Saturday 29 August 2015

Summer Make Up Essentials


Hi everyone, once again this year we're having a typical English summer; wet, cloudy and chilly, great :-/  But despite that, it's still been quite humid and that can only mean one thing, frizzy hair and makeup that slides off your face within an hour of applying it!

So, I have come up with a few products that I love to use in this particularly muggy weather, that do two great jobs, they stay put and they still look pretty good.  So keep on reading to see what I use (of course this is purely makeup items and doesn't include main essential products like sun-block etc) :-)


When it's this humid, I hate using a heavy foundation, I still need a decent amount of coverage but I don't want it all feeling too thick.  So I prefer to either use a sheer foundation like the Rimmel Wake Me Up by just applying a much smaller amount than usual or you could use a tinted moisturiser or BB cream.

*Just a little extra tip, if you mix a little primer with your foundation before applying it with a brush, it will not only make it silky smooth to apply, but also your foundation will last all day through the warmest of weathers!  If you want to find out some more good beauty hacks, look out for an upcoming post in a few weeks time!

Of course concealer is still essential, but I find using a small amount of my Collection concealer, does the job just as well as using a lot of it but without the heaviness.

One of the best makeup items ever and my go-to product has to be powder, the Soap & Glory Kick Ass powder to be exact.  This stuff is amazing, it makes my foundation and my skin look flawless, keeps everything in place and lasts all day, I love it!


If you feel you just have to add blusher/bronzer/highlighter, just add the smallest amount, the idea here is just to use the basics and the bare minimum so as not to overload your face with products that will eventually fade and slide off!  I tend to use just the smallest amount of blusher just for a little colour (being this pale, I kinda have to!)  I like this Max Factor Cream Puff one, as it's quite sheer but leaves a really pretty glow.



I love using very pale but shimmery eyeshadow shades in summer and I often use just one shadow, it just helps to give a nice barely there look but still have a little sparkle :-)  One of my favourites is this Excess Shimmer eyeshadow creme in Copper by Max Factor, but I also love the Collection Eyes Uncovered (Nude Grey) palette which has some really pretty shimmer eyeshadows in, Under The Moon being one of my favourites, I've talked more about this particular palette in my Spring Favourites earlier this year.

But the real star of the show and one of my favourite products for Summer, is a pencil eyeliner.  Especially something like the Urban Decay 24/7 liners, mine is Stag, a gorgeous rich dark brown.  It's really easy to smudge and blend and it lasts all day.  Often I'll just use this and no shadow, plus of course mascara and that creates quite a nice look that's really quick and simple to do.


Of course you really can't forget mascara, if there's one thing I can't leave the house without, it has to be this!  I always wear one that I know will stay put the best and not flake or fade off even I'm hot and my lashes start to get oily.  As you probably know by now, my favourite is still the UD Perversion, I just love the look it gives, the volume and it always stays in place until I get home no matter how hot or how long my day has been!  But my new favourite has to be the Maybelline Lash Sensational, The wand creates a gorgeous fan with the lashes and keeps the false-lash look all day.

For my brows, when it's really hot, I don't tend to bother with them too much unless they're looking particularly uncared for!  In which case, I just apply a tiny bit of my Rimmel Brow This Way clear gel to keep them in their place.


Lipsticks; as wonderful as they are, I find it so hard to find a good one that will last especially in hot weather.  So slicking on a nice tinted gloss is usually all I do, Tanya Burr's Aurora or Smile Dream Sparkle are a couple of my favourites.  Alternatively, something like the Maybelline Color Drama lip pencils are really great and stay put quite nicely and they're quite moisturizing too.  Another favourite (as you might know by now) is the Soap & Glory Gloss Sticks, I just love the Raplumzel, it's a lovely sheer glossy cherry red that leaves a bit of stain even when it's worn off, so you're never left completely nude lipped :-)

I hope you like this post and found it helpful.  What products do you find are the best in the warmer weather, let me know in the comments :-)

Until Next Time Stay Happy

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Friday 21 August 2015

Summer Favourites 2015


Hi everyone, oh wow I can't believe I'm writing my Summer favourites already, I swear, doing these seasonal favourites posts really seems to make the year go by a lot faster, or is that just me!?  I'd better get thinking about my Autumn favs as that'll be coming around soon too lol
Ok, so enough rambling and on with the things that I've been loving over the last few months.



So to start off with, I finally got my hair cut!  I'd been wanting it done for absolutely ages and I finally got it done at Wild Hairdressers by the lovely Rachel back in May.  When my hair gets to a certain length I tend to just get really fed up with it, it gets in the way all the time and drives me crazy, so by this point I was almost ready to chop it all off myself!  I had about 4-5 inches off the length and slightly curved around my face.  I'm still really happy with it although amazingly I think it's grown a couple of inches already, so I may have to have a trim again soon.  I'm not one for fussing with my hair, I don't have the time and no matter what I try and do with it, nothing seems to work, so the thing I love about this style on me is that I can just brush and go :-)


I love GIF posts, I think they're hilarious and I just couldn't help wanting to do my own.  The first one I came up with was my Pet Hates post back in May and then I wrote my All Men Are Beasts post about a month ago.  I just find them so, so funny and it's just nice to do a light-hearted post ever now and again, so I've really been enjoying them too.


I wanted to include this card in my favourites post this time because it was given to me by one of my best friends last month and it really meant a lot.  They wrote some really lovely things in there, I even had a tear or two while reading it, and it was just such a lovely wonderful thought, so thank you FB, you're the best xxx


Ok you might think why am I adding this as a favourite!  But, I just love it, I've been putting it on everything lately and it's SO good!  I have it on toast, scones, it's gorgeous on croissants too.  You could also have it with pancakes, muffins, crumpets, dip strawberries in it or of course have it on it's own with a very large spoon! :-) Yum
I love re-watching old favourite tv shows and over the past few months I've been really enjoying Roswell High.  It's a show that I used to love years ago and I hadn't seen it for a really long time, so I thought I'd re-watch them all.  It's basically about 3 aliens (in human form) that go to school and live a life in Roswell New Mexico, and their 3 human friends.


Of course there's romance and lots of action, some really great gripping story lines and a good bit of eye candy.


It stars the extremely gorgeous (but slightly younger) Jason Behr and the very talented Katherine Heigl.


I adore notebooks, the prettier the better.  I use them such a lot of the time as well, for notes, lists and of course my blog planner for when I'm working on posts etc (which you can read about here).  I bought the beautiful rose collage book (with the bicycle, bird and Eiffel tower on) from ebay for about £2.75, they also do an A4 size and I love that it has pink lines on the pages, so cute.
The other collage book I bought from Tesco but I've had that for quite a while, it's still one of my favourites though, and the sweet floral one in the middle is also from Tesco and I only bought that a few weeks ago.  I'm not too sure what to use this one for yet, but no doubt I'll come up with a plan soon, just so I can use it.


I have always really loved the Candy Rose collection at Dunelm Mill and I've had the lovely mug and a bowl (which I use when I'm baking) for quite a while but a few weeks ago, the mug got chipped when it was being washed up.  I was so sad because I thought Dunelm had stopped selling them but after a quick search on their website I spotted it, and added it along with a few other bits to the cart.  I love the mug so much I wasn't taken any chances in case this one got broke as well, so I ordered 2!  I also got the pasta bowl and this beautiful tray as I thought it would be an ideal photographing background (blogger-brain)!  I then placed the order and within a day it was ready to pick up at my local store.  While I was in the shop the next day, I also spotted these beautiful pale pink and vintage pink artificial roses, they were only £2.49 each.  I've been looking for something like this for literally the last couple of years!  So I was thrilled with these, I think they'll look gorgeous in photos and in my shabby chic inspired bedroom too :-)

I must have been on Google Play nearly every day over the past month.  I've been obsessed lately with various different apps but mainly with photo editing ones.  I've found some really great ones that I love to use, if you follow me on Instagram you would probably have seen some of the pictures I've been playing around with.  I'm also going to be doing a post within the next few weeks about my favourite apps and which ones I find the best for all my blogging needs.


For a very long time, I've been designing and making greeting cards, it's something I really enjoy doing and it's also part of my job but I haven't done it regularly for quite a long while.  I just wanted to add it in as a 'favourite' this time because I feel like I've really re-discovered cardmaking and I really want to get back in to doing it a lot more regularly.  If you keep a look out for the new Making Cards Christmas Special this year, you'll see the cards I was working very hard on about a month ago and I hope to do a more in-depth post about it at some point too, as it's a side of my life that I haven't really mentioned on my blog before but I would like to share with you all.



This is just a little extra I wanted to add in, I found this gorgeous little silver bow ring while I was in Claire's Accessories back in June, when I was out shopping with my friend and I was so pleased as I've been looking for one like this for ages.  I think it was only about £1.50 and it fits perfectly too, I'm so happy with it :-)


Lastly I've been loving finding new music on YouTube recently and I have stumbled on some amazingly talented people lately, one in particular and I have been listening to his music Non-Stop!!  But I'm not going to tell you who they are at the moment or add any links, because I will be doing a whole post about my Favourite New Music within the next few weeks, to tell you all about them in detail, because I'm loving it! So keep a look out for that too :-)

Until Next Time Stay Happy
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Thursday 13 August 2015

Life Lately. . . August 2015


Hi everyone, well it's been 3 weeks now since my last post.

I love my blog, I love writing my posts, working hard on every part of my blog and I am constantly grateful for every single follower I have and every single one of you that reads my posts.  But sadly, all I seem to be doing lately is making excuses and apologising for late posts and not keeping up with my old regular schedule.  So I thought I would fill you in on what's been going on in my life lately that has taken priority over working on my blog.


The main thing that has taken up my time and my thoughts over the past month, has been one of my close family members who has been very unwell.  Of course without going in to too much detail, they were rushed in to hospital half way through July.  I stayed with them, even staying overnight for several days, I helped look after them when they came back home for about two weeks, and then I stayed with them again when they had to go back in to hospital for a week!  So to be totally honest, my mind has been solely concentrating on them and the worry of everything that has been going on.  I really didn't want to let my readers down and miss another week but I just couldn't concentrate or focus on thinking about a post and I didn't want to upload a half-hearted effort, just for the sake of it.

My relative is still really unwell at the moment but I'm sitting here now with fingers crosses, preying and hoping they will gradually get better.  It's been and still is a very stressful time!

But despite this, hopefully I will be able to get back to concentrating on other things in my life as well; like my work (which I'm so behind on), my friends - which I feel I have also neglected a lot lately and yet they have all been amazingly supportive (and I love you all to bits if you're reading this!) and of course my blog, which I desperately want to get back in to working on, I've missed doing it and I've missed interacting with you guys too on my various social media's.


And finally, I just want to say a HUGE Thank You, to all of you that have been patient and stuck with me and to all my new followers, for giving me and my blog a chance.  I'm so grateful for your support and encouragement.  Big Hugs to all of you :-D

So Until Next Time (hopefully next week), Stay Happy

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