One Dress For All Occasions

So if you are like me you are loving all the trends that have come in for this year! One of my top picks for this season is dungarees and pinafore dresses. I just love how cute they look and how they can be worn in so many different ways! 
With that in mind I thought I would style a pinafore dress I have for a number of different situations you might be in this summer!  The dress is from  Karma Clothing - they sell all the trends and at super cheap prices!
With just a few slight changes with each time I have made a completely different outfit. (even though I do realise I have worn alot of white/cream haha!) 
Please bare with the fact that I haven't really accessorised - I've just put on the basics :-) (also please excuse me for looking like I haven't seen the sun in 10 years. #pale)

Easy and Fun 

Pinafore Dress - Karma Clothing

Pink Crop T-shirt - New Look

Necklace - New Look

Socks - Primark

Sunglasses - River Island

Shoes - Converse

Add to this look - A cute backpack & some suncream!

Comfortable and Chic

Pinafore Dress - Karma Clothing

Peter Pan Collar Blouse - New Look

Tights - New Look

Brogues - New Look

Bracelets - New Look & ASOS

Add to this look - A stylish handbag and a purse full of cash!

Cute and Flirty

Pinafore Dress - Karma Clothing

Lace Top With Pearl Detailed Collar - River Island

Ankle Socks With Frill - ASOS

Ankle Chelsea Boots - New Look (one of my best buys)

Add to this look - A nude clutch and an oversized ring

Warm & Summery

Pinafore Dress - Karma Clothing

Cropped Neon Jumper - New Look

Necklace - New Look

Socks - Primark

Shoes - Converse

Add to this look - Your favourite lipgloss and an iPod.

Simple & Practical 

Pinafore Dress - Karma Clothing

T-shirt - Primark (I personally am pretty much over this type of slogan Tee BUT this is basically a mean girls reference so I couldn't say no!)

Wellies - New Look (excuse the state of them!)

Add to this look - An across-body bag and a can of cider!

(*Disclaimer : I was lucky enough to have this dress gifted to me from the lovely people at Karma Clothing.

 All thoughts, opinions and ideas are always my own and I  would never add anything to AYellowBrickBlog that I didn't love or believe in.)

Kirstie's Travel Diaries #3 - Lost In New York

Catch up with #2 here.

DAY 4 (03/03/12)

This was a Saturday, after falling asleep in seconds the night before from being so exhausted, we woke up at around 8am feeling funky, fresh and ready for another exciting day in New York. After both getting ready it was around 10:30am and we decided to set off to somewhere we both had high on our list of places to see, central park. We made sure we wrapped up extra warm as we had been so so cold the day before and started towards Times Square as we knew eventually if we followed that road we would end up at the park.

 Once we arrived at Times Square we thought it was the perfect opportunity to get a quick bite to eat to fill us up for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon (you will get to learn quickly that our eating habits on this trip weren't great) and even though it was early we headed for that golden M, hello chicken nuggets.
Chicken, fries and 20 sachets of mayo later we headed in the direction of the park. Even walking through the streets of New York is exciting  you are always noticing something different and the feel and pace of everything is always so quick and vibrant. 
When we approached the park it was obvious that we were tourists so... queue the tour guides. Every 2 seconds we were approached by someone who wanted to sell us a "fantastic, unique CHEAP"  tour of the park in one of those little bike/carriage things... I forget what they are called!

We actually decided against this and set off on foot alone into Central Park. Now... Central Park is BIG and I mean huge. It is 840.01 acres and it feels ten times bigger than that! 
After walking for about 45mintues we had seen so many places we recognised from TV/Films and it was all so fancinsating and beautiful BUT we had come to one resounding conclusion, we were lost. Seriously lost. 
There are lots of people in Central Park BUT nine times out of ten they are either running or tourists aswell and as we couldn't bring ourselves to ask someone who was running (way too awkward) we carried on walking hoping to find someone who looked helpful.
We had decided that we wanted to go to the zoo and we'd seen a few maps around the park but we didn't seem to be getting any closer to it! Eventually we found a police officer who kindly gave us our own personal map and told us that actually we had already gone past the zoo (of course). So we decided that the best thing to do was to head back to the main road and walk down the side of Central Park on the street until we found the zoo and thank god - it worked.

A short walk later and we were there, Central Park Zoo. We went straight in, got our tickets and had our cameras at the ready. 
First place we went to was the seal enclousre, which is actually a really pleaseant open area! We stayed here for so long becuase they were just so entertaining, jumping out of the water, coming right up and out of the sides, climbing around - they were definitely putting on a show. We had a favourite who had one eye, he/she was hilarious and we took so many photos!

We then headed over to the polar bear and wow. Such a beautiful animal and even though she (I think it was a she) was just sleeping and relaxing you could watch her for hours! There were a few view points and there is one down a flight of stairs which gets you level with the water that is in the enclousure which gave us an amazing view (hence the photos). If you were ever to go there when they are in the water I bet it is incredible. 

Now central park zoo isn't like it looks in the movie Madagascar and it isn't actually that large, so after checking out the rest of the pens and enclosures (I loved the penguins) we thought it was a good time to head out back into the city and check out some of the shops we had wanted to see. If the Zoo is on your list of things to do I would still definitely go just don't base a large portion of your day around it.

Not far from Central Park we found fifth avenue and along with that FAO schwarz. This huge toy store is known for it's 'big piano' and with it being up there with my 'things to see in New York' we headed on in. Well I am a huge big kid anyway so this store was just a playground - so much fun and some truly awesome things such as wizard of oz and harry potter barbies and huge lego statues. When we got to the big piano it was of course full of children and I didn't really fancy queuing up with them all and looking like a crazy woman so I just got a few photos.

After this we headed outside and spotted the amazing building which is the Apple store. If you haven't seen it before it is a huge clear cube on the street and the store is actually underground. You go into the cube and either take the stairs or a lift to the store below. Now obviously we weren't going to be buying anything from apple (we were on a budget here people and where am I going to pack a mac?) but we had a quick look around anyway - we couldn't not.

Now it was time for a bit of girly time and after popping into the Ugg store (my feet we freezing in Converse and I was seriously considering buying some) we walked over to the world famous Bloomingdales.
  Our mission for this store was to find the iconic 'brown bag' and after going to probably every floor we found them. I got the 'little brown cosmetic bag' and my friend got the 'little brown bag'. Bloomingdales is fab to look around BUT I'm really not a fan of people trying to sell me things, I know they are on commission but people that come up and start smearing things all over your hands and basically saying you have to buy the product - no. just no. 

A few little stores later and we decided that we wanted to head back to Times Square and check out a few of the stores we had seen there. We knew we were quite a walk away and were starting to get a little tired so we hailed a taxi and were there in minutes. We went to Sephora and Mac and both had a little shopping spree. 
The main thing I wanted to get at the time was Taylor Swift's perfume Wonderstruck as it wasn't available in the UK yet. So I headed straight for perfume section in Sephora and found it and then we both got the Viva Glam Nicki lipstick from Mac which at the time was brand new so we found that very exciting. 

We walked back to out hotel,which like I said before is about a 15/20minute walk straight down from Times Square,  grabbed a slice of pizza for dinner and went and had an early night because we knew that Sunday morning was going to be an early one.
 We were off on a day trip to Washington DC!!

NEXT POST - We head to Washington DC to see The White House, Ab Lincoln Memorial, Madame Tussauds, The Smithsonian museum and so much more....

Shades For Summer - Nail Polish Favourites

Seeing as June is literally just around the corner which technically does make it "summer" (although I don't actually know if the skies of the UK understand what summer means) I thought I would put together a post for you all showing you my favourite nail polishes for this season.

Summer is a time to put away your blacks and depressing winter colours and make your nails center of attention! 
Weather it be a bright in your face colour or a super cute pastel I love the fact that in this season anything goes - fingers or toes! 
I've gone through all my polishes and picked out my favourite and most used colours for the summer months. I made sure there was a good variety of colours and shades because this time of year I am always switching up my colours and I'm normally using more than one at a time! (Rainbow nails are so cool!)
I love matching my nails to oufits and it's always such a good feeling when you find something that is exactly the same colour as a polish you are wearing/own. (or is that just me?)

1. Barry M - 318 Peach Melba

2. Essie - 67 Meet Me At Sunset (mentioned in my colours of the rainbow tag post)

3. Barry M - 301 Block Orange

4. Rimmel Lasting Finish - 030 Drama Queen

5. Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolor - Wear Something Spar-Kylie

6. W7 - 14 Fluorescent Pink

7. Barry M - 279 Bright Pink

8. Barry M - 309 Strawberry Ice Cream

9. Barry M - 308 Berry Ice Cream

10. Barry M - 306 Blueberry Ice Cream

11.  Barry M - 294 Cyan Blue

12. Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours - 320 Pop Fiction

13. Rimmel 60 Seconds - 825 Sky High

14. Barry M - 290 Spring Green

15. Rimmel Lasting Finish - 236 Green Grass

16. Barry M - 304 Mint Green

17. Collection 2000 Hot Looks - 14 Boho

18. Nicole for OPI Kardashian Kolor - Rainbow In The S-Kylie

Not sure why a few of the blue shades have decided to look the same in the photos but you can tell by the bottles that they are different! 

My favourite thing to do at the moment is to use Rainbow In The S-Kylie (18.) over the top of other colours which makes an amazing confetti effect! At the moment I am wearing strawberry ice cream (8.) with it over the top!

What are your favourite nail polishes for Summer and what brands do you love the most? Mine has to be Barry M (did you guess?)

'Sale away with me'

I'm the sort of girl who hates paying full price for most things, call me a cheap skate or tight but why pay full price is there is going to be an offer or a discount anytime soon or if there is a place which sells it cheaper? Maybe this baffles some of you and I'm not saying I don't buy things full price because I do, but I will always search for a discount code or an offer if it is from an online store, that's just me. I am a self-confessed bargain hunter.

 I get e-mailed so many times a day from all the fashion sites I have signed up to over the years and 95% of the time I don't even bother reading them (bad I know) unless that is I see my favourite word.... "Sale". 
Last week this happened to me with one of my favourite high street stores New Look. So, even though I was on the phone at the time, I went straight onto my laptop, some classic female multi-tasking, and onto their site. 
Needless to say this was probably a bad idea for the sake of my New Look store card BUT I did manage to get some utter bargains (everything I ordered was £7 or under) for the upcoming months which I am so happy with.

New Look sale's online tend to sell out super quick as alot of the time it is between 50-70% off so alot of what I show you may already be sold out but that's not to say you shouldn't still look anyway!

Eylure 152 False Lashes - £2

5 Pack Of Socks - £2

Silver Collar Bead Necklace - £3

Black Floral High Neck Crop Top - £3

Black Egyptian Print High Neck Crop Top - £4

Pink Check Print Skirt - £4

Black & White Tartan Print Skirt - £5

Elephant Aztec Print Midi Skirt - £5

Coral Pinafore Dress - £6

Black Floral Print Pinafore Dress - £7

Black & White Polka Dot Tea Dress - £7

(All size 10, all from New Look)

I love this dress and necklace combination, I wore this when I went out for dinner a few evenings ago.

I've put crop top under both of the pinafore dresses (both again from New Look) and a statement necklace with each, I love this 90s style look and can't wait to wear them once we have some sunshine, although I'd even where them with tights too. I think they would look great with some frilly socks and some converse trainers.

Necklaces : Left - New Look , Right - Primark. 

I am actually still waiting for some of the stuff which I've ordered to arrive so hopefully they'll be more to add to this haul soon....