27.03.12

Wearing: 
Outfit 1: 
Interview/Assessment centre Pink silk blazer (Next), Striped pencil skirt ( Next), Black scallop-edged top (Topshop).
Outfit 2: 
Summer clothes starting to creep in Black top (as before), Green body-con skirt (Topshop), Gold and black gladiator sandals with leopard print ribbon (Carvela).

Listening to: Miles Kane- First of My Kind
                     Scrufizzer- Steam
                     B.Traits- Fever

March has been a bit of a manic month for me so sorry for being a bit lax with blogging. I am also coming to end of my student loan for this term so money is a massive issue as well so, I thought, if I can't buy new clothes to blog about, then I'd rather just wait and blog when I've got something worthwhile to talk about!

So the first outfit is something I wore to an interview/assessment centre in London a few weeks ago. I literally trawled around Cardiff City Centre looking for something that could be regarded as 'business attire' but that I'd also love wearing. After one evening of unsuccessful shopping (mostly spent trying on every single item in Zara) I enlisted my flat mate to come and be a second pair of eyes to find the perfect outfit. And this is what we came up with! I always forget just how good Next is for business/smart clothing. The skirt and the jacket came in at around £50 for both which, for work clothes, is not bad at all! I did wear shoes to the assessment (obvs) however, two days before, I damaged the tendons in my foot so had to hobble down to M&S and purchase a 'reliable and sensible' pair that my fat foot could actually fit in to!! There were a lot of frustrated London folk on the tube that day caught behind the 'Catrin traffic jam' I created. Oops.

The second outfit is a tribute to the absolutely beautiful weather that we've been seeing for the last week or so! I realised that the majority of my wardrobe is actually spring/summer clothing (which I pass off as going out clothes as well) so I am loving finally being able to wear some of it!! The high street shops are starting to really go for it in terms of SS12 clothing as well so I can't wait to go home for Easter and hopefully come back in a few weeks with some new bits and pieces! I'm desperate to get my hands on some pastel pieces, and I'd love a girly, lace white dress. Either that or come back and hit Cardiff when the student loan drops!!

Anyway, that's all for now as I have to get ready for uni (absolute lazybones!)

Big Love, As Always.

x.

08.03.12

Wearing: Floral jersey dress (Warehouse), Suede boots (Marks & Spencer), Hoop earrings (Topshop).

Listening to: Friction Vs Camo & Krooked- Stand Up

This is the ear cuff I got from Topshop! I love it! I keep looking out for different ones but so far they seem to be restricted to ones very similar to the one I've got. Nevertheless, I still love it!

Last Sunday I wandered down to a vintage fair in a student pub in Cardiff (The Woodville, Cathays). The event called 'In Aid Of Vintage' runs once a month in Cardiff and has a great range of clothing and accessories on offer! And what's more, it's free to go in and have a nose around! You can find them at www.facebook.com/rosetintedvintage to find out when the next fair is going to be, and where! (FYI the next Cardiff one is on March 25th). Another great one to check out is Blind Lemon Vintage; they have fairs all over the country! There was a great mix of vintage knits, dresses, handbags, jewellery (lots of costume jewellery) as well as a few stalls selling less-vintage pieces (for example I saw lots of clothing from high street stores from a few seasons ago!) As always, you have to get in there nice and early to get the best pieces and you can't be afraid to have a rummage! The men's items were particularly good, I even saw a gorgeous cashmere knitted jumper for a bargain price of £15!!

In other news, I've spent the last few days picking interview/assessment centre outfits as I've been called to one next week. Very exciting! It kind of felt a bit like I was 'playing' at dressing up as a grown-up! Next in Cardiff got hit very hard today though! Ended up getting a great little outfit for around £50! I always forget how reasonable Next is for work wear/office wear. I'll blog and outfit post it next week on D-Day...if I remember. I'll probably be so flustered trying to navigate to and around London but i'll blog it at some point next week!

Exciting times. All keep your fingers crossed for me!

Big love, As always.

26.02.12

This week I've been rather proactive with outfits so I'm going to upload two outfit posts in this entry and then upload another in a few days!

Outfit One
Wearing: Black body-con dress, worn as skirt (H&M), Gold sequin top (TOPSHOP), Nude heels (Dorothy Perkins), Anklet (Accessorize), Earrings, barely seen (TOPSHOP)


Listening to: Lana Del Rey- Born To Die

Outfit Two
Wearing: Black top, Brown leather shorts (Both TOPSHOP), Leopard print flats (New Look). (Excuse the ridiculous face in this one, I was running verrry late for uni that day!)

So there we have two new outfit posts, they're practically entirely made up of Topshop as well- typical me! You can also see (I hope) that my ombre hair is fading on the bottom and developing into a nice auburn colour.

I got a letter from Arcadia customer care yesterday as well as I complained about my white jumper that burnt! (Remember?...) It was a very nice letter actually and they're sending me a refund for the jumper as well as the postage & packaging costs I had to pay to send it to their office. So that was a nice surprise to come home to. Now I have to decide whether to risk it and buy another of the same or get something else.

Yesterday was Wales v England Six Nations and, living in Cardiff, you can imagine the carnage that ensued during the match and last night! Town was completely and utterly packed and there were no taxis going in or out of the centre! Nightmare! This resulted in a 45 minute wait outside for our late taxi in outfit number one. Good job the weather has actually perked up though- the fact that is is starting to feel like spring meant that it wasn't too unbearable!

I finally bought an earring with an ear cuff attached to it. I got it from, you guessed it, Topshop! I was 'umming and ahhing' but I saw a girl wearing one in town during the week and it looked lovely so I went out on a whim and got one. Another little frivolous purchase this week was from H&M. It's a hair tie/bobble (whatever you call them) with a gold metal ring attached so basically you tie up your hair in a ponytail and then undo the clasp and pop the ring around it. It looks really nice (if a tad on the 'dominatrix' side of things). It was only £1.99 as well so can't really go wrong! I always forget how good H&M can be for accessories. Also, loving my new anklet from Accessorize! I popped home from uni for the weekend and found some gift vouchers from Christmas that I hadn't used- Jackpot!

I would write more but, if I'm honest, I'm feeling a tad fragile this morning! I'll blog again during the week.

Big love, As always.

x.

20.02.12

Wearing: Body-con black/leopard print dress (River Island). Leopard print flats (New Look). Lipstick (MAC combination of 'Myth' and 'St Germain'). Blue quilted bag (Mango). Grey Blazer (Topshop). Gold hoop earrings (Topshop).
My hair is also finally starting to fade into a more 'auburn' shade. Result! 

Listening to: Major Look- Hush Your Gums.

This week I have major envy for anyone at London Fashion Week. I've watched some of the live streams and I desperately want to be there! I love how, at LFW, designers always make their shows such an experience, such a story and such an event. I love how each designer hand picks the venue and set design to correspond to their collection and their personalities (designers like Vivienne Westwood always have a field day). Showing their new collections for the first time is such a huge thing and the collections literally predict what trends will be filtering down on the high street in a matter of months. I just love the whole process- I love seeing which trends the high street will pick-up on and accept and which ones will be shunned.

This weekend I went to Motion in Bristol for 'Funk From The Trunk'. I always forget how much of a great venue Motion is. It was a really good night as all the artists on the line-up played a decent mix of music genres, so there was pretty much something for everyone. Normally if I go to a rave I try to go quite casual, but because I bought this new dress recently, I decided I'd give it it's debut! Teamed with flats and a cardi you can dress it down really easily. Going to such great nights lately is also getting me really excited for festivals this summer! Partly for the music but mostly for the 'festival chic' fashion I can bring out! Give me a summer dress, some gladiator sandals, my ray bans and a trilby and I'll be happy! I also saw the BeachBreak 2012 line-up today, a day before the release and I can safely say it's going to be an amazing few days! Roll on summer!

Big love, As always.

08.02.12

Wearing: Lace floral dress (TOPSHOP), Nude Heels (Dorothy Perkins), Pearl effect collar necklace (TOPSHOP), Gold hoop earrings (TOPSHOP).

Listening to: Benjamin Francis Leftwich- Pictures (beautiful track).

So I said I wasn't going to 'over-blog' but I had to get this outfit post out while I thought about it! This is a(nother) new dress courtesy of TOPSHOP. I tried it on over Christmas at home and loved it but thought it was a bit too expensive as I was counting the pennies (typical student). BUT I somehow had vouchers left over post-Christmas so I decided to splurge. I just think it's so easy to dress up and down. I wore it with a cropped fur jacket from H&M on the weekend and it looked lovely and kept me toasty!

So last night was a bit 'off the cuff'. We originally popped down to our local pub for a uni social, but ended up entering the pub quiz! Lo and behold, a few drinks and some head scratching later, we actually won!! £100 cash prize which we then went out and spent ridiculously quickly in a club. Apparently £100 doesn't go as far as you'd think. It was also the quickest my flatmate and I have everrrr got ready for a night out so the picture above is the best I could pull out in 10 minutes! Ha!

Also, this is the new hair. Not sure if you can see it very well in that picture, it's actually a lot 'redder' in real life.

Big love. As always