Craving Crochet is this month's SNA challenge




Hello and welcome once again to our monthly Style Not Age challenge where Jacqui has chosen Craving Crochet as the theme. This proved to be very simple for me as I only have one crochet item in my whole wardrobe. This Karen Millen cardigan is a pre-loved item, found in a charity shop and chosen because of the autumn colours which I love, plus the fact that it was only £8!  




So, here's Jacqui looking totally fabulous in this Boohoo crochet maxi dress. High heels and tote bag complete this monochrome look. See more on Mummabstylish blog.




Emma's cute crochet vest bring's a 70's vibe to her deliciously bright ensemble. Catch up with the catwalk chick on her blog The Style Splash here




Another retro look comes from Gail in this adorable shift dress with crochet overlay - an impressive charity shop find for only a fiver! Check out her back story on Is This Mutton blog




Hilda's back story for her outfit is quite dramatic as her red gloves are in fact bandages from a recent fall, resulting in splints to hold together a broken finger and knuckle. Her planned crochet top wouldn't fit over her bandages, but a friend came to the rescue with a tank top and bag instead. Do pop across to her blog to hear her account on Over The Hilda.




I've shopped my closet for my whole outfit this month which makes me feel good after what seems to be a bit of a heavy retail summer. 




The satin kitten heels must be vintage by now as they were from Dorothy Perkins well over 20 years ago. I decided to ramp things up to create an evening out look and these shoes pretty much nailed it. Satin and pearls say evening glamour to me, don't you agree?




The satin trousers are very old and I think may have come from my daughter at some stage. The vest top is old too and the leather belt was a charity shop find a few years ago.




All my accessories are old. The chunky pearl necklace was from Debenhams many moons ago and yet is still a firm favourite of mine, and maybe yours too? My large cocktail ring is  from TK Maxx and the flower one was a gift from a girlfriend some years ago.




This wasn't my finest hour, photography-wise. I battled to find a quiet corner as the evening sun was dropping in the sky, resorting to my old faithful haunt of the slipway in front of the gallery. I'd mooched along to stand on the quay in the golden evening light, but there was a rush of small dinghies appeared alongside bringing the yachties in to New Grimsby quay in search of somewhere to have supper. I had great intentions to do a re-shoot, but life seems to have been busy as ever. Next week I'll feature myself and the girls from work as promised when we went out for our end of season meal together. The flower strewn vintage frock was much admired... 


Wishing you a lovely week!

Anna x

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My pre-Christmas rush


Thank you for taking the time to visit my lovelies!

Is it bedlam in your house at the moment? Oh my goodness, well it's madness with us, that's for sure! In the past 24 hours I've -
  • Made my first batch of Christmas fudge
  • Packed up all my Christmas presents, including said fudge and got those off in the post.
  • Had an hour's power walk as part of my daily exercise routine and effort to drop 5lbs before Christmas (1.5 to go...)
  • Written all of my Christmas cards, ready for posting tomorrow
  • Cooked a roast dinner
  • Done three loads of laundry
  • Got up and gone to work
  • Made a casserole in my lunchtime
  • Made the Christmas dinner gravy a la Jamie Oliver - this get ahead recipe is well worth the effort (even if you have to do it after a day at work!)

On the blogging front however, I'm constantly playing catch up. It's taken me a week to get this outfit in front of a willing photographer (thank-you Steve!), but the weather was quite a challenge. The wind-swept look was hard to avoid, even here at Old Grimsby which was the most sheltered spot we could find in my allotted five minute slot.




Just recently you may have seen this pea coat by Kew159 (see here) and since then it's been on my mind to make the most of this flattering longer length jacket. Although it's not cosy, it's just so pretty that I knew I could layer it up to make it wearable at this time of year. The shaggy sweater supplies warmth to the outfit and the jacket adds style. Do you agree?


I hope to bring this outfit into play over the festive period, perhaps to wear to a drinks party. We're hosting a couple of drinks parties at work over Christmas and New Year so this may well make an appearance. 


The fluffy pink sweater came from the retro shop "Enjoy" in Truro. My midnight blue velvet trousers were £1 from a charity shop which I customised by cutting off the bottoms to make them into crops and then adding some beading trim and flowers that I'd scavenged from an old lace and beaded vest top. See the post about that here.



The star of the show today however, has to be this fabulous pre-loved multicoloured handbag (£11) that I found recently during my shopping trip to London (here). I adore the sweater and bag together, but annoyingly I did also have my new pink leather gloves inside the bag, ready for the shoot, but forgot to flash them at the right time. Once back home I found them - doh! The large flower ring and bangle were both gifts from friends and the jewelled ring was £1 from a thrift shop. The oversized pearls are old now, but were from Debenhams.


The pink sock boots were my Christmas present from Jamie last year. They're from H&M, and yes are the exact same pair as my red ones. My passion for these still burns bright.


And this is me, striding off to the next challenge that awaits. Don't bother calling me Superwoman yet - by tomorrow I'll probably be sobbing as some tiny problem swamps me, bringing me to a standstill! Balance in life somehow always manages to elude me ...

                                                                                    Anna x

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New yellow dress for the Easter show


Hello, and how was Easter for you? Did you overindulge in chocolate? There was certainly a great combined effort in our family to eat our entire body weight in chocolate!


We opened our Easter show on Saturday amidst much excitement and bustle. It was a super evening following on from what has been summer-like weather which really helped to bring out the crowd for our opening night party. 


I changed my mind at the last minute as to what I would wear - mainly because it was so blooming hot! I'd planned to wear a maxi dress with sock boots, but thought I might expire in the extreme heat of the gallery. We opened the doors and skylights though and it wasn't too bad after all.


Anyway, back to the dress. I bought it recently in TK Maxx and the brand is Never Fully Dressed. I thought it would be useful for the summer as it's a lovely lightweight fabric with a super silky feel. It's one of those dresses that once it's on you completely forget about it. That surely has to be a sign that it works. No tugging, wrinkling, riding up or itching of labels - no this one is a keeper. The material is very thin though, so I have a half length slip underneath it. 


The early sunshine really caught me out here as I hadn't done any fake tanning on my legs and so I had to find some sheer tights for the occasion. Luckily I have a big stash of all colours of tights and these natural ones were brand new from M&S. The shoes are quite old and were from New Look, but they work really well with the dress, don't you think?



As for jewellery, I'm wearing my favourite, but very old oversized pearls which were from Debenhams many moons ago. The cuff is brass, also old and the rings are the citrine one my husband bought me for my birthday this year and there's also the charity shop silver and enamel one. And yes, my trusted old favourite sunnies are from Quay Australia.


Now that I've worn this pretty frock to an exhibition I shall downgrade it to an everyday dress purely because of the ease of wearing. I don't have enough of these kind of dresses and they really do make it much easier to put an outfit together. 


And finally. Apologies for being a day late with my feature this week. Easter weekend was a busy time, with not only the first exhibition of the season, but it was also my big wardrobe changeover day on Sunday. I spent 7 hours moving suitcases, boxes and assorted bags out of cupboards to be emptied and refilled with winter clothes. It did cross my mind to take some shots of the event for you, but I reckon you've seen it all before. I've still got one suitcase to go through next weekend and that ought to be the deed all done. As usual there were some lovely surprises as well as some not so lovely ones, for instance the shrinking of last summer's trousers whilst in storage is probably not a true thing, but more likely is evidence of me still carrying a couple of winter kilos in places I'd rather not have!


And this is the gallery and how it looks with the current show on the walls. It's not often that we have a plethora of sorbet coloured paintings on display nor do I always match the artworks so very well! I'm wearing some of my latest purchases - trousers, tee shirt and biker jacket are all from Primark and the brocade trainers are by Replay. This is the moment between preparing the gallery for the evening ahead and finishing the day's trading. A final check of everything to make sure all is as it ought to be and then Polly and I scoot off home for a bite to eat and a quick change ready for the party.

I'll be back again on Thursday this week with my first summer trouser suit (as promised) and then on the last Monday of the month it'll be time for our monthly style challenge. For the next little while I'm going to post on Mondays and Thursdays to see if it helps my busy routine. Thanks for joining me again and I do hope you'll still find time to visit on those days!

                                                                                             Anna x

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