Lust List Addition: Miss Selfridge

I'll be honest from the beginning here; I very rarely shop at Miss Selfridge. However after my friend purchased their "I'm late for a very important date" vest top it sparked my curiosity. Cue me wanting this skirt and dress. Unfortunately the dress only goes up to a size 14 which means that due to my giant hips I can't quite squeeze myself into it yet. However the skirt goes up another size so I can accumulate that as a piece for my wardrobe at least. Not Primark cheap, but not mega expensive either.

The vest top is £20,

the skirt is £32,

and the dress £38.



All are from their Alice range and they all fit in to the romantic/pretty vibe going on with a lot of clothes. Both make me a very happy shopper.

Customisation part 3

Pretty simple, this particular customisation tonight. Take one pair of lace-up shoes, trainers, pumps etc (mine are £2 from Primark) and a metre of ribbon in your chosen colour (approximately 20-50p from most haberdashery shops. The ribbon I used cost me 25p per metre from my local haberdashery market stall back home.

Basically, remove the shoe/trainer/pumps laces and replace with the ribbon. Cut to preferred length (make sure you tie them up first to get the necessary amount - you don't want to go to tie your shoes only to not have enough material to tie up!). And viola, customised shoes for under £1.

I've also done this with my past two pairs of converse, green ribbon for the black pair and red ribbon for the pink pair. The best bit about this? You can mix and match colours, patterns and (to a certain extent) material you replace your laces with.

Hair can be pretty too

So by now it's been established I like cute detailing on clothes and such. Recently I've stepped out of my headband obsession and invested in some different hair accessories. Costing about £5 altogether I bought this set of dotty hair clips and these pink rose hair slides from Claire's Accessories.

The hair clips themselves are great and I can mix and match them to go with pretty much all of my outfits. They're very useful for when I have my hair up as well due to the fact that the layers in my hair mean if I put it up in a ponytail the odd layer or two will fall down. Problem now solved, thanks to these.

The rose hair slides, whilst pretty and sparkly (which is always a bonus for me. I told you: human magpie) are rather painful when I take them out. Something I don't appreciate occurring when I remove hair slides, pins and the like is several strands of hair coming out with them. This fact, added in with my low pain threshold, has meant I haven't really worn the hair slides much, but the hair clips are definitely here to stay.

Results

So I've been away all weekend on a UCCF training weekend in preparation for becoming my CU's president next academic year so I was unable to collect my semester one results online when they were released Friday night. One of the first things I did upon returning back at the flat on Sunday night (after food, grabbing Katie for potential friend comforting and semi-unpacking) was to log on to the uni network and look them up. Wonderfully I passed everything. I only failed one essay and that only counted for 10% of the module so I passed that one regardless. The lowest grade I got was a 2:2, and I received a handful of firsts; which was amazing!

I had to retake shorthand at the beginning of February and have, literally within the last hour, received my results from this after a chance encounter with my shorthand tutor. The result? I passed, possibly with 100%, or at most only one mistake. Hurrah!

Throw into the mix that the woman who runs the website I write a music column for (fingertips, google my name and the word blog and it's one of the first posts that come up) emailed me yesterday saying how impressed they were with my work, that they saw a lot of potential in it and wanted me to develop my blog. Basically where before I was told to keep it to a limit I'm now being encouraged to write more and expand on my view. Good times all around :)

New Discoveries

I've noticed/admitted a few things about myself recently. One is that I eat my lasagne in the strangest way possible: I eat it layer by layer, scraping off the cheese from the top then eating the pasta sheet and then the meat, followed by the next pasta sheet.

Living in uni halls has upped my levels of tidiness, particularly pertaining to the kitchen. I keep tidying up as I cook in there, just a random little wipe of the surfaces every now and then.

Another thing I've noticed is that I took a lot of home comforts for granted. Like heating, and quick internet. But, more importantly, having family and friends close by 24/7. I still get pangs of homesickness, especially for Piers and my niece who are possibly two of my favourite people.

I can budget...and then re-budget. Seriously though I can do the organised bit and set myself a budget but every now and then I have difficulty sticking to it. Too much money this semester has gone on DVDs, clothes and presents for birthdays which are absolutely ages away. Whoopsie.

But on a positive note, I've rediscovered my inner working nerd/geek. Why is this a good thing? It's good because within a few months of sixth form I lost all desire to be there, whereas at uni I'm on top of work and I'm doing well. My inner Hermione Granger has awoken! My writing has also picked up again and I'm writing more poetry, letters and short stories, which is something I'd missed after a year or so of absolutely no motivation.

So taking the good with the bad, I think I needed a change of scenery to get me out of the rut I was in back home. I just wish I had some of the people from back home with me. Still, there's always holidays.

Very delayed sale find picture

Wow so two months later than its purchase, here is a picture of possibly my best sale find from the Christmas sales in Peacocks. I found this beaut of a cardigan for £5 and fell in clothing-lust with it pretty much on the spot. I remember seeing this on their website in red and thinking "a red leopard print cardigan,ewww!" I changed my mind for their purple one. The print, which could have been garish and oh-so very wrong, is actually played down really well and looks rather chic for a cheaper high street shop. Peacocks wonder strikes again! Anyway, it's really easy to pair with most things, especially given the clashing prints trend this season which means I can wear it with some of my patterned skirts and get away with it. Plus, gorgeous looking knitwear is kind of an essential up north, if I'm going to wrap up because of the cold I'm determined it will be in pieces that I look at and go "what a beaut!"

Organised beauty

So having itty-biddy shower rooms and no where else to really store all my soaps, hair care and other beauty products other than my uni room has meant I've had to be both a) creative and b)highly organised. Cue giant Tupperware box and some careful stacking. In this giant Tupperware box I have two toothbrushes, two lots of toothpaste, a bath scrubber, a face mask, numerous face creams, cleansers, toners, an eye cream, face scrubs and moisturisers. Shampoos and conditioners go to the side, and you can just about see my washing up stuff as well for when I can't be bothered to go to the kitchen and wash up. Lazy and practical, that's me!