Inspiretty #130

Another screen-cap from the Fly video of Nicki Minaj. I've secretly longed for leopard print hair for a while-how cool would that be? Not all over like this, but just a section. I think I'm gonna save this image as my desktop wallpaper, I like the way I captured the moment when the ray of light appears (taking the credit for quick reflexes not for actually making this video, lol!). Speaking of videos, I'm in the process of editing one of my new Irregular Choice shoes that arrived today-should have it finished tomorrow. Have a good weekend ladies x

Weekend Discount Codes & Offers

Haven't done a discount code post for a while, but there's several that popped into my inbox this week, so here you go.

Illamasqua 15% off, see details below, ends midnight tonight.
Style369.com 20% off until midnight tonight, when you spend £50 or more, discount automatically deducted at checkout.

Peacocks 20% off full price items and delivery for £1 until Sunday, no code.
Miss Selfridge Free delivery when you spend over £40, ends October 4th, promo code FDSEPX

SecretSales £15 off when you spend £60 or more, details below.
Debenhams Half price sale on and spend £30 online and receive free delivery (automatic, no code).

Estee Lauder, the annual Breast Cancer Awareness/Pink Ribbon Collection is now available and also free samples, see below for details.

Clinique have revised their shipping charges and there's also a couple of different sample options available, see below for codes.

Punky Pins free delivery all weekend.

Barry M-Two new blusher colours available, 'Peaches & Cream' and 'Strawberry Whip' and 2 new Lip Paints 'Pale Nude' and 'Pretty Pink' (launch in Boots 5th Oct and Superdrug 26th Oct). I need that nude! Despite Barry M being unable to spell 'palette', you can get this free when you spend £35 online, details below.

Inspiretty #129

I've made no secret of my love for Nicki Minaj, I just adore looking at her. She's always so bright and bubbly and never fails to make you smile, even if some of her outfits aren't exactly what you'd wear down to Tesco! I'm loving her new tune with Rihanna, Fly, it's really beautiful. As usual Ms Minaj sports a number of different looks and I loved the cropped pink hairstyle in this part. The whole mood of this scene was unusually calm and muted for her, but she still looks breathtakingly beautiful. I've added two screen-caps, so you can really see the style of the wig in the 2nd image.

Inspiretty #128

I haven't had time to put up the post on The Shoe Girl Diaries of my shoes today, but here's a little clue as to the pair I wore. This unicorn is one of the cutest unicorns I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot), I would love Irregular Choice to produce more styles with this print.

Inspiretty #127

The more I look at the Prada SS12 collection, the more I want and love it. These are the shoes I was telling you about on Monday...they come in a wedge or heel and in all kinds of colours. Seriously dude, a shoe that looks like a car? How insane is that? I want and need them now!

A Big Ol' Mess

I had a horrendous day yesterday, where a situation completely escalated out of control. I don't like the blog to be a release for my depressing moments (nobody wants to read that), but I'm trying to think as rationally as possible and get beyond this and perhaps venting a little here will help and I could also use your advice.

So you know how I sell on eBay quite regularly? As anyone in the same situation knows, it comes with it's problems at times. People win an item then don't pay and you have to chase them up for days, open a case, wait around, finally get your fee back, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of protection for buyers, not so much for sellers (you can't even leave negative feedback, yet they can for you), but on the whole I put up with the occasional stress and time wasting for the "greater good". Lately though, it's been one thing after another and to be honest, I don't cope well with stress these days. I'm a worrier, I can't let things go and it goes round in my head for ages before I can feel at peace with the situation. Stress also seems to trigger something inside of me, with my illness that just knocks me for six and makes me feel even more knackered than normal. So I was dealing with the Irregular Choice Scammer that stole my money (and hundreds of others) and didn't send my shoes. I was also dealing with a parcel I sent to an address on the invoice, which turned out to be the incorrect address (still not solved that one and the parcel? Who knows where that is? The tracking number is no help at all), plus I had a few non-payers and someone that reported their parcel had been left on their doorstep without the 'signed for' sticker and nobody signed for it (I hate the thought of her disbelieving I sent it by registered post). Then at the weekend, one of my buyers in Croatia got in touch to say the parcel I sent her a month ago hadn't arrived.

I've never had that happen before on eBay, so I promptly emailed customer service to find out what to do. If you've ever had to find how to email CS on eBay or find answers to anything, it's a bloomin' long winded process. Anyhoo, they get back and say all this stuff about going to the Citizen's Advice Bureau, phoning the buyer (hello, that would cost more than the lipgloss I sent and I don't even know how good her English is and I do not speak Croatian). They also said to get in touch with the postal carrier and get the buyer to open a case saying she hadn't received the item.

Citizen's Advice and the phone call were out for me. The girl seems to understand that the situation is not my fault and I was going to get a form from the Post Office anyway. I was more concerned with how to get my final value fee back, literally how to refund her (because I have to refund the full amount but because of paypal fees I never received the full amount in the first place) and whether I was to do this after or before Royal Mail compensate me. So I emailed CS back saying, you didn't answer my issues and repeated them again to be really clear. I also contacted my buyer and asked her to open the case (as I can't do it from my end). The tracking number is within the item details for both of us to see and it claims the package has been passed onto Croatia for delivery. I agree that it shouldn't have taken 4 weeks to get there, but at the same time, it's been tracked part of the way and another item I sent to Croatia a few days later says the exact same thing yet was delivered a couple of weeks ago (so obviously upon delivery it does not register on the site). However, if I'm getting my money back from RM, I'm happy to refund her.

So last night, the shit hit the fan. She opened the case as I asked, but included some info that I didn't agree with. She said I wasn't communicating with her, hadn't replied to her emails and wasn't trying to work it out with her. That annoyed me, because I only knew of the situation on Saturday and responded immediately and emailed again a couple of days later. However, I figured perhaps with the language barrier and standard procedure of eBay, it perhaps wasn't intended as a dis. There wasn't really much for me to respond to within the case (just to verify the tracking number which was already visible on the form), so I just made it clear I had been emailing back and forth and was willing to refund her (she preferred a replacement, but I don't have another as I'm not a shop!). However it said I had to refund by 5th October in the original case email, then once I had responded, it said I had to do so by the 30th Sept!! I knew Royal Mail would not deal with my case so quickly, but figured I would refund her anyway and then get my compensation later. Bearing in mind I've lost an item, already paid for postage and packaging but am still willing to spend more on a refund out of my own pocket-I think you can't ask for more than that from me. So I log into Paypal to refund her and notice I have a negative balance of £3.55. There's also a message saying Paypal have sent numerous emails regarding the money I owe them and if I don't pay up, they will involve their attorneys! The drama queen in me freaked out, but again I decided it was just standard procedure (given that I haven't received a single email from Paypal).

Paypal put a hold on the transaction whenever a case is opened and because I had insufficient funds in my account (£3.55 less than was needed), I have the negative balance. They have not refunded her on my behalf, they have only 'held' the money (which partly isn't there). There is no option to refund her at all. I literally cannot do it until I get more money into my paypal account. So I immediately transfer £4 from my bank into Paypal. It states it will take 5-7 working days!! I have to refund the buyer in 3 days though or else I'll miss out on my final value fee credit and probably be penalised from eBay for 'stealing' her money and not sending the item. Obviously I was and am furious. I'm doing everything in my power, going above and beyond yet getting penalised for it. Had I known you needed the money directly in your Paypal account to refund (it doesn't work the same way as paying for something where you can part pay by Paypal and part pay by card/bank account), I would never have told her to open the case. It didn't even enter my head that there would be a time restriction on it and that I was shooting myself in the foot by doing it! To top it all, eBay responded this morning to my 2nd email, saying to fill in the RM form first, get compensated then refund the girl! Advice they should've given me the first time. I pride myself on my efficiency when it comes to eBay, everything is written down in my notebook with dates of payment/delivery details and I keep all receipts. I package items well and aim to dispatch the same or next day (in this case the same day) as payment is received, so obviously this has rocked me that my reputation will be called into question through no fault of my own.

I ended up in tears yesterday and hardly slept for worrying about it, although I'm trying to be calmer today because I'm getting myself worked up and that isn't going to help. I'm just completely at a loss as to what to do, I've done everything within my power and my hands are tied. I've emailed the buyer to say I'll be refunding her on 4th October (when paypal expect the money) and emailed an angry message to eBay again last night asking them for leniency but I doubt it will matter. Nobody seems to care that I did post the parcel and have the receipt to prove it. It's just become all about refunds and time restrictions! So that's the reason I've not been a happy bunny this week and also I just wrote this post and part of it disappeared so I had to rewrite it, grrr! So have any of you been in a similar situation and how did you deal with it or do you have any advice for me? Can you think of anything else I could be doing? Had she been in the UK I would've sent a personal cheque, but I can't do anything in 2 days to Croatia!

Inspiretty #126

Any posts I've made here lately have felt very rushed and for once I've had more satisfaction out of posting on The Shoe Girl Diaries (which rarely happens). I think the 'Irregular Choice Month' has given me a new zest for shoe blogging and wearing! I need a wee injection of inspiration on Pink Haired Princess though...I've just not been 'feeling it' much recently and I don't think you should force it, if your heart isn't in it. I've also not had much time for computing either which adds to it. Anyhow, I was quickly browsing the Prada runway shots today. Can't say I'm entirely in favour of the whole collection, but the vintage car theme, LOVE it. I'm not a car girl at all. I don't drive, I don't know names of cars, but I've always, always wanted a pastel coloured vintage Cadillac. Owning or driving one of those is on my list of things to do before I die! I've seen them up close, in the flesh, so I'm almost there! Anyway, the shoes and bags in this collection are TDF, seriously fabulous. I don't know where Miuccia gets her ideas, but she's a genius of the pretty things, so possibly expect more Inspiretty from that range this week.

Video: Turban/Headscarf Tutorial

Ok, so here's the tutorial on how to do your scarf like mine in a turban style or bow (cue extremely unflattering footage of me with my hair pinned up, sorry). Hope this answers your questions. If you're still stuck just comment on the YouTube video or here and I'll do my best. This is my first vlog, where I'm 'properly' in the video, so go easy on me! I hope it had just the right amount of info for you. Things I didn't really say on the video...if you want the rosette of your scarf off-centre, obviously just start your twisting/tying wherever you need it. My attempts in the video were very sloppy and rather lumpy but I made the video in one shot and without a mirror, so normally I'd do better. I just really wanted to get the video up as soon as. I meant to say as well, you really need to turn the sound up to hear me on both videos as my camera records really quietly. Ok, that's all-have a good weekend.

Video: Primark Haul

You may think I've had another day of not doing very much and neglecting you-however I've been busy ("behind the scenes") making some videos for you! I was in my jammies in this one of my Primark haul, hence my arms being all you can see. However I have another video coming up, where you see....well me! It's pretty hideous actually-I can't say I'll do another like that again, however for the subject matter it worked perfectly well. Here's the Primark one first...I tried on some of the things this arvo and I'm not sure about a lot of them (probably returning several). Enjoy!

Inspiretty #125

In my late school years and early Uni days, I wore dark blue lipstick. I had a brighter Bourjois one and a deep, matte finish Lancome one that I would pair a silvery colour over the top, for light, bright or deep blue lips. I wasn't trying to be weird or a goth, I was just given the lipsticks at work at actually thought I suited it. Beauty rules dictate that if you press your lips together, the colour you see is your perfect lip shade and when I do that mine are blue, so that's possibly why! Anyway the long story leads to the fact that I would quite fancy wearing dark green lips. I thought about this a while ago and wanted it even more so after seeing them on my Lagoona doll. I didn't think a rich, deep bottle green shade was available until this new Sheer Lipgloss from Illamasqua popped into my inbox today. The shade is part of their new collection and is named Violate. On the models lips, it's exactly how I envisioned it to be. Whether or not I'd suit it is an entirely different thing though!

Inspiretty #124

I'm soooo behind with blog posts, I know! Today has been a nightmare, with really slow internet connection, so I've got nothing done until now. I feel rather big headed using myself as 'Inspiretty' today, but it's more for the scarf than my face! If you've been following The Shoe Girl Diaries you'll be aware my hair dye didn't arrive and I've been left with a half bleached mess on my head! A new order was dispatched today, so hopefully I'll get that tomorrow, but in the meantime I've been covering up with hats and scarves. When you can create pretty styles like this, it's actually fun to keep your hair covered (good for those 'bad hair days' too), so hopefully it's 'inspiring' and 'pretty' to someone and therefore worthy of inspiretty, hee hee.

Share Your Shoes

You peeps are being a shy lot this week. I am in desperate need of seeing your lovely Irregular Choice shoes for The Shoe Girl Diaries as we are celebrating 'Irregular Choice Month' on the blog. You will feature in a guest post on Friday for the world (or my readers at least) to see! Pop over now to see the previous two guest posts for photo inspiration and all the details on how to submit your pics can be found below.
I'm wearing my IC's every day, all month and I want to encourage you to wear yours as often as you can too. I know many of you are huge fans of IC, just like me, so every Friday all month long, I'll be choosing my favourite fan photos and posting them on The Shoe Girl Diaries. So how can you enter?

I ask that the photos be as clear as possible, at least 600 wide (don't worry, I can resize them afterwards to fit the blog if they're supersized). Obviously the shoes have to be Irregular Choice and if you know the name of the style or have a funny/interesting story attached to them, you can include that too and also your first name and/or screen/blog name (and a link to your blog, if you have one). You can send a full length outfit shot or just the feet, whatever you want. Please email all entries to pinkhairedprincess@hotmail.co.uk with 'My IC' in the title (so I know it's not junk mail). Let's see them!!

Swatches: Rimmel Kate Moss Lipsticks

When Rimmel posted some product images and swatches of the new Kate Moss collection of lipsticks on their Facebook page, I immediately sent my sister out to buy some! Good promotion there Rimmel! I took photos of my wee haul straight away but unfortunately it's taken me a week or so to get them up here. They are available worldwide, but in the UK, they are exclusive to Boots, priced £5.49 and currently on 3 for 2 (luckily I wanted three). I believe they are the Lasting Finish formula. They come packaged in a sleek looking matte black case with red 'Kate' scribbled across the lid and the slanted end with crown logo, which all looks very nice. The colours do not have names, only numbers and the red shade Kate wears in the print ads if you're wondering is 01.
I bought 03 a beige nude, 08 a more pinky brown and 04 a dark vampy purple. The colour pay-off, like most Rimmel lipsticks is excellent. It's creamy pigmented colour in one swipe and intense colour like you see in the tube, when heavily swatched as you can see from my images below.
I'm addicted to the fragrance of Rimmel lipsticks, it's such a nice, warm, make-up smell to me, I love it. I also love the feel of the lipstick on my lips, it's like wearing 'proper, grown-up lipstick', it's smooth and creamy and all kinds of lovely and definitely feels like a 'quality' lipstick. I haven't had a chance to try them all out yet, so can't speak for it's lasting skills, but I'm sure it'll be pretty good, with colour that intense. A great little collection from Rimmel I reckon.

New Harajuku Lovers: Jingle G

Jingle G, Jingle G, Jingle all the way...ho ho ho! I bring you good and possibly bad news too. Here is the new Harajuku Lovers fragrance, Jingle G in her little festive get-up. She is a little 10ml and comes beautifully presented and you can even hang her on your tree. Ahhhmazing! I adore it! Christmas has always been a very special time in our house and my sisters and Dad are especially obsessed (they seriously count down the days for months)! So a festive themed fragrance is pretty exciting for us.
The rumour is though, that's it's possibly the last HL fragrance ever. Noooo, say it isn't so! Here's the details on the scent and sorry for the lack of posts today, the dentist took longer than expected and I still have a numb mouth, plus I'm sitting with bleach on my hair, so I don't have time to post anything else. I shall see you all tomorrow though x x x

Notes: White Star Fruit, Gardenia, Tangerine, Honeysuckle, Orange Blossom, Jasmine, Vanilla, Cedarwood, Lace Benzoin Tears. Hmmm, think this one sounds nice (although I have no idea what Lace Benzoin Tears smell like??).

Inspiretty #123

I'm getting really into boots, that resemble 'sensible winter wear' but upon closer inspection aren't really at all! Like the Irregular Choice 'Toad In The Hole' for example and these gorgeous lace-ups by Yves Saint Laurent. They look pretty normal, great for autumn, good base for walking on but also feature this fabulous, puffy layered wedge heel. Reminiscent of Terry De Havilland (is there anyone that hasn't copied the wedge legend?), I really like that added element of surprise to an otherwise average enough boot. There's nothing average about the price though at £1065...suddenly those TITH boots don't seem quite so steep!

It's What Colour?

Remember I said the colour description of the 'dark green' Pearl Lowe jersey dress was 'off', considering it looked bright turquoise to me? Well, if you checked the Peacocks site now you would probably wonder why I was being so picky. It's only because the image has magically turned green over night! Here's my original image on the left and the new one on the right. Still not 'dark' green but definitely green. I think I'd be rather annoyed if I'd been expecting true turquoise and got that instead, especially as this is the one dress that is an online exclusive, so you can't see the colour in person. Also makes you wonder how spot on product images are and how easy it is to manipulate them to look like whatever the art/photo department wants. Clearly it is the same photo, with a tweak to the colour-how very 'L'Oreal' of them!

Inspiretty #122

Inspiretty comes today in the form of the prints of my new dresses I ordered from Debenhams. I knew I'd buckle and get them! I 'only' got 4, three H by Henry Holland and a Red Herring one (the bird print). I'm a sucker for a kitsch print, an absolute sucker, so little doggies and birdies are of course right up my street!

Oops, Oh My!

I regularly check my blog stats and it's the type of thing I geekily find rather interesting. Not only do you see basics like your hits per blog or post (per day/week/month), you can find out which search phrases led people to your blog. Turns out my most popular always seem to include some type of the following 'ruby red or sparkly slippers/shoes', 'monster high dolls' and 'nyx swatches'. Without fail, they are always in the top. It can help, because you know the types of things people want to read and are searching for. You can usually find some random things too, one example today for The Shoe Girl Diaries, was 'tightest shoes', but I've had much stranger that I can't quite recall off the top of my head!
You can also find sites that link to your blog that people have clicked on and this is one of those situations where you think, will I check it out or not? The reason I say that is because I have in the past found forums where people are or aren't saying very nice things about me. This particular one today, I hadn't seen before and a lot of people had clicked through to my blog, so I checked it out. It turns out it was a forum and this particular thread was discussing hair colour. Someone had linked to the two posts I recently wrote about my hair colour. Ok, nothing bad there and the reason I made the post was to show examples of particular brands of dye and hopefully act as a little help and inspiration for anyone thinking of taking the plunge. I read on though...with the help of google translator because it was in a foreign language. Someone, and I actually think this is almost funny, wrote that they couldn't look at my hair colour because they were distracted by my hamster cheeks in all the photos and that's all they could see. What? Wow, they must really be some cheeks to distract from Atomic Pink! There was me gasping last week at the site of Madonna and her plumped up chipmunk-esque face, telling my family 'she must've had something done, that's not right' and who knew I had the same issue?! Sorry Mads! I'm not very bothered by it and certainly make no apologies for smiling in photos (I look seriously evil and moody otherwise) and this is what creates that 'defined cheek look' along with the angle of the camera. Since putting on weight, I lost my lovely cheekbones, so I'm quite happy for there to be some sort of definition on my face rather than just plump all over and I'd rather be likened to a hamster than look emaciated quite frankly. I can't speak for Madonna, but I haven't had any surgery to my face (or anywhere else) and wouldn't ever want to. I have no desire to inject anything for a 'plumper' look or to rid myself of wrinkles (which is what I suspect she was trying to do), especially when I can do it by eating cakes instead, plus it's not actually a look I'm aiming for! Personally, I'd be more inclined to ponder the half grown back eyebrows, desperately needing fixed roots and rash across my chest (that thankfully is disappearing). I must be on the 'up' though if the status of my cheeks are as significant as Madonna's! So continue to write what you want, we are all entitled to our opinions after all and I'm taking it that you meant I was extremely cute and cuddly, just like a hamster, so thank you! Squeak, squeak!

Inspiretty #121

Ooh, I like these Joan platforms from KG by Kurt Geiger (£180). They are also available in black, this is the salmon coloured pair. Some may argue that it's a little much, but I like that you get jewels and a bow, why choose between trims when they're this pretty?

The Irregular Choice Switcheroo

Irregular Choice month has hit a bit of a snag over on The Shoe Girl Diaries with me not getting out for a couple of days. The weather hasn't been on my side, but it'll hopefully brighten up tomorrow. As you know, I have an IC closet and most of the time it's pretty difficult to get access to, as I have a couple of 'floor to almost ceiling' towers of shoes boxes in front of one of the doors and various piles of boxes and clothes in front of the other.
Obviously for the sake of the challenge I needed to get lots of shoes out, so the above pic shows some of the pairs I wore last week, which I swapped over for those below. I made a conscious decision to bring out more wintery styles, but even they look a little 'cool' for this current weather! Remember I'd still like to see you wearing your IC's this week too, just click here for all the details and you could be featured in my guest post on Friday.

More No7 Swatches

So here's the other No7 items I got with my vouchers. Mum got herself some wipes and sun-cream, so I 'only' had another 5 to spend! I knew I wanted some more Sheer Temptation Lipstick £10, so I got a really bright pink 08 Pretty Please which is scary bright in the tube, not so scary swatched thank goodness. Then I got a shimmery one called 06 Sparkle which is a brown in the tube with lots of sparkle (obvi) and it comes out a sheer nude-ish shade.
I also got High Shine Lipgloss £9 in Glaze which is a mauvey pink with lots of multi coloured shimmer, really pretty. It came out much more brown looking in the swatch, but I don't think it is in real life. I took these photos really quickly and was struggling to get their true to life colours. The swatches therefore aren't as spot-on as the product photos.
I didn't have time to label everything, but I'm sure it's obvious which swatch is which. These were my last-second grabs when I was struggling to find anything else. Stay Perfect Nail Colour £7 in 80 Foxglove which looks most true to life in the image on it's own. It's a pinky violet, the perfect mix of pink and purple (although my camera wanted it to be pink clearly!). Then the shimmering 340 Dollar a rich jewel green, beautiful!
I hope you've found something lovely to spend your vouchers on. Let me know ; )

Inspiretty #120

My Terry de Havilland 'Lulu' shoes arrived today. Very pretty in the flesh and somewhat pacify the anger and disappointment of the cancellation of my 'Emma' platforms. Sob!

Inspiretty #119

So here's Ghoulia's shoes and you can just see the sparkly fishnet tights too. The platform peep toes feature a bone shaped heel and she has a matching clutch too!

My Week Has Sucked!

This week has had it's ups and downs. The good things were I finally got Monster High 'Ghoulia' Dawn Of The Dance which I've been stalking Argos for. All my locals suddenly got tonnes more stock (fyi St Andrews have 2 Lagoona and Dundee Overgate have 1 Ghoulia and 1 (I think, I was so excited I didn't really look) Cleo, Dundee Wellgate also have 3, but I haven't checked which ones they are). *since writing this the Overgate have got another 2 DOTD in stock, so I don't know which ones they are*
I also eventually (we've been searching for weeks) found tights to match an outfit I'd bought for my friends daughter ages ago, for her birthday. The striped pair in the pack perfectly match the stripey pair on the H&M dress and are by Matthew Williamson at Debenhams. We're starting to be extremely thankful that my sister has three boys, because girls clothes are waaay too cute.
In Debenhams though, there were soooo many dresses I liked for myself. However even with their current promotion, they were mostly £40 down to £32, still too pricey for the huge amount I wanted to buy. Plus most of them weren't in stock in my size anyway. I just can't get them out of my head though, but can't afford to buy them now, so will have to! I know I have far too many dresses already and nowhere to put them, but I still stand in front of my wardrobe for 20 minutes every day doing that "I have nothing to wear" thing!

On eBay I've had a lot of hassle lately. Three buyers didn't pay me last time, so that involves a lot of chasing up and opening unpaid item cases and crap. Just a waste of my time. I've had an on-going dilemma with another buyer, where I sent her item to the address on the eBay invoice and then when I went so email her the tracking no. I realised her address had changed. She's refusing to take responsibility for it, I know I didn't and wouldn't make up an address (and give myself hassle) and eBay claim she has both addresses on file, so she's in the wrong. I posted the item a month ago and the tracking no. isn't giving me any info, it's not been delivered/signed for, but not sent back either. So where is it? The girl was initially going to report me (grrr, wth?), now she's backed off but I feel guilty I've kept her money and she possibly doesn't have the parcel (but then who does and who lives at that address now?). However if I fill in a missing parcel form, I'll need the invoice and it now magically shows her new address, not that one I sent to, so I'm buggered with that. It's just hassle I don't need and I've been emailing back and forth and checking that damn number every day!
Then did anyone else get involved in the Irregular Choice fraud scheme on eBay? I was desperate for the turquoise I'm Bossy shoes to match my bag and Schuh had sold out, but a girl (with over 400+ feedback I add) had my size, so I ordered them for £50 and free delivery. After a couple of weeks I thought it strange my parcel hadn't arrived and clicked on her page to find she had quite a few negative comments. I emailed her and she gave me a tracking number and said it had been sent the day before and to wait until the end of the week when she'd send out a replacement. I knew it was bull, but couldn't open a case with her until then anyway. The whole thing has majorly escalated since and every day she gets more negative feedback. EBay eventually found in my favour and refunded me (after a month of worry!), but this girl currently has over 100 negative feedback received in the last month, all for IC shoes of either £50, £55 or £60, that's well over £5000 she's stolen, unbelievable! And they're locking folk up for stealing doughnuts during the London riots? Seems ludicrous and yet she still appears to be a member on eBay, why have eBay not handed her over to the police? They shouldn't have to pay out for her and what a long winded process of working hard to earn over 400 feedback just to turn evil later on! Anyhow, Schuh amazingly got more stock at the weekend of the bunny shoes, so I didn't hesitate and bought them and it only cost me a couple more £'s than from eBay and they arrived a couple of days ago. Cute-ness!
In other IC news, I had fallen in love with the beautiful Bonnie Bonnet. We didn't seem to get the blue version in the UK and the green sold out pretty quickly, however they still had the black on the IC site. I'd been meaning to buy them when they went into the sale, but unfortunately the 38 sold out before I had funds. Then I get an email a couple of weeks later to say 'final few days of the sale' and I clicked just to check BB and what do you know, they have a 38 again! Fate right? So I order them, then get an email a couple of days later to say they don't have stock. Poo : (
The biggest disappointment came on Tuesday though, when I checked my emails. I'd ordered two pairs of Terry de Havilland shoes in the Secret Sales sale recently. Two friggin' pairs-I was delirious at doubling my collection. I'd stressed so much when the sale started because I had no money but desperately wanted the shoes. Had money been no object, I would probably have ordered one of everything, but the main styles I was interested in were these;

Emma in black suede and diamante, STUNNING
Lulu in green or silver (green would've been my 1st choice but my size was OOS)
Lola in fuchsia, signature wedge but a variation on the Margeaux
Lotte in black with pink rhinestones, not sure how often I'd wear these, but they look gorge
Ziggy in purple metallic, never seen this style before and quite fancied them
I kept popping these shoes in and out of my basket, trying to figure out my ultimate favourites and possibly narrow it down to only two. My sis very kindly lent me the money (hence my hesitation to go all out and order 4 or 5 pairs) and so I got Emma and Lulu. I was ecstatic. The only down side to ordering from SS is often, you have to wait weeks for delivery as they place the orders straight from the manufacturer after the sale has finished. I figured though, good things come to those who wait and the weeks have kinda flown by. So Tuesday, I get an email saying one pair are OOS and they've refunded me. Boom, GUTTED. It was the diamante pair too, which were ab fab in my mind. The other pair should arrive this week, but I'm still spewing. What annoys me is that I would've bought another pair if I'd known there was a possibility of one being OOS. I wish there was the option to select a replacement, it's the least they could do for the disappointment and for earning interest on my sisters money for a month! The prices were sooooo good too, HUGE disappointment : (

The other disappointment which was more a cloud with a silver lining... remember I was trying to lose weight earlier in the year? I lost 11 lbs, then Easter came and Mothers Day and Mums b'day, my sisters b'day then mine and they all involve chocolate and cakes and not losing weight! I've quite frankly eaten what I've liked since April and luckily have only put 1 lb back on. However Mum started back at a slimming class, so I said I'd do it with her. So for the past 2 weeks it's been frequent glasses of water, lots of fruit and veg, soup, healthy, healthy and no chocolate or other such treats. We've even taken to eating Weight Watchers biscuits, bread and crisps (not nearly as tasty as 'real' ones but never mind), given it was all for a good cause, I was in the zone. Hungry but in the zone! First week I lose nothing, nada, zilch! Annoying after all my hard work. I figured I might be 'dieting in arrears' as is often the case with me, so the 2nd week would reflect my 1st week. So Tuesday was weigh day and I lost...1 lb, one frigging pound, that was it. Mum lost 1.5lb the first week and stayed the same this week. Now I know many of you will be saying, but it's 1lb, at least it's something and it's more likely to stay off if you lose it slowly like that....I've heard it all before. The issue is, I've got so much to lose that 1lb isn't going to cut it and is in no way reflective of my new found healthy lifestyle! I could probably break a nail and lose 1lb! It was just so demotivating, to know that we hadn't cheated AT ALL, had done it by the book and lost nothing. So when I needed a sit-down, mid-shop on Tuesday, we popped into Debenhams and I had a bowl of chips and a massive square of chocolate cake. Honestly it was the yummiest, most delicious thing ever! Haha, it tasted sooo good and I didn't feel hungry all day! I know that's the last thing you should do when you've had a bad week, but I ate it guilt free and it was good, so there!

As usual I'm in two minds about what to do next. I'm determined to lose the weight, but I'm also very realistic and if I have to watch everything I eat and it's not showing results, it's not really worth it. I also think I maybe need to go off-course one day a week (within reason), I think my body needs 'real food' every so often! I had such high hopes of losing at least a stone before my nephews christening in a couple of months as well, but that looks highly unlikely. I would've thought that me going out for my walk every day would've helped too, because I've really been sticking to it. I just get the feeling I've lost all I can without increasing the exercise/activity side of things and my illness doesn't allow for me to do any more than I've been doing lately.

I spent most of yesterday trying to get JLS tickets for my little sis. Do you know how brain-numbing it is to sit and type those pesky security words? BOring! I didn't have any success getting her in the middle and close to the front, so had to give up and get to do it all again tomorrow when the real sale starts, yipee, not! Then yesterday my New Look dresses came. I've been lusting after the cute doggy print on this one for ages, how cute is that? I also managed to get the last of the Limited Edition green dress which hangs beautifully and feels like silk (although it's not). However my mother laughed at me in the dog one last night and said I looked ridiculous. It fits perfectly, isn't at all tight, however it makes me look very booby. It's all you look at and mum says it's doing nothing for me...she's right, but I had just liked it so much, I wanted it to work : ( The green is lovely, although a little clingy around my tummy, but I have to send it back too, because I got them on a promotion and don't want to pay full-price for the green on it's own. It's just pissing me off, because I'll never get rid of the boobage and it's blooming ruining my fashion choices more and more!
Add to that, that I've found a blog copying all my The Shoe Girl Diaries posts and I mean everything, the exact way I've written it and all the images, links and tags. Bar-stewards eh? In order for them to be removed it involves me having to fill in a form for google with EACH copied link and my original link. After getting one post removed yesterday, I suggested to google, that although I was grateful it would literally take hours for me to fill in the form for each and every link. The reply was, that was what I had to do! It really bothers me when people can't be a little more understanding. So now I have to waste my time doing this, it's taken 90 minutes to do around 2-3 months of links this morning and I'm losing the will to live. I shouldn't have to do this, the entire blog should be shut down as it's not just my content they've stolen. All the while they're sitting happy as Larry while they rack up the hits from me clicking on them! Bar-stewards again!!! Normally I wouldn't get so annoyed at this, but I don't like seeing my shoes, outfits and even worse, my face being passed off as someone elses work with no credit to me whatsoever and it's so monotonous following the complaint procedure.

Anyway, massive rant over. I'm sure I'll get over the majority of these, the Debenhams dresses I know I'll buckle and buy (hopefully they won't sell out in the meantime) and especially since I won't be shelling out a fortune on the Pearl Lowe stuff, the TDH shoes I'm going to remain gutted about forever and this blog nonsense is really irritating because it's such a waste of my time (when I could be blogging) and I wish Google would act less robot like and have a heart and realise that. I have a feeling they're going to ask me the direct links again to my blog, like they did last time, even although it's all printed on the form and that may just tip me over the edge because I refuse to double up on the info I'm already providing. So how has your week been? Good, bad, ugly? Let it all out here, you'll feel better I promise! And well done if you've managed to read all this...sure there are probably tonnes of spelling errors, eeep!