i'm a fool to want you

on monday night, i went to the 18th birthday party of one of my best friends who i've known since i was about nine years old! she's very interested in eras gone by, much as i am, so she had a 1940s themed party. a group of us clubbed together to buy her some vintage records we thought she'd like as a present, & i've just received a text saying she's just been listening to them & she loves them!

it was such a lovely night (even though a couple of annoying, inconsiderate people ruined it for me at the end, but we'll say no more about that) & i can honestly say cathryn - that's her name, by the way - is one of the cutest people i know. unfortunately, there really aren't any pictures of me from the night, but i have a few i took before i went.

this was my attempt at pin-curling my hair, although you can't really see as my hair is so dark in photographs! i was pretty pleased with how my hair turned out, as i have next to no experience in styling hair. in fact, i may have to try it again some time!

as the 1940s aren't really a decade i know a lot about, i didn't have much in my wardrobe that i could wear for such an occasion. thankfully my mother, amazing woman that she is, has forgotten more about decades of fashion than i could ever know so she was the perfect person to guide me.

i love this dress so much, the style isn't 40s in the slightest but the print is so i think i got away with it.

forgive the disaffected youth pose, my camera has a lot of trouble focusing in low light & this was the only shot that came out alright. this is pretty much the same outfit i wore in this post, so i didn't do any full length shots as it seemed slightly gratuitous to me. the only thing i'm slightly annoyed about is that i forgot to take a picture of the tights i wore as they were the most 1940s-ish thing about the outfit!

i'm wearing pearls in these photographs, but i decided to change my necklace at the last minute to this typewriter one i got for christmas from my cousin (the very same cousin who features in the post below!). i thought it was very appropriate, & of course it meant i could spend the night pretending i was one of those wonderfully mysterious women who spent the war working as a code-breaker. or something like that, ahem.

this will be my last post of 2010 (gasp), so i shall see you all in the new year! (:

i'm glad of what keeps me afloat

merry happy christmas dears, i trust you all had a lovely time! my christmas was lovely (except for the food poisoning that kept me awake from 2am christmas morning, but i won't go into further details as it was not pleasant) & i shall post about presents & things once i see my father & open the presents from his side of the family.

while staying with some family over the holiday, i had the chance to take some photographs of my cousin for my art project which were based on some of the pictures i talked about in this post. i'm really pleased with the way they turned out, especially as i'm really not an experienced photographer. also, my cousin is ridiculously pretty so she took the picture quality up a notch.

practising my mad photoshop skillz.

i can't decide if i prefer this with a blue tint, or the original version.

this is supposed to be to millais' portrait of ophelia, i think it sort of works. even though that facial expression of my cousin's was accidental.

i plan to blow one of these up & draw it in pencil, hopefully with the aid of a friend's projector.

i shall be posting quite frequently over the next week or so, as i have yet more wisdom to impart. or just things to write about, potato patato.

it's christmas & you're boring me

merry christmas eve eve followers! both christians & non-christians alike (:

i don't know if you remember me saying, but this monday i went to a winter ball organised by my school's events team. it was a really good night, even if there was the odd bit of dramatics here & there - like the fact the hotel kicked us out an hour earlier than billed! silly people.

this is what i wore;

atrocious photograph quality, but i took this when i got back & i was tired!

dress - dorothy perkins, jacket - dorothy perkins, tights - primark, necklace - homemade via tynemouth craft market, bracelets - gifts, wristband - school events team.

i've never worn this jacket out before, but i love it so much! i bought it for £10 (reduced from £60ish, score!)  in the dorothy perkins sale in january & was unsure of how to wear it, but i got a fair few compliments about it on monday night so i'm pretty pleased!

here follow some gratuitous shots of me & my friends, feel free to skip past these - or alternately you could giggle at how silly my posing-with-friends face is & how unnecessarily shiny my outfit appears with the use of flash.

laura & me.

kate & i with the free candyfloss, this is my version of an open bar baby!

cathryn, me & harriet.

shiny shiny shiny!

naomi, beth, charlotte, kate, me (aka floating head in the back), cathryn & catherine. spot the double names.

grooving on the dancefloor to various music atrocities - the highlight of my night was when they played passenger by iggy pop... and the dancefloor was immediately virtually empty apart from me getting far too into it! it seems i'm a bit of a music pariah in my sixth form.

this is going to be my last post before christmas, so i wish you all glad tidings & christmas felicitations etcetera! peace & love (:

ps. in reference to this post title, i urge you all to check out slow club & their christmas EP. the songs from this album are quickly making their way up my most played list this month.

the korova milkbar

last night i went to the fancy dress 18th birthday party of two friends of mine which was a pretty amazing night. even though i'm such an old person i was freaking exhausted by about half ten!

i decided to go dressed as alex delarge from a clockwork orange, given as this was one of my many abandoned outfit ideas for hallowe'en. i'm reading the book at the minute, and it is so good! slightly confusing & a bit odd, but unbelievably brilliant.

this is pretty much the nicest i looked all night, ha. my fringe soon became an utter mess. i probably should have made the eye make-up more obvious, but this was my third attempt & my eye was serrrriously starting to sting! liquid eyeliner is most definitely not my friend.

cathryn, me, kate & alix.

half time refreshments.

myself & lucy - see what i mean about my fringe?

birk & i, not sure this pose is entirely in keeping with my character's mentality.

kiran, kate & i. i totally knew i was going to blink in this photo, oh dear.

here is my dancing face; admit it, you have one too!

i told you i could throw some shapes! paha, this is such a ludicrous shot.

our school winter ball is on monday, so i may post some pictures from that soon - hopefully some ones of me where i actually look nice. wouldn't that be something. my friend cathryn is having a birthday party two days after christmas, which is 1940s themed & i am quite excited! i think i may have become a slight social butterfly this december.

do you want to know a secret?

remember ages ago when i asked people to ask me questions, and then didn't answer them? haha yeah, me too. well, i do apologise for the delay, but i shall answer them now!

jenny asked; what is your favourite item of clothing?

gosh, this is difficult. i think this changes from time to time for me, but i am most definitely a skirt/dress person so i would have to choose my blue & white patterned skirt (that you can probably see best here) which my mother & i made. i bought it for £4 at a vintage fair about a year & a half ago, it was about a size 18 but the fabric was so pretty i had to buy it! mother & i altered it and shortened the length, then changed the buttons & the waistband. i love it because i can wear it smart or casual, & even though it frays quite a bit i am still very proud of it - and also i think it was the start of my love affair with vintage clothing.

minna asked; which is your favourite beatles song & why?

this is such a difficult question! i think because you said "why" means that i should choose a meaningful song, & not just your average "i love i saw her standing there" answer (even though that is one of my favourites!). if forced to choose, i think my favourite beatles song would have to be dear prudence, this is a song that literally takes me to another place. i just think it is beautiful, & whenever i listen to it, i instantly feel brighter & happier. for now, this is my favourite beatles song - although it will probably change within the hour!

georgina asked; what is your main reason or main reasons for blogging and why did you start your blog?

hmm, this is a good question! i think my main reasons for blogging are because i like to write, i like to write about things i like & i like to read about other like-minded people. could i like, have used the word like any more in that sentence? on some level i also like to have a bit of recognition for the things that i do; like art, jewellery & some of the clothes i've started making, because it's nice to know what i could do if i choose to set up an etsy shop in the future. blogging is also about documenting things, like my memories & progress in my aformentioned work. i started blogging because a couple of my friends had blogs, they kind of moved on to other things but i discovered a real love for blogging in the past year. having a blog is also a nice connection to the outside world, where i feel i have an outlet for all things creative & emotional.

lexy asked; where do you see yourself in five years?

this is really very tricky, to be frank i can't really see past the next year of my life. i'll be 22, and i'll probably be in my last year of uni, hopefully in some kind of art course. i might have some kind of etsy/ebay store by then, with hopefully some kind of career prospect under my belt. i honestly could not tell you where i'll be, as i do not even know myself.



she's lost control

hi.

sorry for that last post of misery, i just get really down sometimes & can't get out of that mood. i always find december really hard too because of situations with my family & christmas. there's some pretty difficult stuff happening with my dad at the moment too, but it's mostly my problem. i also feel like my heart problem has started worsening again too, which both scares & saddens me. thank you for the nice comments on the post, seriously from the bottom of my heart thank you (& thanks kate).

so, before i use the word thanks more than is entirely bearable, let's move on shall we?

for my art project, i've been looking at water & i've been struggling to get an idea for my final piece. i know that i want it to be mixed media with textile & drawing elements, but i didn't really have the faintest idea what to do until i started trawling flickr & tumblr for some ideas. here are a few of the images i've been inspired by;

1 & 2 - mary robinson; 3, 4 & 5 - unknown; 6 - sir john everett millais.

now all that remains is for me to get in the bath wearing a floaty dress & try to recreate this. clearly going to be nowhere near as amazing as these pictures, but i'm going to give it a go! i'm going to try & combine those with some of the underwater film photographs i took on holiday, although i seriously don't know how i'm going to get this done before friday!

tonight i'm listening to joy division instead of watching the x factor & pondering over secret santa, good morrow friends (:

please please please let me get what i want.

sorry about what is about to follow, but i've been feeling unbelievably down lately & i have nowhere else to let it out.

i feel like everything is slipping away from me. schoolwork, friends, blogging, pretty much everything i hold dear. i feel like i'm becoming bitter & twisted, and i burst into tears over the slightest thing. it's so hard for me to talk about this, as i feel stupid for being down about stupid, infintesimal things like university degrees & being expressive in my artwork when there are starving children all over the world. in fact, i almost feel like i don't deserve to be unhappy, like it's sheer first-world arrogance to be "depressed" because the pressures of being rich are too much to bear.

but then other times i'm perfectly happy, & it's as if nothing has happened, as if my mind has literally brushed everything under the carpet.

i wish i had the guts to actually say this to someone in real life, but i physically cannot make myself do that. i berate myself everyday for being such a cold, closeted person & i wish i could open up to someone - anyone. i've tried with my mum but i can never get my point across & there is no way on earth i could speak to my dad. i couldn't speak to my friends either because i'd feel i was a burden & i don't feel close enough to them, which is completely my fault because i constantly shut myself off from other people by being overly outgoing & pseudo-sharing.

these are stupid, stupid thoughts and stupid, stupid excuses which every day i tell myself i am going to get over, suck it up & talk to someone, but i just can't.

number nine dream

alas & alack my dears, my giveaway has now ended!

& the winner is...

congratulations! i shall send you an email regarding how you would like your necklace, and posting details soon & you should have your present for christmas hopefully (:

thank you for your lovely answer too, i love the three people you chose - john lennon is most certainly an idol of mine!

sorry about the late posting of this, i know the giveaway ended two days ago but i've been so caught up with my english coursework i haven't even had time to think about blog-related duties! if you follow me on tumblr or twitter, you will probably know how stressed out i've been about this, today in particular. i blame myself for choosing an obscure theme & texts which don't exactly mesh together all that well. here is my question if you are interested;

compare & contrast the writer's presentation of "the horror of the mundane" in the bell jar, the virgin suicides and hamlet.

i feel a bit silly about getting so worked up about this before, but sometimes with work i just hit a brick wall & can't see any way around it. it's a stupid weakness, & something i really must get over quickly. i also blame my truly terrible attention span!

generic post title mentioning snow.

sorry it's been a while since we last talked, i've been feeling a bit ill & uninspired and, not wanting to burden you all with my dullness, i stayed silent.

this week, as i'm sure my british readers will confirm, has been fairly chaotic due to everybody freaking out over the large amount of snow we have received recently. we've missed three days of school this week, which is good in some respects as i had a chance to meet up with some friends & enjoy a spot of well-deserved rest, but bad in others as it means sadly my fellow a-level students & i have no excuse for not doing work.

anyway, a couple of my friends & i had a walk in our local park for the day. it was lovely, and it really reminded me how absolutely beautiful the natural world can be sometimes. i mean, nothing manmade even comes close.

the park has a river running through it, and the oxbow lake beside it was pretty much frozen over! we decided to take a walk down to the bird-watching shelter which is in a completely isolated part of the park where the snow was completely undisturbed, & as we got there it started snowing heavily again.

i quite like this picture, even though i have a complete moonface. my hair & skin are completely wrecked thanks to central heating, stinging cold weather & being mashed under hats. that last one only applies to my hair, obviously, which resembles a bad wig at the moment.

my giveaway ends at midnight tonight, so you still have a good 9 hours to enter!

now i must return to my english coursework, or find yet more inventive ways to avoid it.

ps. both photographs stolen from my friend kate.