I just wanted to write a little post to let you know that in the future I will try to write my posts in both English and Finnish. I have two reasons for this.. possibly gaining some new audience from Finland, and also for me to maintain my Finnish :). English will stay as the main language of my blog and my social media accounts, I am an UK based blogger, so wouldn’t make sense for me to change that, and I hope this won’t bother any of my current readers. So here we go.. same (and some more) in Finnish..

Moikka!

Mä olen tätä märehtinyt jo vuoden päivät, että josko bloggaisin myös suomeksi. Ja olen nyt tullut sellaiseen tulokseen, että täytyy kokeilla :). Mimmi mua on painostanut tähän (no ei oikeesti painostanu, vähän vaan vihjaili – Mimmi on ihana <3), ja miksipä en kokeilisi. Mitä te suomalaiset lukijat olette mieltä? Oletteko enemmän kiinnostuneita vierailemaan täällä, jos kirjoitan myös suomeksi?

Ja siis ihan vaan varoituksena, mä olen AINA ollut huono suomen kieliopissa.. pilkut on väärissä paikoissa yms. Ja nyt olen varmasti vielä pahempi, kun olen asunut täällä Lontoossa jo reilut 4 vuotta, ja suomea en hirveästi käytä (paitsi mitä nyt vähän jauhan p***aa suomalaisen työkaverin kanssa ja kukaan ei ymmärrä mitä sanotaan – luksusta :D). Mutta siis joo, antakaa anteeksi jo valmiiks mun tsiljoonat virheet ;).

I love my blog, I love my readers, and that’s why I feel that I have to be honest with you. I’m stressed, and I have too much going on at the moment to focus on anything properly. All of this stuff is personal, but I want to share it with you, so you’ll understand better why my updates are happening so rarely (and why I will possibly post my NYC outfits still a month from now – I HOPE NOT, haha, but you know what I mean).

I have so many things going on in the work-front; my job is really busy at the moment, and I’m also looking for a new one, but haven’t REALLY had a proper think about what kind of I job I want next. Or better way of saying that.. I kind of know WHAT I want to do and where, but haven’t figured out the right steps top take to get there at some point. I wish money wasn’t an issue, but unfortunately it is. I need to win the lottery, then I could take time off and think and try different things (internships and stuff like that).. but that is very unlikely – boo – so I have to try to figure things out slowly but surely.

I’m going to be moving at the end of the month. That both excites and stresses me. I have lived in this house for 4 years, and I love my flatmate like a sister, but since she will be moving in with her boyfriend soon, I had to take this opportunity. And by opportunity I mean that I will be moving to the same flat where my gorgeous friend Diana lives, since one of her flatmates is moving out :)! I’m so excited about this, but also so sad to leave my current flatmate. All this equals one sentimental and a bit crazy Hanna. I also need to clear out a lot of stuff from my wardrobe, as there won’t be as much storage in the new place.. and let’s face it, I’m struggling to store these already! So – and this is not a joke – if anyone wants to pop in and have a little shop in my closet during July, please let me know, I’d be happy to have you here!

I’d also like to do some dating, I miss that. Right now I just feel that I need to do this and need to do that, and never have time. I want to make time for it. I’ve been alone for so long, and well, I need to at least try to change that. I don’t even want to think how long.. but let’s just say that the last time I had an actual boyfriend was sometime around 2006 or so. So yes, I need to start giving guys a chance.

So yes, this is me and my mess at the moment, it might not seem too much, but it is in my poor head. I will still post when I have a moment, and that might end up being quite often, I don’t know. Either way I wanted to let you know, since the last thing I want is that blogging will feel like a chore, something that I HAVE to do. I enjoy and love blogging, and I want to keep it that way! I enjoyed doing this post, although this did make me cry on a few occasions, it felt good telling you about me and how my life is at the moment. As much as I love fashion and cute outfits, there is much more in life than that.

BUT, if you do miss seeing my outfits more often, I will try to post my outfits daily on Instagram (and that will send updates to both Twitter and Tumblr) – so please do follow :).

Love you all,
Hanna xx

ps. I have been more quiet on Twitter lately too, for these same reasons, but I do always check my @ replies, so I’m there if you want to talk!

I have listed items on sale at my selling blog, go have a look :)! I will be adding more during these following days, there is plenty of goodies still to come..

So, today is the first birthday of The Wardrobe Challenge! WOOHOO! It feels crazy that it has been a year.. in some ways it seems it was AGES ago when I started (like how much my style has changed for example), yet in some ways it seems like it was only yesterday! But it has changed my life a lot, and for the better. I am of course busier than I was before blogging, but I have gained so much – amazing new friends, great opportunities, and a lot of new skills. And every new tweet or comment from you guys still makes my day :). I love you all, and I want to give something back…

I know I have hosted a few giveaways already, but this anniversary giveaway is something totally new and extremely special for me. The amazing people at Evans have teamed up with me and are sponsoring one reader a styling session with me at their London flagship store and one free outfit*! I am SO EXCITED for this opportunity, and can’t wait to do this!

What does that mean though, I hear you ask. All you need to be able to do is to come to London for the session (we can choose a time that works for us both) ..so if that is doable for you, please enter via the Rafflecopter below. You can leave me comment like ‘Enter me in the competition!’, or Tweet about the giveaway, or email me that you want to be entered. (You can do all of the above if you want more entries, but it is mandatory to do only one to get into the Rafflecopter random prizedraw.) I am not doing this to gain followers, I genuinely want to do this to give something back to you guys :).

And the prize? Well after choosing the winner at random I will email them and ask for a few things: their full length photo, clothing size, shoe size.. And also if there is something that they don’t like/can’t wear (for example some people dislike the colour red, and some ladies can’t wear heels, some can’t wear jewellery because of allergies.. etc). So I really want to listen to you and your thoughts before I start thinking about the outfits. After emailing a few times and choosing the right date & time we would meet at Evans Marble Arch store and let the styling begin! I would of course take a look at their ranges beforehand and choose some bits and pieces, so we wouldn’t start from an empty table. Ideally I would choose 3-4 outfits for the winner, take photos of them, and after that the winner can choose their favourite outfit out of them and get it for free :)!

Sounds great, right? YAY, then just get entering ladies!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

ps. I apologise, I know this giveaway is excluding a lot of my readers (since you need to get to London)… Please keep checking the blog, there’s stuff coming up soon that everyone can be excited about ;).

* up to value of £100

Images courtesy of Evans

My blog is exactly 11 months old today, and it has had a great first year :). I’m so thankful for the amazing friends I have gained since starting blogging, for the readers, all the comments and tweets, the great brands that I have been lucky to work with, the people who have entered my giveaways.. yes, 2012 has been great for my blog and me. THANK YOU <3.

I was going through my posts to find my favourite outfits, and my early posts really make me cringe. There’s a big part of me who wants to delete all of those and hide them forever, the outfits are quite bad and the photos themselves are dreadful. BUT the other part of me wants to keep them so that I (and my readers) can see how far I’ve come in such a short time. I think my first outfit posts were about ‘I don’t care that I’m fat, I wear whatever I want’, but now my style has been developed and I truly like what I see in the mirror when I’ve dressed myself. I didn’t use to wear jewellery at all, but now I’ve got lots of necklaces with spikes and jewels and all kinds of stuff.. haha. Going through my pics was truly an eye-opening experience, seeing how blogging has changed me and my way of dressing – and for the better :).

So, I’m saying HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all with my fave outfits of 2012, and here’s for an even better 2013!!! (Pics are links to the original posts.)

Welcome to ‘the other side’! My blog is now on my own server space, which means I can do whatever I want.. haha ;D. What do you think of my new layout? I designed it myself, excluding the lovely illustration of me, which was drawn by my friend Tris. It was great to design a website layout again, since I usually do smaller scale stuff at work. Sadly I can’t code much, so the lovely Michelle coded a WordPress theme for me according to my design. I’m really happy with it myself, and I hope that you all like it too :).

And like I said in my last ‘announcement-post’, if you were a follower of my posts/comments, please take the time to register again, since that information was lost in the server-move. Thank you :).

So, to my outfit then.. this might be my fave outfit post of mine so far. I’m absolutely in love with the dress, the shoes and the bracelet myself. ..Ok, I’m getting ahead of myself *rewinds*. I was browsing the 17 Sundays site a while ago and basically fell in love with everything. 17 Sundays is an Australian plus size brand with an attitude. They bring a lot of fun, fierceness and trendiness to plus size clothing and their collections are FABULOUS. My wishlist keeps getting more items the every time I visit the site, but right now on top of my list are the Take Me Away Crop Jacket and Too Shy Laser Cut Leather Skirt. Both of them are to die for, right? Sadly for my current shopping budget I could only consider the sale-department, but no worries there, that is FULL with amazing pieces too. I ended up ordering the Down By The Water Pool Dress and Complaint Department Beach Dress. Both of them are gorgeous and in the post I ended up wearing the latter.

17 Sundays have probably the best customer service I have ever encountered. They reply to tweets, give tips in the product descriptions (for example saying in that denim jacket that ‘if you want to wear it tight, size down’), and they also offer a free fitting service over email. That is absolutely amazing customer service, and guarantees that your postage fees won’t go to waste. Oh and you’ll get a smile on your face when you get your pretty package, see mine here :). I will definitely order from them again, the whole experience was only positive.. and hey, even though I wear a lot of Primark stuff, I’m happy to own some fashion all the way from Australia that I won’t see in every street corner here ;)!

Ok ok, enough rambling and to the outfit. I was adviced by 17 Sundays to size down on this dress, and I did and took AU size 22, which is an UK 20 according to their sizing chart. I’m happy I listened to their advice, since I could have actually gone even one more size smaller, but because of the length I’m happy in this size dress and just nipped in the waist with my trusty black belt. I ADORE the colour of this dress, it’s something between black, green and blue, and it’s totally unique and amazing. I think it fits my skin tone and hair colour really well, and basically I just LOVE it. And the shape and drapes of the dress complement my curves.. yeah, this might be my new favourite dress :). And what about the shoes? Aren’t they dreamy?! I saw them in Dani‘s denim skirt post and immediately clicked the link and saw that they were on sale and HAD TO get them too. They are surprisingly comfy for their height, and after realising that I had to order the orange pair too. Love! Let’s see the pics then.. and remember to scroll all the way down, you don’t want to miss that ;)

Dress: 22AU, 17 Sundays | Belt: from an Reiss skirt | Shoes: ASOS | Shamballa bracelet: cutey | Lippy: Natural Collection Moisture Shine in Pink Mallow (available in Boots)

I was recently offered a chance to review shamballa bracelets by cutey and of course I jumped at the chance! I don’t have many bracelets, mostly because they rarely fit my wrist. These shamballa bracelets are fully adjustable and come with nine gorgeous jewel encrusted beads. I’m completely in love with my golden bracelet, and it goes perfectly with this outfit, doesn’t it? If you love this bracelet.. how about a chance of winning your own? YES, I have one beautiful white shamballa bracelet to give away courtesy of cutey.

The giveaway is open internationally (I promised you that will happen the next time, didn’t I?), and all you need to do is to enter via the Rafflecopter below, and you can get up to 9 entries in. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I wanted to let you know that later today I will attempt to move my blog to a new server (the url will stay the same, no worries there), which means it’s not on wordpress.com anymore. So that means that if you have registered to follow my blog or follow comments via wordpress (BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has), you need to register again once the move is done. I’m sorry for that extra trouble for you, but I hope you will do it again and you will stay updated with my posts :).

I have a nice new post coming for you, with a gorgeous item to give away (and this time INTERNATIONALLY) and all. Hopefully everything will move smoothly to the new server and I’ll see you ‘on the other side’!
<3,
Hanna xx

ANYWAY, the main point of this post is that I’m finally an Urban Mermaid! I got my aaaamaaaaazinggg dress from Domino Dollhouse a few days ago, and I couldn’t wait for a nicer weather to wear it :). Today I finally got my chance, and if the weather stays nice, the dress will be my choice tomorrow too! I absolutely adore it, the colours are great, and the sheerness is beautiful :). I also love that it’s so long (you guys know I love my LONG maxis, haha)! I wore it with a black bra and black highwaisted panties, so the sheerness didn’t matter at all. Thank you again Tracy of DD for this amazing collection, I wish I could afford to buy it all!!!

Dress: 2X, Domino Dollhouse | Belt (barely visible): from a Primark skirt | Sandals: Primark (similar) | Hair bow: New Look | Glasses: LensWay | Lippy: MAC Viva Glam Nicki Minaj | Nails: PopBeauty Nail Glam Turquoise

Like some of you might have noticed (if you follow me on Twitter/Tumblr) that I’ve had an absolutely crappy week. I feel that all I have been doing is whine and cry, which is just total crap. I want to apologize for that, and I hope I haven’t lost all my followers.. I just can’t fake being cheery when I’m not.

So today I needed to run some errands, mostly returning some online purchases to stores (yay, at least getting some money back), and I was feeling gloomy (like the HORRIBLE weather).. But you know how clothing can sometimes make you feel better? Well that’s what happened when I saw this dress in (you guessed it..) Primark! I saw this dress and started manically look for my size. Didn’t find 20, but took a look at 18 and saw it was roomy = instant smile :). Went to try it on and smiled even more, and left the store with my new dress. I plan on wearing this to work on Monday, but decided to do a post now, since wearing the dress makes me feel better :)

Dress: 18, Primark (similar with bird print)

Belt: from a New Look Inspire dress (similar)

Bag: George at ASDA (similar)

Leggings: 20, Primark

Headband: Forever 21 // Glasses: LensWay

Shoes: Primark (similar, similar, similar)

Lookie at this cute pattern!!!

This dress is also my first ever white dress, and my first ever Peter Pan-collared dress! I have been scared of both, but the pattern won me over… and when I tried it on I realised I was scared for nothing. I thought that the collar is going to suffocate my boobs, but they look fine, haha ;D!

Have you got a dress with a cute pattern? And how do you feel about Peter Pan collars?