Summer loving, having a blast - our SNA challenge for June

Hello again! Here we are with our monthly style challenge and this time it's all about the summer outfits that we wear over and over. It'll be no surprise that my most worn summer outfit is my beachwear! Every day I scoot off to the beach for my daily swim and this is my uniform for those summer months - shorts, shirt and flip flops are de rigeur for me. My city dwelling friends have a different take on this so let's not waste a moment in seeing how they tackled this one.

Hilda's stylish offering is this lightweight co-ord of balloon trousers and matching top - a great way of keeping cool in the recent heatwave. Read more of her news on Over The Hilda blog. 

Another keeping-cool outfit comes from Emma in this lemon fresh dress from Vinted. Emma shopped her closet for this look - see all the details on her latest blog post Style Splash. 

Jacqui chose this loose summer dress for keeping cool this summer, and very pretty it is too! Read all her latest on her blog post Mummabstylish.

This easy-to-wear outfit serves my purpose for a quick change on the beach - the orange linen shirt is by Ichi, a recent purchase from TK Maxx, the floral linen shorts have an elasticated waist, perfect for ease of changing; they're by Papaya, bought from Vinted last summer and have proved themselves to be a summer essential.

My beach bag was a purchase from my trip up to the top of Table Mountain when I was in Cape Town over eight years ago. Who'd have thought that there would be a retail opportunity at the top of a mountain! My sandals are by Rocketdog.

I managed to drag Steve away from his Sunday chores to be my photographer of the day. We stopped for a while after my swim to enjoy having this tiny beach to ourselves. It's called Cradle Porth and is one of my favourite places to swim. The view looks across to St Martin's on the left and out to the uninhabited Eastern Isles to the right. I love the sense of getting away from it all, despite being only a 5 minute cycle from home.

I've recently come across a new brand of swimwear, Ceacea, an Australian brand, but featured in a local shop in Penzance, called Mor Swimmy. These long sleeved swimsuits offer great coverage across the back as that's where I'm prone to getting small areas of skin cancer. I've bought three of them as they were in the half price sale, so that's me set up for the next couple of years. 

The suits are described as surf suits and work well as swimwear as they're bodyhugging, and don't let water up the sleeves or down the neck as so many of this type of suit do. Best of all they sit snug around the top of the thigh and don't disappear up one's derriere!

This was from yesterday's early morning swim on Pentle Bay. I'm lucky to have so many fabulous beaches to choose from; this one is slightly easier to access than Cradle Porth with lots of entry points along the beach. Many thanks for joining us once again for our monthly challenge. I do hope the heatwave isn't proving too challenging for you too!

                                                                            Anna x

That was Father's Day!

We were blessed with perfect weather for Father's Day last Sunday, indeed it was the start of a heatwave that seems to have hit the majority of the UK. Jamie treated us to lunch out at the Ruin Beach Cafe which couldn't have been more perfect. That said, we did miss Sasha, but she sent lots of lovely goodies for Steve to scoff later that day. Jamie's girlfriend joined us and also acted at blog photographer which was a christening by fire as far as she was concerned. But hey, Maddie did a great job!

We enjoyed a long, lazy lunch that somehow spun out to a full four hours of eating and drinking while gazing at this most lovely view. There's something so special about this vantage point - it really does feel like getting away from it all.

Father's Day means a three scoop of icecream day too! 

A few family snaps are essential as reminders of the day. No pressure Maddie to get this right!

My outfit is mostly old, from my closet. The mulitcoloured shirt is so old, it's from the 80's. I've only recently bought it from Vinted and the story is that I used to have this in the 80's when I would wear it over a bikini when Steve and I used to go off in his little boat for picinics. At some stage I must have tired of it and given it away. Anyway, I was thrilled to find it again and I can assure you, I'll not be getting rid of it again any time soon!

Maddie was clicking as I was shouting instructions with Jamie assisting, helping to shield the screen from the sunlight so that she could see what she was doing. Poor Madds, I don't think she'll be offering to help again!

White linen trousers, sandals and handbag are all old.

We've had a week of almost constant sunshine much to the delight of all of our visitors, but we had thunder and lightening during the night and it seems to be a cooler morning as a result of that. 

Coming up on Monday is our Style Not Age challenge so please do swing by again to see our latest outfits.

                                                                                  Anna x

Shopping my closet for a summer's day

Hello again, and how are you? The featured outfit was my Friday work wear, nothing new, but still bright and breezy for the end of the week. I've shopped my closet and come up with a combination that's new which is always a joy to me.

I bought this jacket in TK Maxx in Manchester way back when I was there doing my modelling stint with JD Williams. The size of that store was the biggest TK Maxx I've ever visited and what a great session I had there. The brand is Anja Rock; I do love the retro style, but it's not always easy to incorporate into every outfit. That said, it works perfectly with the orange dungarees.

These fab linen dungarees are by Joss and I fancy I bought them in a boutique in Cornwall, Number 36, a regular haunt of mine when I'm in Penzance.

 

I've paired them with my well worn cream lace bodysuit; I really like the contrast of the slim fitting top and the oversized dungarees. The orange really pops against the cream too.

Nothing new with my accessories either, but that doesn't mean boring does it? The orange perspex necklace was another boutique buy from Penzance a long, long time ago. The colour is a great match though, ideal for this outfit. My sunglasses are by Radley London from a few years ago.

You'll have no doubt seen these rings many time before too, but I won't bother to apologise as that's fine isn't it?

And hurrah for a pair of comfortable but cute summer sandals! These are by Rocket Dog, purchased in TK Maxx a couple of years ago - I bought them in another colourway too as they're so pretty.

Anyway, I've not much more to report this time. Work is ramping up as the holiday season builds which means more customers, more sales and therefore more packing and despatching of artworks. I'm not complaining as this is what we plan all winter for and yet suddenly we're in the thick of it. Rachel, my part-time assistant, is about to return to full-time status tomorrow and it doesn't come a moment too soon. I have lots of admin waiting to be done and it'll be great to do some catching up.

Weatherwise it's a real mixed bag, with very little sunshine and far too much fog this week which has caused a lot of travel disruptions. Thank goodness that I'm staying put for the next couple of months!

                                                                                       Anna x

A complete riot of colours

This was one of my most colourful outfits of the week, worn on Friday as it was such a beautiful, bright and sunny day. I never choose my outfits in advance, waiting instead to see what the day brings, what kind of weather is on the horizon and therefore how I ought to dress to be my most comfortable. I love to mix things up with my outfits, rarely choosing to wear exactly the same thing time after time. 

My vintage Jaeger button front skirt was a wonderful charity shop find from years ago. Best of all it has pockets too! I love the wild pattern of it and was pleased to see the marriage of colours between it and the patterned bodysuit which was languishing in my closet. Pairing these two together tricked many people into thinking this was a dress. 

The red flouffy petticoat came into its own here underneath the skirt, adding volume and of course, a great dash of fun. I chose the red stretch belt to deliberately tie in with the underskirt as the eye travels from one to the other seeing this clever connection.

I didn't manage to get a good shot of my sandals - this was a last minute shoot before I was due at work. The beaded sandals were from TK Maxx and are sparkly and multicoloured which was perfect for the look of the day.

My green jeans jacket is very old, by Benetton and yet is still a favourite of mine. It also has pockets plus stretch therefore is a winner. My necklace is old, not sure from where, and my sunglasses were from Oliver Bonas at Paddington Station last year.

And this pretty much sums up how the outfit made me feel all day long! Dressing for fun, to please myself, to add colour to the everyday - these are all my motivators. How lucky am I that I have the opportunity within my working life to express myself this way and be accepted - this is my norm and thank goodness for that!

                                                                                    Anna x