A little Summer 2016 round-up and haul... #blogtober Day 3

This Summer has literally been one of the best of my life, but it has also been the one I've taken the least photographs of! I've done lots of fun things that I may do separate blog posts for - visited Paris with some of my best friends, was bridesmaid at my mum's wedding, picked up many bargains at the carboot sales! I've put together a little summary post of some of my favourite times and some of the things I've treated myself to recently.

Me and my sister took my step-nephew to see The Jungle Book, but I think that we may have been more excited than he was! I finally treated myself to The Great Frog 'Michael Rodent' ring that has been on my wishlist for so long. I bought it on my 25th birthday and I've worn it most days ever since. I went to go see The Last Shadow Puppets with one of my best friends and it was awesome. After many failed attempts at getting tickets and months waiting for the actual gig, it was so worth it!

How pretty are these flowers?! I had never seen them before until me and my friend went on a little power walk. Turns out they're called Passion Flowers, and I'm definitely going to convince my dad to plant some in our back garden! I went on my first sunny holiday in about 5 years this year, so I had lots of fun shopping for that. One of my most worn items was these Vans sliders - they're actually from the mens section if you just size down one or two sizes! I also treated myself to some new make up brushes as I've never really bought myself a full set. Beforehand I just used a random selection of Real Techniques and others I had gathered over the years, but these rose gold set from Spectrum Brushes are so lovely and great quality.

This was definitely the highlight of my whole Summer - me and my best friend ever went to Marrakech. It was literally so fun that we barely took any photographs! We spent every single day sunbathing, in the wave pools and on-sight water park, browsing the markets for gorgeous hamsa hand ornaments and just generally relaxing. The food was great, the people were great, the entertainment was great, the weather was great - I could really have happily stayed there for a long time.

I finally got my first ever tattoo finished, which has been on my Bucket List for a long time! My friend first tattooed me when he started his career and we were about 16 years old, and then this Summer at the age of 25 we finally completed it, and I love it! I got to see one of my favourite bands Slaves in a really intimate 'Back of the Van' tour and it was one of the best, sweatiest gigs I've ever been to in my life. Have you watched the Netflix Original: Stranger Things? It was so addictive and very 80s, I binge watched it all in a couple of days and I cannot wait for the second series to come out. 

This Summer was the year I started getting acrylic nails done. I know they're bad for your nails, and they're expensive, but they just look so cute and it means you don't need to worry about having chipped nails for weeks on end. Me and my friends had an afternoon of tie-dying which was so much fun and I definitely want to do it again soon. Lastly, and definitely most importantly, I found out this Summer I'm going to be an auntie! :) My little sister and her boyfriend are expecting their first baby and I literally couldn't be more excited!

What fun things did you get up to this Summer?

Thanks for reading, hopefully see you tomorrow! :)

Love Dani x

Personalised little instagram magnets from Sticky9!

If you've been following my blog for a little while now, you'll know I'm an absolute sucker for anything personalised with my instagram photographs. I have a whole wall in my room full of instagram polaroid prints and I've eaten many a personalised photo cake, so when I was asked by Sticky9 if I'd like some of my instagram photographs printed onto magnets for my fridge, I couldn't say no! I picked a few favourite images - some of my family and friends, some of my puppies and some cute quotes.

Sticky9 set of 9 magnets - £9.99*

As soon as they arrived, I was in love. They're the perfect size and really good quality. The colours are nice and bright, and they'll be the perfect little addition to my kitchen! I already can't wait to order some more as I want my fridge to be full of them eventually! They also ship worldwide for free so they're the loveliest gift for yourself or a loved one! :)

 

They really brighten up a boring, white fridge! I'm planning to order some for my mum's birthday as I know she'd love some photo additions in her new home too! :) When they first come, they're stuck together in a big square so it's up to you if you want to rip them up into three rows, or all into separate squares... either way they look fabulous! If you're interested in getting some for yourself, you can get 15% off your first Sticky9 order with the code 'FRIENDVXQ9' :)

Last minute, I actually realised that I could also have these in my bedroom - they work so perfectly on the edge of my radiator! Sticky9 actually also sell photo prints, stickers and iPhone cases, so I'll probably be making another order sometime soon - I'll definitely be buying some more magnets as they're so cute!

Thanks for reading :)

I'm over at @floraldanielle on instagram if you'd like to follow!

Don't forget you can get 15% off your first Sticky9 order with the code 'FRIENDVXQ9' :)

Love Dani :)

x

Photo round-up of my year in 2014! :)

Sorry this post is a little late, as some of you may know I've just been on the best trip ever to Amsterdam with my boyfriend Joe, and I shall be getting a YouTube video of our fun times up sometime soon. I started doing this round-up of the year blog post last year, and I'm gonna keep on doing them each year as they're such a good way to remember everything that happened in the past year! Yet again 2014 has been a crazy year - I started the year finishing off my dissertation and now I've graduated and moved onto interning and the real world! :) The first half of the year was definitely more boring than the second half, as it was spent slaving away in my uni bedroom and the classroom studio, but the second half I got to do some super fun things! I definitely forgot how long these blog posts take to create too... I might try and do it per month during 2015 so that it's all ready to publish in December haha! :)

January

January was such a random one this year. We had an awesome New Years Eve at university and everyone was there together for the last time! I then shopped in the sales a bit and the rest of it was spent slaving away at uni, on Photoshop and buying fabrics for my final collection, as well as finishing off my dissertation.

February

February obviously included Valentine's Day, and this year it was actually mine and Joe's 5th year anniversary! February was another month of slaving away at univeristy but I also got my hair dyed a little bit lighter (looking back I actually really like the slightly ginger tone here), treated myself to lots of Models Own nail polishes, discovered the sweet flavoured Carex soaps (strawberry laces, chocolate orange and cola bottles, yum!) and went to Biddy's Tearoom in Norwich for the first time, which was so yummy! :)

March

March was pretty sunny in Norwich which was nice! I feel like all these first few months of 2014 were such a blur of uni work and stress! We had some fun times procrastinating on the balcony together though and I had my hair dyed even blonder. You can really see the difference in colour from February til March.

April

Despite all the stress, April was a really good month for me. It was my 23rd birthday (ahh I feel so old, but I loved everyone singing the Blink 182 song 'What's my age again?' at me because the lyrics are "nobody likes you when you're 23"), the new series of Game of Thrones came out, I got some awesome birthday presents and got to spend time with my loved ones. I also had my hair dyed even blonder and I was eventually happy with the colour :)

May

The month of May this year might've been the most stressful month of my whole life. It was the countdown to my final ever hand-in, my final collection being finished and the catwalk fashion show. This month I managed to finish everything on time, have a photoshoot of my collection and had an awesome catwalk fashion show, so as you can imagine we all went out and got very drunk! I also won Jim Chapman's giveaway to win the full collection of Tanya Burr's lips and nail collection, and he actually turned up at my uni house to deliver them as he lived so close!

June

June was so lovely as all the stress had finally been taken away from us and we got to spend time together as friends rather than occasionally swooping past each other in the kitchen area. We went for plenty of nights out, had many BBQs and also went to the beach. I popped home to surprise my dad for Father's Day which was lovely and I also helped man the uni stand at Graduate Fashion Week. I eventually had time to do some blogging this month after putting blogging on hold for several months. June was also sad though as it was the month we all tidied and packed up our rooms to move back home!

July

July was the month of my graduation, the day I never thought would come! So many times throughout uni I wanted to give up but I managed to stick it out, get a good grade and graduate with all my friends! I had a nice (orange) fake tan and it was lovely and sunny that day. My sister gave me the funniest graduation card which read 'Congratulations on finally wearing a tassel on something other than your nipples' hahaha! I wrote a full blog post about my graduation here if you'd like to read it! It was also Joe's 23rd birthday and I got him a rather fitting Heisenberg card! :)

August

During August I went to quite a few carboot sales and managed to get some lovely bargains! I also went to Reading Festival with my best friend and some uni friends, and saw some of my favourite bands ever! I did a full blog post on Reading Festival if you'd like to read it here :) I was also working in Costa Coffee during this Summer full time so I didn't have too much time for fun!

September

September was a really fun month this year and I got to do lots of fun things! I went to Alton Towers for the first time ever with my best friend, my mum moved into her new house with her boyfriend so we had a fun, champagne-filled evening celebrating, the steam fair came to town and we went on lots of rides and my blog turned 2 years old. I also went to LFW, had an Ikea makeover in my bedroom, went to a Primark A/W Preview and Blogger Masterclass with Victoria from Inthefrow and spent some fun days in London with my best friend :)

October

October started off very exciting, as me and Joe went to Scotland for a few weeks! It was amazing and I loved every minute of it! We camped in some amazing places, climbed up some mountains, saw some lovely waterfalls and stayed in a little wooden wigwam! I still need to edit and upload my YouTube videos from Scotland so keep an eye out for them! The new series of American Horror Story came out which made me super happy as it's one of my favourite series, I went to the Oh My Love A/W Preview Day and I did some fun pumpkin carving for Halloween! :)

November

November was another fun month this year. Everyone starts to get a little bit excited for Christmas and the festive season (even though not everyone likes to admit it!), the Lush Christmas bath bombs started coming out and the crazy Christmas shopping starts! I got to see some family friends that I hadn't seen in years which was lovely, I treated myself to the Naked 3 Palette and most definitely haven't looked back! I had a fun day in London with my sister going to a few blogger press days and I eventually upgraded my phone to an iPhone 5! :)

December

December started off really fun as I got to intern at one of my favourite clothing brands, Oh My Love! :) I wrote a full blog post about it here which you can read, but it consisted of everything from photoshoots to returns and helping out on the website. I also visited Winter Wonderland with some uni friends, had some fun times in London and ended up having a lovely Christmas with my friends and family :) and to top it all off, Joe treated me with a trip to Amsterdam as my Christmas present!

Wow I've eventually finished this blog post, it felt like it took forever! But yet again, I'm so glad I wrote it, even just for myself to look back over the years and see how much has changed! :)

A video posted by Dani Mason (@floraldanielle) on Dec 29, 2014 at 4:21pm PST

  

 

Thanks for reading :)

Which was your favourite month this year?

Follow me on instagram @floraldanielle :)

Hope you all have a happy and healthy 2015!

Love Dani :)

x

Catch-up on the last few weeks, and my finished final collection! :)

I'm baaaack! :) After many weeks of scheduled blog posts and guest blog posts from some lovely ladies, I'm finally back on my own blog and ready to get back into blogging on a weekly/every other day occurecnce! I've missed it so much, but I've had some of the busiest/worst/best few months of my life.

I've loved and hated working with printed fabrics this term. I created this print and had it digitally printed onto silk satin to make some linings for my garments and also a shirt for my collection. It's not the cheapest fabric, and having to line up the prints to get them matching is not easy, but I love the way it looks! This has pretty much been my view for the past few months - walking to and from uni. This and the inside of the studio or my bedroom.

I've really enjoyed working with delicate fabrics such as tulle, organza and lace this term. Even though they've been a right ball ache to get right, and they move out of place ALL THE TIME, I love how they look! I'm definitely gonna continue to make for myself after uni, I'm so excited to go fabric shopping and it being for me and not for my collection or uni work!

Some of the places I used the printed silk satin - in this unfinished shirt and in the lining of my shorter cape :)

A sneak peak of a photoshoot I did for my final collection. I will do a full blog post of the final images sometime soon, I'm so happy with how they came out! The photographer is amazing and the model was stunning :)

My little sister (pictured), my mum, my dad, my boyfriend and my best friend came up to visit me to see my end of year Final Collection show which was so lovely! Unfortunately it was two days before my final deadline so I couldn't really spend too much time with them as I had to go back home and get on with work! The two days later though, I got all my work completed, labelled and handed in!

Here is a sneak preview of my final collection from the show. I will also be doing a full blog post on the full collection and hopefully some more close-up photographs (I'm waiting to get some photos back from the photographers!)

Thanks for reading :)

So that's it now, uni is finally over and after Graduate Fashion Week it's the Summer!
Are you finishing university forever this term too?

Love Dani :)

x

Sunday summary #7 - A bit about being a fashion design student and my final collection :)

I thought I should probably do a blog post at some point about my final year at university so far and my final collection, seen as it's the only thing I seem to be doing nowadays! If you didn't already know, I study Fashion Design at university and I'm in my final year. From now until May, I shall be finishing my six outfit final collection, which is both super fun and super scary at the same time! Some outfits will only contain one or two garments, but some will contain three or four plus accessories so there is a lot to think about

Sketchbook work has been the bane of my life for the past three years. I have a totally love/hate relationship with sketchbooks though, I find them tedious to do but once I look back at them I actually love them! They're good for working through your projects from start to end and developing ideas though :)

I really need to invest in a proper mannequin after uni, these ones are so good as they have lines already on them for bust point, centre front etc. I'm literally working on a mannequin 24/7 nowadays too, which is really fun but stressful when the mannequins are slightly bigger than the actual model so you need to change all the sizes again!

This was an initial line-up idea for my final collection. It has been a lot more refined now and has changed loads, but I still like to look back to this and see what some of my original designs were.  My initial ideas came from India and jellyfish, not that you can see that much in these designs either, but everything moves and develops so quickly!

Pinterest quotes have been keeping me going! I go through stages of using Pinterest and at the moment I like to go on once a day for some daily pinning and lots of inspirational quotes! You can follow me here if you also have a Pinterest, but be warned I post alot ;)

I've had fun this term experimenting with textiles and other ways to design which I hadn't done before. Even just setting up an overhead projector and projecting your chosen image onto a mannequin can inspire some new ideas!

Here are some of my initial print ideas, some are more literal and some have been kaleidoscoped (if that's a word) to make them a repeat pattern and a bit more interesting. I'm still not 100% which style I like the best yet, but I do think I should only have one or the other, as the non-repeat one looks a lot more organic.

I spent a good few days creating this curved collar but I'm really happy with how it has turned out. I'm going to have a printed version of this shirt somewhere in my collection for definite as I love it, and I need to have some simplistic garments in my collection to balance out the smocking and embroidery.

Lastly, I have been experimenting with smocking different materials and draping it onto the stand. I love how this experiment has turned out, and it would look great as a top on it's own, or simply as a neck-piece. I've always loved the look of smocking techniques and the ruffles goes back to my initial research when I was looking at jellyfish tentacles.

I've literally been backwards and forwards to London sourcing fabric so many times in recent times, which is rather annoying when my hometown is 30 minutes from London and my uni town is over two hours away! But I've been enjoying choosing my final fabrics and experimenting in them, even if it is burning a hole in my pocket! I've also come across so many gorgeous fabrics that I want to make clothes in for myself when I finish uni - How gorgeous are these tartans?!

Pattern cutting day in and day out has also become a part of my daily routine. I recently invested in a pair of fabric scissors which nearly cost me £100... but they're so worth it as they feel like I'm cutting through air, and they'll last me a lifetime! My little floral apple pin holder is from my boyfriend's nanny and I love it!

I love treating myself to a fashion magazine or two at the weekend while I do some sketchbook and watch some Breaking Bad! You definitely have to chill out a bit at the weekends otherwise you'll literally go crazy.

Here is a preview of my first outfit in final fabrics. I'm sure everything will change loads as I go on, but I'm loving the high-waisted trousers so far and just need to decide on my final print :)

And last but not least, here is my favourite image to describe the past few months of my life. It literally is all fun and games until the bobbin runs out haha! There is nothing worse than sewing a garment and the bobbin running out halfway through, athough I've had it before where it ran out before I even started, and I didn't realise until I'd finished that seam... that was very annoying!

Thanks for reading :)
I hope you enjoyed a little insight into my life and a slightly different Sunday summary!

I will be updating my blog with more final collection posts as I continue my journey :)

And you can follow my instagram @floraldanielle for daily updates!

Love Dani :)

x

Photo round-up of my year in 2013! :)

I've got to say that 2013 has probably been one of the weirdest years of my life! There have been particularly high highs but also some horribly low lows, so I'm kinda happy to close the door on 2013 and look forward to all that 2014 has to bring! I know for a fact that this year I shall finish uni and graduate (unless something terrible happens), I shall move back home and have to find myself a job, maybe move in with Joe, maybe move to London, earn money, dye my hair blonder and get some more tattoos! The next 5 months at uni are probably gonna be the hardest of my life, but I can't wait to see my finished collection of clothes and see what the future brings my way!

January

January always start on NYE/New Years Day with a kiss from Joe wherever we are! It's times like this that I really appreciate Instagram and Facebook, because otherwise I would definitely have forgotten what happened throughout this year, let alone just January! I went back to uni after Christmas, dyed my hair ombre using the L'Oreal home kit, it snowed! I also did my huge amounts of January sale shopping and we went to a fancy dress party as Trollz, which made me want pink hair in real life!

February

This February I celebrated my 4 year anniversary with Joe! He came down to visit me at uni and I had bought us this cute little gingerbread couple, and he made me the chocolate heart cake, what a cutie! I also had very ginger hair at this point, and was addicted to my denim jacket haha! I also got my hands on the Enrapture Encode Totem Styler (you can see the full review here) so this is probably the first time you've ever seen me with curled hair!

March

Half of March was spent at uni going for some fun nights out, doing lots of uni work and helping out with Norwich Fashion Weekender, and the other half was spent back at home for Easter. How funny is the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves fancy dress we did?! I was Snow White, then my boyfriend and his family went as the seven dwarves! I also found my studded bumbag in Primark which was used loads through out Summer!

April

April was definitely one of my most favourite months this year! I celebrated my 22nd birthday, and was totally spoilt by my family, friends and boyfriend! Judging my the amount of pink, you can see they know me very well ;)! It was also Easter at the beginning of the month so lots of yummy chocolate, some of my best friends came to visit uni for my birthday, and my best friends birthday is 6 days before me so we celebrated together! I also started watching Game of Thrones, met Proudlock from Made in Chelsea in London who was lovely and went on the Winnie the Pooh trail. My best friend did my birthday make up for the night out, and I started collecting Disney DVDs/ reliving my childhood! :)

May

May is always a nice month at uni because it's the last month before we all go back home for Summer! We hand in our last project of the year and appreciate the warm weather with chilling on the balcony and lots of alcohol and BBQs! I was very happy with my magazine project I handed in, visited Amy in Essex and went for a night out there for the first time, bought my beloved Topshop pinafore and found lots of lovely bits in the local charity shops!

June

I spent the beginning of June at uni with a few fun nights out, then packed up my stuff and went home for Summer. I had my interview to be the intern at Waiste Clothing, and I got it! I was so nervous to even apply, so to get it made me very happy! It was so much fun, and Sara was so lovely to work with, you can read some more about it here :). Not only was it great to work behind the scenes, but I have genuinely always loved her stuff and it was fab to see it all being created and to help out myself! This was also the month everyone found their names on Coke bottles, but I couldn't find mine so I made a DIY one ;)

July

 July is usually another one of my favourite months because it's super sunny and Summery! It's Joe's birthday month too so we always do something fun :). I continued with my 3 month internship at Waiste, went on a road trip to Nottingham, stayed in a caravan near the beach with Joe, hosted my own BBQ, went to a bloggers event called the Vintage Set Festival and went to The London Dungeons with my best friend (we definitely held hands the whole way around!)

August

I can't really remember what happened in August, and I don't seem to have many photos from this month either! I'm pretty sure I just spent it chilling with my family and friends, enjoying spending my time at home, going to and from London for my internship and appreciating the sun! Me and Joe went to the carboot sale most Sunday mornings so I picked up loads of gorgeous things for around £1, and Joe found this lovely Coca Cola mirror for our future home! We also helped Joe welcome this tiny puppy Darcy into his family, he has grown so much already!

September

September was the month that my internship with Waiste came to an end which I was really sad about, and Sara treated me to lots of lovely Waiste denim pieces, I cannot wait to wear the dungarees most days this Summer! I also went to a festival called Brownstock which was the first festival I had been to in about 4 years so that was fun! It wasn't the biggest festival but it was so fun to just get really drunk and have no worries for a few days! I also got my hands on some little cacti and cut out boots which I had wanted for months!

October

I love coming back to uni in September because we all haven't seen each other in 3 and a half months, and we always have lots of fun nights out! This October was the start of my third year though so we all had to knuckle right down almost straight away so lots of experimentations and sketchbook work was done! We all went mental at Halloween though because we knew it would be our last here :( I went as a dead nurse, and carved my first ever pumpkin! I also treated myself to the Motel star and moon two piece eventually, you can get 20% off MotelRocks.com using discount code 'floraldanielle' :)

November

November was pretty much the same as October in terms of constantly sitting in and doing uni work, but I've come up with lots of new ideas that I love, and my final grade was a good one so I'm really happy with that! We can never really go a month without a fancy dress themed party though, and this one was a Kevin and Perry/90s themed one! This is also the month that I became addicted to American Horror Story, I'm almost finished series two, and I'm loving it!

December

I absolutely love December and the Christmas spirit with all the lovely lights and cheery songs! I was so happy to go home for Christmas this year as this first term of third year has been so stressful, but unfortunately I only really got to go home for just over a week as I decided to come back to uni for NYE! But I made the most of it and saw as many people as I could in that time! I loved giving everyone their pressies, having a yummy roast dinner and spending time with my family :). I got some lovely presents myself, including this bear dressing gown with ears from Joe! We hosted the NYE party back at uni, and it was so lovely to spend the countdown with everyone as this time next year we'll all be off doing different and exciting things!

Wow, this blog post ended up taking a lot longer to make than I actually realised! But I'm so glad I've done it, so I can look back on it in a years time and see how much everything has changed! I honestly thought this year had been pretty crap as it felt like I'd spent 99% of it slaving away at uni or in my room, but it turns out I have had a pretty fun year, and I can't wait to enjoy 2014! :)

Thanks for reading :)
Have you done a yearly round up? Post yours below if you have!

Which was your favourite month this year?

Follow me on instagram @floraldanielle

Hope you all have a happy and healthy 2014!

Love Dani :)

x

Sunday summary #6

I haven't actually done a Sunday Summary post since the middle of Summer, which was ages ago! I have been super busy with my fashion course this year, which I'm loving but it really is hard work. I'm only into week 3 but it feels like I've been back and working hard for months! Alot of these photos are 'fashion student' photos so sorry if they're all a bit same-y, but that's literally my life right now haha!

 Me, Amy and all the other fashion girls had a girly food and drinks night at the American Diner :)

The fabrics I found on my trip to London, I love them all, how am I gonna pick the final ones?!

This is what most of my days consist of - fabric manipulating in the studio!

I can't stop pinning on Pinterest recently too (follow me here) and this made me laugh so much!

I've been trying out some ideas on the laser cutter at uni, how cute are these paisley cut-outs?

After a long day of uni work, I love sitting down to a Ryan Gosling movie ;)

Coming up with fashion designs using jellyfish as inspiration.

My little fashion section in the studio, I love my floral apple pin holder!

The new ADTR album has been getting me through the days recently!

Nothing like a freshly made bed! I love my Cable and Cotton lights! (Full review here)

I got sent these gorgeous Bloom and Wild flowers for my uni room. They fit in the letterbox! (Full review here)

Skull mug and dissertation preperation!

How cute is my boyfriends new puppy?! I am so in love!

My gorgeous new Motel Rocks twosie! Get 20% off MotelRocks.com using code 'floraldanielle' :)

Oh yes Ryan, you're right!

I eventually got my hands on those New Look boots!

My cute little corner of candles, perfume, incense and cacti!

Winter is definitely coming! Fur coat and thick black tights!

My lovely little cactus pots from Ikea, such a bargain too!

I've been wearing all my Summer dresses with a long sleeved top underneath!

Eventually got hold of the Real Techniques 'Core Collection' and I love them!

I love my moon and star ring from Dixi, and how cute is my dog haha?

Moomin pajamas, could you get any better?!

Festival fingers from Dixi, Little Teacup, Waiste and Casio watch!

I want to start adding in my favourite songs or music videos of the week into my Sunday Summary posts. I absolutely love the video to the song, it's so cute and funny at the same time!

Thanks for reading :)
Are you a fashion student or in your third year of uni too?

Follow me on instagram @floraldanielle

Love Dani :)

x