Blinded by the light

This year I have been a bit more adventurous with my fashion style. Which has meant that I have learnt some things are pretty, but they may not actually be my style!  My beloved sequin jacket is still to be worn, and I have bought a few outfits just to go with the jacket - and I haven't loved them.  I also have this gorgeous sequin dress that just never fitted right, and while the sequins and beading are beautiful - its just not my style.  So what was a bargain ($59.95 reduced from $199) became less a bargain when I had to pay $37 to get it fitted so I could actually wear it..sigh.  I have also decided to sell some of the non-investment pieces that have only been worn once (thanks FB photos for killing the lifespan of clothing lol). The lesson I have learnt from this is to be more careful with purchases and pinterest and Polyvore them before I hand over my hard owned cash!

Oh wait have I mentioned Polyvore before?  Its an awesome website where people put together outfits! I really need to harness the power of Polyvore a bit better, its such an amazing resource.

Obsessed!

I have always been quite obsessed with fashion, but this year I have definitely indulged more than usual. I decided to pick up this Ally white skater skirt as I couldn't find a black one anywhere and I think it will go well with a lot of things in my wardrobe other then the specific things I bought it for - bodysuits and my denim best.

I'm totally obsessed with Pinterest still, I pinned this look - it is so simple yet classy. So now I need white jeans! Lol.

So many pairs of swimsuits, where is the water?

I have a bought another pair of swimmers. I feel like I might have a swimsuit addiction, considering the last time I went swimming was over a month ago! I bought a few swimsuits not long ago because I felt I was going to be in the water at least once a week with baby swimming lessons. It didn't turn out that way, but we resume this week so I bought another pair lol. ASOS of course! With 15% discount they were $37.

Piling up the lists

So now I have two lists, one my beauty wish list and one my travel wish list.  On my wish list for beauty I have had to add Kerastase products as recommended by my hairdresser http://www.kerastase.com.au/products/resistance/for-weak-and-damaged-hair.aspx.  I am all stocked up on my current products so I have time to save as Kerastase costs a bomb! We have started getting quotes for our holiday next year, hoping to do New York, London and Paris, its a good way to get motivated about saving money :-).

look books

I have pretty much decluttered everything in my house!  Except all my look book folders I have been collecting for years and years.  They are all the looks that I liked ripped out of magazines.  Now I have embraced Pinterest I think I am going to take a photo of all the looks I still love and upload them into Pinterest.  That will be a mission in a half lol.

I am using this pic of Kelly Osbourne as inspiration to get out and exercise more!  Strange inspiration I know, but I think that her transformation has been amazing and she looks fit and healthy and it would of been hard work for her.  I bought another Adidas singlet top to help me get motivate haha.

Skater Skirts

I am a bit late to the party with Skater Skirts so am totally lemming a black one and cant find it!  So I settled for this nice floral one from Ally (I think I may have an Ally addiction).  I also scored a bargain at the Rebel Sports sales, although I was a bit late to the sale so there was pretty much nothing left - very sad face!  I got this Adidas hoodie zip up jumper, it is a bit bright but luckily I love bright things!  It was only $35.  I also had to get some socks so bought a pair of 'secret socks' from Lorna Jane.  If I was a rich girl I would buy all the clothes in Lorna Jane at the moment, but I am not so I just bought the socks lol:http://www.lornajane.com.au/LA0095BHP_BHP/Secret-Sock.

Wish listing

At the moment I am looking for some new beauty products.  But I don't really need any or can afford any, so I am just wish listing at the moment!  I have to admit that I am addicted to make up books and recently borrowed the new Scott Barnes book Face to Face.  I have been trying to be good and buy any books I want to own as an Ebook - but lets be honest, Makeup books just are not for looking at on the ipad, they are to be hard copies to be pored over - over and over again. So I wanted to double check that this book was worth the $$$ and for me it is.  In a good way, Scott Barnes latest book is a total rip off of Kevyn Aucoin's make up books where he made over Celebrities.  But since Kevyn past away a long time, its kinda nice to have someone remind the world how awesome and innovative he was and Scott Barnes is definitely worthy of doing that job.  So in to my Amazon basket it goes :-D.

Something I am super lusting over at the moment is Bobbi Brown's creamy concealer kit, but at $60 I don't want to buy it online and will have to wait until I can get in store to make sure I get the right shade.  And since they are only sold at select cities, I will have to time to save by the time I get to the big smoke to buy it! http://www.bobbibrown.com.au/cms/landing/bobbis_top10.tmpl?cm_sp=Gnav-_-BestSellers-_-BobbisTop10. I also am lemming Mac Pro-Longwear Lipglass, but they have not been getting the greatest reviews on Makeup alley where I always check the reviews for a product before I buy it so it will stay a maybe on my wishlist.

Because I am an Ally addict, I popped my head into their sales again and grabbed another sweater.  Let me just say I didnt have many jumpers or sweaters, and now I am all sorted for next Winter lol.

Perfect Hair

As previously blogged, it took me awhile to get my hair back to the colour I wanted it - but now I am finally there! But my hair is not in the greatest condition, mainly due to all my hair falling out after having a baby.  The hair dresser said there is nothing I can do about it, damn it I wanted a miracle cure :-).  However, recently I had the opportunity to dry my hair with a Parlux hairdryer.  I had heard awesome reviews about Parlux hairdryers, but really couldn't see how awesome it must be when it costs $150 and my Remington from Big W cost $20!  Well the difference was really obvious, it made my hair SO soft and less frizzy.  I instantly bought one (the 3800), it cost $149.  The website I bought it from had free shipping over $150 (how ironic!), so I ended up picking up this Tigi Headshine that I used to use years ago and I had been wanting to buy again.  I was very relieved when I dried my hair for the first time and it came out nice and soft again - yay!

My poor hair now needs a good cut after being traumatised by all falling out, I am thinking of this haircut.  Maybe this one :-).

The future is so bright!

I finally got a pair of ray bans yay!!!  I have wanted a pair for ages, then I found the perfect pair and they were $50 off at $125 and my Hubby bought them for me :-D  Perfect!

A couple of posts ago I was going to complain that Lovisa didn't have online shopping, well now they do!  Luckily I couldn't see anything on there that I 'had to have'.  And they have free shipping week.

I also caved and got a denim vest (as blogged about previously), I tried to find one instore but the denim vests are short - so I bought one on ebay, including shipping it was $39.

So ! Bargain Hunter Fail

I start a lot of my post saying So.... Seems like mainly the posts where I have splurged and I'm justifying why. So :-), Dotti were having a sale and I ended up buying two sale items and two full price items. Ugh I hate buying full price items from Dotti, but the pretty dresses got me at a weak moment! It definetly was a weak moment because I bought a peplum top - which is a beautiful colour but I hate peplum!  And it totally serves me right breaking my rule of not buying full price at Dotti as one of the dresses is now $50 off!!! And I haven't even worn that dress yet arrgggh.  Though I will be saving my $$ for the Dotti sales as they have some very pretty stuff in stock at the moment.

This peplum top was $19.95 in store.  Not the greatest pic, but the peplum flares out to high and  is not flattering - should of tried it on before I bought it!  Is a pretty colour though.

I just love one shouldered tops/dresses. Unfortunately its not totally on trend at the moment, so when I do see things I love I tend to buy them - this was $59.95 full price, totally overpriced but I loved it and was having a weak moment...

this dress will be getting worn to death by me before it gets handed down to be worn to death by others.  BECAUSE I paid $79.95 for it and now its on sale for $29.95.  This hasnt happened to me in a long time, bargain hunter fail!  but how pretty is the dress :-).

This was $19.95 on sale, this actually looks better in person than on the model - not the greatest pic.

Legging it

So because I am totally addicted to Black Milk I decided to get another pair of leggings.  I chose the NY skyline ones because I already had two 'darker' pairs of leggings and wanted to try a lighter pair.  I love them BUT they must not be worn as pants and the top has to cover 'the bits'.  Why? Because for one, leggings are not pants - and two - they give you camel toe :-(.  I think its because they are so light coloured.  Luckily any chain store has long tops in stock.  BM leggings would look awesome under skater skirts as well.  If you are looking at ways to dress BM clothing, their website has under each product links to people wearing that BM item.

Bower Bird and I heart brow bar

I have been trying to resist Lovisa and Colette Accessories, but came unstuck the other day! I picked up  a pair of cross earrings and a top knot wrap! Yes a top knot wrap, as you can see from the pics it is basically a bracelet for your hair ;-P.  I wear my hair in a top knot about 80% off the time, its so convenient, looks good and prevents my baby from yanking my hair out lol.  I like it but it was $16.95 so I wouldn't buy another one!  The earrings were $7.99 which they are definitely worth.  I also picked up this gorgeous necklace from Colette Accessories for $16.96.  Again loving Pinterest, I am using it in a way to discover how to rework old outfits and jewellery.  It totally annoys me that it is linked to Facebook though.  I love getting my eyebrows done at the Benefit Brow Bar at Myer's: http://www.myer.com.au/benefit/Storelocations/. I have Benefit High Beam and Dandelion blush, High Beam being my HG of all time!  I am tempted to buy some more Benefit products but am trying to be a good girl.....

Spin my salad and finally Ally bargains!

So after whinging in my last post about how difficult my salad spinner looked to use.  I actually put it together and it is really easy to use and I love it :-).  As also previously posted (whinged about), the clothing store Ally hasn't had any bargains for ages.  Well it was my lucky day when I stumbled upon a newly opened Ally that was a bit out of the way and they had HEAPS of bargains.  For $110 I got four dresses and four jumpers/knit tops. Here is the haul, I could only find some online photos so you will have to have some awesome home snaps of the rest!  

This dress was $9.99 from $24.99.  I actually had this dress in my online basket for ages at $19.99 but I felt that was still to expensive.  Yay for me that I got such a bargain and I love the dress!

This was $14. 99 from $29.99.   have also wanted this dress for awhile.  It kinda needs a belt as the skater skirt flares out quite high up.

This was $19.99 from $29.99, I have wanted this for ages so was prepared to pay the bargain but not awesome bargain price.

It really was my lucky day as I also had this one in my online basket !  It was $14.99 from  $29.99

Blogger wont allow me to rotate this the right way.. poo. This is a beige jumper that was $9.99 from $24.99.  I didnt LOVE it but I need a beige jumper and it was ten bucks.

I know I am a terrible photographer, I swear one day I will work on that :-P.  This was $9.99 from $24.99 and is leopard print shoulders and upper back.

I wasn't sure about this dress, it was $14.99 from $29.99.  I am glad I took a risk because I love it!

I wanted this Swan jumper for ages but couldn't justify the price at the time.  It was $14.99 from $29.99.

Costco is the devil in disguise

I am trying hard not to buy a membership to Costco.  After going there with a friend I was tempted to buy the whole store, OMG!  The problem  is that everything is oversized, which is value for money except I would just eat twice as much instead of saving the value bit.  whoops.  What I did get from my Costco trip was a salad spinner 4 in1 - spin, slice, serve, store.  This was only $20 so a total bargain.  Except that I got it because I love salads but I am so lazy making them that this seemed like an easy way to do it, and then I like to make big ones that store for a couple of days so this could store it as well.  Except I unpacked it and there was a million pieces in it and I hate clutter and it seems like whats supposed to be a convenient way to do something can be just as hard to do it the normal way!  I am sure I am just being overdramatic and once I put it together it will be amazing:http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=18054400.

I also picked up another jewellery storage organiser, I have two big ones from Howard Storage World that are amazing.  But I just stick my earrings into a plastic drawer organiser which is bit more fiddly, its hard to see whats in there and its starting to get a bit crowded (because I buy to much jewellery!).  I got this one from Diva for $14.99 and so far it seems perfect.  Although if I drop it I will probably cry as everything will just fall out lol.

Technology and sparkles

After having heaps of internet woes (why do internet providers sell you connections when they know they have no coverage in your area arrggh), we decided to stick to the dongle.  Yes thats what it is called a dongle.  Its the usb stick you plug into your computer that gives you internet service!  We went through Telstra because their coverage is unbeatable and if you are a high internet downloader - a dongle package probably isn't good value for you.  But we don't use that much and we have decent data packages on our phones so its a dongle for us!  So far its been awesome.  We had the National Broadband Network previously, and this is on par with it.

My contract was up so I also picked up the new Iphone 5.  I am still trying to get the hang of it, it seems a bit glitchy but I am sure once I sort out the changes it will be fine.  The only real dilemma was trying to get a cover for it - I got the black one and because its so thin I often put it down and then cant find it again!  Hopefully my cover turns up soon...

And lastly but not least, I picked up this sparkly jacket from Valley Girl.  I have always wanted a sequin jacket so couldn't resist.  Though when I got home I did wonder how to match it with outfits, luckily pinterest exists so can trawl through there and find outfit ideas!

Bargain Hunting and keeping it real

Dotti was having a massive sale, up to 80% off.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for my wallet) I only found one thing I truly liked which was this Fox jumper for $19.95 reduced from $49.95.  It is very cute over collared shirts! ASOS recently sent me a 25% off discount code.  I probably wasted it as thats such a HUGE discount for ASOS and I only had one thing in my shopping basket - this pair of Adidas leggings, as previously posted I have recently started stocking up my sportswear again in an effort to exercise more.  I really wanted a pair of Adidas logo leggings but couldn't find any anywhere and sports logo leggings in-store are generally $80+.  After my discount these were $30!! Awesome :-).

So Gwyneth Paltrow turned 40, I was relived to finally see a celebrity who had lines on their forehead! Usually in Hollywood the only people who have wrinkles are the twenty year olds who haven't started botox/fillers yet.  IMO Gwyneth still looks way younger than 40 and looks amazing!