Purse Palpitations Week #12

Spring is creeping up, maybe this post will help it hurry the hell up..

               Bird print dress - Phase Eight £29.63

Short sleeve lace crop top - Topshop £15

Lonsdale Wind Runner Jacket - Sports Direct eBay Outlet £14.99

Tory Burch printed tee - The Outnet £44

Liberty Cosmetics Department

I think the most under appreciated department store in London is Liberty. It's beautiful black and white exterior sits gracefully behind Regent Street, nestled right by Carnaby Street and the rooms weave in and out of each other so that you can get happily lost for hours.

As somebody who doesn't have the budget most of the time to buy the luxury designer items they have for sale, I love browsing the food and stationery sections for quirky gifts and general pointless crap that I don't need. Who doesn't want a tape dispenser shaped like a cassette tape?!

On my last trip to Liberty I spent a bit more time moseying around the cosmetics section, and aside from the standard and luxury ranges concessions, there's also some products that I've never seen anywhere else, and which I'd love to have lined up in my bathroom. I'm a sucker for good packaging (see my Pinterest board on it here), which one of these do you like?

What I Wore to... Brixton Village

I've lived in London for nearly two years now, but I still don't really know the south of the city at all. At the weekend I went for lunch in Brixton Village market which has a range of small cafes and restaurants that were all bustling and lively on the beautiful sunny Saturday we ventured out.

For the first properly warm day we've seen this year I was determined to get my legs out. No tights for me!

Mesh bomber jacket: River Island £45
Vest top: Monki
Necklace: Gogo Philip at ASOS
Acid wash denim skirt: Topshop
Bag: Mulberry
Shoes: Converse

We had lunch at the Senzala Creperie. It was stupidly delicious! How I managed to stop myself from following my savoury crepe up with a sweet one I do not know. I had the Morning Glory crepe; made with buckwheat flour and filled with crispy bacon, tomato and cheese, and topped with a fried egg.

Hope you all managed to enjoy the weekend sun!

Snowbombing Festival 2013

I recently got invited to attend Snowbombing Festival in Austria, and despite never having skied before I was really excited to go along. The festival is held in the tiny town of Mayrhofen, and people spend the days skiing and boarding in the mountains, and the evenings in the clubs. It's not your standard festival: there's the forest stage which is set in the mountain forests and is beautiful, but all of the other 'stages' are basically clubs and they look like school halls, it's bizarre!

Team Snowbombing!

I had my first ski lesson, and it was definitely fun, but I can't say I'm going to pursue it. I didn't fall over, which was a plus, but I did crash in to a fence to make up for it! I learnt to stop and turn, and managed to dodge all of the much, much faster children that would stop right in front of me.

The view from the cable car up the mountain

The nursery slope I learnt on. It's steeper than it looks!

Skiing is expensive (yet another reason why I won't be taking it up as a hobby!). I borrowed most of the stuff I wore, but I managed to get some great bargains to wear on the slopes.

For my actual ski lesson I found some amazing deals at Sports Direct including fleece lined leggings and thermal base layer top. Best of all was the jacket I have on (which has a cute neon turquoise lining), which is from the Topshop Sno collection. It retails at about £60, but I got it on eBay for 99p!

I only skied for one day (lazy much?), but I made full use of my ski pass by going up the mountains and watching the other skiers, just with the added bonus of being able to have a beer and not wear hideously painful ski boots. I wore my trusty 99p jacket again, but at least I could spice things up a bit with my Uniqlo heattech leggings.

Snowbombing was so much fun, although there's definitely more emphasis by the organisers on the 'snow' bit rather than the music. It was my first festival abroad and I'm really excited to scope out some more! Which festivals abroad do you recommend?

Comic Book Fashion

Fashion seems to be embracing the culture of 'geek' recently. People went crazy for those Topshop Geek tees that have since been ripped off by every high street store known to man, and now it's the turn of the comic book to influence patterns on every clothing item going. I don't think these are being jumped upon so fervently as their predecessors as they hint that the wearer might in fact quite like perusing the shelves of Forbidden Planet or know the words to every Batman film ever released (guilty!).

Coat: Warehouse
Crop top: Primark £4
Necklace: Primark £4
Skirt: Urban Outfitters £35 
Trainers: Converse
Scarf: Topshop

I wore this outfit on a day trip to Edinburgh during my recent Bank Holiday break in Scotland, and as much as I wanted to wear my vintage heeled boots, I knew a day of trekking around on cobbles would not a happy pair of feet make. So I went for opaque tights and my ever faithful and extremely battered Converse. It dressed down what I could potentially wear to a cocktail bar on a casual night out. I do love a multi-tasking outfit!

I found this crop top in Primark a few weeks ago, and although I do NOT have the washboard stomach required for this tiny piece of clothing I went and bought it. "I'm a slave to takeaway fashion!" I thought, as let's be honest, would I have bought it if it wasn't £4?

But you know what goes great with crop tops? High waisted stuff. I practically live in my high waisted jeans, and this pencil skirt from Urban Outfitters has quickly become my go-to piece to wear when I'm bored of jeans (which is becoming more frequent as Spring attempts to come through). Lo and behold, an outfit was born!

How to Wear a White Dress

You all know I'm a not-so-closet geek. On a recent visit to Glasgow I did a very excitable scream when we found this old police box/TARDIS in the middle of a busy shopping centre.

I've always put off wearing white. I've got olive skin and brown hair, so really it should suit me, but I've just never found an item that I don't feel a bit silly in. I found this dress in the Zara sale a few weeks ago, and was oddly attracted to it. I've read loads about wearing white in winter so figured I'd give it a go.

Dress: Zara
Cardigan: Vintage
Necklace: Vintage
Boots: Miu Miu (sample sale)

I kept it basic with black tights and boots, and only gave the outfit some colour with a gold chain and bright pink lipstick. I love this necklace! I know it's edging towards tacky, but I wear it with so many things. Such a bargain considering I found it on a market stall at Spitalfields for a fiver.

Since having this dress I have managed to spill curry, smear lipstick, and have a muddy dog climb on me. Thank God for stain remover! 

How to Prepare for a Long Journey

Last bank holiday I went up to Scotland with my housemate Ashleigh to visit her family and to have a bit of an explore. I hadn't been there for about ten years, and bought far too much in the shopping areas!

However, what with us both being skint, we didn't get the train up there, we instead got a TEN HOUR COACH. Bleurgh. It's only £12, but we left at 1am to arrive at 11.25am. I'm sure most people would just sleep, however unlike Ashleigh who can sleep literally anywhere, I will spent most of the journey awake, just because I wasn't in a bed. Here's my must-haves to pack for a long journey:

The view from our coach on the way up to Scotland from London

• Blow-up pillow: Because I'm not going to be comfortable through default
• Slanket: Because it's a blanket with sleeves and has a pocket at the front to keep my phone in so I don't drop it in someone's old chewing gum
• Fully charged electronics: Phone, tablet, games console, mp3 player, kindle, or all of the above. It's the 21st century, but I am definitely not adverse to car games too.
• Big bottle of water: Air conditioned coaches with too few pit stops. 
• Far too many snacks: Eating through boredom is a possibility, but also were you not listening? We're travelling for 10 hours. A girl needs breakfast.
• Easily removed shoes: I'll end up attempting to curl all of my 5ft 10" gangly frame into the tiniest spot possible, and shoes aren't happening.
• Anything but jeans: Same reasons as above. If I go in my standard skinny jeans I will have cut off all circulation to my legs within the first hour.
• Tissues: Coach toilets. Urgh. Add hand sanitiser too.

But obviously the worst bit about going away is the outfit planning. I can only do it like this:

What are your must-haves for travelling?

Life: March 2013

Celebrating a nearly hitched colleague with drinks in Camden
Blackberry & apple crumble souffle at Hakkasan
My favourite song lyric
Damon Albarn's new band Electric Wave Orchestra with the star of Broken, Eloise Laurence, at the Broken UK premiere

My rainbow cake for the work baking competition
Getting my hair done
The Mother's Day card I got for my mum
An edible butterfly on my cocktail at Mash

The amazing beef ribs, pulled pork, bone marrow mash and sourdough bread at Pitt Cue Co
The best Soup of the Day I've ever seen
A yeoman at the Tower of London
The Cookie Monster cupcakes I made for a colleague