Loving Lavender

As my regular readers will know, I am going through a real lavender phase at the moment. I have completely fallen in love with the colour!

I was recently really pleased to acquire a lavender bolero from Angelic Pretty. It is the Dolce Ribbon bolero. It wasn't the one that was on my wishlist, but this design was so similar I decided to go for this one instead. It is such a lovely shade. 

I am a currently having troubles matching up my lavenders, but I seem to have a bit of an addiction to the colour right now. So I have been looking up lavender items everywhere. Here are some of my current favourite purple items-

The top left bolero is from Etsy and I love how soft and floaty it looks. The top right is the AP bolero that was on my wishlist. The one I got has a similar front ribbon (I just didn't tie it neatly in the photo!). The flower crown is another Etsy find. Flower crowns are very easy to make and find online. The satchel is from my current favourite bag company the Cambridge Satchel Company. The tights are We Love Colours. The earrings are from an unknown source. I found them at random and I thought the petal shape was very pretty. And the macarons are there because I am yet to try a lavender flavoured macaron and I really want to try one!

One the day I wrote this I managed to find some beautiful lavender rose clips in my local Claire's branch. Thankfully they match a few of my current lavender collection. As Spring comes in, I am hoping to see even more lavender items pop up. I think I am going to be in love with this colour for quite some time yet.

50 Shades of Beige... and White... and Off-white...

Sorry everybody, I am afraid I am going in to rant-mode today...

I am struggling to put an outfit together at the moment. Why? Because every single colour in the rainbow has so many different shades! It is only since I started wearing lolita that I realised that even white has many different shades! I suppose it is easy enough to get around if you buy items from the same series, because they are almost guaranteed to match. But what if you decide to not buy the whole matching series?

I have discovered that What makes it more difficult is that a lot of the stuff I tend to want is online, so I can't just view it in store. This means that I end up relying very heavily on guess work. Will the colour be the same shade as the stock photo? Chances are, you wont know until you order them or see a review online.

This is something I have previously fallen victim to. The best example would be these tea parties I ordered. They were labelled navy on Clobba and the stock photo looked darker. In reality, they are the colour of AP's blue Starry Night Theater! Don't get me wrong, I still really love these shoes and I opted to keep them, but it just goes to show you how careful you need to be. It is a good job I like that shade of blue anyway, otherwise I would have a pair of tea parties I couldn't wear.

It is just so frustrating! Tomorrow I have the task of taking a bag, a blouse and pair of bloomers with me when I go shopping, just in case I spot any potential items when I am out!

I wonder... how do people get past this issue? Do people settle for a similar, but not identical shade of a colour? Or is there a way to get over this problem? I wish I knew the answer.

P.S- If anybody knows the original source of the boots in the first picture, then I would love to know it! They came up when I searched for Victorian shoes on Google but I have not had much luck so far.