What not to wear...

Well. I've been a loser recently. Blogging started off so well...then I got distracted by shiny things and before I knew it I was hugging the toilet and it was 2013.

I haven't been entirely unproductive. After saying I was going to start selling my crafts I opened up an Etsy shop...http://www.etsy.com/shop/Craftsbycocouk.

So now back to the other love of my life.... Shoes!

New Years was spent at a friends party. My friends are beautiful, they look like they've eaten a fashion bible and it's resulted in them always looking fabulous. So I have to make an effort. No one wants to be the photo ruiner.

I went for a wardroble staple. The Polka Dot Dress. This suprisingly came from M and Co. A shop I had once believed to be for pensioners... I was wrong. I admit that even in the most unlikely shops a beauty can be found. Nothing goes better with polka dots than red shoes. I have ridiculous love for red heels. Unfortunately while these ones look lovely whilst stood still, I made the fatal error of not making sure these wouldn't flip flop...they did. The first time I wore them, they fitted like a glove. A night of running, dancing and pretending to fly has ruined these. Foolish error on my part. Not even shoving tissue down the front could stop them flipping. But if I stood still...amazing. I can't even complain. I think they cost me £12 from Primark. At that price if only one great use is made of these then I really have no right to complain. Note to self: Buy better shoes.

What not to wear: Shoes that flip! And so the wish list begins...

Christian Louboutin Pigalle 100 Spiked patent leather pumps. The mere mention of Louboutins makes my toes wiggle.

Now...I love these but a little of me thinks they might have been inspired by a dominatrix in the rouge lit streets of Holland. Never the less, I'd still rock these, whips and all.  At £735 from Net-a-porter I'll wait a while before these grace the floorboards of my humble abode.

No one can deny the simple perfection of these Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Skyscraper III shoes. My tooties crave these beauties...

These are currently on sale at Kurt Geiger from £195 to £99. I want to be clicking my heels chanting 'There's no place like home'!

For a quick fix I might just get these...

So they're simply, red and have a little platform and a workable heel. They are also £10 in the H&M sale. Bargain.

Photos from:

http://www.hm.com/gb/product/92201?article=92201-I#cm_vc=SIMILAR_TO_SD

http://www.net-a-porter.com/product/316986

http://www.kurtgeiger.com/skyscraper-iii-red-synthetic-40-vivienne-westwood-for-melissa-shoe.html

Wet enough for wellies!

It's been another dire week in the shire. It's been raining, the roads have flooded, the river will burst soon enough. At least we can adorn our feet in these jelly wellies! Whack on your best trainspotting attire and wellies and get out there...or just stay in under a blanket and snuggle with a cuppa.

If you are adventurous and decide to battle against this awful weather then there are several jelly delights about at the moment. I'm not refreshing my winter wellies this year. I picked them up last autumn in Next. They're spotty with a wedge heel - love them!



If I was to purchase more, I'd probably invest in these...

Hunter Fulbrooke Tall's. At £125.00 from Hunter. Who doesn't love an expensive welly?! It's got all the essentials of a classic - black, heeled, longevity and best of all - wipe clean. They've even thrown in a buckle...wonderful!

When I was planning my wedding and in my endless search for my shoes, I came across wedding wellies. Lovely I thought although a little sad if you do have to wear wellies on your big day. It wasn't really an option for me, my hair only has to sense rain and it turns into a giant frizz fest. I did fall a little in love with them though, What do you think?

My love of the hideous led me to these delights..the garish print would probably be better suited on a bikini but they're sure to make you smile while you're looking down, dodging the doggy doo and pavement potholes. Amazon never fails to please, although if you shop about online you can find these Havaianas Rubber Wellies a fair bit cheaper.

My final wellington wonder of the day are these beauts...

I cannot help but love stripes specially blue and white with a splash of red just bringing it all together. These nautical looking delights will not be making me sea sick anytime soon. I'd still be rocking these happily in the April showers. Good on Joules for always providing such gems as this pair.

*images from google

Nostalgic Gibberish

Nostalgic gibberish, two ridicuolous words together. Love it! It was the 11th birthday of our godson yesterday. We, as good godparents bought him a hideous jumper from Marks and Spencer Limited Collection. This photo is from the Marks' website. Our godson never looks this unhappy. So the Christmas jumpers are out in full force now for children and adults. There is no excuse not to own one.

This is my favourite winter delight -

Where to start with this masterpiece... Reindeer on reindeer, it's a bit like cheese on cheese. Too good not to happen haha. The poms on the hooded reindeer number fell off so I replaced them with these homemade Irish themed poms (I'm half Irish hence the Irish theme), to be pretty honest a five year old could probably have done better but I managed to remember my pom pom skills from over 20 years ago and hey presto these were created. The leggings...well...I'm not going to lie, there are a few reindeers that disappear/reappear in some questionable but amusing places. Either the person in the reindeer legging factory has a very funny side or it was just pot luck amusing machinery skills. Either way, I love every bit of this. Well done House of Fraser and River Island. This awful number will be seen again this Christmas day. And yes I will be jumping, it's one of my favourite things to do.

This time of year reminds me of the good ol' days, when you believed that it was ok for an over weight, fancy dressed, elderly man to sneak in to your bedroom in the middle of the night to leave presents, eat the food in your home and neck any booze left within sight. These days it's clear that this is just not cool. I will still lie to my future children about this dodgy old man, it seems only fair to pass this tradition on.

Not long after I realised Santa wasn't real the presents came with labels on from Mom and Dad. The one I first recall was this...

I still want one, I'm pretty sure ours was sold by my older brother in his Del Boy days. Nothing beats old school Donkey Kong and Street Fighter, they've long gone out of the attic too so that was probably another fiver lining my bro's pocket.. Grey on grey, excellent colour schemes back then, none of this black or white nonsense.

We've not long moved house and amongst all the crap we've hoarded over the years we're some tapes. They were once played on this bad boy...

Now this was a thing of beauty 15 odd years ago, it was passed down to me from my big sister. It had a screen on it that told you the time! Brilliant technology and loads of buttons, which, by the time I received this had no print above them, great for boring afternoons as a child - listening to jiggery tape recordings of the UK Top 40 charts, watching the time and pressing the mystery buttons. Oooh the excitement.

I recently bought these Beats by Dre Solo HD's...

I've got to the stage in life where I just want to listen to my stuff in comfort. This bright red colour means I won't get lost in a crowd while listening to the pan pipes of north america (joke!This months flavours are John Legend - Get Lifed and Nelly Furtado - Loose). I've grown tiresome of ramming ill fitting ear plugs in, only for them to fall back out minutes later and hese lovelies double up as ear warmers. They also fold down so I can fit them into my ridicculously oversized handbag containing my life remanants from the past 6 weeks. Note to self: I will sort my bag out soon.

So the grande finale of todays nostalgic gibberish would not be complete without these - these will never go out of fashion with me. I've asked my boss if we can have some for recreational purposes in the office, so far there has been no success. I'll keep trying...

*Photos sourced from my own camera, www.marksandspencer.com and google.



Glitter Bug

I adore sparkle especially at this time of year. A few years ago I fell in love with the most lucious heels, they were round toe, silver glittery beauties with a bow. I loved them so much I bought 5 pairs in the range, the shop assistant working on commission loved me that day..my bank not so much. They lasted well with my shoe care OCD... here they are on my asian babe feet (with a few friends)..I miss those shoes..

I find hope in the fact there are a few good pairs available on the high street at the moment, some with a lovely discount.

Shiny shiny! The joy of black heels = they look good with 99% wardrobe choices (1% leeway for those horrendous days your wardrobe vomits on you). I'm becoming more open to the idea that I'm getting older and my feet may accept slingbacks. These glittery goddesses are from River Island for £70.00, not cheap considering you get half a shoe and cold heels but they are pretty. You win some you lose some I guess.

I'm not tall, my husband laughs because he sees the top of my head. For a long time I wanted to be 5'5" but after several years (of lying to myself) I came to accept I'd stopped growing. Well these days I'm a bit podgy so I am growing horizontally jsut not vertically. This is probably why I love heels and going to Malaysia where my family is either the same height or shorter making me a very happy short person/temorarily tall. These three sparklers above are hiding in Wallis. Wallis...I'd thought for a long time was were you went after the age of 40. It's a lie, this shop has many secret treasures. As a shorty it does a very good petit range which isn't fuddy duudy as well as a good shoe range. These three could easily fit in my shoe collection. They were £45.00 but they are currently discounted down to £40.50. They have a 9.5cm heel height, they sparkle, have a lovely rounded toe and the all important bow. Lovely!

Dune never fails to please. This glitter bomb is currently avaialble in Debenhams for £68.00. A small but pleasing discount from the original price of £85.00. The chunkier heel may be a bit safer on the icy pavements but then again if your out on the town in these it's more than likely the Jack Daniels has done it's work and removed all sense of balance. All in all my feet would love these!

Last up we have the wonderful collaboration of black and purple glitter that creates that lovely greenish effect.. They are from Schuh, Schuh never disappoints when you're after some glitter, this is true at any any time of the year. These Prince Court Glitter High Heels are lovely but I do prefer a concealed platform, no one really wants to see how many inches you're trying to gain but that's probably just a personal issue with being vertically challenged. Hope you liked todays sparkle!

Wedded Wednesday

Paper flowers....I love them. I made these for the boys button holes and for the table centre pieces at our wedding. Simple but beautiful.

For these I used candy floss sticks (and cut them to size) and florist tape - white for taping each petal and green to finish of each flower. I found giant paper flowers on greenweddingshoes.com . These inspired me to make mini versions and I just adapted it to use materials that I could get.  

For the button holes I made tiny yellow flowers for the mini roses and tied a little blue bow around. They looked amazing :)

Trinket Tuesday

So Monday was awful, hopefully today will be better... Here are some shiny shinies that are good enough to brighten any weekday. It's big coat weather now folks so these are just a little bit of happiness that you can pin on :)

This shiny shiny is from Topshop. It's the Facet Tear Brooch priced at £12.50. In this gun metal colour it will be a piece you can use over and over. 

This little beaut was found in Accessorize. It the Sparkle Snowflake Brooch, this simple seasonal lovely is only £10.00. Super duper!

Suprisingly this one is from...Marks and Spencer. It's beautiful, simple and can be worn all year round. This Silver Plated Leaf Diamanté Brooch is £15.00 and will definately be on my Christmas list this year.

This one is just a bit hideous but I find it slightly amusing. It's only £6.00 so why not, even just for some mild amusement! Grab this Black Face Brooch at River Island...

Photos from: www.topshop.com

www.accessorize.co.uk

www.marksandspencer.com

www.riverisland.com

 

Tootsies in bootsies

I adore high heels. I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to my beloved shoes, they're kept in their boxes with labels front. You don't want to be rummaging in your perfect outfit searching for your killers. With the cold nights coming in it is essential to keep those tootsies well dressed. I'm a lover of boots so today's post is dedicated to a selection of the winter wonders I want...

These little lovelies are from H&M. At £29.99 I may be taking a wonder to town to grab these. They are immitation suede so that explains the low price. The soles are rubber which should help against any sneaky ice on the pavements. The 80mm heel is a perfect size for an all day wear. You can easily dress these up or down. Seal of approval - check!

My friends are fully aware of my love for a hidous print or pattern. I love nothing more than looking down to see shoes that make me grin like a cheshire cat. Shoes should bring happiness and these definately do. These 2" heeled Ava side zip up western boots from Topshop  are priced at £70.00. I defy any one who doesn't appreciate a western boot...and a bit of tapestry :)

A 1" concealed platform, a 5.5" heel of pure beauty, lucious leather, laces and velcro! What's not to love? These do come in all black but why mask the detail, these should be seen and every bit enjoyed. At £500 from net-a-porter.com you'd definately be flaunting these ACNE Ace beauties. The colours remind me of the Kobi Levi mallard shoes which one day I will own but priced at $1680, I think for now I'll just look...

Photos: www.hm.com/gb

www.topshop.com

www.net-a-porter.com

http://kobilevidesign.com/