Putting Together the Perfect Outfit for National Wear Red Day*

Every year countless people around the world celebrate National Wear Red Day. The holiday is inspired by various national heart health organisations as a day of awareness for heart disease and other cardiac ailments. In the UK, circulatory diseases rank as the number one cause of death. Every year on February 26, people dress in red to raise awareness and to honour family members and friends lost to heart disease. Today we’ll give you some ideas on how to put together the perfect outfit for 2016’s National Wear Red Day.

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Eyewear

Proper eye protection from the sun’s damaging UV rays is very important even in the winter months. Searching for a pair of quality sunglasses to go with your wardrobe shouldn’t be a chore. We’ve found some great selections at Red Hot Sunglasses that will truly make your outfit stand out.
Your outfit is often made or broken by the accessories paired with it, so be sure to choose wisely. Whether you’re looking for a neutral colour or something that boldly complements your fantastic red outfit you’ll be in good hands.

Jackets and Shirts

The proper selection of upper-body attire is crucial to any outfit and will often be one of the first pieces of your wardrobe that people notice. For National Wear Red Day we highly recommend considering a red skinny blazer from ASOS to grab people’s attention. Perfect for this day, for formal occasions or to simply make a statement, you won’t have any trouble finding a variety of other wardrobe choices with which to pair this selection year-round.

Underneath your blazer, you’ll probably want a white shirt. The people over at Next have the perfect white luxury cotton shirts to pair with a red blazer or a variety of other dress items. Even more so than with the red blazer a great white dress shirt will be useful with many different casual and formal outfits; this won’t be an item that you wear once and forget about after the fact.

Other Items to Consider

There are still several accessories and articles of clothing for your National Wear Red Day outfit that you’ll want to consider.

For starters, a pair of dark red trousers can be an excellent addition to the ensemble and will go great with your red blazer. A variety of online marketplaces and clothing stores offer red trousers in several different materials that are each suitable for one occasion or another. Reasonably priced and versatile in pairing, you’ll be able to find a pair in corduroy, denim, cotton, spandex and a variety of other mixed fabrics.

With the other recommended items here some red shoes can really make the rest of the outfit stand out even more. Whether you decide to go with leather or some other material there are plenty of dress shoes available in maroon, burgundy and several other shades of dark red.

Have your own ideas about how to really complete this ensemble? Weigh in below and make your own recommendations, or share your National Wear Red Day outfit plans!

Can You Recycle Your Wedding Dress into Something You Can Wear For Other Occasions?*

If you are planning your wedding and want to keep to a budget, the dress may still be something you plan to spend more on than you would for a normal party dress. While you can make savings in a lot of areas for your big day by using sites like https://www.instyledress.co.uk ,for many brides the wedding dress is one area where they don’t want to compromise – after all it is probably the most important dress you’ll ever wear, and many of us have been dreaming of beautiful bridal gowns since we were little girls!
So, if you still want the dress of your dreams but are feeling bad about the cost for something you will only wear once, then why not consider a dress that can be recycled into something you can wear on other occasions? This may sound odd, given traditional wedding dresses have a very specific look that is very much bridal, however it can be done!

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Dying Your Dress

One way some wedding dresses can be transformed into normal evening or formal wear is by dying them. If you have a dress in a cut that would work as a normal evening dress, for example a simple long silk dress then by transforming it into a less bridal colour than white, cream or ivory you can easily get plenty of wear out of it. While the light colours of typical wedding dresses can easily be dyed you may want to get this done professionally to get the look you want. Your white wedding dress could become a beautiful red evening gown or even your new favourite black dress!

Make a Ball Gown

If your dress is a more grand style which you would never wear to an evening event then you can also consider the dying option to turn it into a ball gown. While you may not get invited to that many balls those kinds of charity or social events do pop up occasionally, and you won’t have to spend a lot of money on a ball gown for the event if your wedding dress has been transformed ahead of time.

Using the Bodice

If you have a ball gown style wedding dress and don’t really feel the need to own an actual ball gown then another way to recycle it for normal wear is to use the bodice part of the dress. You can dye this and wear it as an evening top with black trousers or a cute skirt or sew it to a shorter skirt style to make a nice party dress.
Of course another option is to simply get married in a dress that you would already pick for other occasions. If you don’t go for traditional white and instead choose a wedding gown in another colour like red, purple or blue you can reuse it as formal wear without actually having to modify it at all.
When shopping for your dress, choosing one you can reuse all or parts of by dying or modifying it will help justify the cost of your dream wedding dress!

Moving On

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So today’s the day! I’m moving out of my parent’s house for the very first time to start a new adventure with Ben.
Obviously the next week or more are going to be complete chaos (and I don’t do very well at multi-tasking during chaos) so I’ll be putting the blog on hiatus until things are somewhat settled.

No doubt I’ll still be popping on to catch up with all of the blogs that I follow, but in terms of content creations, well, it just isn’t going to happen for the time being!

See you on the other side with some hopefully fresh and new ideas and posts to share.

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Dress Down Friday

I spent a lot of time between Christmas and New Year chilling out in the comfiest clothes possible. For the first time in years I actually had almost an entire week off work between the two big days and fully embraced the casual approach to fashion, chilling out and eating an awful lot of Quality Streets. Of course it’s now back to business as usual but I did manage to grab one last outfit post in my parents’ back garden before the big move happens (tomorrow, eek!)

Dress: Neon Rose (old) | Tights: Primark | Boots c/o Lunar Shoes

This dress is a firm favourite of mine for chilling out in as it ticks all the right boxes- comfortably jersey fabric, a flared skirt and the all important tartan which keeps it feeling a little bit festive. You’ll have to forgive the slightly grumpy expression as I had just returned from the dentist having had a root canal done; not exactly a great thing at any time of year, but right on top of Christmas was just brutal!
How have you found the transition back to work? I’m lucky enough to love my job so never do find it a chore to go back. That said, the week has taken on a bit of a manic edge having used every evening to be packing up my belongings…all I can say is I NEED to lose my hoarding tendencies!

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The Christmas Purrfect Box

The team at Purrfect Box were kind enough to play Santa to my feline friend this Christmas and sent us the Christmas box to review. It arrived a week or so before the big day and we’ve had a lot of fun playing with it since then so although this review is somewhat tardy you can be rest-assured everything is well tested!

The Purrfect Box is a monthly subscription which costs £19.90 a month, or £15.90 per month if you take out a years subscription. The contents of the box are guaranteed to be worth at least £30 with 4-6 premium products inside so it’s a pretty sweet deal, especially as each box is catered to your feline’s needs and preferences. Let me know if you decide to treat your feline friend to a box; I’ll be picking up a few on a one off basis throughout the year, I can’t afford it on a monthly basis but as an every so often treat I think it’s wonderful especially as I’m moving out of the parental home very soon and won’t be seeing Mae on a daily basis anymore *sob*.

Pretty much every product in this box was a hit with Mae, the only exception being the Simon’s Cat bowl which was too deep for her stumpy little neck. It’s such a great bowl though, I LOVE Simon’s Cat and it now has a new home with Ben’s beast of a cat, Tobias.

Particular favourites were the food sachets from Iams which didn’t make it as far as being Christmas dinner and the festive chew toy which gets carted around the house all the time. The catnip stocking was a brilliant addition and this was given to Mae on Christmas Eve in attempts to chill her out a bit (it failed, but was very much enjoyed!).

I think we’ve found a new favourite treat for Mae in the mini-nuggets by Trixie, she goes mad for these although we’re yet to get the hang of the training lark!

As you can see it was a box filled with festive cheer and if I could only ever treat Mae to one Purrfect Box a year it would absolutely be the Christmas one again.

Have you given Purrfect Box a try before? I’d love to hear your thoughts… and did you buy presents for your pets?

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