Friday Frock: Plum Crumble

This dress is an oldie that doesn't get enough outings. It's such good quality - swishy thick cotton, lovely puff sleeves with ribbon ties, peter pan collar, fully lined and has pockets. It's from Primark a few years ago. At the time I hesitated because it cost £15 and I thought that was a lot to spend on a Primark dress.

But now I realise the decline in Primark quality (and accompanied hikes in prices) when I wear this dress. You'd never find this in there now, and other stores would charge a hell of a lot more than £15 (especially given the rise in cotton prices). I feel like this dress is a symbol of how much life sucks in the UK right now - the quality of our lives has definitely declined, but everything costs so much more. Stupid to get philosophical about a dress, but wearing it did get me thinking.

Dress, Primark, cardigan, New Look, tan ballet flats, Primark

To make this into a bit of a Match of the Day, here's the necklace I wore. It's so very Rabbit! It had a horrid pink ribbon bow on but I removed that and I'll be putting a pearl on it when I have a moment to dig out my jewellery making kit.

Necklace, Accessorize

And my lovely leather flats from Primark (which, you might notice, are actually a bit too big for me now, but I can't stop wearing them!)

Friday Frock! OOTD: Candy Zoo

So I have decided to make myself do more OOTDs by making it a regular weekly occurrence - by replacing NARS Lipgloss Fridays with Friday Frocks! And I have a newbie to start this all off. Say hello to the Candy Zoo dress!

So, sale-bargain regrets. How many of us rue passing things up, to be haunted by "the perfect dress" or the "perfect shoes" forever. I basket-danced with a dress when I saw it on Ulrika's blog last year, but missed out on my size at the sale price of £35.

Luckily, kids, there is summat now called Ebay. I'm not a major Ebayer, but go to it when I want something specific, utilising my honed search-term skills (I kid you not, I can find anything online, super-fast). This dress popped up last week - and I was lucky enough to win it! Ideally I'd have liked a 14 but at £3.26 (including P&P) I can't be too fussy, and 12 fits fine. It's a bit short and so sugar sweet I do wonder how long I'll be able to wear stuff like this for (I'll be 32 this year) but given I still look pretty young I'm just going to enjoy it for the time being. And not wear it to work!

Dress, New Look via Ebay, heart embroidered cardigan, New Look, leopard print hairband, Dorothy Perkins, flower earrings, Accessorize, woolly tights, Marks and Spencer, tan ballet flats (unseen), Primark.

Apologies for absence of feet - we're moving stuff around in the house so there's no places for pictures at the moment!

The print has: lions, birds, butterflies, deer, horses - and I just spotted an elephant - as well as the tiny polka dots. I love the dusty muted colours, which perfectly match my OPI Mermaid's Tears manicure (coming up!)

Ring out the old, ring in the new

Two of my essential accessories have been in serious need of an update for some time. My faithful tan leather cross body bag, and my wallet. My bag travelled the world with me for four years but daily use and trips to India, Bangladesh, the Middle East and Europe have taken their toll - to the point that my uncle in Bangladesh even politely and somewhat reproachfully enquired "don't you have ANY other bags?"

I was considering alternatives in this post - but having tried all the Topshop bags, none were quite right. My specs, though, were quite high: good hard-wearing leather, big enough for Moleskines/thin novels but not too huge, pretty daisy cutouts if possible, a strong, comfortable strap, and two compartments at least. I felt like it was never going to happen! It did, after a long search, and from a rather unlikely source!

So here's my accessories upgrade:

My poor weary tan leather bag, Accessorize (oh the shame...)

Purple leather wallet, Urban Outfitters

New-shininess (well, nearly new, they've been in use for a few weeks:

Tan leather bag, Dickins and Jones at House of Fraser

Red leather wallet, Marks and Spencer

Close up of punch out detailing on bag:

I definitely feel less scruffy and more put together now. And I'm so chuffed with the bag, it's made of such butter-soft but structured high grade leather, unlike the Topshop versions. I got it from Dickins and Jones of all places, which I view as a label for somewhat older folks, but it's so similar to the Topshop ones in style. I know, though, that unlike those, this will last me a good few years. I got it in the House of Fraser sale (the blue is still available), and with a gift voucher I only paid £20. Cannot complain about that! The wallet was also bargainous - at £6, and has just enough compartments. It's roomy, but I can't stuff it full of crap! Which is probably a good thing. They have lots of other colours too.

Hopefully my uncle will approve of my de-tramped accessories!

Accessorize Amethyst and OPI Silver Shatter NOTDs

nAbout a year ago I had the far-too-rare pleasure of meeting up with a dear friend of many years in Glasgow, the beautiful and super stylish Wonky Monky. Wonky Monky was wearing a lovely outfit (as always) accesorized with a very fetching greyed purple polish. Of course, the Rabbit's eye went straight to it and she demanded to know what it was.

It turned out to be OPI Parlez Vous OPI. A polish owned and utterly loved by the Rabbit. She' hadn't recognised it, because on her much darker skintone, it looked totally different - lighter, less purple, more lavender-grey.

Since that evening, the Rabbit's been searching for a polish that would be that lovely dusty blueberry shade on her. In Accessorize's Amethyst shade, she finally found it.

So enough of the indulgent third person narrative. I've been waiting to try this polish for a while, but patiently allowed my nails a couple of months to breathe after a whole winter of polish. Here it is, finally. A lovely dusty purple-grey creme, lighter and more purple than Models Own Purple Grey, but deeper and bluer than OPI Parlez Vous OPI? It has a fine white-silver shimmer of the Paradoxal-hidden variety, that gives it definition and makes it gleam on the nail. Lovely. I wish I had more than 4ml of it!

My OPI Pirates of the Caribbean polishes arrived the day I put this polish on, which was typical. So when it looked slightly worse for wear, I put the Silver Shatter on top. I like the combination but I think I need some practice to make the shatter shatter better. The splinters are so fine here that the colour doesn't show through as much as I'd like. Although I totally agree with Helen of Just Nice Things that matte chalky shatters look like a skin condition, I think sparkly versions are much nicer.

Stay tuned for manicure that will attempt to reproduce these colour combinations on my nails, inspired by Rhamnousia:

Some pictures from my travels pt. 1

So I've been AWOL, as I mentioned previously. I'm still struggling to get back into blogging but I've got some Pirates of the Caribbean OPI swatches coming up that I hope will get me back into it.

In the meantime, here are some photographs from Bangladesh. Despite largely being known in the West for being flood ravaged and poverty-stricken, it's also very beautiful.

AWOL

I have been. Oh yes. For weeks. But it's not just from the blog - I've actually been AWOL. I've been to Bangladesh for two weeks, Istanbul for a conference and Arundel for a mini-break. I'm also working on two projects, have a ton of academic writing to do and am generally very busy, and the blog has been pushed to the back of my "to do" list. Added to that, a failing Macbook hard drive means I'm currently unable to upload any photos of my adventures, acquisitions or makeup.

BUT my new hard drive is here, as are the tools I need to fit it, and I just need a spare day to tear my hair out over macrumors tutorials to get to grips with the procedure. Wish me luck!

I hope to be back with you all very shortly.