Choices, Choices

I am going on a girl’s day/night out in Manchester on Friday. It is an event that a group of friends and I like to try and arrange every few months as we all live in different places and don’t get to catch up very often.

I have been looking for a dress that will take me from afternoon to evening and also something summery and bright. I refuse to think that it will be anything else other than glorious sunshine.

I recently found the Floral Border Print Dress from the Koko range at +Simply Be  and completely fell in love. I have never worn any of these colours before and certainly not in that combination. The print of the dress made me thinking of a Monet painting and I couldn’t resist buying it.

I confess that I am more than a little nervous to wear this dress as it is the most “look at me” item of clothing that I have ever owned. You certainly won’t be able to miss me in it and that in itself is terrifying me (shush, don’t tell anything I told you), so much so that I decided to have a test run of the whole outfit.

I’ve gone a few different ways with the styling of the outfit combining cardigans and shoes and can’t decide which way to go so decided to ask for your thoughts???

Look One

Red cardigan, nude and black shoes

Look Two

Black cardigan, black strappy shoes or alternatively.....

Look Three

Screw the cardigan & black shoes.

Answers on a postcard, or just in the comments box which might by easier ;)

10 Day You Challenge–Day 3!

Today is eight fears.

Fear I think is something much more personal to share than things you love.  You can have irrational fear, illogical fear, unfounded fear and secret fear, all as real as one another but we share them with others than the things we love.

1. Spiders.  Probably something on a lot of people’s lists.  But seriously, NOTHING needs that many legs.  The spiders that turn up in my house I swear have been down to the gym first.  They are always huge and can run like a mothertrucker.
2. Open stairs.  As I mentioned on day one, I have a problem with stairs, but when faced with a set of open stairs, I break out into a sweat and start to panic.  I would rather face a charging Rhino than open stairs.
3. The thought that I might never meet someone who gets my brand of crazy, and loves me still, scares the hell out of me.  I don’t want to walk through this life to the end on my own.
4. A secret fear, that no one knows about, is that for some reason I am getting increased scared to be a passenger in a car.  I gave my car up about 5 years ago (not for this reason) but always loved driving and being in a car, preferably fast down a motorway.  Now I am increasingly getting scared.  I will beat this fear. 
5. The dentist.  I’ve never had or needed more than a scrape and polish all my life until last year when I knocked a tooth loose and needed an extraction.  Combining 1 emergency dentist, 1 tooth out and anaesthetic which I’ve never had before numbing my entire throat equalled a panic attack outside of the dentist, unable to breath.  Since then I am a quivering wreck in the waiting room and in the chair.  Note to self, take someone with you.
6. Snow and ice.  I am terrified of falling over and slipping in snow and ice.  This just seems to get worse with age.  This winter though I invested in some ice cleats, finally, which helped enormously.  I could actually walk around with looking like a complete idiot.
7. Letting down the people I care about.  Self explanatory really!
8. Fear itself.  I don’t want to be afraid of anything. 

So there you go! 8 fears.  See, they are more personal than things you love aren’t they?

Writing Free

When I write these days it is usually for a specific post for the blog be it clothing related, a blogger challenge or an opinion piece.  What I can't remember is when I just wrote for the sake of it.

If you love to write then you know what I am talking about.  You just ramble away on a piece of paper or in this case on my laptop; not sure what you are writing but somehow it just flows out of you and eventually, starts to tie itself together and make sense.

I used to write like that quite a lot and a few pieces made it on to the blog.  I found it incredibly cathartic to use something that was rattling around in my head by putting it down on paper, seeing where my thoughts take me, never stopping typing, just letting it flow.

More than once I would stop typing, read back what I had written, and realised what I truly felt about something.  What Stephen King said is so completely true, I write to find out what I think.

Free Writing I think they call it.  It is something I would definitely recommend, whether you are just trying to find out what your opinion is on a particular subject, or you are dealing with an issue that you have been ignoring.

I call it my free counselling as whatever I am thinking about a lot, I write about it in one form or another and I am able to resolve the problem. 

There is no point in this post today, so sorry if you were expecting one ;) I just wanted to do a little of what I used to.  Ramble on, on this occasion it seems about how much I am missing writing, even though I am writing all the time.  Odd.  But then, I am.  That's me.

Maybe I need another blog in addition to this one.  Ramblings of a Crazy Lady or something.

Anyway. As you were.

Moving to Bloglovin' !

Firstly, I'm sorry, I know that you are seeing these posts everything at the moment but as Google Reader is shortly closing down, I thought I would join in with providing details of how you can still follow my blog.

You can follow me on Bloglovin' by clicking here

Bloglovin' has very helpfully come up with a way of moving all your contacts from Google Reader to them with a click of a button. Just hit http://www.bloglovin.com/import/reader

I hope to see you there!

 

Lovely Dresses from Bon Marche?

I’ll make a confession.   I have always associated Bon Marche as being somewhere for the older generation to shop in.  It isn’t somewhere I have ever bought anything in for about 20 years and I think that the last time I was in a Bon Marche shop was 15 years ago.

I recently saw Bon Marche on Twitter and out of curiosity I decided to have a look at what they were currently doing with their clothing ranges.  Now, whilst I think that a lot of their range is still edged towards the older category, no high heels for example, there are now mixed in a lot of items that I would buy myself.

Bon Marche feature a lot of colour and a large variety of prints, both of which are brilliant for the summer months.  With stripes, Aztec and floral prints to chose from, there are many dresses that are right on trend.

Given that I am a dress girl at heart I have decided to feature my four favourite dresses here as an example of what you can now buy.  The great thing is that with their reasonable pricing structure, I can probably afford to buy one or more sooner than I would with other more expensive brands.

I promise, this isn’t a sponsored post by the way, I was so pleasantly surprised with what they have available, I wanted to blog about it!

Scratch Stripe Skater Dress with Ribbon Belt

£20.00

Tribal Print Shirred Dress

£18.00

Crochet Trim Printed Maxi Dress

£25.00

Short Mock Tie Front Beach Dress

£15.00

 So those of my four favourite dresses from Bon Marche.  You can get 10% discount off your first order from Bon Marche through www.FashionPerks.co.uk using their Bon Marche Discount Code 

Have you rediscovered any brands lately?

10 Day You Challenge–Day 2

Nine loves in my life – this one should be easy!

1. My family but especially my mum who look amazing for her age and is just as daft as I am.  Sometimes we laugh until tears roll down our faces.  She is a friend as well as my mum.
2. My friend family.  My close friends I love just as much as family.  We are a jigsaw puzzle that you maybe think won’t work, but we fit together perfectly.
3. The people I work with, especially my friend Wendy.  If you are spending the majority of your week at work, getting along with the people you work with is a necessity.  I am lucky enough to have a boss who looks out for me and my colleague who is the perfect match to share a room with. 
4. Writing/blogging.  This has come to mean more to me than I ever thought it could.  Especially when I receive messages saying that something that I have wrote, or a picture of myself that I have shared, has given someone else confidence to do the same.
5. Formula One – on race day, my heart beats to the drum of a Formula One car. 
6. Red lipstick.  Red feels like confidence to me, and when I wear red lipstick, I feel that I have an extra spark about me.
7. I love films. especially action and sci fi movies.  Horrors rarely scare me although you do get the occasional one that will find me hiding under the bed clothes at the end of the night.
8. The path I have put myself on.  I have come a very long way from the girl I used to be, and I am really looking forward to what lies ahead of me.
9. My dogs, especially my little dog Ellie, whom I inexplicably have nicknamed Sausage Monkey.  I adore that dog.

So there you go! nine loves in my life!

Winner of the @LoveMisbehave Necklace is.....

Nikki Sumner!!

Contact me on thecurvedopinion@gmail.com  and I will post your necklace out to you!

 

Second Vlog

Two posts today!!  One blog and one vlog!

You can find the link to my Youtube video here Society v The Breast Issue

 

10 Day You Challenge–Day 1

I have previously been doing the 52 Lists, but somehow it wasn’t inspiring me.  I liked the fact that you could share more of yourself to the reader, but I wasn’t connecting with the challenge for some reason.

This week however I came across the 10 Day You Challenge on Natty Nikki's blog.  Neither of us know where the challenge originated and if you know, please tell me and I will credit appropriately.

Anyhow!  Day one of the challenge is ten secrets.  I try not to keep secrets if at all possible as it always leads to trouble, but here are 10 facts about me, some you may know, some you won’t.

1. I always care more than I will ever admit about people, issues and things close to my heart.  Admitting that you care isn’t weak.  Sometimes not admitting it is what gets you burned.


2. Stairs scare me.  I get dizzy and constantly feel like I will fall.


3. I once was driven in one of the Delorean cars from Back to the Future.  It kick started my love of fast cars, even though it was particularly fast looking back!


4. I am a huge fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and could sing (badly) along to every word of “Once More with Feeling”.


5. I bit my nails until about two months ago.


6. I will never let someone treat me less than I deserve to be treated again.  I am worth more than a standby, or a secret behind closed doors.


7. I have eight tattoos, and am pining after number nine.


8. A little piece of my heart belongs to the Mary Jane style of shoes.


9. Another piece of my heart belongs to Formula One.  My spirits raise and my heart beats a little faster when I hear the “dum da da dum dadadadada dum” of The Chain.


10. If you are a tall man, you are already high in the positives on the “Vicky would like” list.

What do you think about sharing secrets?

The Most Comfortable Pants in all the Land!

You know when you look at an item of clothing and immediately think “No way!”.  That is what I thought when I first saw the current trend for floral trousers.  Not because I didn’t like them, because I loved them, I just didn’t myself in them in a million years.

I have seen several different variations of these trousers around and have seen lots of plus size bloggers wearing them, but I just couldn’t envisage my being able to pull them off.  Floral dress yes, floral trousers, running for the hills was the basic thought process.

Because I regularly check (for regularly, read every day but shush!)  but I knew that if I were to buy floral trousers, then the @So_Fab_Clothing trousers from +Very.co.uk were the ones I would choose.

As one of my newest quotes to live by is “If you don’t try, you don’t know”, finally this week I bit the bullet and ordered them, found here and currently on sale, the day after I purchased, typical!

It should be noted by the way that this is the first time I have worn anything but a dress for around three months!

P.S.  Don't forget to enter my blog giveaway for a necklace from LoveFromMisbehave.com !  Ends Wednesday and found here

What's in your Handbag?

Monkey Supermarket are currently running a competition in order to win a Mulberry handbag and for a chance to enter, they want to see inside our handbags!  

Their home insurance expert estimates that women carry around with them on average the sum of £850.00 worth of contents within our handbag and I must confess, I was very curious to see what my total would be.

When it comes to my week day handbag, I like to cover most eventualities.  The thing about having a large bag however is that things seem to disappear into it, never to resurface until you have a clear out.

I took the opportunity of this blog post to go through the contents of my handbag and remove the excesses, including more lipsticks and glosses than I would admit!  I have never really thought about the value of the items I carry around with me so this has been an interesting experiment.

My bag is from Fiorelli and cost me £60.00 about three years ago.  It it a classic shape and style and is perfect for my day to day use as it goes with practically everything.

I have divided the contents into sections, all of which help me in my daily life and are permanent fixtures in my handbag.

Every Day Essentials

Purse - £5.00 from Primark
Cash inside - £20.00

Blackberry - £200.00

Monthly bus pass - £39.00

Face powder – approx £6.00

Powder brush - £3.00

Lip tint from MUA - £3.00

Crystal cat keyring - £5.00

If I were forced to use a smaller handbag during the week, these would be my absolute essentials.  Yes, three items are makeup, but I fail to see the point in applying it at the start of the day only to end up with a shiny nose and dull lips by the end of it.  I am a woman after all!

To Wear Off Boredom

Book - £9.99

Notebook for blog ideas - £10.00

Pen – £1.00

Apple Earphones - £25.00

Blackberry – already listed

For my daily trip to work on the bus or when I am travelling in general I like to have a variety of options to entertain me.  I always have a book with me and a notebook for jotting down blog ideas.  In addition I like to listen to music on the way to work on my phone which also obviously offers the connection to the internet and my addiction that is Twitter.

Helpful Items

Umbrella - £10.00

Dorothy Perkins Sunglasses - £7.00

Spare Blackberry battery £15.00

Blackberry charger £15.00

The three things I detest are getting caught in the rain, being caught in bright sunshine for over an hour without sunglasses and my beloved Blackberry running out of charge (hence the two options on the battery front!). 

My Fix Me Up Kit

Marc Jacobs perfume - £20.00

Benefit They’re Real Mascara - £19.50
MUA Red lip tint – already listed
Pink lipstick from No 7 - £9.00
Little Pink Tin of Lip Moisturiser - £3.00
Soap & Glory body butter - £7.50
Two different hair slides - £8.00
No 7 Slanted Tweezers - £8.00
Two hair bobbles – 50p

I always like to have a little fix me up kit in my handbag.  This works twofold in that I have the everyday items that I use to touch myself up with and also some additions such as the earrings, the mascara and the hairslides/bobbles which I can use to change up my look if I am going straight from work to a catch up with the girls.

One of my pet hates is having to lug another bag to work if you intend on going out for the evening straight after, so I have whittled my kit down to the utmost essentials that can easily and quickly take me from a day to a night time look.

If I had to chose just one item out of everything in my handbag to carry around with me it would have to be my Blackberry.  My phone is the most multi-functional item in my handbag, it would get me most things at the touch of a button and it is what I would chose in a crisis.

Taking into account the cost of the handbag and the contents, this equates to a handbag total of £509.49.  Considering that the average is £850.00 I am quietly impressed with myself!

What do you carry in your handbag?

 

Milestone Necklace Giveaway!

Writing a blog is a strange thing.  Although you are putting your point of view and images on the internet, with anyone able to access it, I am always surprised when someone finds it and actually reads it.

When I started my blog in July 2010 I had the idea that I wanted a blog but didn’t really have a focus of what I wanted to talk about or what direction I was going in.  I remember being excited that in my first month I had 49 views!

Over the past year I have found the path I want my blog to take and the views have been increasing every month.  Although I knew that I was getting a fair few hits per month now, it was still quite a shock to realised that at the beginning of this week I reached 25,000 views.  Not a lot for some, but a great achievement for me and something I am proud of.

I wanted to celebrate reaching this milestone and so decided to host a giveaway on my blog.  I reached out to the lovely Allie of Love from Misbehave to see if she would like to participate in the giveaway and she has kindly donated a necklace, pictured below and linked here.

I first found Love From Misbehave via their Twitter feed Love Misbehave and have been a huge fan of their jewellery ever since.   In addition to jewellery they also sell tshirts, hair pieces and scarves.   I urge you to check out their website as they have some fantastic pieces, at great prices.

 

Love from Misbehave will be reaching their first birthday in a few months so make sure to look out on their site/Twitter feed for giveaways and offers.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Old Toothy!

I'm writing this post further to the Flash the Flesh Challenge on Saturday, which is all about being happy and confident in yourself.  I wanted to do a short post today to tell you this little story which make me laugh about how silly I have been.

I have a gap in my teeth that I’ve hated all my life,  Every smile I’ve ever given has had my tongue pressed up right against the gap so you couldn’t see it as much.  It’s a ridiculous thing to do but I’ve always done it. 

Recently I decided to do a vlog post, found here.  What I immediately noticed upon watching it back, which had never occurred to me before, is that the gap is perfectly notable when I talk, so all these years of trying to hide it have been completely pointless!

I can’t believe that I’ve actually spent my whole life shoving my tongue behind the gap in my teeth, without ever realising that it was perfectly visible when I was speaking.  What a lunatic I am!  It also then of course dawned on me that it has also been visible to others and I had never had any bad comments about it, so why the worry and insecurity?

Sometimes the insecurities we have are ones that we force upon ourselves without any interference of society and other people’s opinions. 

What have you been insecure about that you have had no need to?

Flash the Flesh Challenge - Part 2!

When a group of bloggers join together for a chat you know that the final result has to be super!! This happened once more when, a few weeks ago, we were talking about our preferences between mini and maxi and Becky  thought that it would be great to create a challenge which goal was to show a little bit more skin and our body (but with style and no vulgarity) showing proudly our curves. And so it was born “Flash the Flesh”.

Last month on the Flash the Flesh challenge I showed a part of my blog that I like.  This month, I wanted to do something that I wasn’t as comfortable with showing, in this case my legs.

Although I don’t have an issue with my legs from the knees down, I don’t like my knees/thighs and any hem that came above that I have always made sure was worn with either tights or leggings.  I recently bought a dress for the summer from +Very.co.uk  though which is so pretty, but wouldn’t look right with anything but bare legs.

I tried this dress on several times, with different shoes and heels and in the end, I really like this dress so why should a little insecurity hold me back from keeping it? 

I really like this time and it is perfect for an afternoon out in the Summer.  I am not normally one for white dresses but I loved the style of this one.  It can be found here for the bargain price of £22.00.

Dressed to the Max

Hello all! Hope you are enjoying the sunshine just as much as I am. This is the third post in the series of monthly challenges and the theme this month is maxi dresses. 

We will be posting on the 7th of each month, and the aim of the challenge is to create an outfit to fit the theme, using clothes from our wardrobes, and yes that does mean digging deep into the depths and finding those long lost clothes!  Hopefully one of us won't end up in the Narnia, but you never know with a blogger's wardrobe!

When I saw that the challenge this month was maxi dresses I must confess that I gave a little cheer.  I have had a maxi dress in my wardrobe since the Summer sales ended last year and it has never been worn.  

It was one of those lucky things when you see the potential in something which everyone else has bypassed.  I spied a pretty print, all but hidden and squashed in the sale rack (which I never usually have the time to trawl through) and after wrestling with half dozen mixed up hangers, pulled out this lovely.

It fits just right on me and I’m mad about the butterfly print.  The dress feels silky to touch and for the price of £11.00 in the sale at +Dorothy Perkins , it was an absolute steal!
I have styled the dress today with an oatmeal coloured shrug from Yours Clothing and some sparkly heels which I bought a couple of years ago from +Next for a wedding.

Please check out the other lovely ladies involved with this challenge.

Beth

Becky

Nicola

Gail

Kirsty

Kaye

Mary

Kathryn

Steph

Charley

Rebecca

Nikki

Lindsey

Christiana

5 Questions

I recently was asked by the lovely Mary of Mary's Big Closet to answer some questions and submit a few photos for her blog.

Here are the results.  Thanks Mary!

Guest Post with The Curved Opinion

A Case of Charity

Just like I once had a huge aversion to the sale rack in a shop, I also used to have a dislike for buying things from charity shops.  I would happily donate frequently, but every charity shop I went into seemed to smell and nothing ever seemed to appeal. 

I don’t know if this applies to just shops in my local area or is a widespread thing, or alternatively, if I’m just being a snobby bugger.

Anyhow……..  A few monthly ago now I was having a clear out of my wardrobe, out with the black, in with the colour and so had a ton of clothing to donate.  There is a Barnardos charity shop just down the road from me which I hadn’t previously been to so I decided to take everything down to them.

What a difference a bit of inspiration makes!   The volunteers and staff at this shop have made such an effort with this shop.  The displays are different every time I go in with different items available, all the clothing is colour coordinated and everything is sized correctly.  The clothing, shoes and general bric a brac is sectioned off perfectly in order to attract customers and every time I go into the shop I feel like I am walking into an Aladdin’s cave of enticing things to buy.

I was thinking of this shop yesterday as when I got to work, I realised that most of my outfit I have purchased from Barnardos. 

 

Like an idiot I managed to take a photograph of the dress and then deleted it by accident however you have seen before on the Flash the Flash challenge last month.  Here is a picture of the bag which is my most recent find for the bargain price of £4.00.
 

 

 

Have you had any great finds lately?