be my baby

a few photographs from the past couple of days!

eating pina colada macarons (made by my mum for my birthday, instead of a birthday cake!) & watching marie antoinette. i think this is just my favourite film ever, it's so beautiful! every time i watch it i just fall more and more in love. i can't wait to show you my marie antoinette-esque vintage dress! it's so pretty, it just needs a little bit of altering first.

i painted my nails like ladybirds! kind of, haha, they're a bit rubbish. this hand is not too bad, but my right hand is a disaster! i can't be the only one who can only do decent nail art on one hand, right? anyway, like i said i got a model's own nail art pen for my birthday so i thought i'd give it a try! it's actually really easy to use, and i love that there are two ways to use it.

my hair has faded to this really cool pale grey colour! it's still a faint lilac at my temples and roots, and in some lights it has a weird honey blonde tint. it's so hard to capture in photographs though! i love the colour so much, i can't believe it's taken me this long to dye my hair! i bought some old lady touch of silver shampoo so that it will hopefully stay grey a little longer!

presents from my friend alix! some really cute swallow & dove hairclips, a double swallow brooch and two lovely pastel coloured scarves! i love them, thank you alix if you're reading!

*

just thought i'd do a little summary/snapshot of my week! i really like seeing other people's posts like this, so i thought i'd try one for myself (:

destroyed by madness

today i went to see black swan with a couple of friends. i was pretty impressed by it, the costumes were beautiful, natalie portman was excellent & the whole mood was wonderfully angst-ridden and atmospheric. i would say however that i feel if they had made it slightly longer, it might have been more in depth and, well, dare i say it slightly less pretentious. having said that, i do think it was a brilliant film

while waiting for black swan, i saw a preview for a film called howl - an experimental film about beat poetry in the 1950s, as well as the obscenity trial of allen ginsberg's poem of the same name.

i think it looks so good! a film about what is essentially the rock & roll of literature is clearly up my street. from what i could grasp from the trailer, it seems to be told in non-chronological order, possibly with narration from ginsberg (played by james franco). excellent.

james franco has been one of my favourite actors ever since i saw freaks and geeks - which is an amazing show that not enough people have seen. not to mention he is rather easy on the eye.

the cinematographyness (can you sense my ineptitude at describing films?) looks pretty lovely, & the costumes look amazing.

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
a lost batallion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon

*

posts for the next week may be a bit sparse, if i have time i shall schedule some posts for when i go away on the london trip, but until then i have some english coursework to finish (finally!) & an interview to prepare for.

adieu.

personal statement

hello there people, it's been a while hasn't it? remember that camera situation i kept waffling on about? well, it is still unresolved. bah. i'm on the verge of mass homicide with this camera-fixy company, i tell you. here are some thoroughly random & probably uninteresting facts about the events from my life since i've been away.

i bought the john lennon birthday issue of Q magazine (yes, i buy magazines aimed at men, do not adjust your screen) which is the loooooveliest thing ever. it was a damn good issue, even if there was too much yoko & not enough paul. oh, and bono from u2's handwriting is abysmal.

fyi, it's john's birthday this saturday so if you follow me on tumblr or twitter be prepared for some serious hyperbole about that man.

oh oh oh! aaand on sunday, i'm going to be helping out at the afforable vintage fair in newcastle for dolls & molls, which should be pretty lovely! if you're in the area, come check it out, it's always really good - even just to have a look around! i don't have a definite plan for what i'm going to look for, but i'd like to get a nice cardigan or jumper as they're a bit lacking in my wardrobe. i'm also looking out for a nice cross body bag for school, & of course the jewellery is always work a look!

sorry for such a short post this time, i hope to make up for it soon with all the giveaway shebang. adieu mes enfants! (:

it's been a hard day's night.

try a hard day's week ringo! i have two exams out of the way now & only one to go. i just can't wait 'til they're over - and neither can you probably, as you'll be sick to death of hearing me blabber on about them! my english literature paper went quite well today, i managed to make use of the wider reading texts i knew the best, although the poetry section was a bit iffy i'm hoping i've done well. fingers crossed to the max over here.

last weekend my beatles dvds i ordered arrived, which made me so unbelievably ridiculously happy!

even though i accidentally ordered the wrong one because my eyes skipped straight to the low price on amazon, instead of the item description. never making that mistake again!

a hard day's night!

i was actually quite ashamed that i had never since this before saturday, seeing as i'm supposed to this big beatles fan and all. it is now quite firmly in my top ten favourite films of all time list (which is a pretty big deal, let me tell you) not just because it features my boys john paul george & ringo, but because it's so cute, so funny, and so beautiful. people don't tend to know this, but this film actually kind of changed cinema. it was quite revolutionary in its time, as it didn't have much of a storyline, was quite surreal & featured a lot of improvised filming. thanks to richard lester (the director), this kind of thing has become quite normal in our culture. in fact, many of the films i love have this kind of structure.

this is the dvd i ordered incorrectly. i thought it was the beatles' film a magical mystery tour, but it's actually a documentary about the making of their album of the same name. i love beatles documentaries, don't get me wrong, but it was still kind of disappointing as i wanted to see the psychedelic madness of their bus based adventures.

i'm not quite sure what to with this dvd, as it was only £4 i may as well watch it & keep it instead of sending it back. i may sell it/donate it to charity at some point, i'm undecided.

these two are joining my (ever growing, but still quite small) collection of beatles related dvds. so far i have nowhere boy;

a film which i adore, even if it isn't completely accurate. i just love the soundtrack, and the direction. i think i read somewhere that sam taylor-wood had a different colour palette for each of the main characters, which really shows when you watch it back. i love little details like that. also, it makes me so very happy to know that i have been to the places where it was filmed - including lennon's house!

my mother bought nowhere boy for me, and it came with this little photo book! it's so cute, and it has little biographies of the main actors which is pretty cool - even though i think poor thomas brodie sangster (who plays paul mccartney in the film) has been slightly shortchanged as his biography is only 3 lines.

one of my favourite photos in the book; the "nowhere boys" rehearsing their songs for the film. those 3 with the guitars play paul, george & john respectively.

i hope to be getting back to posting more regularly by the end of this week, i'll have more free time (hopefully!) and more things planned.

thank you all for bearing with me! and hello to my new follower (:

the seven year itch

today, inbetween spanish revision, i watched the seven year itch which i had never seen before. this is widely regarded as the film which turned marilyn monroe into a star, & i was really impressed by it. i loved the shifts into fantasy, and of course marilyn's costume changes.

if i could look this effortlessly glamourous while carrying groceries, i think i'd be rather pleased.

this wasn't one of my favourite outfits from the film, but this scene shows her amazing grace and elegance - which i had actually never realised before. normally when i think of 1950s-60s hollywood elegance, i think of people like audrey hepburn, sophia loren or rita hayworth, but marilyn is well & truly up there now.

anybody who can look elegant in a dressing gown carrying a breakfast tray is forever in my icon books.

of course, this film is famous for the "skirt scene". marilyn looks lovely in this dress, but i think it's kind of sad that she never got past the "sex symbol" status, and was neveer lastingly, happily married because of that. she was beautiful, but only because she would never be seen any other way.

here comes the sun

it's george harrison's birthday today!

happy 67th george, RIP.

*sigh* such a waste, if only i'd been alive in the sixties!

so, in other news, i got tagged by the lovely aamberr (thought i'd stick with your spelling, 'cause it's freaking awesome) at winter dreaming :) to mention two of my favourite films.

welll, this is really tricky for me, as i am a serious film fan! i've decided to name two that - in some bizarre, obscure way - say something about my personality.

numero uno: eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. i love this film. so so so much. the way it's shot is just beautiful, & i love the idea of a love story told backwards. basically, i love this for the arty fantastic way it's shot, & the drawings & the weird fake scienceyness in it.

numero dos: i'm not there. this is a biopic of bob dylan, my favourite songwriter possibly of all time. 6 different actors & actresses portray the different aspects of bob's personality, with a cracking soundtrack.

i have sooooo many other films that i love, it really does pain me to cut so many out!

i'm supposed to tag 3 people to do this, but i figured i'd just tag everrrrryone reading this, cause i think it would be awesome to find out everyone's different tastes in films. leave a comment if you do decide to do this, i'd love to find out what your favourites are.

i put a spell on you

FINALLY got around to seeing this today:

nowhere boy,

best

film

ever!
to those who haven't heard of it, it's a biopic of john lennon (one of my heroes :) focusing mainly on his childhood, which was pretty traumatic.

(awww man, the edge of the picture got cut off. daayyyym)

i won't spoil the film, but you should totally go & see it. especially if you're a beatles fan, 'cause it really helps to understand why john lennon was the way he was.
oh and also, aaron johnson (the dude who plays john lennon) is a total babe!

"it's my buddy holly look"
you're damn right it is!

i went to see it with my friends kate & joanna which was lovely, i don't think there's ever been more squealing in the tyneside cinema! there were a few inaccuracies in it i must say, but i, as a truly devoted beatles fan, resisted the urge to point them out.

the picture above is from one of my favourite scenes, where the quarrymen (the first draft of the beatles) were recording in spite of all the danger - the now infamous session.

i think i'm going to have to buy the dvd. and the soundtrack. and the cardboard cutout from the cinema, which i have a photo of me & kate standing next to.

actually, i may ring the cinema & ask if i can buy it. that wouldn't be too much would it?

OH. aaaaaaaaaand we saw our head teacher there, most hilarious thing ever! tres awkward, although i'm fairly sure he had no clue who we were.

after the film, we went shopping for a friend's birthday present (we got her a jewellery box between us) & i bought a hairband, some flowers for my hair & i pretty damn awesome tshirt which i'll post pictures of sharpish, as well as the tartan shirt i bought from ebay which arrived this morning.

:)

oh, the weather outside is frightful

but the fire is so delightful,

and since we've got no place to go,

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

last night it snowed pretty heavily & i snuck outside to take a few pictures.

there's something just so magical about snowflakes falling.

today i made a few christmas presents for my family, for the girls in my family at least.

turquoise bow & pearl earrings for my younger cousin.

heart & light green pearl necklace for my older step cousin.

long pearl earrings for my auntie - i'm hoping these aren't too conservative for her, she's a bit of a wild one.

and finally these shell & pearl earrings for my older cousin.
today has been very chilled out, listening to david bowie & elvis costello, eating bombay mix & doughnuts & now watching about a boy - one of my all time favourite films!

christmas ball tomorrow, eek!

happy christmas (war is over)

starting to get into the swing of all things christmaswise recently, thank god!

yesterday my school broke up for the holidays (can i get a woop woop?) & had the most hilarious christmas carol assembly ever! basically our head of year, dave (who i'm a little bit enamoured with), organised this band together & got the school rugby team to sing sing low sweet chariot and santa baby - it was brilliant! the whole year sang the twelve days of christmas with actions. my little group got "the four calling birds" part of the song & we got very into it!

it was also a non uniform day so i took this as a perfect opportunity to wear my john & yoko war is over tshirt.

i love this tshirt, it always makes me think of their christmas song - which i listened to today, it's on my john lennon's greatest hits record.

i also wore my (homemade) dove necklace, cause obviously it goes very well with the peace theme!
today i've been really rather lazy, although i have been doing quite a bit of picture hunting for art & at one point i even went outside to take some pictures in the snow. yes, snow! fingers crossed for a white christmas! picture hunting involved looking through the very limited stack of family photos my dad has for ones of me & my grandpa (he's an artist & i'm including his work in my project). it was really nice, but a tad emotional in places.
also in my lazyness, i watched happy go lucky which i've been meaning to watch for ages & it was fantastic. i think i'm going to be exactly like poppy when i'm thirty.
time for a little festive cheer i think, so i'm off to watch love actually. classic christmas film.
*
ps. hello to my two new followers! pleased to make your acquaintance *handshake*

an education

gosh, it's been a while since my last post.

it was children in need on friday so our school had a non uniform day with a spotty theme. a few people dressed up in costumes, as you can see above, to raise money.

i've just realised it must look like i always wear that skirt on here, but i assure you i do have other clothes.

yesterday, myself & a few friends went out to the cinema to watch an education.

it was a pretty good film, although it did get a bit weird in places, partly because the older man wasn't really hot enough & it just ended up getting a liiiiittle bit odd.

the sixties wardrobe was amazing, these were my two favourite outfits of the film.

see what i mean? he just wasn't hot enough to pull off the role.
this dress was my absolute favourite, apparently all the clothes in the film were genuine vintage clothes.
the dad was the funniest thing in the film though, he had some absolute classic quotes!
it was quite an eventful day, first i went into town myself to do a bit of art shopping but i was very disappointed with the things i found so i stormed off to h&m because i had money burning a hole in my pocket. i bought some pretty fingerless gloves (which i will post pictures of some time) so i can work my ipod on the way to school but still with warm hands.

then, when i met up with my friends, we discovered that the film was an hour earlier than we thought so we had no time to eat - which resulted in the buying of all sorts of unhealthy things & the sneaking of chinese food into the cinema.

it was all in all a very amusing day, as we got the giggles at various inappropriate moments in the film.

i also got very excited when the trailer for the new john lennon film came on screen - i just cannot wait for that to come out!

cheer up dear, it might never happen.

there's been a bit of a lack of posting round these parts recently, and i can only apologise, but i have been rather under the weather for the past few days.

curse this wet weather, i knew i shouldn't have walked to the post office in the rain!

to ward off this horrendous cold/flu thing i have going on i have been trying to get into the autumn-y swing of things.

firstly, i have bought these frankly beautiful (and no, i don't think that's an ovestatement) canvas shoes off the topshop website.

in the sale these babies were only £10, and they only had my size left.

fate? yes i believe so.

i need some more robust-ish shoes for this rainy season & i think it's a small way of incorporating some autumn colours into my wardrobe. in my opinion they'll look lovely next to the even lovelier reds & oranges of the fallen leaves.

on another note, i've just joined the i will go slightly out of my way to step on a crunchy-looking leaf on facebook. seriously, who can deny they don't do that?

hallowe'en (hell yeah i put the apostrophe in, the word is not nearly as magical without it) is coming up on friday & before this illness malarkey struck me down in the prime of life, i was starting to organise some sort of hallowe'en picnic in the park with a big group of mis amigos, should be pretty fun i think.

although that does mean i need a hallowe'en costume on short notice.

eek!

also, in a bit of an effort to cheer my ill self up, i've been watching marathons of how i met your mother. that show is just so funny, i love it!

oh, and, ted? marry me please!
i've also been watching a few films that i've been dying to see for ages.

nick & norah's infinite playlist: so good. so so sooooo good. in fact, i may just have to commit bigamy cause i want to marry michael cera too.

high fidelity: based on one of my favourite books by nick hornby, it was brought to life really well, although i think it would have come across better if it was still set in london, especially as the whole "exotic american singer" thing didn't really work out. i have to say that the male characters were brilliant, and jack black in particular was playing the role he has been typecast in ever since (think failing musician who is stuck in a rut & you've pretty much got it) & for an amazing reason, he rocks at it. i also LOVED the bruce springsteen cameo.

wow, didn't mean to do a whole review there.

hopefully i'll get better in a few days, organise the hallowe'en picnic & have some nice photos to post.

thanks for reading :)

coco

i saw coco avant chanel today.

quite possibly the best film i have ever seen.

audrey tautou was simply amazing as gabrielle (coco) chanel, and pretty stunning too.

i absolutely adored all of the outfits, and seeing their progression.

this was my favourite outfit.
i also loved that the final scene (which this photo is from) was filmed in coco chanel's actual apartment.

this was another of my favourite outfits. got to love those sequins.
also, the moustachioued man is rather dishy :)

my sister's keeper.

today was a good day.

i went to see my sister's keeper, which was a truly lovely & very moving film. i think i'm actually going to have to read the book now.

*mental note to self - read my sister's keeper by jodi picoult*

i also got a very nice present off joanna as kind of a trade for the john mayer necklace i made her. glad you like it joanna! :)

anyways, the present was very awesome, an envelope of photos of my favouritest musicy people!

there were 2 bruce springsteen pictures. swooon! bruce is a serious babe.

an absent elk photo - with the bassist i hugged!

the koooooks! gotta love those guys.

orlando weeks. lovely, just lovely.

tommy reilly! i have quite a thing for this guy.

john mayer, obviously.

and, of course, harry from mcfly.

the pressure is now on for some jewellery to be made, watch this space.

hahaa! i have always wanted to say that! i'm such a dork B)

eternal sunshine.

today has been a rather up and down day. in fact, the whole week has been.

i had school this morning which was utterly pointless, but on the plus side it was the last time i will ever have to wear that hideous polyester jumper. rejoicing time!

the rest of the week has been pretty good, i spent most of the time watching glastonbury. which i have to say was bloody amazing, i so wish i could've been there! the best act for me was most definitely bruce springsteen - i actually stayed up to watch his entire performance & he was so good! seriously, that man can play some serious tunage. and it does help that he's pretty damn hot (yes, even for a 59 year old).

anyway, after school i went home & watched one tree hill & gilmore girls (which i must say i am rather addicted to). finally, FINALLY, i can use the phrase i saw on scrubs that i have been waiting to use for absolutely aaaages: i am so mad at lorelai i can't even talk right now.

if you watch either (or both) programmes you will understand. if not, tough luck.
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/mad-lorelai-jr-jersey-tshirt/107611048

*

i also listened to some of my dad's records (jimi hendrix, david bowie & elvis costello) & played a bit of guitar. i've started learning my pieces for grade 1 but it's a bit tedious at the mo, because a) i am crap and b) it's a tad tiring playing the same things over and over again. my theory book came in the post today though so that's something.

*

while watching hollyoaks, i made a necklace (as is my general thing to do when bored). i found a picture in the tv guide the other day (yes i know, i am so sophisticated) of a still from my favourite film of all time: eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. if you haven't seen this film you won't get the "meet me in montauk" reference. and the only thing i say to that is watch the film! believe me it is worth is, michel gondry is a really amazing director & the story is just beautiful.