Tuesday 11 September 2012

Etsy/Folksy finds

I love browsing Etsy (and Folksy) for beautiful, hand crafted items for myself or as gifts - here's my favourites this month.


This cute bird necklace is from The Dandelion Jewelry, a Madrid based etsy seller. I love the simple silver colour and the bird is so sweet - this is the perfect gift for a girl who loves necklaces! Unfortunately this particular necklace is out of stock but she has a few others, herehere and here as well as some other beautiful pieces.


I don't have a kindle yet but I hope to get one for Christmas. This cover is beautiful, bright and exotic! There are many ereader covers on both Folksy and Etsy but this is the one I like the most. It's from Service Partner, an American etsy seller. She makes lots of different ereader covers and even offers a design your own service!


As you can tell, when furnishing my home and buying objects I like to go for the pretty, girly option. This cushion from My Blue Shed is no exception! I love the colours and the design of it. I must say, I'm also quite taken by this wonderful Union Jack cushion too, how wonderfully patriotic and kitsch!


Memory boards are quite an interesting idea - basically, you slip in things you want to display (like photographs, gig tickets, rail tickets, drawings) underneath the ribbon without needing pins so you don't get holes in them. This blue rose design board is from Kays Krafts, a Texan seller who has literally hundreds of different boards for sale with something that will suit any personality - from those who like to stand out from the crowd to the simple and elegant among us!


This handmade Victorian style lace choker is probably my favourite find out of the whole post. It's so elegant and beautiful that I can't help but love it! De Poppenkraal is a Dutch shop (I hope I've spelt the shop name right!) that specialises in authentic gothic jewellery pieces. She has some incredible items up such as these gothic skeleton cameo earrings and this lace bracelet (which would look great in white with the choker!)


And finally, for this brief overview of all things handmade, is this wonderful Mac laptop decal with a quote from one of my favourite movies on - Moulin Rouge. The Decals Home sell a wide variety of quotes, pictures, and graphics for iPads, Mac laptops, walls and even cars - the only problem with this product is I don't have a Mac laptop!

Sunday 9 September 2012

Boohoo blogger competition

Well the wonderful ladies over at Fashion Vouchers are doing it again - another competition for bloggers! This time the competition is to create an outfit from BooHoo.com for under £50! Challenge accepted.

I'm feeling the punky, gothic vibe at the moment - but I still wanted something pretty and club worthy as well. Hence why I threw together these items.

1) Flora black colour block platforms, £30 £15 2) Large corsage clutch, £15 £10, 3) Imogen heart choker, £12
4) Polka dot bandeau peplum dress, £20 £12
Total = £49! Just under budget.

I would do a sexy smokey eye and natural lip with this look - you don't want to go too vampy but a little touch of mystique around the eyes is never a bad thing. I chose the dress first and fashioned the rest of the outfit around it; I know that it seems a bit of an odd combination but I love the 'tame' goth look! This is definitely something I would love to wear out, though I may change the bag as large clutches just aint my kinda thing! However it adds a nice little girly touch and if the bag was a plain black one as I'd normally use, I feel it'd make the whole outfit too dark and oppressive.

As you can see, I relied heavily on the clearance page of BooHoo! There are some fab bargains to be found on the site, both in the clearance and the main section. I love BooHoo! What would you have picked? Will you be entering? Comment and let me know if you do, I love checking out other people's entries!

Whilst I'm here, I've finally got around to setting up a twitter account for my blogging! If you're vigilant you'll notice the little widget on the right of the screen under my followers. If you're very vigilant, you'll also notice that I now have a second blog based around my exploits in organisation, filofaxes and stationery! Find my twitter here and my second blog here.

Friday 7 September 2012

What's in my (new!) handbag

Inevitably, my handbags always get a load of crap accumulated at the bottom of them - plasters, crumbs, (clean!) tissues, receipts...

I found this beautiful handbag in Clarks today and I knew I had to have it. I ummed and ahhed for a while as it was a little over my ideal price range at £29.99 - yes, I am cheap - but eventually love and my friend's handbag buying enabling skills won through and I took it to the till. I was therefore utterly delighted to find that it had 50% off that the shop assistants hadn't got round to marking yet! Fab :D So I got a beautiful, spacious and practical handbag for just £14.98. Definite bargain!

Swoooon!
So, what's in it? As it's brand new, I decided to give a little tour of it, which doesn't include the random icky bits that bags seem to accumulate...


1) The bag itself. Sigh. It's so pretty...
2) My trusty filofax! Now it's possibly a little odd that I carry this around with me, as I use it primarily as an exercise/food tracker, but I do have finance and to-do sheets in it so I guess it's justifiable.
3) Sunglasses courtesy of Primarni, sunglasses case from Accessorize (in the sale)
4) GHD hair brush. It's meant to straighten your hair as you brush it but uh, it doesn't really do that... It's just a nice handy size to keep in my bag.
5) Normal glasses, as it was so hot and sunny today I decided to stick my contacts in which means carrying my normal glasses around with me.
6) Radley purse. I got this for my 18th birthday (yes, over 4 years ago now!) and it still looks fantastic. I would thoroughly recommend Radley purses to anyone - they're a little expensive but they last FOREVER and they're so lovely and cute!
7) Blackberry Curve, I know many say that BBs are terrible and to be honest with you it's not a great phone but as long as it takes and makes phone calls and texts I could care less.
8) Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten to put an 8 on my picture...
9) You never know when you may need a tissue!
10) Neurofen, again another essential
11) House keys! Can't go out with those.

Not pictured - I tend to carry a book with me nowadays too, currently I'm reading Atonement by Ian McEwan. It's just good to have one for those little moments when you're out and about with nothing to do!

Hopefully you enjoyed my bag over view! I've got another memory card reader (though looking at it, I dunno how long this one will last... sigh) so more blogging coming up!

What do you carry in your handbag day to day?