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Tuesday 26 July 2011

Leather head gear

I love these visors from Fleet Ilya, I'm always a fan of anything leather with buckles or anything vaguely equestrian themed. These seem to be unnecessarily leather, I mean, it's like a summer visor...it should be light and wicker or see through, but it's not, it's heavy and thick and leather!!! They're a bit like a leather harness for your head.

Although I'm sure these are excellent quality, I can't help but think of a way I could DIY one from thick leather off cuts, it would at least fulfill some part of my desire to own one.


Photo's by Fleet Ilya www.shop.fleetilya.com

Monday 25 July 2011

Work, rest and some other third thing

Monday, Monday. This is one version of a smart work outfit, I also wore my new Marc O' Polo clog shoes today. I have to say I did feel veeery tall, I always feel quite self conscious when I wear tall shoes, I'm already 5ft 10" and with heels I'm, obviously, even taller. I know there's nothing wrong with being very tall, just as there is nothing wrong with being very petite, but I feel quite exposed when I wear heels, I have to be in the right kind of mood. So anyhow, I like this outfit for its simplicity, so adding heels makes it a bit more interesting.



This was the first time taking photo's with my new tripod and the camera on timer too, which proved time consuming, but good practice. I'm still getting used to doing good poses and stuff, tried some silly shots too to break the tension (with myself..?)



Outfit:
Shirt: Thrifted
Jeans: All Saints
Shoes: Marc O' Polo
Quartz pendant: DIY



I bought these pieces of quartz when I was in Cornwall, £1.50 for all three and bound them together with some jewelry wire to make this pendant.

Sunday 24 July 2011

Lamb Burger Recipe. (It's sunny - time for a BBQ!)



I think I worked out that we've had roughly a 1 in 10 chance of a sunny day recently and even less odds that the sunny day will be on a weekend. Today a sunny day landed on a Sunday! So we decided it was barbecue time. I'd recently seen a recipe for making Moroccan inspired lamb burgers and fancied making them instead of the usual beef burgers (although I do love beef burgers). I didn't have the recipe so made up an improvised version, they turned out pretty good.


Lamb Burger:
x1 pack of minced lamb
x1 chilli (the variety of chilli depends on how spicy you want)
bunch of Rosemary
bunch of Mint (I probably would have put a bit more in than in pictured here but my plants were a bit sparse)
a couple of cloves of garlic (NOT a whole bulb as pictured)
1 Teaspoon of Cumin
Half a teaspoon on Cinnamon
a bit of Salt and pepper
a couple of Tablespoons of Olive Oil

Chop all the herbs and garlic as fine as you can and put in a mixing bowl, add the oil and spices and then the meat, mix together, I prefer to use my hands so it really mixes well. Then shape into burgers.



To accompany the burgers I made a Tzatziki, which is really easy and delicious.

Tzatziki:

3 or 4 generous tablespoons of greek (or thick) yogurt
one third of a cucumber
1 or a half a clove of garlic (depending how strong you want it)
a bunch of mint chopped
a pinch of salt

Scrape out the seeds of the cucumber and grate the cumcumber, try to squeeze most of the water out of the grated cucumber and put in a bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Easy peasy!

Thursday 21 July 2011

Holy day finale

A few pics accumulated from various stages of the holiday, one of which is a picture of me riding a motorbike for the first time evar!!! I didn't go beyond 1st gear, but still, I now feel like if I ever needed to jump on a motorbike during some sort of zombie attack/Apocalypse/something...I would be able to drive it.

View over Looe from a nearby hill top.


While we were in Looe we went to visit the boys' Uncle and Aunt who have a really nice farm house in Liskeard, they both used to be really into bikes and still had a small one they use now and then, they let us have a ride around their garden, good fun!


A sand fox.

View of the coastline from when we walked to Polperro.


This is the sort of outfit I'd likely wear to work, with the exception of the shoes, I'd wear more shoe-like shoes, or slightly smarter shoes. The skirt is my contribution to the tribal trend going on at the moment, I bought it as a long skirt from Oxfam and cut it short- it were a bargain!

Outfit:
Skirt: Oxfam
Top: 2nd hand shop
Shoes: converse
Bag: Dooney & Bourke

I'm liking that all these recent outfit photo's I've been standing in amongst hedge or rocks, makes a change from the city.

I land on the Island

A short boat ride away from Looe is Looe Island. Even though it was a short (15 minute) ride away I was worried about feeling sick, the last time I was on a small boat, it was for about 4 hours and rocky and horrible. Luckily it wasn't too bad, I think I'm ok as long as the boat keeps moving, it's the stopping in one place and rocking from side to side...blurgh!

Looe Island (AKA St Georges Island) used to be owned by two ladies who then left it to The National Wildlife Trust, so it's now a nature reserve. There are only a couple of the wildlife trust wardens and a few other residents living on the island. It was pretty cool getting to walk around an island that's so small you can understand it's mass, it's just like any other section of land, except it's cut off from anywhere else.





So this was one of the houses on the island, all the houses looked really nice. Part way round the island we were told there was a good place for spotting seals. We managed to see 3 all together, unfortunately they were quite far away, but we could make out there big grins and when one yawned you could see how big it's mouth was. Apparently they sleep with their head poked out of the water and occasionally sink but when they run out of air, instead of waking up to go up for air, they have an instinctual reaction to rise to flip their flippers rising to the surface without waking up.


Can you make out the seal!?

Outfit:
Playsuit: 2nd hand
Shirt: H&M
Shoes: converse

I found this playsuit/romper whatever you want to call it, at a charity shop, at first I was unsure about it, it's a lot brighter than what I normally wear, but I thought, 'what the hell!'. Wearing this grey shirt over the top definitely tones it down and makes it more casual and a bit easier for me to get used to wearing such bright and mixed colours. P.s as my first time wearing a romper, I'm not sure how I feel about the inconvenience it presents when going to the toilet, is it really worth it...? Start the debate now!!!

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Beach Glass

I don't often wear this dress, although I'd like to more often. I made an interesting observation when I got back home from holiday...when I'm staying on holiday or staying in another city I don't seem to feel the cold as much as when I'm at home, I don't think it has anything to do with tempurature, it's weird, I always wear more layers when I go out at home...anyway, yes interesting observation. Soooo basically that's why it seemed less of an issue to wear this dress, although I did notice that it is quite warm on my legs, the fabric is quite thick.



This was taken on a lovery evening walk to a nearby beach where I found some tiny pieces of green beach glass, once I found one piece I kept seeing it everywhere.


Outfit:
Dress: Vintage
Shoes: Hushpuppies
Owl Cuff-Brighton Market

I noticed after these pictures in particular, how much I need a haircut, my hair gets out of control and I can't really wear it out unless it is 'maintained' on a regular basis, unfortunately there was no room in my bags to pack a hairdryer or staighteners either.
One of the things I was interested in when I started this blog was seeing pictures of outfits I put together, from a different view, it's stangely different form just looking in the mirror. It's good, I think when I see photos of my outfits it's like looking at any regular person, so I feel a little less self conscious of what I'm wearing, it's like I think, if I saw someone in the street wearing that outfit, I would think, that's a cool outfit!

Monday 18 July 2011

Great Lantic Bay

Our second day of holiday brought beautiful sunshine and clear skies, lucky us! I had to make sure we went to the best beach ever while it was a nice day. When I was a kiddo me and my family stayed in a cottage near this beach a few times and a few years ago I rediscovered it, it's gorgeous. You have to take a rather treacherous steep walk down to the beach, but it's worth it, it doesn't get too busy either because of the walk.



From holiday

I love all the craggy rocks along the coast of Cornwall, but this beach has some particularly great specimens to climb over and explore. Also the water is so clear and blue, it almost looks like a tropical beach somewhere in another country. However I went swimming and it was FREEZING I'm not sure if I've swam in water that cold before, the lower half of my body went numb (and I'm usually pretty good at swimming in colder waters). I went back in later in the afternoon and it seemed to have warmed up a bit, there were also lots of tiny fish fry swimming about too!







Outfit
Dress: diy
Shoes: Converse
Sunglasses: TKmaxx


For the beach I threw on this light dress that I made from some cheap stretchy cotton fabric that I bought from the market and bleached into this slightly wonky chevron pattern. I was attempting to make a dress I saw on an episode of SATC, I might give it another go some time (fabric only cost £1.50 a metre). The dress was ideal for negotiating the rocks and walking about, also easy to throw over a bathing suit.

Saturday 16 July 2011

In case I go near a cliff edge

As this is a new blog, I thought a good way to get it going and to get used to taking outfit photos of myself would be to start while I'm on my holiday! Seeing as when I go on holiday I tend to plan what I'll be wearing anyway for packing purposes and because I like to be a bit more experimental with what I wear. I'm not sure why exactly, I think it might have something to do with knowing that I won't see anyone I know on holiday, which is a bit silly, there's no reason why I should worry about what people think of what I wear or what they think about me at all. I think it's just a slight feeling of self consciousness if someone you know notices that you look a bit different to usual or something, that sounds so backward, I sure a lot of people would like the idea of people noticing that you looked nice or different, I'm not saying I don't like it, but I think I need to put less emphasis on thinking about what people are thinking of me. That just sounds weird, but anyway, holidays are a good opportunity to come out of your shell a bit, however that might be.

From holiday

The holiday was a lovely week long trip to Looe in Cornwall with my partner, his brother and cousin and their partners. I love Cornwall, I used to go on holiday there a lot with my family when I was kid. I know it's an increasingly popular holiday destination and is maybe getting over touristy in places, but I still love walking around the coastal paths and exploring the countryside and beaches.

From holiday

So here I am on the beach! This is what I wore on the first day, exploring and walking. We started the holiday with the longest walk, we walked over to the next town, Polperro, via the coastal path, it's about 4.5 miles on the main roads, we were thinking it would be a fairly long walk, but it might only take us a couple of hours. We forgot about the wiggly pathways and the ascents, descents etc... I'm glad I wore my converse trainers, probably the most sensible walking shoes I own. Even though it was tiring I really enjoyed being outside and challenging myself more physically as a lot of my time at home is spent on a computer, sat down (something I need to change).

This dress is a 2nd hand find which I altered, I trimmed and scalloped the hem and altered the neck line with a bit of bond-a -web to create some small lapels. I'm also wearing my diy-ed leather harness, made from a few skinny leather belts, I think it gives the rather girly dress a bit of an edge (or it makes me look like I'm wearing those sets of child reigns that stop children from running away-ha!).

From holiday
Outfit:
Dress: Charity Shop
Harness: diy
Shoes: converse
Bag: Dooney & Bourke