Symbolic/Sentimental Things I’ve Given Away 1

 

Part of me has always has a soft spot for plaited/braided silver bracelets, ever since I first found one in early high school.

So I was really chuffed when I found this for sale at Oxfam when I was working there at my Christmas job.

Still…after a couple of months, it has become clear to me that I pretty much never wear bracelets, because I really don’t like the feel of things bumping against my wrists as I like to use my hands a lot.

So much as I loved this, I figure it would be better off given to charity so that someone can give it the love it truly deserves…

DIY Lip Gloss / Lip Balm - What Not To Do

So it turns out that after going through my lip stuff collection, I realized that I had quite a few lip glosses/balms that I loved for a while and then somehow couldn’t bring myself to use for one reason or another.

One of these was a red lip tint from my local health food store that is a perfect dupe of Clinique’s Black Honey lip tint but at only a fraction of the price.

I loved the product but hated the tube – it’s super thin and there was something wrong with the twist up function which meant that whenever I accidentally twisted up too much, I had to push it back down into the tube…

Another was a almost clear orange Anna Sui lip gloss that I’d gotten as a Xmas gift. It was ok to use, but a little on the sticky end, so I tended not to use it too much as I prefer a little colour on my lips…

So given that it turned out I’d used up quite a bit of each, I had the brainwave of combining the two….

Big mistake…

I’d scraped the lip tint into a container and then simply unscrewed the cap on the lip gloss and proceeded to put both in the microwave on high for 2 min so that they would both be of a nicely runny consistency so that I could mix them together easily.

The mistake was that I’d factored all this in with the idea that it should have worked…all except the fact that the ‘foot’ of the lip gloss cap was actually a very thin plastic ‘spatula’…it melted clean off in the heat and there was a pungent smell of burnt plastic coming from the microwave…the applicator was now not much more than a short stick….

So…lesson learnt, and from now on I will make sure to check the containers before trying anything like this again…

Symbolic/Sentimental Things I’ve Given Away

Every so often, it seems that I get this odd urge to get rid of stuff that have some symbolic/sentimental meaning to me...

For a while I had been obsessed with the idea of wearing pretty sparkly flowers in my hair, so I’d convinced my parents to get me this hairclip at a hotel gift shop during our last visit to China. I soon unfortunately learned the hard way that there was no way it could stay in my naturally perma-straight hair….

I fell in love with these earrings as soon as I saw them at Myer, prompting me to ask my mum to get them for me for my 23rd birthday. I wore them at my birthday party to go with the blue dress I’d also gotten as a gift from my parents. Pretty much never wore them after that as I’d reckoned without the fact that my ears get super sensitive to non pure-metal (gold and silver only) and uber-heavy earrings…

Gorgeous starry huggies that were a gift from my best friend – unfortunately, there was no way for her to tell what kind of metal they were made from….

I am a sucker for all things rose and all things Guess – so I jumped at the chance to buy these during the Xmas sales…again, they fell victim to the unreasonableness life presented with the blue earrings…

I used to be way obsessed with Angelina Jolie, sword, and crosses, so I jumped at the chance to buy this pendant when I saw it was on sale in a catalogue…

Was also really chuffed when I later found out that she wore a necklace just like it…

I pretty much wore it to death, and then realized it had been sitting around like a lonely lemon for 5 years, when I figured that it should go to someone who might actually give it the love it deserves…

Penelope Cruz / Maria Elena Ruby Ring

If you pay very close attention, in the scene where Maria Elena and Cristina are taking photos at the fountain in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, there is a red ring on Maria Elena’s right index finger which got a few seconds of screen-time.

After doing some searching, it turns out that there are a few decent pics around which show Penelope Cruz wearing the ring.

I thought initially that it was given to her by some jewellery store to wear in their ads…

But it turns out that she wears it a lot off duty too…

So a little more searching revealed that she always carries the ring with her as a sort of good luck charm as it was given to her by her grandmother.

N.B. On a personal note, I have a square ruby coloured silver ring of my own that I got as an impulse buy last Christmas, before I found out about Penelope’s…

It was also pretty neat when I remembered that Juniper, one of my favourite storybook characters from primary school, in the book Wise Child also loved rubies and was known for wearing a ruby ring…

Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) (celebrity) Inspired Fringed Bag

As anyone who follows fashion magazines/blogs may have noticed, there has been a rise in the popularity of fringed bags…

But…I believe the trend was started in 2008 by Woody Allen’s costume lady for Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz). As a firm believer in the adage ‘accessories maketh the lady’, Maria Elena would have looked like any other lady on the streets of Barcelona, if it were not for her awesome fringed handbag...

Notably, the item that made the biggest impact on me during the entire movie was that handbag…and also as support for a fellow etsian, I finally succumbed to the urge to get one for myself, in a beautiful dark chocolate suede….

https://www.etsy.com/listing/129379532/free-shipping-leather-fringe-purse?ref=shop_home_active

Crocheted Flower Shawl/Cape and Scarf

Following finding that crocheted flower tutorial on youtube a while ago, I realised I had some silky grey wool sitting around that I got from charity, so I decided to use it to practice making flowers. 8 flowers later and turning them into a scarf seemed like a good idea….

I’ve also always been fascinated with the idea of wearing capes/shawls to keep warm – instead of wearing jackets. It turns out that women were wearing capes during the 1930s rather than coats (as mentioned by Anais Nin in her diaries). So I thought I’d give making a crocheted flower cape a go…

Maria Elena / Penelope Cruz Style

When it comes to movies, I have a soft spot for anything that is beautifully shot with highly picturesque scenes. So it’s a bit of a no brainer that I have something of a visual and sartorial crush on Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

More specifically, with each re-viewing, I fall more and more in love with Maria Elena – especially in the sartorial sense.

One thing I find really great is that clothes-wise, she is a girl after my own heart as I love to wear clothes in similar styles and designs to hers - especially the dresses in the summer. Many of my dresses are actually in a similar design to the one in the pic where she is fighting with Juan Antonio...

Too bad re my yellow-based skin tone as I would love a pair of those orange loose pants to lounge about the house in - although it does mean that I tend to wear more black lace than white.
I do regret the fact that my feet get cold easily or I would totally love to own a pair of her nude sandals.