These boots were made for walking

Oh my, I have not updated in so long and I am sorry, I promise I'll respond to all comments within the next few days. In my defence the internet connection did go out yesterday, but I have been so busy working and being out that I've not really had time. Another thing I hav been busy with was shopping. I finally bought those studded boots from Primark that I have been pining over. I think that they're really nice, what do you think?

My Studded Heart

Because seriously I love studded ankle boots SO much! I was going to buy my very first pair from good old Primark the other day but they didn't have them in my size and I couldn't see them was too much of a cheapskate to look in other stores. I have thus taken to drooling over pictures of them on the internet, which is about as redundant as pretending I am a millionaire because it just makes me want them more. I will, however, post pictures on my blog of my favourites, for future reference (and incase I ever become a millionaire).

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I think that the studs just add that extra edge which makes them irresistable to me. Do you like studded ankle boots? Which are your favourites?

My Week In Pictures

 

So, this was my week in pictures. Mainly a mixture of coffee breaks at work, shopping and friday night at the bar looking over the docks. I also had a major shopping spree yesterday because I had just been paid. I might have spent too much, but I try to console myself with the thought that I wont spend anything else on clothes this month (although I probably will). 

The clothes in the pictures are: 

1) Mustard coloured jumper £14.99 and Striped dress £7.99 both from H&M. 

2) Owl Earrings, I can't remember how much they were but they were from Primark.

3) Some new brogues from Primark, £10.

I bought the h&m jumper in grey, a cardigan from New Look, a work skirt and a few basic tops as well but because they were basics or work stuff I didn't know whether you'd be interested or not in them.

I just want to say a huge thank you to Kat for her guest post on friday. What did you guys think of the feature, would you like to see more guest posts on my blog? If you do and/or you're interested in guest posting on my blog please don't hesitate in getting into contact with me.

Guest Blogger: Kat from Zanni Plain Jane Fashion

Yo! I'm Kat from Zanni Plain Jane Fashion. You can follow my randomness via twitter @ataviststrilogy, or like ZPJF on facebook here.My Etsy store is my means to start building a small business around my trilogy, so please support my dream by checking it
out! 

Today, I would like to discuss the concept of TIME MANAGEMENT for fashion bloggers. I’m not going to lie – I’m no expert. However, there are some steps you can take to better master your time.

1. Blog in line.

image via ohiwonder.wordpress.com

In this day and age, most of us have a smart phone that we have beyond mastered typing on. So chew on this – while waiting in line at Subway or at the clothing store, why not open an email draft and work on your next blog post? It’s a huge time saver. I managed to write my last guest post in line at Dion’s (it’s a pizza chain in parts of the US) and in the five minutes I didn’t want to get out of bed the other morning. That left me ample time to tackle other items on my to-do list (such as writing this post!).

2. Cell Phone Pictures

With the right app, cell phone pictures can be beautiful. Think instagram, fxcamera (android), and Blackberry Instaphoto (Sarah’s favorite!). We don’t always have the time or energy to take out the fancy camera and take some shots, so if you’re in a pinch, use an old-timey effect to make your photos fun and an acceptable substitute for time-consuming photo-shoots. Elsie of A Beautiful Mess does it often, and her blog is the star of fashion blogs!

3. Schedule Posts

image via wikispaces.com

If you have some free timeand know that you’ll be swamped with work over the next week, schedulesome posts with the blogger post scheduler! Aim to have at least one great-quality post per week. The rest can be thought up in tip #1 or can be short, fun posts about a trend or something as simple as a polyvore set. If you schedule your posts ahead of time, you can rest easy knowing that as you slave away at work or with assignments (or both!), your blog will continue to put out new content.

I have not yet explored mobile blogging (sending text/pictures to be published directly from sms, mms, or email), but it really depends on your blog. I personally like to draw from multiple sources for pictures, so that type of blogging is not for me. It might be good for a quick “what the heck is this person wearing?” shot you capture on the street, however…

     4. Introduce A Novelty

PillowPets are a good subject to discuss and can consume an entire blog post every now and then. Please see my guest post over on Fashionably Geeked for the scoop. 

Do you have any time-saving blogging tips to share? Leave them here! A big thank you to Sarah for letting me guest blog on Almost Delightful. Your blog is awesome! :]

The sweetest thing

At the weekend my boyfriend and I went to London Aquarium. We saw some really cute animals. They were super hard to photograph because we weren't allowed flash turned on on the camera (some people still had it on but it scared the fish so I didn't). Isn't the crocodile sleeping the cutest? On another note, does anyone know the difference between crocodiles and alligators?

I'm sorry for such a photo laden post. I've been meaning to share these pictures since the weekend but then other things got in the way ie - my obsession with the blackberry instaphoto app. Isn't the croc so cute, and the Japanese spider crab looks quite inquisitive.

What are your plans for the weekend?

; A new day & some new things

I have some pictures from my weekend that I still have to put up, but they require some editing and I have a headache today so I'm not really in the mood, I'll try to post them either tomorrow or thursday. I bought some pretty things over the past few days. I also got a Models Own nail polish, because I have heard about them a lot on llymlrs. She spoke quite highly of them and I've been getting into painting my nails recently. I never used to do it but a lot of fashion bloggers are posting about it and it's inspiring me. Again, these photos are taken on the Instaphoto Blackberry app. I think I'm getting addicted...

From L-R:

1. Models Own nail polish in Grey Day. I'll let you know what it's like. I'm thinking maybe of doing a giveaway and throwing a few of those in. Could be a while off though, and it depends on whether I think that they're any good or not.
2. My new watch. Got it for £5 from Asda the other day. Such a bargain and so me!
3. Some new books. I have a habit of buying books but taking ages to get around to reading them. I like fiction that makes me laugh, so I thought that these would be right up my street.
4. My new scarf. I love scarves, I think that they can add a pretty touch to any outfit, and with the weather being rubbish recently they're much needed!

What were your most recent purchases?

My sunday in pictures

I recently discovered the joys of the instaphoto app for the Blackberry and I've been snapping little pictures of my weekend. These are just from sunday and originally I wanted to post all my photos at the end of the week because I have some brilliant photos from saturday to share with you, but I was just so keen to see how they'd come across on blogger. I've been posting them on tumblr and tweeting them as well so if you're interested check me out on there.

 

From L-R. 

1. Nothing beats a lovely cup of tea on a sunday morning.

2. My current read, and finally a book that I am actually getting stuck into. 

3. Recent purchases from Topshop. I'm currently wearing the peach coloured nail polish.

4. My boyfriend's mum and I went to the Waffle House and we had some strawberry cheesecake waffles, they were really yummy! 

5. My boy went to lunch yesterday - he wore this chicken print tie and I thought it was really cool. I didn't even know he owned it. Every time I  look at this picture it makes me smile. 

6. The Waffle House. Well, it isn't actually pictured, but this is what it overlooks. There was a single waterlily floating on the surface of the water but I couldn't get a picture which would do the beauty of it justice. 

How was your weekend, was your sunday relaxing? 

What I won

I won a giveaway over on Crystal Beth's blog the other day. The prize was a £20 voucher for an online store called The Decades Wardrobe. Very excitedly, I browsed the store and although I wanted so many of the items I settled on two things, a small brown bag and some leopard face earrings. The parcel came through on thursday and I was not disappointed. The pieces are absolutely lovely - the earrings are fun and playful, and the bag is beautiful and perfectly sturdy. Pictured is me wearing the earrings (excuse the messy hair), and the bag.

You can visit Beth's blog here and The Decades Wardrobe online store here

Today I visited London's South Bank and some really interesting things were going on. I'll post all about it in the next few days, because I got some good (and some not so good) snaps of it all!

Yummy Fruit Tartlets %

At the weekend I made some delicious fruit tartlets with my boyfriend's mum. They were surprisingly simple to make (although admittedly we didn't use our own pastry), and very tasty. Definitely a recipe to try if you fancy an easy homemade dessert.

Ingredients: 

Fruit - Any, Chopped. Enough to fill the middle of the tarts. I used nectarines, you can use peaches, plums etc.
Puff Pastry. I bought mine already prepared, you can make your own but it overcomplicates the recipe. 
Butter. 
Runny honey. 
1 Egg, beaten
Preheated oven to 180ºC Or gas mark 4.

• Carefully roll the pastry, if you buy it premade it's pretty easy to do. Then use some sort of cutter, or a glass, as we have done here, to cut the pastry into round circles and place on the baking tray. 

• Beat the egg in a separate bowl and then using a brush, apply the egg mixture to the pastry.

• Cut the fruit into slices, like I have done with the nectarines I used. Then place the slices onto the flat pastry circles. I used about 1/4 of a nectarine per tart. As you can see, I left space around the fruit for the pastry to rise.

• Add a little butter on top, and then drizzle with honey. Stick them in a preheated oven on 180ºC (gas mark 4) for around 15-20 minutes.

Voilà! Ok, I don't profess to be some super chef so they don't look stunning. I like cooking but I barely do it. Mainly I like sharing recipes with my readers and my experiences of how they turn out. They did taste lovely though, even though in the picture the honey spilled out during cooking.They taste lovely if you eat them whilst they're still warm with vanilla ice cream.

I hope that you enjoy!

Animal Print #

This will be one of my more opinionated posts, I like to think. The visit to the zoo on saturday inspired it, and I guess the animalistic behaviour of people rioting in London just added to my urge to post about it. Luckily my part of London has been relatively unscathed so far, apart from a looting of a tesco down the road and a few smashed office windows. There is obviously no political motive involved, because what possible point could prove by destroying people's homes, small businesses and streets. My heart goes out to all those affected by the riots. 

Anyway, my rant over the London riots is done. I don't want to wind myself up too much about it and it wouldn't make for very pleasant reading if I did. Which brings me to another point before I forget. I've gotten into reading again and I have a few books to review, so as soon as I finish reading them I will hopefully review some on here. 

But for the main point of this post - animal print. What do you think of it? I used to love it when I was younger, and now I'm not as sure. I do love some tasteful pieces, and the odd leopard print shoes and jewellery, but too much and it can look seriously overdone. What do you think? 

I love this outfit and the leopard print coat: 

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Yet I am not so keen on this:

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What do you think of animal print?  

 

In the jungle

The mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight. Apart from maybe not a jungle, but a zoo. There were still lots of wild animals to see though, and the advantage of them being enclosed is that they were less likely to attack me. 

The boyfriend and I went to London Zoo on saturday. Him excited to see the gorillas, and me excited to see the big wild cats,  probably to compensate for the fact that I can't adopt a (domestic) cat for a few months. We drank too much milkshake, fought with too many children to get good viewing points and ended up with sore feet at the end of the day. But we got some brilliant photos and had a great time. 

The picture of the gorilla yawning always makes me smile. The warthog looks so peaceful and sweet and I love looking at the photo of the penguins together. I tried to get a good picture of the tiger but mostly he stayed in his den sleeping and when he decided to get up and saunter around the enclosure there was a mad scrabble by everyone to get a glimpse of him. Some of my photos are slightly blurry as I was taking some from behind glass which was slightly smeared, so I'm sorry about that.

What did you get up to at the weekend?

 

Cute Little Booties

Cat adoption well under way by looking at cats on the rspca website and cooing over them. Followed by showing boyfriend said picture of cute cat only for him to tell me that it might be a few months before I get one. Boo hoo, I have wanted one for over ten years now! Why does he always have to be so sensible?

To cheer myself up I bought some bootiful (hehe) lace boots from Asda yesterday for £16. I think that they are pretty fab, even if it is a struggle to get them on. The back is actually quite flimsy, and it takes a lot of pulling and pushing and shoving and ouch I've almost put my back out' to try and get them on. I was going to wear them to work today but I was running late already and didn't think that 'I had trouble putting my shoes on' was a valid reason to turn up twenty minutes late. I might wear them out tonight though as I am going out for a few drinks with the boyfriend.

A completely average picture of my lovely boots! Although I still wish that I was on holiday, I guess I haven't quite adjusted back into work routine. I still want to be lazing beside the sea with a glass of wine! So I'm sorry that I haven't been posting as frequently recently, I guess that staring at a computer for seven hours a day makes me less likely to want to do it when I get home. I always try though, and I love reading your lovely blogs. 

What have you all been up to recently?