Going Crazy for Chronographs!

Ladies' Chronograph watches have become the must-have style of wrist candy of late. I for one, absolutely love them and have been lusting after my own masculine design for some time now.

Fung-ling: DKNY NY4984

Everywhere I look I seem to see beautiful people sporting one of these shiny beauties. From fellow bloggers to my best friend, it seems that I am yet to follow in their footsteps and purchase myself one for my collection, but Oh, which one to choose!

My best friend, Fung-ling was recently given this gorgeous DKNY Ladies' Black Ceramic and Rose Gold Chronograph from her Dad. I love that it's such a classic watch design yet has a modern twist with the mix of black ceramic and rose gold casing and the crystal studded bezel framing the watch face.

The DKNY NY4984 is £275 RRP but the best price I found was Amazon.co.uk at £219.

Ekaete: Michael Kors MK5410

I also spotted one of my favourite bloggers, Ekaete, wearing her Michael Kors Chronograph in Rose Gold on her Red Lips and Roses blog. Again, such a classic design, but with a twist of the Navy blue watch face, set against the Rose Gold plating of the watch itself. I personally find that all gold or all rose gold watches can be a bit much, so it is nice to break it up with the contrasting colour.

The Michael Kors MK5410 is £239 RRP and most stores are selling it at this price - ASOS.com, House of Fraser, John Lewis etc. It is around $250 in the states, so you may be able to order from the USA cheaper - but I don't know shipping costs/exchange rates, so don't take my word for it, it's just a suggestion!

Click Ekaete's photo or here to go to her recent post about her new watch.


I absolutely adore Fung-ling's and Ekaete's watch choices, along with a similar one from Marc by Marc Jacobs (of which there are so many colour combinations to chose from!) below.

Left - right: Marc by Marc Jacobs MBM3106, DKNY NY4984, Michael Kors MK5410

But my absolute favourite has to be this Guess design in gold with a silver watch face. I've been seeking a gold watch for a long time and after seeing this darling design I was instantly sold - Chronograph and yellow gold it ticks all the boxes. It's classic and timeless. Perfect! The only small negative is that it doesn't have a date window like the other three above, however, I have never owned a watch with a date window so cannot miss something I have never used. I seriously doubt this minor flaw will halt my future purchase. Now to justify this spend in next month's budget.....

Guess W16571 RRP £180

Do you own a Chronograph watch? I'd love to know which designer you went for in the end.

(Stock photographs courtesy of www.houseoffraser.co.uk and www.guess.eu) 

Zara Sale Bargains!

Wow, it's been way too long! I've been so busy updating my sister blog, that sometimes I just forget to blog here too! Well some things just couldn't wait any longer, as a few of my New Year purchases are just too good to not share.

First of all though, to my dear friend Kate (a.k.a my bank manager!) if you're reading this then, I know I didn't need any of these but they really were bargains - I fell in love and I just had to purchase.... OK that's no excuse, I don't have an excuse really but you have to admit, they are lovely :)

Whilst perusing the sales in Zara I came across this patterned Wallet With Sequins and there were only two left, so naturally I grabbed one straight away. I have been after the famous Sequinned Wallet in Gold which sold out long ago, and I refuse to pay over £60 for on eBay!! So when I saw this similar one, I settled for second best - don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it and have loads of outfits that it will go with, but if I had to pick between the gold and this one, gold would always win.

It's a really good size with a sturdy zip that does up across the top. Inside, it has a navy blue cotton lining and lots of card pockets that will hopefully fit some make-up, iphone, keys etc.

The best part of all was the price though - it was £29.99 full price and down to £19.99 in the sale, so a good 30% off. But when I got home, I realised the till had overcharged me at £22.99. So a couple of weeks later, I managed to go into the city again, and took it back expecting to get the £2.99 refund. Except the lady told me that it had now gone down to £9.99 - so she would refund me the £23.99 and sell it to me again, but at the new £9.99 price!!! BARGAIN! I swear I was on a little high from this for the rest of the day (sad, I know!).

I also came across this pair of Flat Studded Court Shoes when I first picked up the bag, (I must have been having a coral day) and snapped them up at a cool £19.99 - not bad for 100% leather, goat skin to be exact! They were at 50% off, down from £39.99.















I love the gold studding on them and I was very tempted by the black version of these lovelies, but I have lots of black flats and few colours, so figured these would make a fab addition to my Spring/Summer wardrobe. I wore them out that evening with skinny denim jeans and my silver Topshop blazer for a smart but casual dinner. Very comfortable to wear and not that pinching considering they're pointed toes.

Let me know what you think.
Do you own the Gold Sequin Wallet? Did you find any good Zara sale buys?

New Years Eve Make Up - Cleopatra Style

On New Year's Eve, my cousin Annabelle asked me to assist with her make-up for a 'Queen' themed bash. She decided to go as a modern take on Cleopatra and asked me to do her eye make-up, so I thought I'd quickly share with you how it turned out.

 

It was actually really simple to do:

I primed her lids with Urban Decay's Eyeshadow Primer Potion then applied a sweep of Urban Decay's Half Baked from the Naked Palette across her lids and the pale shade from Clinique's Eyeshadow duo in Deco dence from her lids up to her eyebrow. To create the black outline I used Clinique's Brush-on Cream Liner in Graphite (I think this was ltd ed.) with Benefit's Get Bent Liner Brush. I first lined the top of her lids, flicked out towards the ends of her eybrows by about 1/4 inch, then joined this by underlining her eyes and finally outlining near her tear ducts. This same look could equally be created with an Eyeliner Pen or Liquid Eyeliner but I prefer to work with cream liners. I then made the line across her top lashline more defined, and her lids more gold, with a light sweep of MAC's Fluidline in Brassy following the top of the black line. She applied some mascara and then I fitted her with a set of false eyelashes she had chosen - I think they were Eylure but I can't be sure. I also brushed MAC's Matte Eyeshadow in Embark, through her eybrows to give them a little more depth (although this isn't very visible in the top photo).

The top photo is with flash, and the lower photo is without (iPhone again, sorry for the not so great quality!)

She was very impressed with the final results and she finished her make up with a slick of nude lipstick and a gold-toned lipgloss so as to keep attention drawn to her eyes.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts!

Happy New Year 2012!

...and may it be even better than 2011!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and had a wonderful evening last night; however you decided to see the New Year in. I thought I'd start with a quick review of Christmas and Birthday celebrations - I meant to do this yesterday and somehow managed to do nothing but lounge around and watch movies all day. In my last post I showed you some beautiful Mulberry gifts I received (and bought!) and thought I'd share with you some of the other things I received, many of which will have dedicated posts to them in the future. It was my birthday a week or so before Christmas, so the pressie stash does seem quite big, but I thought it far easier to do a combined Birthday/Xmas one instead of separately. Apologies in advance for the bad photo quality, iPhones aren't great in low lighting...

With my Birthday and Christmas being so close together, I get fed up of people always asking me what I want, so I end up creating a big list of 'lusts' back in October, and it's ongoing until December. That way, I put the boyfriend in charge and he can share with people what I want. I have a habit of always buying all the things I need so I start noting down stuff that isn't what I would justify as essential - and trust me, I can justify most of my beauty/clothing/shoe collection as 'essential'!

I got a few of the usual - chocolate, mugs, socks, slippers, filofax inserts, DVDs - and some other odd bits and pieces that aren't pictured. But I wanted to detail my favourites and the ones I'm really excited about to share with you all!

Not pictured above are the following two: A big Clinique 3-Step kit and a cute Penguin art print to add to my collection. These were both courtesy of my fabulous boyfriend! He knows I religiously use Clinique's Facial Soap for Oily Skin and Dramatically Different Moisturising Gel as well as the Clarifying Lotion No3, and I dropped massive hints that I was running out of the wash, so I was very pleased to open up this on Christmas Day. It contains the larger sizes of all three, plus travel sizes and a silvery mesh style toiletry bag.
The Art print is by a local Norfolk artist called James Buttifant; I saw his stall in a Norwich Shopping Mall once and fell in love with the cute Penguin love designs. This one is called 'lifted' and it's a limited print of 250. I already own a few other prints of his and lust to own an original painting one day. Check out his facebook page or website, he has some really lovely prints for sale. I guess it's become somewhat of a tradition, for the boyf. to buy me one each year! Bless!

I think I actually let out a squeal of excitement when I opened this one, I've been lusting after Biba's make up bags for ages and I completely fell in love with this leopard print design. My wonderful Mum picked this up from House of Fraser for me, unfortunately, it's not available anymore (as I would have also bought the larger size in the Sale) but I am torn with actually using it - I just know it will get covered with a leaking foundation or something similar!
After reading Laura's post at Liparazzi I was very interested in a new tool to curl my hair - the Enrapture stylers. The results looked fabulous in Laura's hair and there's only so far I can go with my GHDs.

So my Sister and my Mum treated me to not only the heated rollers, but also the totem styler! I can't wait to try these out so stay posted for a 'before and after post' at some point this month (I hope!).
A friend, who works in a salon, got me the Bed Head Colour Goddess Duo - a perfect choice as I get my hair dyed every 6-12 weeks and it always fades really badly. I'm naturally a dull ashy brunette so my hairdresser perks it up to a richer brunette shade every so often. I've put it down to me not using the right products on my hair so I'm hunting for the best colour holding Shampoo and Conditioner right now.
Also, the little envelope is a voucher for a salon called Thai Wellbeing in Norwich. I like to go there for a massage treat every so often so vouchers are always gladly received!

The next two little beauties are to add to my ever expanding Links of London Sweetie Bracelet. My best friend from uni bought me the 'Big Spender' credit card charm - she knows me so well! I had to laugh when I opened it up, it is so very me! And my Mum treated me to the 'Rainbow Zebra' - I just think it is so cute! I think I actually need to buy some new charm links now, as I have no room left, so it's a good opportunity to go and get my bracelet re-strung - highly recommended if you own a Sweetie Bracelet.
As always, I expected some make up goodies and I was very pleased with this little group! In between Shellac applications I do like to wear normal polish sometimes - as I have so many and it's nice to be able to easily chop and change - so my Sister treated me to the Nails Inc. Glitterati collection, three glitter polishes in gold, purple and silver. Watch out for a post about them on my sister blog, brushupandpolishup, at some time in the future.

My Mum picked up on a big hint when this Stila palette went live on BuyaPowa - a site which I blogged about recently here. I saw Holly's review of the Stila Dream in Full Color Palette on her Yummy Mummy Beauty Blog and instantly wanted one, but realistically it was way too big for me to use that often. So when I saw a mini version of it, the Daydream palette, I fell in love and directed my Mum straight to the BuyaPowa site where it dropped to the lowest price of £7! Bargain! Also in the picture are three little Clinique eye treats which the boyfriend chose all by himself!!?! And they are all products I like and would use - High Impact Mascara in Brightening Black (ltd ed.), Quickliner for Eyes Intense in Frosty Charcoal (ltd ed.) and Lid Smoothie in Bit O'Honey. Keep posted for a review soon.

Now it wouldn't be right if there wasn't some sort of bejewelled gift under the tree this year and I wasn't disappointed to find four instantly wearable treats! I've already mentioned the two Mulberry pieces in my last post but I also received an Orelia bracelet from my cousin and a Cath Kidston Star necklace from the boyf - the "Oooo, that's pretty!" in House of Fraser last month obviously didn't go unnoticed!! I am seriously obsessed with Orelia jewellery and it's available in many boutiques nationwide, as well as ASOS.com and their own website. I am in the process of planning a post dedicated to Orelia and some of their beautiful pieces that I have picked up over the last year or so.

And last but not least, are two great knits that I was given from Topshop. The one on the left is a big slubby style grey knit with a black fluffy paw print detail to the front (again, boyf chose this himself!?! I love it!). And on the right, is a fine knit blue fitted jumper that has black lace panels at the shoulders, which my Sister searched high and low for, for me. Hopefully I'll get to do an OOTD soon, with some of my latest Topshop garments.

So in all, Birthday and Christmas 2011 were very fruitful! I am so lucky to have such generous friends and family, and the most thoughtful boyfriend, who, despite his worries, always gets me the most amazing gifts!


What gifts surprised you the most this year? If you could have had only one of your presents this Christmas, which one would it have been?