happy new year!

things I bought this afternoon

Nerdy jumper from SPS - I added some other stuff, I just thought i'd be funny to add a camera and purse to make it look like a person.

A blue dress, also from SPS.  I couldn't get the picture sharper, but I really wanted to use the Old-Dutch bedsheet as a background

and - YEAH - the Twilight 2-disc special edition. A friend already has it and was lyrical about the extras, and I didn't have the DVD yet, so literally did a little dance when I opened the package.   

yay! boots!

YEAAH I found the perfect boots. I am in love!

de buit

Apart from the New Look and Primark dresses, these are the other things I bought in Rotterdam:

Accessories: gold sequined beret, dark blue beret, flower-print tights, red wallet, hair clip, three different headbands, black purse, two pairs of dotted tights; all from Primark. And the turquoise purse my mum found at H&M a day later.

And the most perfect socks ever, from American Apparel. I've been looking for this type of socks for AGES, so I was so glad when I found these at AA, though €8,- is probably the most I ever paid for a pair of socks. They're really cozy and warm!

christmas time

I hate that Christmas is over; now the truly depressing part of winter starts, with lots of school work and nothing to look forward to until the sun starts shining again. Luckily the Christmas tree is still here:

on the search

I am an unpractical person. And so I only buy stuff that I like, and never stuff that I need. And so I am currently in desperate need of black pumps and black boots - pretty essential, but I just never think about the fact that I need those things while I'm shopping - I just go 'Oh! Cute purple shoes with super-high heels and bow-ties!' and forget all about the black ones I was looking for. But I've made up my mind - I will buy some sturdy black boots  and some sturdy (okay, some high-heeled and shiny) black heels. I'm thinking something like this for the boots:

h&m bubble skirt

H&M shirt and bubble skirt, on sale for 5,- and 9,-.

Tumblr!

I'm the type of person who immediately saves every pretty picture I see on the internet. And thus I've a computer full of pretty pictures which I never look at any more. So I've decided to start a Tumblr where I will post pictures for no other reason than because they're pretty. The 'swarms of ladybugs'-name has a reason; when I started my second blog I called it 'Beetleclouds'. Once I put that into Google Translate because I thought it'd sound cooler in French; it translated with 'Nuées de Coccinelles'. And when I translated that back to English, out popped the name 'Swarms of Ladybugs', which I found a very nice name.

So, what are you waiting for? Click!

new dress 02

Blue Primark dress with shoulder pads, about €12,-.
This was my Christmas dress, combined with the new Primark polkadot tights (see previous posts)

new dress 01

black-and-white striped bodycon dress from New Look, €19,-

that gives me the curves I've never had.

Merry time I wish you, dear

All these vintage Christmas postcards are so lovely, I wonder why we even bother with all these glossy glitter postcards with animals in Christmas hats nowadays?

all cards via suzee que

Merry Christmas to you!

I wish you all a merry little Christmas and I present you with the closest to a Christmas card I've come this year (see above). Have lovely days filled with delicious food, shiny Christmas decorations, cozy knitted reindeer jumpers, warm glüwein (or hot chocolate), and loads of family!

primark here I come!

Tomorrow I'm going on a shopping trip (oh, how decadent that sounds) to the only Primark and New Look in our tiny and unfashionable country, which are both in Rotterdam. The city itself does not really hold any interest to me - it has been bombed in World War Two and, as a result, only has shiny new buildings, which I'm not quite interested in; I like old cities! However, New Look's website is full of gorgeous clothes and Primark is, apparently, like a cheaper (and cooler, for its exclusivity - in Holland, at least) H&M. So I'm really excited!

The picture doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with this post, but I'm just really missing my Gossip Girl DVD box right now!

She colours the lights and she sprinkles the snow

snow, snow, snow!

It's absurd: only yesterday I was whining in the comments on this girl's blog about how jealous I was of the snowy Scandanavian Decembers, and today: poof! It's snowing! It's so funny how we're so not used to snow in the Netherlands that the news has fifty percent weather-related news, the trains have stopped running, the morning traffic stood still and I'm standing at my window with my camera every other hour to record today's miracle. I think it's quite cute how you can see the slowly building snow cover.

christmas shopping!

Here are my ideal Christmas Day and Boxing Day outfits - if money were not an issue (in other words: in a world where I would buy a - gorgeous - 400 dollar ring).

what..? Jeans?!

I went shopping with my best guy friend (I reckon people might read that as 'gay friend', but I mean my best male friend; he's not my best gay friend. Wow, complicated!) last week - and of course, shopping for someone else always ends up in shopping for me a bit, too. So when I passed by the only store in town that dares call itself vintage but mostly sells nineties-junk, I was pleasantly surprised when I found these shoes. I suppose they're actually men's shoes or something, and they're a whole size too big, but I actually quite like that because that allowes me to wear thick wool socks in them.

And, also, the most shocking news since the fall of the Berlin wall: I bought jeans. Two pairs of them, actually.  That'll be a first in, hm, five years? But they were on sale - very much on sale: they used to be 50 and 60 euros, but they were in a pile which said two pairs for €20,- and so I couldn't resist. The first pair is dark blue and straight-legged, very Sartorialist-y, and they make me look taller than I am. The second pair is bleached grey and very, very skinny; I could barely close the top button when I first tried it on, but that's what a good skinny jeans is supposed to be like, or so I've heard! I've already tried to match them up with some of my clothes:

Okay - enough with the pictures of myself standing in front of the white-and-blue-curtain. I'll be sure to post something new next time!

these violent delights have violent ends

The ideal medicine for an influenza-riddled mind? Watching New Moon on line. God, hopeless much?
(I do feel kind of guilty for watching an illegal, recorded-in-cinema but nonetheless good version. But hey, I did already pay for my cinema ticket, and I'm going to buy the DVD as well)

I've been sick with the flu for some days now, which makes for a very uncharming runny nose and a raspy voice (which is just perfect, because I have to sing at this Christmas-thingy at school Friday and I'm not sure my throat will be completely okay by then). The Christmas mood hasn't really kicked in yet - probably due to the fact that the only thing I've only been able to do for the past two days is lie on the couch and moan - but I already made pictures before I got sick:

It's my new dress! I'd been looking for a floaty, pale pink dress for some time, but after trying on a few I decided pale pink looks too much like my skin tone; in other words, it makes me look like I'm wearing a naked suit. So I settled with pale purple and then this dress showed up at Forecast, the store where I work - so I even got 30% off! The brand is Object and it was originally €40,- (so, like, €28,- or something for lucky me).

also available in black-and-white