Love Letter #8

Hello lovelies, here's some pretty things that have been making me smile this week!

I adore this pretty outfit - all the shapes and colours are perfect, and what girl's wardrobe is complete without a wicker elephant bag?

 

Everyone should check out Danielle's new website, Kitschy Digitals, it's full of craft ideas and pretty things to put on your blog!

This skirt from Anthropologie is so lovely, perfect for swishing around to show off the coloured panels.

I recently discovered UK-based ceramics company Magpie and I'm in love!  All of their mugs and crockery have the perfect combination of cute artwork and stylish typography, plus everything is super affordable - that's my friends' birthday presents sorted for the next year...

My current phone wouldn't look out of place in the early noughties, so I'll presumably be peer pressured into getting a iphone sooner or later... When I do, I'll be sure to get a case like this one from Holga, it's pretty and practical!

I've been loving Tom Whalen's Disney screenprint series, especially this fantastic Toy Story poster.

I was happy to come across this photo of Audrey Hepburn on Pinterest, as I've seen this amazing space-age dress in real life in Glasgow's transport museum - it's good to see it in action!

This basically sums up my relationship with Tetley...

These hammock ladies are so stylish!  I can't help but wonder how they actually got into the hammocks though - it's a vintage mystery...

 

This scalloped mint satchel from Asos is pretty dreamy!

Finally, I may have screamed a little when I saw this picture of Arthur Darvill - perfect human being.

What have you been loving this week? :)

Faye 

xxx

Graduation

Last week, I graduated from the University of Dundee with my MA in English.  Graduating alongside me was Tetley, as well as many of my closest friends, all friends I've made over my amazing time at university.  I can genuinely say that the past four years have been the best years of my life, and while I'm returning to Dundee Uni after summer to do my Masters, I still feel sad that this stage of the experience has come to an end.  Before I get too emotional and embarass myself any further, I'll shut up and share a few pictures from the past week!

Wearing my fancy robes outside the Caird Hall.  It was windy but the sun came out which was unexpected!

Tetley looked pretty dapper in his suit and bowtie.

Being badasses with our degrees after the ceremony.

We all collected our robes the day before the ceremony, so that night we had a movie night where we watched Harry Potter with our robes on - living the dream!  Laura made these awesome graduation-themed cupcakes, the recipe is here on her blog if you'd like to give it a go.

On Saturday, we had our graduation ball at Dundee's student union.  Like most major events at the Union, they really went all out - the party was 12 hours long with a different event on every floor of the building and even more going on in marquees outside, they even got some funfair rides for us!  Coincidentially all the friends who met at my flat beforehand were super coordinated, Laura said that we looked like we were doing a promotional shot for a sitcom...

Tetley won me this snake at the fair and I felt it went well with Ben's jungle tie.

Possibly the most ridiculously crazy looking photo of me that currently exists...

...or perhaps it's this one from the dodgems!  Apparently I was a very violent and angry driver, not that you can tell here.

The Union had hired a lot of bands to play, including Newton Faulkner as the headline act.  We ended up missing him and all the other bands though as we were having too much fun going between the funfair, the bar in the ceilidh tent, and the headphone disco marquee!

One of the channels at the headphone disco was playing a lot of cheesy and angsty music from our teens, hence these questionable poses...

After this point my photos disintegrate into drunken nonsense, so I'll probably leave it here...  I really did have such a fantastic night though, I wish we could graduate more often!

Hope everyone else had a lovely weekend. :)

Faye 

xxx

Dress Crush: Yumi

On one of my Love Letter posts a while back, I shared this pretty apple-print dress from Modcloth:

While I do love the dress, $89.99 plus postage to the UK is a bit out of my student budget.  However, when I read the product description on the dress, I realised it was actually from a UK-based company called Yumi.  After having a browse through Yumi's site, I quickly fell in love with their dresses - so many 50s and 60s shapes, cute collars, and adorable prints!  As well as the apple dress above, these five really caught my eye:

All these dresses are priced around £40, and for orders over £20 from Yumi, postage in the UK is free!  As much as I love Modcloth and other US-based clothing websites, I've now realised it's always worth checking if the stockists are closer to your home if you want to save some money!

Which dress is your favourite?

Faye

xxx

Stonehaven Photoshoot

A few days ago, I did another photoshoot with my photographer friend Laura.  This time, we took the bus out to Stonehaven, a very old-fashioned and picturesque Scottish fishing village.  Although we only had a window of about an hour to actually take the photos because of the limited bus services, Laura managed to do a great job and get some amazing shots.

The lovely Hannah was also modelling, she's such a pro compared to me!

Luckily, you can't tell that I am freezing cold and shivering in all of these photos - wearing a thin dress and no shoes in the evening in Scotland is rarely a good plan!

For the shoot, we worked with a makeup artist who's also called Hannah, of Hannah Paints Faces.  We were sat on a wall getting our makeup done while a group of kayakers were preparing to go out for a lesson right next to us, we got a few funny looks!

I think this one is my favourite, I love how the rocks and the sea look in the background.  Blogger is being temperamental today and not letting me resize the photos without them getting blurry, so click to see them bigger or have a look at Laura's photography's Facebook page!

This shoot was so much fun to do, I can't wait to do some more with Laura soon!

Faye
xxx

Love Letter #7

My internet has been a bit dodgy again these past few days, so here's a short and sweet list of things I've been loving this week!

I saw the film Moonrise Kingdom and I would highly recommend it, like all Wes Anderson movies it's pretty silly but every shot is total eye candy.  I especially loved the quirky decor in the house and all of the amazing 60s outfits!

I'm instantly drawn to any product that has pretty packaging so I'm definitely a fan of these bottles of Swedish liqour akvavit by Folksaga.  The sillhouette style of the pictures remind me of Jan Pienkowski's illustrations.

Kaylah of The Dainty Squid has been giving me some serious hair envy this week, I wish I was brave enough to dye my hair a bright colour!

These daisy flats by Moschino are the most summery shoes I've ever seen, I love the colour and the cute cut-out style.

I can't stop laughing at this amazing Avengers comic cover, so many jokes in a single image!  I suspect Loki was probably involved. ;)

Ruaridh and I visited a Cath Kidston store today and we spent about half an hour in there lusting over all of their gorgeous products... I like to imagine that when I'm grown up and presumably rich I'll buy all my clothes and homeware from there and be as classy and British-looking as this lady.

Finally, I love this picture!  The biting booth dog reminds me so much of my old dog Lilly with its demon eyes and creepy smile...

I hope everyone's having a fantastic weekend!  I just got back from Aberdeen, I had a great night out with my friends followed by a day of charity shopping, what have you been up to?

Faye
xxx

Thrifted Finds: Kitschy Mugs

Unless you're completely new to this blog, you'll probably have realised that I'm a bit of a compulsive collector.  Most of my collections have very little purpose other than to make my home look pretty (or cluttered and tacky, depending on your opinion...), but today I'm going to share a collection of objects that are actually pretty useful - mugs!

While three mugs isn't much of a collection, I am pretty picky about what I buy and only thrift mugs that are extra retro and/or kitsch!  I'm hoping to add a few more to my collection from this summer's bootsales.

I picked up this mug in a charity shop and I love it because it's so bizarre, I'm not sure why anyone would make a mug proclaiming love for bowls.  Ruaridh and I got a matching pair and the lady on the till thought we were a couple, she told us 'You may be sweet now, but you'll be throwing them at each other in 20 years' time!' It was a bit of an odd experience...

 This mug is pretty special to me as I was a Brownie Guide as a child and now I'm a leader with a Brownie group. I've sadly never seen a Brownie uniform as stylish as these 70s dresses though, I'm loving the little neckties!  I bought this mug from a lady at a bootsale and when I told her about my Brownie group she gave me a Brownies teddy bear for free to give to the girls, she was so sweet!

I picked this mug up in a charity shop in St Andrews, I love its amazing 90s design and the fact that it represents Jurassic Park, one of my all-time favourite movies!  I feel that the tackiness is enhanced by it being a specific promotional item for The Lost World, which is easily the most ridiculous and silly movie in the series (so far!).  The only way this mug could be better is if it had Jeff Goldblum's face on it.

Do you have any kitschy crockery or do prefer to have matching sets of mugs?

Faye 

xxx

Photoshoot

These past few days have been super busy for me - as well as preparing for graduation and starting my summer job, I've been helping my friend Laura with her photoshoots.

Laura is such an amazing photographer!  I'm normally the least photogenic person ever and I feel so awkward in front of the camera but she always manages to get great results.  (Either that or she takes so many photos that chances are there'll be at least a couple where I'm not making a goofy face!)

Laura also has a good eye for beautiful locations for her pictures, I love the contrast of the red door against my green dress.  It was difficult to keep up my serious photo face in these pictures though as people kept walking past and a group of children stopped to watch for a while, it was a bit awkward!

It was also hard to keep a straight face when Kelex who was helping Laura out kept waving the light reflector right next to my head to create an atmospheric breeze...

Kelex managed to take a couple of photos too, including this one.

I think these two are my favourites, I love the movement in the first one!

I'm doing another shoot with Laura next weekend in Stonehaven, which is a really pretty, old-fashioned Scottish seaside town.  We're hoping to get a hair and make-up artist and some vintage clothes to do a 50s style shoot, I'm so excited for that!

You should take a look at Laura's Facebook page, she has so many amazing photos with models who are far prettier and more professional than me!  She's also getting close to 500 likes and is offering a free professional photoshoot as a prize when she reaches 500, so get to it!

Faye
xxx