The Tale of the Dreaded Spring-Clean

The incident happened last weekend, it was spur of the moment and as if I had been taken over by another being, a more tidy and house-proud being, a being who enjoyed the delights of BHS homeware and a humble teacup lamp.  This 'incident' was so shocking that should you continue to read on then feel free to gasp out loud in astonishment, I won't judge you, in fact, I implore you to gasp out loud as I recount to you......*pause for dramatic effect*.....'The Tale of the Dreaded Spring-Clean'.

Have I caught your attention?  Good.  Dramatic openings aside, spring-cleaning is no walk in the park and a nightmare for someone like me who has a tendency to be sentimental over the most pointless of items like the pair of flip flops I found hidden in my wardrobe and which hadn't been worn since summer 2007.  Simply put, the flip flops reminded me of an amazing holiday that I'd been on and despite the fact that they were slightly broken, I had held on to them all this time along with the memory.  The thing is, and this is what I discovered last weekend, my memory of that holiday can still exist without the flip flops sitting at the back of my closest, just like my memory of my best friend's eighteenth birthday party isn't dependent upon me keeping that one dress that I wore to it and haven't worn since.  I decided that I would much rather give the dress to a charity shop and know that it can help to create a new memory for someone else rather than hanging out in my closet and never getting to see the light of day!  The clearing out and fancying up of my room was a lengthy (and at times soul-destroying) process and I relied on A LOT of Taylor Swift's music to get me through it.  Probably too much.  I had 'Style' stuck in my head for five days straight after my spring-cleaning escapades, not that that's a bad thing.....although I'm not sure that it's a good thing either?  I don't know.

I can't deny the fact that I'm still a sentimental fiend and wasn't quite able to part with everything that probably could or should have been thrown out but I was probably the toughest I've ever been when spring-cleaning my room so yay me and fifty points to Gryffindor, or something like that anyway!

In truth, the best part of tidying out my room was being able to get some new bits for it and fix it up shabby chic-style, we're talking new bed sheets, a bed runner (didn't even know those were a thing until I bought a Kylie Minogue one in a sample sale for £2.50 reduced from £75. BARGAIN.), new cushions, candles, lights, lamps, photo frames, storage boxes and vases - there was no stopping me, I was a homeware buyng fiend and one that couldn't be stopped - feel free to check out the fiendish results in the photos below:

Glamour and Roald Dahl's 'The Twits' - best combo!

Note to self: do not try and drink tea out of these guys, could
be potentially catastrophic.

All my favourites.

 

No better storage box exists on this planet.

 

Tea cup lamp? Check.  Harry Potter storage box?  Check.  Clutter-free room?  CHECK.  Turns out spring-cleaning isn't so bad afterall, and as for the ending of 'The Tale of the Dreaded Spring Cleaning', well, let's just put it this way - I'm pretty sure that I'll be living clutter-free ever after.  The end.

 

 

Making Glitter Nail Polish on a Sunday Night

Sunday night blues are the worst, you know it, I know it and I'm pretty sure that that person sitting next you to on the train on your early Monday morning commute knows it.  So, seeing as I was suffering from those dreaded Sunday night blues earlier this evening (mostly due to the fact that I have to be up at 4:50am tomorrow morning for work), I decided to have some nail polish-related fun and create my own glitter nail polish. 

Back in the January sales, I purchased Ciaté's Nail Lab which was reduced from £80 to £25.  BARGAIN.  This nifty nail kit supplied me with paint pots, top coats, test tubes, a funnel, a scooper, 6 mini nail polishes, recipe cards, labels and LOTS of glitter. 

Ciaté's Nail Lab in all its glory!

Making up the nail polish was so easy and fun, I cranked up the music and felt like a mad scientist (of the nail polish-creating variety.  It's actually a very common type of mad scientist.) as I commenced upon my glitter nail varnish-making journey.  I decided that I wanted a super sparkly silver glitter with holographic confetti strands so I selected my glitters and added them to my test tube using the funnel and then gave it a good shake to mix up all the different glitters.  Once I was happy with my glitter mixture, I simply poured it via the funnel into one of the top coat nail varnishes, shook it up and it was good to go. 

If chemistry had been a bit more like this at school
then maybe I would have enjoyed it more!

I won't lie to you, by the time I was finished, it did look like there had been a fairy house party that had got out of control in my kitchen thanks to the amount of glitter that had spread all over the table and on the floor.  It's easy to clear up though with a wipe down of the table and a quick sweep of the floor so it's hardly a big deal. 



'Sunday Glitz'

One homemade glitter nail polish ready to go!

 What I love about this kit is that it includes labels for you to name and label up the nail polishes that you have created, I named mine 'Sunday Glitz' because, well, it was glitzy and it was Sunday.  I'm pretty deep.  I also used Ciaté's Paint Pot in the shade 'Looking Glass 131' as my base colour under my glitter to make my nails look even more sparkly and eye-catching.

Ciaté's Paint Pot in 'Looking Glass 131'

I have to say as great as Ciaté's Nail Lab is, I'm not sure that I would have paid top dollar for it as £80 seems quite excessive and I definitely would not have been impressed to have seen it go into the sale if I had paid so much for it in the first place.  However, £25 is a steal for such a great concept and piece of kit - not only did I feel mighty creative when making up my nail polishes but I also completely forgot that it was the end of the weekend because I was so caught up in my mad scientist ways (I genuinely should have been wearing a white lab coated, goggles and maniacally giggling away).

My finished nails with Ciaté's Paint Pot in 'Looking Glass 131' as it's base colour
paired with my homemade glitter nail polish top coat in 'Sunday Glitz'

I also purchased Ciaté's Flower Manicure kit in the same sale which I'm going to try out next weekend for Easter so I'll be sure to let you all know how I get on with that but I have a feeling that I'm going to love it just as much as their Nail Lab so you've been warned!

So proud of these beauts!

Growing Up and Becoming an Adult

Lately I've become increasingly aware of time slipping through my fingers with not just me, but everyone else around me, growing up and becoming an 'adult'. 

I'm not ashamed to admit that being referred to as an 'adult' has, at times, caused an odd and unexpected wave of panic to rush through my brain and forced me to acknowledge the fact that I am an actual, real-life, official grown up.  I think that a lot of that panic boils down to the fact that I spend more time watching Disney movies than watching documentaries, reading Roald Dahl books instead of listening to Radio 2 and wearing blouses that feature cat-face pockets instead of blouses without cat-face pockets.

 

Cat-face pockets - the pinnacle of my existence to date!

Essentially, it's like my whole being is rebelling against the prospect of admitting that I am, in fact, a grown up now and have been for the last however many years or so. 

Of course there are plenty of great things about being an adult such as not having to have a curfew (I still get a buzz out of staying up past 10 o'clock on a Sunday night.  I'm a rebel through and through.), being independent and, most importantly, having the space and freedom to define yourself and figure out exactly who you are.

The adult world is scary though, when things go wrong you can't blame them on anyone else but yourself and long gone are the days when your parents would write you notes to get you out of PE (or in my case, to tell my school that I was allergic to the mashed potato served in our school canteen*) or pick you up from school when you felt ill.  This being said, it also forces you to take ownership for yourself, when things go wrong you, and only you, can rectify the situation and vice versa, when things are going well, you know that you achieved that success all by yourself which can be a very powerful feeling. 

However, just because I, or anyone reading this post (all two of your probably!), may be considered part of the 'grown up community', it doesn't mean that we can't still acknowledge those things that brought us joy in our younger years - for example, have you tried reading 'Alice in Wonderland' through adult eyes?  It's like a whole new experience, a weird and slightly darker one, but a new experience nonetheless.

So, if you ask me, it's all about growing up in the least adult way possible by not cutting out what made you happy in days gone by, and so if that means that you'd rather listen to 'Now That's What I Call Disney' instead of Radio 2 then hats off to you, because you truly are the best kind of grown up!

*Disclaimer:  I wasn't actually allergic to mashed potato, I just did not appreciate the lumps in it, although I'm pretty sure that the dinner ladies were on to me about this as the replacement for the mashed potato was one huge, under boiled potato instead!  Those pesky school dinner ladies! 

Guess who's back, back again?

Guys, it's been a while, I'm not quite sure how it's been so long since my last post - it turns out that time goes pretty fast when you're not even paying attention to the whole 'time-thing' (raise your hand if any of that made even a modicum of sense to you?  Uh huh, I feel you, it barely made any sense to me so let's all take some small comfort in that.).

Anyway, time for a casual update on the exciting developments that have occurred in my life since my last post (when I say 'exciting', I mean my version of 'exciting' - so essentially you may want to lower your expectations a little!). 

So, let's see.....let's see......right, ok, it was my birthday in December (woo!  And no, it was not on the 25th December because I am not Jesus.  There.  I said it.  Now let's all move on.).  Seeing as it was my birthday, I decided to get my nails done all quirky and stuff, my hands done all henna and stuff and my hair dyed all green and stuff (isn't 'stuff' a great word?  It's definitely not vague at all!), check it out:

 

Since my last post, I have also seen Georgia King (fans of 'The New Normal' will know who she is) on the tube holding the world's cutest dog*, bought a light-up print of 'The Snowman and the Snowdog' from my local garden centre, stocked up on Lush essentials for the winter, hit up the Ciaté sale and got some treats which I will be sure to blog about, I have become incredibly addicted to 'Jerseylicious' (thank you ITVBe, I now have no space on my hard drive because it is full of episodes of this deliciously trashy reality show - I hope you're happy?!), ordered some divine Jeffrey Campbell boots which I got for under half price (yay to life!) and have recently taken up ballet classes because I had to let my inner Darcey Bussell free somehow (now all I have to do is meet some guy from the wrong side of the tracks who happens to be a great street dancer who will teach me his rebellious dancing ways and together we will combine our insane dance skills and I will win a place at Juilliard**).

I think that all sums up what's happened since I last wrote on here so I hope it was of some interest to you and if it wasn't then that's cool but you probably should have stopped reading about three paragraphs ago.

Make sure to keep an eye out for my next blog post next week - same time, same place?  Cooool.

*Disclaimer: This may or may not have been the world's cutest dog.  Cuteness is subjective.
**Disclaimer: This may or may not be the plot to 'Save the Last Dance'.

P.S If you rap/sang the title of this blog post in the style of Eminem then please come back again.

How One Stranger Changed My Outlook on Life

You never really know when someone is going to come into your life and impact it so greatly that it changes your outlook for the better on almost everything.  I encountered one of those ‘someones’ a couple of months back when I was temping up in London, and for the first time in my life, I was completely and utterly in awe of a total stranger.

This stranger was an unassuming, kind-faced man in what I guessed to be his mid to late fifties with greying hair.  There was nothing extraordinary about this man's appearance, if anything he looked very ordinary, from the way he dressed down to the shoes he wore, but if you looked a little closer, that's when you noticed it.  This unassuming, kind-faced man was blind and he had been so since birth.

He had a soft tone to his well-spoken manner with a politeness that I had never really experienced before within the customer service oriented world.  He was led into the office, his arm looped through the arm of someone who worked within the building, and that was when I learnt that not only did this man have no sight but he was also hard of hearing and relied upon hearing aids to help him with this.  What struck me the most about this man was how he perceived his situation, he stated that he felt he was very lucky to have been born without sight rather than to have had it and then lost it.  Now, whether you agree with this statement or not is not the point, whether you agree that it's better to experience something and then lose it forever always knowing what you've lost or that it's better to have known it no other way than how it is because you can't miss something you've never had, isn't what I want to focus on.   It was this man's outlook on life that captured my attention and which I found immensely inspiring.  This was someone who had been given obstacles in life but he was grateful for how it was rather than how it could have been and what he did have rather than what he didn't have.

This man had every reason to be angry at the world but he wasn't, he was friendly and kind and thanked me over and over just for fetching him a cup of coffee.  When you come across people like that, even if it's just for a few minutes or even seconds, they can impact your life in a way that makes you look at everything differently.  How many times had I moaned about how unfair my life was just because I had missed my train or got home from work late?  How many times had I moaned about how unlucky I was just because I felt like I was the only one who had to work on a Saturday?  I realised that rather than focussing on everything that was going right in my life, I was focussing on everything that was going wrong, or at the very least, not how I had expected it to go.  I was constantly comparing myself to other people and feeling like I just didn't measure up, from my appearance to my career prospects, nothing was off limits in my one-woman pity party.

I needed to stop comparing myself to other people and start being grateful for what I did have and embrace it in the same way that this man did.  I will be forever grateful to this man for unknowingly changing my outlook on life and to me this is someone who is both admirable and inspiring as well as an example in which to follow.  I'm not saying that I won't ever attend my old pity party once in a blue moon because I'm only human, but I sure as hell will try a lot harder to tick the 'unavailable to attend' option when I next RSVP, after all, I hear the cake at those pity parties really sucks!

Happy Halloween!

*HAPPY HALLOWEEN!*

 

It's been a little while since I last blogged as I've been super busy with a bunch of stuff so apologies for my lack of presence on here.  Part of the reason as to why I've been so busy is that I've started having to commute to London which often means that I have to leave the house before 7am and I don't get home until half seven in the evening so, as you can imagine, it's pretty exhausting.  Worth it, but exhausting!

 

Anyway, seeing as Halloween has been all around us lately it seemed only right for me to commence my blogging duties by embracing all that is All Hallows' Eve!

 

I'm not great with Halloween as I'm easily scared - it took me years before I could watch Hocus Pocus without being terrified of Billy (the zombie) - I'm pleased to say that at 24 years old, I can now watch it without the fear factor, and, if anything, Billy (besides Binx the cat) is probably my favourite character in the film. 

 

My Halloween was fairly laid back this year and I basically refused to watch any full-on scary movies as I'm the kind of person where even the front cover on scary movie DVDs tend to freak me out so just watching them is pretty much out of the question!  However, I did agree to watch Tucker and Dale vs. Evil with my family which was bloody (literally) brilliant!  If you haven't seen it (and you really should) it's about two hillbillies who a group of college kids assume to be crazy serial killers, it's what I call a proper 'laugh-out-loud' movie and stars Tyler Labine, who I've been a huge fan of ever since watching Reaper (why did they have to cancel that show?  WHY?!).  It also stars Alan Tudyk who happens to be in one my of favourite (and recently-cancelled!) TV shows, Suburgatory, as well as being the voice of the Duke of Weselton in Frozen (bit of trivia for ya there!).  You should definitely check this film out if you want some giggles - be warned though, there is a bit of gore but if I can handle it, then you probably can too!

 

I was keen to make sure that my nails matched the Halloween atmosphere this year and went for some fun monster nail art which took me about an hour to do but was well worth it and resulted in plenty of compliments at work.   

 

 

I was also determined to make the most of the Halloween festivities on Friday so rocked this pumpkin crop top to the office:

 

 

I got the pumpkin tee for £5 reduced from £28 last summer from Urban Outfitters and I was so excited to finally get to wear it so thank goodness I didn't forget about it or I probably would have cried.

 

I was meant to go to a Halloween house party on Friday night but got back from work late which made it impossible to go to the party - plus I was incredibly tired from work so it was probably for the best (or at least that's what I told myself!).

 

Even on Saturday night when more Halloween revellers were out causing mischief and mayhem, I settled for a quiet dinner out with one of my best friends which, in my opinion, was much better than a night out as we were able to have a proper catch up which was lovely as we hadn't seen each other in about two months! 

 

I finished off my Saturday night with a heavenly Halloween-themed bath courtesy of Lush.  I used their Halloween Wizard Bubble Bar which smelt divine and turned my bath a stunning shade of purple and it was exactly what I needed after a long week of work! 

 

 

 

 

So Halloween this year was a somewhat relaxed affair compared to previous years but I'm kind of OK with that, as in all honestly, I just don't think I had the energy to go full throttle this year - I guess that's a sign of getting older, right?  YIKES!

 

 

 

 

Spider Lashes & Red Lips

I've never been one for a red lip, in fact, I'm far from a lipstick aficionado and normally the most you'll ever see me do when it comes to my lips is whack on some Chapstick or a sheer lip gloss.  'Why?' you may ask, well mostly because lipstick never stays on, you constantly have to reapply it and I'm always paranoid that it has somehow transferred onto my teeth - so as you can see, it's somewhat of a fraught relationship. 

However, I decided to be less Scrooge-esque in my attitude towards lipsticks (I'm still going to keep saying 'Bah, Humbug' though because it's not said enough these days if ya ask me!) and try out a red lipstick-style look:

I give great 'serious face'.

 
As you can see, I decided to keep the rest of my makeup pretty minimal and focus mostly on my lashes and my lips. 



*Act natural*

My favourite part of the look (besides my letterbox-red pout) was my spider-inspired lashes.  Normally, just the word 'spider' can offend me and make me start feeling paranoid that I have an eight-legged fiend crawling up my arm but when it comes to my lashes then I can just about put this slight qualm to one side.  I'm mature like that, you see.

I did a bit of research on spider lashes (or 'tarantula lashes' as they are also know - less comfortable with that alternative name.  'Spider' I can deal with, 'tarantula' I cannot.) and found that this mascara style features in the 'it' hair stylist and makeup artist of the moment, Lou Teasdale's, hair and beauty guide called 'The Craft' (which I am yet to buy but desperately need to)!  I love the grungy and dramatic glamour of this lash look and the simplicity of its creation - all you need are some tweezers (to clump your lashes together) and boatloads of mascara.  Simple enough! 



LEFT: one coat of Benefit's BADgal Lash Mascara on the upper lashes.
RIGHT: spider lashes using Benefit's BADgal Lash Mascara on upper and lower lashes. 

 I also used this fab YouTube tutorial to help create my spider lashes, check it out:

If you watched the above tutorial then you'll see that she used an eyeliner as well for the look which was the only thing that I didn't do as I felt that I didn't need it.   



From let to right:  Benefit High Beam (RRP £19.50), Cargo Cosmetics Water Resistant Blush in Ibiza (RRP £19), Benefit BADgal Lash Mascara in Black (RRP £17.50), No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder in Translucent (RRP £10.50), Rimmel Lasting Finish Lipstick in 220 Retro, GOSH Velvet Touch Foundation Primer (RRP £7.99), Benefit Browzings Brow Shaping Kit in Light (RRP £24.50), MAC Studio Fix Fluid Foundation in NW10 (RRP £21.50) and Revlon Colorstay Foundation for combination/oily skin in 110 Ivory (RRP £12.49).        

The rest of my makeup is pretty simple - I used my GOSH Velvet Touch Foundation Primer and mixed a splodge of my Benefit High Beam product with it and applied this all over my face and left it for about 5 minutes just to sink into my skin.  I then applied a small amount of Revlon's Colorstay Foundation for combination/oily skin in 110 Ivory to my foundation brush and applied it to my T-zone area and buffed it out so that it really was a very light and subtle application.  Afterwards, I grabbed my MAC Studio Fluid Fix Foundation in NW10 which I use as a concealer and applied it to a couple of blemishes that I have (YAY! Aren't blemishes just the BEST?!......Or not.) and finished it off with a dusting of No7's Perfect Light Loose Powder in Translucent.  Moving onto my brows, I normally use a bit of powder, wax and eyebrow gel on them to create a precise brow but this time I wanted a soft and natural look so I just lightly filled them in with the powder from my Benefit Browzings Brow Shaping Kit in Light using a soft eye shadow brush to achieve this.  I then curled my lashes and created my spider effect using Benefit's BADgal Lash Mascara in Black, I added a subtle pop of colour to my cheeks using Cargo Cosmetics' Water Resistant Blush in Ibiza and finished off with my Rimmel Lasting Finish Lipstick in 220 Retro. 

If make up products could be best friends then I'm pretty sure that these
guys would be the ULTIMATE best friends.  Whatever that means.

 
I won't lie to you, I am still wary of vibrant coloured lipsticks as I'm lazy and can't be bothered to keep reapplying my lipstick on a night out because I'd rather be shaking my booty up on the dance floor (and embarrassing myself horrendously by thinking that I can twerk like a pro when in reality I can't twerk to save my life.) but once in a while I do think that a beautifully bright lipstick is worthy of my attention because sometimes it's just nice to have a change.  The spider lashes on the other hand will definitely be making an appearance on a fair few nights out, not only do they give you lashes with drama without having to reach for the falsies but they're also so easy and quick to do - plus you can go as over-the-top as you like with them making them perfect for your Halloween makeup this month!

Let me know what you think and drop me a comment belooooow!