Matalan Graduate Design Project

Last week I was invited to an evening at the new Liverpool City Centre Matalan store to see the new collection designed by competition winners, Kerry Crone and Imogen Stubbs. It was a night of festive nibbles and drinks with competitions and collections for fashion bloggers to enjoy! Over all it was a really enjoyable evening and I met some lovely people.

The Graduate Design Project was basically a competition where young fashion designers were offered the opportunity to win their own range in the North-West stores and a £500 cheque! The winners were both challenged to create a collection that en-capsuled the punk era, and I for one would say they succeeded!

With Imogen's bold cross T shirts and Kerry's edgy safety pin prints the girls pulled off the perfect punk collection!

Above there's just a few snaps of the collections (both Kerry's and Imogen's) and some of the other fashion bloggers 'picks' on the rail. I though i'd share a few of my pictures from the night with you all below and then explain a bit more about the blogger's competition from the night!

Above, from left to right, are the gorgeous red velvet, Matalan cakes laid out for us, me and my plus one for the night, Abi, and the lovely goodie bags Matalan provided for all of their guests. The bags had tonnes of free vouchers and promotions for the store and a beautiful black, white and silver clutch bag worth £10!

Above is my outfit of the night which consisted of a Topshop cami, Primark leather look harem pants and my trusty New Look heels. I accessorized with white and fluro yellow baroque style jewelry from H&M and a fluro yellow clutch bag from ebay. The centre picture is me outside the Queens Square Matalan, Liverpool.

Above you'll be able to see all the bloggers tags that were there on the night. The idea was for each blogger to put their two tags on two items to make an outfit. The labels read 'Blogger <3's' and you can see a close up of my tag in the middle! We were given the oppurtunity to win whichever items we put our <3 labels on, the people hosting the night and Matalan designers will pick their favourite outfit and the designer of that outfit will win their selected items!

You can see all the items I picked above. I picked one of Imogen's grungy printed Ts and then in true form an extremely glitzy midi skirt from their 'we heart' section. I would probably wear this outfit on a night out and style it with some leather lace up boot style heels (think Jeffrey Campbell style) and an over-sized leather black clutch bag. I also think big silver statement jewelry would be necessary! Something grungy like thick chains would go well.

Any way I hope you like the outfit I picked, let me know what you think in a comment below. Also tell me what you love about the grad collections below! You can see a glimpse of the collection above but if  you want to shop the full thing click here. - Alice x

Autumn Favourites

Tis the season to wear chunky knits, snuggle up in front of the fire, drink hot choccy and go running and bounding through giant piles of crisp golden leaves! Yes Autumn is here and it's my fav time of year. I love the Autumn shades, the season is full of rich, warm colours with all the added frost of winter on its way. What better way to show these beautiful colours than with beautiful nails!

This post is on my current favourite collection of varnish, Sally Hansen's Complete Manicure. I've picked six of my must have shades for Autumn from an affordable highstreet name to show you all.

Each varnish is currently £6.99 in Boots and are available in loads of other highstreet stores. My favourite thing about the Sally Hansen Complete Manicure range is that each colour has a really good shine to it and it usually only takes on coat of varnish to cover the entire nail. As well is this the extra thick brush means you can cover the nail in pretty much one stroke.

The above are swatches of my favourite colours. The first is called 'Pat on the Black', number 660 and is a really dark shade of red, almost black. This shade is the one i'm thinking of Halloween because it looks so blood like, pretty gory right? 

Number two is 'Blue Rose' and makes me think of winter. It's a deep blue but not quite navy, it's a really gorgeous dark varnish that makes a nice alternative to black. The third is called 'Pumice' and is probably one of my most used shades at the moment. Grey nails (any shade) are currently a big trend in the nail art world.

Number four, 'Ivory Skull', is definitely my most used shade at the moment! If you don't have a white nail varnish these season what are you even doing!? You can get a decent white varnish for just £1 from MUA so price isn't an excuse! White nails continue to be the most popular shade for fashion and nail gurus world wide as well as celebrities including Rihanna and Kendal and Kylie Jenner.

Five and six are what i'd class as the warmer Autumn colours. Five is called 'Bandage' and is a creamy beige colour, I love a neutral nail so I just had to have this shade! It's a brilliant varnish for every day wear and work. Number six is called 'Nude Now' and is a rosy nude shade, again a brilliant neutral varnish for every day wear!

If you don't already now I do freelance nail art so if you'd like to check out some of my designs you can follow me on instagram (@alicesnailart) or like my Facebook page by clicking HERE!

Let me know what your favourite Autumn shades are and what your favourite nail varnish brands are in general in a comment below! - Alice x

London Baby!

Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Instagram etc. will already know that I went on a mini holiday to London this weekend. Me the mother and step-father went to celebrate their wedding anniversary and because I haven't visited the capital in over ten years!

I've had an absolutely amazing weekend and just wanted to share a few pictures and stories from the trip with you all. There are more photos from the trip on my Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (links to the right) if you really want to know more about my London adventures!

The pictures from left to right - Top row: My first look at the London skyline from the overground train, Buckingham Palace at night time, Parliament and Big Ben from the open top bus tour.

Middle row: The London Aquarium and the London Eye, me and my mummy dearest outside The Tower of London, The Tower of London and a cheeky plane sneaking into my picture!

The 'Big Bus' open top bus tour that I spent most of my weekend travelling from one landmark to another on, the giant golden Freddie Mercury statue outside the Dominion Theatre where I went to see We Will Rock you, Big Ben and the London Eye taken from the open top bus tour. 

I arrived in London on Friday threw my bags in the hotel and ran back out to go see Oxford Street and for a meal at TGIF which was sooo yum! Then we went to see We Will Rock You before having cocktails at a bar next door. After this it seemed necessary to have a cheeky drunken pizza from the greasy shop next to the hotel.

The Saturday we went to see all the landmarks like the Tower of London, the Eye, Buckingham Palace and of course Hamleys toy store! We then headed to china town in a rickshaw (easily the scariest experience of my life) and had a meal at a chinese restaurant before heading back to the hotel and pretty much passing out from exhaustion.

Sunday we met up with family that live in London and had a meal and a drink at a bar/restaurant called The Alice House (I'll be doing a separate post on this later because it was so beautiful and named after me!) then my mum and my step-dad headed back to my home town Barrow and I hopped on a train back to Liverpool!

It was such a brilliant weekend and I was very sad to return home and leave my family but I'll cherish the memories forever! Let me know all about your trips to London by leaving a comment below! -Alice x

Primark AW13 - I'm in love!

So Primark's AW13 collection has arrived and is working it's way into the stores already! Grunge pieces, baroque prints, beautiful simple pieces that look like something you'd see the cast of Made in Chelsea sporting, animal print, BIG bling and shoes that look like they belong in Kurt Geiger all seem to be a running theme in the collection and I AM LOVING IT!

I have to admit it's the best high street AW13 collection I have seen so far. I can't wait to get my hands on these beaut bargains (my student loan is disappearing right before my eyes already!) and I've decided on a few must have pieces to show you all thanks to the Primark PR team! Get ready to write your shopping lists girls!

First off the all the jewelry Primark has presented us with could rival just about anything from Pat Butcher's crazy big bling collection! There are some amazing statement necklaces that resemble the heart of the ocean, over-sized diamante earrings and a pretty bizare bug arm cuff that I can't wait to add to my own over-sized jewelry collection! 

What I call the Chelsea pieces are all simple, clean cut items that I can just picture being modeled on the beautiful streets of Chelsea. My absolute favourite pieces from the above are the beautiful wine coloured fedora (also available in black), the bead embellished white collared shirt and the gorgeous over-sized grey coat! A lot of the pieces remind me of collections from Zara.

There's a big splash of grunge and punk in this years AW13 collection. With tartan prints, leather look skirts and some cute Doc Marten look alikes you'll look like you've stepped right out of the 80's! I absolutely adore the grungy metallic top shown above (top right) and the frayed denim/tartan shorts would look so good with so many outfits!

I absolutely adore baroque style and pieces of this collection look truly inspired by the original 17th century style! I love the cut of the high waisted shorts and cropped jackets above and the prints are truly beautiful! If you're not feeling brave enough to mix prints then team a jacket or pair of shorts with a simple white shirt (like the one bottom left) to give a cool chic look to the mad baroque prints!

Overall I'd give Primark's AW13 collection an easy nine out of ten. It's by far one of my favourite collections of the season and for a gal on a VERY tight budget it's just about perfect!