Object of Lust: Wooden tusk necklace from Black Lily

Hi guys,
Black Lily is a Danish accessories brand. I'm becoming more and more obsessed with Scandinavian style lately, both in terms of fashion for myself and for my house. The brand was founded in 2007 by Inge Kindberg and June Marie Stevn.

When the two first met, they knew that they could create something exciting together. With their creations ranging from luxurious scarves, spectacular bags and beautiful jewellery, Black Lily plays with contrast, creating imaginative designs.

I stumbled across the brand when I was looking for a necklace to wear with my French Connection dress for Wilbur's Christening on Sunday. I wanted a necklace that was brown and gold (to go with the new gold and brown Marc Jacobs dress watch my parents got me for my birthday) and this one definitely fitted the bill:

I picked up my necklace from Zalando and it was a bargain: reduced from £34 to £19. Zalando is well worth checking out if you want pick up some reduced pieces from Black Lily: they have bags, purses and scarves from the brand (as well as my lovely necklace!) all with discounts of between 10%-46%.

Do you have anything from Black Lily? Have you tried or seen anything from the brand, and what do you think of it? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Love Tor x

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Christmas wishlist: Topshop beaded collar

Hi guys,
Now that we're just a month away from Christmas, and everyone is starting to feel festive, I thought I would bring you an extra mini-blog post every day (as well as my usual rambling ones!) The extra post will be a suggestion for your Christmas wishlist, which will probably be something I saw and fell in love with, and put on my Christmas wishlist! Either way, it will be a Christmas wishlist, and it will feature things that are fashion-y, cool, and because i'm putting it together, some stuff that is just plain weird!

Today on the list is this cream antique embellished collar from Topshop: it is one of the five "online exclusives" pieces Topshop just added to their site, and as soon as I saw it, I knew it had to be mine! Apparently numbers are limited, and some of the other five pieces already have sizes sold out, so if you're fancying this, send it to your santas and their elves sooner rather than later. It costs £32, which is expensive for Topshop jewellery, but when you consider how it will change the look of all the tops and dresses in your wardrobe, it's definitely worth it!

Merry Christmas!
Love, Tor xx

Fabfrocks Reviews: Blank necklace from theRemedi.co.uk

I'd never heard of theRemedi.co.uk until last week, when they dropped me an email asking me to check out their site and (even more excitingly) choose a piece from the site to review for you guys. Obviously I said yes, and hotfooted it over to the site to find out what it was all about: I was pleasantly surprised to find a unique website stocking gorgeous items you really wouldn't find anywhere else. Nothing on the site is mass produced, and some of the pieces are even one-offs!

After much prevarication amongst the many pages of beautiful things, I chose a necklace from Blank London, and was massively surprised (in a good way) when the necklace turned up the very next day!

I was so excited when the necklace arrived: It came in a beautiful box, which made it feel especially luxurious, as I hardly ever have jewellery that doesn't come on a plastic hanger which says Freedom @ Topshop on it! But I was even more excited when I opened up the box: the necklace is beautiful! It smells of leather, it clinks satifactorily when you move it, it's heavy and it looks great. I love chunky oversized jewellery, so for me this was an instant hit.

There were only two of these necklaces available on the site, and it makes me feel really special to know that I am wearing something that is such a limited-edition, there is only one other person in the world I can bump into that would have it: unlike shopping in topshop or primark, where you'd have to walk down the street with your eyes closed if you wanted to avoid seeing someone else wearing your new top!

I love this site, and my new necklace: I can see it becoming my go-to piece of statement jewellery this winter. More pictures of this are coming shortly, as I wore it yesterday when I was filmed for a very special competition that's coming soon. And I love it so much i'm wearing it today too!

Love, Tor xx

Jewellery: Keeping it in the family

Today, I am feeling very special and important (make do Kate might say superior!) I am feeling this way because I am wearing a beautiful necklace, bespokely made just for me and presented to me yesterday, quite by suprise. No other necklace like this one exists in the whole world, and that's enough to make anyone feel pretty great. My incredible crafty and talented little sister Lucy made this necklace just for me. It is silver and the beads are glass; each bead is a slightly different colour and shape, making it even more unique. She is making a range of increasingly bautiful and complicated jewellery in her back bedroom, and I anticipate her gifts with glee.
She also made the festive little box the necklace was presented in. Although she doesn't sell her jewellery (I keep telling her she should!) you can check out more of Lucy's crafts on her fairly new blog, Munyip Makes. I know that I will be keeping this safe, and that it feels even more special knowing not only that it was made just for me, but also because it was made with love.
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Sorry for the posting gap, but I took a break to spend some time with my family, who all came to London and gathered in my house for some wonderful family fun! Normal service will resume now though!
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Love, Tor xxx

Etsy obsession of the week: teeny tiny skulls

Hi guys,

I came across this etsy store via the Style Child blog last week, but I can't stop thinking about it and looking at it. A necklace from Moon Raven Designs is now firmly on the top of my wish list. And before I attempt to use inadequate words to explain why, i'm going to show you: The pieces from top to bottom are a raven's claw, a bat skull, and a crow skull. The description on the site explains how these pieces are made (this one is for the second piece, the bats skull) This hot cast bronze bat skull is made from a real brown bat that died of natural causes. It is made of solid bronze, not plated white metal. This nicely detailed skull only measures 1" long not including the bail. The easily removable lower jaw is fully articulated, opening and closing just like the original skull.
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I find anatomy fascinating and it's incredible to me that you can have a working version of something so delicate and intricate and amazing (look at me gush!) hanging from your neck. I appreciate that to some people these necklaces seem a little morbid and to others a little scary, but to me they are a fantastic celebration of the curious creatures our little planet holds.

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My boyfriend rarely reads this lil blog (having zero to no interest in fashion!) but I am not so secretly hoping that nearer the festive period he checks it out for gift ideas and finds this neatly wrapped up post complete with link sitting and waiting for him. Like KD, it's the bats skull that I love most, by the way (cough, cough, hint, hint!)

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Yours not-so-subtly, Tor xx

Daily wear and DIY

Hey folks,

So for once i'm going to do without the rambling intro and just get straight to it. This is the outfit I am wearing today:

Blouse: Urban outfitters

Dress : Primark

Bracelet and ring: Topshop

Shoes: Boutique in Florida

Necklace: I made it myself

Oh yeah, looking snazzy right? And the hayfever eyes and puffy hayfever face make me look even more attractive, no? This daily wear interlude brings me nicely to the DIY section of this post in a "here's one I made earlier" Blue Peter from the 90s (do they still do here's one i've made earlier?) kind of way!

I fell in love with a necklace the wonderful Tavi was wearing on her blog once upon a time, so I decided to make my own (albeit no doubt not as professional) version!

It looks pretty good, no? I was aiming to make a longer one, but I forgot to take into account that plaiting the fabric would mean it would end up shorter! I had another go at making a longer one last night though- I loved the grey one, and I had loads of fabric left over, so I repeated the whole procedure with a lot more plaiting!

If you're looking at this and thinking "hey, that looks pretty simple, I could definitely give that a go!" then here are the instructions on how I threw it together in four simple steps.

1. Cut 6 lengths of fabric about 2/2.5 inches wide (depending how thick you want your necklace) and as long as you want the necklace to be (remember to allow for "shrinkage" when you start plaiting! I went for a jersey fabric to start with, because I thought the stretch would make it easier to plait
2. Roll one piece of fabric around another, creating a long thick fabric "sausage" and leaving you with 3 lengths of fabric to plait (I not Anonymous Agent sometimes plaits 4 pieces of fabric and i'm going to try that, but for simplicity I started with three!)
3. Secure the material at one end (I created a loop) and plait!
4. Attach the two ends together to make a necklace. I threaded the finished end through the loop and secured with a couple of stitches (the cheap option!) but if you want it to look really fancy maybe you could buy a clasp and attach the ends to that? And voila! Your finished!

And, to complicate it a little bit more, in traditional FabFrocks style, here is an awful diagram, drawn in paint!

I love how this simple necklace looks, and I love that it's DIY I can do in around half an hour (my crafting attention span, sadly!) I suspect one in every colour of the rainbow making it's way to my wardrobe some time soon!

Love, Tor x