New theme/new coat!

I'm pretty sure there's a name for having to change your theme this often. Or at least a disorder, or something along those lines. I don't even have a particular reason for changing it (again) except for the fact I was bored of my old one and didn't think it was especially fitting for my personality and/or blog contents.

In other news, I finally bought the Topshop coat I wanted! It may have been slightly late in the day for buying a winter coat (seeing as we're now halfway through December and all) but considering what the weather was like back in February, I'm hoping it'll get its wear.
From what I've seen so far, the coat was a great investment buy. Originally it was £79 and my plan was to get my dad to buy it for me (alas, he wouldn't) so along came payday and a last minute trip to Brent Cross shopping centre and there was my coat! Reduced to £55 as well, or £49.50 with student discount. I'm always weighing up the odds of having to show my student card (I genuinely resemble a hamster in my picture) vs getting discounted clothes. Usually, the discount wins but if there's a really attractive cashier sometimes I'll just spend the extra few pounds. I'm fully ignoring how shallow that sounds as well!

I rarely buy winter coats because I'm usually just in my denim/jersey jacket. Purely because it's denim and black, meaning that I can wear it with virtually everything. When I'm wearing denim skirts or jeans I just take off the denim outerpart and wear a black hoodie. Sorted. Now of course I can wear my amazing new coat, which I'm really looking forward to.
My issue last year with my Topshop coat was the lining; the coat was made of wool and so the insides of the sleeves were itchy as hell. This time though they're lined better, although I guess usually the point of wearing a coat is layered over something else rather than bare arms!
Another great thing about this coat? I can buy it in a size 10! When I buy clothes I'm always a size 12 (except in stretchy stuff or when there's no size 12s in stock) and I was paranoid of having to buy a 14 in the coat so I could actually wear stuff under it without looking like a polar bear. This coat is oversized by design but I found the 12 came up huge, even with layers on underneath, so I ended up opting for a 10! A reduced coat and a boost of self esteem; Topshop have really impressed me this time!
I tried it on in the Oxford Street branch a month or so ago and a lovely girl working in there told me the colour/cut really suited me. Whether she was working on commission or was genuinely being nice we'll never know, but it made me happy.
So, I now have a new theme and a new coat, it's been a productive day!

Topshop inspired Christmas meal outfit

Leggings

T Shirt

Necklace

Silk Bomber

Lipstick

Heels

Bag

Me and my friend Paige managed to miss our (very informal) Christmas do at work today because not only was there so much traffic, but my money for my parking ticket wouldn't work in the machine (I blame the machine) which meant I had to hunt around in my bag/car/Paige's bag etc until we found another 10p. Pheeew. I do have an 18th birthday meal to go to this weekend though which should be great! 

Trashy TV fascinations

Come Dine With Me, Wife Swap, Friends, you name it, I've watched it. I've had Sky+ in my room for about 3 years now and I used to go weeks without watching any TV, all the while feeling guilty about my mum paying for it without me using it!

Ironically, it's only been since I've been employed (albeit more recently, not 2 years ago) that I've started watching more TV. It definitely feels like I'm making up for lost time. It's great at the moment because for our English coursework we have to write/analyse a transcript, so what did I do? Come Dine With Me! Such a great excuse to watch more TV and combine it with (apparent) learning.

I'm actually watching friends while writing this as well as getting ready for work - no one can say I can't multi task! These are some of my favourites at the moment, what with coursework and my job it's difficult to find time to watch a lot of TV which is where my Sky+ comes in handy. 

The ever traditional Friends. Perfect if you've only got half an hour to kill (or less if you're watching on Sky+) and need something light and cheerful.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who likes Skins series 5-6 as well as the rest of them (Except 7 of course) I used to be fully obsessed with Skins when I got the boxset and now I'm rewatching it gradually.

Come Dine With Me is on every morning on some weird channel at 8:55AM, which says it all really. Whenever I have long breaks I come home, make my lunch and watch CDWM. It's great as long as I'm not eating anything really uninteresting when the food on CDWM looks so much more appetizing!

I really want to buy the boxset for this - I haven't actually watched it yet but I've heard so much about it - I just wish I could find it available in the UK! If anyone has any links they want to give me then that would be much appreciated

Anyone got any recommendations of programmes I should watch? As it's Christmas and my birthday soon (32 days!!!!) present ideas (yes, for myself) would be great!

"Ever since I was a young girl..."

It sounds like the first line of a personal statement, and I'm semi embarrassed to say that it actually features in mine. I've pretty much considered myself a design nerd since I asked for PSPPX2 for my, what? 12th birthday? Something like that. Back when photo editing software was £100 or so, rather than £700 (no hinting towards anything in particular *COUGH* Photoshop *COUGH* Indesign.. ahem.
For my media studies coursework this year we have the option of either creating a movie trailer or designing a digipak for a CD. My group were so excited to start the trailer (as you'll have read from previous posts) until we saw how easy it is to get an A through the digipak route. I'm not even exaggerating when I say one of the A grade pieces was a bunch of selfies with some clipart on top of it. Depressing, right?
As much as I was so excited to get started on our movie trailer, I'm so determined to get an A or an A* overall in media which means I need to grab all the marks through coursework, which I have so much more control over. The digipak can be done in my own time as well as in college and I know I can get a good mark in it - I've used the video editing software a fair few times but I've been using Photoshop/PSP since I was 12. Point made? I think so.
We only got told about the options officially this morning and I've been excited to start planning ever since. I'm starting my research for the digipak soon but for now I've just been messing around on Photoshop with effects for 20 minutes or so. These are all photos I've manipulated (albeit not much) that I've taken in the past year or so. It's actually really nice looking through them as they bring back so many memories.
My aim is to take loads more photos and come to a conclusion for a theme (these photos hold no theme whatsoever and consequently don't work together at all). I love photo editing and I'm actually really excited to start my coursework which is a refreshing change.

This is a photo I used for previous coursework which I multiplied etc 

My guitar ft Jens

CHVMISTRY is my favourite song by my favourite band - might have to steal it for the digipak band name hmmm

So I lied when I said they were all taken this year. This was taken last year in Turkey

Pretty sure this was taken in April in Fuerteventura while we were on a coach

This is a nice juxtaposed photo from Magaluf Beach taken over summer. Very contrasting to stereotypes haha!

This was also taken looking down onto Magaluf Beach. If I were to turn around, you would see nothing but clubs/bars

This is a wall following the previous picture - I got the frame size wrong and flipped it so it's now the floor

This was taken from my recent trip to Great Yarmouth for Channel 4's 4Talent day

Previously posted but I still love it - Great Yarmouth arcades!

Fashion photo inspiration/December 8th

I think when most people think of Tumblr as fashion inspiration they think of 'hipster' clothing - YOLO t shirts, fringing, high waisted shorts (always worn by tanned, skinny girls on the beach) etc. I often use Tumblr as outfit inspiration post because of the variety of posts seen on there - as it's a worldwide community, the fashion sense reflects this. Despite not knowing how to skate (yet), I've figured out I dress as though I can. Hmm. This is just making me want to learn even more but considering the current weather, I'd rather wait and start with all limbs in tact. I guess from this I could say Tumblr and the inspiration I get from it makes me happy!

7th December (24 hours late)

I find working out to be a great stress reliever, especially this time of the year when I have UCAS/university applications along with coursework and work to deal with! It's a lot easier now that I can drive too because it means if I'm feeling a workout I can be there in 10 minutes instead of either waiting for a bus (which comes at the ever so frequent time of every 75 minutes) or getting a lift.. which usually means walking back. I wouldn't mind this except A) it's dark and B) it's just under three miles, which pretty much means I could get all the exercise I need just getting there and back!

I decided to make myself a workout playlist so I'm more motivated to exercise for longer. The music at my gym doesn't really cut it - I find the most motivating thing to be music which reminds me of previous occasions, like parties, holidays, anything where I was happy/moving around/etc. After making this playlist I realised it's very rap based, but if that's what works then so be it! The playlist is originally on my itunes but I made a copy to upload onto here if anyone's interested.

I appear to be posting 3 days' worth of posts at a time

It's official: I am a Blogmas failure. It is only the 8th and I'm posting three days' worth of posts at a time?! How can this continue?!
I've decided this post of happiness (6th December) is dedicated to what I spent friday night actually doing (as opposed to blogging, of course.) This would be: DISCOVERING NEW BANDS/MUSIC.

I put bands/music because I've only just listened to Deaf Havana's new album, however I've loved their old stuff (aka their stuff avec Ryan) for a few years now. Their album, Old Souls, was released September this year meaning that I'm not majorly far behind. After the release of their previous album, Fools and Worthless Liars holds strong contrast from when the likes of Ryan were in the band and had a much heavier feel. Old Souls is pretty similar to FAWL in the way that it's still relaxed and lighter, but for this time of year I find it's perfect for relaxing. I ended up listening to the entire album while I was tidying my room on Friday night (no one can call me a boring teenager) and I'm planning to buy it soon!

The only songs I find I'm not keen on are Lights and Speeding Cars, but the rest of the album, in my opinion, is amazing!

My all time favourite Deaf Havana song has got to be Waves, off their second album Meet Me Halfway, At Least.

So apparently my scheduled posts haven't been posting...

There was me thinking I was being all prepared, smugly waiting for my posts to.. post each day, and I check my blog today to find out that nothing has posted. What?! I'm not sure if this is my fault or Google Chrome's again.. hmm.
Alas, we shall continue from where we've left off!
DECEMBER HAPPINESS TAG DAY 4
Making movies makes me happy. I didn't even realise how much I like recording things and editing them until we had to record a christmas advert for Psychology (yeah I'm still trying to figure that one out too). When it comes to things like this I'm not especially great at group work if I'm with people who don't know what they're doing, however this time I was pretty clueless at first as well so we were all in the same boat. We were given a camera and tripod and were left to our own devices to record an advert. Hmm. The biggest problem was the lack of supplies - aside the shitty christmas tree in college we had absolutely nothing festive. In the end we took a casual approach and filmed loads of people saying Merry Christmas and laughing. We mixed this with some close ups of baubles and the tree and edited it all together, added music and we were done! I ended up doing pretty much everything because I was the most enthusiastic, but my friends pretty much told me what we should do and I did it.. does that sound more fair?
It was great using the cameras too because in a few weeks time we're starting our Media coursework in which we have to film a movie trailer - using the exact same equiptment just with a more complex program! We're supposed to be in groups of 2 or 3 and I think my group have subtly agreed on going together (I hope!) but we'll see.
I'm really happy that I'm enjoying it so much - I'm applying for Journalism courses at university and although I'm much more into the writing aspect it would be good to have some knowledge on the other parts too. I guess after this the only thing left is radio!
I think once I've done the finishing tweaks on the video I'll upload it because I'm pretty proud of it, except the sound quality!

DECEMBER 3RD

I, much like the average teenage girl, love sales. I like shopping, but I love sales. What's better than finding that the skirt you've been wanting for ages has been reduced? Alternatively, there's the horror of finding the skirt you bought a few weeks ago in the sale, but that's by the by. I was shopping after college yesterday when I went into Primark (ultimate bargain hunting haha) and found two skirts I was going to buy a week or so ago. The best part? I got them BOTH for £6 rather than paying £20 in total. Not only did I save myself the horror of going back and seeing my stuff reduced, I also exercised my self control and managed to get them for a third of the price! I often do this in Topshop too - I bought a pair of Joni jeans for £18 instead of £36, and I still have no idea why they were in the sale. Christmas sales especially are great because it means you can go crazy and class things as presents (even if they're..ahem.. for yourself).. Everybody needs a pick me up this time of year and going shopping/crashing the sales is a perfect way to do just that. Think of all the money you're saving by going shopping now rather than later, when all the best stuff has been taken. You're actually (kind of) doing yourself a favour! I'll be doing a OOTD/WIWT post with the skirts soon!