You, you may say i'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

Today is the first day in a week I've ventured out of the house for reasons other than to do my paper round (that I complete for a measly £1.50 a day). I went to get a disposable camera developed that I've carried round with me since March time. I have found beforehand that I would buy a disposable camera and use all the exposures within 24 hours, then get it developed and not be all too happy with the results, so I decided to take longer to use them all which definitely works for me. I do have actual film cameras but I find them quite sporadic in when they decide to work, or maybe it's just me, also disposables are easier to carry and I like the point and shoot aspect.

I have been making the odd thing though like patches and those plastic bead things that you iron together to decorate folders and my locker with. Decorating folders is sort of a summer holiday tradition for me, I've done it two summers on the trot now so I'm going to keep it up because the ones I cover in fabric tend to disintegrate after a year of school so I need to re do them. I have a couple from year 10 I can use in year 11 though. People always comment on them and it's cool to have something aesthetically beautiful on your desk to admire during a tedious lesson of any description, and all the teachers call them 'pretty' and stuff or just look confused, which is perfectly acceptable, so I'll do that next week.

These are just the photos from today because otherwise there are far too many and they wouldn't be chronological or relevant.

They were all taken on my paper round this morning, as you see, after one and a half years of it I have chosen my favourite houses and analysed a lot of them, too. The two I got my sister to take pictures of me in front of have lovely white picket fences and flowers and are lovely and pretty. I hope they didn't see me taking the pictures.

My sister's arms.

My feet. I know the picture above this sort of looks like a continuation of this but it's actually two different houses - I just lack poses.

Is this too Intrusive I hope this isn't intrusive?

 This wasn't intended to be an ~outfit post~ but you can see my clothes so the Starsky and Hutch t shirt was from Etsy for £16 and I made/altered the trousers which were originally St Michael's but I bought them from the Salvation Army for 50p with my nifty volunteer-ee discount. They were a size 16 and straight legged and I literally cut them up and remade them using the fabric so really I sort of made them - in one night may I add; I am proud of this. I wore this outfit back in June for a Geography trip to the beach and felt uninspired today so donned it again. I was going for black, white and red vibes but the pink flowers within these trample all over that so just pretend they are red too.

These pictures are to emphasise my love for picket fences and flowers.

Opening scene to Blue Velvet vibes.

This was in a folder called 'Puke' on my computer so I don't have the source.

Thank you for reading and have a lovely day!

An ode to August

How it's August already is unbeknown to me, time flies far too rapidly, I'm not ready to grow up and be full swing into my GCSE's next year which are like serious business. I have been on holiday and returned though, I went to Malta which was scrupulously hot, but it was pretty none the less which meant I could ignore the fact I was otherwise dying to pause and admire the foreign surroundings, and we also went snorkelling which was the best experience ever in spite of imbibing far too great a quantity of salty seawater which did lead to indiscriminate spluttering all the while trying to keep yourself afloat (and all together causing a raucous and looking rather too attractive for your own good).

I read the perks of being a wallflower (original i know) and spent the majority of my money on maxibons, but I did buy a few typical tourist souvenir-y things too.

When I finished my book I didn't really have much to do in the room in the evening, there was a TV with minimal amounts of channels available and despite the Olympics on German Eurosport ceaselessly being shown (and being watched by my father, and no, Malta isn't in Germany), it is tiring having to listen to commentary in a different language or similarly, watch BBC world news (in English this time) repeating the same news stories monotonously for 5 hours or so. To obtain wi-fi, I had to sit at the foot of the door of the room where the ground was just cold, callous tiles, I could reside no where else otherwise it would disappear, and despite eventually coming to the realisation I could drag a chair to be situated at this exact point of the expanse to be all ~connected to civilization~, it gave me backache so I gave up with that. I used the free paper supplied by the snazzy 5 star hotel and a pen my mother had in the humongous beach bag she lugged round all day everyday to attempt to write, because I think it is a dying art, it's sad it's regarded as nerdy to read even in a public place, and I've wanted to use all these words I've been learning (It's my summer project to learn a word a day). I've scanned what I ended up with below, and the new journal in which I shall try to endeavour to continue creative writing in. I'm giving 'extra large' pictures a spin.

I moved stuff around in my room and bought a red 70s suitcase yesterday which this is all spilling out of/inside.

I'm aware that my watch thing sticks out and it's annoying.

 So I mentioned I moved things around in my room a bit, partially because having a Tumblr has inspired me to do so, partly because I wanted to do something before I had Tumblr (it was on my summer project list that I made beforehand), and partly because my mum, and I quote told me this morning "Hollie, you need to tidy your room, it looks like it's in one of those hoarders programmes". I swear it isn't that bad.

I'm trying to sort out some links to my Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and other social network-y things on the side of my blog which I shall add soon if you want to come and stalk me elsewhere.

Here are some old pictures that I bought yesterday at a car boot that are sort of relevant to the writing you know.

The top one here is my favourite. It looks like some sort of victorian play, they are dressed up all ethereal and elfen, like pixies and faeries but it's eery too because of the age of the picture. Basically I love it.

Sorry if you looked at those and some gave you neck-ache; i tried scanning individually but it took forever and I was going to crop them and save them so they were all individual files but I haven't got round to it.

Thank you for reading/being here/following!

Hollie

Myriad Aberrant Plethora

The title is in relevance to the list I wrote outlining my objectives over summer. That makes it sound like a corporate event, but basically one of the things I want to do is learn a new word and use it each day. Those are my first three, and I did use each of them. Also on the list is wanting to do something productive each day, which I have also adhered to so far, and plan to keep doing so.

I've wanted baby barrettes for ages, but England isn't America and I refuse to pay £6 per barrette from Etsy  that I will lose at school anyway so I'll have to wait until I have dispensable enough income to do that. Instead I thought I'd buy some buttons that I would glue gun to clips to sort of, improvise.

Above is like a ~montage~ of them, first all of the bling I attached, then the clips before, and the FINISHED PRODUCT. There wasn't really any external inspiration for them, and in the end the only baby/goody barrette looking on is the tri-flower one, the others look like a toddler got given access to some glue and mish mashed together different entities of plastic.

I wore three of them and I had daisies in my plaits (still do) I didn't make those oops.

Then I had a lot of left over glittery things and I bought some Primark sunglasses for £1 which were hella ugly in colour, so I planned to buy some glitter, mix it with PVA and paint the mixture on to them, but I forgot to buy the last two substances and had to improvise and use nail varnish. I'm utterly astonished I don't have acetone poisoning (I might I suppose) because I used two layers of Barry M candy pink as a base, then applied some glitter polish that came free in a magazine and is therefore unbranded but it was really really good, and the consistency of it meant the pink layer didn't have to be perfect. As a perfectionist, I like things to be perfect, so knowing they'd look perfect even if the pink wasn't was assuring. 

I didn't realise but there's daisies here too, subconsciously they keep appearing in my life I swear. 

I saw this after making mine but they're snazzy and deserve to be here.

 Hopefully I've inspired you to do either of these DIY's that don't actually tell you how to do them but It's quite self explanatory, all you need is a glue gun. Have a good summer guys!

Hollie

If you believe in magic, come along with me, we'll dance until morning 'til there's just you and me

On Saturday I took my sister to see Katy Perry's new movie, she is 11 so it's acceptable. (Of course I didn't want to go, who would like a film about bright colours, candy, make up-less popstars and have it be an excuse to eat many sweets in the process of this treacherous ordeal? Beats me.)

The cinema exterior is something I've never appreciated before. It's pretty so there's a few cinema appreciation pictures to come. I wore some bowling shoes I bought from Etsy for £20. Mum hates them but she just DOESNT UNDERSTAND. One even has 'I love you' written on the side of it, which toootally wasn't one of the main reasons for buying them, the attractive idea of an american dream type summer romance in the 70s didn't sway me at all.

The cinema.

Me sitting awkwardly on some railings.

Me leaning awkwardly against some railings.

I'm wearing m newest pair of deadsotck Mary Quant tights, they were £3.50 from Ebay, and the dress was from Rokit for £25. A lot of money I know but I only had an hour to make a decision and it was my last day and so it was sort of impulse but I like it, and my Kodak Brownie camera case that I have transformed into a bag.

Cinema again.

The back of my shoes. I'm an american 6 really but I can deal with my feet slipping around a bit inside them. My sister took this, unfortunately, I'm not a contortionist.

'I love you'.

The shoes. The shoes.

More shoes.

I walked my paper round for the first time ever and I must have looked like a complete and utter creep taking these pictures. As you may well be able to see, I took it from peering out over a bush, hence the twig, I must have looked like such a stalker if anyone saw me, it was 'Get a Clue' style creeping (Disney film with Lindsay Lohan in), but worth it because the car is beautiful, and a blue version was in Harry Potter.

In other news, I was looking at all of the previews of collections for Spring/Summer 2013 on Vogue.com, and at Autumn/Winter 2012, I'm loving the lurex tights of Chanel, I've been watching many on Ebay since the glittery socks of Spring/Summer 2012 Meadham Kirchhoff, and after searching 'Mary Quant' on the hunt for tights on EBay and coming across 'sparkle socks', so it's a matter of time before they're across the length and breadth of the country in Topshop and New Look. The whole Boucle trend also seems to be emerging and 60s silhouettes also seem rife; never a bad thing.

I am also waning in my enthusiasm for school and looking forward to Summer exuberant amounts. The constant feed of pictures from the Rookie Road trip on my Instagram (@hollielillian) isn't helping in my wish for freedom, but they're also a 24/7 visual feast so I shouldn't complain.

Thank you for reading, I really ought to do my Geography now.

One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful girl.

Work experience ended, back at school. Missing the freedom of being in London, but enjoying being at school with people my own age, although being the end of the school year everyone is rather restless, and I've been spending most of my time trying in earnest to focus but failing, and dreaming of summer which seems like it's forever away because of the grim weather but plagued with the knowledge it's actually like, next week. I got moved in Physics for turning round. TURNING ROUND, so I spent the last half an hour trying to carve 'do not slut shame' next to where someone had written 'SLUT' into the unused desk at the back of the science classroom that hasn't been replaced since the school was built in 1965. It's riddled with graffiti and it's like a rite of passage to vandalise school property (to a minimal extent, and I was only following suit of thousands before me so don't send me to jail).

With all of this ~suMmer that is supposed to be happenin', I'm trying to seek inspiration from colours before it's winter again, so I've been finding myself scouring Etsy with searches such as 'Psychedelic scooter dress', 'Peach skort', and 'Neon shell top'. (The second item of which I found and bought.) I'm meant to be going on holiday and can't be dealing with the stress of not being able to layer clothes as it will be 30-40 degrees. Wah.

The bow. Source Unknown.

Mary Quant campaign.

THE TIGHTS. THE COLOUR BLOCKING. Mary Quant.

Colour awesomeness in a shift dress.

Reminds me of Virgin Suicides a la 1960s. US film title: The dolls,  Original Title: Le Bambole.

I love the stark contrast of the tights to the dresses, and the continuity. The powers of a trend.

I went to the cinema and for Paramounts 100th birthday or something they played  'You're the One that I want' from the movie Grease, I'd never appreciated the aesthetic before, despite my mum's teenage obsession with Olivia Newton John still being marginally present.

Sandy gawn bad. Grease.

Beauty embodied. Source Unknown.

Quadrophenia. My auntie and uncle were real life mod and modettes back in the day, and my mum has all these cool badges that my uncle gave her. She also used to get picked up by him on his scooter after middle school. MIDDLE SCHOOL. 

I can't tell if this is a repro photo or legitimate stuff. It's perfect and pink anyway. Source Unknown.

Is this a bond film? Sorry, Source Unknown.

I would assume this is a magazine called 'Petticoat', otherwise, Source Unknown.

Does anyone else look so good putting make up on. Twiggy.

Dem 60s chicks. Source Unknown.

The tights! The tights! Source unknown.

Most overly screen capped movie ever, but visually pleasing. Moonrise Kingdom.

Skeeter in 'The Help', an amazing movie. I really recommend it.

I am mildly obsessed with patterned tights at the moment, I've accumulated 3 pairs of Mary Quant tights, and I was most upset to discover my mum had thrown away my neon pink and blue ones from my neon fad in year 7. (Also known as THE neon fad. I wasn't alone in this embarrassing endeavour). I also found a typewriter like Skeeter's that my mum bought two years ago at a car boot for 50p that I sort of stole and now resides on top of my wardrobe. I took it to school about two months ago, that was an experience, but I'm now a fully functional typewriter empress. I can do the ribbons and use the brush and everything. Another exciting piece of news, I bought saddle shoes. Mine are more like Bonnie's from the Virgin Suicides' that the conventional Bass sort of ones, but I love them, I got cat eye glasses too (such as like Skeeter's above, again), with clear plastic lenses, not the sunglasses type, and  although I have 20/20 vision so they actually impair it a bit as the lenses go all musty but no pain no gain. Teachers don't even question it because they probably think 'they're obviously real because you can't get glasses that aren't prescription' WELL YOU CAN. IT'S CALLED EBAY. But I have fooled them. In fact I've bought a lot over the past couple of months, roughly 80% of my wardrobe I'd say, so more in depth reviews of such clothes items

(Couldn't resist, sorry. Moonrise Kingdom, which I haven't even seen, because It's not being shown where I live.)

Hopefully you found these pictures as wonderful as I did upon finding them. Please email me if you know any sources of them or want them removed, not that I'm important enough for anyone to notice).

 Hollie