The cars that go BOOM

After a surprisingly smooth flight and several tube rides, I’ve finally arrived in London at my hostel! Well, actually I arrived on Wednesday morning, but you know me, never on time with this “blog” or whatever it is. Internet is costing me 2 pounds an hour, so I’ve got to be quick!

I’m currently looking for a job, and a place to stay. The hostel I’m in is actually alright, I’m on a bunkbed so obvz I’m having fun! It’s clean, and I was sharing a room with 2 other girls, but now just one girl as the other one left today. We get our own bathroom in the room, so I’m relieved I’m not forced to use public showers… I brought my swimsuit just in case.

Here are some old outfit pics I forgot about, just some ol’ blog filler while I’m on the job hunt. This is yet ANOTHER h&m find. Gah, I know what your thinking: “does this chick shop anywhere else!?” But really, how can one resist this amazing jumpsuit?! I love it death, I had to pack it with me as well.

This was at my Grandparents’ farm last Sunday, nice scenery ain’t it? Pretty good picture for one take too, I’m quite proud.


These are quite old and dusty, from a month ago already! Why do I save pictures in sub-sub-sub folders? I know I’ll never find them if I do, yet I keep doing it.




And here’s a nice one, the new dress I made! I’ll be doing a DIY tutorial for it soon just hold tight. It’s a wonderful explosion of lumberjack goodness. As you can imagine, it’s just too much fun to wear. It wasn’t too hard to make either, just time consuming. Of course it doesn’t help when you’re watching Ready or Not and iCarly while trying to construct a dress from scratch… Ready or Not is my new obsession btw. I want to be Busy. Who wants to be my Amanda? We can have slumber parties, talk about cute boys, and have fights and make-up all in one day. I am now accepting applicants.

Also, I just wanted to say that this guy TOTALLY STOLE my look! Ripped jeans and creepers? Ah, haven’t I seen this somewhere? Oh yes, that’s my no-fail combo, the outfit I’ve been wearing for the last few weeks. Obviously this guy is so awesome, and I would be lucky to look anywhere near as cool as him.

The Glam Buccaneer

Sorry it's been kind of... still, around the blog. I've been trying to get ready for London this week, although I'm not really sure how to pack. I mean, how am I supposed to try and narrow down my shoe selection?! It's downright impossible. I'm not familiar with these things called "comfortable, practical shoes". My Mom keeps going on about them, but I haven't a clue what she's talking about...

This is what I wore on a night out last week. Not very exciting, but the black body-con dress is yet another H&M find. It has piping all in the front and back, as well as a line of brass snaps down the back. I kind of love it

Forgot: Camera necklace - Homemade

I pulled these AA printed leggings over my heels, and when I took off my shoes at the end of the night the ink from the fabric had leaked onto my shoes! I'm not very impressed with American Apparel lately, pretty much everything I've bought from there I've had a problem with. Not cool, AA. Not cool.

Something that is cool? Katy Perry's sparkly pants in her new video.

Seriously. They are freaking shiny chunks of heaven. Pretty much every outfit from this video made me really envious deep down inside. I can't help it, it's all too good.

And has anybody seen Beyonce's new "Diva" video? I really don't think I can post any screencaps without puking a little in my mouth, so I'll leave it to you to investigate if you wish. She's wearing Gareth Pugh in pretty much every outfit, and it looks soooooo not right. Sorry if you're a fan of Beyonce, but I am a huge Pugh fan and this is just not acceptable. I don't want to try and tell people that shouldn't be wearing this or that, but I think Beyonce is just stepping much too far out of her comfort zone in terms of her "new image". She is just not working this new edgy/futuristic/divarobot look she's trying to give off, and actually succeeds in making Gareth Pugh look trashy. I wonder what he thinks of all this.

If you only knew, boy you would not be smiling so big. If you only knew...

It's all for the best. Of course it is

I forgot to show the concert tees I got from the Bloc Party concert in my last post. I got one of the Intimacy cover, and some moustache dude on the Hot Hot Heat tee. The Intimacy tee is an XL so it's a hugely oversize fit, so I think I could wear it as a dress, or tunic, or t-shirt.





One of my favourite things from Toronto is this oversized snakeskin t-shirt. It's super soft and so fun to wear. The tent shape is just awesome, I love it so much!! I found a picture that I took in the changeroom, but it's a bit too short to wear as a dress. I wore it out last friday with shiny leggings and about 10 pounds of silver necklaces. My outfits are so lazy these days, and quite unimaginative. I'm making so many things right now so maybe that will boost the excitement level of my outifts.









White nails! They lasted a total of one whole day before chipping. Why is it that white nail polish never seems to stay put? What do you do to keep polish on, and what brands are your favourite and/or the longest lasting? Cos I know nothing about nails, please help me!

Just throwing this out there, but The Facehunter Show is up again! I love Yvan, I seriously can't get enough of his adorable accent

My mercury's in retrograde

So Sunday night I went to the Bloc Party concert, and it was AMAZING! I was so freaking excited I nearly wet my pants. They definately did not dissapoint, the show was just so great. And to make it even better Hot Hot Heat opened, who are just awesome and were my favourite band when I was 15... good memories of me blasting HHH in my room.
Unfortunatly it seems I have very little talent in live action photography. How do some people get such good concert photos!? I have no clue how they do it, but here's the one good picture from Hot Hot Heat and a collage of the best of Bloc Party.

I wore this to the concert, then wore it the next day as well because I had no clean clothes. I think it's going to be creepers and high-waisted jeans every day this summer...

Later that day I got a package from Solestruck.com, who kindly offered me some free shoes a few weeks back! It took me a while to pick my favaourite, as Sole Struck has sooooo many amazing shoes and brands like Jeffrey Campbell, Betseyville, and Sam Edelman. Some faves include...

In the end I decided on the fiercest Jeffrey Campbell heels. I was so excited to rip open the package, I made an event of it with some cheesecake. Shoes and dessert, is there a better combo out there? I think not.

Back to the shoes themselves, they are AWESOME!! They fit perfectly and I love all the different sized chains wrapped around the traps. To top it off, the box was really cool too...

One, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred!

Well I finally made it, 100 posts in just over a year. Yes, it's taken me a long time to reach 100, and yes it is out of pure laziness. I do love this blog though, it has been so much fun getting to show all of you my style, my projects, and other random tidbits of life. Thanks for checking out my blog, even if it's just once and a while, it means so much that people actually sit down at their computer and type in niceandshiny.blogspot.com in their browser... that part is the strangest to wrap my head around.
So thank you thank you thank you for every one's awesome comments, and I can't get over how cool is it to be able to talk to other people around the world about something that's so dear to us all: lovely, lovely clothes. I'd like to think that my blog differs from others in the way that I try to leave space for conversation, interpretation of what I'm putting out there. I don't want to just show you all what I think is cool and force you to accept it, I love hearing what people have to say, your opinions, any tips, or even just how the material relates to you or your life. Interacting with others is defiantly my favourite thing about having a blog, and learning about all types of people that I would otherwise never meet or talk to.

For a little walk down memory lane, and because I got such great responses from my other photoshoot, here are the six final cuts from a photoshoot I did with my friend waaaaaaaaaaaay back when... fall of 2007. This was before the blog, but it just goes to show that doing creative things can still be really fun and fulfilling, even if nobody ever sees them, ha!

This was when I had bangs/fringe, and yes I do realize that every one of my pictures here is a crotch shot. I was wearing black shorts underneath, I PROMISE! Some of you might find these a wee bit familiar, this is because my display picture is an outtake from this same photoshoot. I've got sooo many outtakes, it was so hard trying to narrow it down to one shot per outfit. It's hard to tell, but our hair was sooooo huge and curly. We backcombed it to death so our hair would stay with the theme of volume/airyness/insanity. These are from almost two years ago, but I still love the outfits!
Oh yes, I almost forgot my super special secret that explains why I was in Toronto last week. Well, this summer my dreams are going to come true because I'm going to England!! Ahh, I'm so excitied, it's going to wicked! I'm going by myself, for almost two months and I'm going to be on a "working holiday" with a program called SWAP. Don't fret, I will have my laptop and I will be ~live blogging from London~ (wink wink, Andrew). I had to go to Toronto to complete the last step of my UK work visa, but it's now been approved and I booked my flights yesterday. May 19th, London here I come! If you're a Londoner, hit me up and we should tooootally go shopping!

Love you all, thanks for reading all this time and keep checking back in the future <3

EDIT: Incase some of you aren't able to tell, photos 2, 3, and 6 are NOT ME! Those are of my friend who I do photoshoots with, she was a good sport and risked breaking her ankle while jumping in heels while I wore flats with all my outfit, lol!