Hair!

I love 'how-tos' on Youtube and while away many an hour planning make-up, nail and hair looks online. I find the videos easier to follow than books or magazines and the variety endless. Styles vary from the homespun to the really advanced, and it's good to see that industry professionals are recognising this trend and putting useful tutorials online - sometimes, when I buy a new product, I really do need a 'how to' to use it. At other times, I might be stuck in a styling rut and different angles on a favourite style are what I crave.

Quiff = recent tutorial find.

Maidenform: Best Supporting Role

As any lover of fashion, vintage or modern will agree, the right undies are vital. Not just for support and smoothing, but for comfort too. Which can lead to a tragic, ugly secret. A shame hidden behind the most innocuous little black dress as well as the WAGgiest WAGtastic white sequin number. The boringly functional greige support knicker. I don't care if Gok loves 'em, I don't.
If only we could have it all- something that nips and smooths but looks sumptuous and sophisticated too. Well, the fabulous people at Maidenform obviously heard my cries of despair (or perhaps saw me attempting to cram my behind into a pencil skirt post Chrimbo from a hundred miles away) and sent me their famous high-waist brief to review. However, this brief has a key difference to your usual support item; it's from their Valentine's Day 'Roses Are Red' collection and intended to look as good alone as when worn with clothes atop, designed to offer "the ultimate combination of femininity and function'.

Charity Shopping Furniture

The crumbling pile of a house we bought has up until fairly recently been very full of boxes. Boxes of cardboard, boxes of wood, boxes of plastic - all stacked in places which will have shelves and cupboards when we get round to buying them, overflowing with china, books, DVDs and bits-and-bobs like sleeping bags. But now, at least some of those many, many boxes can go into the garage, folded away. We have a sideboard.

Photographed in excitement, before dusting.

Check It Out!

I had my shopping mojo back this weekend. There were several items I just could not find in the sales - although I had a major win with some VW Melissas for £39 (Bond St Fenwicks, I thank you) I was just too tired to do the usual rummaging.

Sneaky bargain shoe shot

Retro & Weird Food & Lifestyle Round Up

We all know I adore a good retro recipe. I was browsing t'interweb for one recently and discovered a fantastic site for all you retro recipe-heads out there. Ghost Traveller walks the tightrope between hilarious, weird and intriguing in a way which sums up the appeal of American Gothic (in the popular sense). Hell, it even links to Sacho's Pictures of The Unexplained (Sancho appears to be a dog with an Afro). Reviews of haunted hotels around the USA, retro recipes  (sorted into the merely antiquated and the truly bizarre) and of course trailer park cooking. They even have Jello Hell-o, where the retro love of jellifying all foods is celebrated. Brilliant. I will be trying some of the recipes; some, but not all. To be honest, I might stick with the trailer park ones, as they seem to involve cheese and Doritos, and not steeping sour milk through a cheesecloth.

Avon Little Red Dress Lipstick

Before Christmas, I was browsing through the Avon catalogue in search of stocking fillers when I came across a new lipstick; Little Red Dress. I wish I could say something clever about style or outfit planning went through my head, actually I just thought 'oooh money off' and ordered it on the introductory price of £5.

Pursuing 2012

As I start to plan my posts for the year ahead, and review those from the year past...

2011; A Perdita Pictorial

Now is not a time for complex words. We are too hung over. Now is a time for reflecting on things pretty and silly, and contemplating exactly how much fun one can have using only 365 days, charity shops, beer and a little imagination...

Cherish your local parks and museums

Make like a starlet with Rockabetty Studios

Relax in the garden, mismatched tea and china or mismatched
wine and crisps, it's all elegantly chilled.

Keep an eye out for those retro cook books!

Have your drink appropriately labelled
by  Penny Dreadful Vintage, and...

...Buy the perfect maxi. Scowl: stylist's own.

Be silly on HMS Belfast

Rehydrate. It's important.

Revel in chazza shop shoes

Rehydrate some more.

Enjoy vintage British summertime weather with Retrochick and
Landgirl1980.

Have love for the EBay.

Visit National Parks.

Buy something from the 30s 'in poor vintage condition'.

Rehydrate some more whilst you recover from the shock.

Escape to glamorous Norwich.

Consider living in a tent.

Geekify your home-sweet-home.

Rehydrate.

Relax.

How has your year been? And what are you looking forward to as we venture bravely into what can only be called.... the future....?

Tramp Vintage Winner

Hello y'all! Hope you've all have a terribly decadent and luxurious Christmas. And there's one final present waiting under the tree, the prize from my seasonal Tramp Vintage giveaway!

The random name out of the hat is... (drumroll)...

Mellysocks!

Congratulations and I hope you enjoy partying the nights away with your lovely bag in 2012.

Winter Parks

I am on winter holiday and seeking, as ever, thrifty things to do round and about London. I have spent all my money on presents and mulled wine, and although the lure of the Sky+ box is strong, it can't hold me until January 3rd.

One of my favourite ways to escape the madness, save a bit of cash and experience the city in a different way is to explore some of our great outdoor spaces- the parks- during the winter months. They take on a new persona; subtle, sometimes haunting, and I notice aspects easily lost amongst the flowers and noise of summer. Statues, old buildings, bare and delicate flora; even the stark skyline- they all come to the fore in winter.

Another advantage of seeking out a park or square is that London has wonderful examples in both the centre and suburbia. It is very easy to take a small time- say, half and hour- between shopping or partying and get a bracing walk in. I did this Saturday before meeting up with the hardy few of Twitterland who were still up for Winter Wonderland. It made me feel a bit more virtuous when necking mulled wine and London stout all afternoon.

Of course, I would hazard a warning about venturing out (male and female both) into secluded woodland after dark. Not only might there be ruffians intent on separating you from your iphone, I also heard of a guy up north who slipped, fell and had died of hypothermia before they found him when wandering a large cemetery. Parks are big places and quiet in winter- it's their appeal, but also requires a little common sense.

London is a city blessed with fabulous open spaces. I'm using Hyde Park as an example here today, but could reel off several more favourites (Osterly, Hampstead, Walpole, Gunnersbury, Richmond...). What spaces have you in your area? And, if they look a bit shabby, is there a local group campaigning to improve them? I have several wonderfully restored canal walks near me - I remember them as muddy trolley-filled ex-canals in my youth, but now they are inspiring. Local action at its best. The more we use our open spaces, the better.