Poppy

I actually cannot believe it's 2012 tomorrow, this year has absolutely flown by. I'm getting well excited for Motion tonight, a few good acts have dropped out but been replaced by some really good house DJs apparently so hopefully they'll be just as good- I'm looking forward to the 'dance-off', should be interesting I don't really know what to expect. Apparently the dance-off is something that happens at a few festivals and my friend said she ended up in one at Motion before and she had to run across a clay pit. Leaving her shoeless for the rest of the night ha.

Post name- Poppy is my lush dog that gets away with everything and gets way too much attention because she's just too cute. She was brilliant yesterday I was really hungover and she was more than happy to tend to my hungover affection cravings, I had cuddles all day! I popped into town the other day and wore this outfit, I picked up this shirt in one of the Stroud charity shops and my Chelsea boots were a christmas present, I've had my eye on them for a while.

Also, last festive nails which is a little sad but I'm looking forward to trying instant effects silver glitter tonight which I got free when buying two other Barry M cosmetics, amazing. Hope you all have a great night tonight :)

Shirt: Charity Shop, 

Leggings: H&M, Shoes: Topshop

Pendant: Peaches and Nothing

Nails: Models Own Beetle Juice 'Emerald Black', 

Red glitter nail art pen

Velveteen

I went charity shopping in Stroud with a couple of the girls yesterday, bought a few lovely bits and it was so nice to catch up- we then bought a 1.5l bottle of red wine and drank the lot. This morning I quoted 'right, now I'm not drinking till new years'... famous last words? I'm going out in Cheltenham tonight ha!

I've wanted a velvet skirt like the one from this post for a while but unfortunately Yayer have sold out- so I bought a size 12 velvet dress from a charity shop for £4.99 and fashioned my own. I used elastic to draw in the waistline and my little sister got a mini sewing machine for christmas which is brilliant so I used that too.

It ended up being a tad shorter than planned and the sewing is not straight at all (first time on a sewing machine) but seeing as it only took about half an hour I'm pretty impressed :)

Maggie

Dress: H&M, Blazer: Urban Outfitters, Shoes: Dixi

Went out for a Christmas meal a couple of weeks back and wore this outfit, thought I'd post to show off my Maggie wedge boots. They're my new love- I'm obsessed with the colour and I can walk in them surprisingly easy. They're sold out on the site at the moment but Dixi are forever restocking popular items so keep an eye they might go back on sale, don't forget you can use my discount code OVERLYMEETSDIXI for 10% off of purchases from Dixi.

Timeless

 

Shirt: Charity Shop, Skirt and Shoes: Primark, 

Cross Ring: Boutique73, Other Ring & Broach: Vintage,

Nails: check on my post on Marbling

Christmas is crazy tiring, I hope you're all still enjoying the festivities. I'm trying to put off sale shopping for as long as possible but I'm unsure how much longer I'll last, there's so much I want. I've seen some of the lovely presents you've all got and will do a post showing off all my lush presents soon. The ring on my left hand was just one of the lovely presents I got, it was a friends great nan's so it's super vintage I love it it's gorgeous- and I love knowing where vintage pieces have come from, adds so much more character. Talking of nans, mine is trying to persuade me to sell this shirt, I picked it up for £6 and apparently it's worth lots more- but I just don't want to!

Marbling

 At the 90s night my friend had done marbling on her nails, I hadn't seen it before and it's so cool so me and my little sister gave it a go- it's pretty time consuming but fairly easy. Here's what you do (I would suggest watching a YouTube tutorial too!)

Firstly tape around your fingers so only your nail is showing, apparently it works better if you use a white base coat too which I completely forgot about, so do that too.

Then fill up a container with room temperature water, drop the colours you want to use one by one (you have to do it fairly quickly because they dry super fast) then use a cocktail stick or some kind of substitute- mine was a plastic fork ha- to swirl the polish around to make a cool pattern.

Dip your finger into the design where you want it to print onto your nail and scrape away the excess.

Take the tape of when your nails are dry, remove any polish from around the cuticle, apply a top coat and you're done :). Some of my nails came out really good and some weren't so great but I'm definitely going to try it again, using a white base too! I think you need to make sure the design is really small so you can get all of it on the nail.

90s

Who ever thought a 90s themed party would be so difficult to interpret, everything me and my friends thought about wearing we thought we'd probably wear on a normal day- and it's a little worrying that my friends mum didn't realise we were dressed up! This is probably a time to reflect on our fashion sense and have a rethink ha. However someone brought up Saved By the Bell which made life a lot easier and I didn't spend a penny on by outfit, we literally looked like cast, too funny. Everyone looked hilarious it turned out to be such a good theme, and a really good night. Back home for Christmas and I'm loving it! (My friend Carla is in the other picture)

Dandelion

Sunday I went for a meal with my old work friends in Bristol- I wore my new vans that I dribbled toothpaste on and didn't realise until I looked at the pictures (classy ha) and my fur coat. Now I know how people feel about real fur and I'm one of the biggest animal lovers you'll ever meet, buttt my Nan sells antiques and vintage clothes and she gave it to me for my birthday last year- I originally insisted on only faux fur but as soon as I tried it on I fell in love, there was nothing I could do!!

Top, Leggings and Owl ring: Primark, 

Casio: ASOS, Belt and Fur: Vintage

Onto the post name- The Dandelion is a kind of indoor market (with static stalls) in Gloucester, Longsmith Street, which sells vintage clothing and antiques. My Nan has a section of the shop where she sells some amazing vintage pieces from all different eras, (I'm hoping you can now see the link to this post, my coat, my Nan, the Dandelion...) So I don't know how many of you live anywhere near Gloucester or if you ever visit but if you do then it's definitely worth popping by to see if you can pick up a few vintage bargains. For I while I've been planning to sell a few of my vintage pieces in there which either don't fit or I don't need any more, rather than going down the eBay route, and this should all be sorted over Christmas, excitingggg :)

Unestablish

I'd never heard of Unestablish before but I came across the site the other day- they have really cool and unique pieces on sale. They are holding a competition for bloggers to win their wishlist- all you have to do is post three items and provide a link to their site to be in for the chance to win, so here's mine:

1. For Love & Lemons Lulu Dress // 2. The Furies Joker Legs // 3. Flare Button Blouse

If you want to get involved the winners are announced on the 20th of December so you need to be quick, also for the Christmas period they are offering 25% off and free shipping when you use discount code 'XMAS25'.

I'd also like to thank Isobel from Isobel Loves for awarding me the Versatile Blogger award, as I only did this the other week I wont post the 7 things etc again but I will tell you to pop over to her blog- it's one of my favs :)

Fluro'

I bought Models Own Fluro' Orange a while back and finally got the chance to try it. Verdict? I absolutely love it. It's got a matte effect and drys almost instantly. I've put on two coats and the only downside is that maybe it could have done with a third on the longer nails as you can see where the white bit starts buttt as it dries so quickly tit's really not an issue. In real life its way more fluorescent- especially in daylight it's so bright!

I went to London yesterday for my team meeting, had to present which was scary. We then went out for our Christmas party at Las Iguanas for food and drinks, these drinks led on to more drinks and a whole load of free champagne and mojito's at a bar called Madison  which is the top floor of a shopping centre and has an amazing view over St Pauls. I'm loving London at the moment.

Crash

Saturday was yet another friend's 21st in Bristol, we went to OMG- it's a gay bar just off Park Street. It was the funniest night- I love going gay clubbing because you're not out to impress so you can just concentrate on having a good time. Also I got all of my Christmas shopping done this weekend, it took me 5 and a half hours but it's done and now I have no money whatsoever aha.

Dress: Motel, Tights: Primark, Boots: New Look, 

Belt: Vintage, Socks & Necklaces: Primark

Rings: Peaches and Nothing, Cross Ring: Boutique73

Nails: Models Own Purple Ash & Purple Grey

In relation to my last post, the dress, tights and cross ring were also lovely birthday presents :)

Afterglow

This year I got insanely spoilt for my birthday. I have amazing people in my life that all know me so well and bought me some lush pieces of jewellery to add to my steadily growing collection... which was non-existent a couple of months ago. These are my lovely presents: 

01 The owl ring is so cute I absolutely love it, rings like this seem to be really in at the moment, I want more!

02 The sugar skull ring is an amazing piece and right up my street, I'm sure I saw this before and went to buy it but lost the link... my friend's a mind reader.

03 The definition of love ring- this ring actually has the definition of love on it (no more words needed, in love). I think it has a really vintage feel to it too.

04 My cross necklace was apparently picked up from a charity shop, I'm obsessed with crosses at the moment and this one is really vintage and original.

05 The sunglasses necklace is so cool, I think it's really quirky and quite a statement piece.

06 The dear necklace is a Primark beaut, I have the ring to match and I'm pretty sure my friend had no idea- I honestly don't know how they do this?! Aha.

07 The cross keys necklace is on a shorter chain that the rest which makes it totally different to everything I own, it's something I can wear all the time and it's such a unique piece. It's from Tally & Hoe, a store I've never come across before but they have some gorgeous necklaces on sale.

08 Finally the butterfly, this gorgeous broach again came from a charity shop and it's soo nice, I think the bright colours in it would liven up plain outfits really well- can't wait to wear it.

Spent my evening listening to Phaeleh, too much love.

December's Most Wanted

1. Bowler // 2. Caggie Wine Platform Boots - £52 - Dixi // 3. Crushing Velvet Skirt - £28 - Yayer // 4. Adele Wine Crotchet Insert Dress - £33 - Dixi // 5. Marvel Suede Chelsea Boots - £36 - Topshop // 6. Shine On Tux Jacket - £35 - Yayer // 7. Mayleene Large Owl Ring - £6 - Dixi // 8. Riley Bronze Owl Ring - £5 - Dixi // 9. Red Velveteen Shorts - £28 - Yayer

Ridiculous

Last night was the OneHP Charity Ball at the Barbican in London in the amazing conservatory- the venue and everybody in it looked amazing. The night consisted of charity auctions, a casino and unlimited free alcohol, I'm pretty sure I drank about eight glasses of red wine... with no dinner. Everyone was so drunk! Me and Melissa ended up going out in London for drinks after, very un-thought through as we didn't have a change of clothes. So this morning if you were anywhere near Liverpool Street station and saw two girls running around in ball gowns, heels and last night's make-up... that was us!! We looked absolutely ridiculous hence the name of this post, but now thinking about it it was bloody funny- never had that many dirty looks in my entire life. 

Dyeing

A while back I put my purple Levi's in the wash (completely dull moment because obviously they're plain denim and dyed), and trashed my entire white wardrobe. The pictures don't do it justice to how bad they actually looked. I'd never done this before but decided to try and dye them darker to save them!

I bought Dylon 'velvet black' for £2.99 in Wilkinsons (you can get it in most craft shops too for the same price), it's one of the hand dye's rather than a machine one- you just add warm water and salt to the mixture and stir regularly for about an hour.

You then rinse the clothes and put them through a wash, now the clothes didn't exactly come out black and even though I put them in the same bowl the dye came out completely different on both tops. But I'm really happy with the outcome, I thought the cross and stripes were going to be covered and no longer exist and make the tops plain and boring but you can still see them. I think I might add some studs to the outside of the cross to make it more prominent, the stitching has also stayed white which is quite cool.

Overall I'm really happy with the outcome and it cost me £2.99 to save two £20 tops, I feel like I have two new ones :) definitely better than throwing them away, but I did use the black dye and my clothes came out grey so I don't know what would happen with the other colours. I have a few other things I need to try and salvage so I might try out a different colour to see.

Ultimate

Yesterday I went to Sandown Races for a friends birthday with his friends from his placement, I've never been before & I really enjoyed it, even though I lost all of my bets! I literally had no clue- I bet on a horse called Ultimate (because with a name like Ultimate it's bound to win right?! Wrong.) and turns out the odds were something ridiculous like 40 to 1, so I had no chance, if he did win however I'd have made a serious profit on my £5. I can't wait to go to Cheltenham Races next year!!

The day started off with champagne for breakfast (out of the bottle- classy), followed by more drinks at the races, then off into London for more drinks in Leicester Square, followed by more drinks and a buffet in China Town, followed by more drinks in several bars, ending up at Zoo. It was might first night out in London and it was so much fun, although I lost my purse - nightmare.

HP Winter Ball tomorrow- looking forward to seeing all of my managers 'penguined' up. Oh and the two hours of free alcohol :)

PS. I am turning into a ridiculous drunk.