dear readers

i'm sorry that it's been about a week since i last posted, but i'm about to explain why.

lately i've been feeling completely buried by work, & i'm not sure whether it has shown in my posts or not, but i really feel like i've been struggling both in my personal life & at school. whether this is obvious to other people is irregardless, but i need a break. i can't remember if i've mentioned it on here before or not, but my two spanish speaking exams (the year 13 exam and the resit) have been put on the same days as my art exam (which is a 3 day exam) in may. i know it's far off now, but it doesn't feel that way. i've been stressing over this ever since i found out about it, and therefore i've been tryign to concentrate on my work, but getting too stressed to work, which in turn only makes me more stressed. a vicious circle, as you can probably imagine. in fact, i was talking to two of my art teachers about the situation last night and ended up in tears, and then had to walk home in tears. it was horrible, & i could not stop feeling miserable for hours. in fact, i haven't really stopped feeling that way for a long time, and i can't keep feeling like this.

so it is for that reason that i have deleted my tumblr, and i shall also be taking a break for my blog for the time being. this might last a week, two weeks or maybe until june, i'm undecided. basically, when i feel up to posting & i have suitable time inbetween my studies then i will post (it isn't that i haven't the ideas for posting, just not the time or the motivation). this is possibly the most intense, stressful period of my life (as anyone doing a levels, or the equivalent, will know) so i feel like i not only need to take more time for my studies and for preparation for my art exam, but i need to relax and take more time for myself.

thank you to everyone who follows or reads this blog, i could not be writing here without all of your support. please bear with me in this short hiatus, i promise this does not mean i will be deleting this blog as i love posting here. thank you and good bye (for now).

yours sincerely, charlotte.

we are beautiful, we are doomed

anyone who follows me on twitter may be aware of my ebay bidding war for a cardigan; well thankfully i won & here is that very cardigan!

before.

i think it is lovely. it's very warm & comfortable (something slightly lacking in my wardrobe as i seem to have a major incapacity for buying practical things) and, as it is about a size 14/16 it is a great, slightly oversized fit for me - which is just what i was looking for. the knit pattern is lovely, & it even has pockets. score.

however, the buttons were just a little bit dull for my taste, so after a little bit of deliberation & rooting around in my sewing box, i swiftly changed them.

after.

what do you think? i used two packets of buttons which i bought in spitalfields market last summer & had been looking to use for a while. i think they look pretty good, & also it means that this is a completely unique item of clothing, which is always nice. the only downside is that these buttons are too big to fit through the buttonholes, unless i make them bigger, although i have no idea how i would even begin to go about doing that. however, i never really wear cardigans buttoned up, so this should suffice for now.

a closer look at the buttons, some are gold rimmed, others are not. quirky.

please forgive me for these arms, for i know not what they do.

this is sort of what i wore for red nose day, except i swapped my paddington shorts for this skirt when i got back home because it's much more comfortable. (this outfit is totally comfort over style, that never normally happens for me. how odd. how bizarre.)

cardigan - ebay & diy, red nose day tshirt - vivienne westwood for tk maxx, skirt - topshop, necklace - car boot sale.

i can't really describe how much in love i am with this tshirt. vivienne westwood is one of the few designers that i actually like, so obviously when a comic relief tshirt featuring a red-nosed, framed rowan atkinson as edmund blackadder designed by ms westwood comes along, it pretty much had to be mine immediately.

i have always loved red nose day, for me it is a wonderfully charitable, and uniquely british, tradition. i watched almost all of the show on friday night, & the highlight for me had to be paul & ringo's appearance in the smithy sketch! hilarious, & very well done. yesterday i actually downloaded the sketch & some behind the scenes action from itunes (which you should all do, because it is excellent & all the profits go to charity), & i am very glad i did because there was much more paul mccharmley - including him saying that he felt intimidated in the presence of the harry potter actors, aww.

i also wore my we are beautiful and we are doomed badges from the los campesinos! album i bought from amazon last week. i've actually been a fan for a while, but have been stuck listening to them on spotify as i always find buying albums such a hassle. this may be far too philosophical a point for my humble little blog, but i feel almost as if that phrase sums up the human race; we are all beautiful, but we are all inevitably doomed to die. something which becomes even more acute on nights such as comic relief, & given the recent atrocities in japan & libya.

sorry if that's a tad maudlin for a sunday evening.

a close up of said tshirt - which, much like stella mccartney's beatles shirt from 2009, is probably going to be worn on a lot more occasions than just red nose day.

also, is it just me, or was series two when blackadder really started to get attractive? no? just me with the strange old man crushes then. and on that bombshell, i wish you good morrow (or something more appropriately elizabethan which edmund would say).

blue suede shoes.

hello again. i realise i'm getting a bit lackadaisical with posts again guys, & i do apologise but i've been working so hard on art lately i haven't really had time to do anything else.

due to this slight work addiction, all my shopping has been relegated to online browsing (apart from my little oxfam raid which i will write about at the weekend) & therefore i have bought some lovely new shoes.

the colour hasn't quite come out right on the pictures, but they are a wonderful mint green pair of boat shoes. or at least i think they are boat shoes, they are more loafer-y than i expected.

it's red nose today tomorrow & our school has a thing where we have to wear red, so i shall be wearing these with my paddington shorts & blackadder red nose day shirt as i think they will go together pretty well.

sorry for the short update again, but i am in so much of a rush these days. today i met my new spanish tutor who i'm going to start seeing evert thursday, which leaves me with only one free weekday every fortnight, urgh. but still, i do desperately need to get on with revision for my AS speaking resit so in the end it will all work out for the best. goodbye for now (:

sloane square

a month or so ago, there was a vintage fair in newcastle which i had a browse around for an hour or two. i've been to this fair a few times in the past, & i think some of the newer stalls are more expensive than the older ones, which is a bit of a shame. also, the arts & crafts stall wasn't there this time so i was a bit disappointed. however, i did manage to get a couple of nice pieces;

the first thing i bought was this truly lovely jumper, for only £5! it was buried in a rather sad looking pile of other knitted items, so i couldn't resist having a bit of a dig to see what i could find, which was pretty lucky as i adore this jumper. the shade is a wonderful lavender, & the collar is such a lovely detail. the style is very 80s according to mother, but not in a brash disco way (as, to quote daniel desario, disco sucks!) in a sloane ranger, princess diana way.

i wore this jumper to school the other day, so here you have it with my charcoal grey school trousers. the trousers do in fact have a very subtle purple stripe running through them, so if you look very closely (and i mean very closely) they do match a teeny bit.

jumper - vintage, trousers - warehouse, brooch - gift, bracelet - spanish market.

i also splashed out on this pair of shorts, which were £18 so they were a tad expensive - although i did talk the woman on the stall down from £20, so i consider that a small victory, & the same pair would probably have been about £25-30 in topshop. when i bought them, they were about a size 12 so mother & i altered them & moved the waistband up a bit.

you can't really see the print here much, but there are little black hearts dotted all over the shorts & a thin lace trim on the bottom. pretty cute i think!

not clothing related, but at the fair there was a little music memorabilia stall where i spotted a lovely jimi hendrix patch for £2. his eyes look a little odd & i can't work out what the writing says, but i just had to buy it. i'm not really sure what i shall be doing with it, i think it will join my beatles love me do patch in the diy quandary box.

but you've got to have friends.

this time last week, i was at my friend charlotte's house party, which was a pretty good night! wild, as expected. there aren't many photos with me in them, partly because my camera was the designated camera of the evening & was spirited away from me on more than one occasion. also it wasn't really a group photo kind of party, but there are some which i thought i would post here (:

kate & me. i'm looking ridiculously washed out in this picture, flash is not my friend.

me & beth. charlotte has a pretty extensive collection of hats; farmery ones (as she lives in the country wilderness), victorian top hats & oriental straw ones to name but a few.

as you can see, i of course tried on many of the hats throughout the evening.

kate, jess & i.

i really kind of love this photo, even though i look silly & awkward, but i really do love these two more than anything. and yes, soppy post alert, but i will miss them so much when they leave for uni next year & i go to college. i've known kate since i was four, & jess since year 9, & they are two of the best friends i have ever had. it's really nice to have photos like these to look back on when i'm not feeling too great, like tonight for example because i've been feeling a bit lonely recently. i can't say why, i just feel that way sometimes, regardless of how daft or untrue that may be, but it is a total comfort to know i do actually have great friends that i can count on.

okay, emotions back in their box for now! tomorrow i'm going to have a bit of a look around oxfam for clothes, books & some material i can cut up & use for art. if i get anything particularly lovely i shall post about it. (:

i'd like to take you out for tea, & for biscuits.

on saturday, my friend alix had a tea party at a tea room in a local seaside town (look at me trying to be all obscure with my geographical references, paha). it was a properly lovely afternoon, even if i was still tired from another friend's party the night before (pictures to follow as soon as i get my camera back, silly old me left my camera at her house). anyway, this is my outfit below;

blouse - car boot sale, shorts - homemade, cardigan - vintage, hat - topshop, tights - topshop, socks - gift (next), necklace - gift (urban outfitters).

i thought it would be a perfect opportunity for me to wear my new homemade shorts as the print has little sandwiches & cakes, as well as paddington bears. as we were going for afternoon tea, something oh so english, i thought i would dress with a certain theme as you can't really get more english than a bowler hat, tea & paddington bear.

here is more of a close-up of the shorts, although it's not a great photograph. the pattern we got for the shorts was actually really difficult as we had to alter the sizing slightly because i wanted them to be more high-waisted than the pattern suggested. i also forgot to take a picture of the socks i was wearing which i got as a present recently, and i am totally in love with! they are knee high & cable knit in a lovely beige-y colour.

here is the lovely spread we had laid out for us! everything was so cute & miniature, & the shortbread, as i think i bored people by saying far too many times, was a-ma-zing.

me (doing the mother of all awkward poses), lauren, alix (the birthday girl), cathryn & kate in the tea room.

that's all folks, goodbye for now! (:

take a sad song & make it better

two weeks ago today, it was my first day in london on the art trip. it is very odd to look back on it like that now, as the trip seemed to be over so quickly it hardly seems like i've been at all. anyway, i've been meaning to post some of my photos from the trip, so here they are;

jess, me, alethea, catherine, lucy, our legendary art teacher mrs fitz, naomi, hannah & amanda in the hotel lobby, just before going out on our first night in london! there are quite a few versions in this photo, & in literally all of them my eyes are shut, classic.

i think this is possibly one of my favourite pieces of work that i saw while in london, in the tate modern. it really was breath-taking, & ridiculously cool. although i was kind of disappointed that you're not allowed to walk on it any more (toxic paint & too much dust was being created apparently).

venus of the rags, or gratuitous ass shot. this piece of work amused me, although i'm fairly certain it wasn't supposed to.

portobello market. it was raining that day so i didn't take many photographs.

 lace sculpture/installation piece in the textiles area in the v&a.

 suitcase by tracey emin. lucy & i spent all our time in the tate modern & tate britain searching for some of tracey's textiles pieces, & we were really disappointed that we couldn't find any, so seeing this in the v&a pretty much made our days!

wagamama in covent garden on the last night, me looking very unglamourous on the end. this evening was lovely, i've never been to wagamama before but my stir fry/curry thing was so nice! i may have to start eating there more often.

after we came out of wagamama, we saw a small crowd & i could hear the sounds of a beatles song being played on acoustic guitar so we all went over to see what was going on, & the sweetest busker in the world was serenading about 50 people! we joined in & sang along - especially when he played hey jude, that was pretty much the high point of the entire trip for me! - for about an hour and a half, it was such a lovely way to spend our last night.

lucy snapped a picture of me being very studious & taking pictures of the exhibits in the british museum. all the teachers had scared us into doing 2 hours of solid drawing as punishment for "not doing enough work", despite the majority of us (ie. lucy, amanda & i) working like dogs for the past three days, so lucy & i were collecting evidence by taking pictures of each other sketching.

i really love this photo, despite the fact my hair is a totally scraggled mess. but hey, the effect is pretty nice.

i'm altering/making two pairs of shorts at the minute, & i have two birthday parties coming up so hopefully you can look forward to me writing me about all of those things on here, goodbye for now! (: