The AF Bloggers Budget Challenge - November

I've been following a blogged called Sera for a long time now, initially I followed her Slimming World blog but when she moved in to fashion I carried on following her.

For a while now she has been involved in fashion challenges. After a lovely chat on Twitter it was decided to do a Plus Size / Curvy edition. Now even as a "BIG" girl I don't know what the correct or polite terminology is.

The challenge is called

The AF Bloggers Budget Challenge

The other ladies in the challenge are:

Sera  - who organised it all
Beth
Kathryn
Kellie

The jist is 4 bloggers one store one theme, all the clothes are from Clothing at Tesco -Party Range

As a massive fan of Tesco clothing I was very excited, I go to my local store a fair bit and just before the challenge I’d been to the Tesco Home store in Denton and seen lots of nice things. I'm not a massive fan of shopping on line and initially struggled finding things I’d seen in store available in my size (20/22) on line.

The "Theme" was Christmas Party Wear. I knew exactly which dress I wanted from the True Range. Black and with Lace - as a normal avoider of black i thought it'd be nice for a change.

We got given £30 so with my spare £12 I wanted to get shoes but the ones I liked or they weren't available in my size, so I did a bit of panic buying and got a jacket and a cardie from the sale area.

I also need to apologise for the photo quality my camera is eating memory cards so I'm using the internal memory.

The Dress was £18 from the True Range - this is a range I tend to avoid as I can just about fit into the standard F&F range but as this was a plus size challenge decided to run with it.

I love the dress, its really nice good quality material, the main dress is a thick Jersey and the lace is nice and stretchy so i don't feel restricted.  Sadly i don't think the shape is very flattering on me.

Dress Size 22 - Tesco £18

I also got this Kimono style jacket, I didn't realise (even though the title should have told me) it was flowery I thought it was dotty. I just don't know how it is meant to look when its on.

Jacket Size 22 Tesco £7

 I love the white waterfall front cardie they only had it in a 16 but it fits! I thought it might dress down the outfit so I could wear it for work.

Cardie Size 16 Tesco £5

Shoes Size 7 M&S 

I have plans to wear this dress for a friends 30th in December and I will be teaming it with Black tights and some Navy and Black Heels from M&S, the theme of her Party is B&W however I don't like this combo so thought I’d add the blue to cheer me up.

Feeling a bit 90s

Tuesday i dressed all in black. 

I do not like wearing all back and i don't know why i did it. 

I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment. i'm just not happy with anything i'm wearing. 

Dress Sainsburys £10 Size 22
Leggins Next £9 Size 20
Boots Tesco £15
Cardie Asda - Hand me down

 I didn't realise my dress was tucked into my leggins, this was fixed before i got to work

Later on in work with my socks keep popping out of my boots i felt a bit 90's. I had visions of being on Clarrissa Explains it all or Blossom. I always kinda wanted to be Six and i do vaguely remember having a velvet floppy hat. 

Not sure if it was the all back or what but i don't like this outfit. 

The dress is a brill dress but i think i  need to wear it with tights and shoes rather than boots and leggins.

Last Mondays OOTD

Don't hold this against me but i'm really struggling to blog each night so i'm going to be doing some bulk posts at the weekend and schedule the through out the week. 

I know some people don't really like scheduled post but unless i tell you its scheduled how would you know? 

I could tell you i wore this today and you'd have to believe me. Well i don't want to lie to you lovely lot. 

Another lie i'm not going to tell you is about this dress, I HATE this dress. 

Its a new one from ASDA and was only £3, but i'm really disappointed in it. 

It actually looks better in the pictures than i remember it doing in real life. 

Dress  ASDA Size 24 £3 

 The dress is a grey background with a pink and black leopard print design. I wore it with thick black tights and my boots fro Tesco.

One thing i do like is the buttons as i love all things button related. but the collar doesn't sit right and i just don't like it 

I will be wearing this again, well at least 2 more times to get my moneys worth! LOL 

I'm glad i only paid £3 for this dress and i can see why it was reduced so much. 

This dress is also on the small size its a size 24, when i bought it i tried it on and it was on a Size 18's hanger and i was pleased as it felt a bit big when i got it home i  was gutted to notice it was a size 24.  I don't really care about dress size but it was a bit gutting. 

you can read about the trying on here 

Going back to what i said about value for money, i remember reading in a magazine years ago about how to value your clothes on a per wear basis. 

Basically you divide how much an item cost by the number of times you've worn it. 

For example you buy a dress for £100 (clearly its not me spending £100 on a frock) 

You wear it once its a bit dear but if you can wear it 4 times it only £25 a wear and £25 for a posh frock is pretty good value right?!?!?!

My Jeans from New Look cost £11 and i have worn them 100's of times so they were practically free! 

Love the justification of this!

I also like buying things in the sales as i will be more inclined to wear it and wear the item more often as if you've paid a lot for them you will want to save them for best!!!

Does anyone else share my logic! :)

Another Weekend Another Dress

I'm really enjoying wearing dresses at the weekend and i don't i'd complain if i got told i could only wear dresses for the rest of my life. 

The weather yesterday was quite nice so i wore the dress i got from ASOS Curve. i wasn't quite brave enough not to go without a cardie so i wore my H&M one.

 I adore the neck detail on this dress, i think its a little bit different.

I also love these shoes, but sadly they are too small for my and by the time we were ready to go home my little toes were really painful! i'm not ready to part with them just yet.

OOTD Sunday

Today i went to a motorbike show in Saddleworth. 

Its organised by a local Motorbike club and i know a couple of their members through my old slimming world group.

To be honest i never thought it'd be my cup of tea but the first one i went to 3 years ago was to help out on the slimming world stall promoting out group and i loved it,

Last year my friend who owns a sweet shop had a stall so i went down to say hello and then this year she also had a stall but to be honest i went more for the bikes. 

They raise money for Guide dogs which i think it a fantastic charity and it is always a good day. 

I decided to wear the orange dress i'd got from ASDA on Friday. when i wrote the post i said i thought it's work well for Autumn with brown tights and boots. 

I could only find wooly brown tights so i went for Leggins instead, which worked well as they keep you feeling protected without the need to keep rearranging yourself. 

I also dug out some brown boots from Primark. I normally only wear flats and while these have a pathetically small heel my legs are killing me now. 

Dress ASDA £6 (sale) Size 24
Leggins - Sainsburys £5 Size 20
Boots Primark past season

I'm a sucker for buttons and i adore the cute gold buttons on the dress. The dress gas belt loops but no belt so i'm going to look out for a thin gold belt. 

 The bus i got to the bike show didn't stop in the village i was going to so i had to cut through a public foot path that i have only ever walk up before not down! i'd forgotten how steep it was. This is one of the flatter parts of it. 

 The handy dry stone wall provided the perfect resting place for self time shots.

 The fallen leaves added to my Autumnal feel for the day. 

 Why do i always look unhappy and what am i doing with my leg. Although it was raining when i set off i didn't want to wear a waterproof coat (more fool me) i dug out my trusty asymmetric zipped coat from Tesco, kept me nice and Toasty even if it will have that aroma of wet dog coming from the wool for the next few days, 

How have you spent your Sunday? 

Do you want a post on the bike show?  

Weeks Round up

I feel like i've run out of time this week, We've been in our billing week at work and it is always a really tiring process and not my fave aspect of my job but as a billing analyst guess its not something i can get out of! 

Don't get me wrong i love my job which not many people i know can say but sometimes it gets in the way of life and blogging

The important things for this blog my clothes

Tuesday - Felt like a trousers day. 

Top - Sainsburys size 20 past season
Trousers - Matalan Size 24 £5

Boots - Tesco £15 

 Wednesday - It was raining and although i am happy to embrace Autumn i'm not quite ready to give up summer just yet.

 I wore a Peachy Corally dress from Newlook Inspire, this was a sale bargain but i can't remember how much it was. it was cheap enough to justify buying it at least a size too big.

Necklace £1 Dotty P's

oooo this is a bit washed out
 i teamed it with Black tights, a black cardie and my tesco boots
Dress NL
Cardie - Tesco a hand me down

 Thursday i didn't take a picture but i wore the bow print skirt i got at the leeds fat swap. a black vest from Tesco and some berry coloured tights (the tights are the same colour as the top in the next couple of photos.

Friday - dress down day at work.

I'm sick of feeling scruffy on a dress down day, a couple of Next Sales ago i got the top below, but i've never known what to wear it with. i feel like i needs a really nice dressy skirt but i don't think that look is very ME.

So as it was DDF i wore the jeans.

The top is lacy, not sure how to describe it so some useful terms would be appreciated. it comes with a built in liner which makes it work appropriate and buttons up the back, i did wear a black vest for that extra layer of protection in case all the buttons popped off!

Top Next Sale £12 Size 20
Jeans - NL £11 Size 20

Close up of the sleave

A close up so you can see the detail, pls ignore my face

OOTD Saturday

Today was like a summers day

What to wear... what to wear...

Sundress of course 

 A Sundress i got from the Leeds Fat swap.

I decided as  all the pictures i used for the OOTD posts were all mirror shots to use the self timer feature.

 I didn't think i'd pressed it for the time in this one haha i hate it but love it at the same time

The dress is an ASOS Size 14, but it fits well, i think a bigger size would be better but i'm still happy to wear it as it is

Shoes Miss Selfridge Size 6 £12 or £16

 I wore Navy Sandals when i went out today but the rubbed a bit so i changed to ballet flats when i got home

The old Self arm shot. i wanted to show you the buttons on the top

Please ignore the greasy hair it really needs a wash

OOTD Wednesday

It was still feeling a little wintry so i dug out another winter staple. 

A pink flowery dress from ASDA, worn with a trusty pair of Leggins from Next and my new Tesco Boots. 

I've also dug out my "Autumn" coat. Which is a Regatta one that i got from Matalan last year. I was looking for a Green, Blue or Brown on in the same style but i couldn't find on that was just right and when i saw this one its exactly what i was looking for. i love the colour but i feel a bit self concious wearing it.

Dress Size 20 ASDA
Leggins Size 18 Next £9
Coat Size 20 Matalan £30

OOTD Tuesday

Today has been very autumnal, I'm glad I dug out my "winter dress"

I also got new boots from Tesco last night. I will take some better photo's of them for another post



Boots £15 Tesco



 I love the flowery print, it is fading and going bobbly but i have had it about 2 years 

 I've never worn it with a belt before as it has the elastic details, but i think i will wear it again. you can't really see from the photo but the belt is patent 



Belt £2 in a 2 pack Dorothy Perkins sale 



I hadn't had the chance to take a picture so i nipped in to the Oxfam Shop on Oldham street as they have a massive mirror near the back. 



Dress Encuentro



Are you ready to dig out your winter clothes or not?

OOTD Monday

Back to work today, i've been wearing the same few outfits for weeks.

Time to dig out some other things to wear. I have so many clothes i need to start shopping in my wardrobe.

As it's getting colder I'm going to try and sort out my wardrobe at some point. 



Dress - Primark £10 size 20
Cardie ASDA Size 16
Leggins Next £9 Size 18
Boots Primark

  I wore my Primark Owl print dress, with a Blue Cardie from Asda, the Trusty Next Leggins and Boots from Primark

 Gotta love the Owls

A really bad shot of my boots, these are comfy but are really strange to walk in, they feel soft almost like Jelly shoes.