After the flowers had attacked she felt free and fresh

Just a quick post of an outfit I wore the other day with a top I love.  It's a Jigsaw summer top in a peach colour with a floral type design.  One of the reasons I love it is the great cleavage it gives my tiny B cup frame, but it's also really versatile.  I'm wearing it with jeans in the photo, but I've also worn it with black trousers or a black skirt for work too.  The older I get, the more I find that I don't have just a 'work wardrobe', a 'casual wardrobe' and a 'going out wardrobe'.  Although I do have some pieces that are clearly only for one situation - the LBD would hardly be appropriate for work or for nipping to Starbucks, and I'd look out of place wandering around a car boot sale in a suit, but for the main, I'm finding I want my pieces to really work for their money, and I want to be able to wear them to many situations.

Take for example, my favourite red blazer you've seen in many photos.  I can wear that anywhere - work, with jeans, over a nice dress for going out.  I wear it to death, and the more I wear it, the more I love it and feel glad I bought it.

I'm going to try to post again later as today is my last day at work for several weeks, for various reasons, and I want to write about my plans! But for now, a quick photo of my summery top.

Oranges and Lemons say the bells of St Clements

I love this dress – it’s really floaty and light and I just love the oranges and lemons pattern on it. It was quite unlike anything I’d seen before, and at £20 in the sale I just had to have it.

It is the famous british summer time here, and while for the past few days I’ve been wearing skirts and flip flops, today is rainy, but still really humid and hot. This meant, that i needed to wear proper shoes to avoid getting wet feet, but still wanted to remain cool in my really hot office.

My choice to wear this stemmed from deciding to wear these little black pumps. My hair was a bit curly becuase I’d just let it rough dry yesterday and I felt a bit flamenco and so picked this dress. I’ve put my hair in a side parting and donned some lovely red lipstick, and I feel really pleased with out outift today.
I feel a bit different as I don’t usually dress this glam for work, but it’s the summer and there is hardly anyone here!

Speaking of the heat - I'm really struggling this afternoon - I need a Starbucks Mango and Passion Fruit blended fruit drink to cool me down - don't know why but they always do the trick?

Lipstick - liner = Barry M, lipstick = MAC Dubonnet

Weekend wearing and budget update

I finally got paid!!! Thank goodness - I seem to have been waiting ages for this payday.  Not that I can now go out and shop 'til I drop, as after transferring the bulk into my joint acccount for bills, a chunk into my savings and allocating the rest on things like petrol and food, I've not go much to play with.  There are so many lovely things in town that I could so easily buy, and many that I am truly lusting after (the new Kiki skirt in Whistles being one of them), it's hard not to give in.

I have learned that not trying things on is a good way to prevent me from buying things, and I have been getting my shopping thrills vicariously through my mum who bought a beautiful Monsoon dress the other day.

Still, shopping and fashion do make me happy and I needed a little pick me up after not getting an interview for a job I applied for in a different department at my work.  My self esteem got a little low and I needed picking up.  I allowed myself a little bit of cash £25 to fit in with my budget, to get myself a treat.

I managed to actually get so much, and I love it all.  I bought a pair of shoes in M&S reduced from £49 to £15, a vintage 1970s dress off of ebay for about £6, and a 1980s vintage pleated skirt from ebay for about £3 that reminded me of a dress I'd once seen Claudia Schiffer wear.  I also got a free Reiss dress top with my latest Elle edition.  I don't usually wear the free things I get with magazines, but I particularly liked this item, and I love the Reiss clothing lines.  This looks more in line with the Reiss 71 range rather than their usual line, as it's quite funky and laid back.  I love it though.  I also got a few perfume samples from the House of Fraser to try - I'm quite liking the new Bulgari perfume, but it's £55 a bottle and so at the moment out of my budget.  In a few weeks if I've got any of my spending budget left I may treat myself.  I do love perfume samplers though - they are a great way to try out new scents.

I'm really loking forward to wearing the dress - I always find it hard to dress in the summer, and find it hard to get inspiration from Ms S as most of the photos of her are wearing winter clothes, like my new favourite of her in a simple blue jumper with scarf and jeans - I really want to try this look, but it's too warm at the moment.  Still, I'm sure the Great British summertime will prevail and grant me with a cold spell!

I also had my hair appointment on Saturday - I didn't get highlights this time but got the most gorgeous shade of brown and had a fringe put in - a nice thick full fringe like Claudia had at the end of 2009.  I really liked it, I felt like a movie star, and I think it gave me th econfidence to wear some of my new things, or wear my old things in ways I've not done before.

I've also been posting to Chictopia a lot recently, and the readers and bloggers on there are just the loveliest people and everyone leaves the nicest comments that are real confidence boosters.  It's also great for giving me inspiration on what to wear, and how to mix up my wardrobe in interesting ways.  With that and Claudia to look to, maybe one day I'll be the best dressed person in my street?

 My dress (right) and Claudia in her summer dress.

 My M&S shoes

 The green pleated 1980s skirt.  Roy and I went out to dinner on Saturday night and this is how I wore it.

 My new hair, the new Reiss T-shirt that was free with Elle, and my new shoes - Saturday afternoon having a milkshake with Roy, my sis and her fiance in town.

The perfume samples.

My new favourite photo of Claudia - I so want to try this outfit.  I have a fab blue Gap jumper I can use.

What I wore today

Today I had one of those really good showers.  You know the type where you shave your legs, exfloiate all over, then follow it with moisturiser all over.  My products of today were:

Body shop - Maca root shave cream (men's section)
Johnson's holiday skin tanning moisturiser
Superdrug morroccan body scrub (I picked this up for 49p the other day - didn't expect much but it's actually pretty good.  It wasn't very graining, and I'm usually a big fan of the graininess, but it left my skin feeling the same as any grainy exfloliator did).

I thought it was going to be hotter than it was today so went tightless in the following outfit:

Dress from Laura Ashley
Blazer from Precis Petite
Bag from Mulberry (one of my key pieces from my first post)
Shoes from M&S

This was very much a going to work look.  You can't see very well but I also had red accessories.



And the picture below is one I found on my iphone I quite liked as it reminded me of my last House of Fraser splurge before I had to start the budget.  £400 worth of goodies (though that did include a wedding outfit for my sisters wedding in the winter).

Skirt from River Island
Top from Topshop
Shoes from John Rocha at Debenhams