Support Small Business This Christmas

 With lockdown looming, and Christmas on the horizon, it is more important than ever to support small businesses for your shopping this year. Small businesses are essential to our economy, and provide so many jobs to so many people, but have sadly been badly affected by this pandemic. Buying from a small business isn't putting more money into the pocket of some billionaire from a corporation, but is helping a family buy food, keep their lights on, and keep their dream alive. I wanted to share some of my favourite small businesses, and encourage you to check out their products. You can find a lot of inspiration on Etsy and Notonthehighstreet too (but wherever possible, I buy direct from the small business themselves, because they will charge fees).

First up, Sugar & Vice. Over the years I have bought SO much from Sugar & Vice, my jewellery collection is probably in the majority from their collections, and despite owning some of it for 6 years plus, it is still in just as good nick as ever. Run by pals Sarah & Matt, these guys have made incredible stuff over the years, and have always been so helpful with any of the custom requests or ideas I've had for them. Even making me a sign for my house! I'm a huge fan of their new homewares section, and if you love your horror movies, they are definitely the company for you.

They custom made our wedding cake topper to fit our 'True Romance' obsession.

I personally own this tiger paws necklace and it gets compliments every single time I wear it, a true statement piece I always find myself reaching for.

Next up is a company I just can't seem to stop myself from buying from lately, Crafty Glass London. Crafty Glass make stained glass for a new generation, everything from hearts and moons, through to Pikachu and David from Schitt's Creek! They even did a spooky Halloween range, and have been teasing not only some festive Christmas pieces, but also a personal Pokemon favourite of mine, Venomoth! I can't wait to see it. Their store isn't open all of the time, and instead they tend to offer limited pre-orders, and open their shop for a limited space of time every 2 weeks or so, to ensure that their shipping and customer service is up to their standard, so keep an eye out on their social media for their next update!

This is their mountain range piece, and below is their cheese plant leaf. Just 2 of the maybe... 8 pieces I've bought and gifted since I discovered them? I really need to buy something for myself already!

Another jewellery company that I can't help but adore, is Bloody Mary Metal. Between me and Stu, I'd say we easily own well into 40 pieces from them! We even visited them during our Cornwall holiday to celebrate our first wedding anniversary to buy pieces from them in person for the first time. While they do make some of their jewellery in gold, they are known for their unusual silver designs, with an alternative twist. If you see me wearing silver jewellery, I can basically almost guarantee you that is it from BMM. Their customer service is also absolutely wonderful. They've repaired pieces we have broken because we are both clumsy AF, and when we visited in person they offered to reshape jewellery we were wearing that had been bashed about it over many years of daily wear!

Just some of the many pieces I own from BMM, they offer a lot of one offs and it is so cool to know you own something unique no one else will ever own!

And final, inclusive clothing designer and general bad ass Plus Equals! Plus Equals manage to not only be one of the most fun clothing companies out there, but also one of the most inclusive, offering a standard size range of a UK 14-42, but also offering made to measure at no extra cost, and if your size isn't listed, just drop them a message and they will get you sorted, love!

My ridiculously incredible purple and faux fur sequin jacket is from Plus Equals, and I wear it for all my fancy occasions. I am sure I will be swanning about in this on Christmas Day no matter what ends up happening! If you love bright colours, faux fur and sequins, Plus Equals are the place to go.

My absolute fave faux leather vintage jacket is also from Plus Equals, part of their upcycled range. It just makes me feel cool (which I am so very far from!).

What are your favourite small businesses that you'll be shopping from this Christmas? Please do comment and help me find some new faves!

Much love,

Kitty xxxx

Mid-Year Favourites

I used to write 'favourite' themed blog posts fairly regularly. It was an easy way to share all those random little things I've enjoyed recently that don't deserve or require a full blog post. I haven't done one in absolutely ages, certainly not in 2019, so I figure a mid-year 2019 favourites seemed just right.

I love a good pin, and the Secret League do the most amazing Pokemon Go inspired pins. They had a sale earlier in the year so I snagged myself this limited edition Mewtwo pins, and the Level 40 articuno Team Mystic pin. I did get stung by customs on these even though they cost under the threshold on sale, because they put the full price as the value, but they are so well made and cool that I don't mind too much.

This amazing zebra print dress is from the Collusion range by ASOS. It is sadly out of stock now, but here's the funny thing. It's from the straight size range. It goes nowhere near my size, but someone bigger than me could easily have fit in this. It has a shirred top and a very full skirt section making it super comfy and stretchy. Keep an eye on the Collusion range for sure, because I can see them bringing this style back in other colours and prints.

My amazing Bloody Mary Metal moon ring that was a birthday gift from my husband Stu. It's called 'Knox'. Stu has their old style of moon ring, which was set in a more traditional crescent shape rather than on it's side, and he catches it on everything. I never catch on anything with the moon at this angle!

Our new bed! Our old bed was beyond broken. I had bought it 10 years before, incredibly cheaply, and it was always awful. All the lats were snapped, the mattress was long past needing replacing, and it was just so uncomfortable it was unreal. When we ordered our new bed we took apart and broke up our old one, just putting the mattress on the floor. If you've ever slept on a mattress on the floor you know it's not great. It was bliss compared to our old bed! This time round we got a divan style bed, figuring that the biggest problem with our old bed was the crappy lats. It's higher than our old bed and every night we climb into it and it's heaven.

I got to see The Spice Girls live in Coventry! I never got to see them as a kid, so when Stu surprised me with a ticket for Christmas I was unbelievably excited! We had standing tickets, but before they came on stage it was becoming fairly clear that they had mishandled who should have been allowed into the standing area and it was way over full. We opted to pinch a couple of seats and if they turned out to be anyone's we would move. Turns out they were actually empty seats and we stayed in them for the whole concert, we got so lucky, just looking at the amount of people squashed into the standing area was making us anxious. The Spice Girls were absolutely amazing. So much fun and everything I had ever dreamed of. I video called my Mum during 'Mama' and made her cry. Got so many daughter points.

And the final thing, but no photo because I don't want to share it publicly. My new car. A couple of months ago my car suddenly made a weird clicking noise when I turned it on. Had a mechanic come out and look at it and bad news, it needed a new engine. After exploring the cost of putting a new engine in it, it was almost what the car was worth, so I began a new car hunt. I've never picked a car before. I had bought small cars I could afford, or cars from family members, but I had never gone out and actively made a choice that I wanted a particular car before. When I'd test driven one particular car, I fell totally in love. And then I set out the hunt to find it in the colour I wanted to. I had almost given up hope when Stu found the perfect car, in our price range, in the colour I wanted. He had told me he would find me my dream car and he did. I love his determination! It took weeks to finally get my hands on it, and I absolutely adore it. I'll be honest, I've never really looked after a car before. I've always been messy and my cars have always born the brunt of that. Not this car! It's immaculate and I treat it like my baby. I feel incredibly lucky to have been in a position that we could do this and I'm so grateful.

Much love,

Kitty xxxx

Checking in with Navabi*

Could there be a more perfect spot to photograph a checked dress than in front of a lovely field of sheep? You can never go wrong with a plaid or tartan print, especially not in autumn. It makes me thinks of Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam and grunge loving men with long hair, all things I'm rather fond of!

Dress - Manon Baptiste Checked Shirt Dress from Navabi*

Leggings - ASOS

Boots - Dr Martens

Faux leather jacket - very old Matalan

Sunglasses - old Quay Australia

100% cotton isn't something you hear a lot in plus sizes, but it is something you can get yours hand on at Navabi. When you're used to polyester and mixed fabrics, 100% cotton feels like an utter delight to wear. It's so soft and comfortable. True luxury is something you can actually buy your plus size body at Navabi and I'm forever grateful they exist.

All the rings you can see in this photo are of course from my faves, Bloody Mary Metal. I can never resist sterling silver! The buttons on the dress feel really sturdy and solid, always reassuring with a shirt dress. It doesn't gape on my bust at all, and I got the dress in my usual size.

It's wonderful and warm too. Good and cosy for the colder weather. The sleeves are just about long enough for my long arms, but I'm not a big fan of cuffs so I undid them and rolled them up instead. It hits me at just below knee level, I'm 5ft 11 so on someone of more average height it would be more of a midi length than it is on me.

My boots are one of my favourite pairs of shoes. They are part of the vegan Dr Martens range, and are Jadon II in cherry red cambridge brush. They have a chunky platform which does weigh a fair bit, so it's one to keep in mind if you plan on wearing them all day. I like them for a bit of extra height at gigs! I wish Dr Martens would expand their vegan line, especially in the size 9+ range. The women's range is up to a size 9 only and gets all the best colours, I just want a pair of size 10 vegan boots in purple!

If you want to get your mitts on this dress, or anything else from Navabi, you can use the code KITTY15 for a discount! It's not an affiliate code or anything like that, but it will get you pennies off your purchase. Yay!

Navabi are a company who I cannot adore enough. They do so so much for the plus size community and constantly fight for real inclusiveness, and real change in the industry. They are the change they want to see, and that's so amazing to see.

Much love,

Kitty

xxxx

*denotes an item gifted to me. I was under no obligation to review or post it, but I wanted to!

A Trip To BloodyMary Metal

For our first wedding anniversary, me and Stu took a trip to Perranporth in Cornwall with some of our best friends. I realised while we were there that we were incredibly close to BloodyMary Metal's base. And if you know us at all, you'll know we are both big fans of BMM, so we had to go and at least have a look!

Couldn't come to Cornwall and not visit @bloodymarymetal HQ! @stutheprotector and I both got new rings, we'll be picking mine up in a few days and I can't wait. Perfect anniversary treat! #teambmm #bloodymarymetal #jewellery #jewelry #silver #rings #skulls #blogger #fblogger #fashionblogger #plussizeblogger #psblogger

A post shared by Kitty Morris (@kittyramblesalot) on Jun 5, 2017 at 7:57am PDT

Of course, in true Kitty and Stu style... neither of us could resist shinies once we actually saw them in the flesh. We had some money saved up, and our families very finally gave us some money for our wedding anniversary, so it seemed it was meant to be that we would have some BMM to remember the day by.

In a case of things that were really meant to be, there was one Lemmy ring left in stock, so it had to be Stu's. Both of us wear a lot of rings all day every day, and all Stu had space for was a pinky ring. And this ring was the perfect size for his pinky!

Visited the lovely @bloodymarymetal folks and couldn't resist this absolute beauty 😻😻 #teambmm #bloodymarymetal #jewellery #jewelry #silver #ring #fblogger #fashionblogger #psblogger #plussizeblogger #bones #pretty #love #jewelleryblogger

A post shared by Kitty Morris (@kittyramblesalot) on Jun 7, 2017 at 10:04am PDT

 I fell totally head over in heels with this absolute piece of art. Just look at it! So intricate and pretty, and just the right amount of goth. Obsessed. I had a pointer finger free on my left hand and BMM kindly resized it for me to fit. I also left my mini crescent moon stacker right with them that needed resizing. Stu had bought it for me for my wedding ring finger several years ago, but now we're married that finger is otherwise occupied, so it needed to be a bit bigger to join the stack of BMM rings on my right pointer finger. We popped back in a couple of days to pick them up and they've even hammered out the damage I'd done to the moon ring accidentally catching it, without even mentioning it. What absolute sweethearts!

I'm such a fan of BMM anyway, and their headquarters are lovely and friendly too. Hopefully we'll get to pop back again some day.

Much love,

Kitty xxx

Our First Wedding Anniversary : Being Ghosted

What I Got For My Birthday Part II

Today is part II of my sharing what I got for my birthday last week. I split it up into two posts purely so it wasn't really photo heavy. Check out part I of the haul here.

From my little brother and his girlfriend I got this fab Skinnydip London bag. It's a clutch style, but does come with a shoulder strap too. It's two separate halves that zip together and attach with poppers. So if you are going out and don't need to take much with you, a simple unzip and you can take out half the bag instead. It's a lush blue snakeskin with a touch of shimmer to to it. 

They've clearly been paying attention to my love of Skinnydip London as they also got me this planet bag that I have been lusting after for absolutely ages. It's glittery and beautiful and I love it.

Some girls get excited when they see a blue Tiffany's box, not I. I get excited when I see a BloodyMary Metal box! My parents got me this gorgeous BMM daggers necklace, it's so divine and very me. Silver is my favourite metal and they cast everything in silver, yay!

And finally, my amazing husband Stu got me a BMM necklace I thought I'd missed out on forever. The cat skull! The detail is beautiful and it's so pretty. It sits at a lovely length on me and I can just see myself wearing it constantly.

I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful family and loved ones.

Much love,

Kitty xxx

What I Got For My Birthday Part I : Trying Wolf & Whistle

My Lucky Month

December was kind of a wild month for me. Not because of Christmas, but because I seemed to somehow become insanely lucky! A lot of my favourite brands ran competitions on their social media, I always enter competitions but have never really won anything before. In December I seemed to win everything!

So I very occasionally use twitter. Like, I have it set up to autopost my photography tumblr and bloglovin, and sometimes I remember I should post on it rather than just let the internet robots use it so that people will actually follow me. I posted on it during December and the following exchange happened....

Now, I don't follow Tesco on twitter, I've never tweeted at them, I have no idea how or why they decided to respond to my tweet. The first thing I did was check out the twitter account to make sure it was legit. It was. So I figured what the hell and I DM'd them my name and address. Two days later I got a very excited call from Stu asking me if I had ordered him anything that would come in a big box for Christmas, and if I hadn't, could he open the giant mystery box that had just been delivered to our house. I told him he could and he better ring me straight back!

Inside was a brand new 42 inch Sony Bravia HD 3D television. Stu rang me back and I said 'Holy shit' a lot and cried. I couldn't believe it. We set it up in our bedroom and just wow. The remote has a built in Netflix button! I know it's all part of a marketing campaign they did at Christmas, but seriously, it blew me away. They made our Christmas. We could never have afford a new TV, and it wasn't something we could justify saving up for when other things were more important.

BloodyMary Metal ran a daily advent calendar competition on their instagram that I eagerly entered every day. And I won! And I was lucky enough to win one of my favourite necklaces from their site. They also sent me some metallic temporary tattoos that I am totally going to play with soon. Thank you so much!

Marks and Spencer's ran a fun Pass the Parcel game on their website that I played most days, because why not! There were all sorts of prizes available from little to big. I won a voucher for some Walnut Whips. Nom. I picked mint ones. There is no photo of those because they quickly went in my belly, soz!

I figured after 3 wins I was at the end of my streak. But I wasn't! Eustratia also ran a daily advent calendar competition, and I also won a prize in that! A £20 prize was my prize, and I put a little extra in so I could buy these beautiful moth earrings. I was so tempted by the other jewellery Eustratia also do, but moths are totally my thing, so moths it was! I opted for these because they make incredible latex and these combine moths and latex together.

Aren't they fab? I plan to hook them through my stretched ears and look fabulous in them.

Of course, December also featured a proposal for me as well.... so it really was the luckiest month ever! Because the best prize was the love of my life wanting to marry me (I know, groooooan at the soppiness).

Thanks December, you rocked!

Much love,

Kitty xxxx

Pretty in Pink

Dress - Simply Be (bought second hand from eBay)

Denim jacket - New Look (modified by me)

Tights - Evans (modified by me)

Boots - Demonia

Rings- BloodyMary Metal

I went to a friend of Stu's engagement party recently and this was my outfit! The dress was a big risk for me, it's a lot shorter than I usually feel comfortable in, but the dress was so cute I couldn't resist, and I felt fab wearing it! I feel really bad ass when I wear my ripped up tights and boots, and thought it helped keep the outfit on the smart casual side as we were going to a local pub, not anywhere fancy. And I always feel the need to wear my denim jacket. I bloody adore it.

It makes me happy that I'm feeling braver and wearing things out of my comfort zone. I try to encourage people to do it but struggle so much to do it myself. Yay for a little success! It is so close to Christmas now, I'm hoping to get a few more cute outfit photos to post through till the new year!

Much love,

Kitty xxxxx

Oranges and Solar Systems

It was recently my Grandparent's 50th Wedding Anniversary and they had a small get together on the actual day, and a big party the day after. Totally a great excuse for cute new dresses! I didn't manage to get any photos of my outfit for the big party, it was ridiculously warm and I was late getting ready thanks to my hair taking me longer than I anticpated, but I did the day before!

First off, the most awkward full outfit photo ever. Thank you Stu for taking it, I have no idea how I managed to look so awkward, sorry! Orange is not a colour I would ever usually wear, but I am so glad I decided to give it a go! Especially with my new brown hair I think it works well for me.

ASOS Curve Skater Dress with Panel Detail reduced to £16

I actually bought this dress the day before it went on sale at £32 and was gutted when it was reduced in the sale. So I will totally admit I bought it again and sent the expensive one back! The colour is called 'tomato red' on the website but it is totally bright orange and lush. It's also available in black but I wanted to give the bright colour a go for summer.

Sugar & Vice Solar System Necklace £28

Bloody Mary Metal Triple Bones Ring from £45

Bloody Mary Metal mini crescent moon ring - no long available

Nail Varnish by Barry M Limited Edition colour Promenade (can't find it on their website)

I love this necklace just ridiculous amounts. Like seriously, how amazing?! It has glitter, mirrored acrylic, the detail is wonderful and I always get so many compliments on it. I thought the blues would work well with the orange and I was right! I'm also wearing my Bloody Mary Metal rings that I literally wear constantly. I've not taken any of them off since I got them. Love them so much. I don't wear any Nail Varnish but Barry M. It is just by far the most chip proof, and animal friendly too! I painted my nails on Friday and have been doing all sorts and they still look perfect.

I am not great at makeup. Like, at all. But I try to hide that by wearing bright fun colours! My eye makeup is always by Sugarpill. Nothing else that is animal friendly and mostly vegan lasts anything like them, or has the amazing colours they have. I used Velocity on my lower lids and Flamepoint on my upper. They last the whole day, even in the crazy heat we've been having. I'm also wearing the new Barry M Cor Balmy! £3.49 in cb5 and Barry M Lash Vegas Mascara £6.49. The lip balm is so lush! It really moisturises and adds a good layer of colour, I love it, especially for summer as I think a lippy can feel a bit heavy in summer.

My shoes are brand new, I've been eyeing them up for a while and they finally went on sale so I had to get them. They are Evans Megan Black Strappy Mule Wedge and my leggings are New Look Inspire Tie Dye Printed Leggings from ASOS. They are soooo soft. Both of these are on sale at the moment!

I am so pleased I chose to dye my hair darker. It looks thicker and healthier, and I think it really shows my eyes off well. I'm hoping my root regrowth will barely be noticeable now.

Much love,

Kitty xxxxxxx