Full skirts our SNA challenge

Hello and welcome once again to our monthly Style Not Age challenge! This month Jacqui chose Full Skirts as our theme. This for me was very tricky as I currently only have one big skirt to hand which I'd styled in three different ways, none of which really excited me so this one is the best I could do!

Much as Jacqui chose Full Skirts she has since lamented the fact as even she found it a challenge too far. Her skirt and top are from F&F, and jacket is from Matalan. Catch up with all her news on Mummabstylish blog. 

Gail lucked out when she found her skirt and necklace in a Plymouth charity shop for the grand total of £3.25! She shopped her closet for the rest of her outfit, and very successfully too. Find out more on Gails blog Is This Mutton. 

Emma's full skirt is by Joanna Hope. I love the bold autumn colours and how she's styled it, particularly with that natty hat! See more from Emma on the Style Splash blog. 

Hilda's gorgeous big skirt was on loan from a local boutique - a fact that always makes me envious. The rest of her look was from her own wardrobe, so see more of that on her blog Over The Hilda. 

I do love this skirt and wore it for the first time in the summer for a fund raising event at the Gallery - see it here. As a summery look I thought it worked perfectly, but in the depths of winter it really did challenge me. I had another rebirth in mind featuring gold to tie in with the forthcoming festive season but the weather here has been so wild this past weekend that I couldn't even get along to the Gallery to showcase it. (I have nowhere at home that gives good enough light at this time of year to take blog photos.)

However, as a full skirt it complies with the remit and so this is it. The skirt was new (from Vinted) and the brand is Coast so it was a worthy addition to my wardrobe earlier this year and I do still love it.

The leopard print top and orange sock boots are also from Vinted, again both new with tags on. 

My orange perspex rings are preloved and the gold coloured snake necklace was a gift from a girlfriend.

So that pretty much rounds things up for this month's challenge. Sorry if I've not been terribly inspiring this time. As you may already know, winter isn't my favourite season for showcasing outfits, but I'll keep trying!

                                                                        Anna x

Dressing up for the Island Haven fundraiser

Better late than never! Here's this week's highlight, our Island Haven fundraiser, not the shopping spree catch up as promised. Anyway, on Wednesday Gallery Tresco hosted a fundraising exhibition which was also a raffle - every single painting we had on display was donated by professional and amateur artists in aid of the charity, and every single raffle ticket won a painting. 

 

The concept of a Patchwork of Paintings was the brainchild of local mum Duffy Bloomfield-Crowe who was also very hands-on in hanging the art and running the event on the night. We had a hectic 24 hours putting everything in place but on the night it all went amazingly well and we sold 92 raffle tickets meaning 92 pieces of art found new homes resulting in over £7000 being raised for the Island Haven charity. Read more about what the Island Haven means to the residents of the Isles of Scilly here. 

Here's the dream team from the night - to my right is Rachel my Gallery Assistant and on the wall from left to right are Duffy, Hannah and Jasmine. Along with Agnes from Marketing and Lorraine who was helping behind the scenes we had a great show of girl power as these bright and capable women hosted the event without a hiccup. Jointly we were like a well-oiled machine and I felt very proud of our achievement by the end of the night.

Dean Whillis, the Timeshare Manager, was on the team as our honourary girl acting as Master of Ceremonies as he played the vital role of guarding and pulling the winning tickets.

Duffy and Agnes selling the final 40 tickets outside of the Gallery at 6pm on Wednesday - how lovely to have perfect weather for our waiting queue!

Rachel getting ready to pack up paintings as they're allocated and alongside is Fiona next to her very generous donation of this huge diptych of the eastern side of Tresco.

And finally, the outfit. The top was a charity shop find for £3 last year some time; the skirt I found on Vinted in the spring and just knew I would find a reason to wear it. The brand is Coast and it was brand new, still with the labels on and is lightly strewn with silver threads. It has a single layer of net but I decided to add another net underskirt which I'd found again on Vinted. I had to chop 6 inches off it as it was a bridal underskirt, but that worked fine. 

The shoes are brand new, again from Vinted, from Karen Millen. I love the diamante buckle! I was unsure as to what to wear on my feet until lunchtime that day when I scoured the top of my wardrobe where I have boxes and boxes of shoes - these were a wonderful find as I'd bought them about a year ago and yet again knew they'd be useful as some stage and then packed them away and forgot about them.

I decided not to add a necklace as I felt it would have cluttered the the look, but did add some rings as a finish to the outfit. Neither of these are new.

Please do take a look at the link through to the Island Haven and make a donation if you can. The charity has raised enough funds to buy a house near Treliske Hospital in Truro. Treliske is the main hospital where islanders are referred to or in emergencies flown to for treatment. When Steve and I were in the early days of our marriage he taken ill with a mystery illness and was flown off to Treliske. His mother and I followed on later in the day. We had to find somewhere to stay late that evening which added to the stress of the situation. The Island Haven House will act as a safe place in these circumstances. The funds currently being raised are for interior renovations to refurb the five bedrooms so that they can offer sanctuary to islanders who need to undertake long term outpatient treatment or who, like us, arrive without time to organise accommodation. The Island Haven website can be seen here.

                                                                        Anna x