The Egyptian snake charmers daughter

Frock number two has travelled all the way from New Zealand...

The Frock:

I was sent this stunning vintage wrap dress by bona fide frock goddess Helga in July last year. 

I often start planning a holiday wardrobe long before I'm even planning a holiday and as soon as I clapped eyes on this beauty I knew it had to come with me on my next magical mystery tour and so it did ;)

It is labelled 'Oriental Crafts'.

This frock ticks all the boxes in my opinion with its comfy & chic cut, stunning brick red colour and amazing print.

The Trimmings:

Also featured in the pics are a pair of vintage 70s St Michael raffia wedge sandals that I bought from a local charity shop, a pleathora of jingly-jangly bangly things that I've picked up from a variety of markets & boot sales here in London.

The Hair:

 Two synthetic ponytails bought from PAK cosmetics, attached with the help of one thousand and one kirby grips...it certainly felt like that many anyway ;)

It has to be said that it was a bit of a pain in the proverbial to do this at five in the morning.

The Hindsight:

I could have saved myself a lot of bother if I had only brought a wig instead.

******

 Have a great week peeps, thank goodness it's only four days til Friday!

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Far from the Madding Crowd

As I mentioned in the previous post hubby and I did three early morning photo shoots out in the Egyptian desert and here follows the first out of ten frocks that we shot, hope you enjoy :)

The Frock:

 This is a fabulous African hooded Dashiki kaftan labelled 'Twentieth Century Costumes' which on googling I found out is a company specialising in supplying period costumes for films, television and theatre. 

I bought this frock from a car boot sale here in London before we went on holiday and decided that it would be the perfect thing to bring especially as this was my very first visit to the African continent.

The Location:

We stayed at the The Gorgonia Beach Resort which is set in the stunning surroundings of the Wadi el Gemal National Park south of Marsa Alam on the Red Sea coast of Egypt.

You really get the best of both worlds here with an impressive desert landscape creating a stunning backdrop and the wonders of underwater world just a few footsteps away from your hotel room.

The Shoot:

We shot this frock twice as you can probably figure out from the two different hairstyles I'm sporting. 

Hubby and I would get up whilst the vast majority of the resort residents were still sweetly slumbering in their beds and traipse out into the desert with our gear and set up a little shoot camp at a spot that we liked.

Then we would wait for the dawn to break and once the sun hit the horizon we'd start our desert photo sesh. The sunlight got too harsh after about an hour or so and the wind picked up as the air started to heat, so you had to work fast to get everything done.

The highlight of the shoot:

Spotting a sand fox spying on us from behind a dune.

**********

There you go the first of ten frocks ;)

Much more to come but first I have to get down to some serious holiday snap sorting. 

I'm exceedingly trigger-happy when it comes to shooting with my beloved camera and I took over two thousand photos over the two weeks we were there and that is not including the three early morning photo sessions...so I've got my work cut out to put it mildly!

Back to work tomorrow, right now it feels like I've been away for ages cause of all the amazing stuff I've seen & done but I bet it won't feel like that once I return to the ol' grind!

After enjoying the serenity of the deep blue sea and the quietness of the desert, it's quite hard to return to the madding crowds of the big shitty.

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Back in Blighty!

This years magical mystery tour took us to Egypt.

Loads of snorkelling & scuba diving in the Red Sea, desert walks and early morning photo sessions in the Wadi el Gemal national park, a visit to Luxor and a boat ride on The Nile.

The holiday highlights for me was swimming with a humongous Napoleon fish & seeing dolphins at the Sataya reef and also getting to swim with turtles and a massive eagle ray at the resort reef.

It's been a fortnight jampacked with excitement, adventure and really wild things ;)

Hubby and I traipsed out into the desert in the early morning hours on three occassions to watch the sunrise and to take some photos of the ten fabulous frocks that I had brought with me, more of that to be featured on the blog very soon.

Happy Easter to you all :)
Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Green is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometers.

In honour of Saint Patrick's Day I've decided to do a a post on one of my favourite colours i.e. Green!

I scoured the offerings of my fave blog goddesses and found gorgeous green outfits galore, feast your eyes on this fabulous lot...

VIX

HELGA

DESIREE

SARAH

LA DAMA

Here's some fabulously green frockage from my own wardrobe...

...and two new garments to hit my vast amassment of vintage clobber :)

A kitschtastic Kermit green vintage 70s jumpsuit labelled 'JOSHUA TREE - California' & a sweet seafoam green 'Dollyrockers' frock...

Hope you are all having a cracking weekend!

 Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig!

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Bringing you boot sale bounty, whatever the weather!

It's been a long day for me as I was up with the lark to go hunting for treasure.

When I looked out the window this morning I have to admit that I was rather doubtful as to wheather or not it would be worth my while but thankfully I was pleasantly surprised.

The seller numbers always dwindle dramatically when the weather is crap but sometimes it's nice to have a more manageable number of stalls to peruse.

In the summertime when the fair-weather booters are all out in force this particular boot sale can be quite daunting and you are usually totally shaggard from rummaging after only going round half of it.

 The car boot sale season is still in its winter lull but come next month it should start getting much busier.

One of the sellers decided she'd had enough and left a whole heap of damp shoes behind.

Thankfully it wasn't pouring down but it did drizzle ceaselessly. 

Everything was a bit damp but that doesn't bother me cause I mostly buy clothes & fabrics that are washed when I get home anyway.

The HARDCORE car booters...they'll rummage to the bitter end, whatever the weather!

So what did I come away with?

Well, well...some pretty neat stuff actually!

A couple of decorative brass dishes, an awesome vintage 70s kermit green jumpsuit, a vintage Delroy Fabrics catalogue, a vintage 60s psychedelic print mini dress, a pair of vintage 70s flared jeans, vintage 80s leather boots, an African print shirt & some African print fabric.

I'm very happy with my scores, especially the funky-ass jumpsuit ;)

Two more things to share before I sign off for this time, namely another outfit...

DVF floral silk blouse, Vintage 70s dress labelled 'St Honore', Crushed velvet booties, DIYed necklace & Indian earrings

I got this lovely Diane von Furstenberg silk blouse from last weeks car boot sale and the quirky cut dress I bought from my vintage dealer friend.

Last but by no means least, look what I got through the post yesterday...

My "diving license" certification card, yay!

All I need now is a holiday to somewhere warm that has reefs & fish in abundance ;)

Have a great start to the new week peeps.

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Underwater Love

I've not been very active on the blogging front for a bit cause I've been learning how to dive.

Hubby and I decided to give ourselves a PADI open water diver course for Christmas and we booked it for early February. 

Two weekends worth of classroom time, confined water dives in a pool and finally the qualifying open water dives which took place at Wraysbury lake last weekend.

I am very proud to declare that both hubby and I are now qualified PADI open water divers, which means that next time we go on holiday we can hook up with all those cool peeps in wetsuits and go diving...HUZZAH!

We fell in love with the underwater world during our snorkelling excursions in Thailand the year before last and have been talking about progressing to diving ever since, it just felt like the natural thing to do.

I've already scored a "new" wetsuit, fins & mask on eBay, the actual SCUBA diving gear is rather expensive so that will have to be hired until we can afford to splash out.

 I can't wait until our next magical mystery tour i.e. holiday abroad...

This is what started it all off, snorkelling in Thailand 2010...

This was me last weekend at a rather chilly Wraysbury lake doing the 

'tired diver tow'...

I think that I was probably more tired  than Sergey ;)

All the peeps at Dive Wimbledon were fantastic, especially Anton our brilliant instructor...

If it wasn't for AWESOME Anton's patience of a saint and steadfast encouragement I don't think I would have managed it through last weekend. 

You really couldn't ask for a better instructor, the dude deserves a medal.

You only really notice the sheer weight of your SCUBA kit when you get back up on "dry" land.

I was loaded up with a ten kilo weight belt plus all the other kit, my knees weren't loving it to put it politely.

To willingly descend into +4°C English lake water in the middle of winter certainly isn't everybody's idea of fun but if I was asked to do it again (as crazy as it may sound) I'd do it at the drop of a laden weight belt!

However I have a sneaky suspicion that I'll like diving in tropical waters even more.

Hope eveyone has had a splendid Saturday!

I'm off to the car boot sale later, first one in weeks ;)

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I woke up early this morning to go for a walk with my camera.

I wanted to take a few pics of the beautiful winter wonderland that we've been treated to before the park got mobbed with pissing dogs & kiddies intent on scraping the ground bare making snowmen.

I love snow, it's magical!

It feels like you've just stepped out of the back of the wardrobe and straight into Narnia...

When I returned back home I was greeted by a snowman outside our house...

I was also wildly excited to spot a pretty little robin on the balcony, yay!

I wore my lovely Afghan dress for the first time today...

Traditional Afghani dress (eBay), Traditional Afghani hat (market), Tecnica furry boots (eBay)

By the way if you happen to like my boots I spotted two pairs going for a song on eBay.

There's a small catch though, the seller is offering 'pick up only ' in the Manchester area but if you happen to live there and take a size 4 or 4,5 in boots then you could be bagging yourself a bargain tomorrow afternoon.

Clicking here & here will take you to the auctions.

I bought my pair on eBay a few years ago, they are supremely comfy & warm.

Hope everyone has had a fun filled weekend :)

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx