Primark Sadness

On Saturday i went into Primark, as i have run out of money this month i decided to try a few things on that i like and might buy once i get paid.

Ahem well lets looks at the evidence. 

I found this shirt on the sale rail, however it didn't have a reduced price on it. As you can see i will not be buying this. its really short in length, tight across the whole boobicles and as you can see i needed to put my hand up to hide the old belly button.

Size 20 - £12 (possibly reduced) 

 Next up a dog print shirt, in the shop this is shown under a workwear dress and i love it everything about it, well that was until i tried it on. 

Do i look slightly more bedraggled than in the first photo? well i can explain, it was an effort to get this on i think i burnt 200 cals easily. 

Hurdle 1 getting my hands through the sleeves. there is no button to undo and it was hard work to get my had through. I got it fasten just, but there is no way i could wear this in public as you can see i's given up and took a picture flashing the belly button.

Size 20 - £12

 It was also painfully tight on the arms - OUCH

 Next up was a pretty dipped hem dress. Well well well, this is far as i managed to get it on

Size 18 - £10  sale

 My main reason for going to primark was on my quest for a black skirt. now as a pairshape i should know better than to try a pencil skirt but it was in jersey which i love (no ironing!!!)

Size 20 -£7 

 Please ignore my jeans, i really couldn't be bothered taking them off after the shirts ordeal. The smirk is me laughing at myself for keeping my jeans on

As you can she it is not looking good, lumps and bumps galore 

I came out of the shop feeling miserable. i am in desperate need of losing some poundage. i will never be slim but i do want to to feel better about myself in my clothes. 

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?  

OOTD Thursday

I'm still keeping up wearing a skirt a week. While although it is still on the chilly side i felt like being  summery. 

Skirt Size 20 Primark £5 (sale reduced from £10)
Top Size 16 Tesco £1 (Sale reduced from £5)
Cardie Size 20 Leeds Fat Swap, Label is washed out but does remind me of Littlewoods mid 80s

Cardie Detail

Primark Love

The Primark in Manchester is undergoing some major renovations at the moment. Every night I walk past at least one of its sides, and the other day I noticed the door near Burger King (Piccadilly Gardens) had re-opened and it looks quite interesting.

New escalators and lifts in the corner, a fancy new till bank and although they have now blocked off half of the ground floor, it is already looking more appealing. I can’t wait to see what it will be like once it’s all finished.

 

 They have some lovely things in at the moment, I need to be good and not buy anything for a while. Mainly due to having so many clothes I don’t know what to do with it all and secondly because I am extremely poor, Blackpool and the Hen Do’s have taken far more funds than I ever expected.

I took a few cheeky snaps; I think my camera was on the wrong white balance as all the colours look a bit washed out. 

 I am I love with this Knitted dress, I think it was £10, I can’t decide if I like the Purple, Black or Navy best. Normally I’d buy all three but I can’t really justify one!

  Shirts are not really my friends, to say how small I am in the boob area I always have issues with gape but I love this Owl print shirt and the dog print cami, I love all the dog print things but the dresses are far too high neck, I bought 2 of them but had to return them as I felt very claustrophobic in them.

 I’m also loving the Christmas Cardie, I think I might need this, but if I knew Santa was going to buy it for me, I could resist. Last year I got into the Christmas Spirit with a Falmer Xmas Cardie for Matalan that I wore till about April.

 

 Finally I love these purses, the picture didn't rotate but ate but you get the idea

OOTD Monday

Evening,

After my camping trip, where i didn't get any OOTD shots but tbh it wasn't a pretty sight i finally got to wear proper clothes that don't smell of camp fire smoke, feel damp or other misc items.

I wore Jeans from NL, peach shirt from Primark and Nude Ballet pumps from Miss Selfridge.

What did you wear today?

Love Stefi

Challenging Self #4 - Skirts

Skirts are not my friend.

I like skirts but I don’t like how they sit on me, I always seem to have the hem in the wrong place, every time I walk past something reflective I notice they are too high at the front or the back, or they've twisted round or all of the above.

I tend to avoid them for this reason, but a few weeks ago I dug out my Purple skirt from Peacocks and wore it, so I’ve decided to try and wear a skirt at least once a week.

Although I own a few skirts I only have a couple that fit me, so I’m going to have to try and cut out some junk and try and slim, now I’m not going crazy and re-joining WW or SW just going to try and cut back and get in to some more of my clothes.

It’s a few weeks since I wrote the above and I have been making an effort to wear a skirt once a week, it has been a different skirt except once when I wore the purple skirt again as I do love it.

Also in the weeks I’ve only bought 1 234 skirts and one of them is for a fancy dress outfit and will never be worn again!

It started with a Blog award one of the things about me was 10) I rarely wear skirts and they don't like me. From then on I’ve made the effort.

 Skirt 1: Purple pleated skirt from Peacocks, this was in the sale just before Christmas last year, and they had it in bright red I wish I’d got that as well.

Skirt 2: Navy Swallow print skirt from Primark, I was very unsure about this as its got a dipped hem and I haven’t been a massive fan. I love the print and the fact that is jersey but I adore it. I’m still not convinced it work appropriate but I have worn it for work about 3 times and not been told off 

Skirt 3: Black Maxi Skirt from Matalan. I got this a year or more and it’s a size 16. I had lost some weight when I got it but I don’t think it’s too tight. I never know what to wear it with but I felt like I needed some comfort so went for a Zara stripy top

Skirt 4: Chili and floral print skirt from Primark, I love love love this skirt, the only problem is it’s a tad too small. Don’t get me wrong I can get in it and it looks ok but after wearing it all day for work I’d swollen in to it and had to physically wrestle it off over my head! 

Skirt 5: a yellow flowery skirt from Primark - I haven't worn this yet it was an impulse buy and may be returned

I have really enjoyed wearing skirts over the last few week and I will definitely try and wear one at least a week.

Evans

This is my own opinion of Evans, no one has asked me to write this but its been something i've been thinking about for a while.

Evans has to me has always had a stigma attached to it, its a Fat persons store, while there is nothing wrong with being Fat or what every word you choose to use, but the fact that it has a captive market for the larger customer, its not just its label sizes that are larger its also the price tag, it not a place for a budget shopper and i also find its not as fashionable as other stores within the same group.

I did go in to the shop on a regular basis and i'd only occasionally buy something, i would go there for boots as i can't get my chubby legs in the regular leg boot (knee length not ankle) and pretty sparkly jewelry that was reduced to £1. My local store closed recently and i'm kind of missing it. 


to get my fix i went into the one in Denton and i was very disappointed the clothes seemed overly frumpy, Per Una on steroids. Frills here, ruffles there, random items that had no real shape that can be described as sacking shaped.

I did notice the What's your shape / dressing for your shape campaign, not after seeing what was in store i was interesting to see what they could suggest, after not seeing any assistants that looks remotely interested in explaining i decided to look on line.

There is an area about the website with a calculator to work out your shape.

The image hasn't brought through the fill thing, but you add in your vital statistics and it tells you your shape. 

I was :

With a link to search for outfits, now i am blogging Live, i've not pre-searched so i am about to have a look at what it suggests and try and find something i love...

The next page takes you to this

So far i like the bag and the shoes and the colour of the top... ok lets shop

I've found 3 things that i Don't mind to like, however i couldn't justify the price on any of them, not even if they were half price. 

I like this shirt / top but for £32 it's very over priced to say i got an almost identical one in Asda for £5.

Oh that appears to be it. maybe i should browes the rest of the website to see if there is anything else i like.

I'm really surprised i've found a few things.

And Finally a dress i did see my my local store but it was only reduced to £30 and i really couldn't justify it, but it's the nicest thing i've seen in there for a while

Why are all these nice things not in store, why is it all crepe trousers and bubble gum coloured shapeless t-shirts and frilly frills. 

Sorry no links, just search dresses on their website.

Years ago there used to be a range called Seven i think and it was a young and funky range but it is sadly no more.
Come on evans we want reasonably priced good quality clothes that are fun and funky and not frumpy and old fashioned. Yes i realise you are trying to cater for a wide market no pun intended but you are not the only place we can shop, supermarkets "normal" ranges now go up to a size 20 -24 they also have fab plus sized ranges for the most part. New Look are getting better every time i go for plus sized clothes admittedly there is still too many frills and elastic necklines for my tastes but its getting there. Primark now goes to a size 20 and other various places also do plus size.

Ok Rant over

Love Stefi

OOTD Wednesday

Today started badly, however its not been an angry Steph day.

I got drench by the time i'd got half way down my street, so i gave in and turned back, got changed and was late for work. second time this week. Booo

I ended up wearing;

Shoes- 2 pairs, i went to work in black and gold ballet pumps from Republic £5 in the sale a couple of weeks ago. Then i changed into Navy pumps with buttons on from my shoe collection that lives under my desk.

Skirt - Purple pleated Skirt from Peacocks, i got this in the sale just before Christmas

Top - is from Store 21 and cost £5.99 and shock horror i paid full price for it!!!!!!!!!!

OOTD Monday

Back to work today, and due to a nice weather weekend I managed to get to the bottom of my washing basket and it's like getting a whole new wardrobe.

Shoes - TK Maxx

iPod Picture 

Dress - New Look Inspire sale a few months ago, it did come with an animal print belt but I ditched that as soon as I got the dress. Belts rarely fit me or suit me or are comfortable, does anyone else struggle with belts?

Camera Picture 

 That was just a little experiment to see the quality difference. At dinner time even though it was raining I decided to go for a walk and try and get some pictures of me in settings other than the loos. I'm going to struggle as I don't have a significant other to take lovely photos of me so I'm a in the mirror self-timer kind of girl. 

Seeing what the camera would take 

I look very grumpy, 12 seconds isn't enough time to smile

I look very grumpy, 12 seconds isn't enough time to smile

It was raining very hard and there weren’t many places that were suitable to balance the camera on not sure I like the wonky bridge shot. 

 
How do you take your pictures of self? Partner, Parent, Child, Self-timer? 

OOTD T2

Tonight I'm off to the opening of a new hairdressers with my friend Nat.

I've decided to wear my new dress from Peacocks. I've been looking at it for a couple of weeks and it was in the sale for £9 so it'd been rude not to buy it

I'm wearing it with black tights which are more than likely primark and black ballet pumps from h&m

I've got in simple drop earrings that u think are from tesco £1 approx and silver heart necklace that's my mums. Found it in the kitchen. Finders keepers and a silver bangle which might also me my mums. I have no recollection of buying it!

I'm also wearing a silver and amber ring I bought on Poland a few years ago

Trying the Camera Timer 

My Space Esc self portrait 

Dress Detail 

I changed my shoes to plain back

Restaurant Loo's  

I'd forgotten about this Mirror its so classy i want it 

I've attempted to curl my hair but 1 my hair doesn't like to curl and 2 I had to use crappy Remington straighters cos the GHD'S are I'm Barcelona on their holidays.

I've tied it up in a lose side pony and used a bin ring. Which is from next £2 and got the front down.