The future is ours, so let's plan it

Hello! Been stuck in a bit of a rut when it came to blogging this week, but I've been so desperate to get back  I thought I'd just write a little catch up post. I've been a very busy bee since last Sunday, school work is piling up and I've been putting the finishing touches to my university applications (eee!) and booking my first ever holiday with my friends! Super excited. We're off to Kavos - hence the picture from Corfu I took this summer - the first week of July for a lovely well behaved (aye, right), relaxing week in the sun and I can't wait to start my holiday shopping. Have to pay for the holiday first though! Especially with the weather being as terrible as it is at the moment, I'm so desperate for sunshine.
Apart from holiday booking I've been very busy with my jewellery as we've have lots of craft fairs coming up and just had one this weekend which didn't go very well. It really annoys me when people at craft fairs sell things that they've bought, it just makes it harder for people who spend hours upon ends to make things that we already sell at stupidly low prices that barely cover costs! Hopefully things will pick up when it gets closer to Christmas, it's been hard since last Christmas... Oh well!
On Friday I had a lovely wee night in with the girls which was when we intended to watch Singing In The Rain in preparation for school show, but instead we ended up watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I think it's safe to say that is one weird film. But I have had Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me and Sweet Transvestite in my head for the past couple of days, the Rocky fans amongst you may have noticed the reference in the title to Damnit, Janet.
Otherwise I've just been picking my Christmas dress which I'll hopefully show you on Wednesday, and catching up with lots of television! I'm off back to the Great British Bake Off now, then it's Revenge, 90210 and possibly Breakfast at Tiffany's! Hope you're all good, I'll try get over my blogging block this week, promise. xoxo

Something a little bit different

If you've been reading my blog recently, following me on Twitter or on Instagram then you'll be aware that I like to read. I've always been a big reader and getting a Kindle for my birthday this year just increased this! So I thought that I'd do a little post about what I've been reading lately, and what I thought of the book. Maybe make it a regular thing, if you'd like that? Who knows!

The Sky Is Everywhere - Jandy Nelson
The Sky Is Everywhere follows the life of 17 year old Lennie Walker after the sudden death of her older sister, it's beautifully written with lots of little poems and snippets of conversation from their lives between each chapter. It was quite an easy read but very emotional, most of the book had me in tears! It is definitely more of a 'young adult' book but technically I am a 'young adult'...
Overall, I'd give it a 9/10, beautifully written but I just feel the plot needs that little bit more.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
This book is one of my firm favourites, but with the film due in October I decided to give it another read. It follows Charlie and his life as a teenage 'wallflower', charted through his letters to a mystery person who he has overheard people talking about in passing.
This is a genuinely beautiful book, I love how it's written and how well Chbosky gets in to the mind of Charlie and his innocent point of view. The storyline itself is just perfectly planned out, every time I've read this I've had to read it in one sitting because it just grips me. I'm quite excited for the film, but as usual I know it will never live up to the book, they never do!
Overall, this definitely gets a 10/10. It has a permanent place on my bookshelf and my Kindle.

Savages - Don Winslow
I bought this book in Tesco's 2 for £7 offer, I was mainly after the book after this, but when I saw this I thought it couldn't hurt to read it seeing as I was planning on seeing the film - it has Blake Lively in it, duh! This book was a surprise. It's based on the story of two marijuana growers Ben & Chon, along with their shared lover O. I'm not sure why it surprised me so much, I guess I just didn't know quite what to expect from it.
It's definitely a gripping book, the drama that goes down just has you wanting to keep turning the pages to find out just what happens. I'd never read any of Don Winslow's books before, but I think now I'm going to have to give some more a go!
Overall, I'd give this book a 8/10 - it's a great book but a bit short and not my usual genre of choice.

A Street Cat Named Bob - James Bowen
I'm not going to lie, the first thing that drew me to this book was the fact that it was about a cat. Crazy cat lady in the making here! But after I read more in to what it was about I knew I had to read it. I'd intended on getting it for my summer holiday reading but in the end I forgot, so I was super happy when I saw it in the 2 for £7 deal in Tesco.
This book is one of the most moving I have read in a while. It's a heart warming story about how a stray cat and a homeless, recovering drug addict called James change each other's lives. I'm not ashamed to say that I spent most of this book bawling my eyes out, it's such a touching story about friendship and life on the streets. It really opened my eyes to how difficult life can be, and how lucky I am. I definitely need to go and meet Bob and James!
Overall, I'd give this 10/10. How could I not?








So, that's just a little rundown of the books I've read this week. I might make this more of a monthly thing and just pick my favourites, what do you think? Plus, any book recommendations are more than welcome!

You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me

Top - H&M
Shorts - Primark
Flatforms - River Island

Hello! Bit of a different kind of photo for my outfit today, basically because the lighting is absolutely terrible (winter's on it's way) and I thought it looked kind of cool... Anyway, I wore this to uni today and I am in love with the top. My very lovely boyfriend bought me it yesterday - along with the shoes, I'm a lucky girl - at the student lock-in at Buchanan Galleries, we can't resist a discount! I fell in love with this top when I saw the ad campaign that Lana Del Rey was in, which I posted about here. I did quite like the matching trousers but they seemed quite thin and I thought I'd get more wear out of the top, it's a beautiful pattern and I love the colour palette. The flatforms have been on my 'to buy' list for a very long time after I saw someone wearing them in the street (creepy, I know) and when I found out they were from River Island and only £28 I knew it was fate! But, after waiting a while, my favourite magazine Company had a coupon for 20% off in so despite River Island not participating in the event last night I still managed to nab a discount! The sales assistant also said that River Island will be offering student discounts from the 2nd of October. I'm really loving River Island right now!

Apart from shopping, I've been doing a fair bit of reading. I'm totally glued to my Kindle at the moment! Yesterday I finished The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson - which comes under children's but I definitely feel it's more young adult - and re-read one of my favourites The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky in preparation for the upcoming film! I think I'm going to read Looking For Alaska next, but not quite decided. Any recommendations would be very welcome!

Also, I was lucky enough to be asked by Sally to be featured in a great article about individual style and trends which can be found here! I would seriously recommend giving Sally's article a read, and also two more that I love on this website about where trends come from and this pictorial about the life cycle of the fashion trend. Let me know what you think!

Motel Rocks

This weekend I was lucky enough to become part of the Street Team for Motel Rocks! Motel are a brand I've loved for a while, they have some beautiful prints and gorgeous dresses. All of you lovely lot can now get 20% off at Motel with the code 'coloursandcarousels' and to give you a little taste of what that can get you I decided to pick a few of my favourite pieces from the website at the moment!

'Melting Violet' strapless skater dress - £42 (£33.60 with discount)

Navy Plunge Playsuit - £48 (£38.40 with discount)

Strapless monochrome aztec body - £25 (£20 with discount)

Lace shorts - £38 (£30.40 with discount)

So that's just a few of my favourite pieces from Motel at the moment! Apart from their own brand items they also stock pieces from Zatchels, Pretty Polly, Rock'n'Rose and Models Own. Soon, they'll also be stocking my all time favourite shoe designer - Jeffrey Campbell! I can't wait to have another UK stockist of the brand, they can be so hard to get hold of here sometimes.

Cutey Pie

Top bracelet: 'Typhon' c/o Cutey
Bottom bracelet: 'Oizys' c/o Cutey

I'm a bit miserable today - long story short I didn't get the job I really wanted and then didn't have enough to spend to cheer me up - but coming home to this package from Cutey has definitely cheered me up! Cutey are an online jewellery retailer who sell gorgeous charm bracelets & shamballa bracelets and when they tweeted about reviewing their pieces I jumped at the chance. The lovely Ashley sent me these two gorgeous bracelets in super quick time and I love them. They're such great quality and the colours are lovely, plus I adore the little turtle charm on the Oizys bracelet! I didn't previously have any bracelets like these, but now I'm eyeing up some of the others on the website too. Personally I think these bracelets are bargains and would be perfect for a little treat or presents for others - who doesn't love a bit of sparkle?!
P.s watch out for my giveaway which I'll be launching soon!

Wishlist Wednesday - The Passion For Fashion Edition

I came home on Monday to a very exciting e-mail in my inbox from the people at Moneysupermarket. Now I know, at first, that doesn't sound very exciting, but when I started reading it really was - promise! It was regarding their Passion For Fashion competition that their running for a chance to win either £1000 and an iPad 3 for the overall winner or £200 for the winners of each individual category judged by some of the big name bloggers. Basically, to enter you have to put together an outfit that's under £200 for 5 different categories: Party, Casual, Outdoors, First Date and Office. I thought that it would fit in quite nicely for a Wishlist Wednesday post, so here it is!

Dress - Boots - Cardigan - Bag

One of A/W's massive trends for 2012 is grunge, being a self described girly-girl I didn't think I'd be in to this trend but it has seriously grown on me. Every year without fail my love for leopard print grows as the temperature falls, not sure why but it does! I love this dress, it's simple but can easily be dressed up or down dependent on the occasion. For casual wear I'd team it with this lovely burgundy cardigan as it does get very chilly in Scotland - there's rumours of snow soon! Normally my 'casual' time is spent shopping, so for a bag I chose this adorable Aztec backpack (which is actually £36 - typo!) to free up my hands for rummaging through the rails, but also roomy enough to hold all of my stuff. Obviously, I just had to include the boots that I'm still lusting over. I've been looking for some cheaper alternatives but so far nothing lives up to these beauties.

Parka - Top - Jeans - Boots - Bag

I'm not really an outdoors-y type of girl so this was a bit of a difficult one for me. In the end, I decided to go for an outfit that would be suitable for a walk down to one of my favourite spots by the canal near my house. I fell in love with the parka as soon as I saw it on the Topshop website and decided to include it to give myself a bit of a challenge, with the parka itself taking up almost half of the budget. It's a beautiful burgundy colour that's perfect for autumn and winter. This being the case I decided to go for a well priced brand that still has fashionable pieces for a bargain price - Matalan. I love Matalan, but it can be quite hit and miss! However I love all of these pieces, especially the boots and the bag and might have to go pick them up one day. The boots are perfect for the dreary Scottish weather and the bag looks nice and roomy to hold all my essentials.

Trousers - Blouse - Shoes - Bag (actually Miss Selfridge - sorry!) - Watch

Yet another typo, oops. Seeing as I don't actually work yet (maybe soon though, but more on that another day!) this is the kind of outfit I dream of wearing to my future job - if it's in an office of course. Who knows! I might buy these trousers regardless, I've got quite a thing for patterned trousers just now, which is great because they are really on trend this season and there's plenty of choice! I do love this paisley patterned pair.

Dress - Bag - Shoes - Ring

It's been quite a while since I went on a 'first date', but I think it's the perfect opportunity to be as girly as possible. Lace is big this season, as usual, but this dress is slightly brighter than all of the other lace I've been looking at. I fell in love with the lavender version of the bag when I saw it in Topshop and when I found the pink version I knew it just had to go with the bag. As I'm sure you all know, studs are a HUGE trend at the moment - you can get studs on anything and everything - and the shoes and bag tie this trend in with this outfit and give the girliness something of an edge.

Top - Shorts - Boots - Clutch - Hand Chain

Out of all of these outfits, this is my favourite. I've wanted this gorgeous top for a while and it's quite a bargain for Topshop! Not only is it lace but the baroque pattern is velvet - making it bang on trend for this year. The sequin shorts add some glam for night, along with the beaded clutch which also has a baroque style pattern to it. Like most girls I would love a pair of Jeffrey Campbell Lita's, but the price tag has put me off for now. However luckily the high street is full of amazing dupes and one of my favourite pairs has to be these lace ones from Tribeca shoes, again tying in with the lace on the top. Definitely on my to-buy list! I'm not much of a jewellery girl but I am loving the hand chain craze that's hit this season and this cross one is gorgeous, I'm loving Topshop's jewellery right now!

So there you have my five outfits, I had lots of fun putting them together and now I just want to go and spend all of my pennies! If you want to enter you can read more about it here.

Heart skipped a beat, and when I caught it it was out of reach

Dress & cardigan - H&M
Flatforms - Next

Sorry the photos are a bit dreary! The weather is decidedly grey here and Photoshop is in a bit of a mood with me. Well, my whole computer is. This is what I wore yesterday to wander aimlessly around Ikea, I love that place so much. I'm finally starting to feel a lot better after my little bout of sickness last week so it was nice to get out of the house! My mum and dad (mostly Mum) are after some new fitted wardrobes so that called for a trip to the wonderful world of Ikea. It was absolutely jam-packed with students stocking up on essentials for uni which just made me even more excited to move! If all goes well only one year to go.
I realised yesterday that you can get 30 days of Spotify Premium for free so I've been reminiscing the songs of my youth, and a rather large amount from before my youth too! Currently loving Walk Like An Egyptian, such a happy song. If you want to listen to my somewhat awesome playlist, you can find it here.
I have only have 3 classes today and finish at lunch so planning on popping down to the charity shops for a rummage before my job interview tonight! I'm really nervous but I know I'll do my best and if they don't like me then sod it. Would reaaaaally love the job though, not only is it in one of my favourite shops but money = more clothes and even more magazines.
Hope everyone had a lovely weekend and isn't finding the start of the week too tiring!

It's a match made in heaven, if they're going to talk let them

Hello again! Been feeling very ill the past few days so this is my current go-to outfit, very stylish as you can see. Slowly recovering thanks to cuddles and tea, but I hate being ill after last year - just feels like I'm wasting time. As I've had plenty of time on my hands I've been a busy little bee and been planning a few things to do! One of which is my 100 follower giveaway which I'll hopefully hit soon-ish. I've been buying a few little bits and pieces for it and I'm quite excited! I've also been reading plenty of magazines and cutting them in to pieces for my "inspiration wall" which is starting to take shape. Right now I'm really loathing the lack of Scottish street style blogs and pondering the likelihood of a successful Glaswegian/all round Scottish street style project that would not result in being stabbed... Kidding, it's a well known fact that Glasgow is actually a very friendly place, sometimes. If there are any Scottish bloggers out there who know of any hidden gems, or would even consider a collaboration of sorts please do not hesitate to get in touch! I've also been swotting up for a job interview I have tomorrow which I'm insanely excited and nervous about - dream job much! Anyway, just a quick little update post. Here's hoping that I'll be well enough to get some decent posts up this week - don't want to ruin my flow!

TODAY'S PLAYLIST MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN LANA DEL RAY LITTLE TALKS OF MONSTERS AND MEN COLD DAY IN THE SUN FOO FIGHTERS ELECTRIC DREAMS PHIL OAKLEY SLEEP ALONE TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB THE A TEAM ED SHEERAN

Primark Nail Wraps

Nail Foils - Primark £1

 I picked this up on a whim during one of my many Primark visits. They were right by the queue and for a pound I thought I'd give them a go! Now I wasn't expecting much for a pound, and I was right.
The pattern is lovely, and they had others but this was my favourite. You get 20 wraps in various sizes for fingernails and toenails. The trouble all started after opening the packet, now I've never tried nail wraps before but I'm pretty sure they should be a lot easier to peel off and not rip constantly, but obviously I could be wrong. They were horribly sticky and the colours started to rub off as soon as I touched them. After struggling to get them on smooth and straight I wanted to add a topcoat to help protect them, but the top coat just shrank the wraps and faded the colour - hence the wrinkles. Basically, these are just bits of sticky paper with a pretty pattern on.
Maybe you'll have better luck with them, and for £1 you can't really ask for much, but I definitely won't be buying these ones again!

Black and Gold

Top, Necklace & Shoes - Primark (as usual)
Jeans - Matalan
Bag - Ditto

Quite a simple outfit today, but probably one of my new favourites. It doesn't photograph greatly though! As usual massive thank you to Amy for taking these for me after uni. Still loving my course, really wish I'd left school last year though and was starting uni for real now! Anyway I'm loving this jersey peplum top that I picked up in Primark, super comfy and looks great. Wish I'd picked up the other colours when I saw them though, could only find black when I went in! The shoes are another new Primark buy, I'm obsessed with the baroque pattern and they add a bit of a quirky touch to an otherwise plain outfit - had a few comments on them today! Quite a bargain for £6 really.
Like I mentioned the other day, I had my first Nando's last night. To be perfectly honest I was slightly disappointed, it was nice but not great. I had the lemon & herb butterfly chicken with chips and garlic bread, the chips and garlic bread were my favourite part... I guess it's because I'm just not in to spicy food! Everyone else seems to love Nando's anyway. Feeling a bit yuck today and hoping it's not food poisoning, but I'm probably just paranoid!
So glad it's finally getting towards the end of the week, I'm really hating school just now and can't wait to leave.  I think it's just because I've had a taste of university life and want the real thing now, only a year to go - scary/exciting stuff!

P.S Sorry I didn't get round to doing a wishlist yesterday, not been doing as much browsing as usual!

Walking On A Dream

Boots - New Look £69.99

It's official. I am in love. I spotted these boots on a cheeky little shopping trip with Amy after the Strathclyde University open day and I need them in my life. I'd been after some studded boots for a while but wasn't too sure what type to go for, and where from, but now my heart is definitely set on these. Shame about the price tag, I am so skint.
I'm currently feeling far too young to be applying to university, it feels like yesterday I was just starting high school. What?! Anyway, I have my fashion brand retailing course tomorrow which I'm geeking out about as usual then it has been confirmed that I'm finally losing my Nando's virginity. Big moment. Seriously hope it lives up to the hype!
Short post today, just wanted to express my devotion for these shoes.

P.S Thank you Amy for taking these photos!

We Are Shining

Shirt - Primark
Skirt - H&M
Shoes - Next
Necklace - Primark
Nails - Angelica (Primark)

Hello! You may or may not have noticed that I have a new, slightly easier URL - www.coloursandcarousels.com. Buying my domain was a pretty simple decision to make, I was fed up of typing the old one and it was a bit of a bargain really! Don't worry, the old URL will still redirect here.
I had a pretty laid back weekend, I was totally skint so apart from dinner with my boyfriend on Friday night I spent it all at home. Right now I'm totally stressing about university applications, choices and my dreaded personal statement. I know I have the results but I'm still worried that I won't get in to my top choices! Bleh, stressful year.
Got a slightly quiet week this week too, obviously I have university on Wednesday as usual, but I should be going to the open day for Caledonian after uni and possibly a cheeky Nandos! I've never had a Nandos before (shock horror) but I've heard plenty about it so looking forward to it if it does happen.
Anyway on to the outfit! I bought this shirt and skirt both in the sale, a denim shirt is something I see as a staple wardrobe item so it was a nice little bargain. My flatforms from Next finally arrived today and I can't wait to wear them properly, they're super comfy. Not as high as I expected but in some ways that's a good thing... Right now I'm lusting after these River Island flatforms, I'd been searching for them for ages when I finally found them lurking in the corner of the shop.
Back to my personal statement, sigh.