All Wrapped Up!

I can't believe that I've started thinking about Christmas already, but this year it looks as though I'll be hand-making the vast majority of my gifts and because I want my gifts to scream 'care and attention' not 'thrown together' that means some forward planning is necessary.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I receive a gift, nothing says care and attention like excellent wrapping. I know that some people will consider gift wrapping as a little bit of a waste - it's what's inside that counts, right? Um. No. Don't believe me? Well, take a look at these beautiful packages from my flickr favourites and maybe you'll change your mind.

1. Red Toile With Heart, 2. Red Box, 3. FAA lucky parcel swap:: red, white&silver, 4. Red & white swap with Yvonne..., 5. red parcel, 6. swap - sent, 7. Pretty Polka Dots, 8. for baby, 9. Pompom Parcels

If you'd like to see more sets of Flickr Favourites or share your own, head on over to Artmind to join in. Thanks so much for organising this every week Mitsy, I'm loving it!

Plum Pick {Fashion Forward}

Every so often, I challenge myself to wander around a store, pick out an item that I wouldn't normally dream of purchasing and try it on. Sometimes my gut instinct is perfectly right and I look hideous, but sometimes I'm surprised by how well an item compliments my skin tone; enhances my figure or makes me look completely different - and I love that! It's so good to try something new every once in a while and have a little bit of fun with fashion.

My Fashion Forward set this week is definitely a bit of fun. Normally, I wouldn't choose purple, I wouldn't choose a tee and I would never, ever have chosen those shoes - combine them with some black patterned tights and layer on some chain necklaces for a grown up, rock chick look.

Berry Beauty by OPCreative featuring Dorothy Perkins shoes

Items in this set: Tee, New Look, 14 GBP, Skirt, H&M, Boots, Dorothy Perkins, 38 GBP, Necklace, Dorothy Perkins, 12 GBP and Bracelet, ASOS, 12 GBP

As an extra challenge, I forced myself to start thinking affordable rather than aspirational (too much dreaming about unaffordable fashion can be bad for the soul) so everything that you see is available on the British highstreet and could possibly be purchased without threat of bankruptcy. Hurrah!

Katherine and I are absolutely loving all of the clothes, accessories and interiors trends that we're seeing every week, so if you're playing along this week then please pop back here to leave us a link so that we can come by to leave you some love. Check out our guidelines or save yourself a sidebar button - and don't forget to invite your friends to play along too!

Twelve Days Of Christmas - Class Winner!

You might remember that, as part of the All About Me Challenge Blog Hop, we were giving away a place on the Twelve Days of Christmas Class being hosted by Julie and Kirsty over on the Copy & Paste Blog. Well, the blog hop has officially ended and I can excitedly announce that the winner is - YTET!

To choose the winner, I listed all of the comments in a separate word document and left in only the first comment of anyone who happened to comment twice (so that everyone had the same chance of winning. Then, added up all the comments and chose a winner with the help of the Random Number Generator. You'll note that I managed to figure out how to save a screenshot!)

YTET, I'll be notifying Julie and Kirsty of your win and they'll be in touch soon. I'm sure you'll enjoy the class! Those of you who have missed out can still join the class - check out the class details.

PS: I'll be catching up with replying to comments and visiting new followers over the next day or two - we've been away this weekend and, unfortunately, there's laundry to catch up on first. Ugh!