Fashionable & Fabulous Friday - The Return!

 What day is it today? Friday, you say?

Well now, that jogs a vague memory. What was it that I did on Fridays again?

Hmmm.... rush to finish the weeks work all in one day? After work drinks? Plan the weekend's parties? A couple of martini's snuggled on the couch with my beloved?

No, that's not right.

Well, maybe the first one. Occasionally. Often. Oh, alright, every Friday afternoon.

But there was something else....... yes, I remember now.

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday!!!!


If you missed out  previously (before I slacked off for a year or so!) there are one or two, or three or four, F&FF posts you can look back at and enjoy the fun, and negligible fashion sense, by clicking on the Fashionable & Fabulous Friday post label on the side of my blog page. Just scroll down, I did. And had a good laugh at myself.

The aim of Fashionable and Fabulous Fridays was/is to inspire people of the world to dress to make themselves feel good.

It also might just be a way for me to live out my narcissistic tendencies. I'm sure my husband thinks so. But we won't go there.

So without further ado, I present the first F&FF post for 2013 (yay!) :

 Awkward posing. Gosh, I must be out of practice!

Yes, I'm wearing purple.

If you had asked me a year or so ago, I would have never in a million years thought I would wear purple. Too bright, too out there for my shy and retiring nature (ahem, no snickering please).

Yet another awkward pose? I really should have practiced in front of the mirror first.

I wore this dress into the city today for an appointment, and got lots of looks. Admiring ones, I'm hoping.

I think I may have stood out just a little against the backdrop of black and grey business suits. Good.

This dress is so retro that I love it. It hardly needs any accessories. Just some vintage gold and pearl earrings, my watch and 2 carets worth of bling on my finger and I'm set to go.

 Mama? Why have you got your arms sticking out like that?

Of course, as per the usual way of previous F&FF posts, a certain little someone had to get in on the action. Modelling is full of competition from younger, more good looking models trying to steal your limelight. Where's my manager?

 But look at him! So cute and cuddly. How could I not share my photo shoot with him?

So there you have it folks. Fashionable and Fabulous Friday is back (by popular demand. Well, one person mentioned they missed it. About a year ago. Give me a break, I take what I can get with positive feedback!).

Have a wonderful weekend, and listen up everyone -  be fashionable if that's your thing, but always remember to be fabulous!

Another Fabulous & Fashionable Friday post

Friday! It's Friday everyone!

*insert happy dance here*

Not sure why I love Friday so much, since I don't work Monday to Friday away from home. Instead I work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so weekends aren't much different really from any other day.

But Friday is the day of love, named for Norse goddess Freya. So we have to love Fridays.

And being Friday, there's also something else to love.

Fabulous and Fashionable Friday posts!!!

This time I bring you something a little different. A sneak peak at another part of my life. My husband Del, runs his own business as a Dog Trainer extraordinaire. Every second Saturday he runs a group training session for clients and their dogs who have completed the initial training, and I take our dog Trooper along, to socialise and put him through his paces. He loves showing off!

Lately we've started to introduce some basic agility exercises, just for a bit of fun, and because I've been practising with Trooper at home, I've kindly been promoted to guest trainer for the agility side of things. Thanks honey! It's been great fun and the dogs, and owners, all seem to enjoy the fun of working the agility equipment.

So what's this all got to do with F&FF I hear you ask?

Well...............


.......I get to show you my Guest Trainer Extrordinaire outfit, of course.

Do I look like I mean business, command respect and can get those dogs jumping and weaving in no time at all?


Or do I look like a pushover trying to look the part?

Del says I look like a German Stormtrooper. Not sure if that's a compliment. You never know with my husband.

But I think it's all in the boots.


"The boots maketh the dog trainer." Leiani, 2011.

Anyway, just to finish off, here's the hand signal for 'sit'.

(BTW Trooper responds to spoken commands as well as silent hand signals, both on or off lead, close by or far away. He'd want me to let you all know that, show off that he is).



So sit down a while longer, have another cuppa and enjoy your Friday.

Good girl/boy! *pats your head affectionately* Well done!

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday - The Sexy Red Dress Edition

And here we are at the best day of the week! Yay for Fridays.

Let's get straight into it today, shall we?


It's the Lady in Red (looking a little severe in this particular photo).

Actually I wore this outfit on Monday when I went to work, but I really wanted to take pics of it to show you all, so I saved it for today.

Today I'm at home dressed a little more casual as I don't usually wear foot ache and limp inducing high heeled boots around the house all that much.


This lovely red wool dress is my attempt to brighten up winter a little. It's a new purchase from when I took myself on a bit of a spending spree last week. I love to wear red so I just couldn't go past this particular dress.

I usually wear jeans or long pants in winter as I feel the cold, but I wanted to be a bit different so this warm dress is perfect teamed with thick black tights and previously mentioned, foot pain inducing black boots.

(As a cute aside : when I wear tights or stockings, Charlie can't help constantly touching my legs and asking why mummy's legs are black. For some inexplicable reason he just can't fathom why I would want to wear such a thing).

So there you have it - Warm, Fashionable and of course, Fabulous!

And just to finish off, the obligitory final photo :


Soon he'll be taking the F&FF photos for me.

Have a Fabulous weekend people!

Fashionable & Fabulous Friday

As I sit here at my computer this morning, looking out on our slightly soggy front garden after last nights wonderful thunder storm, it suddenly hits me.

Today is Friday!

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday to be exact.

And, oh dear. I'm wearing my dressing gown and pink slippers and feeling decidedly un-fashionable, though perhaps still just a little bit fabulous inside (always!).

It seems I'm woefully unprepared for gracing the internet with my personal take on fashion today. What to do?

A quick look back through my draft blog posts and hooray! A very old, pre-written F&FF post I have ready on standby.

So without further ado, everyone enjoy this one while I slip off to get myself looking Fashionable and Fabulous and better prepared for next Friday!
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14 Oct 2010

Today's outfit isn't actually today's outfit. It's a back up outfit.

One I wore a little while ago, just in case, dare I say it, I perhaps wore the same outfit twice on a Friday? SHOCK. HORROR. We can't post that now, can we? Back up plan to the rescue!

This outfit isn't one of my favourites, I guess that's why it was on standby. I'm not really sure why I don't like it as much as others.

Perhaps because it's just..... a little bit plain. For me.



I tried to jazz it up with a lovely red necklace that my mum gave me, and my best ever pair of trusty red high heels (not actually in the picture. Terrible photographer I am).

The outfit looks nice, it's comfy and it's a little bit business-like, to try to get me in the working mood so I can hopefully accomplish some work for a change.

Working from home is a blessing and a curse, it's so tempting to slack off and then before you know it it's 9pm and you've achieved nothing except for finishing off a pack of chocolate biscuits and a half hearted attempt at cleaning up the dishes. From breakfast. Let alone managing to complete any paid work on the computer, not when there's Facebook, Twitter and Blogs to read instead.



But on the upside, I get to dress up and take photos of myslef all day long.

And I do love the detailing on this shirt.

But still.... not my favourite.

Maybe next Friday will be better.

Stay Fashionalbe people. And Fabulous goes without saying.

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday

It's Friday again everyone!

And you know what that means, don't you?

After work drinks? Big night out? The weekend????? Well yes, all those things (if you're lucky!) but most importantly it's .......

......... Fashionable and Fabulous Friday time.

I know you wait all week for this moment, people.

Last weekend, Del and I went to a cocktail party. I feel so sophisticated and, umm... I don't know.... something going to a cocktail party. Doesn't it just sound so glamorous? And it was in the city, no less. Such an un-suburban mother of three thing to do!

This is what I wore :


Not quite sure but I felt this outfit had a bit of an 80's vibe to it.
Maybe the pearls and cut of the top part of the dress are bit 80's Madonna-ish?


This fabulous little cocktail dress was a gift from my in-laws for my birthday last month. It fits like a dream and I've been eagerly anticipating an occasion to wear it.

And this cocktail part was it.


Look matching shoes and handbag everyone!
Red, just because I like red.


Actually, I think I may have over hyped this party. Just a wee bit, perhaps.

It was a small get together at the apartment of one of my dearest friend's, to celebrate her upcoming birthday. But there was cocktail food there. I swear.

So we celebrated her birthday, out on the balcony over looking the river. A birthday which she will be away for. She always is.

You see, every birthday she plans a holiday, and this year her birthday rolled around with me slaving away at work, looking after my monsters and keeping up with the drudgery of housework (who am I kidding? I love housework!), she was off cruising the Caribbean. Ah well, I guess someone has to do it.

Jealous? Not me. Much.



But at least I felt I looked good in my new dress.

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday - The Philosophy & Muscle Flexing Edition

Yes,yes. I know it's Sunday. *waives hand impatiently*

But I could get all philosophical about how time isn't linear, and in actual fact it's entirely possible that it's Friday and Sunday at the same time. But aha, which Friday and which Sunday you may well ask.

I could then wax lyrical about this subject of life only being due to our perception of reality, but instead I'll just cut to the incredibly narcissistic photos of my latest outfit.

Sorry, I know all you philosophy nerds will be severely disappointed.

Anyhoo, here we are, my casual Valentine's Day dinner attire. Just perfect for a quiet dinner at the local Thai.



By the way, I must apologise for the poor photo quality. Wrong camera setting for night time under fluorescent lighting type of shots it seems.



My red hot top is new, a spur of the moment purchase the other week when out shopping with my mum. I was supposed to be buying Charlie a few things but saw this as I walked by, and impulsively bought it without even trying it on.

As soon as I saw it, I had already pictured this outfit inmy mind and knew it would be great.



And assistant photographer credit goes to Kaiden, who you can all see here sporting the latest in 'lazing around the house on a hot summer's night' fashion.

Old loose fit jeans with your boxers hanging out the top and no shirt in order to show off muscles that have been a result of much hard work.

Very now, if you happen to be a 15 year old boy.



All that Thai kickboxing, Army fitness training and soccer certainly gets one fit. OK Kaiden, one, two, three - FLEX.

I'm so proud of my fit an healthy son.



It's such a shame this last picture turned out so blurry, I just love it. Unfortunately I was laughing so hard at Kaiden's antics I couldn't keep the camera still.

Gosh, I love my boy.

And my outfit.

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday (on a Saturday. Again)

It's summer.

It's hot.

We may be hit by a cyclone tonight.

That about sums up the focus of our lives right now. So what shall we do? Batten down the hatches? Prepare emergency food, water and torches?

No.

Not me. I take photos of what I'm wearing instead. Priorities, you know.



Silk camisole top, little black shorts and high heels are mandatory cyclone weather fashion in my book.

Just because one's hair might get a little messy in 120kph cyclonic winds, doesn't mean the rest of you should look a mess.

Standards, people, standards.



Ok, seriously now, I think that's enough trivialities for the moment. I'm off to pretend I know what I'm doing for cyclone preparedness.

Such as prepare my outfit for tonight.

I have to look good in case the State Emergency Services show up if our roof blows off, you know.

Standards and all that.

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday - The Heatwave Edition

The recent high temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius mean, even with air conditioning, it's too hot to write.

Not too hot to pose for F&FF photos though!

Without further ado...... here we go for the first of hopefully many 2011 F&FF posts.



Hot mama - in more ways than one!

Short mini skirt previously featured in another recent post, a lovely cool flowing summer top, all finished off with a pair of killer heels. Complete with diamantes.

A girl has to have a bit of sparkle you know.

Gosh, I'm getting big headed over these in demand fashion posts. Hmmm... I need to remedy this quick smart.

Methinks it's time for a 'thoughtful & serious' pose just to establish some credibility as a blog writer (as opposed to a blog poser) .....



There that should do it.

Oh....



Oh dear. We're back to posing.

*sigh*

Time to bring in my trusty sidekick.

He always adds a certain something to these posts.



Hi Charlie!

And now to finish with the tried, tested and proven winning finale.....



Friday Cuddles.

Have a great weekend everyone and don't forget to be Fashionable and Fabulous!

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday

Friday again? Already???

My goodness does time fly by so fast.....

This afternoon Corey has his 13th birthday party.

Lots of boys + going paintballing = lots of messy boys.

Then back to our house for a sleep over / pool party.

Needless to say I have a very busy day getting things organised, so lets get on with the photo shoot.



Again I cheated and took these photos earlier in the week.

Tuesday I believe it was. I had just got back from going to swimming lessons with Charlie.

This skirt is one of my favourites, looks nice and is comfortable enough to wear all day long.




The black top looks fairly plain and simple from the front, but then I turn around and ......




I just love the detailing on the back.

Ignore the fact that I really needed to wear a strapless bra with this top for best effect. As I said I threw this on in the change rooms after swimming.

Whilst taking the photos I thought to myself it would be one of the only recent photo shoots without extras, but then came along my gorgeous little monster to play peek a boo.

So Del took over as photographer to capture the fun.

Where's Charlie and Mama?................



Peek a boo!




Oh mama, not yet! Get the timing right!

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday - Better Late than Never Right?

I've had a crazy busy weekend but I'll write about that in another post.

Right now, it's time for more important things - like Fashionable and Fabulous Friday.

So these photos were actually taken on Friday, but have sat in my camera until today.

Here goes :



This was a spur of the minute, brand new combo of existing clothes from my wardrobe.

It was a slightly cool summers day, so on went my warm and comfortable boots, but I still wanted to have a touch of summer, hence the lovely pink cotton skirt.

Del's comment when I walked out was "You're very pink today".

Not sure whether that was a compliment or not. You never can tell with my husband.


Hmmm.... what IS that intruding on my photo shoot???

Shoo!

Oh, it's just Charlie's elephant Zambi.

But he's a little high for Charlie to be holding him.

Next think I know Charlie and Corey pop around the corner laughing hysterically together.

Kaiden even stuck his head out the bathroom door to see what was going on.



Corey obviously in a very silly mood, started kissing Zambi. I threatened that I would post pictures of this on my blog, and still he continued.

I guess it goes with all the other embarrassing photos I have of him over the years.

Nothing tops the photo of him wearing my bra and knickers though. No, he was not a toddler who didn't understand. He was 9 years old.

We never let him forgot that particular incident.

But I won't be posting that photo. I can't embarrass the poor boy too much.

Or can I?



I love living in a house filled with my crazy and fun boys. It keeps me smiling.

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday is back

After a small glitch last week resulting in no Fashionable and Fabulous Friday post (I know you were all so disappointed - ha!), things are now back on track.

Today's outfit is totally impractical from a 'work from home, running around after a two year old suburban mum' type perspective.

But hey, you only live once!



See what I mean? Skirt short enough that when I bend down to check the letter box later I need to be careful the neighbours don't see more than they bargained for! Ooooh, I am bad!!

I do love this outfit, as to me the colours are perfect for summer and not least the fact that both items were chosen and bought for me by my darling husband.

The skirt was bought from Marks & Spencer in Hong Kong (Del was feeling homesick for UK shops I think!), after me having had a look around the store and declaring there was nothing I liked, Del had a look and came up with this skirt. And a great blouse to go with it (not pictured this time).




Thanks honey, I love that you have great taste in clothes and don't mind shopping for me!!!

The shirt I'm wearing is a latest acquisition that Del bought for me as a surprise from Fred Perry in the UK. A month or so ago a package arrived from the UK with three Fred Perry shirts - one for Del, one for me and one for Charlie.

I'll try to get a photo soon of Del and Charlie wearing their matching shirts. Can anyone say 'mini- Del'?

As per usual I had my fashion assistant with me every step of the way today.



Hi Charlie!

Now move, mummy wants to pose.



I think I've created a fashion monster. He spends all the time hogging the mirror.

Hey kid, scram. This is my photo time!!!



In this photo Charlie is trying to look at the back of his head in the mirror. Try telling a stubborn two year old that it won't work. It just makes him more determined.



Until he gets distracted by some other interesting thing.

"Oh wow, it's my Thomas!".

They do say that fashion models are fickle.

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday

Have you all got your glad rags on today?

Because Fashionable and Fabulous Friday is back.

Today is the Fashionable and Fabulous Friday - The Work Edition.
As in this is what I wear to the office when I go in for my one morning a week of hard slog (not).



But I do have a little confession to make.

I work on Mondays.

Hence I did not wear this today. Today being Friday.

Hmmmm........ surely you know not to believe everything on the internet, don't you?

People actually expect to be misled by the internet these days. So I'm just providing an up to the minute, with the times type of service to you all.



Do you think sexy red stilettos are too much for the office?

I don't!!!

And when the weather turns chilly, I even vamp it up with a pair of lace topped stockings.

Bought from Paris of course (as is a lot of my underwear, thanks to my lovely husband).

Ooh la la, très risqué.



Charlie has become quite curious about why Mama is always posing in front of the mirror with the camera in her hand, so I decided to show him a few poses.

He's a natural!

Oh, and please excuse the tired, haggard look and terrible hair in these photos. I'm extremely sleep deprived and upon using straightening irons on my hair, it went completely flat and boring looking.

Traitor!

I want glamourous hair again, but growing out a short style takes patience and a lot of perseverance.

And so this edition of Fashionable and Fabulous Friday is a wrap.

We just have time for one last thing ........



............GROUP HUG.


P.S. What I'm wearing today, as the real Friday outfit for today, isn't all that bad really, it's just that I washed my hair this morning and haven't had time to tame the mass of curliness and frizz I'm currently sporting atop my head. Yes, it's worse than the hair in the above photos!

Fashionable and Fabulous Friday

It's Fashionable Friday again.

On a Saturday.

And you all know what that means, don't you?

Yep that's right - I've been just too damn busy to actually manage to do this post on a Friday. Oh, and for most of Friday I didn't have my computer. But excuses, excuses......

Anyway, on to the topic at hand, what will I be wearing????

After having the Fashionable & Fabulous Friday challenge thrown at me by my delightful Soul Sister, I'm happy to say I can now cross the first thing off the list :

(3) Ethnic/folk/a little earthy



So what do you think?

This was a bit of an easy one that I chose to start with, as this is an outfit that I wear often when I'm in a Earth Mother type of mood.

Loose and flowing, yet comfortable and still a little stylish I hope.



I've even gone barefoot in these photo's just to add that authentic earthy touch! Either that, or I just couldn't be bothered finding a pair of shoes to go with the outfit.



This skirt deserves a close up shot of it's own as whenever I wear it I get many lovely compliments on it. It was one of my market finds in Hong Kong last year, and I just love this skirt to pieces. Literally. It's been worn so much that it's starting to show a bit of wear and tear.

It's worth a flight back to HK just to buy more of these skirts - one in each colour should do it I think.

I know it wouldn't be hard to convince my darling husband to take a little jaunt over to HK, we both love it there. And as a bonus, he's a man who loves to shop, and boy did we shop. Till we dropped!

Don't be jealous - I know how lucky I am.



And the divine necklace also deserves a close up. I love how it just works with the earthiness of the outfit, and really pulls it all together. It was a gift from my mum and dad, and I'm so thankful for my mum's wonderful taste in jewelry.

So there you have it - Earth Mother.

Done and dusted.

Next!