Autumnal

My gawd, it's felt so Autumnal the past few days! I've really had that strong Auntumny feeling, I can't put my finger on what it is exactly, it's almost an instinctual thing perhaps, the leaves aren't quite brown yet, but the light is different and the airs smells different, maybe it is a plant/vegetation thing? Something that the trees produce or stop producing this time of year...? Like in that film The Happening, I know that film was a bit shite though, but it had an interesting concept.

I noticed in pictures, that if I don't smile, like, really put on a smile, it comes out in pictures looking like I have a right moody face...I think I feel a bit odd smiling at nothing in particular, maybe I need to find a technique, like thinking of something funny that will make me smile. This outfit is my menswear/horse woman inspired outfit, I do like horsey clothing, I like the way it looks sort of uniform like, I'm also a fan of military style details. I bought some jodhpurs which I'm looking forward to wearing when it gets a bit colder. I know they're kind of the trend for the next season, but they also make sense practically for the colder months. They're really comfy and warm, but have interesting details like the seams that have been originally designed for practicality when horse riding, but look interesting too.

Anyway, this jacket is a genuine horse riding jacket (looks a bit like a fox hunting jacket) that I got from Oxfam, it's really nice, I love the velvet detail along the back of the neck that stops the wool from making your neck itchy and it has great gold brass buttons.

Outfit:

Jacket: Oxfam

Shirt: Oxfam

Jeans: all saints

Shoes: all saints

Bag: Coach (gift from my mum)

The whole outfit is super preppy! But I like to dress around a stereotype, I think it helps me. p.s I need to work on my photo skillz, these are a bit over exposed.

Mint Chocolate Thins - Recipe

If you've been to America or know anyone who has been, you might have heard of Pepperidge Farms Milano Mint Thins, they are rather delectable morsels of crispy chocolate and mint. I had a brain wave to try and re-create these so I could eat them without making a trip to America, plus I thought it would be a nice experiment.

I started with a Chat de langue (cats tongue) biscuits recipe and improvised from there:

Chat de Langues:

100g Icing Sugar

100g Butter

1tsp Vanilla essence

2 Egg whites

120g Plain flour

Pre heat Oven 200 c

Blend the butter and icing sugar and vanilla essence, like a butter icing, it should be smooth and fluffy, whisk in the egg whites one at a time, then gently fold in the sifted flour. Once mixed spoon into a piping bag and pipe onto a tray with greaseproof paper (do not - like me - think that your fantastic non-stick tray will be enough to save your lovely biscuits from cementing themselves to the tray! Noooo!) yes do use greaseproof paper. Pipe them out 5cm lengths and leave enough room for them to spread out, try to keep them the same size as much as possible. Put in the oven for about 10-15 mins until lightly golden on the edges. leave to cool.

While they're cooling, melt some dark chocolate in a saucepan on a low heat, I used a 100g bar and that was plenty. Yummy.

Once the biscuits have cooled, try to pair them up, like for like, by size. It's quite hard to make them nice and consistent in shape, mine are a bit wibbly and wobbly, but I managed to find rough pairs for all of them.

Spread the melted chocolate on the underside of each biscuit - keeping an eye of the pairs as you go.

Once you've spread the chocolate on all of them, leave them to cool and wait for the chocolate to set.

While those are doing that, you can make the minty fondant filling. As this was an experiment, I didn't have exact measurements. I used a large knob of soft butter and about 5-6 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar with about 2 -3 teaspoons of mint essence (depends how minty you want it) mix together, it will look a bit like a butter icing, add a little water if needed. When the chocolate is set, spread the minty fondant on the underside of one of each biscuit pair (over the chocolate)

Stick the other biscuit pair on top like a sandwich and you're done! There is quite a lot of fiddling with this recipe, but I enjoy doing things like this on a quiet afternoon, sad? Anyway, they turned out a bit messy, I'm sure there are plenty of people who could do a much more precise, professional looking job, maybe with a bit of practice they could be better. They still taste pretty good and I don't have to go to America to get them. (maybe they do sell them in England, I don't know...?)

Air, hair, lair

I've reached the point, again, where I get tired of my hair, I've been trying to grow it long for about 3 years, yes I think it is three years. In that time it has grown from shoulder length to just below the shoulders with only 4 trims during that time. It seems like it takes forever to grow, I believe some people have quick growing hair, I have slow grow hair. Maybe I'm impatient...? No, know I am impatient. I regularly went through the cycle of trying to grow my hair, getting fed up and cutting it, getting tired of short hair, vowing to grow it long again...repeat...This is probably the longest I've ever had it and I'm beginning to waiver again. I made the decision a while ago that because my hair is so thick, it is better long, when my hair is short it can have a tendancy to poof out like a mushroom! When it's long it can instead be (when maintained) a lovely flowing head of thick poofy hair, which is preferable to a mushroom a-top my head. But I have a fantasy of having cool, cropped straight hair like this:

Original source of photo unknown (found on Heart Charlie)

It looks so easy and cool! yes it's twice cool. It won't get trapped under my armpits when I'm lying in bed (which my longer length has started doing-does anyone else have this problem!?) and would be so much easier to maintain, or so I think, in reality it would probably need lots of straightening and product to keep it from swelling into the infamous mushroom. Then I see this lovely wavy thick hair and think, if I grow it a bit more it could resemble something similar...maybe.

Alisa Xayalith, photographed for asos magazine

Anyway, I've ranted on long enough about hair, it's better to get it out of my system, this way I will forget about it and maybe leave another it to grow another 3 inches for another 3 years - ho ho!.

Trapped my fingers in the door! - Nails (or Ombre/two tone nails) DIY

I said I would post a step by step to doing these nails, that I like to call 'trapped my fingers in a door' nails because I always use purple nail varnish and it makes my nails look bruised at the cuticle. I also prefer not to have a full nail of colour all the time, I like just having a bit of colour on my nails. You'll need a colour nail varnish of your choice and a clear over coat.

To start, choose whatever colour you want! Paint a strip along the bottom of your nail, try to make it cover less than half of your nail. Do two coats if one isn't enough to give a good block of colour.

Don't worry about making a straight neat line, because you will be blending the line with the clear varnish anyway. As you can see mine are pretty messy.

Wait a minute or two for the colour varnish to dry a bit, but not completely. Now for the blending, use the clear varnish brush and poke it toward your cuticle along the line of colour, this will soften the colour varnish and tidy up any messy lines.

Once you have softened the edge of each colour line, coat the whole nail in clear varnish, dragging the blended edge of the colour varnish upwards.

The end product should look something a bit like this:

But perhaps a little tidier and nicer than mine, I'm not the neatest person I know, I prefer how they look after a day of washing and wear, when the messy edges of nail varnish have washed off a bit. Anyway, hope that was fun or useful to someone.

Small Haul

Here's some pictures of the small haul I made during my trip to Brighton Sunday market, I probably shouldn't have bought this stuff, but the prices were good and I was hungry! The cape in particular was a bargain at £12! I've seen capes like this on ebay going for £30-£40, it has a few moth holes, but I don't mind fixing that. Apparently I look like some kind of old fashioned police man or witch when I wear it, which I think is great!

The buttons on it are really nice too.

I got the skirt and top together at the same stall, the skirt is a great cobalt blue and silk! I wore the skirt the day after I got it and lasted about 2 hours before I dropped food on it, which left a small stain (I'm great). The top is very cute hand crocheted.

I'm sort of starting to look forward to Autumn now, I feel a bit bad for giving up on the summer, but I'll be happy to start wearing boots and coats (and my new cape) and not going out with a coat on then getting too hot and having to carry it around all day and then getting cold again. Yea Autumn! I bet it will be boiling in September!

How you say...

Something I've always discussed in my mind, with myself, is what the importance of fashion is, I think I have a bit of an insecure complex that being interested in fashion will somehow make certain people see me as shallow. I personally do not think this about people who are interested in fashion, although I know there are elements of this in the 'Fashion world' this doesn't necceassrily reflect on people who have a passion for fashion/clothes/style. What I like about the fashion blogging world (what I know of it so far) is that while bloggers like to discuss fashion and what they wore everyone knows that the blogger has more to their life than clothes, but clothing and style for some people is a way of communicating something about themselves, which I really enjoy getting involved in. I'm interested in how this is reflected in all aspects of society. And so, I would like to link to this post by Madeline of Jean Greige about fashion and how it fits in the great scheme of things. Her whole blog is pretty good too, check it out.

Brighton Fleas

I was thinking about the the phrase Flea Market, I tried looking up on wikipedia to find out where it originated from, it implied that one of the reasons for the name was because markets were places where one picked up fleas, presumably from all the dodgy second hand/used wares. Luckily today (or maybe always) it is quite difficult to pick up fleas from a flea market, mostly because they prefer animal hosts and don't generally hang about on clothing or old records or mismatched crockery...so yea. A nice lead into the what I did this weekend. I'm lucky, because my sister lives in Brighton and me and my partner get to regularly visit and one of the best things about wandering around Brighton is all the flea markets/thrift shops. If you're a local or have even just visited Brighton before, you'll probably have heard of Snoopers Paradise, which is a large space filled with loads of different vendors' stalls filled with treasures. There's also a vintage clothes shop above now, which has very beautiful things, but don't expect to find a bargain there. I more recently have decided that one of the bestest places to shop is probably the Brighton Sunday morning market at the mariner (used to be right by the train station).

Most things here are still well priced (by that I mean, they know their worth) but you can still pick up a bargain and obviously having the vendor right there, you are able to barter prices down-which I enjoy.

I managed to pick up a couple of good things, it was bad really, as I should have been restraining myself, but the problem with second hand shopping, as many people will know, is that if you see a bargain you know you won't find again, you have to buy it then and there!!! (p.s these pictures don't really do it justice, I was in a bit of a hurry taking pictures).

The next great place to go, if you're staying in Brighton, is Lewes. It's a short train ride (or car journey) from Brighton. A very lovely picturesque town with lots of civilised cake shops and nice places to have lunch. There are loads of antique shops here, the main high street has at least 5, with one massive one on several floors. Again, things are well priced, but if you're savvy you can find a bar-gain.

and what were the treasures that we picked up during our journeys around the markets you ask...I shall save that for another post, I've already gone on far too long.

Nails and nerves

Hello, I've notice that I haven't posted for almost a week and because I'm trying not to slip into a habit of not posting for long periods of time, I thought I'd break the silence with a quick, lo-fi picture of my Ombre/got-my-fingers-stuck-in-a-door nails. I had hoped to do a tute on these but every time I tried I had to get up and do something and thus, ended up messing them up. When I finally did them right I was too tired to write anything. Not that 'doing my nails' made me tired, I think I was tired from all the worrying, there were many things to worry about last night and the night before. I'm a bit of a worrier, unfortunately it is one of my 'default' emotions, though I'm sure many people have been worried over the past few days. I know worrying doesn't help, I try to focus on all the creative and productive things that people are capable of and try to believe that every person is capable of them.

I hope everyone in the cities affected by the riots are alright, or as alright as they can be.

Vents

Here I am striking poses in the Jardin, a pretty simple outfit with a few accessories to make it more interesting. This is the first time wearing my scarf-turned-into-a-waistcoat thing that I made as an experiment, it works well to make a basic outfit a bit more snazzy, also I didn't feel like having my bum on show today, so the long length of the scarf thing covered it up. Do you ever feel like that? Just like you have a bit too much shape on show? Maybe I'm just weird, I'm thinking Man Repeller layering here, only with just one layer...it's a start.

I'm well tired today, stayed up late last night after receiving some rather exciting news, which means many things are about to change fast! The news basically meant that me and my partner are now able to study on a Fine Art MA this year, starting October!!!! There is a huge mental list forming in my head, along with moving house, moving city and moving jobs (or leaving a job) there are many art projects coming up! Arg! Exciting but scary is how I would sum up this moment in time. Outfit: Top: Gap Jeans: All Saints Sandals: Urban Outfitters

DIY cross sunglasses

Hi, here's my first step by step diy, in June I posted this and have just been waiting for a cheap pair of mirrored sunglasses to catch my eye. I bought this pair for Urban Outfitters in the sale for £5.

Here's a gorgeous picture of me wearing them before I diy'ed them. They're fairly basic plastic sunglasses nothing special...and here's how to make them into jazzy crossed sunglasses (really it's pretty easy, I'm sure you probably worked out how to do it yourself, but nevermind...)

1: Place electric or masking tape in the cross shape over the lenses (I like electric tape because it's more flexible and easier to peel off). Make sure you're happy with the placement. Where ever the tape is, is where you will be seeing out of. Push the tape into the edges where the frame meets the lense.

2: Slightly peel off the tape at the outer edge, there should be a crease where you pushed the tape into the frames. Carefully cut around this line, don't cut on the line, but leave tiny bit of room around it, this will mean when you tape it down to the lense again, their won't be a gap. Tape the edges back down, making sure there are no gaps around the edges.

3: Spray with a spray paint of your choice, I chose matte black because that's what I had in my cupboard and as it was my first go I thought I'd play it safe. You could use any colour, in fact a lighter colour would have looked good against the dark mirror lenses.

4: Leave to dry, apply another layer if needed. Make sure the paint is totally dry, then carefully peel off the tape. Ta da!

It turned out alright, I think it would have more impact if the lenses were lighter or silver rather than this purpley blue colour, the crosses are more subtle.

...like the 90's saturation?

Summer breez...makes me feel fi-hiiine!

Sorry for that cheese'm title, just heard that song on the radio and it was in my head. It's lovely and hot hot here today and has been so for at least 4 days in a row, yes, it's one of those rare mini heat waves again. Have been a bit rubbish at getting into the habit of doing outfit posts, I managed to take some pictures during my lunch break this time, might be the way to go. I try to photo the days when I work (official work like) because I tend to dress up a little more on those days. However! I should like to get into the habit of forming more 'together' outfits on my days off, or days when I'm running errands, doing art related work etc... It's very easy for me to get into a bad habit of just wearing jeans and dirty tops on these days, when really I should use these days for wearing my more experimental clothes. Although at work (work work-in the office) there is no set dress code, I feel the need to dress more smartly and not show my arm tattoos, so there are some limits. I should explain that currently while being a self employed artiste I have another part ime job as a receptionist to a chiropractors, which is very nice, pays the bills and allows me to work on art on days off.

Outfit
Top: Gap
Skirt: Thrifted
Sandals: Urban Outfitters

So, yea I can easily fall into bad habits, like, if I want to save a smarter less hole-ridden top for a work day, I'll not wear it on a day off, so revert to a more ragged slightly less desirable top. I'm hoping this blog will help to change this habit.

Got these new sandals in the post today from the Urban Outfitters sale, I thought they were a nice simple style with a slight edge being give by the small wooden platform, they're not too tall either, so I feel very comfortable in them. The rest of the outfit is nothing really special, the skirt is one of my best bargain finds, I think it was £2! at a charity shop, it was longer and I tried to wear it as a midi but it just didn't look right, so I chopped it! Now I wear it often. I admit, I was originally wearing a long sleeve top, for work, but decided that had it not been a work day, this is what I'd wear, 'cos it was hot like!

Trying to show off my side braid here, a good hairstyle for a hot day.