Labels I Love ♥ Motel

The last time I did Labels I Love I focused on the slightly too expensive yet heart-breakingly stunning Wildfox, but today I want to talk about a brand that not only makes gorgeous clothing but is also a lot more affordable - especially with the juicy 20% student discount they offer all the time! If you have heard of Motel then it's probably due to the amazing popularity of their Jordan jeans in the thick, vertical line print which I constantly lust after. I discovered them whilst browsing ASOS (seriously, ASOS is so great for finding new brands) and just haven't stopped adoring them since.
I love Motel for the following reasons: the gorgeous and totally modern cuts and shapes of their clothing, for example at the moment they have the most amazing dress called the Debbie which is so 90s and so lush that I am very close to purchasing it (along with everything else they sell). I also really love the body suits they do, I'd love to try one with a maxi skirt or some jeans, although I can't decide if I want a patterned one or a plain one. Every season brings some really unique and beautiful prints, and their newly realised collection is no different. My current (and I think everybody else's too) favourite is the 'gothic placement', which you can see on the jeans below and their newly releasing 'melting violet' tie dye style print, which is on the top below.
I don't really need to explain further how perfect their edgy, sometimes grungey, sometimes preppy clothes are; just look for yourself.

Wishlist (L-R): Ali Skater Dress - £48, Dana Off-Shoulder Top - £22, Jordan Skinny Jeans - £48, Annali Strapless Bustier Dress - £48

Hillary Strapless Body - £25, Debbie Off-Shoulder Dress - £32

Is there anything from Motel you love at the moment? Have you made any recent purchases I should be jealous of?

Birthday present haul!

My birthday was a few weeks ago (14th of August) and I was lucky enough to receive presents from a lot of my nearest and dearest so I thought I would share with you how awesome my friends (...and family) are!

The Boyfriend

Tatty Devine Pegasus Mini Necklace, My Wonderful World of Fashion Book, My Even More Wonderful World of Fashion Book

I cannot tell you how much I love this boy and how much I love these presents! All of them are things I wanted but completely forgot about. That Tatty Devine necklace is everything I adore; acrylic jewellery and wings! As for the fashion books (which are like inspirational colouring books), they are so awesome I might have to do a review of them.

The family

Loverdose Eau de Parfum and Body Lotion Set, Past Time Amber Bracelet, The Simple Art of Japanese Papercrafts Book

Again, carefully chosen gifts, Loverdose smells so good and weird and I've wanted it ever since I saw the ads (I know, shallow).
My brother got me some pop tarts...
The boyfriend's parents gave me some delicious honeycomb chocolate as well, so good! And his brother + wife (who are mega awesome) got me an adorable fluffy seal based on the fact that when we watched Planet Earth together I wouldn't stop saying how much I wanted a baby seal. Can you blame me??

The BFFs

Ollie & Nic Noah's Ark Bracelet, Sewing Machine Watch Necklace, Gorjuss Phone Sleeve, Cambridge University Scientist Bear

BFF1 gave me cute vintagey jewellery galore, they are going to be in an OOTD asap - mini animals and sewing machines are love. BFF2 followed the trend she has of getting me adorable sciency themed things, I also have a super cute Einstien from a few years back hanging from my keys and considering how beat up my phone is that sleeve is going to be very useful.

Other awesome friends

Dan ~ My Little Pony (+ cute little stickers), a manga of Shakespeare's As You Like It 

Seriously I cannot tell you. That pony. Omg. Childhood nostalgia + pastel coloured galore. I linked this to him once just to show how cute it was and he went and bought it for me. Also, considering how he did the lighting for our perfomance of As You Like It that manga is beyond apt.

Charley ~ Sleek Make Up Glory Palette, Sleek Make Up Ultra Matte V2 

Again, another friend who listens to my fangirl ramblings and act on them without me every expecting anything. Not only did she get me the Ultra Matte V2 palette I fell in love with but also got me another one as a bonus. Absolute babe.

Bekki~ No7 Betty Blues nail varnish, 'Space Goth' handmade nail varnish, Tiger keyring (+ a bracelet I forgot to include)

This girl not only got me all that but is also planning on giving me more stuff. Seriously. The shop bought nail varnish is beautiful but really you can't beat handmade - the box is so pretty and I cannot wait to try out the varnish (once the show I'm in is over) and it's called Space Goth!

So as you can see this birthday I felt very loved and showered with gifts.
Have you had a birthday recently? If so best present? Do you enjoy buying birthday presents (I know I do!)?

Outfit of the Day ~ mercurial blue.

 Velvet bodycon skirt ~ Topshop via Ebay

Acid wash effect leggings ~ gift

Creepers ~ Ebay

Cold shoulder top ~ New Look

Butterfly necklace ~ Accessorize 

Hey there. Finally I have done another outfit, it feels like ages since I have. As seems to be the usual at the moment I've been hella busy; I'm currently half way through the run of Pride and Prejudice I'm doing and it's going really well, the audiences we've had have been good filled the auditorium up nicely. As some of you might know because of said play I had to dye my hair back to a natural colour, which I did about a week ago. I cannot tell you how much I wish it was some other colour - I feel utterly boring and plain but on the other hand it is interesting to see how it looks black after so many years of not being normal coloured. It definitely looks a lot healthier.

As well as the play I've had my birthday (which I will be doing a post about - I have lots of wonderful presents I want to show you all!) and I am now longer a teenager although it has yet to be seen whether this will affect my behaviour at all.

I also went to the Brighton blogger's meet, which was organised by Lauren of Belle du Brighton. Although I was a little afraid of going (being the socially awkward individual I am) due to Lauren's encouragement and I went and it was lovely! We chatted in the sun and then wandered down to the seafront, I also got a pencil case out of the gift swap (which I totally forgot to donate towards) and a lush product just 'cause Hannah was nice enough to get stuff for everyone - I have yet to check out all of the blogs but the one's I've seen so far have been really good! If you're curious check out:

Hannah from baileycakes - her review/discussion of 50 Shades of Grey is great!

Sarah from Sarah Loves who's illustrations and outfit photos are both lovely as hell.

Freya from Ursula Glitch who is a dab hand at embroidery! Like, seriously.

Milly from Mini Adventures who's wish lists pretty match up to mine.

Skye from Even Artichokes Have Hearts who is awesomely creative.

Ceri from Ceri who is pretty, stylish and friendly - great combo.

and Sophie from Cider With Sophie who I was already following but didn't actually get to meet.

As for the actual outfit I am reluctant to wear that skirt because of how dimpled my thighs are (which you can plainly see) but I sort of tried to use the top to fill them in a bit...didn't really work out, but the velvet is so soft and the material is beautiful. I'm still in love with that top but it's already got holes in it which isn't surprising considering just how thin the material is.

Anyway, I think that's all for now...I may have rambled a bit - sorry about that!

The History of my Hair.

I've seen a few other bloggers do this so I think it's time I shared with you all my different previous hair colours and styles. Featuring photos of me from way back when - which sounds fun and totally not embarrassing on my behalf, right? As a pre-warning, there are many posey, slightly emo and generally ridiculous photos where I am pulling very bizarre faces. Just remember that you too went through a phase of taking photos of yourself where you thought you looked 'cool'. And also, apologises for the fluctuation in quality of photo - many of them are from Facebook.
I cannot tell you how stupidly long this took to put together. Finding all the photos and working out the dates and order and stuff was kind of a nightmare and kind of fun all at the same time.

 The Very Beginning

Good god, look at chubbers on the right there.

2004 ~ The first time I ever dyed my hair I was 12 (and what a beautiful tween I was!). I must have been waaay ahead of my time because I went for red tips (or as we call it now, a red dip dye) which you can just about see. Had it done by a hairdresser. The more I stare at that photo, the more embarrassed I get. Good god.  

2005 ~ Almost exactly a year later I decided on red streaks instead. Red was pretty much the only exciting colour I could go - according to hairdressers. Check out that wall of hair.

2006 ~ Then got a bit restless and cut all my hair off. I was a massive tomboy (still am) so short hair has always been the natural path for me to take. Please ignore how chubby and general young I looked.

2007

 On the right it's freshly coiffured...as you can see I'm not very good at maintaining my hair.

After my hair grew out I went pink. I originally wanted to go blue but the hairdresser said pink was as good as it was going to get with my hair (she lied - I now have proof). 

When that had faded I decided to redye over the bleached sections left (and I think I tried to add a few strands of my own). It was a bit messy since I didn't have much knowledge on dying at the time. I think I used Manic Panic but I can't remember. The lilac faded into a very ugly grey but here it doesn't actually look that bad.

I then got another hair cut (on the left), this time not as short as before. I dyed over my colour and eventually it faded so that the bits that had been previously bleached were a bronze colour. I actually quite liked this hair style so I kept that for a while and grew it. I also got a curly perm, but I'm really not sure when that happened - I thought it deserved a mention though.

2008

I decided I'd keep growing my hair, thinking I'd have it long for my school prom. Unfortunately a few days before I went to Camden and someone offered me a free haircut so I said yes and subsequently ended up with a page boy cut. This wasn't against my will (if you can believe it), it's just whenever I have a haircut I pretty much give the hairdressers free reign over my hair. In this particular circumstance a page boy was not a good idea since it needed thorough straightening and care if it didn't want to look like a mushroom. I generally can't be bothered with faffing around with things like straighteners so for a long while I did have a mushroom shaped head.

 And just for extra bonus points here's what I looked like for the aforementioned prom.

After a while of this I dyed my hair again, this time with a bit more understanding and help. I used Manic Panic in possibly Hot Hot Pink, Crazy Color in Pine Green and Rusk in Purple Burst (I think). We mixed a few of the colours as well.

 Ignore my horrendous makeup, I look like I have an eye infection and my lips look awful (it's actually glitter).

I kept growing my hair and then, for a reason that still remains a mystery to me, I decided to go blonde *shudder*. As you can see, not such a good idea. The fringe is Crazy Colour in Pine Green (I think) and it's a really nice shade, so I don't regret that bit.

2009

When school started again I had to go back to a natural colour so I went red and then very quickly dark brown due to school saying that red wasn't natural enough. This is just box dye red but I think I'd like to go red again, for a bit longer this time.

You would have thought I would've learnt from my previous mistakes but when summer rolled in I went blonde, again. I just don't know why. Although really, as you can see from that lovely photo with my cat I am more ginger than blonde (something my very ginger dad enjoyed holding over me). The photo on the left is just to show that I dyed a little bit of it Pine Green again, this is literally the only snap I have of it.

Luckily that was just a transition phase to something a whole lot more cool. My first proper full head of unusual colour (the red doesn't count). The purple is Rusk Scream in Purple Burst, the green is again Crazy Color - Pine Green and the pink is Crazy Color - Cyclamen. I cannot tell you how much I loved (and still love) this hair. Definitely one of my (+ enlisted friends) best efforts.

Sadly due to school (again) I had to dye it back to brown, which I did. But then I also cut it very veeeryy short, just a few inches. The one on the left is about a week after I had it cut and there is still a controversy to this day whether I actually became a boy during this time (just to put things into context I would say this is one of the better images of that particular cut). It wasn't so bad once it'd grown a bit and like before the tips started fading to a bronze, which was quite nice.

2010

2010 wasn't a very eventful year for the hair, from what I can work out it stayed pretty short and I dyed it black.

2011

2011 seemed to have had started off with a box fringe, which again, is one of those things I'm just not sure about in hindsight (although I am tempted to try another soon). After that I grew out the fringe and things stayed pretty boring (and pretty bad from what I can see) until just before I went off to uni.

Also, I know BFF1 will appreciate this here photo, BFF2 got away with it this time (disclaimer: the numbering system for the BFFs is arbitrary and to do refer to preference).

I know this photo is horrendous but it's the only one that shows the only hint of blue that ever existed.

So now we get to the stuff that for some of you who have been following me for a while will begin to recognise. This was supposed to actually be blue and pink/orange but the blue turned out green that quickly faded to blonde and the pink/orange came out just pink (Crazy Color - Cyclamen again with some Canary Yellow and Fire mixed in and Sky Blue for the blue). I think it didn't turn out right due to bad bleaching, at first I was pretty devastated but it didn't take long for me to get over to it. You can see better photos of it here.

A few months later I re-bleached my hair and got a full head of purple hair (Directions - Plum), you can see more photos of that here.

2012

The purple stayed until it faded which by the end of it really wasn't very pretty. I then decided it was time for turquoise (Directions - Turquoise) which I think is one of my favourite hair colours. You can see more photos from when it was freshly dyed here. 

I think I stayed turquoise longer than I've stayed any other un-natural colour but when a play began to loom which required me to have natural hair I decided that before I went entirely black I'd try a cruella (or a split dye as I've heard some people refer to it) which I also really really liked.

Unfortunately then I went back to black for a play, but after the show I got myself a Bettie Page fringe, which I really liked. You can read/see more of this hair here. As usual, my hair didn't stay black for long. I did a mixture of Color Crazy in Fire and Cyclamen, as well as Directions in Plum and Midnight Blue. However, after that my hair was super super damaged at tips - it turns out bleaching dyed colour out of hair is a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. To read more about that and see more photos of the amazing colours go here.

2013

I let my hair grow for a while and it actually got to longest it had been since the very beginning, in 2004. But I was itching to go short again.

I was originally going to for a pixie cut but I thought I would try a bob beforehand, the bob should be coming soon though, so watch this space! For more on this hair cut, go here.

So, that's it! I hope that wasn't too boring for you all! It was definitely pretty entertaining putting it together.

If any of you have done something similar to this I would love to see it!

Outfit + Face of the Day ~ alice in wonderland.

 White eyeliner ~ Illamasqua precision ink in Scribe

Black lipstick ~ Portland Black Lipstick Company in Black

Purple shimmer on lips ~ Portland Black Lipstick Company Purple Glitz
Adhesive pearls ~ craft show

Eyeshadows ~ from an anonymous palette

 Black and white brogues and ribboned socks ~ New Look

Crochet tights and tea dress ~ ASOS

Watch necklace ~ originally my great grandmother's

Pastel pink petticoat ~ borrowed 
Lilac & black ribbon ~ Hobbycraft

Hey there!
Today's outfit is a little different from usual. A friend had an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party for her birthday (I know, how freaking cute is that?!) and I was pretty happy for an excuse to dress up and go a bit crazy. The first thing I knew I needed was a petticoat, luckily being a member of my local theatre I popped into the wardrobe department and borrowed one (as welll as a little apron I decided against wearing for fear of looking too much like a maid). The rest I put together and in the end it turned out sort of gothic lolita.

The makeup was so much fun as well...although I wish I'd done something a bit more with my eyes, maybe added some black to the creases or something. Even though apparently it's not obvious the white swirls and pearls on my face are supposed to represent all the tears Alice cries - a whole lake of them in fact. I love using those pearls, I've got them in every colour imaginable and they make a really interesting addition (I used them as piercings here).
Anyway, this is a short post because as usual I am busy as hell. Next time I'll ramble a bit more about what's been going on in my life (since some people seem to actually enjoy this aspect on my blogging).

A Comprehensive List of Indie Make Up Companies.

I couldn't find one anywhere else so I thought I would compile as complete a list as possible of all the indie makeup brands that I could find. I am not expressly recommending them, just listing them (they're in no particular order). If you think I've missed one out leave a link and I'll add it. Also, if you've had experience with these companies be it good or bad or done a review leave a link as well, I'm sure other people would like to know as much as I do!

Sugarpill Cosmetics
Chinovi Cosmetics
Aromaleigh Mineral Cosmetics
Lime Crime
Portland Black Lipstick Company
Darling Girl Cosmetics
My Beauty Addiction
Morgana Cryptoria
Sweetpea & Fay Cosmetics
Meow Cosmetics
Evil Shades Cosmetics
Glamour Doll Eyes
BFTE Cosmetics
Silk Naturals
Ubran Apothecary
Little Mouse Ears
Fyrinnae
Victorian Disco Cosmetics
The All Natural Face
Makeup Geek
Venomous Cosmetics
Shiro Cosmetics
Tick Tock Cosmetics
Kiss My Sass Cosmetics
Pure Luxe Cosmetics
Moi Cosmetics
Geek Chic Cosmetics
Detrivore Cosmetics
Madd Style Cosmetics
Rockeresque Beauty Co.
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics
PopRox Cosmetics
Melt Cosmetics


Etsy Shops
(there are a lot so it may take a while to list them all)
Sobe Botanicals
Fierce MagentaFlawless Beauty Cosmetics
My Pretty Zombie Cosmetics
Glamatronic
Smash Cosmetics
Lumikki Cosmetics
Carina Dolci Mineral Cosmetics
Rose Marie Shadows
Calla Cosmetics
Pink Culture Cosmetics


That's all for now!

Haul ~ Primark, Urban Outfitters and more!

 So, I thought I'd show you guys some stuff that I've bought recently. Not all of it was bought at the same time, it's collected over a month or so but I thought I'd share anyway. I feel pretty good because a fair bit of it is birthday presents for various lovelies in my life (who both read this blog, so hey!).

Primark
★ ƒƒƒRucksack ~ £9. Now that 90s fashion is back, so are ruck sacks. I'd been shopping around a bit for one on ebay (and I found a cute pleather one in Claire's Accessories) and then trusty old Primark came up with this beaut! It's available in black and navy from I could see and oddly I prefered this tan colour over then black which is unusual. You can see me wearing it in this outfit.
★ Round sunglasses ~ £1. I needed some round sunglasses! I could rather have a pair with a thin, metal rim but these are cute as well - very 60s and I wore them out to London here.
★ Retro sunglasses ~ £1. I thought these would be cute when I like to dress a little bit rockabilly/50s although I'm worried they don't really suit me.
★ Velvet skater skirt (via ebay) ~ £2.60. I finally got a velvet skater skirt that I'm happy with! After shopping around a lot I got this one and I love it! It's perfect.

ASOS
★ Pieces Starry bracelet ~ £7. I just love everything starry.

Urban Outfitters
★ Nail varnishes in Tarot, Twinkie and Cosmos ~ price not included since one of them is a birthday present. I saw Cosmos and fell in love and then caught sight of the others and I just cried. They are so beautiful! Cosmos is a blue/purple duochrome, Twinkie is a clear base with holographic glitter and pink and blue stars (OMG I know!) and Cosmos is a black base with loads of different coloured microglitters, it's so moody looking.
★ Mug ~ price not included since it's a birthday present. This is for my BFF who just loves it when I use abbreviations and acronyms (she totally doesn't, tee hee)!

Illamasqua 
★ Rich liquid foundation in RF133 ~ £10. I got this from their sale last week and hoped the shade would be right, but unfortunately it's not, it's far too yellow, which is kind of annoying since the formula is lovely.

Others
★ Creepers ~ £24, ebay. I finally got creepers! FINALLY. I've been lusting after them ever since I discovered tumblr really and now I have my very own pair! So happy!
★ Button-through midi skirt ~ £5, thrift shop. So cute!
★ Totoro keychain, Aha in Brighton ~ price not included since this is also a birthday present. So freaking cute! I kind of want to keep it.
★ Emoticon stickers, Aha in Brighton ~ again, birthday present. These are just so perfect, I think!
★ Academic planner, WHSmiths ~ £6ish. Now I have an iphone I don't need a big diary and I have a DIY planned to spice this plain diary right up!

Outfit of the Day ~ manic pixie dream girl.

Suspender tights ~ New Look

Creepers ~ ebay

Velvet skater skirt ~ Primark via ebay

'Hello Angel' top ~ DIY 

Floral garland ~ Claire's Accessories

Dark brown lipstick ~ Coffee, Black by Portland Black Lipstick Co.

The other day I pretty much wore this outfit to a rehearsal and one of my best friends told me I looked like a hippy goth, which I quite liked as a description. The thought also occurred to me that I look like some kind of Blade Runner-esque hooker, sort of Pris inspired, totally unintentional but I quite like the comparison. I wore it out again yesterday when the boyfriend and I went to Brighton, which was actually my second time in one week, I went earlier with Bekki and Charley where we discovered a new favourite cafe called Cocoa (ever tried it? It's amazing!), ate macaroons and shopped - it was pretty damn fun. When I went with the boyfriend it was a lot busier (which was weird 'cause it was a weekday) which put me a bit on edge, plus when we decided to take some outfit photos - after we'd had a nice wander, it got really windy and kind of horrible, so we decided against doing them there which kind of sucks because there are so many cool places to take photos. In the end we went to one of the many woods around where we live - unfortunately there aren't any good places to take photos in either of our houses so generally it has to be somewhere outside.
As for the actual outfit, I'm not really sure how I feel about it...I liked it the other day but when I wore it yesterday I wasn't really sure. Mainly I have issue with the top, which I made about 2 years ago during a fit of (questionable) creativeness. As you can see it's pretty shoddily cut which means it hangs in a way that doesn't please me all the time, but you can see where I go inspiration for my blog title (I've always been obsessed with the idea of wings and angels and the like). Also, I would like to warn you not to purchase suspender tights from New Look unless you like the instant laddered look - the thin section at the top gets ruined so easily. I'm considering investing in a Pretty Polly pair, anyone had any experiences with them?

That's all for now! I hope you're all having a lovely summer.