Easter Time

Of course what better time to revive my blog than to start posting again during exam season...

During the last couple of days over the Easter weekend printed trousers have definitely been the highlight of my colourful looks. Sure when else can you get away with flowery pants and a bright yellow blouse other than Easter?

My mother and I braved the shops on Easter Saturday and I picked up a very lovely summer fedora hat. Due to my big head, I got this beauty in the men's section of Penneys. But it can be quite handy getting a bigger size anyway as your hat hair will be minimised and less crushed during the summer months. This shall definitely work during Electric Picnic (woo!) as anything to conceal three days of unwashed hair is a good thing.
My shopping clothes consisted of my shiny patterned pants from Penneys, leather jacket from America, yellow jumper and white shirt, presumably also from Penneys. I'm very predictable when it comes to brands sometimes...
Also got new stronger lenses in my glasses which is the reason for my weird-I'm-slightly-dizzy facial expression.

Easter Sunday. A time of religious festivities and chocolate.

On account of this joyous day, curls were in order for my hair. You know it's going to be a splendid day when you do something with your hair. Trust me, this is coming from this messy mane.
I felt my flowery pants and yellow blouse perfectly went with the cutsie nature of spring time and my Nanny said that I looked 'cute'. Mission accomplished.

Naturally, your household decorations must be in the spirit of your dress sense and these adorable eggs and Milka chocolate bunnies provided a lovely element of colour to our house. Also throw in my chocolate and orange cake and it's fair to say we had a great Easter time.

A Midsummer Night's Costumes

In light of the upcoming summer festival season, I have decided to post this long over-due piece on our 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' costumes from last years Trinity Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Molly O'Cathain and Stage Manged by Sophie Cairns, the festival took place at the start of June, 2013.

All the cutie cast - Conor, Aoife, James, Jack, Colm, Ellie, Colm, Honi, Kate, Alex, Mollie, and Sean

Our costume designer was the excellent Emily Collins, who I had the pleasure of working with also on our recent second year show The Machinewreckers. Among Emily's and the cast's clothes, a colourful collection arose that was the perfect look for our show to tour around primary schools.

The Fairies - Honi, Colm, Mollie, Kate, and Alex

The fairies were especially cool in my mind (not biased at all) as we had wings! Although we look sugary sweet, I loved the funky undertones in our dark dresses like in Queen Titania's (Mollie's) gothic goddess dress.                                                                                                                                                     The Peter Pan-like look of Puck

Puck - Honi 

Fairy Girlos - Alex, Mollie, and Kate

had the sense of taking  a modern look and using the simple but effective idea of the fairy wings to bring this magical world to an audience.

The Lovers - Ellie, Aoife, Conor, and Colm 

The Lovers were typical stereotypes of the awkward teen years. Hermia, The Princess and Helena, The Geek were said to portray Shakespeare's own daughters and they show how appearance was still very much an issue in the Elizabethan times. Let's face it, no girl wants to be 'ugly like a bear' or to be called an acorn! The boys showed the battle of Abercrombie Boy vs. Rocker/TooCoolForSchool Guy, often with explosive consequences.

The Mechanicals were the builders in the bunch so our clothes consisted of lots of high-vis gear and flannel. As Alex and I were double-roling, a lot of hilarious and frantic costume-changing between scenes occurred...it was usually just me who fell over though.

Mechnicals - Jack, James, Alex, Kate, and Sean

James - the beautiful Thisbe

In the tragic play-within-the play 'Pyramus and Thisbe' performed by the Mechanicals at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jack (Bottom) and James (Flute) performed the two lovers.

This involved the beautiful transformation from worker Flute to terrific Thisbe.
This dress was definitely one of the fashion highlights of our production!

Sealing it with a Kiss - Jack and James

We also put on a production entitled 'Dirrty Midsummers' during the week which was enjoyed by all but found to be a truly harrowing experience...

'Parting is such sweet sorrow'
All in all we had a glorious time generally just having the craic with each other during rehearsals and travelling around bringing our own bit of silly Shakespeare to the masses.

Photos from Du Players 

Bits 'n' Bobs from the End of 2013

Hello all.

I am in fact alive. Contrary to evidence of neglect here...

To start off the new year I thought I'd give a little look back over outfits of mine that I particularly liked or ones that I forgot to post!

Cindy Crawford and Kurt Cobain 

 The '90s were certainly kept alive with my friend Honi's themed birthday party! It's tough finding a good excuse to dress up (or down really) as a grungey rocker with a preference for shooting himself in the head...luckily that was left out of the costume. Alex, as you can see was cutsie-ing it up as marvelous model Cindy. I like we made a hot couple.

What the Folk? 

Myself and the infamous Jack-Loobster-Looby decided to embark on becoming DJs. And no, we didn't stay up til all hours, cranking out deep house tunes in sweaty clubs...we decided instead to have our own radio slot as part of TrinityFM, cranking out folky classic ballads instead!

Happy Laugh-y DJs

Hopefully, we'll be back on air soon so keep your eyes (or ears rather) peeled to www.trinityfm.com or check out their Facebook page or ours: 'Second Hand Strings'.

Proud Family

It was indeed a proud moment when we accompanied my Dad when he graduated with his Masters degree from Trinity. It was also a good excuse to bring my vintage floral dress Om Diva out for the day too. Win-win situation all round. 

(Bant)ry Babes

As my Grandad hit a big birthday milestone, my whole mother's side of the family headed to Bantry, Cork together. The bants were indeed had! A lovely dinner which required a lovely outfit equaled my Mom and I running around a nearby shopping centre, desperate for some stylin' dinner wear! Luckily, I found this patterned dress from A/Wear and black platform heels from Zara just in the nick of time! The dress is especially handy for nights out as it has zippy pockets which means no money or phone being left in some random club cloakroom, woohoo! My cousin Sorcha is looking stunning in her dress from Urban Outfitters. Nice to see how well we coordinated on pattern! 

Oh Christmas Tree!

Even though my brain was slightly fried from working around the clock during the Christmas season, I still had a beautiful family time. Lots of relatives and wine and turkey sandwich equals heaven! I was also kept very comfy yet festively stylish (in my opinion) with my red velvet dress from Clery's. Christmas Day is definitely the day you want that bit of extra room and this number cleverly concealed my small several sandwiches-away belly with a wrap-around dress effect. Also, what's more festive than red velvet? 

Hope you all had a fab 2013 and have an even better year in 2014!

Spirit of Folk 2013

Spirit of Folk 2013: what a beautiful time! Dunderry Park in Co. Meath became a Mecca for all things folksie and hippe-esque last Saturday, 21st September. Travelling there with fellow bohemian girls certainly got us some strange glances on the bus there with one man even heard to remark: "They're hippie girls, son!" (which we were both humoured and delighted by) as we indeed took the folk-festival fashion-vibe to heart. 

Hippie girlos

This event called for laid back/chilled hippie clothes and we were only too happy to oblige. Tie-dye, floral patterns, wellies, flower power, scarves...we had it all. We were also blessed with a sunshine-filled day, therefore, the good vibes were indeed reflected in our summery clothes. 

Our friends in the band 'No Bread' felt slightly left out in the fashion ranks, therefore, took the matter into their own hands and adorned themselves in bohemian garb. We thought the end result was pretty groovy, even if we do say so ourselves! 

No Bread fashionistas

Along with enjoying the musical talents on show, we were able to experience various folksie activities such as storytelling, hoolahooping, bike jousting, and viewing/desperately yearning to purchase all of the handmade jewelry and clothes goods.

Hoolahooping workshop

festival flare and handmade hoodies

Festivals (or 'Feastivals') are an excuse to unleash your hidden facepaint/glitter ambitions. Hazel, Aoibheann, Cait and I enjoyed painting the boys' faces but also relished in the opportunity to show off our own festival faces (and backs!)

After the day of live music, we were treated to a tent disco! Familiar tunes were given the folk treatment and we all quite literally danced the night away in our wellies.                                    
                                                   

devil's in the detail

After camping the night and packing up the next morning, what better way to rap up the weekend than with bubbles! A fabulously folkie time was had and I look forward to next years feastival with great excitement. 

Peace & love.

Student Vintage

As we're coming back into the college year, I was asked by The University Times to write an article on student vintage and charity-shop-shopping!

Hope you enjoy it!

http://universitytimes.ie/?p=19226

Electric Picnic 2012 Revisited (mostly nostalgia with some festival tips!)

With the impending 10th Anniversary of Electric Picnic, I would like to take this opportunity to recall Aisling and I's adventure last year and offer any fun ideas or tips for those (lucky lucky) people going this year! 

Everybody's gotta have their tent! My advice would be to get a tent that you've either practiced putting up already or one you know is simple to assemble. During one rainy night before the festival, we tried and failed miserably to set up a lovely, spacious 6-person tent...it got the better of us and we switched to a much more manageable 2-person model. Also, it's a good idea to set up and find a space in the campsite as soon as you get there. Believe me, you may not be in any condition to navigate your way through tent instructions after spending the day at a festival! 

To quote one of my favourite musicals 'Hair', 'flow it, show it'...your hair styling skills that is...Experiment! On the first day, I washed mine in the morning and put it in two french plaits and held them in place on my head with a festival-favourite-flower-garland. As I had my hair up all of Day One, this meant I could take it out and let the waves be free! Day Three consisted of dry shampoo, lots and lots and lots and lots of dry shampoo and praying. But to be honest, basically everybody's in the same unwashed boat by the third day so just go with the crazy fro flow! 

Along with having amazing music arenas, EP also boasts a brilliant 'Body & Soul' area. Whether yoga or simply chilling the camp-fire is your thing, it's got something for everybody. After long nights of jumping around, screaming until your lungs give out or dancing to random reggae, this was mine and Aisling's haven after getting our morning smoothie. If you're looking for a little lying-down/recuperation-time, check out the chimes area! 

There's also a super-chilled stage filled throughout the day with emerging acts. 

Along with a must-have list that I will include at the end, here's some things Aisling and I did and would recommend to any EP-goers this year....

Ok now the fun part's over, here's some more practical items: 

1. Toilet paper and antibacterial gel/wipes. You will thank me. 

2. Tiger balm/deep heat. Dancing/camping can cause severely sore bodies. 

3. Painkillers - same reason as above. 

4. Earplugs - if you want any sleep at all. 

5. Suncream - even if there's nothing but rain forecast. 

6. Snacks - festival food can be expensive.

7. Drink - festival drink can be too. 

8. Warm clothes for cold nights. 

9. Bum bag/money holder - mind your stuff during the day. 

10. Old phone - they have charging phone areas there but they charge you and it works better to bring an old phone that you wouldn't care to lose. 

11. Torch - for those fun-finding-the-tent-in-the-dead-of-night-times. 

12. Some sort of marker for your tent - they all look the same otherwise.

13. Babywipes - your showers for the weekend. 

14. Toothbrush/mouthwash

15. GLITTER! 

Have fun, be safe, make new friends, get lost in the music, wander around with a friend for hours, eat some falafel! 

My Ha'Penny Flea Market Stall

On 20th July, I secured myself a stall in The Grand Social as part of the weekly Ha'Penny Flea Market. 

As I am known as somewhat of a garment-hoarder by my friends and family, this came as quite a shock to them after hearing of my impending entrepreneurial adventure. 

In the beginning, I found it difficult to pick out clothes to part with and sell but I soon got over this hesitation at the prospect of receiving actual money. 

Also, in a moment of creativity, I decided to make jewelry to display and sell as part of my stall. 

Helped by my loving mother to transport my goods into town, we set up my stall and got ready for the day ahead. With blisteringly hot weather, I sat and watched many a tourist go by and occasionally purchase an item from myself. 

Some lovely friends visited me in the den of vintage clothing, jewelry and general items of bohemia and cooled me down. 

Good day had by all! I'd definitely recommend any students out there to give a flea market stall a go when looking for a bit of extra cash and a fun experience.