Wednesday, 25 June 2014

OOTW; Gretel

This week features yet another new dress I bought in Brighton a few weeks back... Its the Gretel Dress in Gingham from Collectif! 


Gretel Swing Dress, Collectif - £58.50
Round Sunglasses, Vintage Fair - £5
Peep Toe Sling Back Heels, Peacocks - £12


I did super basic make-up with this, just a simple thin winged eye-liner and foundation. Mainly because I opt to wear less make-up in the summer due to the heat. I put my hair in plaits mainly because, well, I think I look cute and it matches this outfit absolutely perfectly!

Overall the Gretel dress is super cute, it has the halter neck style I really adore and the buttons on the front of the dress are an adorable heart shape. The top half actually opens up like a top which is quite a sweet feature if you maybe want a little more cleavage. The skirt of the dress and top of the dress has a beautiful little crochet lace detail on the trim, it just adds to the cuteness of this dress completely!!

I was a little wary of this dress at first (yes I know, surprising for me with a Collectif dress!), however a friend bought this dress a while back and she found it came up quite short, now both of us being plus size princesses we have rather chubby thighs, and tend not to go for shorter dresses. But I bit the bullet when in the Brighton shop, and bought it. For me it sits just on the knee, as you can see from the above picture, which is good for me personally, as I stand at around 5ft5.5, so the dress isn't too short for me.

The dress is super lightweight and is perfect for summer, however you can team it with a cardigan on the shoulders, if their is a slight breeze in the air!

Love

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxoxox


P.S Guess who was in the Hell Bunny Rag... ME! Sporting my Red Meriam Dress (blog post here!)



Saturday, 21 June 2014

My Favourite Top!

A little blog write up following my YouTube Video from the other week! As said, these tops compliment my bust and tummy amazingly and are so easy to style in different ways! 




I have 2 of the Polka Dot Tops. One in Candy Pink and the other in Navy

Buy Here

I also have 2 plain, white and Black, for easy pairings with patterned skirts or for an office look with some cigarette trousers or swing trousers.

Buy Here


I also have 2 patterned tops, one which is a Black and Cherry top, new to the Spring/Summer 2014 collection, and the other being the red gingham top from last summer.

Cherry Top - Buy Here
Gingham Top - Buy Here



I just love the cut of these tops, and they are super complimentary to those with a bigger bust! I love the fact they also have a stretchy bit on the sleeves. You can either wear it with the sleeves up as normal or you can wear them off the shoulder (which by the way looks absolutely adorable!).

I'd definitely recommend this top - its one of my favourites and they are so easy to style with several different outfits!

Lots of Love

Emma Victoria

xoxox

Wednesday, 18 June 2014

OOTW; The Saturday Dress

 The other week I went to the Brighton Vintage Fair and Decided to go shopping in Brighton afterwards! While walking through the lanes I arrived at my favourite stall, the one with all the pretty vintage dresses! Then this one caught my eye... I'd been eyeing this dress up for a while and it was only £30! When picking this dress up however I got my sizes completely wrong... I forgot that a large was a size 14 NOT 16... BUT IT STILL FITS PERFECTLY! Two in one!!!!


Saturday Dress, Hell Bunny - £30
(depending where you buy from)
Bow Tie Shoes, New Look - £5 (sale)
Hair Flowers, Amazon (Pack of 10) - £3.89
White Sunglasses, Bow and Crossbones - £6

I've put my hair in plaits quite a lot recently, and it just looks so cute! Because I'm growing my hair a little I've not been able to do this in ages! Anywho, on to my make-up I just went for a super simple look for this outfit and just had mascara and a little bit of pale pink lipstick just to go with the purple of the dress!

Seeing as my hair was in plaits I just decided to put a white and purple hair flower on each side for that extra cuteness and my white sunglasses just add to the retro style of this outfit!

I'm not wearing any shapewear/corset with this dress, and no bra as it holds the boobs up quite well! 





Cheeky jumping shot too!!

Eeek, I'm just loving summer!

Love

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxox

Saturday, 14 June 2014

YouTube - Beauty Faves

Only a couple of weeks later, and I've got another new YouTube video up for you guys!!! This has to be a record or something!! 

Okay, so I was asked by a few people to do a Beauty Faves video, I may up date this every few months or so, but I tend to normally stick to the same sort of products that work well for me.

So here are my current beauty favourites!!




Lots of Love my Munchkins! Any other ideas for videos or posts you may have please comment below as I'd love to hear them!

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxoxox

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

OOTW; Schwing...

Happy Wednesday!!! I am just loving this summer weather we've had!! This weekend I went for a couple of dog walks with Alice and Freddie and taught Alice to swim! However... A few people are still going on about me and trousers so here is another trouser outfit that I really like and have been sporting a lot recently!


White Cinch Belt, Hell Bunny - £5
Black T-bar Heels, eBay - £15
Sock bun, Peackocks - £1
Vintage Circle Sunglasses, Vintage Fair - £5
Swallow Love Necklace, eBay - £10
This outfit is very much a crossover of the 40's and 50's, I personally just wanted to make this outfit a bit more flirty with the cleavage from the Dolores top, plus seeing as its summer I don't want to have a too heavy top as I would just get hot. I just went for a simple black and white look with this outfit purely because I just wanted it to be simple and effective and making the cinch of the waist stand out more. By going simple with the colours, it also makes the red lipstick stand out more, which I personally love by highlighting this one part of the outfit!

You can also wear flat pumps with this look, I just opted for heels! The Franky Swing trousers are a definite must-have in my opinion... These are perfect for creating that vintage look but also making your bum look amazing!!!! I got mine in a 22, mainly because trousers are normally tight on the bum for me, but these were just a tad too 
big! So I tailored the inside seam to make it tighter and also tailored the length in the leg as it was just a tad short for me, seeing as I only stand at 5ft5.5 in height.

I went for my signature rockabilly look today - just half white and half golf eyeshadow, Starting with white across the whole lid and in the crease and about half the eyelid in golf eyeshadow blended out, winged eyeliner and ruby red lips! I'm super loving my new sunglasses at the moment too! I got these when I went to the Vintage Fair on the 1st June. These are slightly different to my usual Marilyn sunglasses as these are a little more rounded, but they are just so cute!!!

Well that's all from me! I also have a YouTube video going up this Saturday!! I told you it wouldn't be months till a new one goes up! This is just a beauty faves video as suggested to me by my friend Josie! So look out for that!

Love

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxoxoxox


Saturday, 7 June 2014

Glitzy Secrets Review & Make-Up/Hair Tutorial

I was contacted a couple of weeks ago about doing this review; and I just couldn't say no! This is
something I could not pass up so replied and sorted out the details. I'm splitting this post into 2 sections, the first being the review, the second being a Hair and Make-up Tutorial so you can achieve the elegant Grace Kelly Look yourself.

Review
This review is also inspired by the release of the Grace of Monaco biographic film (you can read Glitzy Secrets blog post all about Grace Kelly here). So after having a little look on their website, I absolutely fell in love with the Vintage Ribbon Head Band, it was gorgeous and elegant. 

The item is beautifully designed, and the elegant diamonds add a beautiful dimension when a light shines on the headband. This headband genuinely makes me feel like a princess. The beautiful design is set upon a wire headband, which is quite comfortable, it doesn't have any groves so I'd recommend some bobby pins to secure the head band in place if you plan on wearing it for a long period of time. The item is a little heavy, so if you decided to do maybe a beehive sort of style hair you could balance the headband on that to take a little weight off, however it isn't so heavy that you want to take it off. 

I got TONNES of compliments when out at the Brighton Vintage Fair last weekend, a lot of people said I looked beautiful and where asking where I got this beautiful headband from. I mainly chose this one due to the elegance and the curves of the piece, I wanted something a little different that wasn't straight and would look gorgeous and this product lives up to it all.

Its also very heavy duty, when sorting my hair out, my friend accidentally dropped the headband when passing it to me, but it was absolutely fine, although I wouldn't suggest dropping it, ours was an accident!! 

Overall I love this headband. I would recommend to anyone, whether it be for everyday, for an event or even for a bride getting married to get one of these hair accessories from Glitzy Secrets - you definitely get your money's worth and the quality is absolutely amazing!

Hair & Make-up Tutorial

With the headband I decided to go for a very traditional look, that of which was iconic with Grace Kelly's look. She often had the bottom of her hair curled and the top straight, and brushed backwards.

1. Naked Face. So basically you want to start with a naked face, and clean hair, I normally set my hair to get curls but for this tutorial I'm curling them with clean hair, if your hair is slightly silky like mine then just use some dry shampoo for texture if you prefer, however I opted for none. 

2. Pin Your Fringe (Optional) I wanted to make the headband stand out as much as possible, so I decided to pin my fringe back, I just back combed my fringe and pined it back with 2 bobby pins in a cross on top of my head, I also use this cross to help secure the headband later on. 

3. Curl First of all take about a 1/4 of an inch of hair, I decided to have thicker curls for this look as this was much more iconic of the Grace Kelly look.When curling only curl about half of your hair (as shown) to create this look - You will get thick curls which you can choose to brush out for extra volume at the bottom of your hair.

4. Seperate Now you want to just brush through the girls with your fingers to separate the curls to create a "bush" of curls on the bottom of your hair. 

5. Make-up I've gone for a very simple and elegant look for this style. I used my Collection Lasting Perfection foundation in Ivory for a base on my skin. For my eyes I used 2 eye-shadows, one being the Natural Collection eye-shadow in "Candyfloss" blended across the whole eyelid, and a champagne coloured eye-shadow from my palette again across the whole lid and blended to create a simple nostalgic look. I used a pencil eye-liner, sharpened to a point and drew a thin line on the top of my lid, just going to the point of my eye and stopping; I then went over the waterline at the bottom of my eye and met the two lines of eye-liner up in the corner of my outer eye. I then added my Rimmel Scandal-eyes mascara and to finish used my Maybelline Watershine Lip Gloss in "Cotton Candy".

6. Final Touches. I then add my headband, pushing the hair from the side of my face back behind my ears, I then secure the headband at the sides hiding the pins inside the curls. Using the pins on top of my hair I then secure the top of the headband to make sure it doesn't slip or fall down. And you are done! 

When I actually completed this look and looked in the mirror, I genuinley cried. I've never looked more beautiful in my whole life, and I've never cried about the way I look in a positive way. This headband and style would be something I'd consider wearing if I were getting married - the headband's elegance and beauty just adds a gorgeous yet simple effect on the whole hairstyle.

You can buy the Vintage Ribbon Headband here for £32 and much more choice of other accessories over on the Glitzy Secrets Website.

Lots of Love

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Wednesday, 4 June 2014

OOTW: Winter to Summer!

You may remember way back in January when I featured a winter outfit with the Collectif Blackwatch Skirt... In this weeks OOTW, I thought I'd show you what I've done to get a summer twist!


Peter Pan Collar Top, Primark - £5
Black Patent Frothy Soda Flat Shoes, Clarks - £44.99
Leopard Print Cat Eye Sunglasses, eBay - £8

For the summmer look I just paired the skirt with this cute little peter pan collar top, and its also perfect if you don't want to show too much cleavage. Its quite a light outfit too, so it keeps you nice and cool in the summer heat!

I did my hair in a style I've been doing a lot recently. Just taking some hair at the front and plaiting them round and clipping them at the back of my head - you can either leave the hair lose like I have here of pop it into a looped ponytail (watch here on how to do this!). 

For my make-up its just a little bit of foundation and some mascara. Nothing too spectacular. I don't like wearing too much make-up in the summer cause of the sweat and that. (yuck.)

I've also resorted to my leopard print sunglasses as my black ones have broken and only just bought some new ones (yay) which are more expensive but awesome quality!

Anywho my darlings, I best be off for today! If you have any post suggestions do let me know!

Lots of Love

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxoxox

Saturday, 31 May 2014

Putting My Stamp On It...

The other week I was contacted by Mr Nutcase to do a review of a personalised phone case, I absolutely jumped at the chance! I've always kind of wanted one, but never really got round to doing it, so I finally did! 



The process was super simple for creating the phone case; you just have to enter the details of your phone (in my case, I have an iPhone 4S so I just put in the manufacturer which is Apple and the iPhone 4s, then you choose the case style you want. I opted for the ultra light weight slimline case because I've never been a fan of the flip cases.

You then get to choose from 25 layouts, which have different styles, different amounts of pictures you can put on them. I chose for the 4 grid for the photos I had in mind... 

I chose 2 pictures of myself, the top left was at Summertime Swing last year, and the bottom right is a picture I took for my OOTW picture and absolutely adore it! The top right is of Alice and the bottom left is of Freddie - they are mean the world to me, and I adore them, and I've always wanted to have a piece of them with me everywhere I go... and now I do!

The quality of the case is amazing! For this phone case it costs £14.95, it may be a little expensive however it is completely worth the price for the quality of the images that come out! The images of Freddie and me from Summertime Swing actually were instagram images, and the quality isn't actually pixelated what so ever!  Also, I often find that when I put a case on my phone, the feel of the phone in my hand is different.. it feels bulkier and heavier, however, this case is so thin and light weight that it doesn't make a huge difference at all, and it even fits into my trouser pockets without too much hassle (yes that is a necessity when you run around everywhere for everything!!).


Overall I'm super impressed with this phone case, yes it may be on the more expensive side of your price range but its definitely quality over quantity, I often let my brother and the children I work with handle my phone sometimes so it can be prone to scratches, especially on the case but this case had already paid for itself, doesn't have a single scratch on it whatsoever! With the back of the case being a matte feel, it means it is less likely to scratch then those with a gloss, and for people like me, that is such a good thing to have!

If you would like to make your own personal phone case from Mr Nutcase  then you can use this code to get 10% off your order!! 



"Thanku10"

See you on wednesday for another OOTW!

Lots of Love

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

OOTW & Review: Pretty Polly

We have a double whammy again today! I totally enjoyed reviewing the Stella Sweetheart Dress in this way that I've also decided to do it for this dress...

OOTW

White Bow Wedges, Simply Be - £20
(Discontinued)
Marilyn Cat Eye Sunglasses, Wear it Again Sam - £9.99

For my make-up I just did the signature rockabilly style with thin winged eyeliner, and a blue undertone red lipstick to make my pearly whites shine. For my eyeshadow I just used the Rimmel Glam'Eyes Mono Eyeshadow in "Glam Ice" for an ice white feel to my eyes for an extra pop in the summer sun!

Recently for my hair I've been totally loving the 60's beehive hairstyle; I'd never really tried it so I've just been experimenting with what works for my hair seeing as mine is growing out and is layered. I just matched the red bandanna for that extra rockabilly touch and just to help shape up the beehive a bit more.

Review

As I said above, I got this dress as a thank you gift. I'd been pining over it since Collectif actually released the images for this dress which is part of this years Spring/Summer Collection. I've been looking for a good shirt dress for a while that actually fits over my rather large bust area and Collectif never fail to make me smile... I actually went for a size 20, I normally go for a size 22 due to the chest area always being tight, but I gave the smaller size a shot; and I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well the fit was, with my bust measuring 44-46 depending on the cut I was in between an 18/20. You can either have the dress fully buttoned up, or if you want a slightly more rebel rockbilly feel have it on one of the lower buttons which shows more cleavage! You can either be preppy princess or rebel rockabilly!


The twirl test is probably my favourite thing about reviewing dresses! This dress does have a full circle skirt, however due to the different material it does twirl a bit differently, and actually I really like it! The skirt of the dress actually swings in more of a direction unlike my other circle skirt dresses which just follow your movement - the extra movement of the skirt gives an amazing dimension when walking down the street in heels as it helps to exaggerate your hip movements. 

Overall I LOVE the polly dress, its definitely a summer must-have! If the weather does become cooler however you could match this with a bolero; I'd personally reccommend either the Gail Bolero in Cream or Jean Bolero in Ivory

The Polly dress is available in either in red gingham, red or black. 

See you saturday for my next post my lovelies!

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Saturday, 24 May 2014

YouTube... The Collectif Obsession Haul

So... I've finally filmed a video regarding something everyone asks me a lot about. Its my obssession with Collectif and how much I actually own of their clothes. (Its forever growing; I'm being serious).



Make sure you give me a like and subscribe! I know I don't post much, but if you have any idea's then I'd love to hear them cause I'm always so super stuck on ideas for videos to do for you guys!

Emma V

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Wednesday, 21 May 2014

OOTW; Rockin' & Rollin'

White Long Sleeved T-Shirt, Nouvelle - £12
Black Slimming Leggings, £10 - Next (Discontinued)
Black Pumps, Clarks - £44.99
Lollipop - Optional

So I got Imelda May's new album Tribal (yes I fangirled, cause I absolutely love her.) and I found that the album was much more 'rocker' side of rockabilly, which I absolutely love!! My favourite song right now is "Round the Bend" its pure perfection! Although, I think my family may already be sick of the album by how much I've played it...

Anywho, today's look is inspired by the rocker chic... I'm always pretty and girly, and well sometimes its good to just dress like a proper little rocker! I've still got a little cutesy in this outfit with the lollipop! You could either wear black pumps of military boots with this outfit, my boots need to be replaced but pumps are just as good!

Ever wish you were as talented as your idol?

Lots of Love

Emma V

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

P.S - I have a YouTube video going up on saturday... Amazing I know! It's to do with Collectif...

Saturday, 17 May 2014

Being a "Plus Size"...

This has been bugging me for a little while now... 
Yes I'm plus size.
and Yes... Men are attracted to me!!!!!!!

Honestly, the amount of times people put me down for my size and not being a size 10 doesn't bother me but what does bother me is when they think men won't be attracted to me because I'm a bigger girl.

I've battled with my weight for many years now - and only since I've started modelling have I started to learn to accept it. And since accepting it, my confidence has grown by 1000%!

But (there's always a but isn't there...) everytime I hear other people say "She's pretty but if she lost 'this much' weight then she'd get a man no problem" - I DO NOT NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT TO FIND A MAN.

Honestly, my love life isn't exactly the worst - yes I may well be single right now, but I've started dating again and seeing people! People also seem to think that I won't be able to "pull" an attractive guy because I'm not that slim... WRONG. You can't say all guys have the same taste for women, as the same for women with men and women and women and men and men and so on - you just can't!

Since dressing in this style, I get littered with compliments all the time but the most common one has to be "How do you get the confidence to wear these sort of clothes?" I didn't and sometimes I still get a bit worried if I'm pushing the boundaries too far for my figure... But why should it matter how I dress to the rest of the world! 

I know this is a kind of ranty post, but I just want people to understand that I am a human being just like everyone else, and I do sometimes get a little hurt by rude comments, whether you mean them or not. 

Another little note I'd like to add, as I still find many people at my college and sometimes even my friends think that looks are the thing that attracts you to a person - they are only a small factor, obviously you have to like the way a person looks in your eyes (not everyone is Marilyn Monroe y'know) but personality is also attractive. 


Lots of Love

Emma Victoria

xoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoox