Wednesday 22 August 2018

Spring & Summer outfits

I’ve been meaning to do this post for ages but I’m the sort of person that always puts things off until I think it’s really fine time I better do it, unless I’m working to someone else’s deadline, my own deadline is ‘when I get a chance’ and sometimes not doing anything takes priority over that 😉
This blog is going to feature my favourite Spring & Summer Outfits and the ones I’ve had most questions about! This is Northern UK spring/summer so appropriate for up to 25 degrees 😆 though we did actually get a few weeks of up to 30 and I was literally just wearing my bodycons and a sheer shirt over in the evenings or high waisted wet look leggings (shown later) and string crops.
As you all know I get 80% of my clothes from BlackMilk and a few other nylon brands such as WildBangarang,  Poprageous and Burnt Soul, but you need other brands of clothing to style with your it all! I’m often on ASOS & DollsKill typing specific things that I’m after like ‘velvet jumper’, ‘black long sleeve crop’ into the search bar to see what I can find so I don’t get distracted spending money on thing is don’t need! I also check the sale section and make sure to check my size so I’m not spending ages looking through sale to find the things I love out of stock in my size! Another thing I do is check out things that might currently be out of my price range in the hope that if I save them in the wish list (if you have an ASOS account this is a great feature!) that they will be on sale the next time you look! ASOS also do points for what you spend and great deals on postage and an amazing Marketplace section! These first two items are sheer layers I’ve put over my BlackMilk, I found them from typing in the search bar ‘sheer black’ and was surprised to find so much choice came up from the shop/brand BooHoo. The first is a longline dipped back hem partly sheer black top I’m wearing over my mermaid BlackMilk catsuit:



And this second find is a sheer black long sleeve shirt that I’ve worn over so much stuff, it’s so versatile I definitely recommend you get one! I’ve found one similar here. I’ve worn it in the first photo open with a little string strap vest underneath and a pair of BlackMilk leggings and in the second photo I’ve worn it tied up over a BlackMilk dress. 





I love taking these outfit photos, I usually try to take them towards the end of the day when the sun is going down, during the beginning of golden hour so that I get that gorgeous sunset bokeh glow in the background of my selfies! So much more flattering on my face in my opinion and just gives you all something else to look at! I used to do all my outfit photos in my studio with a white background but I’m loving being outside so much more and using my surroundings instead. I’m so lucky to live where I do, moving from the city has been so good for my health! 


Next up is this cute sheer black tee I found on..ASOS
 I have tied this one up to the side and layered 
over things to create a bit more of an outfit. They don’t seem to have one that’s completely plain now but I’ll have a good search and hopefully pop a link for you here! 
 As you can see, I tend to wear my Dr Martens a lot! These are my new(ish) vegan Docs, they actually were easier to break in than my others have been and they have endured lots of exploring so far for the last few months and seem to be just as strong if not stronger than leather! Dr Martens have since released many other vegan styles and colours which is amazing, I’m loving how much more vegan and cruelty free things are becoming the norm now! How it should be 💚



The next few photos are some of my favourite BlackMilk pieces that I feel like I can just wear by themselves and feel great. These are (in order shown )  the ‘velvet mulled wine capped sleeve evil cheerleader dress’, the ‘houndstooth skater skirt’ with the ‘matte high neck crop’ and my ‘off the shoulder green galaxy crop’ with the ‘wet look high waisted leggings’ which I think out of all those are the only things still in stock so you can get them here






BlackMilk don’t have this skirt (houndstooth skater skirt - above) 
in stock anymore but if you search through their site they do have other prints in stock and their latest skirts usually always have two hidden pockets! Amazing! I’m wearing this with the ‘ high neck matte crop’ that they don’t seem to have it stock anymore but they do have something similar which is the ‘matte wifey top’ which you can check out here
Below is as I mentioned the ‘green galaxy off the shoulder crop’ with the high waisted ‘wet look’ legs! I love this outfit , and like I said above,the legs are still in stock! 

I’ve also been loving wearing my hair up more recently since my alopeica has given me a break for a bit, which is amazing! (But that’s a whole other blog post! 😉)



And finally here is a little string crop I found on eBay before we went on honeymoon that I have worn a few times with my high waisted wet looks 

I’m going to add more outfits to this soon, I’ll let you know when it’s updated by putting edited in the title and posting in my Instagram story no doubt 
💚
I hope I’ve helped a bit with everyone asking where I get all my sheer layering stuff from and how I find it! Also another good search keyword to use for sheer is mesh. 






Monday 20 August 2018

Hen do...part 1 of 3: Spa (will update this title when I’ve added parts 2&3!)

Wow...time flies when you’re having fun...just over three months (May 15th) since my Mum took me on an overnight spa trip at Armathwaite Hall Hotel & Spa in the Lake District right on the beautiful Lake Bassenthwaite near Keswick. I absolutely loved spending some chilled out girly time with my Mum for the first time in well...ever! When we got there, finally - there was a diversion we had to take around the lake but they were happy to move our spa appointments to a little later so we didn’t have to rush about we went up to our room which was nice, pretty and most importantly- clean, we both bumped our heads on the little balcony door (which said mind your head above it ), I got excited about there being a full television in the shower, but we were so hungry we soon left and went down to the bar restaurant for some food! I had a lovely but very spicy vegetable fajita and my mum had a free range egg mayonnaise sandwich that was huge and I ended up eating half because I couldn’t handle all my hot salsa! After a quick drink we went back up to the room, we changed into our robes and complementary slippers the hotel had put in our room and headed down to the spa! The area the spa is in in the hotel isn’t the best but once you got into the spa area this is totally forgotten!  It completely opened my eyes to going to spas in general! I was worried I’d be self conscious, I was anxious about being anxious, but the spa was so lovely and chilled out I had a great time, special mother and daughter bonding time! My mum went off for a facial whilst I had my toes done (my first ever gel paint, I went for a shimmery dark purple!) by a really lovely girl who was so friendly I felt like we were just mates in a really pretty moodlit private room! After our treatments my mum and I went off for a dip in the pool where she challenged me to a few swimming races, which I won at first but then she beat me in stamina 😂 We also spent some time in the outside mini infinity pool before heading back up to the room to shower and get ready for dinner and drinks! We had some delicious cocktails in their cocktail bar and then unfortunately the dinner let it down a bit! There wasn’t much choice for vegetarians, vegans or my Mum who is a pescatarian. But we made up for it again afterwards with more drinks and giggles!! Breakfast was lovely in the morning and we experienced having our eyelashes tinted before we left! We also managed to fit in a walk down to the lake which was great, we wanted to get our steps in! (Fit bit users!) Thank you Mum for an amazing time! We definitely need to do it again, just need an excuse! I’ll post some pics and boomerangs below of some of the things I’ve mentioned above to break up this part to parts 2 & 3 because as soon as I got back from the spa, I said a quick hi to Roxy who was being looked after by my Dad and set off down south to go sleep in Peterborough for the night before collecting my two bridesmaids at 5am for a flight to Amsterdam!