One freezing cold Friday I was booked to go and have a lunch with a couple of girlfriends. It was *icy*. Seriously icy. As in people nearby were getting snow.

Brrr!

I went looking for something cute and warm to wear and pulled out a velvet jacket from the closet. I bought it in Adelaide many years ago from the 1626 clearance store, before they were known as Autograph. The jacket was a little big for me at the time I bought it, being a size 22. It is now several sizes too big but I can still rock it – it is better if I have the other half at home because then I will wrap it around me and belt it. But in this case I just wore it like a normal coat, put on a scarf and my favourite sun brooch, and out the door with me I went.

Lunch was awesome if a little delayed – an hour from ordering to receiving the food. Probably will not be going back there any time soon. But the company of two of my favourite ladies in the world was awesome and we hardly noticed the wait, until our tummies started growling and we checked our watches!

It wasn’t until a couple of days later when the other half and I were heading out and I wore the velvet jacket again that I noticed the sun brooch was no longer on the lapel.

Oh no.

I actually have two sun brooches – one I bought in 2011, one I bought in 2013, both from Macys at Ala Moana in Hawaii. The first one got accidentally washed and it lost a stone, then it got accidentally washed a second time and lost another one. The top one in the below photo is the broken one, can you see the missing stones? One is very obvious, one is right in the centre and a lot better hidden.

I had put on the new, unbroken one, to go to the lunch for the first time in ages. I’d been wearing the broken one as it felt a bit safer. Now that the new one was missing, I used the broken one to close my coat at a higher spot than the buttons and headed out.

So as I opened the gate for the other half to drive out I was having a sad, lamenting the loss of my poor sun brooch and thinking maybe me and this sun brooch were not meant to be..

Then I got in the car and sat down, and saw the other half had pinned my sun brooch to the sparkly thing that hangs from my rear vision mirror. He found it on the passenger seat. Yay my brooch is saved!

The back pin is bent, which is why it fell off. I’m not sure it is fixable. But when I put the two together to take photos, I noticed they are actually different colours. You can best spot it from the back –

See how the top one is like a bronze shade, when the lower one is silver? Also the bronze one has a different back where the silver one is smooth. They might look alike from the front but they are totally different bases.

I’m so glad my brooches are both here. I don’t know what to do with the pin of the broken one, if it can be fixed or not. In the meantime I will keep it in a safe place.

This brooch always makes me think of the Queen and the Jardine Star Brooch.

Not that it looks much like it in reality. I’m still looking for my imitation Jardine Star. :)

I am such a huge fan of the Queen. She is the main reason I began to wear brooches. I am also a huge fan of Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge – I love that she has taken to wearing brooches lately. It gives them a new coolness.

So, I read a lot of fashion blogs across the inter webs. I’m a bit of a fashionista myself – I rarely wear makeup but I like clothes and I like finding bargains and awesome outfits. Until now I have not felt comfortable sharing any of that on my blog for various reasons – most of all I like to stay a bit anonymous on the web..

But if you can be cool with my headlessness, I can be cool with sharing some pics. And today I want to talk a little bit about brooches.

I wear brooches a lot, in various different places. This one I am wearing at a spot on the dress where there is a meeting point for some gathers. Sorry this pic is a little blurry but it gives you an idea of why I’ve put it where I have.

I loooooove brooches. It is a great and simple way to bling up an outfit. Today I am showing you the Charter Club Gold Tone Peacock Crystal Flower Pin – which is still available on the Macys website.

I bought it when in Hawaii last year for a ridiculously cheap price – it was under $20.

Macys have a great range of gorgeous brooches at cheap prices *and* they ship to Australia now. Happy moments for all!

You can see there are a large amount of different coloured crystals in the brooch – and many of them are similar to the colours of my blog design, so it is fairly obvious why I chose it, I love these colours.

I also am wearing the Fossil Jesse watch. It is Blingtastic. :)