Fat Frocks: 80s fancy dress

Let's take our precious time about it

By Gem - 13:14:00

Just a bit of a weekly round up today...

I've mostly been cooking lots of things from the Members' Favourites cookbook that the lovely people at Weight Watchers sent me. My favourite recipe was the butternut squash brushed in chilli and rosemary topped with quorn mince, peppers and feta mmm!

weight watchers, cookbook, butternut squash

I got some lovely things in the post like a postcard from Alice and my huge F21 order. I went a little mad because all the jewellery is about £2-4. I did some last minute shopping for Mothers' Day (sorry Mam, forgot all about it)

I discovered Noodlebox in Cardiff, best noodles ever! I went to see The Maccabees who are one of my all time favourite bands. They have the best songs, they are always so happy to see that so many people have turned up to the gig and it helps that Orlando Weeks is incredibly beautiful. I got the most amazingly wrapped parcel from Rosie, I was so excited when I saw the parcel. It was so thoughtfully put together, thank you :)

I wore my new Monsoon dress to The Maccabees but couldn't get a good photo of it so will do a full outfit post on it soon. So girly and frilly! I've also been wearing my new bargain H&M dress which was about £9.99 and my cheapy £2.99 New Look sunglasses.

monsoon dress, h&m dress, floral, stripes

23 Comments

80s fancy dress

Fat Frocks Wants...

By Gem - 15:10:00

I'm lusting after so many dresses at the moment and after recently selling ten old ones on eBay I have a good excuse to buy some new ones. I like dresses that I can wear to work, the pub and days out with friends. I think all of these dressed can be dressed down with a cardigan and flats or dressed up with heels, clutch and a pretty necklace.
I'm a bit fed up of Dorothy Perkins *shock* but I am loving ASOS and New Look at the moment, these are the dresses on my current wish list.

ASOS

1 Love this navy dress and it has gone down from £40 to £20 so I placed an order today, might do a Sarah and get in in the teal colour too if it looks nice on.

2 I don't have anything like, I think the neckline will be very flattering but it looks a tad short. Models are usually about 5ft10 though so I might be ok.

3 My lovely green and red lace dresses don't really fit me a\anymore and will be going on eBay soon so I will need a replacement lace dress and this is one of the best I've seen. It has sleeves so I wont need to wear a cardi and it looks nice and long.

New Look

4 I have this dress in black and I love it, the dress is more of a bright coral colour in person and is gorgeous. This is a definite #ldnlunch option.

5 This would be great for nights out with some tights and a pastel coloured cardi.

6 Perfect work wear and a good dress to wear on a Friday when I go to the pub after work. Apply some lippy and you're ready to go.

What items do you have on your wish list at the moment? Which Spring/Summer collections are your favourite?

27 Comments

80s fancy dress

Giveaway winners and sale bargains

By Gem - 21:41:00

It has been a manic week for me, all the students have deadlines and exams so it has been pretty busy in work. I'm still settling into my new working hours but I've had a bit of time to myself this week. I have been cooking every night when I get home from work and I managed to do some shopping on Saturday.
I bagged myself some sale bargains including this dress from New Look. I came away with a few blouses and dresses and bought loads of lovely, thick scarves from H&M for £2. I wore this to work today and could only take this one photo outside before I had to run back in, sooo cold!

This week I've mainly been wrapped up and new new H&M bargains are helping me to beat the cold.

Hat: H&M
Scarf: H&M
Coat: New Look

My mam thinks I look like the girls from The Railway Children when I wear this, what do you think?

I drew the winners of my Burt's Bees and Fairytales and Hidden Notes giveaway and the winners are (no idea how to get a screen capture of the random.org thing) -

Beth from Ramz and the Flock wins the Fairy tales and Hidden Notes bracelet and two Burt's Bees body lotions and Jennifer June from Inordinately Plush wins the two Burts's Bees body lotions!

Congrats ladies, I will be emailing you shortly.

There is a Boux Avenue competition which is running until 12pm tomorrow so you will have to be quick to enter! They stock sizes ranging from 30A to 40H Boux Avenue have a huge selection of gorgeous bras for you to choose from. To celebrate their fabulous collections Boux Avenue asks the question – What’s your bra size?

It's not a question all of us may want to divulge the answer to, but it’s for prizes, and Boux Avenue want us to celebrate our cleavages in all their glory – whatever your size!

Boux Avenue are running a very exciting twitter competition giving away a £10 Boux Avenue Gift Card to someone of each cup size.

To enter tweet @BouxAvenue linking to your favourite Boux bra in your size, using the hashtag #BouxSizePrize.

Here’s an example:

@BouxAvenue This is my favourite http://www.bouxavenue.com/lyla-satin-balconette-bra-black-mix/100428-01bx 36D #BouxSizePrize

Not sure if I will be shouting out my bra size on twitter because my boss follows me but thought you guys might be interested in winning a gift card.

Just one more thing, I sometimes write reviews for the blog Judging Covers. You can check out my reviews, find a great new book to read and have your say on a book by clicking the image below.

What have you been reading lately? Have you manged to pick up any late sale bargains like me?

20 Comments

80s fancy dress

A week (and a bit) in Photos

By Gem - 18:51:00

It has been another busy week for me, it is deadline time for students so the library is crazy busy. I've still had time to relax and party though and this is what I've been up to-

Scrap booking- I'm not like those crazy American mums who spend hours creating very elaborate scrapbooks with ribbon and craft glue. I just stick everything in a big book with pritt stick so I don't lose all of my gig tickets and little things I pick up on my travels. I find it quite therapeutic and it gave me a chance to reflect on all the fun things I've done this year.

I went out in Cardiff on Saturday and drank quite a few cocktails....

Too many mojitos=total mess. I ended up back at my mates house by 12 watching X Factor and having some toast. Can't party like I used to any more!

I won a giveaway on A Blog From Blackpool and Danielle sent me these lovely goodies. I scoffed the choccy straight away and been wearing the festive brooch to work :) Thanks Danielle!

This is what I wore to work yesterday, it is sooo cold in Cardiff so I'm digging all out all my long sleeved dresses and my fur stole to keep warm.

Dress: Dorothy Perkins

Belt: Dorothy Perkins

Stole: H&M

I'm going to the Bristol Bloggers Christmas party on Friday which I am really excited about and it means I get to annoy the lovely Lyzi and Bee again and I'm sharing a room with Leanne and Vicky. Are you coming? Say hello to me on twitter as I think a few of us are meeting for lunch before we check in to the hotel at 3ish.

I also posted on Where Are My Knees? last week about my -50lbs loss this year which you can read here.

Are you finding all this festivity too much of a fuss? What have you enjoyed doing recently?

16 Comments

80s fancy dress

Darling, you give love a bad name!

By Gem - 20:38:00

I had such a lovely time this weekend. It was my friend Sarah's hen night and I really got in to the spirit of it all. I don't normally drink much and I NEVER do fancy dress but I made an exception for Sarah.
We went for lunch and had cupcakes and a chat before the main festivities in the evening. The place we went to for lunch had bottomless chips, so bad when I'm trying to stick to my Where Are My Knees pledge.
There was an 80's fancy dress theme in the evening but I avoided leg warmers and went for a rock look which channelled Axl Rose and but the end of the night I looked like something from Twisted Sister and got my red lipstick everywhere.

I got all of the decorations, sashes and veil from lastnightoffreedom.co.uk

As you can see I was a bit of a mess by the end of the night which I blame on the cocktails in disco balls and pitchers of Long Island iced tea. I felt gross the next day and had 150 photo that I don't remember taking so a pretty good night out!

I made little party bags for all 26 girls, the 'survival kits' came in handy and I stuffed them with sweets and man rating stickers. I got everything I needed for the bags on eBay, they only cost about 80p per bag which I think is pretty good. They went down really well and a lot of the girls have kept the stickers as a keepsake.