My favourite Singer...

Man, I can hardly think to type, I'm absolutely knackered from the weekend. I had a fantastic time, highlights including: lunchtime shots, being so terrified of the Crazy Mouse rollercoaster on Brighton Pier that I cried very messily and laughed hysterically at the same time, and having jokes made at my expense on Saturday night because I was wearing a mini top hat (hopefully pics to be shown at some point).

Phew. Today I'm wearing a gorgeous dress by Ruby Rocks from Style369.com that I got a while ago. I *think* that you can tell from this dress that I have a bit of an hourglass figure!

I seem to be buying a lot of dresses recently that are black with a white pattern: spots, feathers, flamingoes, flowers. I like the slimming affect of the black and the lovely patterns to liven it up but it hasn't been a concious decision.

And now to my charity buys of the weekend. I've been buying lots of little bits and pieces recently and just haven't had time to put them all up, they'll just appear as and when I wear them. But I just had to put these finds up! Firstly, a gorgeous silver ring with a blue stone for £3.99 from Oxfam. I love getting silver for under a fiver.

A cute pair of clip-on earrings:

Then a beautiful Delft jewellery set - necklace, bracelet and earrings. One of the earring hooks is broken but apart from that it was in great condition. It was just so pretty I couldn't not buy it, even though it was not-so-cheap £15.

Isn't it lovely?

And finally the piéce de résistance: a wonderful Singer sewing machine.

It's in perfect working order (or as much as I can tell without having actually used it yet!) and came with the original box of spare parts and instruction manual, as well as the case.

I'm so happy with it, whether or not I actually use it - although I'm determined to make something with it just so's I can say 'yes darling I ran this up on my Singer' - it's a beautful thing to have on display.

I hope you all had great weekends too, any good charity shop buys?

Danni x

Style thief!

Happy Friday everyone!

I've been a real style thief lately, I bought a gorgeous polka dot dress from New Look last week that I saw on Gemma's blog, Big Girls Browse, as well as another blog (which I can't remember now) and I also recently bought this Primark dress after seeing it on Blargle Fargle's blog. It's longer than I usually buy, which is actually quite nice, not having to worry about my bum showing is a change from the norm for me! It's very flattering around the waist so I decided not to wear a belt with it.

I love that through other peoples blogs you can see dresses that you never would have known to buy, see how they look on and think about how you'd style it your way. Also as Gem from Fat Frocks mentioned in her last post, you can see through your own photos how your outfits look to others, and maybe what you can change to make it look even better! Good all round really.

You can also just about see that I'm wearing a gorgeous green bracelet I got in a charity shop recently for 99p. Since I bought it I've seen quite a few of these in various colours, they're really nice to wear as they have a good weight to them. No markings though so I've no idea where they come from.

I've got a busy weekend planned, my boyfriend's brother and girlfriend, and sister and boyfriend are on their way to Brighton from Cornwall as I speak (type), so it's into Brighton town for drinks tonight, and then a group of twenty of us are going to a crazy tropical bar called Bali Brasserie that I've mentioned before, for cocktails and food tomorrow night.

Have fantastic weekends you lovely lot - oh and thank you for all your great comments on my last post, and all the rest of the time, they're so nice to read!

Danni x

You can't stop me!

One of my friends said something to me on the weekend that I can't stop thinking about; "My boyfriend won't let me eat junk food". Now that kind of freaked me out, because personally I don't know how I could let the phrase "my boyfriend won't let me" come out of my mouth. Everyone knows that there are things that your partner or friends don't like you doing, to the point where you try and avoid doing it round them to keep the peace. With me, people don't burp around me, or at least they're polite about it, because I hate burping, but I'd hate anyone to say that I wouldn't LET them do it.

It just made me think about how easily we let people control us, be it an over-bearing friend, a controlling boyfriend or a pushy boss. I actually recently "broke up" with a friend over some personal issues he was having, but even though I'm really sad about it and I miss him, part of me feels quite happy not being friends with him any more, because he'd always want to do things his way and would call me grumpy if I didn't oblige - so I ended up feeling like I was grumpy and a bad friend. Which I wasn't. I'm now seeing my other friends more and it's just so nice to be completely relaxed with them without being criticised.

SO, the point of this was just to say that nobody should LET you do anything (oh no I've thought the word let so much it's become nonsensical) and that the only person who should have control over what you do is YOU.

Wooooooo/cheering/applause *I take a bow* Thank you, thank you, I should be an inspirational speaker ; )

Onto the clothes! I went out last night for a colleagues leaving do, had a lovely time. I drank some hardcode Perry cider, some Rekorderlig and some Tuaca. If the last two things mean nothing to you: Rekorderlig is a Swedish cider made with natural ingredients. I don't like strawberry flavoured stuff but I love strawberries. Strawberry Rekorderlig tastes EXACTLY like strawberries. It's amazing. Tuaca is a liqueur that you have as a shot, but as far as I know in the UK it's only really sold in Brighton, have any of you tried it?

Here's what I wore:

A shirt dress from H&M (with shorts underneath to preserve my [small amount of] dignity), red lippy and my fur coat on top. I also wore this gorgeous Toucan watch necklace that a friend got me for my last birthday. I love it.

Danni x

The LOOK Show!

Hello!

I had a great time at the LOOK show on Friday, it was so nice to do something completely different. After a little bit of queuing I was in and instantly downed a glass of champagne - free booze! Then I skulked in a corner for a while because my friend was turning up a bit later, but it was a great opportunity to check out all the people, because everyone looked gorgeous! And that's not just me being nice, it really felt like it was a room full of normal people, wearing cool things that you could easily be wearing, and also people weren't "samey"; there were jumpsuits, dresses, heels, flats, short, long, block colours, spots...I liked almost every outfit I saw which is pretty unusual for me!

Not long after my lovely friend Jess turned up (and we knocked back another glass of bubbly!) it was time for the actual show. Now obviously the best bit for excitable me was the goody bag. I spent the first few minutes rummaging through it and exclaiming 'COOL' or 'weird' to the contents. Some of the things that were in it were:

Monsoon necklace
M&S sunnies

New Look scarf
Next Lip balm
Urban Decay eyeshadow
Sea salt texture-creating hair stuff
Fake tan
A very weird thing that uses red light therapy to help get rid of spots by pressing a lipstick shaped stick with batteries on your face...

There were some more little bits and pieces but those were the main things.

The show was good, there wasn't really anything crazy clothes-wise, some lovely colours, to be honest nothing was a massive departure from this seasons fashions. I'm going to put the best of the pictures I took below and you can have a look, they aren't great because a) the lighting was to bright for my camera to handle and b) we were behind a pillar (of course) and the split second it took to take the picture meant they had disappeared behind the pillar and I had a lovely picture of the audience...

Last thing before the pictures; I was supposed to be interviewed for the Dorothy Perkins website, but even though I went and found one of the women after I'd been there for a while and was told they'd find me later, no-one came over to find me, or called me, even just to say hi and well done for winning. I could see the two women chatting the whole time so it wasn't even that they were doing other things! I'm wondering whether to email them to ask what happened, because it felt a bit rude to be honest, or should I just leave it and be grateful that I went at all?! What do you think?

Enjoy the pics, some I've put up just because they look arty (accidentally of course!) and some because they show the celebs in the front row (Keisha ex-Sugababe, Mel from All Saints, Jaime Winstone and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Marina [and the Diamonds]).

 Outfit, hair and make-up (with fierce eyebrows)

Danni x

LOOK show outfit!

Right ladies, this was going to be a post asking you which outfit I should wear to the LOOK show tomorrow, but really it was obvious when I put this dress on that I should wear it. So I thought I'd show you the pictures and check that you agree! I had three options if I wanted to wear a Dorothy Perkins dress, and this was always my favourite, I wore it to my Christmas party with a little red cardi, but you can accessorise it in different ways to suit the occasion.

I added the flower belt and I'm worried it looks a bit much in the pics, but it breaks up the dress a bit.

I also thought I'd wear this cute little jacket on top, what do you think?

My other options were a green flapper style dress, and the outfit below, which is more appropriate for a dirty club/pub night really, I bet lots of people are going to be wearing a more casual/cool/I'm trying to act like I don't care when I really do outfit but I don't think I could pull it off. I know there's a fashion at the moment for suspender style tights, Henry Holland is doing loads of cool styles, but my flashing of the bits that shouldn't be seen is unintentional, I just don't know where to get tights that fit me AND don't have the thick bit at the top. I flash them all the time. I wore a different pair of shorts with these tights underneath at the weekend and they showed, and I tried to be all nonchalant about it but I SWEAR an old lady shook her head and tutted at my trashy look. My sister said I was just being paraniod though and that it looked cool...what do you guys think? Trashy or cool? (I won't be offended, I think both!)

Danni x

Tagged! Get to know me better...

The lovely Lauren from Gottaloveatrier tagged me in this, and I'm going to do it straight away because I love answering questions, especially about myself!!

The Questions:

1.  Are you named after anyone?

Nope, although I did have no name for a few weeks, and was called Suzanne before they settled on Danielle.

2.  When was the last time you cried?

I've been trying to remember the last film I cried at, because that's really the only time I cry. Almost got weepy at Beauty and the Beast last night but I managed to hold it together!

3.  Do you have kids?

Nope, and to be honest I'm not that bothered, I like the idea in theory but not in practice. 

4.  If you were another person would you be a friend of yourself?

Yes definitely, I'm a loyal and (hopefully!) fun friend and I'm great to go shopping with.

5.  Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Me? Sarcastic? NEVER.

6.  Will you ever bungee-jump?

Nope. Terrified of heights.

7.  What's your favourite cereal?

Frosted shreddies.

8.  What's the first thing you notice about people?

What they're wearing. And I don't mean in a "ooh they're wearing something designer" type way, but whether it's something colourful/quirky/interesting or something that I want to wear myself! And whether they've got a nice smile.

9.  What is you eye colour?

Bluey grey.

10.  Scary movie or happy endings?

Neither really, I hate scary films and happy endings are boring!

11.  Favourite smells?

Cut grass, fresh bread, my Dad's aftershave and the smoke when you blow out a candle.

12.  Summer or winter?

Summer, I like all the seasons for different reasons (poet) but everyone's just so bloody happy in the summer, and I can sit outside with crisps and a book EVERY DAY. Well, whenever the British summer decides to be sunny anyway.

13.  Computer or television?

Computer so I can read all my lovely blogs. I don't really watch much TV.

14.  What's the furthest you've been from home?

I went to India on my own for a month two years ago, it was an amazing experience!

15.  Do you have any special talents?

Not special in the sense of actually being worth something, but special in the sense of weird! As discussed in one of my recent posts I can blow air out of my eyeballs. Oh yeah. It's sexy.

16.  Where were you born?

In Barnstaple, Devon.

17.  What are your hobbies?

Reading and eating.

18.  Do you have any pets?

I've got a gorgeous little Chinese Dwarf hamster called Doris. I love her.

19.  Favourite movie?

I can't pick one I'm afraid; Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Moulin Rouge and Snatch.

20.  Do you have any siblings?

Yes, I've got a brother, two sisters, and a half-sister and a half-brother. Ooh and I'll soon have a step-brother when my Dad gets married in a month!

21.  What do you wanna be when you grow up?

A social worker; I'm hoping to start an Access course in September to get me started on that path.

I tag:

Alex at Odd Socks and Pretty Frocks
Susy Q
Rai at Blarge Fargle
Sam at Corsets Crafts and Cupcakes


Danni x

Go with the flow...and eat chips

I'm actually not hating this Monday very much, because I had such a nice weekend that the good feelings seem to have spilled over to today! My sister came to visit and we went out dancing on the Friday night at a 60's/70's night at a new club. We had a great time, and LOTS of tequila. The music was good, even the songs we didn't know, and they had a screen up behind the DJ that was showing some foxy 60's ladies dancing topless causing me to shout out "BOOBIES!!" every few minutes, much to the embarrassment of the boys we were with!

Then we did some wandering on Saturday, had chips on the seafront, wandered back, had chips for tea (disgraceful behaviour I know) and watched crap TV. Then Sunday I read all day, ate crisps and then had...guess what? Chips for tea!! I hardly ever have chips, but when these kind of things force themselves on you, I think it's just easier to go with the flow than deny yourself good things...I'll feel every one of those chips tonight at bootcamp I'm sure!

I managed to take up another hem on a charity shop dress, I'm looking forward to wearing this when it gets slightly warmer. Forgot to take a picture of the 'before' but it was about 7 inches longer. I also took a pic of my new M&S tights which I LOVE.

Last thing, bit of a biggie...I got an email last thing on Friday to say that I'd won tickets to go to the Look fashion show this Friday! Through Dorothy Perkins, who I have to say is genuinely my favourite high street shop and where I buy most of my non-charity shop/vintage clothes from. I'm a bit concerned though because a) I haven't heard back from them yet today and it makes me panic that it was just a joke or I've got it horrifically wrong and b) my first choice can't go, my second choice isn't sure yet, and a lot of my other friends won't be that interested! ARGH!

Also it goes without saying that I have no idea what to wear. They want me to wear DP stuff which is fine, but do I wear something I've already got or buy something new??

Danni x

Friday Flamingos

Hello! I've definitely got that Friday feeling today! I'm wearing a new outfit which helps. I popped into Primark on the way home yesterday (which almost made me late for Bootcamp, I need to sort my priorities out!) and picked up this lovely flamingo print dress.

I also got the belt in the picture, and this lovely little locket for £1.50!

I liked the dress so much I took a risk and got a size 12 which was the biggest one left, and it fits fine. I can usually get away with quite a small dress size compared to the rest of me. I also got a dress in size 16 and some shorts in size 18 - does anyone else get such mixed sizes?!

I wanted to wear this dress with tights not leggings today, but it was just too short, dammit! Although the office is so quiet today I could have got away with a bit of flashing!!

I'm pretty knackered today because I did a bootcamp last night and then another one this morning, making it four sessions this week! Phew! My sister is coming down this weekend so I am going to make up for my freaky fitness by going back to my natural state of eating everything I see and drinking LOTS.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Danni x

 Hello! What a bee-YOO-tiful day it is! My favourite kind of weather, sunny and cold.

And I'm happy for another reason too: no longer shall I have to feel sad about saying 'Oh I've put on muscle which is why I haven't lost any weight' (which is true by the way) because I have actually lost weight now! I'm 3lbs off a stone, woopee! It has taken two months of getting up at 6am three times a week though. The new group I'm doing bootcamp with meets in the evenings, and I have to say that it's harder to go. In the morning you're just on autopilot and then before you know it the exercise is out of the way, whereas in the evening it's very easy to talk yourself out of going. At least for me, I'd hate to tar you all with my lazy brush!

I have bought far too many little bits and pieces lately to put up photos of all of them - suffice to say I'm making up for not shopping online by doing it elsewhere...

But I'm going to show you two lovely new items that I got in Debenhams sale on Sunday. The sale is amazing by the way, massive reductions AND buy one get one free! I came out with eight things and they worked out at £6 each. Does anyone else get sale frenzy? I don't mean just the actual buying, but the shaky hands, the sweats from trying on too many things in an overheated changing room, and an insatiable thirst from where you hadn't realised you'd be doing so much exercise (rushing from sales rack to sales rack counts as exercise yes?) and so have only drunk two cups of coffee and no water so far that day. I hope it's not just me.

'Scuse the flash, it was either this or a picture of me looking terrified for some reason! This lovely grey dress with a belt I've had for years.

And this fantastic skirt for about £11 - isn't it gorgeous! I'm wearing it today.

I have a new mission in life: to set up a jumble sale in Brighton! There are never any centrally, and I get so jealous reading about Vix's 20p finds that I've decided to do something about it! I've emailed the church community centre on my road to see if they'll hold one. If not I'll look elsewhere, but I'm determined to get one going!

Danni x

So I'm doing ok so far with my not buying online - all of three days! I know, no need to praise me, I know how impressive I am. I do have a few things bookmarked though: this gorgeous dress worn by Sarah at A Million Dresses, and some Spanx as discussed by Jen at A Little Bird Told Me. In fact the Spanx might be the first thing I buy again, I've got three weddings in March and April so they'd definitely come in handy!

I'm being helped with not buying stuff online by the fact that things are still arriving that I bought in January. I bought a daisy print Topshop dress from BlargeFargles blog shop, and two dresses on ebay. One of the dresses was absolutely horrible, I thought it was a nice soft peach colour but it was bright orange and very unflattering! The other one is amazing, such a cool pattern don't you think?

It's longer than it looks in the picture, but I tucked it under the belt as that's the length I'll wear it at when I take it up. Another sewing project if I ever get time! I do't know if polyester is harder to sew or anything though, I'll have to find out.

Oh and I also got a gorgeous dress from Love Miss Daisy, and a gorgeous Miss Selfridge jumpsuit via ebay, but I haven't done pictures yet so I'll show you another time.

Last thing; I'm giving blood this afternoon, I always feel good doing it (and no not just for the mini cheddars they give you afterwards) and I just wanted to say that if you can: DONATE! You can help save lives, as well as getting to wear a sticker all day and feeling smug when you show people...

Danni x