from now on you can call me Mystic Meg

Ok, now I don't want to show off here, but, well I'm going to - I totally predicted this.

Back in March, I did a post about the Chanel temporary tattoos and suggested that high street stores such as Topshop and Urban Outfitters might take inspiration from them and bring out their own ranges. And they have!!!

This clearly means that I am psychic.

Except, not really, obviously, because this is just how fashion works - high street stores always copy take inspiration from the high-end designers. But still, I'm quite excited that the two shops I mentioned are the ones that have actually done it. I just had a quick browse through some other online stores (Miss Selfridge, New Look, H&M and ASOS) and can't find any other tattoos, though I'm sure they'll follow suit soon.

The Topshop ones are very clearly inspired by Chanel; some of the designs include birds (now I'm no ornithologist, but I'm pretty sure they're swallows), flowers and strips of chains. Funnily enough, the Chanel tattoos also had swallows, flowers and strips of chains. However, the Chanel ones were very pretty and feminine whereas I'd say the Topshop ones are little more edgy and kind of 'rock and roll' (if that's the right way to describe them - hopefully you can see what I mean from the pictures) There's five different sets available (some packs contain several small tattoos and some just contain one large one), and they're priced between £4 and £6.50.

images from Topshop.com

The Urban Outfitters tattoos are very different. Firstly they can only loosely be described as 'tattoos' as they're more like body stickers. They remind me a bit of those crystal tattoos everyone went mad for in the late 90s/early 00s. There's also only two designs available; a butterfly and a bunch of flowers. They're very pretty and sparkly and they're available in white, black and gold - I can see them being popular with festival-goers. Only problem is, Urban Outfitters have done their usual trick of going "right, new product, very pretty, quite eyecatching actually. Let's price it at something ridiculous!" The butterfly costs £14 and the flowers cost £18.

£18 for a glittery sticker?!

Sorry Urban Outfitters, but you just lost me. I know the Chanel ones were about £50, but there was loads of designs in the pack. And they were frikkin' Chanel! Anyway, maybe I'm just being a bit of a tightwad, what do you think? Would you pay £14 and £18 for these babies?

images from UrbanOutfitters.co.uk

Anyway, next chance I get, I'm heading to Topshop to get my hands on a pack - I'm particularly drawn to the chains. What do you think? Will you be sporting temporary tattoos this summer? And which do you prefer Topshop or Urban Outfitters?

On the good ship lollipop...

I think this just about sums me up - tomorrow I'm going to a joint birthday party for three friends, so today I went into town to buy presents for said friends. I came back from town with two DVDs (for me), a brooch (for me), a pair of shoes (for me), a present (for one of the friends) and this postcard of Shirley Temple (for me). To be fair, I'm going halves on the presents with another friend, and it just worked out that she'd sorted the other two out first. But I think it's safe to say that I much prefer buying myself things than buying them for other people. This probably means I'm a bad person, but hey, at least I'm a bad person with lots of cool stuff.

Why Shirley Temple? It's kind of a combination of intrigue, because when I was little, everyone said I looked like her, and vague terror, because I've always found her a bit creepy. There's something about those chubby little arms and shiny, shiny ringlets that just doesn't feel right to me. Ever noticed how in every single Shirley Temple film there's a scene where she does a tap dance routine with an elderly black man? It doesn't matter what kind of film it is - I swear I saw one where her character was on her death bed but, by God, could they stop that plucky little girl from doing a tap dance with an elderly black man? Like Hell they could! She tap danced to her dying heart's content, yes indeedy.

Here's a photo of me as a deranged-looking child for comparison. Note - I may have had the ringlets and chubby arms but I NEVER tap danced.

Back to my purchases - I went back to the wonderful vintage jewellery shop where I bought my owl brooch... I don't actually think all of it is vintage because, well it looks too shiny and new, but regardless, it's still cool. Today I bought an adorable little ballerina -

The detail is lovely on this - she's got a flouncy skirt and is tying up her little ballet shoe! I shall name her Annabel.

I also bought a pair of interesting shoes from Urban Outfitters, they were on sale - £20 reduced from £35 (I pretty much only ever buy from the sale section of Urban Outfitters coz it's so bloody extortionate). I was looking for a pair of black flats and came across these little beauts -

I love that cutout detail! So nifty! They're not really the sort of thing I'd normally buy - I'm more of a ballet pumps kind of gal, but they're so unusual and VERY comfortable so I threw caution to the wind and just bought them. Madness.