An awesome jumper from Oxfam

 I visited the Lake District recently. While I was there, I popped into an Oxfam shop in Ambleside and man did I get a good jumper! Look.At.It.

 

Black, gold, silver and lurex all in one item. The plain black bits are super snuggly and the rest is disco jumper supreme! The poufy shoulders and batwing sleeves are ever so 80s, but in the best possible way. And it was a mere six quid.

Here I am wearing it with other shit and P-O-S-I-N-G like a muthfucka. Boobs out, belly in. Good girl.

Necklace: Wolf and Moon | Jumper: Oxfam Ambleside | Skirt: Primark | Boots £20 down from over £200 Urban Outfitters *smug*

The jumper's label reveals it to be by a brand called Mondi from West Germany. How very pre "The Hoff bring down the wall single-handedly". A quick Google turned up this on Mondi: "Mondi actually started out as a knitwear house before it spread it wings into a full range of clothing and gained a faithful following, including Diana, the late Princess of Wales". That is according to a random on Etsy though, so it could be utter piffle. Either way, all the stuff I found by them is selling for way more than £6 and is way less amazing than this wooly winner.

I'm off to finish my Croatian Muscat. Mmm!

Bestival - yay!

Gawd, I'm late to the "I went to Bestival" bandwagon aren't I? It was only, er, about a month ago. Jeez Llara! What can I say? I'm a busy chick and I don't always have time to do the blogging.

Something else you should know about me is that, when I've had a few, I find it acceptable to pull this face in pictures...

Note the long since faded and very much past its best rainbow on my face. I'm obsessed with rainbows lately. We've had SO many recently in Edinburgh. Don't believe me? Check out my instagram @llarasnappedwhat (plug, plug).

So, once we'd made the journey to Southampton (taxi, flight, train, bus) ferry terminal, we hopped on the ferry. They had cider in the car park and everything, which was nice. Another thing you should know - not about me this time: it seems that everyone, everyone on the south coast owns a boat. Regardez (I can say that cause it's so close to France):

Boats, boats, boats everywhere!

And so to Bestival. It's an ace festival. A tiny bit big for my liking, if anything, but so visual and captivating and stuff going on everywhere. You could spend the whole weekend doing stuff that didn't involve seeing bands at big stages. Like...going to the cinema, starring in your own film, going on a helter skelter, climbing up the inside of an odd wooden house, watching the fancy dress parade, polka-ing to a crazy Romanian gypsy sounding DJ in the polka tent, mooching about the forest, tobogganing, shopping and generally filling your face with all kinds of delicious food. I love festival food these days!

Cinema | tents | swan on a stick, obvs | Africa bar | make your own blockbuster | amazing view across the festival

At night, the festival becomes so atmospheric with parties in what look like ramshackle houses, the smallest bar ever (in something resembling a garden shed), faux abandoned cars peeking out of mist and all kinds of other goodness!

All kinds of neon crap. By crap, I means AWESOMENESS. I climbed to the top window of the little house. How I didn't do myself a mischief, I do not know.

In spite of there being some huge acts at the festival (hello Stevie Wonder. Totally brill, as it happens), my favourite ones were Scroobius Pip and a random flamenco band with some guy Sadie Frost used to shag in it. Scroobius was just mesmerising and SO much fun. Ditto the flamenco band. We danced our asses off to those guys! Give me that lot over Florence and her wailing ear splitting machine any day! Sorry Flo fans...

Left: flamenco guys | middle: Scroobius Pip. I wonder if that's his real name | right: spooky shit.

Absorb the colour and strangeness...I'd like to hang glittery stars all over my house. I'm not sure how Mr Scribbler would feel about that.

And finally (cause everyone loves and 'and finally' story, right? Especially ones that involve small animals or local initiatives. This involves neither.), here I am promoting the ass off the schuh Welly Exchange in my specially-customised-so-as-to-maximise-warm-sun-on-pasty-Scottish-skin t-shirt. It was such a warm weekend. I miss the warmth.

Who's got orange glittery fingernails and a message for you guys? This gal!

Lady(like) in red. And Charlotte Olympia.

No kidding - I can do ladylike sometimes. Only sometimes. It doesn't sit that well with me because I am a naturally scrappy person. I'm a chipped nails, sliding eyeshadow kind of girl who's likely to walk into a wall or whack her hand on a door. Right now, my nails are polish free, thus chip free. Prior to that they were fetching bright orange glitter with some almighty chips. However, in spite of said scrappiness, a 50's style frock really suits my shape and I love a high heel. So sometimes I just bust out smart Llara for shits and giggles. Boom!

Dress: ASOS, Cardi: Primark, Necklace: H&M, Shoes: Charlotte Olympia

Tweet, tweet

Look at that. Elegant to a fault. And not just wearing any shoes, but actual posh designer shoes. Fancy! Yes, I love my Charlotte Olympia shoes. As with all my designer shoes, they were bought on sale and, my oh my, are they worth every penny! That said, I am stopping buying designer shoes now in order to save for holidays next year. My buds and I have decided that, before we get "too old" (whatever that means), we're off to party it up in Ibiza. I went to Ibiza heaps of times when I was younger but it was always for a chilled out time. Back then, partying in Ibiza equalled lurid drinks, unknown drugs and STDs. I didn't much fancy that. Now we're old enough to just be in it for the dancing so we're going raving AND doing some chilling on the stunning island. I'm excited and terrified all at once!

Lord know these babies won't be coming with me...

Four and a half years later...

I moved into my current flat 4 and a 1/2 years ago. We weren't planning to move from our last place: the flat got almost no light (north facing tenement) and was the size of a shoe box. And full of shoe boxes, of course. But it was our tiny dark place. It was the first flat Mr Scribbler and I bought together and we got engaged in the living room, so the idea of moving on felt really sad but also seemed totally unaffordable - this was pre-market crash when flat prices were crazy. However, one day I was idly looking at other flats on the internet (as you do) and came across something a wee bit bigger than ours that look within our reach. So we decided to go look at it. And we figured, if we were going to do that, we might as well look at a couple more places too. One was the place we now live. It seemed beyond budget but we totally fell in love. We pushed the money boat out and were lucky enough to come top when all the bids went in. Yay! Of course, we can probably never move now that the market has crashed but that's by the by. 

And since we moved in, I'd never got round to sorting out my CD collection.

Until Sunday...

They were all in shelves and whatnot but I had no idea what was where and when looking for a specific album, I'd always give up and listen to something else. Which I guess is kinda fun. But, I finally decided enough was enough and got to sorting them out. While sorting, it became apparent that you have a better chance of getting into my collection if your band's name starts with an 'S' or an 'M'. Who knew? I also discovered that my CDs were filthy! There was some serious dusting needing done in there.

 

And now they're all alphabetised, like the albums of any good serial killer. Some in the awkward Ikea shelf that doesn't sit right against the wall.

 Some in the Edinburgh press with other nick-naks.

One thing that will probably never change though? After over 11 years together, Mr S and I will almost certainly never amalgamate our collections...I can't handle all his Bob Dylan, he can't handle my Blur. Some things just need to stay independent. His are in this shelf he built. Yes ladies, ma man is good with wood.

 

Do you merge CD collections with boy/girlfriends? I find it fascinating for some reason!

Wolf and Moon jewellery - ah-oooo!

I was at Bestival at the weekend. It was ace. I was there with work and, while there were loads of good acts there, there was no one I was mad desperate to see so, because I wasn't stressing about being in a set place at a set time, it was way relaxed. Woop! I have some ace pics that I'll share you soon with but this post is about a jewellery brand I discovered there. What do you mean you already guessed that from the title and you wondered why I was talking about Bestival? Regardless, finding cool independent brands is one of my favourite things about festivals, alongside having fun at things you didn't even mean to see or expect to be that fussed about, and eating ace food. Festival food is so great these days! At Camp Bestival, I found I Am Acrylic. At Bestival, those guys were there too but my new discovery was Wolf and Moon. Also big users of perspex, there's plenty of wood incorporated in their designs too.

I only picked up perspex designs and I couldn't resist grabbing a few things! Like this gorgeous glittery gold deer:

According to their 'about' section, "Everything you see in the Wolf & Moon shop is lovingly handmade or handpicked by Hannah Davis. She recently graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College and you can find her personal work here: www.hannahdavis.co.uk

Richard Makhlouf helps Hannah with accounts, making pieces and sometimes running the market stall." 

When I visited the stall the girl, who I assume was Hannah said she does make all the perspex pieces - amazing! They're so intricate and I can't help but wonder how many deer's legs are accidentally snapped, trying to get one perfect. This feather is simple and gorgeous. And glittery...

 

Once I got the pieces safely home from Bestival, I couldn't resist wearing one straight away!

Jumper: ASOS, Skirt: Topshop, Nike Air Safari: schuh

 

For the amount of work that must go into these pieces, their prices were really reasonable too. The feather and deer were both £8 and the one above was £12. The most expensive was this baby at £25. But it literally stretches across my front to the outer edges of my collar bones. It's GIANT! And stunning.

Glitter! Mirror! Colour! Oh my!

They're all off to live in with the rest of my neck-wear on my bedroom walls now.

Anyone else been festivalling it up lately?

Little Scribbler wears: Nike Air Safari AKA trainers

That's right: trainers. You probably know me as the girl with awesome shoes. Or the girl with the bountiful booty. Or the girl who never does anything with her hair. I'm hoping it's the awesome shoe girl one. However, back in the day, I was a big time trainer wearing, indie disco kid. My style trod the line between 'skate' (baggy jeans and teeny tees) and 'indie' (beaded chokers, boot cuts and teeny band tees) and I always, but always wore trainers. Mainly suede (Puma, Converse, New Balance, Vans), with the odd leather adidas Superstar in there. I say odd pair - I had loads of them...

But, as I've gotten a bit older (and got a mainly desk based job), my shoes have become, well, shoe-ier and, often, higher. Of course there are still plenty flat sandals, boots and pumps in the collection, but I am a girl with a lot of heels and they get worn pretty frequently. But, as one with an appreciation for footwear and as one who works in an office constantly filled with all kinds of shoes, my eye is easily caught. And caught it was by these bad boys last week:

What a trainer shaped delight! They're actually boys ones but, being 5"7 with size 7 feet, I can tread that thin but awesome line between girls' and boys' shoes! Yes! I saw them on our work system ages before they came in but the sample shoes did not have the amazing monochrome speckled animal skin effect and I didn't really pay them any heed to be honest. But, the moment the Nike Air Safari were un-boxed in the office, it was l-o-v-e.

Add the electric blue to the mono mix and these become a serious style additional to my shoe wardrobe. Plus, one thing I love is attention to detail. And, speaking of detail, will you look at this frickin' sole?!

Argh! Too awesome! If you were trying to hide out in a blue jungle, you could do worse than slipping these on and sticking your legs in the air. So, in honour of the trainers (which I wore 4 days in a row last week), I have been doing some serious casual dressing...

When I say 'casual', obviously I mean with diamantes on my shoulders.

 

And a statement necklace. Naturally...

Little Scribbler: gets her legs out. Warning - may contain blinding whiteness.

I don't get my legs out. They're big and they're pasty. However, owing to my slight weight loss and great gym action (bless you combat and rpm), everything's tighter and more toned than ever - except when I was a smooth skinned kid, obvs. Oh, make no mistake, I still have thighs like the peely walliest cottage cheese. But there's less of them these days. And so, one warm day, I decided that it was acceptable to get my pins (ha. HA. Pins - ten pins perhaps) out. And do you know what? They're not really that bad at all. I mean, no-one's ever going to be overheard wishing they had Little Scribbler's legs (ass, I'll give you. Who doesn't want junk like that?) but they're not horrific. So here's to celebrating bodies that aren't, in fact, that bad after all and having the confidence to get your bits and pieces out. Woop! I recommend that you all do it immediately.

Dress: Topshop, cardi: Primark, belt: M&S, shoes: New Look sale bargain!

Green toenails! Not gonna lie, I had to do a tweaky effect to cover the smudged bits on them. I am such a tatty thing.