Somethings for the weekend

Just some little things I like that I thought you might like too. Happy Friday!

ONE // Our coasters have served us well, but they're looking more than a little battleworn after 7 years of service and these UK designed and made laser cut felt numbers by Donna Wilson (£14) are the front runners to replace them. I love that they look like doilies.

TWO // This actual gold and actual diamond bunny ring from Katie Hillier (£395) would represent a significant step up from my usual high street costume jewellery, but still. SO. CUTE. *Adds to Lotto list*

THREE // These brass sea urchins from US store Furbish are giving me The Wants and would look great mounted on the wall in our hallway. But since they're no longer available (and, er, I wouldn't spend a hundred quid plus shipping on them anyway) I'm brainstorming ways to DIY something similar.

Somebody pass me a paperclip, an elastic band, and a dodgy-looking bomber jacket STAT so I can get my MacGyver on!

FOUR // Last autumn I spent a small fortune on a faux leather sleeveless dress from Oasis, which was completely stupid because (a) I couldn't really afford it, (b) it didn't fit me properly, and (c) I had to spend all winter trying to find layers that would work under or over it so that I wouldn't freeze.

While I'm still a big fan of the leather look, this season I'll be sticking with more versatile separates on my bottom half that should be easier to integrate into my existing wardrobe. I've seen Penneys' / Primark's PU skirt (£8) in person and it looks plain awesome rather than plastic-y (which is probably why there were none left in my size the day I spotted it.)

FIVE // You might not know this about me, but I love stationary. I also love highlighters and products that look kind of like animals, so needless to say these adorable Paperchase bear highlighters (only £3!) are right up my street.

What's on your lust list at the moment?

SPOTTED: Your next pair of shoes

I saw these roarsome beauties over the weekend and would have pounced there and then if the shop had had my size. They didn't, of course, but these New Look leather loafers shot to the top of my mental shoe wish list (a real thing I actually do) faster than a leopard going full tilt after its noms.

Here are five reasons they should be on yours, too.

ONE // As evidenced by the London and New York AW13 shows, animal prints are OMGSOHOTRIGHTNOW. That goes double for anything snake or leopard print.

TWO // The loafer shape means they're as comfortable and chic and go-with-everything as ballet flats, just heaps cooler.

THREE // The leopard print upper is actually hairy. Looks all expensive and that.

FOUR // Priced at just £24.99/€29.99, they won't break the bank.

FIVE // We can be shoe twins. I am totally ordering a pair!

New nail art sets for Valentine's Day

I've been busy beavering away on some more designs for my little Etsy shop, and I just finished this adorable (if I do say so myself) pair of very seriously limited edition Valentine's themed artificial nail sets, which are now available for purchase.

I have literally only got one of each of the designs pictured above, so please don't hang about if you fancy fancying up your nails for February 14^th x

How to turn your iPhone into a giant bottle of Chanel nail polish

I just had to take a quick break from unpacking to show you these iPhone cases, which I discovered via Rosemary MacCabe's Fash Mob only moments ago.

Images of oversized, instantly recognisable Chanel Le Vernis bottles adorn the rear of clear, white, and black snap-on cases for the iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5.

A quick Etsy-wide search reveals that there are lots of sellers to choose from for this particular item, and all the cult favourites - including shades like Peridot, Particulière, Blue Satin, and Rouge Noir - can be had for around £10/€12 (ex. shipping.)

What do you reckon? Would you go for one?

Personally, I'm thrilled at the prospect of a Chanel polish that doesn't chip after two hours ;)

{Top product images via Etsy seller TheCustomArt}

H&M jewellery love

On a bring-back jaunt to H&M recently, I got completely distracted by the jewellery section on my way out of the shop. Including my engagement ring I'd say that I own three or four pieces of "real" jewellery - I have a real weakness for costume, statement, and kitschy bling - so this fantastically fakey necklace had my name written all over it.

Orange isn't a colour I usually gravitate towards but I really like this combination of sunny orange rhinestones and rainbow-reflective teardrops, and I've been getting tons of wear out of it.

Not bad for £5.99!

My favourite earrings also hail from H&M and were part of a multipack of metallic animal-shaped ear adornments that cost something like £3.99 last summer. They're tiny gold bunny studs and they are beyond adorable, but unfortunately I've lost one of them.

I'm not looking forward to cracking open the hoover this weekend to look for the missing earring, but this little guy looks so sad without his pal that I'll just have to do it.

Awww.

Pricey but pretty: Premium glitter clutches

My apparently insatiable inner magpie would dearly love to get its little claws on Anya Hindmarch's multi-glitter Valerie bag, but I'm afraid that Valerie is just way too rich for my blood. 

Kate Spade's new "I Kissed A Frog" clutch is also rather beyond my evening bag budget (or at least it would be, if I actually had an evening bag budget) but that hasn't stopped me from falling for it. 

What can I tell you; the magpie has great (albeit expensive) taste. 

If I was the sort of person who used the word "adorbs", I would definitely be breaking it out to describe this bag. Glitter clutch + tiny frog clasp with crown = be still my kitsch-loving magpie heart.


Note: Kate Spade price based on conversion from $328. UK store price not available at the time of writing.

Hat's all, folks.

Since Himself's 3-year-old niece decreed that my straw cowboy hat was so last season (by putting her foot through the crown of it), I am in dire need of a chic sunhat for an upcoming trip to Orlando.

The lucky item I choose will need to work with my lahvely '50s cat's eye stylee Tom Ford tortoiseshell sunnies, which is the easy part. 

It'll also need to work with what I'll euphemistically describe as a diverse and eclectic summer holiday wardrobe, most of which probably doesn't go that well with the sunglasses anyway. 

Oh, and it'll need to not make me look like a twat, which is a lot to ask of any hat that's to be worn on my noggin. 

Here are the current frontrunners - all of which I have yet to try on In Real Life - and yes, there are only four of them: 

{two from Topshop}

{both from Accessorize}

Mais oui!

{all images from the Dior website}

I love these bits of bling from Dior.

What perfect placeholders* for An Actual Engagement Ring, representing the hopes of the proposer and the opportunity for the proposee to pick out one she'll actually want to wear for the rest of her life.

Well, they're a bit more elegant than a jelly ring, like...


* Yes, I said placeholders. I'm a high-maintenance sort of bird, y'know.

X Factor Fashion Fever, Part II

So. We all agree that Dannii's earrings looked fab on Saturday night (and I am very tempted to do a post composed entirely of photos of her outfit choices on this year's X Factor - am style crushing on Dannii's wardrobe in a big way.) 

As predicted, they're kind of on the expensive side, with a price tag of £25,500. While that gets you a whopping big pair of 18ct diamond and Amazonite yellow gold earrings, I think they might have looked better on the telly than they do In Real Life.

 source: Bochic

Don't they look a bit like something Katie Price's alter-ego might pair with a particularly klassy outfit?

Anyway, here are a few of my picks from Etsy that won't do quite as much damage to your pocket!

Clockwise from top left: ELEVEN13, $28; BrooklynArts, $36; sparklecouture, $28; LuzDesigns, $21; CloudCuckooLand, $18; ArtWark, $23; WishByFelicity, $16; brideblu, $16.

Alternatively, you could always try getting someone to custom make a pair of turquoise earrings to your exact specifications through Etsy's "Alchemy" service. This involves creating a wanted ad detailing what you're after and how much you'd ideally like to pay, and then Etsy sellers bid for your business to create the item. 

It's a service I haven't used myself, but a friend designed her own bespoke ring and then had it made through Alchemy and it turned out beautifully so I think it's pretty magic. (Couldn't resist.)

X Factor Fashion Fever, Part I

We are feckin' glued to the X Factor every weekend in this house, and one of my favourite bits of the show is when the judges first emerge onstage every night so I get a chance to have a good full-length goo at what Cheryl and Dannii are wearing. 

And shout "what the feck is that?!" at the telly when Cheryl does her little semi-salute thing as her name's announced.

Dannii has been streets ahead in the style stakes this year as far as I'm concerned, and I rather liked the look of the statement turquoise earrings she wore on Saturday night. She's been sporting Annoushka jewellery religiously throughout the series, and last weekend was no exception.

I suspect that these laddies might be just a leetle out of my price range, but stay tuned - I'll have some suggestions later in the day about how you and I can get the look on a shoestring budget.

Unlikely Style Icon: Me Da

Be the hokey. Must tell Dad that he is the height of fashion at the minute.

And ask him is he missing any items of clothing.

Paulo (Nutini, above left) was snapped wearing one of Dad's favourite scarves at the 2010 Meteor Awards, while fashion guru Annemarie of WhatSheWears.ie recently procured one of Dad's many flat peaked caps for her fella from Urban Outfitters (above right).

Maybe I should give up on raiding the little sister's wardrobe and start nosing in Dad's instead...


Pix via stylebitches and urbanoutfitters.co.uk

Late to the party. Blub.

Am supposed to be beavering away and doing lots of work so as not to have to be glued to the laptop all evening. So, naturally, I am continuing my Windows shopping instead.

I spotted and duly ogled and felt up the "Sasha" satchel from Marc by Marc Jacobs in BT in Cork a few weeks ago, but it's the lickle pouchette of the Petal To The Metal range that has really flown away with my heart. The birdie detailing is adorable without being saccharine, and the bag itself would be ideal for slinging your wallet, keys, and lipbalm in of a weekend.

My only problem would be choosing a colour - the black doesn't do much for me but I like all the other colourways - but fortuitously it looks like that's a decision I'll never actually have to wrestle with since the pouchette appears to be sold out everywhere...

Friday Finds: Etsy

I have yet to actually make purchase of an item from Etsy, but sure that doesn't stop me from trawling through the website and earmarking lovely looking items for potential procurement.

My Etsy top five for today are:

Kawaii deer rings, from $1.50

Panda Eyes sleep mask by thecupcakery, $12

It's Not Me 8x10" print by jaimers, $18

Chipmunk Coiffure 6x8" print by theblackapple, $16

Bird & birdcage wall decal by wiwicoco, $21.90

La la la-la la la, siiing a happy song...

Have you ever had a day where you just took what The Mammy would call a bit of a notion about something that you wanted to wear? An item of clothing that, come hell or high heels, you were going to put on you?

Well, I had a bit of an episode like that this morning with this pair of blue tights. I'm pretty sure that at the time I handed over my hard-earned for them, I had all sorts of grand notions about the cool rigouts they'd be incorporated into.

Mmm.

I think I've worn them three times so far, and one of those was an outfit so truly wojus that it had to be aborted altogether.

- Smurfette tights™: Oasis
- Shoes: Penneys
- Dress (just seen): Topshop

Making a bags of it.

One of the things I miss about my daily commute to work - actually, it might be the only thing I miss about it - is the people-watching opportunities it presented. Checking out handbags and ogling coats and drooling over boots and shoes... it was nearly like window shopping. Well, without the benefit of actually knowing where to procure the lustworthy item in question. And with the risk of being caught staring at someone's bag/coat/footwear like a fetish-y stalker freak.

Anyway, there was one handbag that I must have seen a gazillion times if I saw it once, and that was a black patent quilted shopper from River Island.

The "Love This" is River Island's sentiment, by the by, not my own.

It was damn near ubiquitous, and while I was rather taken with its patent, quilted ways, overall I disliked it intensely. I thought it was just, well, meh. Boring shape, and the badge - er, have Rock & Republic seen this? - just looks slapped on without a whole heck of a lot of thought. The reinforced hole yokes grommets for the handles are good news, because they usually mean you can load everything and the kitchen sink into a bag without worrying that weight will cause the handles to tear off it, but then those chain handles look like they'd shred your shoulder if they were put under any kind of pressure.

So I was a teensy bit surprised to fall hard for its sister laptop bag (which incidentally was part of my Christmas haul from my own sister!) It is done no justice whatsoever in the following photo from the RI website, but my camera is out of power and I'm not quite up to the mammoth task of rooting out the charger.

Doesn't actually have a little pot belly or faded side in real life.

The Rock & Republic River Island badge is a bit more logo-like, thanks to its encircling silver, well, circle, and the fact that it's on that foldover flap. And there are kind-to-your-shoulders inserts on the chain handles.

Now this, this is something I'd definitely have ogled from the bus.

Brace(let) yourself Betty!

At my leaving work do a couple of weeks ago, one of the girls was wearing a wristful of two or three lovely identikit chunky pearl-n-bling bracelets with her LBD. I forgot to ask where she'd gotten them on the day/night and then sort of forgot about them altogether, but they're back on my radar because I've quite accidentally tracked them down.

I've just stumbled across them on the Miss Selfridge website, £10, and yup, me definitely likey:


However, today I bought a pair of tan slouchy ankle boots with side ties, almond shaped toes and 2" walkable innable heels (€21, Penneys, my dressy alternative to the fake Uggs which are oh so comfy but always make me feel chronically underdressed) as well as some snazzy new underwears (€2 each, Penneys again), so I'm pretty much all spent out on the frivoulous buys front for this month!

Yeh, yeh. It's another shoe post.

So I finally got around to trying on those tribal numbers from Topshop. The black and gold ones were loooovely, but ultimately common sense, the possibility of an impending lack of money (I'm thinking about taking a 2-year career break) and the weather prevailed.

I went to visit them last Thursday, which was just psychotic on the weather front in Dublin. It wasn't so much "sunny spells and scattered showers" - I may well have to put my foot through my radio the next time a Met Éireann head uses that phrase - as "glorious blasts of ah-there's-a-real-heat-in-it Mediterranean sunshine punctuated by sudden, torrential, thunderous downpours".

So on Friday, I swung by Penneys, on the lookout for a pair of Chanel-esque quilted cream ballet flats with black patent toe and string bow detail (admittedly, I don't even know if Penneys produce such articles) and instead picked up a pair of sensible (well, sensible-ish, they're walkable-innable) heels. They're black round-toe courts with an exposed platform and a terrifyingly high heel - and they're studded. And they only set me back €21.

Can I just say: swoon! Will take some pics later this evening and pop them up so y'all can appreciate the on-trend tough-but-glam not-too-pricey-for-the-CEC-and-possible-career-break fabulousity. For now, I'll just dreamily doodle them here on a scrap of paper and busy myself drawing little love-hearts around them.

*Happy sigh.*

Ex-shoes-me...

I should really, really not be looking at shoes right now.

Well, actually, that may be a little harsh.

What I should definitely not be doing is shelling out €182 on a pair of strappy sky-high heels at the end of the summer-that-never-was. (Regardless of how fantastic I think they'd look with some skinny jeans or how good an homage they are to the tribal numbers in the Louis Vuitton SS09 collection.)

Since I've no immediate plans to do that - and not just because I can't decide between the three colourways on offer - it's a-ok to go Windows shopping, I reckon!


These are Topshop's "Primal" heels. Me likey. They're so lovely that I'm considering leaving work early to go pay them a visit on my way home. They're €182 in the store on St. Stephen's Green, if The Indo is to be believed... or £120 + £5 delivery directly from topshop.com.

Think I'll be taking my chances on the FX rate remaining stable - £125 is about €146 at today's rate of exchange - and ordering online when I win the Lotto on Saturday night!

Bargain alert! Black wedge sandals from Office

In the market for a new pair of cork-soled black wedge sandals? Then hotfoot (ho ho) it over to the Office website, where these bad boys are down to a mere £18.

They started life at 55 quid and came down to 25 of The Queen's Finest before being their price was slashed good and proper, so at this stage it's probably fair to call them a birrova steal.

I'm waiting for their tan counterparts to come on sale...

Office charge £10 for shipping to Ireland (North or South).
Office, in their - ehem - infinite wisdom, are refusing to ship sale items to Ireland (North or South). BOO!!! Thanks to hockeysticks for the heads-up.

Opaque tights + sandals: Match made in heaven or recipe for disaster?

Am having a total crisis of confidence this morning, brought on by today's choice of outfit (although I use the word "choice" very loosely indeed since it's really a collection of items that were (a) to hand, (b) clean, and (c) weather appropriate when I was getting dressed in a frantic "eek, I'm late!" rush earlier.)

The top half of things is a tried 'n' trusted combo, so it's grand: purple knee-length dress with slight bubble hem, scoop neck, and purple ribbon corsage/lemon vest top with lace & sequin trim/purple v-neck cardi with elbow-length sleeves/birdcage necklace/coral nails. Lovely jubbly.

Where things get a bit iffy is from the knees down: dark navy tights (less wintery and less severe than black and lovely with the purple of the dress)... aaaand brown/tan platform t-bar wedge sandals. With open sides and toes.

Last year's version of these River Island numbers, in fact:


Mine are almost identical, really; there's no plaiting at the front of my ankle strap and the toe part's a lot simpler, just two straps with some plait detailing that cross-cross at the bottom of the t-bar which is thicker.

Anyway, I actually quite like the look of coloured opaque tights with open toe shoes - on other people.

On me, well, I can't decide whether it looks fabulously retro '70s chic or just daft and nerdy!