classic colours

 Shirt&Bag - 2nd hand/Gifts

Coat - 2nd hand

Jeans - H&M

Gloves - Accessorize

Shoes - Gift

Sunglasses - Citymarket

I swear I thought our garage doors were red until I went to take these pictures and was forced to face the reality and see they are brown. Strange how you can see something almost everyday and not even know what it/they look like! But maybe the red of my bag and shoes is enough red for one blog post.

Usually in an outfit I feel like there's one item of clothing I want to focus on and talk about, yet here I'm not sure where to start. Because the bag is new, and the shirt is new, the coat isn't new but I don't think it's been on the blog and ditto to the gloves. So here's a list (who doesn't like lists!):

1. Short story first. Last year on one of my visits to London I forgot to take any hand-warming garments with me and the first thing to do when arrived at Victoria was to buy the cheapest pair of gloves I could find. And these are the lucky ones, but it turned out I was the lucky one because I've been wearing these so much and they are pretty neat!

2. When I arrived in Finland, most of my things were still in the UK and among those things were my winter coats. So this is a necessary coat I got, and I'm quite sure it was under £5. It's basically all you'd want a coat to be. Warm enough, but not too warm. Slightly oversized, still the right size. Big pockets. And I love the little breast pocket, embroidery detail and the buttons. I actually collect buttons and aren't golden anchor buttons rather perfect?

3. I got this shirt and bag from my mum's friend. A patterned, light knit, black and white shirt? Yes, please. And I've recently broken the zipper in my usual day-to-day bag and had been thinking about possibly getting a new one when I got this red one. If I had bought a bag myself, it would've been either black or brown because practicality, so I'm actually really keen on the fact that it's red. Very happy with that. And, although they aren't exactly the same shade, the bag kind of matches my red shoes!

What a novel.

project 366: 109-115

109: Monday outfit details.

110: I had last week off work and even though I'm not restricted at work at all, I tend to wear darker make-up (or at least darker lips) only in my free time.

111: I'm using this honey as a lip exfoliator, haha!

112: Random things I collect and find later in my coat pockets and other places. This time I had a pocketful of alder catkins..

113: I went to an art gallery exhibition opening on Friday and it was good fun. The week before last I went to/worked at another exhibition opening and this week, while it was still at my workplace, I went purely as a guest. I am such a busy and arty individual.

114: Sunset drives and bird spotting. I'm actually planning on another similar trip so that I can get closer to the cranes and take proper pictures! (I'm scared they'll attack and eat me, though.)

115: Parsley on a chessboard and the cutest, tiniest olive oil.

Hope you've all had a good week, what've you been up to?

through the years: april

One of my favourite Finnish bloggers, Juulia (or ia as she used to call herself back in the day!) from Colour me!, has this series on her blog where she looks back on her outfits and outfit posts through the years every month. I've seen a few others doing this as well and just love the idea. Although some jokingly mock their past selves (which I do love reading, ha), I found that looking back my style hasn't changed that much. I also find that I've blogged about some strange stuff occasionally, but that's another story. Looking back on my outfit posts, there's a lot of recycling of the same items, some questionable choices and some pieces that make me say 'ooh I wish I still had that!'. All in all, this seemed like a blog post worthwhile doing, so here's what I've been wearing in April during this decade:

2011: Apart from the overexposure and the fact that this was shot in the bathroom, I'm okay with this. I don't really wear trousers unless they're high-waisted anymore, but these are just some basic black trousers. I remember buying them only because I did one of my school's work experiences at a restaurant and as a waitress I had to have black trousers. I didn't own any at the time so I bought these because I needed them for that week. Haha! That was before 2011, though. Back in 2011 I lived in Scotland and that's the year I became a 'blazer wanker' by purchasing this number. I only gave it away last year. But I still have these braces (they're my grandpa's old) and could see myself wearing something similar to this today!

2012: I had to include both of these because I look so cute, haha:--) That's my reaction to a lot of these old pictures. I actually still have the dress and the playsuit (as shorts in the second picture), but they're in a pile of things I've been meaning to sell. I'm not really into vests like in 2012, but I still wear those scarves and a jumper over a playsuit/dress is obviously still very me. Also, how cute is my childhood home in these two, makes me so sad that the house is no more.

2013: Uni-Laura wearing the same blazer as in 2011. Also wearing the same scarf as in 2012, it's a good scarf and my grandma's old. These jeans were freaking awesome, my current pair does not compare. And the yellow top used to be my go-to start of spring/summer season staple. I chose this photo mainly because my hair is so big.

2014: Would still wear, 10/10. These wedges got mouldy though (how disgusting) and I had to throw them away. They were freaking awesome as well, my trusty going out shoes, as well as good going-to-make-it-look-like-I-made-an-effort shoes. (I know I'm in the process of growing my hair long again, but this makes me want to change my mind.)

2015: Quite a basic Laura outfit that I might still put together. Jealous of myself from a year ago when it seems to have been no-tights weather! No such luck now that I'm in Finland. That's definitely something that's different since most of these past years I've been in the UK and a blazer or a leather jacket has been sufficient.

 2016: And here were are in 2016 with an outfit I've not posted yet! And surprisingly the only thing I could've worn 2011-2015 are the shoes, because I actually have some new things as well (kind of)!

This was such a fun post for me to write, so I hope you do like it! Let me know and I'll make this a monthly thing. I certainly don't mind going through the archives:-) I should try and get on our old family hard drive and see if I could find any pre-blogging outfits circa 2005-2009, there could be more outfit choices that might be described as mistakes today.. What's your favourite Laura-outfit in April?

project 366: 102-108

102: Some new make-up. I might even post about these separately, although the content of that post is basically just 'here's some make-up I bought on sale', ha!

103: The day's food shopping for the next day's lunch. Exciting stuff.

104: April's Moomins in my Moomin calendar. I wouldn't mind making and eating pancakes while camping either!

105: Breakfast in bed - my favourite! Also some new stuff I got gifted and wee Moomin chocolates I bought for myself. (I might've gotten three boxes because they were so cute..)

106:Another week, another day without any photos. Spent the day dying in bed for a change. Hope this won't get into too much of a habit.

107: Plant life. I think it's only a Finnish tradition to grow ryegrass for Easter and I only threw mine away last week. It came out of it's pot in a perfect circle and I thought it looked quite cute. Not cute enough to avoid it's fate of being thrown into a ditch, though. And my tomatoes and basil (and everything else not pictured) are still growing:-)

108: Still cold enough to light a cosy lil' fire every now and then!

long coat, spring coat

 Coat - Mama's old

Dress - Vintage

Shoes - New look

Sunglasses - Citymarket

Last Sunday it felt like spring for the first time for me. It wasn't even the warmest day of the year so far, just a lovely, bright and all-round spring-like day. (I know some of you still think we have a lot of snow, but we don't, really. This is Finland, and it's not unusual to have snow in May in Lapland!) I'm even thinking of switching to lighter coats and jackets altogether. I've worn this brown one pre warm weather, but now it seems more weather appropriate. I do like how wide and loose the cut is and rarely use the tie to clench it together. And it goes with my longer vintage dresses so much more nicely than any of my other coats!

Hope you're all experiencing some nice spring weather as well, wherever you are! It does get you in a better mood and excited for even warmer and sunnier days.

project 366: 095-101

095: My lil' tomatoes are growing very nicely. Even now, when it's literally only a week later, they've gotten so much bigger already.

096: My first day that I completely forgot to take a photo. How sad. But I basically just worked and slept on Tuesday.

097: A very similar day to Tuesday; work, saw Batman v Superman, and slept. Here's some new Moomin fridge magnets I got though, the one on the left and the bottom one are new gifts I got:-)

098: Still avidly reading Christie.

099: Feeling like a 9-year-old in such a good way.

100: In addition to Christie, I've also been reading poetry quite a bit.

101: The weather on Sunday was A+. It was the first day that I felt like it truly was spring. (We don't even have that much snow anymore.)

project 366: 088-094

I'm not promising these are the last Easter related photos on the blog (because I definitely still have all my Easter decorations up..) but I do promise that they will decrease. It was still Easter last week though, so obviously it shows in my Project 366 photos!

088: Painted eggs. I'm sure I talk about these every Easter, but the blue one's a Fazer's Mignon egg; a chocolate egg in real eggshell. They're not my favourites, but I do still love them. And I do love painting eggs. (These ones didn't even turn out as awful as other eggs in recent years, haha!)

089: Sewing projects starting to become a reality.

 

090: Still eating Easter eggs, and a portrait of a working Laura. Such an ugly photo, but at the same time I thought it was funny. Even though I share a photo from every day, it would be so easy to curate that to look like my life is something that it's not. I don't feel as if I do that anyway, but this one I feel is a very honest photo. Just me in my bathrobe making dinner at 10pm with Sudocrem on my face. A lot of Sudocrem since I ended up squeezing the tube too much and didn't want to let it go to waste. And making dinner at 10pm because, even though I only work three days a week at the moment and get home before five, somehow I end up just loitering around the house doing nothing for ages until it's almost time for bed and I've still not had anything to eat. So that's my life in a nutshell, I suppose!

091: The sunset was looking pretty but my laziness got the better of me and I didn't go and take proper pictures of it. In all fairness, I had had an exhausting day. I don't want to turn this into a rant, but I had a horrid morning of missing my bus, walking 5km to a busier bus stop in slight drizzle, still being an hour late for work (not great when it's your second week..), feeling (and possibly looking) like an absolute mess for the rest of the day and getting home with a migraine and wanting to stop existing for the moment. (That did turn into a small rant.)

092: There still isn't too many signs of life outside, but I've got wee branches in a vase that are looking pretty spring-like.

093: This was going to be my Easter dress, but I only started it on Saturday, so it's still in the making. Really excited to be using this vintage pattern I bought a few years back!

094: Baking day:-) Made a bacon tart and rocky road, and they're both so good.

How did your week go, or do you have any fun plans for this one?