Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I finally have some downtime between going out and eating leftovers to bring you a couple of photos I snapped on Christmas Day :) 


Unfortunately for me, but fortunate for my liver, my Christmas has been a stone cold sober one. 5 days before christmas I got tonsillitis :( Anyone who's had it will know how really feckin' horrible it is... aches, pains, the sorest throat you can imagine, headaches, sick stomach and general feelings of bleugh.. waaahhh... blaaah. 


Now, as my friends know well, my new thing is being overly dramatic in situations that don't warrant it (proclaiming FML when I can't plug in my charger in the socket.. or shouting BEST.DAY.EVER. when I find a penny) so when I told people how sick I was they reckoned it was a boy who cried wolf situation.. but I actually was really sick. I swear! I did bounce back fast though so by the time anyone saw me I was fine again.. which really didn't help my case.. hmm need.to.work.on.story.


This Christmas I got two terribly exciting gifts:


1. The first was a pink mini sewing machine from John Lewis (which I must admit, isn't all that mini.. but it's pink and it's beautiful and it's mine). I'm genuinely an advertisers dream. Make something pink and I'll instantly buy it. Had my sewing machine been white... meh.. I could have taken it or left it.

2. A Diana Mini camera. I'm obsessed with lomography at the moment... call me a hipster if you will :) but it just gives such a cool quality to photos. I was originally gonna get the Diana f+ but it takes an unusual film format and i just didn't want the hassle for my first camera of this type.

I hope everyone had an amazing family and food filled Christmas :) New Years is so so close... It's time to seriously start thinking about my New Years Resolutions. I'm calling 2011 the year of 'change'; moving house, moving away, possibly choosing a masters, working abroad, travelling... you name it i'm gonna give it a go!

So Happy New Year everyone! See ye in 2011

yum yum yuuuuuummmm

Love up

El :)xx

Can you hear me now....?

Hello!!


Finally, an outfit post! I spent all day Saturday morning reshooting dark and awful outfit photos from the last few weeks. Unfortunately I had to change rooms to the spare room so excuse the naff wardrobes in the background... check out the door handles! How retro!? I still had to spend a good bit of time editing but at least I have photos!


I have so many pretty floral summer dresses that I ignored most of Autumn but I got bored of the jeans, boots and thousands of layers look, so I've started wearing black long sleeved tops under all my dresses.

(Dress - Local Waterford Shop "Swamp", Black long-sleeved top - Penneys/Primark, Grey cardigan - Penneys/Primark, Leggings - NEXT, Black snood - John Rocha at Debenhams, Clock necklace - H&M, Boots - OFFICE)

Ok.... I NEED to dedicate a paragraph to my boots. I bought these in January last year in Kingston-upon-Thames while I was over for my brothers graduation. I had been on the search for a pair that were the right height on my calf, not too shiney and nicely rounded at the front... and then I found these babies in Office... and fell in love. My mum paid for them on her credit card so it wasn't exactly aware of the price until after... but I'm glad I didn't see the tag or I may have been a bit weary of spending over 100 euro on them. Now, i'm so glad I did because I literally wear them around 5 times a week if not more. They're so versatile and because they're not black they go with navy (which I like to wear quite a bit.. exhibit A above). The good news is they're still available on the OFFICE website :)

Do you have a pair of shoes you can't get out of?? Or a nevertakenoff item of clothing?? Or do you have an inventive way of restyling summer dresses you could share? Most important question though, can someone PLEASE tell me where I can get decent black leggings that don't sag at the knees and lose shape after one wear? 


Let me know your thoughts :)

Before I go (need to finish Christmas shopping) I must point out that my post title is a lyric from a Villagers song called That Day. Now I know this isn't a music blog, but I'm just really in love with this band AND I'm going to see them live tonight, so I have to tell ye about them :D I'm far too excited about this gig... aaaahhh1h11!!! EXCITEMENT!! They're Irish and they have a beautiful album out called Becoming A Jackal. I can't choose just one favourite song to recommend but because I stole my title from these lyrics, have a listen to 'That Day': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-HDkpgWZDM

(If someone could tell me how to embed a video into my blog that would be great)

Love,

El :)xx

Let it Snow....

Ok, so I've been a crap blogger as of late. You may all give out to me.. it's ok.. I can take it! Due to reasons beyond my control and reasons that were fully in my control I just haven't had time to take outfit posts. 


Firstly I'd like to blame it on the weather. No matter how many photographers and websites and manuals I've consulted I just can't get my camera to do what i want it to... and considering I go to work in dull light and come home in darkness my days off are my only chance for photos. Now... In theory this should still give me at least 2 to 3 photos a week... but.. I've been busy on my days off. I'd like to be able to say that I've been doing REALLY important, life changing things... but I haven't.... I've been on exciting adventures to other cities and abroad and generally just having fun :) 


So..... sorry blog land, I hang my head in shame... but I intend to get back to it in the run up to Christmas. I have super exciting things planned for my future and this blog will play a big part in it, so I'm gonna start taking it seriously.


In the meantime....


SNOW!!! IT'S SNOWING IN IRELAND!!! I love it :) Check out the view from my mum's room this afternoon:

I would now like to reveal a little bit about my personality that came to light today. Basically, if you want to have light hearted snowman making fun, don't invite me. I am the dictator of snow construction.. If we're going to make a snowman, we're going to make a snowman and it's going to be brilliant! Having said that... despite my leadership skills this is what we ended up with, not the best... but hey.. I tried (I hope one of my snowman companions reads this..teeeehee):

Given the fact I've been stuck inside most of the day, I've been catching up on tv on the RTE Player (what a great invention). I feel compelled to declare to you all my LOVE for Fade Street... (this is Ireland's answer to the Hills for those of you who aren't familiar). While the acting is awful, it's obviously staged and in real life the two main girls would never be friends... it's just brilliant. I find myself completely bewildered and shocked by each episode.. it's a kind of "is this really happening?? is this REALLY on tv?? WHO ARE THEY KIDDING??" feeling. I urge you all to check it out, it doesn't take much commitment either, the episodes are 20 mins long. In this weeks episode look out for Paul and Dani's fight.... it's all very amusing... Paul does some pushing, everyone is shocked.. and he storms off. It's a gem.


Ok Blog... I must be off, but never fear.. I will be back with proper fashion posts

Love,

El :)xx

Co-ownership! The recessionista way!

So...both my mum and I have been pining after leopard print coats all of autumn. We both already have our own creamy coloured plain fur coats and she also has a black one but these beautiful leopard prints appearing all over shops were just too tempting to ignore. While watching Xpose on tv3 during the week this Warehouse gem appeared: 

Everybody say "ooooooo".... "aaaahhhh"

So, after the initial lust subsided I came up with this amazing idea........... wait for it:

Lets buy the fur coat together! 

(cue alarm bells, flashing lights, sirens!)

Due to work and other stuff me and my mum will be living in the same vicinity for atleast 2 years so we don't have to worry about who gets custody of the coat till at least then. Plus it worked out around 62 euro each, that's so cheap! What I like about it most (besides the insane softness) is the colour. Because I have red hair, I've found that orange leopard print can make me look a bit tacky and my mum feels the same. 

I'll be featuring this baby in an outfit post soon enough but until then here's the pretty model showing it off:

Love,

El :)xx

Rain, rain go away..... please?

So it's the first day of November and the weather seems to be letting me know this. It's getting in the way of what could have been a very productive day off (lies). I had big plans for a long walk (lie), maybe doing some bank related things (more lies) and catching up on all the jobs I've been putting off (yes I'm still lying).. To be honest, I kind of like rain, as long as it's not constant of course. The weather in Ireland has been pretty alright for the past while so as long is it doesn't stay for much longer I'm happy to be cozied up at home with tea, a fire and 'The Princess Diaries' today :)

Last night was Halloween and as usual we got one set of trick or treaters, meaning that I have two bags of chocolate to get through over the next week... :) I didn't have a camera to document my finished costume for Saturday night but I'm hoping a decent photo will crop up on Facebook over the next few weeks so I can post it up here.

In the meantime, here's what I'm wearing today. I'd also like to point out it's my FIRST outfit post ever! :) I've been wearing the snood on and off all day, depending on which room of the house I'm in, it's sooo snuggly :)

(Snood - Primark/Penneys, Stripy Top - H&M, Green cardigan - H&M, Jeans - H&M, Clock necklace - H&M)

I really like this outfit for lounging around the house. The stripy top is actually longer than I'm showing it here. I fold it up with jeans and leave it long to turn it into a dress. I'm currently on the look out for a REAL clock necklace that tells the time (and that's not too expensive), but this will do for now. Any suggestions of where to get one??

Love,

El :)xx

....fighting tooth and NAIL

So here's my first beauty post. I had intended to set up my tripod and work out a really cool setting for some daily outfit photos but I never really got around to it... busy busy! 

But while I had some down time I decided to give a bit of nail art a go. Forgive me if this post is a bit all over the place but it was my first attempt in years at anything nail arty, usually i just paint them a block colour and wait until they're hideously chipped to re-do them.

A few days a go I was with my mum in a hairdressing/beauty wholesalers and I decided to pick these babies up:

• The nail art brushes were 1.95 each but came with no instructions on cleaning or anything so I presumed nail polish remover and a cotton pad would do the trick.. but now the brushes are all hard and crap and for 4 euro.. one use is not value for money :( If anyone has any advice on how to clean them, I'd really appreciate it.

• On the upside the nail stickers are AMAZING, they're really soft and pliable so they stick to the contour of your nails. I just have one on my thumb to test it... 5 hours and it's still there :)

First I painted my nails with a base coat of grey. I chose Rimmel's 60 second nail polish - grey matter (see image below):

Next I tried out the nail stickers, just on my thumb. They're so easy to use. Just paint on a basecoat, peel off a sticker, place it on your nail and finish it off with a clear top coat. I like Rimmel's 5 in 1 Nail Care, Nail treat polish.

Then for the rest of my nails I messed around a bit first with some random patterns as you'll see below. I then settled on a very sleek simple design of half and half... (It's kind of like a french manicure at an angle... kind of). 


Due to me throwing out a lot of old crappy gloopy polishes recently my colour palette was confined to either red or blue/green. I gave the bluey/green a whirl but it looked so flat and kinda like I was just bad at painting my nails. So red it was! (or 'frisky clover' to be precise)


I finished off the nails with a top coat of the rimmel 5 in 1 for strength.

Aaaaah, *blurry picture alert*

Ignore the second nail from the left... I got a notion to put a shiny stripe across my nail... don't ask me why

Overall i think it's a very simple idea but it looks like you've put in a bit of effort (when it really only took a few mins and a steady hand). These are the nail polishes I used:

I'm mad for Rimmel recently. Great range of colours and their new 1 sec brush makes painting your nails so easy. My only criticism is that they go gloopy REALLY quickly. I must give Models Own a go soon, I've been hearing loads about them. 

Ok so, that's all!

Goodnight!

El :)xx

Hello blog-land!

Welcome to my blog and more importantly welcome to my first entry.. ooooo!


I am currently getting to grips with this whole blogging thing so forgive me if I post something now and then post nothing for a couple of days. The chances are no one will be reading this until I have more posts anyways as I've decided I won't start promoting it until I have a pretty nifty set of posts, first impressions are everything you know??


My plans for this baby are great but it's just deciding where to start that's tough. I suppose I should say a bit about myself, my aims and objectives... yada yada yada.


As I've stated in my 'who am i?' section, I like: 

CLOTHES
(I <3 stripes)

COOKING
(please note this isn't me, or my child, I don't have a child.. i'm 22 and can barely look after myself)

& CATS
(not my cat but very cute all the same and similar colouring to Pixie - I won't give too much away about her just right now.. she deserves a post all to herself)

I'm pretty sure I'm breaking all sorts of copyright laws with those images but I'll worry about that later... I even have a plan to combat it... in the meantime, i dunno, sue me or something.

ANYWAYS.. For my Blog I plan on having outfit posts of my lovely self, beauty tips, hair tips (courtesy of my mother.. maybe, i dunno, I haven't asked her yet), things i want to buy, maybe some tv and film related things, the odd interview here and there and some yummy recipes to get you drooling... My only restriction is that it the contents must err on the side of the cheap cheap cheap (except for when I tell ye about my new coat... 75 euro but soooo worth it)

So that's it really... I'm off for some girly time with my friends, I plan to pick their brains about cool stuff for my blog :) and see what they think of my layout so far. Also anyone? If you're out there... say hello! 

Let me leave you with something I found as I googled 'cooking':

How hilarious is this?? Also labelling it a 'teaser version' won't make me want to buy it... lets just hope they're making some reference to manly chefs and not their nether regions

Toodles,

El :) xx