Dressing Table Tour Part 4

Hello there!

I've got the fourth and final part of my dressing table tour for you today. I have to say, I've really enjoyed putting this little mini-series together; it's been fun photographing and talking about some of my favourite trinkets and accessories. 

This last post gives me the chance to feature a few of my prettiest storage suitcases, which I keep next to the dressing table, and although the area is small and insignificant, it happens to be one of my favourite areas of the bedroom. 

This pretty pile of patterned boxes is an extension of my dressing table, used as extra storage for accessories and beauty products which I don't have room for there. I also have a magazine tidy full of fashion magazines and catalogues I need to find time to read. I think that polka dot tidy came from Tesco.

Two of my favourite home accessories are these beautiful floral polka dot suitcases. When I saw them in Next when I was Christmas shopping last Autumn, I just couldn't leave without them. I knew they'd be perfect for my bedroom. 

I was amazed by how inexpensive they were; £16 for the set of two! I've known smaller suitcase sets to retail for £45, and the quality of these are far superior to others I've dealt with. They are actually part of Next's homeware for kids, but I personally think they are better suited to adults. 

They compliment my decor, add a lovely feminine and vintage touch to my room, and are also wonderful storage boxes. I have accessories in mine, but they'd be great for storing photos, mementos, keep-sakes, make up, shoes, stationery... you name it! I love them so much I'm tempted to pick up another set to organise some other possessions. They're available online here, if you want to check them out.

As you can see, the suitcases are quite deep, and can store a generous amount.

In the larger of the two boxes, I keep my collection of winter hats, gloves, and mittens. I only have a couple of hats- (I don't suit them), but I have about a dozen pairs of gloves that I've been collecting over the last decade. I love accessorising with cosy knit gloves during the Winter, and usually find myself succumbing to at least one new pair each year. I never throw out the old ones, so I have a variety to wear depending on my mood and outfit that day.

The smaller suitcase is currently being used to store some of my beauty products to keep the clutter down on my dressing table. I can't just keep them in the bathroom like a normal person, because anything I leave on the side of the bath or in the shower will get used up by my (25 year old) sister when my back is turned. I can't afford to keep her in Aussie shampoo (a treat for me) and Neutrogena face scrubs, too, so it's more cost-effective to squirrel them away.

I love the two patterns on these boxes, and the striped lining is a nice touch.

Underneath those cardboard suitcases, I have this amazing strawberry print Cath Kidston suitcase! 

I adore the thing! My sister and I were browsing the Cath Kidston outlet shop at Bicester Village late last Summer when we saw them on sale for just £15! We both loved the strawberry print, and neither of us could leave without one. It's another piece designed for children, but in my eyes, it was the perfect display-slash-storage-piece. It's a shame about the plastic red handle, but otherwise it's so pretty to look at.

The inside is bright red, which is a fun contrast to the baby blue of the outside. I have thought about lining it with some kind of vintage-style paper or an old map to make it look a little more tasteful, but I'm still undecided.

This suitcase is home to two layers of light-weight scarves and snoods and there's plenty of room left for more. My sister uses hers to store her hair dryer and straighteners.

Cath Kidston unfortunately don't stock this design any more, but there is currently a ballerina print version, which is quite lovely, too.

And that's the end of my dressing table tour!

I hope you've enjoyed this little peek in to my home and  if you've made it through to the end, thanks for reading!

If you'd like to catch up on the previous three posts from my dressing table tour, you can do so here: part one, part two, and part three.

Do you like using pretty storage boxes as much as I do?

Dressing Table Tour Part 2: Make Up Storage

I'm back with the second part of my dressing table tour!

Part one of the tour focused on all the pretty trinkets displayed on the dressing table and you can catch up with part one here. Today I'm going to show you how I store my make up.

So, who would like a peek in to my drawers?

My dressing table has three small drawers down one side. Two drawers hold my make up, and the third holds my nail polish collection. Let's take a look!

The top drawer is kept organised by a wooden cutlery tray which I bought in Cargo over a year and a half ago. Cutlery drawers make fantastic make up organisers, and often look much nicer than cheap plastic dividers. They're a lot cheaper, too. This one cost me £8.

On the left are my lip products. I don't have a huge collection of lippy, but I'm gradually building it up. The other three sections, from the back, contain my blushers, mascaras, and base products. In the gaps around the tray are a few lipgloss and lipstick sets, some nail files, and an epilator I haven't used in forever. I love how colourful this drawer is.

Up until a few months ago all my make up had been stored in one drawer- and I miraculously managed to keep it organised. Now I'm looking at these photos and wondering how I did it! I had to expand it to a second drawer at Christmas when I gained several new make up sets and even now it's cramped.

The second drawer is home to my eye make up collection. Most of the palettes are eye make up sets, but there's also a couple of face powder palettes that are too big for the first drawer. I also keep some cleansing wipes, and a mirror to do my make up with in this drawer.

Last week, I got fed up of the disarray and made these dividers out of a sturdy cardboard box that once held chocolates. The box was square, so I cut a section of the lid off to size, and sellotaped it to the end of the square to make a rectangle. I wanted it to fit the length of the drawer to make the best use of the space. I then took another piece of the lid and sellotaped it to the middle of the square to divide it in to two.

I now have an organised make up collection and it didn't cost me a penny! This will probably just be a temporary storage solution until I can purchase another cutlery drawer or drawer tidy, but it's sure worked a treat at keeping my make up tidy!

The front section is home to my liquid and pencil eye liners. The middle and back sections hold my powder eyeshadows, most of which are singles, but there are a few duos and palettes in there, two. Along side the divider are several Inglot, Stila, and Soap and Glory palettes.

I'm addicted to green eye make up, which I'm sure you can tell from the photos, and I love good quality make up products. My favourite make up brand has got to be Inglot, but I like and use both drug store and high end make up brands.

My favourite products are still my gorgeous Inglot eyeshadow palettes. The colours are highly pigmented and I have a rainbow of pretty colours to play with.

And finally, the bottom drawer is home to my nail polish collection, nail art pens, and tools. 

I have quite a large collection of polishes; the last time I counted I had more than 110! Oops. I think I may have a nail polish addiction!

I try to keep my nail polishes organised by colour, glitter, and effects, as it makes it easier to locate a particular bottle. This is less organised than it usually is. I need to take it all out, go through them all, throw out the ones which have dried up, and give them a tidy.

The purple pot holds my tools such as a glass nail file, dotting tools, tweezers, manicure scissors and so on. The cupcake is a little manicure set I was given for Christmas.

The drawer isn't the most ideal way of storing my nail polish collection, as it's so easy to forgot about particular colours when they're stored away. I want to get a little display cabinet to hang on the wall above my dressing table where I can display some of my favourites and remind myself to use them, but in the mean time the drawer is more than adequate for keeping them all neat and tidy.

And that is how I store my make up collection!

I hope you've enjoyed this little peek in to my dressing table. I've really enjoyed putting it together.

Look out for part three of my dressing table tour coming soon, when I'll be showing you how I store some of my accessories.

How do you organise your make up and cosmetics? If you've done a post like this, I'd love to see your links!

My Polka Dot Collection Part One: My Dress Collection

As part of my Polka Spotted, Freckle Dotted Friday series, I'm going to give you guys a little peek at my polka dot collection, starting today with my collection of polka dot dresses.

I currently own nine polka dot dresses, although I refer to one as a tunic as it's shorter than I'm comfortable with wearing without the safety of jeggings underneath.

First up are my two AX Paris prom dresses. When I saw these dresses online last summer, I couldn't decide which colour I loved more, but my sensible head told me to order the navy as it was the versatile option that could be worn all year round. Then when the dress was delivered I loved it so much I immediately ordered the yellow as well... and I don't regret doing so. I've already had so much wear out of both frocks, and I'm proud to say these are two of my most favourite dresses.

This one is a cute cotton sun dress from Dorothy Perkins with scalloped cap sleeves. It's a lovely casual dress which I've worn to a few physiotherapy sessions as it's also really comfortable, and it's light and airy on hot summer days, making it a great wardrobe staple.

This is a dress I've had for a few years now, and the one I think of as a tunic. I don't have the confidence to wear it outside with just leggings or tights, as it exposes more thigh than I'm comfortable with. Instead, I usually wear it with jeggings, or just around the house with leggings underneath. I bought it from Dorothy Perkins as I loved the pretty crochet detail.

This is one of my all time favourite dresses. It's a black shirt dress, with a fitted waist, and a floaty, swishy skirt that sits just above the knee on me. It's the dress dreams are made of. Pretty, classic, soft as butter, and fits like a glove. It came from Dorothy Perkins a couple of summers ago, and has a few good memories attached to it. I only wish I'd bought the dress in the other colours, too, so if anyone has a coral or brown version of this they no longer want, get in touch!

Another black dress, another favourite. This is an asymmetric chiffon number from Matalan, which I love to wear with splashes of bold colours. I've worn this dress countless times since I bought it last Autumn, and don't plan on retiring it any time soon.

This black polka dot dress is one I've ''borrowed'' from my younger sister for safe keeping. I used to have this dress in red, but got rid of it just a couple of years ago and I've regretted it ever since. That dress was one of the first dresses I started out with in my adult life, when I was starting to experiment more with clothes, colour, and building up my self-confidence. Why did I sell it?? Thankfully, my sister still had hers, and as it currently doesn't fit her, I've claimed it until it does again... or at least, that's what she thinks!! ;)

The red one is a lovely tea dress my Mum treated me to back in September after a hospital appointment left me feeling upset, and let down. We found this dress in M&Co of all places, and I was surprised to discover how lovely their clothes were. This dress was the last one, on sale, and it fit, so I believe that was fate! The spots are a little more dalmatian that dot, but I love it, and it's one I wear regularly.

And last but not least, is this floaty midi number, that came from Dorothy Perkins last year. I've not really worn this one yet... It's made from polyester, and the fabric gets so static that the skirt ends up clinging to the skin. And I don't know... I like this frock, but I don't think I have the right pieces to wear with it. It's yet to make me feel fantastic in it, but I want to work on that, as I genuinely like it. I guess we'll see what happens!

Of course, there have been others (for instance, I recently sold my navy polka dot midi dress as I didn't like the fabric), and there will most certainly be more in the future! I'm always on the look out for gorgeous new dresses, and being the crazy polka dot lady that I am, I constantly find myself being drawn in to anything dotty! Polka dots are such a classic pattern, and never go out of style, so I see most pieces I buy as an investment! Every girl needs some polka dots in her wardrobe!

Do you own any polka dot dresses, or have a collection to rival mine?

The best of us can find happiness in misery...

Another day of pyjama-itis for me today. I swear to you I did not just make that term up! Sufferers just cannot get up and out of their comfy beds to get dressed in to appropriate day-wear. It's a very serious illness and awareness desperately needs to be raised, I tell you! 

Pyjama-itis can roughly be translated to 'lazy immobile loser'.

I've been lying in bed reading Stephen King's IT, and Company magazine, and I also watched The Others (remember that?) while painting my nails. It's the little things that make me get through days like these with a smile on my face.

I haven't got an outfit to share with you as I just can't move, so I thought I'd share a few photos that I've been saving up from around my room instead.

First, I wanted to show you my F+F Tesco cardigan that came this morning. It's super soft, and the spots are a gorgeous bright turquoise. I can't wait to wear it with all my summer outfits and for only £14, it was a real bargain. I don't know if Tesco offers delivery outside of the UK, but the cardigan can be found here.

Before and After

I'm running out of room in my wardrobe; even after moving some of my less-worn clothes in to the hallway cupboard. Colour coordinating was great for a while, but grouping clothes that way meant I couldn't use the space underneath to its full potential. So, throughout the day yesterday, I moved a few bits at a time; organising by garment type, until it eventually came to look like the photo on the right.

Don't you just love the bright, unfaded look of new clothes? (New cardis, top photo). It's obvious I have a fondness for colour and prints.

This is my dressing table. I really don't care for the furniture or decor in this room. It's in desperate need of a complete over-haul, but I do the best with what I have.

I don't like too much clutter on show, but I love having pretty things on display, like my hair-bands, and flower clips. The mannequin is used to hang dangley earrings (of which I have very little) and hair clips, and I've used an old vase for my bracelets. I want to get hold of a couple of vintage-looking cake stands to display them on instead. I promise you I don't use the hurricane lamp around the flammable lotions and potions! It wouldn't be a wise move, kids.

I love DKNY Delicious perfumes; they all smell divine. My summer scent of choice is Escada. It's so pleasant and fruity; it reminds me of summer and holidays.

Turquoise tones feature heavily in my every day life, from bangles to brushes to belts. I also love scarves, and can never resist a pretty bow.

A little peek in to various pieces of costume jewellery out on display.

I've had this lilac leather jewellery box for years. My best friend gave me it as a birthday present one year many moons ago. Most of the earrings here are just costume, but I do have a real pair of pearl earrings and a pair of yellow sapphire studs from my Mum in here, too, and use the box for my 'special' jewellery.

The gold heart locket belonged to my late Nan, and the other two necklaces with it were both 'milestone' birthday presents from my Sister and bestie.

I hope you've enjoyed having a little glance in to the organised chaos of my world.