Bird-brained.

Ohhh wow. I feel like I haven't blogged in years! I am so sorry guys! My followers have been going down and I feel really guilty! University is going welll, still settling in and meeting interesting people, I so just want to get on with some work now, though.

Anyway, the best bit of being a student has arrived: my student loan! So I headed into town with a mate and had a wander around the shops. An the only things I bought were in Primark and all under £3 each, haha. So much for going wild.

I bought a hat a few weeks ago (I thought I wasn't a hat person, but I've been converted!) and since then I wanted one with like, tassles? It was hard to explain. And then I saw this lovely one in Primark.

I love it! This is kind of an awkward picture but I was trying to show off the little pom-pom's n the end, but it's not very clear! Nice bit of bandeu top + hat there, haha. Weather appropriate, I feel? The hat definitely is, it's been fucking freezing around here recently!

Then I wandered through the jewellery section and saw two things that definitely caught my eye:

These gorgeous little bird earrings! They're dangly ones, which always make me feel a bit weird, but they were £2 and super cute, so hey.

And on the way upstairs, I saw this beautyyyy.

I have developed a recent thing for brooches, in particular bird brooches. I want to cover my bag in them..

As you can see, I have this owl one (£1.50) and then the other two which were found at an antique shop & on etsy. Pretty dorky, but I don't care!

Oh, and whilst we're here, check out this crazy sky from the other night:

It was all.. apocalyptic.

Birds of Paris

Birds of Paris, birds of London, birds of New York and possibly India(?) are raising a ruckus right now in my studio, though I can't think why? The AC is on high and no one is going hungry... Birds in London are upside down in the Underground at South Kensington station. Don't ask me why. I had nothing to do with it. Olha took me along to the Royal Academy Summer show and we started bird watching - there were many onsite. That started it.
Everafter I saw birds everywhere and wanting to bring them home, like this appropriately named plaster of Paris number on sale at Comptoir de Famille.
No way was I bringing home these French homing pidgeons or love birds or doves or whatever the hell they were...On the other hand this silver charmer at the same restaurant was begging to be set free. Sadly he/she would have been missed if I'd rescued him/her for future portraits...

A Frenchie humming bird spotted in Paris minus binoculars - I didn't see many real birds at all in Paris come to think of it. have you?

I did buy the matching cup and saucer to this lovebird teapot, but I left it behind at French Girls'.

This metal bird was just the right size and shape, but he/she was firmly attached to a metal tray. No amount of twisting was going to change that...

I loved everything in the toy exhibit at the Musee Arts Decoratif. I cannot reccommend this exhibit enough - you'll have a ball. And if you should see a burley museum assistant carrying a very large blown-up bear, please tell him I regret not taking his picture in the stairwell. ALWAYS have your camera ready! Lesson learned.

Voila! Thumbnails for the day of M. Rusty formerly of Petersham Nurseries but of French origins.

M. Rusty takes a bird bath, watercolor, 9" x 11"

Tea in the afternoon in London, watercolor, 9" x 11"

Well it appears the newest bird on the block, Mistress Henny (an American breed) has taken charge and is now top bird of the flock. The others are acquiescent and have settled down after just a few peeps of annoyance...

BONJOUR WEEK-END!

Bicester Village!

The girls and I trekked to Bicester today, to see Bicester Village, an outlet centre not too far from Oxford. It only took us about an hour, but honestly it was a little bit of a let down. I mean, I did see some cool stuff in Dior, Fendi, D&G, an some amazing stuff in Alexander McQueen (including some fan-fucking-tastic heels!) but generally most of it was still out of my price range. As usual, I loved The Cosmetic's Company Store and I also had fun in Cath Kidston and Monsoon.. buttt generally it seemed like a bit of a waste! I guess there were some good bargains, but things that were still £200-300 are a bit out of my price range at the moment! I got a few goodies, though, but I think from now on I'll stick to the Portsmouth outlet, because there are some good shops around the area that I can afford. (:

I'm sure many of you know of Cath Kidston, I'm assuming most? Their patterns are adorable, and it was hard to not to buy lots of little bags and purses in all kinds of colours and styles, but I wanted something to keep my makeup in when I'm out and about, so picked up this little beauty for only £4!

I loved the rose-pattern and inside is plastic-coated:

...So it's perfect for keeping my makeup in! And it's just the right size, too!

Anyyyway, The Cosmetics Company Store is what the American's call CCO's. It sells out ends of old stock, so in terms of MAC they had loaaads of left over Hello Kitty, lots of jars of glitter, lots of discontinued eyeshadow colours. They also had some Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Estee Lauder, DKNY. I limited myself to one nail polish, because otherwise I'd have bought so many of those glitters, because they were like £9 a pop!

This is the colour I got, it's called Spicemix. I have no clue what collection this is from, Temptalia.com tells me that it was Classic Coordinates, but I was just getting into MAC at that time, so I'm no authority on that! As you can see in the bottle, anyway, it's a rich reddish-bronze with a orange tint to it, which made me super excited!
On the nail though.. and it's a different story. It's still pretty, don't get me wrong! ...Buttt you can't see those fantastic shimmers! Which makes me sad. So I had an idea.
The other day I posted saying I made a polish using Old Gold pigment - well I made up half a bottle of it.. so I tried it out, thinly layered over the top.

The result.. well see for yourself.

It went from a fairly standard reddish-brown, to this red with bronze and green reflects in! Love it!

And last but not least, I picked up a pair of great vintage-looking sunnies in Accessorize for £4.50! I know they're a bit on the tacky side, but I loveee the blue colour and the old-fashioned shaped frames.
I love glasses where the arms are quite low, like these. Finally, my scratched up gold Dorothy Perkins aviators can be retired for the summer now that I have these! I wish I could get some Chanel/Dior sunglasses, but I break them all the time, and don't trust myself with them because I'm clumsy as hell. (: Such is life. I prefer these bright blue ones anyway. Cheap and cheerful!

On an unrelated note, on the way home we took a slightly different route down the M40 towards London, and we saw loads of Red Kite's flying overhead! They're a really excellent looking bird of prey, and they sort of swoop around, haha.

Aren't they great looking? Apparently they used to be really endangered in the UK, because they were easy to hunt, and they introduced a breeding program and they've done really well! I love birds of prey like this.