Send me your good vibes

Well today I have a meeting with the editor of a local magazine, and fingers crossed it might lead to some freelance work. Which would be awesome! I'm now writing a monthly fashion piece on local designers and local stores for the Cardiff Now magazine, and hope that this meeting will lead to a similar role for a Swansea Magazine. So ladies send me your good vibes! I'll get you up a nice picture of my outfit tomorrow. But I will tell you it involves Tartan! Hehe!

If you read my first post back you will know that I am now on a year long shopping ban (sigh!). Plus when I reach the end of my year and have successfully managed to not buy a single item of clothing or any accessories, my parents and husband intend to reward me with a Vivienne Westwood Dress!! Yay!! I think (and know) this is the perfect incentive to keep me going. So from now on Wednesday's will be Westwood Wednesday's (I know I'm mad and you will all get totally sick of seeing Vivienne Westwood items but I shall try my best to mix it up a bit and make it interesting, I promise). The idea is that every time I start getting tempted by shopping, which I know I will, seeing Westwood things will remind me of the wonderful dress I shall be getting and will help me through it. So I figure I could share my Westwood incentives with you each week and maybe bring you some interesting info as well. What you think? I know she is not everyones cup of tea and I can't say I love everything she does, but I do like lots of her stuff.

Here are this weeks Westwood incentives:

Tartan is definitely one of her favourite fabrics and can be seen in almost every Catwalk collection she has ever done and this seasons was no different. The second dress is just beautiful with it's floaty quality which isn't something you usually associated with a tartan as they are seen as a heavy wool material.

Catwalk Spring 2011 RTW via Style.com

Image via A Woman of No Importance who has written a great post on Westwood.

Editorial via Paper Mode (more Tartan!!)

Navy Sunday Dress via Sunday Best. I love the simplicity of this dress.

Red Monday Dress via Hervia, it's so vintage looking!

Red Sunday Squiggle Dress via Liberty. This is currently my favourite! It's just so fun and is again in a very vintage style.

Thats was too much of an overload was it? Which dress do you guys like the most? Perhaps I could put the final choice to a vote by you ladies, we'll see at the end of the year.

On a slightly different note (but still linked with my shopping ban train of thought) the BonBon Rose Girls are having a weeks worth of giveaways to celebrate their blog's second birthday. They are giving away some seriously cute items as always so why not nip on over and start entering. I have realised that giveaways may be my only chance of new fashion items for the next year, and I suppose it's even better getting something new when you win it! So I shall be entering lots this year, lol.

Thats all for now

Daisymay X

Now that I'm back giveaway winner

Before I left you I opened a giveaway to all you lovely readers. The prize was a 'mystery prize' as it was all going to come from China. So ladies here is the prize:

A beautiful teal pashmina scarf

A traditional lucky fish tassel

A handmade leather mouse keyring

A shiny compact mirror

A handmade jade lotus bracelet

A magnet bottle opener from Guilin

and

A cute mini silk purse

I had quite a few entries but the winner picked by the random number generator was....

...

...

Miki!!

Congrats honey!

I know you will love the prize!

Daisymay X

China Honeymoon Part 1

Hello everyone, I am glad to be back to blogging. Quite a few of you messaged and email me while I was away, and since I have been back, asking to see some photos of our trip. So this is the first post of our China holiday photos. I think there will be quite a few posts over the next few weeks as we were out there for a month and saw lots and lots of things.

It is such a beautiful country when you get out of the cities (the cities are nice, just very crowded and often quite dirty and smoggy). And the culture is so different from anything I have experienced before, it was amazing.

So here are some photos from our visit to Shanghai (I have night time photos as well but will save them for another day)

Carved jade jewellery

Bronze handle on wine vessel

Ancient Bronze wine vessel

Our first chinese snack. The cake is just a walnut brownie thing. The drinks were fruit and veg drinks, but they contained loads of veg I would never usually want to drink. Aubergine, cabbage, parsnip, sprouts, and a million other things. They weren't totally awful though, lol

This is me trying out stretching silk cocoons. That is just 1 cocoon I am pulling! They use 400 to make a silk quilt, in tiny thin layers.

A silk embroidered Kimono, that was made for an emperor in ancient china

Some stone buddha carvings

Ted! Sitting on the Bund

Us on our first day, Ted took the picture, lol.

The Bund is the river bank overlooking the Shanghai financial district.

So that's your first China hit, there will be lots more as Jon took over 2000 pictures! lol, I shant bore you with them all.

Hello, hello, hello

My oh my I have been away a while. I am very sorry about that, but the minute I got back from my honeymoon I was thrown into some ridiculous shifts at the pub, and have literally worked every day since we got back until this week. The last 5 days has been spent getting our lives back on track, unpacking the china stuff and all the christmas stuff and starting to get the house in order. But now that most of that is done I am back to my blogging. I think I may have needed the break though, was beginning to get a bit of blogger burn out after sorting lots of posts to run while I was on my honeymoon. I will be easing myself back in gently though so don't expect daily posts.

So as this is my first post back of the New Year I suppose I should do the mandator New Years resolutions.

Well to be honest I only have one and it's not a resolution, so much as a challenge. Quite a few bloggers have done this in the past so I thought it was my turn. I am going on a 365 day shopping ban, yep a whole year. And this one is serious. I started it on New Years day and it will last until New Years eve this year. I came to the realisation that I own far far to many clothes, so many so that half of them haven't even been worn in the last year. So for a whole year I will be on a shopping ban (excluding black trousers and shoes for work, as they don't last a year in the pub) and if (when!) I succeed my parents and husband have agreed that they will buy me a Vivienne Westwood dress as a reward. I think a whole year of no shopping is worth it for a Westwood dress, don't you? I am allowed to accept gifts for my birthday etc (or if anybody fancies sending me stuff!!) and I am allowed to swap items (so if anyone fancies a swap drop me an email) But I am not allowed to buy anything fashion related at all.

Ok so now that I am on a shopping ban I have also decided that I will be going through ever item in my wardrobe and trying to work them into an outfit or get rid of them (major clearout so you will be able to find items on ebay). My hope for this year is to build up to doing daily outfit shoots and putting all of my wardrobe to better use. I will hopefully be getting a new job at some point this year, and a 9 to 5 job will mean lots of time to blog and being able to wear normal clothes!! Yay.

So that being said, here is my first outfit post of the year. It was taken just after Christmas in the snow.

Jacket: Kit

Scarf: Republic (won via The Shopping Forcast)

Bag: George at ASDA (via PDSA charity shop)

Cutoffs: New Look (via Cardiff Clothes Swap)

Jumper: Marks and Spencers

Waistcoat: H&M

Boots: South

Gloves: Vintage

Snowball!!!

He didn't find it so funny, hehe

And one with the hubby! All wrapped up in his ski jacket and beanie!

So hello ladies, it's glad to be back!

Daisymay X