Life | I am a hoarder…

Over the years I have amassed a ridiculously large collection of stuff.  It’s not that I buy an especially large amount; it’s just that once it’s bought, it’s with me for life.

On moving house I discovered that I still had in my possession copies of heat magazine from two years ago - this embarrasses me greatly.  Also about fifty lip balms came out of the woodwork - this embarrasses me even more. I realized that I have carted around the same collection of moisturisers from pretty much every house I have lived in for the past two years because despite knowing that I am not a habitual moisturiser, I still insist on buying more.

It’s the same with hair products. I am and have been for at least six years on a seemingly never ending quest to find a product that will turn my over bleached, over straightened hair into a glorious flowing mane (this will never happen). In pursuing this dream I now have an entire drawer of hair products and yet I still buy more.

The beauty blogger effect is a definite thing, I own far more than I need and yet I continue to buy.

I have decided to have a clear out. Working in fashion and in close proximity to London’s main shopping street has meant that I have a stupid amount of clothes and shoes as well as the embarrassing amount of beauty products.

Here’s the plan:

Beauty products will be used up before any more are purchased. Only when the last lip balm is finished will I buy any more. One person does not need thirty lip balms and five foundations.

Clothing and shoes will be sorted, anything I don’t love will be sold on vinted (my user name is katiepottinger if anyone wants to have a peek)

Wish me luck!

Life | Quote time #1

Recently I've been having a pretty shitty time of it to be honest, hence the extreme inactivity on here (apologies, apologies). My job ended, I couldn't afford my house anymore and blah blah blah. Let's not turn this into a lets all feel sorry for me type of post as we all know I can't stand a moaner.

 

What I have learnt from all this is that you have to make the best of every situation that you find yourself in. For example, yes I lost my job in Selfridges (not due to incompetence may I add! My contract ended) but in not having this job in the toy department, yes snores, I have now found myself a new job in Cos; basically a more expensive Zara. Yes it doesn't pay as well and yes I miss the people I used to work with but now instead of trying to sell lightsabers - is that even how you spell it? I am selling pretty decently nice clothing to the wealthies that patronise Regent Street. And also, yes, I might be getting a pound less an hour than I used to but its seven pound eighty more than I would be getting if I didn't have a job.

 

And yes, I might have had to leave my beautiful riverside apartment but it means that now I can move in with the boyfriend *high five for exciting adult life move* Anyway you get the point. I like the quote above that I found on Pinterest after being inspired by the lovely Louise from A Sprinkle of Glitter because it feels like a less cliched version of the old classic 'lifes not about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain'. Basically I'm just trying to be a duck. Ok odd metaphor but you get the gist, let the water run off your back and make the best of a bad situation.

What do you think? How do you deal with hard times?

Love and whatnot

 

 

Life | Room decoration

I truly believe that the little things you do in a room can make or break a space in terms of decoration. I discovered this after many a conversation with my sister as to why her room always felt nice and very personal to her and mine never did. My sister has a sort of god given gift for interior design. Every room she has had has always been such a lovely space! You could go into any of them and know immediately that it's her room. It has always been my ultimate goal (in terms of room decoration that is), to harness some of this insane power and make it my own.

I finally think that I have in someway achieved this with my room at my mum's house where I used to live before I moved down to London for university. The wall with my bed is by far my favourite in the room. I spent a good few hours cutting out pictures from magazines, some of my favourite picture source magazines include; Clash, Pigeons & Peacocks, the Urban Outfitters catalogue and Nylon. If your not a bit ridiculous like me (I refuse to cut up hardback A4 magazines) then I would also recommend Love, Pop, Dazed and Confused, Vogue and iD, oh and Notion. Side note – if your ever around the Barbican area of London, which I am quite a lot, then get yourself down to the market on Leather Lane, you can pick up magazines like these there for practically nothing. A key thing to take note of when selecting your pictures is another little gem of wisdom from my sister; 'don’t worry about if they all go together or if they all go along the same theme, if you like them all then it will look good'. I follow this when I'm cutting out my pictures and it seems to have worked for me! Oh, and I generally find that smaller pictures look better in a collage, don’t ask me why, they just do.

Back from that slightly related tangent I then stuck them all up on my wall with blue tack. I really love how the wall looks now because not only is it so much better than what I used to have up there which was a load of fashion adverts and editorials that I had cut out of old issues of Elle magazine, once again I refuse to cut up my sizeable collection of Vogues, but it reflects what I like and my personality a lot more now. Also on the same wall I have some of my shoe collection stored in a little shelving unit that I think we got form Ikea ages ago (it used to be my sisters so forgive me if I'm wrong). Again, I believe that you should have things that you like on display in your room so as shallow as it sounds, I like shoes, so I'm going to display my shoes proudly for all to see. (shoe collection to come soon).

In terms of my bed, I love it! I got it for my eighteenth birthday from my mum, I think she got it from Dreams, which is a bed shop here in England. For as long as I can remember I have wanted a metal day bed type of bed and I finally got one! I love how girly it looks as I'm not a very girly girl at all and so I think it gives a nice contrast to everything else that I've got. My bedding is pretty average, I like the whole red, white and blue theme that I have going on because I have a lot of union jack things in my room and so having my bedding be in this colour scheme ties my room together quite nicely I think.

How do you decorate you room? Let me know!