to finally meet Zoe and catch up with blogger pals, as well as make a few new ones! Always lovely to see bloggers getting involved in awesome projects with indie brands too. You go, Zo!! 

<3