Double Dose of Polka Dots - Vivien of Holloway Dresses!

To kickstart your week with a bit of dotty delight I have some gorgeous red polka dot dresses for your viewing pleasure! One of my favourite shops in Leeds (and I only say "one of" because a Cath Kidston shop opened up recently and I literally cannot go into Leeds without oggling the beautiful things it harbours inside...) is Rose and Co. I wrote a guest post on my sister's blog (The Style PA) about it a while ago - Vintage Treats in Leeds. Not only do they have th most wonderful apothecary style shop on the main floor, they also have a whole world of gorgeousness if you go downstairs... they stock the most amazing polka dot dresses by the likes of Vivien of Holloway along with some vintage inspired hosiery and lingerie too. But for now lets just focus on the GORGEOUS polka dot dresses!

Dose number one!
Red Polka Dot Halter Dress - £69-99
How amazingly gorgeous is this halter dress?! VERY! I absolutely adore the vintage 50's style and the full circle skirt... not to mention the obvious love for the polka dot fabric! Also, if red isn't your colour but you don't want to sacrifice the polka dot design... then it comes in 9 different dotty designs! Which, I might add, is completely and utterly brilliant. Red and black, black and red, blue and white, pink and black, multi-coloured spots, spots large and small... I'll stop here before I get a bit too carried away! Basically you've got a plethora of polka dotty choices at your disposal.

Dose number two!
Polka Dot Tea Dress - £59
Here's yet another beautiful dotty delight courtesy of Vivien of Holloway. This time it's a lovely 40's style tea dress. I love this style of dress and it's actually quite a flattering cut on me. As much as I adore the 50's style of dosage numero uno, the shape only serves to accentuate my rather large bum a little too much for my liking! This lovely tea dress, alas, does not have the same multitude of polka dot fabric choices as the previous dress. However, it does come in a range of floral designs if polka dots aren't your thing (shock, horror! How could that be so?!)

Easy Virtue - Film and Style

Having a week off completely to myself has been absolutely lovely after spending a totally tiring 7 weeks on my final teaching placement since Christmas. I've relished the free time by pretty much vegetating for a whole week. However, I'm beginning to feel like I'm in need of something to do again, so I'm looking forward to going back to uni on Monday. There is only so long I can enjoy having absolutely nothing to do before I start to go a bit stir crazy! But for the meantime I'm still enjoying the last few days of freedom by finally getting around to watching some of the DVDs I got for Christmas and watching a lot of films...

One of the films I recieved for Christmas was Easy Virtue. I went to see this film at the cinema when it came out. I didn't really know very much about it at the time but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love everything about this film, it has style, a bit of silliness and humour, an interesting soundtrack, oh and of course, a bit of Colin Firth too!

The film started life as a Noel Coward play in the 20's. The film has brought the drawing-room melodrama up to date but keeping true to the original play and style. The film, set in the 20's, has a faux-twenties soundtrack with songs like "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going" and "sex bomb" re-hashed in a twenties jazz style. The whole film is a lot of fun and is rather humorous.

But most of all I love the clothing and style. Jessica Biel's character is a feisty and glamourous American racing driver and she looks stunning throughout the film wether she is wearing trousers and fur jackets or beautiful dresses. I highly recommend this film for any fans of the bygone era of the 20's and 30's and for anyone who likes a light-hearted British comedy - oh and if you like Colin Firth then no doubt you'll enjoy it too!

Kristen Scott Thomas is one of my favourite British actresses. She is always brilliant in whatever she is in and she excells herself in this style of film. She was also fantastic in Nowhere Boy, Gosford Park and Keeping Mum.

Double Dose of Polka Dots - ASOS Dresses

Well! It's been a fair few weeks since my last Double Dose of Polka Dots Weekly Feature... I can only apologise! I've been on my final teaching placement and there hasn't been enough time to blog I'm afraid. But fear not! Your Monday's double dosage of dotty delights is back! Aaaand... because I just found it too hard to cut down the beautiful polka dot dresses from ASOS down to only two, I've thrown in an extra dosage of pola dots for you all... three for the price of two!

Dose number one
ASOS Collar Spot Dress - £40

Dose Number 2
ASOS Dolly Spot Pencil Dress - £50

Dose Number 3
ASOS Motel Polka Dot Mini Dress - £25

200th blog post - Pay It Forward Blog Challenge

I love writing a blog. I started around 3 years ago after being inspired by my big sister The Style PA. I use my blog as a way of sharing things that I love, that inspire me and things that I get up to, make, draw and paint. I'm a couple of posts away from my 200th blog post... who knew I could find so many things to share and talk about! So read on for my plans of how I'm going to celebrate and how that could involve some of you lovely people recieving an item made by my fair hands....


I just want to say thank you to all of the people that read my blog. Although, like most other bloggers, I would still write a blog if 5 people read it or if 5000 people read it. It's a little creative outlet that allows me to share a little snippet of me with the world. The best thing about blogging are the people that I connect with as a result of it. SO a big thank you to you guys, and to all of the lovely people who fuel my polka dots addiction with links to delightful dotty dresses and the such like!


SO! To celebrate my 200th blog post, I'm going to give a little something back. I recently got involved with the "Paying it forward" bloggers challenge via the wonderful Katie at What Katie Found... the challenge goes a little something like this:

I promise to make something handmade for the first five people who comment.

They must in turn post this and make something for the first five people who comment on their status.

The rules are that it has to be handmade by you, and they must recieve it before 2011 ends. (I'm planning on getting creative this week so it should arrive with you very soon!)

So if this sounds like something that you'd like to be a part of:

• Be one of the first five to comment
• Tell me 5 (or more) things that you love
  
• Leave your email address so I can contact you
• Be sure to post this on your own comment, as that is the whole point of Pay it Forward after all! :D
  

The Royal Armouries Leeds - A Great Free Museum To Visit

It's half term and I've got visitors for a few days. Danny's family are up in Leeds until Tuesday so we've planned in some touristy fun. Yesterday we went shopping in Leeds City Centre (in the snow!) and today we've been to the Royal Armouries at Clarence Dock. I think tomorrow will include a visit to Tropical World (which will no doubt result in another blog post!).

The Armouries are a great museum to visit, not only because it is free, but because it's great fun, loads to see (we spent over 2hrs there) and there are always events on, especially during half terms. On our visit there were various Chinese New Year themed events including a Chinese New Year animal petting zoo (a somewhat tedious link methinks) and Lion dancing, which we managed to see a bit of.

The Royal Armouries most famous piece: the Henry VIII horned helmet

Helmet, complete with nose and moustache :)

Elephant armour in the Oriental gallery

Chinese New Year Lion Dancing

Me Through The Eyes of Four Year Olds

As it was my final day of my final teaching placement on Friday I thought I'd share some of the lovely drawings that my little reception class did for me! So here you have it... Me Through The Eyes Of Four Year Olds.... but with tidier hair, slightly less colourful clothes and far better dental hygiene than the first drawing would have you believe! Hehee, gotta love it.

End of Teaching Placement - Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes!

It was my last day of my final teaching placement on Friday and I did a spot of baking for the staff room. It was my first batch of cupcakes since before Christmas! So needless to say the boyfriend was pleased to have cakes in the house again :) I played the dutiful girlfriend and made him a cuppa with cake. I made some Chocolate, Cherry and Coconut cupcakes and some Carrot, Orange and Walnut Cupcakes and they went down a treat in the staff room!


I got some absolutely lovely little gifts from school on my last day. I was surprised and totally love them! I was given a cupcake trinket box (that is sitting happily amongst my other ones) a cucpake mug and coaster (for the staff room in my first teaching post) and some yummy praline chocolates. It was so lovely and generous of them!

Vintage Specs - 50s Eyewear

I love my glasses. I don't think I could really be persuaded to convert to contact lenses. My optician tries every time I go for an eye test and every time I can't bring myself to take the plunge. Mainly because putting things near my eyes freaks me out, it's expensive and I think I look a bit odd without glasses on! The only thing that I think could possibly persuade me to go for contacts is if my eyesight gets any worse and I need stronger glasses - currently my prescription is somthing like -8/9 in each eye (if that even means anything to you non-glasses wearing folk!) and the lenses are getting rather thick! But put simply, the world looks a bit like the photo below without my glasses on... I can't see people's faces unless their inches away from me and I certainly couldn't cross the road without running the risk of getting hit by a car. But anyway, I digress - here are some pretty vintage specs for you...

Vintage 50's Eyewear - Etsy Shop

Vintage Blue Eye Cat Glasses - £50
I love this pair of specs. They're not too over the top, a lovely colour and quite similar style to glasses I usually go for, but with the 50's style wings.

Vintage 50's Sunburst Bronze Frames - £60

Vintage Black Cat Eye Winged Glasses - £34

Vintage 50's Black Horn Rim Cat Eye Glasses - £41

Vintage Satin Cream Cat Eye Glasses - £60
I love these vintage frames, but I know for a fact that I couldn't pull them off, but no doubt there are many people out there who can!

Imelda May at Leeds Academy - Imeldamazing!

I've been waiting for this gig since September as it was rescheduled.... and it was well worth the wait! I donned a floral dress and headed to Leeds Academy with Danny and it was a thoroughly brilliant night. If you ever get the chance to see Imelda and her band, then you simply must go! I love the fusion of rockabilly with a dash of jazz and blues and every song they played was fantastic.

Imelda's band is full of some seriously talented people - Darrel on lead guitar played some amazing solos. Then there was Al Gare on the double bass (visit his blog for back stage info from the road Here, Gare and Everywhere), Steve Rushton on the drums and Dave Priseman on the trumpet, percussion, horn and guitar. Of course there is Imelda herself too!

Imelda's voice was amazing. It can be disappointing to see a band play live where the vocals are a bit flat and don't sound like recorded material.... this was in no way the case for Imelda! Her voice, if anything, sounded better than the recorded songs.

They played all of my favourite songs from Mayhem and Love Tattoo - but I think the highlights, for me, were Big Bad Handsome Man (my ultimate fave!), Johnny Got a Boom Boom, Inside Out (both versions), Tainted Love, Psycho, Let Me Out, and Kentish Town Waltz.

Imelda looked amazing with her trademark two-tone quiff, red lipstick, curve-hugging gingham dress and some serious heels! The whole band just oozed cool.