18 before 19.

Inspired by the beautiful Delightfully Tacky I doodled this list in my diary.. 18 things to do before I turn 19. I have been 18 for an incredible 7 months now (woah there!) so it perhaps would have been more effective if I had made it when I actually had a year to complete these things... oh well!

I wonder if I will manage all these things in the next five months? I can tick a couple off already, but I think its fine if some of them roll over onto my '19 before 20' list.
I don't know about you but I have sooooo many long term goals, things like what job I want, and how I envision my life in ten years time, blah blah blah... properly LONG TERM things that I have my whole life to achieve. And often that makes me feel overwhelmed by all the stuff I should be doing to make that perfect life come true. But it seems the truth is you can't plan for the perfect life to happen. I know where I would like to end up, but doing lots of fun little things along the way is what life is actually about, surely.

Enough rambling.

18 before 19 list
1. cut my hair off
2. get, and learn to use, a real film camera
3. break 20 followers on my blog
4. read all the books on my 'books to read' list
5. find a nice boy
6. learn how to cook a new meal
7. add to vintage collection
8. learn to type better
9. make a skirt
10. see a band who I really really really like
11. find some high heeled shoes I can walk in
12. tell my best friends how much I love them
13. sort somewhere to live next year
14. finish first look book
15. start a second look book
16. paint a canvas, it's been too long
17. find some vintage babycham glasses
18. feel ok about being at uni
TURN 19!

:) What would your list be??


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you and me in a photo booth, 4

tiiiiiired.



apologies for the lack of posts.
my days have been filled with well I don't know what really...a lot of putting off doing essays! But I am determined not to have loads to do over the christmas hols so its go go go from here! you won't see me because i'll be hidden behind all the smoke coming from my pen!

took a trip to Southampton today (about 40mins/an hour on the train from Pompey) to do a spot of crimbo shopping - we may have underestimated how busy it would be on a saturday, 4 weeks before christmas! but it was still a lovely day even if now all I have the energy to do is curl up, eat my body weight in chocolate eclairs and watch I'm a celeb.

today I fell in love with Zara all over again.

feeling a little more festive now; can't wait for mulled wine, stollen and the Pogues!
it is very cold here, but no snow as of yet. what about where you are?
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i'm such a worrier

please explain precisely why i really really want one of these?
'Quilted Vintage' Jacket, £99.95, Barbour

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stone, grass, concrete and gravel, all we've got to keep us together

hype me?

need a little time to wake up wake up

I bought white rose fairy lights. As if they were going straight up on the walls.
Also today I managed to check a book out of the library and do laundry without any incidents, which is an achievement. How was your day?

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introspection sucks, don't do it kids

Tally ho! Was supposed to go to some fireworks tonight, which turned out to not be very good, so we left. It was nice to see people though and so now I am watching QI, doodling in one of my many many many notebooks, drinking tea and making shopping lists.

As a person, I don't feel very defined. You couldn't draw my life. I am too subtle. It doesn't help that I am on a convoluted degree course.
Anyway I'm working on it.

Back home my hair used to mark me out but here its nothing special
so because it is undefined/curls are unpronounced
I'm going to cut my hair
omgosh.
don't know how. I want a fuckoff fringe, like a friend of a friend has.

Also hopefully soon the ballet classes I signed up to will start,
I miss dance being part of my life.
And fingers crossed I get a shiny lomo for christmas,
and next week I will buy pearl lipstick,
and some books that are nothing to do with my work
(and won't feel bad for reading them either)
and although I don't want a job till next year (barwork, please!)
I have at least signed up to hopefully contribute to the student paper

so soon I might be
the girl with the chic backcombed hair
and the sixties makeup
who idly takes photos with her cute camera
and who dances ballet
and reads books on theology, cambridge dons
and the history of ysl

AND I WILL BE DEFINED
keep those fingers crossed for me, kiddos!

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Look! A book, of looks.

All over the last few months of college and throughout this summer I have been working on this lookbook. Every time I finish with a magazine, I go all ninja on it with scissors I accidentally stole from my school art room when I was about 14.

Inspired by a video I saw on a blog, sometime last year.

http://ihategracefulpeople.blogspot.com/2010/06/laters.html

GO THERE AND WATCH IT FIRST!!! I COMMAND YOU!

It is a truly addictive way to waste an afternoon. :)
I have ended up with a huuuugely thick book that I am very proud of. It started off just being fashion, and whilst it largely still is there are also articles, quotes and other images too..
So yeh, bit of a mishmash, and although the book isn't finished yet I am too damn impatient, and I was bored one night so I filmed this. Hope you like it :)

(Don't tell me I don't know how to have fun.)


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you and me in a photobooth, 3

I'm going out for a while.
If I'm not back by tomorrow morning, come find me?
(ps I blame the Jacques. not a drink I'd heard of before uni, but apparently its big with students. and apparently I am one of those now. so, hey ho, drink up.)

don't walk that way

I don't know if you've noticed, but its getting colder. A lot, lot colder. Maybe it is because I live by the freezing waters of what I'm pretty sure is the North Atlantic Ocean, at least the English/French channel anyway, but even as an ardent lover of all things winter I am having trouble adjusting to these bitingly cold temperatures. I had to invest in a badass navyblue duffel coat. In it, with my brogues and satchel, I look like a small evacuated child but it is cosy so I don't much mind.

Anyway, soon my thoughts are turning to footwear. My small selection of everyday shoes pretty much spans 3 different types of brogue. Snazzy, but not keeping my tootsies warm! I spy something beginning with...B! Boots! A pair of lovely snuggly warm winter boots.

I may have come to this a little late, but I remembering the last couple of seasons where desert boots started creeping in...and I am attracted!


These beauts are Karen Milan Weekend Luxe Suede ankle boots, £144 in ASOS sale, and you know I'm a sucker for a tassel. ;) But lets not get carried away here, hardly high street prices.
ARTY Moccasin Boots, £65, Topshop. They're just cute. And kinda ugly. But what is A/W'10 if not a celebration of the frump, in luscious brown suede they look so slouchy and casual. Styling them up might be a challenge, but I'm seeing skinny jeans and an awful lot of cable knit.
Somehow I'm not too impressed with Zara's offering, a wedge ankle boot £59.99. I don't know if its the odd mid-height (is it an ankle boot or a full boot? who knows!) but somehow they look a little too severe. They are still a cute, very Zara approach to the desert boot though, making it their own with the wraparound lace tie.

ANGEL Studded Suede Ankle Boots, £75, Topshop.
These have quite a lot going on, but for a hybrid of all the different booty styles going on at the moment (seems like studs from the biker trend, shape of the desert boot, toe structure of a cowboy boot etc..is that just me?) they are quite a successful piece. I am totally sold on the blocky wooden heel - quite often they look stupid, out of place, like someone has just stuck it on, but here it kind of works.

But - drumroll, please - we have a clear winner. And it's from a slightly unlikely source.
Clarks YARA Desert Boot in black. Isn't she beautiful? See, it's the simple one that wins out. The wedge heel makes the quite masculine desert shoe a little prettier, would look grungy-glamorous with a floral maxi dress, or androdgynous with chinos..I'm in love. At £99 it is the pricier end of the non-designer market, but if I had that kind of ready moolah at my fingertips I would deem them worth it. I called Clarks unlikely not because they haven't had some lovely stock - I still covet a shiny pair of brogues from there, which you know would not fall apart - but just because they don't really have the reputation of being fashion-y, theyre more classic.
So what drew my, and the bloggosphere's attention to these darlings? This darling!

The unstoppable Flo wore the Clarks YARA wedges in the sand colour to Glastonbury this year, and as a result they completely sold out - indeed, they still are! So getting your hands on a pair might be tricky, but good news; it would seem there will be more stock in. If you can wait till December, that is.

None of the above shoes would fill my criteria of snuggly, warm, everyday boots (with the questionable exception of the topshop Arty number?). But they would make you look all warm and wintery and suede-clothed, even if you were still a little nippy. And that is good enough, no?

Ah well.. any suggestions for actual warm and sexy footwear?!
xx

oh, i don't know why

you and me in a photobooth, 2

advance apologies for the beret, but we drank rather a lot of wine last night and I haven't brushed my hair.


Off home for a rare weekend visit! Looking forwards to sparklers, fish and chips, my local pub with some homegirls and of course seeing the fam. Whatever you're up to, have a lovely weekend. :) x

a chanel a day keeps the doctor away

I stood in the newsagents, biting my lip and sighing - this was a big decision, and one it was vitally important I got right.

It was a toss-up between Alexa on Elle, or Emma on Vogue. And much as we all love Alexa, this time Emma won out. She is just too cute! I know opinion is split, but personally I think her pixie-cut is brave, adorable, and the perfect mix of sixties mod and right now.

Emma Watson on British Vogue December 2010

Of course, my rash magazine buying does mean this student will be living on bagels and tinned soup until next week...but what stylish lass wouldn't happily trade a few days of food for Emma?
The glossy white and gold cover is so so wintry, I can already see the fairy lights and sequinned cocktail numbers we'll all be whipping out for the Christmas party season.

Sorry, too soon?

x ;)

you and me in a photobooth, 1

Thats right, I got moves.
As part of my blog overhaul, new feature! Regular snapshots of life, via iSight ;)

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when I was seventeen, I had wrists like steel

aren't these just granny-chic perfect?
somebody, please?
KAMA penny loafers, £55, Topshop


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so lets make time work for us

how miserable have I been on this blog of late?
erm, I am heart-stoppingly sorry for my depressing tone :)

Surprisingly, I'm actually not sad! University was a massive shock to the system, especially after I spent all summer avoiding thinking about my imminent departure... but now that I have accepted that this is my new life, it is all going swimmingly. In fact I have been rather busy of late, just doing student things, you know, things involving Jezza Kyle and jaegerbombs and Tesco and Orange Wednesdays and assignments and dettol and dubstep. Not all at once, you understand.
Hence the lack of blog activity/unenthusiastic posting.
Also, I am studying creative writing and I don't know if this will make any sense when written down, but I put so much of my creative energy into my work that I feel pretty much sapped of all my best ideas when it comes to free time! This is lazy and slatternly and not acceptable behaviour, for which I apologize.

It has been nice to spend a bit of time catching up on all my favorite blogs though, whilst eating leftover chocolate apples from Halloween and daydreaming about the day I will be able to afford some lipstick from Topshop's new makeup range. I suppose if I didn't eat for a few days...

I am back, I am feeling good, and ready to blog blog blog my way through my first year at Portsmouth.



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