White blazer

We had a great day out yesterday, meeting a friend and her children, at a local war museum. We all had fun, there was plenty there for the kids to do, and we had sunshine for the majority of the day! Hooray!

I decided it would be the perfect day to test out a new white blazer I recently bought on Ebay. It's actually by F&F from Tesco, and I got it for less than £4 including postage. I've never been one for blazers, but I ended up bidding on this on impulse in the last seconds of an auction, and I'm glad I did. I quite fancy getting another blazer or two now, and am going to be searching the shops for some in a jersey type fabric. Anyone seen any nice ones anywhere?

I teamed the blazer with a turquoise dress that I've had for years, which was originally from H&M, and flat sandals, again which I've had for several years. Oh, and my sunnies too, which were from Primark in the sale a few weeks ago, I think they were only 50p!

So here is yesterday's outfit:

Casual birthday.....

Today my son turned 3, and as we've had a day at home entertaining relatives and opening presents, followed by dinner out at good old Frankie and Benny's, I decided to go smart casual in a long Mango top and leggings. The bangles were from Primark, I think they were only a couple of pounds but they're great. I love silver jewellery and wear them with loads of different outfits. My feet aren't in the pic but I wore black flat thong sandals rather than heels today. My feet got a bit wet in the rain but I point blank refuse to wear anything other than sandals at this time of year, bit of wishful/positive thinking for nicer weather later in the week ;-)

Sunny Sunday

We've had a real mix of weather here today; beautiful warm sunshine this morning, then showers this afternoon when the temperature dropped, and now it's early evening it's warm again but raining too! As it was nice weather this morning, I thought I'd wear a dress today.

I picked this up in H&M in Exeter on our holiday to Devon last week and I really love it. Even my 13 year old approved, so I absolutely had to buy it, as her approval of my choice of clothes is quite rare ;-)  Plus it was only £12.99, which I thought was a great price, and I think the Zebra print is just so cute. I can see me wearing this in the winter too, with leggings and a cardi. I like things I can wear all year round!  The sandals were from New Look, I've had them for a year or two, and although they're high, they're pretty comfy too!

Back to blogging!

Oooops, it's been almost two months since I last did a post on here! A holiday to Greece, lots of school events for my 7 year old, and being busy with my 3 year old's social life has meant that I've neglected this blog. Back to business as normal now though!

One of the biggest trends in the shops currently seems to be coloured jeans! I wasn't going to go there this time round, as I've tried them before when they were last in fashion around 5 years ago, and I just didn't feel comfortable in them. However, the ones that I had previously were boot-cut in design, and when I went into my local Next store and saw that they did coloured skinny jeans in a whole host of colours, I decided to try a pair on and absolutely LOVED them.  I've had them for a couple of weeks now and have worn them several times, and had quite a few (very positive) comments about them. When in my local Asda yesterday, I noticed that they are also doing pastel coloured skinnies,and I found a lovely pair in an off-white colour, so they might be my next buy! So, here is today's outfit:

Slightly blurry pic as my 13 year old photographer is out this evening ;-) : Jeans from Next, white vest from Primark, black Top Shop vest, and sandals from Faith.


Also, as the theme of this blog is looking good on a low budget, I thought I would also share a couple of bargain beauty buys I've bought lately. Both are from Asda; there is an N-spa Raspberry Milkshake body scrub, which I picked up for an amazing 50p, and also a George bright blue nail polish, which I plan to use on my toenails as a change from my usual rouge noir or coral, for £1! Have you found any good fashion or beauty bargains lately? I'd love to hear about them if you have!

Cute Dress!


I have to say I really love dresses, either worn casually or for nights out.  I'm not really much of a jeans person, although I do wear them occasionally.  I'm always on the lookout for nice dresses, especially versatile ones that can be dressed up or down and worn in all seasons.

I bought this dress in my local Matalan; I think I went in for underwear for the kids or something but ended up browsing the womens section and just had to buy this.  I've got a couple of other Matalan dresses in my wardrobe and I really like them; they're very affordable but also decent quality too.  Shockingly for the end of May I needed leggings with the dress today, and a cardi, and I'm still wearing my trusty UGGs even though technically we should all be wearing sandals now at this time of year. Oh the joys of British weather, hey!


Right, so here goes:

Dress from Matalan, Cardi from Primark (£3 or something like that! Bargain!), Leggings are from Next, and boots are Uggs.  Oh and please do excuse the hoover lead in the background.  Proof that I do (sometimes) do a bit of housework!

Pre-Holiday Haul


I'm back after a hectic, but fun, weekend, and am now getting sorted for the holiday, hooray!  Well when I say getting sorted, I mean getting the clothes washed and ironed.  Darling hubby still needs to get up in the loft and get the cases down!  I haven't bought a huge amount of clothing for the holiday and thought I'd mainly use things I've already got, but couldn't resist having a bit of a pre-holiday clothing haul.


If, like me, you live out in the sticks, H&M online ordering is fantastic.  It means that I don't have to traipse 40 miles to our nearest store with a whingey teenager, bored 7 year old and tantruming 2 year old!  So, from H&M, I got the skirt shown below, which I think is very versatile and will look great worn with a plain vest top, heels and jewellery, and I absolutely love the colour too!  I did buy a plain black vest top to wear with it too but I won't post a pic as I'm sure you've all seen plenty of plain black vest tops!

Next from H&M I got this fantastic white vest-dress, which I think will look great with a tan (or loads of freckles, in my case!!).  And again, I'll dress it up with silver accessories and some heels.  And a total bargain for just £7.99!  So here we go:

I have also been to good old Primark and got this lovely vest-top for £1.70!  At that price it would have been rude not to buy it wouldn't it?  I think this will look great with white linen trousers or white shorts:

And then, again from Primark and for a bargainous £3 I got these bangles, which I'm going to wear with the white dress and probably loads of other outfits.  I buy loads of bangles but they all seem to disappear.  I think my 2 year old may have something to do with it....

Hello!

A lovely nice shiny new blog for me to write in! I'm so excited!

A little bit about me to start with:  I'm Rachel, I'm 35 and live with my husband and our 3 children aged 13, 7 and 2, in Norfolk.  I'm a stay at home mum but am not quite ready to ditch the Topshop clothes and flicked eyeliner quite yet, quite the opposite really.  I love clothes, and am on a budget, so often visit shops like Primark, New Look and Topshop, and I absolutely love good old Ebay and also the occasional charity shop find too.  I'm planning to post my outfits on a daily basis on here, as well as photos of clothing hauls and lots of general chit chat about, erm, clothes.  Oh and shoes and bags too!

We're off on holiday fairly soon so, having decided I don't actually like many items in my 'holiday wardrobe', I've been on a few mad sprees recently to buy bits and pieces to take with me, so I'll be popping back on later with photos of my hauls!  And an outfit of the day photo taken once my photographer (AKA my darling teenager) gets home from school!