Review: Leopard's spots and Polka-dots.

Mini-review: Misguided Lorette Skater Peter Pan Contrast Dress.

Back to Glasgow I go :-D I'm being banished from the City so Stu can buy my presents without the risk of me seeing where they are from. But it does give me another chance to see Sarah before 2012 arrives. I vowed to myself that I'd wear more skirts/dresses during winter, so now I'm starting, a bit late but better than never.

Just a short post, only an outfit post really. No one was in the flat when I left and I don't have a tripod - really need to invest in one - so had to make do with a trusty mirror shot.

I really love my new dress and overall outfit and makes me feel really bold and confident when I'm in it. It's a lovely Missguided peter-pan collared dress, covered in delicate polkadots - I LOVE polkadots and love anything with it as a pattern. My wardrobes are slowly filling up with spotty clothes but I really do like them. I think they add a childish, expressive, free-spirited feel to clothes whilst still being able to maintain maturity in the design of the outfit.

I really love this dress though. I'm always a bit wary of buying online because of sizes - especially since I seem to be gaining weight these days so I'm not actually sure what size I am any more. This is a 10, but it feels kinda snug with the t-shirt underneath, so I'm contemplating buying a 12 so that I can wear it longer if I keep gaining weight. But this size is very comfortable on - and I was wearing 2 layers under it so I dare say in warmer weather it will be ideal. The delivery was superb - free next day delivery - they even text you to let you know that your beautiful order will be arriving that day. Wonderfully packaged too. I found Missguided through a lot of my twitter people - so for anyone that reads Brag Doll and that I follow on twitter, thank you for introducing me to a wonderful, friendly, social company! With a great variety of clothes, at very good prices, and incredible delivery. Here's to you Missguided!

The fabric is a really floaty viscose-y fabric, with lining all the way through. Love the dark red colour too, I'm seeing so much of it this season and I really love it. There are so many colours that go with this red, and indeed with this dress. Yipee! I teamed with with the long sleeved mustard coloured top, and thick blue tights, and fluffy winter boots, but you wont see them till later. I feel like I've just stepped out of the 60s in this outfit and I LOVE it! The cut of the dress around the bust is great, made the most of the little I've got, so that adds to the confidence boost. And for such a light fabric it was very warm in Glasgow too. The belt I borrowed from another of the Missguided dresses I bought - I got 3 at one time - a bit risky for a new found shop, but very worth it. The other two dresses are equally as beautiful - in fact, one is very simliar, but much nicer, than a dress I found in New Look in Glasgow but had no luck finding online or in Edinburgh, very strange. But it means I bought the better, and cheaper, option from Missguided. And since then I've been into the Glasgow store again, found the original dress, and I'm glad to say the one I purchased is much nicer! Better cut, bolder colour, softer fabric. And much cheaper! Yay! Another point to you MissG!

I apologise for the mirror shots - not even particularly good ones - I just wanted to document how I looked before I left the flat incase I wasn't able to take any outfit pictures the rest of the day - just as well I did too, we were only able to take 1, and that was a bit of a disaster. I wore my new Leopard Print fluffy cardi that I got from here on ebay. Again, super fast delivery. And it's such a lovely, snug piece! I've been wearing it non-stop. And again, goes with many pieces in my wardrobe. Yay. I found it from fellow blogger and tweeter @frithalouise - I think she loves it as equally as much. I hope I can inspire other to follow our lead and purchase this cardi, you won't regret it. And I definitely think I'll be going back to Missguided for more. There dresses are just so lovely, and SUCH a variety too. And they won't break the bank - so you can get lots for a reasonable price. Yay!

Oooh I've not mentioned the skirt of this piece yet - the floaty material makes it ideal for twirling around, I just want to spin and spin in it. I tried to capture it on the camera too.... but not very successfully, still, I think it shows the floaty fabric quite well, and it's quite fun looking I think, just not very focused. Really need a tri-pod!

My only one criticism of this dress - and it's very weak - it's very high at the neck, and I found that with the beautiful back button and cut out detail, I seemed to get a little choked if I bent forward. This will be easy to fix though with a wee snip and sew so I'm not worried about that, and certainly wouldn't let it put me off wearing it. I also love the length, not too short to put the 'derriere' into inappropriate view, but also not so long that you look stumpy - a particular issue for me at times since I'm a wee Scottish lass of 5'2.

Wee picture of Edinburgh just before I got on the train... the first (and so far only) snow of the year! Yay! Hope we get some after Christmas - any before might mean I spend it on my own since my parents could get stranded up in the frozen North of Inverness instead of coming to me.... we shall see. It had turned to slush by the time I'd made it into town, but the grounds of the flat were still all white, and the roof tops had a smattering too. Yay! You can see the white of Princes Street Gardens too. Waking up to the white outside just added even more to my festive feelings! Yay for Christmas!

Made it to Glasgow, to find wind and rain instead of snow :-( was much colder than Edinburgh too. Always seems to be actually, but I still love it! Here I am in the St Enoch centre. I love their giant reindeer situated around the centre. And the giant snow globe behind me too. Really tempted to go in one and get a Christmas snapshot of fake snow. Next time.

It was really difficult to get a decent photo - there were just so many people running by doing Christmas shopping, it took forever, and lots of standing still. Eventually this lovely security guard stopped the 'traffic' and let Sarah take a shot - but just the 1 before the people crowded back around. So I'm glad I have the mirror shots from earlier. Apologies for the grainy-ness, I've had to enlarge the original quite a bit. You can see my fluffy boots and my penny farthing from Hannah Makes Things, and how the outfit works all together.

Dress: Missguided

Tights: Lidl

Mustard T-shirt: H&M

Cardi: ebay

Boots: gift

Penny Farthing Necklace: Hannah Makes Things.

What do you think of my outfit? Do you think the polka-dots work with the leopard print cardi?

Do you use a tri-pod to take self portraits? Are there any you'd recommend to use with a small Canon IXUS? Any tips on better angles than those above?

High in the rooftop trusses. There were loads of them, all different poses. Some reaching from one floor down to the next like they were looking for food from the shoppers.

Five days of Festive Frolics - Part 1.

Days 1+2: Christmas in Glasgow!


Eeeeee it's December :-D yay! Happy December everyone! It's a really cold, crisp, clear day today and I am super excited about whats happening this month. Yay! So much so I seem to forget that I don't have a job.... We 'Christmassed' up the flat the other night and it looks so festive and lovely :-D yay! This is just a low res camera photo just now, but I'll put up better ones later. We were worried we wouldn't be able to use our huge tree from last year and have to buy a scrawny new one, but that super smart man of mine figured out a way around it :-D It's a really stunning tall tree that fitted so nicely into our huge living room in our old Dundee flat. This is our third year of having it and there was still a lot of life in it so we really didn't want to have to get a new one. Stu's brainwave was to just put up the top two of the three stem sections, effectively third-ing the height and base width - and it totally worked! Now its a table top tree! Yay! Isn't it pretty!

So yeah anyway.... days after we arrived back in Scotland I went through to Glasgow to visit one of my oldest and dearest friends. I love her so much, she is so special and we always have the most immature, inappropriate giggily fun :-D I went through to accompany her to see Breaking Dawn part 1 (cringe indeed, but I actually quite enjoy the movies, a bit of easy going fluff) and to stay in her and her fiance's new house. It was really nice being the guest for once, it's normally me hosting so it was really nice to be on the receiving end.

In the (HUGE 18 screen 6 floored) cinema foyer there was a nice wee dedication to the new Chipmunks film and me being me, encouraged by my partner in crime Sarah.... joined in:

I'm so down with the 'munks. So street! Just seem to be too wintery dressed compared to the Hawaii look that's going on here. I got some very strange looks from the other cinema-goers, but it was totally worth it. Ah we just become so silly together, it really is such fun! I'm not quite as relaxed and free with anyone else, we can just be so natural and enjoy our time together. And no matter how long it's been since we saw or talked to each other, as soon as we meet up again we just click right back where we were before :-D I just hope we don't ever lose our connection.

We called into Primark after our dose of vampires and warewolves, to check out the bargain knits. I really miss it since moving to Edinburgh, I didn't even shop in it that much in Dundee near the end, but just because there isn't one here I have a longing for it. But woo! It opens here on Saturday, yay! But we called in and Sarah spotted a woman carrying an awesome snowman jumper, we went on a scavenge hunt. Turns out it was in the menswear department and was super cheap, so naturally we both tried it on! Festive Frolics indeed!! 

Just look how AWESOME it is! How good do we look?! Although I still think Sarah suits it better than me. It also made me realise just how great the height difference between us is. I've always known I was smaller, but it's not something that I've ever really thought about (I just assume I'm smaller than the majority of people I meet), but when we're standing so close, wearing the same sized jumper, it really becomes obvious. I'm so small! Regardless.... I bought the jumper, I thought we both were, but Sarah backed out last minuted; she appears to be more sensible with money than I am. But I LOVE it! It's just so cosy, and it's ideal for hiding layers underneath, which is great for this cold weather. I've been wearing it a lot recently so it will probably appear lots on here, but this is the first photo of it :-) yay!

Primark have also started to do ski-wear! So we tried some of that on too :-) again with the funny looks, and the security guard keeping a close eye on us. But it was so much fun and so worth it! These things were HUGE and really heavy! It was like wearing a virtual reality headset - except it was real life, did give it a surreal side though. We didn't buy these.

 A few more shots of Glasgow looking all pretty at Christmas 
:-) yay!

Eeee and the most exciting part! I get to see her again this weekend :-D yay! Stu is banishing me from Edinburgh for the day so he can Christmas shop for me without me stumbling across anything and ruining my surprise. Yay! He's even paying for my train ticket through to Glasgow :-D It's kinda romantic I think, maybe not in the traditional sense. But I'm so excited to spend more time with Sarah!

And I think I have a sneaky peak where Stu is going on Saturday - hopefully to a couple of my new favourite sellers. The lovely and talented Miss Katy Cupcake and her wonderful new shop. Ooh it's such a lovely space, she's decorated it so well! And I love EVERYTHING in the shop! Especially the tea-plate clocks! So fingers crossed. And the beautiful Savy Sailor. Jen is so beautiful and so gifted, and I definitely share her obsession with buttons! I luckily stumbled across her page after a routine Facebook stalking adventure, and I'm so glad I did, her jewellery is so unique and fancy! I saw her at the 2D/3D fair last weekend and I'm so hoping she's at it again this weekend because I didn't have the time to stop and buy :-( But again, fingers crossed!

Anyway, off to job hunt again. Just a quick excited Christmas post. Oooh I'm going to listen to 'Now Christmas' :-D and encourage my festive spirit. YEAH! Hope all your feelings are festive just now and the rush isn't getting you down. Oh and the snow isn't holding you up too much, we've yet to get any and I think we're the only place in Scotland that isn't white. Mum and Dad have loads at home, and Dundee certainly has some. I'm still immature enough to want some too, until it comes and I have to navigate my way through it, then I want it to leave. But right now.... I WANT SNOW!