January Blues - Outfit Post

Given that I had a fairly lazy day on Sunday, no dancing (till the evening!), flying or fettling required, I felt a pencil skirt was in order! 

I love a good pencil skirt! Thanks to some Christmas money my pencil skirt collection has increased almost exponentially over the winter break. 

This one arrived as a £2.50 gift from my mum a few days ago in the mail and Sunday seemed to be the perfect day for its first outing! 

I've also got a bit obsessed with the Bardot tops that seem to be all over the place at the moment. I've got a lot if colourways in the sale from Matalan which has been brilliant. 

They're perfect for me as I don't feel my arms are my best feature, and the sleeves hold that area together nicely!

Outfit Details:

Bardot top: Matalan £3 (currently in their sale)

Pencil Skirt: George @ Asda £2.50 (currently in their sale) 

Boots: New Look (if you see them in the sale, let me know! I want another pair!!) 

Decided to take the photos while we were at Stow Marie's (awesome WW1 aerodrome and museum), aeroplanes providing a good backdrop for everything of course! 

I love that you can put a whole outfit together with high street bargains at the moment with a good retro feel, comfort and no fear of ripping your vintage pencil skirt! (...of course this has never happened to me...!!)

Grabbed any bargains in the sales? 

Jo :-) 

A Cape for Christmas

I know. I said the C word. I've just spent an hour at a Christmas Market at the Tiptree Jam Factory with my at some point to be sister-in-law. There was Christmas music. It's got me feeling all sparkly!! 

Mulled wine, roast chestnuts, hot chocolate and mince pies. Fake snow and fancy decorations. It was a good evening, but not the best thing that happened today. 

I give you, my charity shop cape!

It's pretty awesome. Zipped openings for your arms. Cute collar. Smart navy. Good, warm winter length. 

But wait!!

What's this?!

It's only bloody reversible! Look at that face. Imagine my excitement when I discovered this Amazingness! 

Bird Jo. Apparently it looks like a wing man suit. Meh. 

See how happy I am?

There's more! Whilst ringing my mum to tell her all about the amazing cape (we all do this right?!) I looked for a label. 

The reversible bit of the coat explains why neither I or the charity shop folk could find one.  

So I fiddled about between layers.

It's only Burberry! A Burberry cape for £12.99. That's reversible. 

Yes please. Don't mind if I do! 

So sorry for the bad phone quality photos, but I'm far too excited to wait for proper ones! 

Here's a picture of me looking all excited again. Just in case you forget. 

Cheers!

Jo. 

P.S. what's your best bargain from a charity shop? This beats my previous hands down!! 

Swagbucks and Retro Shaving

Slightly different kind of blog post today! Shaving and overlapping into an eco friendly kind of place!

I think a lot of people wear vintage and make their own things not only out of a love for the way things look and the chance to be individual, but also because it's a bit more world friendly. We're re-using and recycling things, wearing clothing that's lasted 60 years not six months and that was probably produced in our own countries. Although that's really another post in itself!

Anyway. I found Swagbucks (that's a referral link, if you sign up through it I get a few more Swagbucks!)through The Frugal Girl and one of her fabulous blog posts. I've been using it on and off for about six months or so and a month ago I saved up enough to get a £5 Amazon. Thee good things about it is that you can use it instead of your normal search engine and you don't have to do anything special or extra to get your points. I have the toolbar on my laptop and that's a point a day every time I go on the Internet! Not too shabby!

So, I hear you asking, what did I buy with my totally free and awesome £5 amazon voucher? I purchased myself a Shaving Factory Double Edge Safety Razor with 100 Double Edge Razor Blades. All in a nice little blue box. It's definitely at the cheaper end of the market (and there's a beautiful razor on Amazon, but it was £45!) at £14.90, £9.90 with my voucher! I didn' think this price was too bad, considering a decent disposable razor will set you back at least a fiver for you to just throw it away again. However I didn't want to spend masses in case I hate it, slice my legs open repeatedly or just plain don't get on with it!

Photo from Amazon seller here.

 There's a few reasons for wanting a razor like this. One is purely and shallowly aesthetics! It's going to look much prettier sitting on my bath than a lump of blue plastic! With a little dish for it and it's sleek chrominess (may not actually be in the dictionary...) I feel my bath time will ooze elegance!!! The second is monetary, I really resent parting with a fair bit of cash each month to buy something I know I will have to replace. The third and biggest reason is the eco friendly one. All those disposable razors end up in landfill, not so much rotting away, but sitting in the earth for hundreds of years. I try to recycle what I can and re-use where possible, and this seems the best way to do it for shaving! The blades will last a good while if cared for properly (wipe clean and a bit of oil) and when they're finished with they can be recycled with your tins! The same for the handle eventually (many many years down the line I hope!).




Photo from Amazon seller here.

  So that's going to be the subject of my first bloggy review when it turns up! A way to glam up your bathroom, save your pennies and save the planet all in one fell swoop!

Jo :-)

P.S. Disclaimer.... just using this razor will not save the planet immediately, we have a long way to go! Every little helps though!

New Shirt and Head Scarf!

Hello all!

A quick outfit post today! If you follow me on Instagram (@ofaVintageAir) you may have seen that I picked up some bargains in Tesco the other day. I often buy cheap tops and jumpers from places like Tesco and Primark as my things tend to end up with paint or grease or other stainy type things on them at work, so there's no point buying anything expensive!

One of the things I picked up was a lovely pastel coloured, striped shirt. In preparation for sunnier weather, I wore it one day last week and it mostly ended up covered by a jumper!

By the miracle of self timers....

I don't feel massively comfortable showing my stomach off so I'm wearing a white vest underneath (and it was a tad chilly!!) and felt much better about it! I did wear the shirt tucked in for a while, but preferred it like this!

Jo who rivets very rarely....

The head scarf I'm wearing is a cheeky offcut from my Spring Circle Skirt and kept my hair fairly well in check for most of the day.

So my outfit consisted of:

Headscarf: offcut!

Vest: Sainsbury's

Shirt: Tesco (£4)

Jeans: Charity shop. They're the same as my last work outfit post, but I've taken the turn ups down!

And as per usual my awesome "Hard as Nails" steel toe capped boots!

Obligatory Casual Leaning against a wall photo...

So that's all folks. It's been a busy week!

Jo :-)

The Gloves are On!

Hello All :-)

So, first post. At least there's no expectations yet! I haven't got a fabulous outfit post to do yet, but I'm going to The Shuttleworth Collection's evening airshow on Saturday, then a wedding party in a hangar in the evening, so hopefully then. I'm thinking pencil skirt and my gorgeous fifties swing coat.

Photo Taken by me at a Shuttleworth Collection display last year.

What I do have to share with you is a couple of beautiful finds from Chelmsford market last week. I've been after a pair of white evening gloves for a while, keeping my eyes peeled and debating what to get. Having wandered around Chelmsford for a while I was in Debenhams trying on lots and lots of hats having a look at hats in the formal section when I spotted a nice silky pair of short, white evening gloves. 'Lovely!' says I and I even had a birthday voucher for them. The only thing was they didn't quite have that spark....we didn't quite click. Sadly there was no love at first sight, so they were replaced and my search amble continued.

I wandered over to the market and sat outside having my new healthy rabbit food lunch. This friendly pigeon came and fluttered around by me feet. Apparently the person before me on the bench was a messy eater....

Photo Taken by me. Fag ends, not dropped by me. Grr.

Pigeon paid with corner of cereal bar!

And then I made an awesome discovery :-) there was a lovely, lovely stall in the market selling some really beautiful old things. Seriously, I could have spent all day there. Amongst these was a pair of original fifties white evening gloves, still stitched together, still with their original tag. These were half the price of the Debenhams pair!!! Bar-jin as my friend Tash would say. They fitted wonderfully. Although I'm now a bit loath to take the tag off them, but I suppose I could always sew them back together....maybe.

But the best discovery of all was a pair of white kid leather, elbow length evening gloves with a three pearl button closure. This time there were sparks, lightning bolts and immediate falling in love. Alright so they're a tad on the tight side, but I'm losing weight, maybe my hands will slim down a tad....maybe!! But they are stunning. The softest thing ever. I'm so pleased I didn't buy the gloves from Debenhams, yes they were nice, but these are just perfect!!

 Photo taken by me. Pearl buttons.

 Photo taken by me. Tad tight, but still lovely.

Photo taken by me. Beautiful gloves, plus a pair of leather gloves I got from New Look for driving my other half's convertible, my hands get cold! And a sparkly, feathery (can you get a better combination?!) hair clip also from New Look. Both New Look items were on sale as well. Bar-jin!

So anyhoo, they're my goodies for the moment. Think my next update will either be on my bike, or my outfit on Saturday. Depends if I do any riding before then, and the way I'm feeling today it's doubtful!!

Ciao then!

Jo :-)