parent
Coco Chanel once said – Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory.
Snoskred says – Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and add three more accessories.
I’m loving that huge purple flower. It is a little bit Carrie Bradshaw. The flower has a pin and a clip on the back so you can use it for hairstyles or as a brooch.
A couple of months ago, we were sitting down at our local bowling club watching a band (sadly not The Villains) play and there were these kids with sparkly sequin hats. I said to The Other Half – I would like one of those for me!
On a trip to Warrawong to get my car washed and pick up chicken from Lenards, I handed over the car keys and was told to return in 2 hours. We did some serious wandering around and in a shop called either Smart Dollar, Hot Dollar, or some other word I can’t recall in front of the Dollar, hats with sequins were discovered. For the low price of $5, I picked up this gorgeous purple number, and for the time being it resides on the skull of my excellent and quite silent friend Carter.
He was already wearing this purple tee, it is just coincidence that the hat matches it. I had considered a few other colours, silver and pink, and decided that purple would go with the most outfits of mine.
A profile view. Carter suggested keeping his beanie on, and the hat fits better that way. :)
If you have been a reader here for even a short time, it will not come to a surprise to you that I love me some bling.
This is my official Swarovski phone case. I first saw it while on an escalator down to the bottom floor of Westfield in Sydney. It was sitting in a case of a phone shop. I knew I had to have it as soon as I saw it, because I love me some Swarovskis. It came with a certificate of authenticity.
I did not know then the reason why – when we dropped over to Paddys Markets, there were so many knock off phone cases with crystals in them. And I bought a knock off for my next phone purely because there were no official ones to be found.
Years ago I scored this gorgeous mosaic mother of pearl pendant via the TVSN jewellery clearance area for less than $15. I wrote about it on the blog, here – Mosaic Kingdom.
They sometimes have amazing bargains in the clearance areas on TVSN. I check them every so often for new stuff. I’ve scored some bargain outfits that way, as well as other stuff. The bargains can be especially good at change of seasons time..
I also keep an eye on the Ezibuy clearance area. Some of their stuff you can find in David Jones for 2-3 times the price, especially the Sara brand which I like. They often have gorgeous tunics on there for $15 and they keep sending me free delivery codes, so I’ll keep shopping there.
Any places you find to be awesome? ;)
So yesterday we were talking about one of my favourite things – Bling. Let us take a closer look..
Watches, brooches, bracelets, oh my!
It occurs to me I have quite a few reptile brooches – here you see one lizard, and two turtles. Obviously the turtles originated in Hawaii, turtles are a bit of a Thing over there.
You also see my favourite Peacock Crystal Flower Pin which you can read more about on my Headless Fashion post, and there is a dragonfly brooch, and the Heaviest Brooch Of All Time. I never met a brooch I did not love, they are my kryptonite.
My ring collection.
My blingy watches.
If yes, what kind?
Over the past few months, we have been working on de-cluttering, tidying, and making our house more of a home.
When I was working, I created this blinged up box – which I would use to take all my “stuff” to and from work. I am a high maintenance girl. I need stuff, during the day. So the box is pretty large – it is 15 litres and measures 40cm x 28cm x 19cm.
What kind of stuff do I need when I work? This box – without the lid – used to carry the following to and from work –
– A box of tissues
– A roll of paper towel.
– A bottle of Soda Water.
– My plastic cup for the day.
– An apple, a plastic Ikea plate to cut it up on, and a decent knife.
– A 2 minute noodle snack with a container to “cook” it in, and a fork.
– Hand sanitiser
– Lip balm
– Hand cream
– My handbag would sit on top of the “stuff”.
Now, it has become a home to my bling. The lid keeps the dust off and the bling shiny!
Please to note, none of my Bling is expensive – the most costly item here is likely my Michael Kors watch at just under $200. The other two watches were less than $100. Everything else is below $30. They are doing some amazing things with crystals these days.
More on my BLING tomorrow.
If yes, where does it live?
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. :)
So, one of the things I’ve done while MIA was to take another trip to Hawaii. I picked up some new bling while there..
This by no means does any of the rings justice but most especially the triangle Mystic Topaz there – that ring is stunning. The amount of different colours it throws under various light conditions.. it really is a rainbow version of the Mystic Topaz. Some you will only get purple and green – the triangle gives you red, pink, purple, several different shades of green, orange, and also yellow.
