Festival Finery our SNA challenge for July

Hello and welcome to our Style Not Age Challenge for July! Emma's choice of Festival Finery was greeted by all as a timely feature and one that I particularly enjoyed. I didn't have a festival to go to but chose my outfit with Glastonbury in mind and took myself off to the annual Tresco Fete as an excellent substitute. But first, let's check out the rest of the style collective to see how they approached this one...

Jacqui could be traipsing across a field on the way to her festival, maybe even Glastonbury too! Her summer dress is from Cotton Traders, sandals from New Look and bag from Fiorelli - see more from her on the blog Mummabstylish.

Hilda treated herself to a new hat from H&M and sunglasses from TK Maxx, shopping her wardrobe for the rest of her very stylish outfit. Catch up on her back story of dressing incognito for her festival on Over The Hilda blog here. 

Emma looks ready for a long day and night too of dancing in those fab Converse trainers at her festival! The pink leopard print jumpsuit was an amazing charity shop find - see more from her on her blog Style Splash. 

Gail is the only one of us who actually made it to a festival for this piece - she was at Hyde Park for a Kylie  Minogue concert! Her jacket is from Amazon, paired with old M&S chinos and natty turquoise shoes from Embassy London. Read all about it on Is This Mutton Blog.

I found my rather fabulous dress on Vinted (no surprises there then) along with the matching hairband. I've been so keen to wear this fab frock and yet was keeping it for this showcase first time out. As I mentioned, this was the annual Tresco Fete yesterday where they have live music, a bar, food, and lots of games and stalls for all the family to enjoy themselves. The weather was perfect all day long making for a blissful event for everyone involved. My friend Jodie kindly did the honours with my photos and made a great job of it!

My pretty floral embroidered sandals came into their own again this week with my 80's outfit. The handbag is old, a charity shop find from years ago, but a great little summer bag for occasions like this.

My necklace and matching bracelet are both old, charity shop finds, as are the two plastic heart rings I dug out to complete the look. I like nothing more that coming across funky jewellery when I'm trawling through my favourite mainland charity shops - I know it'll always come in useful at some stage!

Ah yes, here's the glamour shot to finish things off nicely! I do hope you've been inspired by this month's challenge - maybe we've given you some ideas for your next festival trip.

                                                                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

Dreamy dresses our SNA challenge for June

Hello and welcome to June's Style Not Age Challenge where five friends throw down the style gauntlet month after month in rotation resulting sometimes in angst other times in joy. Jacqui came up with Dreamy Dresses which seems to have been a happy choice this month. Mine is yet another second-hand find from Vinted and I'm delighted with what's surely going to be a very useful summer frock. But let's look at my fashionable friends first shall we?

A very dreamy setting for Jacqui's summer dress, a new purchase from Matalan worn with old sandals and handbag from New Look. Catch up with all of her news on Mummabstylish

Emma's Dreamy Dress comes from TK Maxx worn with sandals from Coast and bag by Fenella Smith. Read her back story on the Style Splash

Gail wore her Dreamy Dress to the Vivienne Westwood exhibition at Christies recently and didn't look at all out of place. See more from her on Is This Mutton. 

Hilda's Dreamy Dress is from Whistles (not new) but worn when she was taken out to dinner recently in Derry. Find out more on her blog Over The Hilda.

This lightweight dress is made from polyester making it easy to wear and cool on this bright sunny day at work. I'm sure this will earn its place in my wardrobe this summer.

This pretty frock has a myriad of colours making styling so very easy. I've added these fuchsia flatforms from last summer which are super comfy. Then I took orange as my next lead colour adding this stretch belt from Amazon, again purchased last year.

What's not to love about a dress that says Love on it?

The lemon mini bag with beaded handle by Dune was a TK Maxx find last summer - it's uber cute don't you think? My rings are old, pre-loved too.

My sister Dianne recently sent me this pearl and heart necklace, in fact two of these, one in white pearl and the other with grey pearls. This is perfect for today's look.

Another splash of colour comes by way of these old sunnies by Zara. It was great fun putting this outfit together, where it was all about colours and as many as possible. Thanks for joining us this month - I hope you've enjoyed our challenge!

                                                                Anna x

Another shot of colour this week!

Hello again! I missed showing you this outfit a few weeks ago, so am going to share it with you today. The swirly psychedelic maxi dress was a Vinted purchase, bought because I love all of these colours together plus it goes so well with my current favourite Dr Marten boots.

My orange jeans jacket is a great extra layer and works beautifully with this palette too. The brand is Forever 21 and once again was from Vinted. I love the crop length with the dress.

The orange stretch belt was from Amazon - it's perfect for adding a bit of definition to the shirtwaister. I wore an orange tee shirt underneath the dress as it was a day of mixed weather so this gave me an extra layer of warmth at the start of the day.

I love how the dress and boots works so well together!

There's nothing new with my jewellery; two perspex rings, shark's tooth pendant and River Island sunglasses are all old.

My thanks to Fiona who joined me for an after work session of walking and blog photography. We always manage to have a laugh and it's usually at my expense! Thanks for joining me and look forward to seeing you again soon!

                                                                    Anna x

New jeans

Hello, and how are you today? Here's a weekend look from me this time. The jeans are a recent purchase and I won't even bother telling you from where... Anyway, I'm really happy with these as a fabulous addition to my wardrobe. I love anything funky and these really do fit the bill!

The fit is high waisted and baggy over the hips and thighs which makes them super comfy and easy to wear, perfect for the weekend when lounging around is top priority. 

The jeans boast every kind of embellishment; from diamante strands and hearts to rough patchwork, bleach splatters and everything in between. It's a retro look that has huge appeal to me. I've cinched the waistband with a bejewelled belt and accessorized with a diamante heart ring, a flower enamel ring and two rose gold bangles - none of them new.

The bright orange jeans jacket is by Forever 21, bought from Vinted, of course. It's a great little jacket that I'm sure will be very handy over the summer months.

One of my go-to pieces this year is a white ribbed bodysuit from Primark. I think I've got three of these, all exactly the same. The best thing about them is the cut around the rear - they don't ride up and are generously cut, almost like granny pants which stay put not matter what I get up to. A thonged bodysuit is my idea of torture!

My new pale aqua sandals with floral and diamante trim are also from Vinted, cost me £5 and were brand new - so an absolute bargain in other words! The insole is padded for comfort - a word I seem to use a lot at the moment.

The rectangular sunglasses are old, from Quay Australia. The gold coloured chain was a purchase from Accessorize last year - it's stainless steel and was advertised as being perfect for everyday wear for swimmers. I've not tested it out as I don't want to find it doesn't live up to the promise.

I was out watching the sunset from this vantage point just above Appletree Bay. We've had a mixed bag of weather recently ranging from scorching sunshine to thick fog with a sprinkling of showers too. I'm making an effort to get out after work and at the weekends to enjoy the lovely weather while it's here.

                                                                              Anna x