Yellow Skirt Freak Show Update!! And bumping up your glam factor

If you find me doing DIY lipo, licking a champagne bottle, and eating buttons off my pyjamas thinking they're pills, I've been worshipping again at the altar of lifestyle gurus Patsy and Edina of Ab Fab. (read about them here)

I went to see their new movie, "Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie," two nights ago, which was very timely considering how lately I've been contemplating measures to glam up my life.

This is what I wore to the movie. I also had on my vintage gigantor red and mustard paisley palazzo pants.

Still from the movie review video. Barbara shot this part. Thanks, Barbara!

But more about the movie later...

Project Glamourization. Last week I read a magazine article about a woman who had a very long, impressive name and an expensive villa in Florence, disguised to look rustic. Hey, I thought, that could be me if I changed my name to (drum roll, please):

Melanie von Harumph de Schnackenloafer del Petunia

In the article, they wrote the full family name every single time. Well, I think that's a bit much - I'd definitely let them shorten my name to, say, HRH Mel after the first ten mentions at full length. Oooh, I feel more successful already.

Below, the seersuckiest seersucker you ever did see. Vintage. Home-sewn. With pockets. I wore this last week. Glam? Yes, I think so!

And my sky-high Steve Madden sandals go perfectly.

But I suspect it's not just the name. One needs to glamourize one's life in general. For example, why inhale air, which is so utterly boring, when you can sniff it? Also, now I drink my water from a cute little shot glass. I down several shots in the morning like a big-time bad-ass.

Shot glasses make hydration glamourous. 

Write that down!

But I'm afraid nothing I do can live up to the standards set by Patsy and Edina.

However, before I tell you more about Ab Fab, I have some breaking news!! Well, not so breaking now because I've been slacking on the blogger front, but -

Nearly breaking news!!!

The Freakish Yellow Skirt is back in ACTION, high-impact action, with Trina of Tea Time with Trina!

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Stompin' Dancin' Flower Pickin'

QUEEN and Bohemian

and Cow-woman - okay that sounds bad - Cowgirl to boot

a little Utah hooplah for the Freakish Yellow Skirt

on the Travelling Yellow Skirt Freak Show!

Madly Joyfully Twirling and Ducking 
In and  OUT & Up and On with

TRINA

TEA TIME WITH TRINA

   G o !   G O   N O W !!!   

I'm thrilled that Trina has joined the Yellow Skirt show. I was fortunate to meet her last summer and know that she must have packed a humongous helping of positive energy in FYS. Thank you, Trina, for joining and adding your magic to this curious garment.

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Now I'll tell you about Ab Fab...

Vancouver Barbara and I attended the Absolutely Fabulous movie together. We ended up in the bar at the Sylvia Hotel afterwards - how surprising!

I made a little movie review video with Barbara. I hope you like it.

MOVIE REVIEW 

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE

Special Guest: Vancouver Barbara (who also helped with filming)

I ran into lots of cool women at the theatre. In particular I was happy to see Frances of Materfamilias Writes seated near me. Her take on the movie is HERE. It turns out we are neighbours! Hurrah!

Frances was wearing a spectacular outfit featuring the silkiest oyster grey skirt with two daring slits right up the front which showed off her fantastic gams. Definitely NOT a wardrobe malfunction! She proved that you don't have to dress outrageously to be fabulous. She wore her new blue specs too. They look fantastic. (I also put this photo on my street style blog, here.)

Also there was Denice, whom I met at that swanky event when Shelley was in town, accompanied by two of her very stylish friends, Roxana and April (I hope I got their names right). And Colleen of the blog Clothes Line Finds, and Lynn and Diana, both of whom I know from My Sister's Closet. Colleen and Lynn are in the final scene in the video.

Below: Lynn, Colleen, and Barbara before the show. They look incredible! It's hard to see here but Lynn's sandals are paved with rhinestones. Barbara made that outfit - spectacular! And Colleen scored the glittery shawl from My Sister's Closet.

Finally, a BIG THANK YOU to Lynne Spreen, Any Shiny Thing - Life After 50 for mentioning Bag and a Beret in her post "Grief about Turning 50," here, as a source of style ideas over 50.

And, someone else has linked to this blog but I don't know who you are or where you come from but Thank you!! (unless you are sending people to ridicule me - you never know, right?) 

And to finish off this rambling post, one more shot of my seersucker. Mmm. I used to detest seersucker; now it is precious to me. Heh. That's a good view of my shoes.

Did you make it to the end? This is what happens when I miss posting for a week. Everything piles up. I hope you are all well. I have been on a blogger break and getting lots of farking done. Feels so good.

Stay cool, whether it's summer or winter. But I don't have to tell you that, do I?

Are you Ab Fab fans? I thought I would hate that movie because there were so many celebrity cameos in it, which I've found usually means the script sucks. How happy I was to be WRONG!!! Jennifer Saunders is a brilliant comedic writer. Lots of laughs. It turns out there was a character with a huuuge long name, which just proves my theory!

Oh, and because of Suzanne's comment I'm wondering what your long glamour names would be.

I'll link this up with stuff but, really, I can't think about that now. I'll add it later.

Yours Sincerely,
Ms. von Harumph de Schnackenloafer del Petunia


Edit: Okay, I'm back, ready to do some linking.
1) Patti at Visible Monday: Not Dead Yet Style
2) Catherine at #iwillwearwhatilike: Not Dressed as Lamb
Anne has a great linkup at SpyGirl - The Fashion Rosebud Linkup: "Write about a powerful memory from your youth, one that shaped your core, one in which fashion was involved." I love this prompt - maybe I can think of something later...

Styling grey hair, and a blogger meetup

Oh dear, oh dear, I'm levitating again. There's something about orange and pink that defies gravity.

That's a new top from the $5 rack at My Sister's Closet eco thrift boutique - wispy orange chiffon, probably home-made, with open cape-style sleeves that shield my arms from the sun. I adore the people who sewed this and then donated it instead of chucking it. It looks so great with these pants. I'm also wearing my lace-up sandal-shoes with the block heel.

And my neon orange vintage sunglasses; I don't often wear them. My hair also defied gravity today. Speaking of hair...

This week I made a video about how I do my tower hairstyle. Simple. Here it is. I put it in the context of a series called Secrets of the Schtars in case I want to do more. Heh.

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****Secrets of the Schtars!****

Styling Grey Hair: Tower Hair
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I wore lots and lots of makeup because I can - actually I had planned on doing a comedy video but decided at the last minute to do a hair tutorial for my sticking-straight up hair.

I don't go to salons anymore. I don't colour my hair anymore either. For now at least. Luckily, O has a talent with scissors and he cuts my hair at home.

His cuts give me two go-to styles, which I LOVE, worn down like a pixie cut, as seen above in a still from the video. And straight up with tower hair, like below.

I know that a lot of you already do standing-up hair, in a variety of colours too! It's really so much fun. But I enjoy the down look as well, demure, sophisticated, and/or androgynous. I think I have all bases of my personality covered with these two looks.

Let me know in the comments if you have questions. It's pretty straightforward.

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And a blogger meetup!

Last Friday I had the exquisite pleasure of meeting up with Vancouver Barbara, who attended the blogger meet-up in Vancouver last summer, Louisa of Damselfly's Delights and Sue of A Colourful Canvas.

We started out with lunch at the landmark Sylvia Hotel next to English Bay, as seen above, then made our way to Dressew fabric store and Atex Fabrics where we all happily added to our fabric stashes. We topped off the day with a stop at Purebread bakery.

Hats off to the one blogger, who, in her absence, still managed to be the life of the party - Suzanne Carillo. Off and on all afternoon we swore like sailors in her honour, especially in Barbara's car as we careered through Vancouver streets. Feckin' eh.

Everyone looked fantastic and was wearing something they had made or thrifted. In my case, my robe was from Shelley, Forest City Fashionista. But even more impressive was the warmth, humour, intelligence, and talent of these amazing women.

I didn't get many photos of the bunch, which speaks to how much fun we were having, but I did manage to get a few sidewalk shots for my street style blog, here.

Meeting people I've met through blogging in real life, that's the best, like meeting celebrities! I hope you get a chance to have meet-ups too.

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One more photo of my orange outfit for the road.

Also, if you tried to listen to my CBC Radio interview and couldn't, I uploaded a YouTube version of the clip to make it more accessible. It's on this post.

I'm linking up with Patti at Not Dead Yet Style for Visible Monday and Catherine at Not Dressed as Lamb for #iwillwearwhatilike.

Have a great week!

PS: Whew. Last night I was suddenly having quirky layout issues with Blogger! But a dear woman named Meutia posted a coding fix. Wow, I am soooo thankful for these people who share their expertise.

Complaints magic. And I'm on the cover of SheSpark zine!

When I go to my Blogger Reading List there is a little tab in the bottom right corner of the screen that says Complaints. Do you have this? I kind of wonder if this was added special for me by a sensitive company that would anticipate my needs in advance, like how a good hotel will leave a chocolate on your pillow. That's some good fecking service there, right?

Yesterday I clicked it for the first time. I know! - I have often wanted to open it when the sink gets clogged or a heel on my shoe crumbles or a lifetime lightbulb suddenly dies after one month. But I don't. I'm more stoical than that - I suck it up. But not yesterday.

I clicked it. Then, suddenly, man-god Fabio magically appeared in my living room, the man from the "I can't believe it's not butter" TV ads.

He fell to one knee at my feet and crooned, "Tell me your complaints, thou my goddess who summoned me." !!! Well, we got to talking and he ended up staying the night. When I woke up he was gone but I hadn't had so much fun since pyjama parties with my girlfriends. Which got me thinking: Blogger may be onto something here.

I immediately wrote to Blogger and they were so impressed by my enthusiastic response to their Complaints management that they had me test-drive a few of their new label additions.

PYJAMA PARTY : WRITE MY BLOG POST FOR ME : MANICURE : STYLE ADVICE

Well, as a style blogger I couldn't resist the Style Advice tab. I pushed it and, poof, there was Stacy London of the old show What Not To Wear standing dazed in my living room. WOW! I showed her to my closet and she peered inside. Then, wiping her hands, she turned around and said, "Sorry, hon. I can't help you here. Too bad our show went off the air," then, poof, she was gone.

Wow. Harsh! Right? Quickly I pushed the Complaints button. Over and over and over. But nothing happened. I tried Manicure for a quick pick-me-up and even Pyjama Party. Nuthin! At least Write My Blog Post for Me was still functioning, thank gawd, and I used it for this post. Let me say I'm not impressed!

So maybe it's better that they stick with just the Complaints tab in the end, but the next time I hope they send Mr. Bean. Fabio kept hogging the mirror.

Have you ever entertained a Complaint? Got suggestions for other tabs? If you're not on Blogger, does your platform have a cool function like this?

I'm linking this outfit up with Patti at Not Dead Style for Visible Monday and Catherine at Not Dressed as Lamb for #iwillwearwhatilike and Anne at SpyGirl for 52 Pick-me-up: Completion.

By the way, I didn't, I repeat, DIDN'T, get picked as a finalist in the H&M contest thingy. My entry was here. The entries of the five finalists are here. There is clarity. So who came up with that saying there's no such thing as failure? I think we need a tab called Blah Blah Blah. Which reminds me, where's my tab?: This is so fecking stupid so throw a party for yourself.

Oh, there it is! Heh. Come on over for drinks and cheese nippies! See? I don't like sour grapes; I like them fermented and dry. We're all WINNERS!!

A slightly better view of the pants below. I wore them mitten-clipped on the sides to make them shorter with black Converse runners. You can see a completely different styling of them here. And I like to think the former owner of this blouse enjoyed bowling, perhaps mini golf as well, as Shelley (Forest City Fashionista) suggested. I hope so. I adore this top.

And now a huge thank you to Suzanne Carillo for posting a photo of me with the BEST positive quote ever, along with a shout-out about my big, huge CBC Radio debut (heh) talking about Bill Cunningham. I could go on all day about how much I admired that man, even though I didn't know him. PLUS, Suzanne has been posting to my IG for me while I have tech issues. This is friendship beyond the call. xoxo

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AND MORE BREAKING NEWS:
I didn't know if it would happen but I am on the cover of SheSpark magazine's July issue called "Own It!" It talks about self-image kick-starts for women over 40 in style, beauty, and wellness from a variety of angles.

Did you know that 54 is the age that women are least satisfied with their bodies?Yikes! In the section about social media you'll probably recognize many of the blogs mentioned.

Click on the image below to see the free online issue.

CLICK TO GO TO THE MAGAZINE

"Owning it" is definitely a concept I subscribe to in my style and I was honoured to be included as one of several over-40 Instagrammers. Go see who else is in there - I'm in excellent company!

SheSpark magazine is published monthly by Thea Wood and Audrey Stefanik. I must thank them for including me in this fantastic issue. We need more punchy magazines for over-40 women and I enthusiastically applaud their work and passion.

Okay, that's all. Heh. Finally. For now.