Round up ...

This week was a bit of a mixed bag. 

Started with a bit of an issue with the tax on my wages, which should be sorted for next pay day, wouldn't be an issue but pay day is changing this month and as such I am paying two lots of rent out of one lot of wages :s not what I wanted when we are trying to save up for the wedding! this put me in a bit of downer on friday which wasn't helped by the fact Fiancé was working late and then had to work all weekend. 

The week has however gotten much better since the weekend. Tuesday we popped into town and dropped off cards for my two engaged friends, one an engagement card and the other a new home card. Whilst dropping them off we managed to arrange a dinner date for next thursday and both girls offered to come dress shopping at some point, it was loads of fun exchanging wedding chit chat. 

Then on Wednesday I arranged another dinner date for this Friday with some other friends, had a good session at the gym while the fiancé got beasted by the personal trainer and then the best part of the week so far ... we ordered our wedding rings!!! 

A lady came round from Smooch Rings and brought loads of samples which we sat and looked through. After we had both filled a tray each with our favourites came the hard part choosing the one!! Fiancé managed really well, me on the other had ... lets say it took a while. There was lots of trying on with all three of us assessing which one went best with my engagement ring. Finally I had it narrowed down to my top 5 then 4, two has twists with diamonds set on the arms and two had scalloped edges with diamonds. To choose between these I had to put one either side of my engagement ring to compare, I managed to narrow it down to two. The problem was the last two were equally gorgeous and as someone with a bit of a jewellery habit. It took ages but in the end I have chosen an amazing ring!! They arrive in July! its going to be so hard not to wear it straight away hehehe 

Any hoo here is a few pics to finish my round up! 

Results of Fridays blizzard, the card park had been cleared by a JCB on Thursday! 

Luckily it was all sunny on Saturday morning so the snow didn't freeze over too much. 

Just a random pic out of our living room window.

You cant really tell but this was glowing when I walked in the room. 

The snow did melt but then Monday saw some freezing overnight which turned the mound of snow on our path into an ice block, I ended up hugging the building walking in the foot of clear path to get to a patch of ice thin enough to step over. Then contended with the black ice, at 6am this mainly consists of avoiding the shiny patches and hugging the car while spraying de-icer outside and IN!!! 

xXx

SNOW!!

Even if you hate the snow you have to admit Christmas was dull and drab without that blanket of white. Sure we had frost and rain but personally I'd rather have the snow its easier to clear of the car as I found out this morn.

The past week has been all about digging out the car and trying not to skid in my ice rink of a car park then yesterday after the snow had finally started to melt a JCB turned up to clear out said car park ... awesome I dont have to get up early to slowly manouver my car ... wrong. I got down to my car to find that not only was the outside of the windshield frozen but also the inside!! took me 10 minutes just to clear the damn stuff off so I could see, not what I wanted at 10 past 6 this morning. So personally I'd have rather kept the snow, which just brushed off rather then have frost that I have to scrape at and spray repeatedly.

But anyway I really just wanted to post to show you some pretty snowy pics I took over the past week or so hehe I love snow pictures they remind me of Narnia.

First up is our car park pre JCB, the strange marks on the right are where a girl got her mini stuck, Luckily our little focus was ok she managed to get me out every day. 

Next up are my amazing Hunter wellies, which I havn't taken off my feet, playing in the snow on the walk round to my mums (to pic up my bouquet broches). 

Mandatory fiancé welly boot picture plodging in the snow drifts in mums street hehe much fun was had.

hehe snow prints, snow prints!! 

and finally one of me and the Fiancé about to brave the snow last sunday to go to a wedding fair and showcase. 

xXx

Exciting times!!

So as I may have mentioned a few times on here I am currently planning my Wedding :D We booked the venue the other day and after that I may have gone into over drive hehe

I started by attacking the wedding guest list, it was brutal friends and relatives were cut from all sides so we now have 80 day time guests and 100 evening.

After that I decided to start playing with ideas for Save the Date cards, there are a lot of designs and styles out there and we wanted something that was very us so I ended up going custom. Luckily the Fiancé's dad works in printing so he is going to put the finishing touches on and print them up for us. Then I can add my ribbon accents :)

Then it was time to hit up Dainty Toys, my mum needed some bits and we wanted to look at things for my brooch bouquet. I decided I wanted to make one of these a while ago and have been scouring the internet for more ideas, on one such jaunt I found a cool idea where the girl had put the brooches inside singed fabric petals. So we decided to go have a look at the fake flowers, material and ideas for the inside. It was suggested online that I use oasis but Dainty didn't stock it so we were looking around and came across hollow polystyrene balls and cones. I also bought some 10cm sections of material to test out for making the flowers, I posted a pic the other day. Well after this my mum went online and ordered me some brooches. (they arrived yesterday!!)

Next on the list was booking a photographer who we found whilst at the wedding fair at Durham Cricket Club and booked yesterday after a meeting with him. Its all very exciting hehe expecialy when we went up to see the venue dec'd out for a showcase and the flower lady was there, she had a flyer with the room we are using all dressed in the colours we are using!!! It looks fabulous and I am soo happy we got to see a sneak peak because now I know it will look amazing.

Anyway the point of my post today was actually so show you what I had been up to at my mums. I took the Polystyrene base and flowers round so we could look at them together and work out the logistics of making the base shape. Well not only do the brooches look AMAZING!! but we sorted the base shape!!

Brooches set in the foam flowers

Other brooches waiting for flowers 

Base,  held in place with bamboo skewers 

Now all I have to do is wait for it to dry completely and move on to covering it, then its time to add the flowers and brooches!!! exciting times ahead!!

xXx

Gotta love a good scarf ...

So the other week I finally got to the hairdresser and had my layers cut back in, lots of choppy layers so  I can either wear it down or tie it up underneath and have a fake bob.

A few says after this I saw Kimberly Wyatt on the telly with a gorgeous blue scarf tied up headband style. So I decided to try it out, here are the results to far ...

Now having dark hair I usually cant get away with head scarfs or bands etc because they dont really stand out, but after seeing how nice her one looked I thought I would have a go. First attempt was the top right, a little lilac scarf I had in the bottom of my scarf box. Its a band style scarf about 4 inches wide so really good for a neat wrap and small bow due to the length. My next attempt was the bottom two pics. This is a new scarf I got in the Monsoon sale, now I was trying to save money but it was just so pretty and exactly the colours (blues, pink and grey) and fabric I wanted. This one is a standard square so needed folded into a band or twisted to give volume. I folded it for the bottom right, tied it up  then left the ends loose. I really like this scarf as it adds a pop of color to an outfit, the other night I wore it like the bottom left pic with a plain black maxi dress, it added that dash of colour to brighten up a dreary winter. After success with these two scarves I decided to start branching out so raided my scarf box, result is top left, this is a black and cream, Primark square skull scarf that I tied like the Blue one but tucked in the ends in around the knot almost making a flower (must try this with the one).

I think my first few attempts have gone pretty well, might be taking a trip to Primark soon to look for some more scarves to play around with, can't go wrong when they are about £3 each hehe

Side note, I still cant think of stuff to wear for work specifically but my Geek Chic outfit collection is growing hehe top two are new bottom set are pre-christmas.

I also seem to have infected the Fiancé with the Geek chic bug. After seeing me rocking my fashion Wayfairers he got some, then liked them so much he got real Ray Bans!! I'm totally jealous cuz they are awesome. See ...

Rocking the Fashion Geeks!!

Real Deal Ray Bans!! Jealous Much! 

xXx 

Apologies for my absence .. all will become clear if you read on...

So its safe to say I have been a bit lax since setting up this blog. I jumped in with both feet then promptly swam to the shallow end :s

In my defence I have had a busy few days. In mine and the fiancés attempts to start saving up for the Wedding we decided to list (more me then we hehe) all the things we could do around the flat and the films we could watch on a night to avoid going out and spending money that could be best used elsewhere. We started with taking down the Christmas decorations and have started moving through the rooms organising and cleaning. Its going well however has also been put somewhat on hold, much like the blogging by what I promise is a good reason .... we booked our Wedding!!!!

I went to look at a venue with my mam that we had fallen in love with however the price for all the extra bits somewhat priced the venue out of the running so on a whim we decided to stop in at another gorgeous venue on the way home. Now call it fate or what ever but just as we were leaving the wedding coordinator called us to say she was free if we were still on site :D so we went to talk to her and it turns out she had just had a cancellation otherwise wouldn't have been able to fit us in. After chatting with her for a while about what the package includes I made the big decision (texting Fiancé of course) and we have chosen Sunday May 4th 2014!!!! its a bank holiday weekend so can accomodate travel and will fit in with the colours I had already chosen hehe So as you can see since I now have a date, and mainly because I was a little bit over excited,  I have been making lists, scouring the internet for ideas and generally getting fully into wedding planning mode.  The first hurdle was guest list, 99 had to become 81 (wedding breakfasts are expensive), following this was tackling excel to made a budget spreadsheet to keep track of what we want to spend and what we actually have spent. Next up was the fun stuff like bouquet hunting, see I am making my own. I have seen loads of designs online for brooch bouquets and fell in love with one where the brooches are set inside singed petals. As such I have been researching online the best way to make said petals, then went to a haberdashery today to get some fabric to test.

So to end this little apology/explanation/wedding brag, I will give you a little treat, here is a sneak peak at my first attempt of a singed petal flower. Hope you like it!

xx

Eventful day!!

So I had a rather eventful afternoon today. After I returned from work at lunch time I went round to my mum's to pick up some bits she had for me, in particular some stilton, a white onion and some potatoes. See she had bought a large piece of stilton and gave me half to make stilton and broccoli soup. Now I dont like white onion so we didn't have any in the house (or potatoes) hence their inclusion.
When I got back home I started some orzo for my lunch then decided to start the soup as well. I managed to peel and chop the potatoes then moved on to the onion.

This was too be my undoing ... instead of toping and tailing it I decided to use the cleaver and just chop it straight down the middle. Unfortunately the onion slipped and I ended up trying to chop of the end of my finger :s

I immediately spun round dropping the cleaver on the floor and putting my finger to my mouth to staunch the bleeding. The fiance was in the bathroom shaving so I had to run through and get him ... he looked rather confused as I tried to explain what had happened by pointing about the kitchen and at my finger. He offered to get me a plaster, which are kept in the hall cupboard, so I followed and got some tissue to apply pressure with and slow the bleeding before adding the plaster. Unfortunately my body decided at this point to send me into shock :s bring on dizziness, cold sweat and a large desire to hurl. Resulting in my lying on my bedroom floor hand in the air and feet up on the bed. Not at all fun and definitely not what I had planned for this afternoon. Fiancé had to ring my mum to come round in case I passed out or had to go along to the doctors as he cannot drive just yet. So now I am all dressed up, the feeling has returned to the tip of my finger and the thumping has stopped.

I have a feeling this may provide me with an interesting scar. I managed to get the middle finger on my right hand trapped in the car door of an Audi 80 when I was about 10 and proceeded to go into shock and be taken to A&E. Here I sat with mum for ages while the time went up 3 hours at which point we went home and saw a friend, a nurse, who put steri strips across and wrapped me up. This has left me with a white scar on the inside of my middle finger just above the first joint.

So many clothes and nothing to wear!

It's official ... I have nothing to wear!!

I swear I must spend 30-45 minutes a night picking out an outfit for the next day, even longer if it’s a weekend. 

I have a double wardrobe full of clothes, a hanging rail in the spare room full of suits, boxes stuffed with cardigans, shelves packed with jeans, jumpers and tops and still I have nothing to wear!

It's not like I work at a fashionable magazine or somewhere where it's a sin to wear the same outfit more then once in a given month.  I work in a normal office, but the problem is the dress code, it's smart casual with more of a lean towards the casual. Suits and work wear … that's easy …. I’m training to be a barrister I can pick out a good suit with my eyes closed. But casual comfortable outfits to wear to work confound me :s  I think the main problem is that I love clothes shoes and style too much. Styling an outfit from top to toe is just my thing, I like to be put together.

Whilst I was at school I switched through several styles: Tomboy in primary then Goth and Skater in senior school. Goth was where I discovered really discovered styling an outfit and making it my own. It wasn’t easy being a teenage goth, the emo scene hadn’t really taken hold yet and goth wasn’t as fashionable as it is now so finding nice clothes was a bit of a challenge. From a goth/skater in 6^th form I moved to Uni, this was a turning point, a chance to mix things up and reinvent myself.  Thus came lots of skinny jeans, vests and cardigans to sit in lectures. Another new arrival was dresses … having been a tomboy a was a bit of stranger to dresses (which I now love).

This was also where my love affair with suits began. How can anyone not love a good power suit, the right cut with the right shirt, shoes and hair can make the most timid of women feel strong and confident, but that is for a different post.

Back to my no clothes dilemma. I think my essential problem is that I over think!

I like to dress up, make a whole outfit but for work its not always practical. See I work from 7am till 1pm in a casual office sitting in front of a computer. The office is huge so layers are essential and so is comfort. I’d love to go in wearing pencil skirts and blouses with a cardigan but I’d stick out like a sore thumb.

So I’m stuck staring at my wardrobe trying to put together an outfit that is casual, comfortable, warm, cool and most of all me! Nightmare! There is no other solution but to convert the spare room into a walk in wardrobe. That way I can have a moving wardrobe like Cher in Clueless which would be epic. Hmm only problem … the fiancé might not be as keen on loosing a whole room to my clothes … damn … time to go I’ve got an outfit to pick and only oh 8 hours to pick it!

:D

A new year and a new adventure!

So this is my first foray into the world of blogging, after years of reading the rambling of other people online I have decided to boldly voyage into the world of blogging or online rambling.

Why now? ... Well I have always enjoyed a good ramble about the randomness of life and the like, and also it is in part to encourage myself to finish personal resolutions (instead of letting them fall by the wayside). I also have a feeling my fiancé might appreciate me venting some of my ramblings and frustrations into the ether  that is the world wide web hehe

What have I got to say? ... Well that really depends on what mood I am in and what sort of day I have had. As the title suggests this is the general rambling's of a mid-twenty something. For the most part this will likely be a small corner of the web where I can have a ramble about what I'm up to and what sorts of new things I have found out. It will also be a place for me to hold myself accountable for finishing any little pet projects or resolutions I might make. Ooh I can share some of my girly gushing over things like handbags, jewellery, make up, pashminas, shoes and nail varnish which my fiancé will tell you I own too much of all of the previous hehe ooh and I can also gush about getting to plan my wedding to my amazing fiancé which is loads of fun not just for deciding what I want but for laughing hysterically at the hideous nonsense that is available out there.

So as this is my first post, and I have to get up at 5:30 for work I will leave it there for now.

:D