pretty things from last week

 Backlog tiiiime! A slightly grainy photograph -- taken on the way home from a shopping trip as the sun was going down -- of an outfit which greatly pleased me. So many autumn favourites coming back to play! That brown sweater with its very distinguished buttons was a mainstay of my wardrobe-of-ultimate-cosy last winter. The stockings I must have bought at some point, but I found them in my drawer last week with no memory of how or when they arrived there, and have been wearing them almost incessantly since. Skirt thrifted by way of Rue 21 two autumns ago -- I have the same skirt in a different, softer-and-darker-coloured pattern which I bought on clearance, but I missed this one and was pleased to see it turn up later. It has pockets! And large buttons showing you wear the pockets are, although both of them are off at the moment, as one fell off and I can't find it, so I cut the other one off so I can actually wear this very lovely skirt.

 

Autumnal gothic streak activate! I found this lovely blouse with corset lacing up both sides at Goodwill (of course) and can finally bring myself to throw out my former little black blouse which has holes in the lace at the neck. (I... get very sentimentally attached to my clothing.) All things thrifted, save accessories (Hot Topic, Rue 21, Claire's).

 

And once more, with my lovely long red jacket! I wore this to my weekly open mic session at the local coffee shop, although I hadn't remembered it was That Day when I was dressing. When I show up tonight in a slightly oversized cable-knit sweater, dark jeans, brogues, and a flat cap, the other denizens may be confused.

 

GLOVES OF MY DREAMS. From Claire's, ring from Rue 21. 

 

 The true root of the outfit was, of course, this exquisite little fur collar from Hot Topic -- my best friend alerted me to an online clearance sale by linking me to things I might like. Usually I say "ooooh" and then hide my wallet from myself, but. But! I have wanted a detachable fur collar for an age! And had no idea where to get one, though I keep seeing them on blogs. It ties with a little ribbon! Also it was less than three dollars. It kept slipping, so I fastened it with a cameo brooch my mother bought for me on eBay two Christmasses ago.

There are no Hot Topic stores near me at all. This is a source of great sadness.

 The root of this next outfit? I HAVE BROGUES. I HAVE BROGUES AT LAST. Real proper cosy leather ones, which I will never, ever take off. I was so close to spending irrational amounts of money to snatch some very similar ones up on eBay, but a pair finally turned up at Goodwill -- you can find anything at Goodwill eventually, but rarely when you actually specifically want it -- and I am over the moon.

 

 

They have a very slight heel, but not so much that a day of walking in them bothers me overmuch. I also ordered a lace scarf from Hot Topic with my fur collar (it made the shipping charge count for more, okay -- and it was approximately two dollars), and it was very entertaining digging around for the right sort of girl!Englishman pieces to suit everything. 

 Cosy button-down sweater, a staple of two winters ago; stripey shirt (I have a weakness for stripes), beloved peacoat, lovely lovely brogues: thrifted. Scarf: Hot Topic. Gloves and hat: Claire's. (The hat I just bought at full price omg because I have been eyeing it for months and there was ONLY ONE LEFT, HORRORS. I adore flat caps, but for whatever reason a lot of them do not fit me properly, and this one did. My father used to wear these all the time, and I've been rather cross that I could never find girl ones in the nifty patterns his came in -- no more!) Trousers: Ross Dress For Less.

Cameo bracelet, below: Walmart, from back when I occasionally found wearable jewellery there -- three years ago? Four? One of the bits fell out and it's sat in my jewellery box for several years until I suddenly remembered a) it and b) the existence of super glue and fixed it.

 

holidaying in the woods

This last weekend Dad took leave of work, we packed up the car, and drove far far away (well, three hours) to have a little autumnal oasis of a holiday in the woods. I read four books in two days, collected several hundred acorn caps, went hiking in a dress, sang old ballads around the campfire, and made tea every day.

Also I became a wizard.

 

Current favourite boots, my already-beloved winter coat, favourite autumn dress -- yes, all thrifted. (Someday I will get decent outfit pictures of this dress. I have worn it about ten times already, it is my very favourite thing for this autumn, and yet it resists being blogged!) 

I actually made an effort to get an outfit picture on Tuesday. Still all thrifty goodness! Except for my belt, from Rue 21, which is so useful and lovely that I have three in different colours. (I missed snatching up a white one, boo.) And I spent a lovely evening drinking Earl Grey and reading The Last Unicorn perched on a flat rock amidst autumnal bracken.

(I have a backlog of outfit posts, all edited and ready to be posted, thanks to my procrastination and not managing to post before running away on holiday, so expect those soon!)

bright bright bright

October does not always mean that I flitter about, dark and fey. Crisp weather and copious amounts of tea occasionally call for brighter colours.

I've usually styled this little dress more elegantly, with lace blouses and lace stockings and mary janes, but I was looking for something-not-pants to wear a new blouse with and decided to stretch my self-created rules a bit. Then I found some extremely cosy stockings my mother found for me last year, hooray! (I've wanted cheerful, colourful, absurd stripey stockings since I was little, but by the time I was old enough to even afford them, I couldn't find any that weren't in children's sizes, especially in the days of yore before I had a debit card and could order things off the internet without a go-between. Fie!)

dress, stockings, boots, blouse, beret: Goodwill.

bat and owl necklaces: Kyra, Hot Topic and Forever 21, respectively.

wild wind, take me home to the mists of down below

My acre-wide goth streak isn't exactly buried: but it is especially prevalent in October. It is windy and fey and dead leaves skitter eerily across the road! It is high time I pretended to be a gothic heroine! 

Yes, it's another case of having stored away a summer-bought dress till cooler weather permitted the wearing of it: I have always wanted an old-fashioned black dress with a white Peter Pan collar, and Goodwill discount racks always have what you are looking for: you know, eventually. (Sometimes it takes a few years, but hey! Surprises are fun!)

I have been having difficulty not wearing my little bat necklace every day this month. Kyra got it for me at Hot Topic, and my new hobby is wearing it with otherwise very non-gothy things and seeing if it suits (and it often does). Today it was just right and nestled neatly under my collar like a brooch. And yes, I have removed my spectacles for Exciting Eyeliner Action! (Of course when I am stuck wearing my glasses for a month is the time to finally buy and try out liquid eyeliner. The application is going to require more practise, but I am liking what I can do.)

I wanted to wear my black button earrings, actually, but could only find one; and anyway I just snatched up a set of multiple earrings from a Rue 21 clearance rack, including these pretty, elegant little crosses.

I try never to be without striped stockings of some kind: these are thigh-highs, as they were about a dollar at Rue 21 and my trusty old black and white stockings are/were in tatters. The problem is that these keep rolling themselves down. Ah well. And my beloved granny boots, thrifted by my beloveder Kyra.

 And while I've shown off my little skull-and-crossbones owl (Rue 21) before, I quite liked how this picture turned out, and I quite like the lace on these sleeves.

hello, october

Ah, month of all months! Scarves and stockings and sweaters, huzzah! On Friday I wore my favourite weird thrift-store dress to properly celebrate the onset of my favourite month, and traipsed about in the graveyard for an hour or two looking for a ghoul gate.

 

Perhaps a little awkwardly this meant that I was dressed like, well, a fantasy novel escapee, when I went to the local coffeehouse's Friday night open-house. Next week I will try to just dress like an indie kid; I feel as though I am alienating people sometimes. 

I do adore this dress with all of my being. It's handmade, so I have no idea where it came from or how it ended up at our Goodwill.

Saturday saw me dressed rather more approachably in my Good Housekeeping t-shirt and cosy elephant thermal. I wish I'd gotten better photographs, but I was so held up by various shenanigans that I couldn't get a photograph till the sun was setting. (All thrifted: except I think Anna sent me the stockings.)

 On Saturday I bought a seriously delightful necklace, and hence spent the entire fifteen minutes between waking and having to leave for church attempting to put together an outfit to go with it. Somehow I managed: and made my bed and applied makeup and sustained no injuries in the process. A new record! Anyway I'm incredibly thrilled with the finished product: it is perfectly autumnal. And I do love to use my Little White Dress as a pallate. (All thrifted save bow and jewellery and gloves.

 

THE NECKLACE. I paid full price for this, which I rarely do, but I knew it wasn't going to last till clearance, and there were only a few left. I was lost when I saw the little button-eyed owl, to be honest. But I love clustered, multi-textured necklaces a lot anyway, and this is just so fantastic I want to cuddle it. (I also have profound weaknesses for buttons and locks.)

Both gloves and ring are from Rue 21; the gloves from last winter and the ring from a clearance bin on Saturday.

And finally: new hair! I basically dyed it the same shade my more vibrant red had faded to, which is nice and pumpkiny, but now free of awkward grown-out roots! And my marvellous friend Anna sent me a package full of hair dye products she couldn't use, including the exact shade of midnight blue I have wanted to try. The effect is definitely one of my favourite hair dye results.

  

 Goodnight, lovely readers.

walmart finery

One of the main tenets I've learned for quirky fashion on a budget is that you can find great things anywhere.  Don't turn your nose up, and don't pass on something inexpensive that you like just because of where it comes from (unless you have a moral obligation against it -- I will never shop at Abercrombie and Fitch or wear anything that displays their logo because of the disgusting racist and ableist ways they've treated their employees, aside from all of the other offensive stuff they've done over the years; if your convictions keep you from buying things made under certain conditions, by certain companies, or from certain materials, go for it!).

I don't buy a lot of things from Walmart -- mostly underwear, winter socks, and a stock of basic stockings -- but sometimes I find rather lovely bits. I will even admit to buying some of the Miley Cyrus-branded t-shirts, because, come on! A heart-shaped British flag wearing a top hat? What's not to love? (Anyway her name's only on the tag. On the inside.) Also, Walmart has great sales -- which is quite possibly my main tenet of shopping: KNOW YOUR SALES. It might take a little bit of time, but it is completely worth it. Figure out which stores have good clearance racks, how well you can expect the things you want to end up on them (Rue 21: almost everything gets there within a few months; Claire's, it's mostly just things from specific collections that you can predict), and how long you might have to wait -- and then it comes down to intuition. Do I buy this now, or wait? Knowing the store helps a little with that. Me, I tend to fit the extra-larges in the younger-oriented stores, like Rue 21 -- and the extra-large sizes tend to be the last things to go. So usually I can wait out Rue 21's sales, and the thing I want will go down to as little as three dollars. Or one.

The basis of today's outfit -- the jaunty little dress -- I snatched up for a dollar at Walmart. I'd been watching it for a while, passed it up for five dollars last week because I was there for something else -- and voila! fate!

I have a profound weakness for stripes. My mother told me I looked like a pirate (which was better than the time she said I looked like a mystic she'd seen on the streets of Lahore, Pakistan, so), but that was sort of the idea. The military jacket was $7 at Rue 21 and is very cosy.

Now, our local Walmart is in the process of moving into a new Super Walmart building in the next month, so they haven't been getting in much new stock. So when my best friend Kyra (whom fate has decreed to live in ALASKA for some reason) told me Walmart was selling Keep Calm And Carry On t-shirts, I was first delighted, and then irritated -- but she told me she'd get me one and send it. The package arrived Saturday morning, and true to form (because Kyra is awesome), it contained a few extras.

The peacock feather is a pen. You can also see one half of a Converse-themed friendship necklace, thereby fufilling one of my abandoned adolescent daydreams. ^-^

I wore my teapot necklace with this, as it seemed suitably British -- and added turquoise stockings to alleviate the effect of all the black. Everything but the shirt and jacket are thrifted.

And now to dye my hair and return to you a new woman.

almost autumn

I said I wasn't going to take outfit pictures today. I lied. >.> I even wore a t-shirt and jeans, but ended up liking the effect too much. Curses! In my defense, the shirt is really, really lovely -- Mum found it on one of her sell-stuff-on-eBay Goodwill runs last year and knew I would love it.

I was feeling rubbish this morning and just sort of lurched towards my jeans and started digging in my drawer for the softest t-shirt I could find and ended up unearthing this one, which it pains me to realise I'd forgotten. My mother is awesome and knows what I like. 

That's right, it is covered in apples! ♥ I should really iron down the appliqués at some point; I use the iron so rarely (I KNOW SHUT UP) that I sometimes forget it exists and can help me. I love quirky t-shirts -- they're simple, but add a lot to my usual black jeans (Ross Dress For Less).

The beautiful little shawl I am wearing was knitted for me by my extraordinary friend Anna.

I am inordinately fond of my orange button earrings.