22/5/2013 - OOTD

Hey hey!

Another day, another outfit - finally something relatively Summery!

T-shirt - Primark

Necklace - Vintage

Skirt - H&M

Bag - Zara

Shoes - Office 

(via charity shop)

How cute is this t-shirt? I was taking back trousers to Primark but has lost my receipt so had to find other things to exchange for them. Wondering around aimlessly with socks and hair bobbles to make up the difference, I spotted this t-shirt for only £4 and knew I had to have it! It's so cute and will be so easy to wear, such a bold print requires minimal accessorizing - easy peasy!

19/5/2013 - £4.99 O.P.I. Nail Polishes and £2.99 Essie Nail Polishes?!

If there's one thing I pride myself on when it comes to buying beauty products, it's my bargain hunting abilities. Hence my new additions to my constantly growing nail polish collection - 3 O.P.I. polishes for £4.99 each (R.R.P. £11.99) and 3 Essie polishes for £2.99 each (R.R.P. £7.99) - courtesy of good old pensioner-favoured Watt Brothers, Glasgow.

O.P.I. 'Tickle My France-y' - 'Kiss Me On My Tulips' - 'I Brake For Manicures'
Essie 'Cascade Cool' - 'Bikini So Teeny' - 'Off The Shoulder'

I've never tried any O.P.I. products before but I've heard great things. However, I cannot and will not spend £11.99 on a singular nail polish. I thought this would be a good chance to give it a go but decided to play it safe with some neatural tones ('Tickle My France-y' is a dusty pinky-nude while 'I Brake For Manicures' is a deep purpley-brown) and a staple hot pink in the form of 'Kiss Me On My Tulips' which I've been in need of for a while. I've tried out all three colours and am pleased with all of them. 'Kiss Me On My Tulips' and 'I Brake For Manicures' are both really opaque and only require two coats. They're also both pretty quick-drying, while 'Tickle My France-y' is a little more sheer and requires 3 coats, plus a longer drying time. I've been looking for a really natural wearable nude for my graduation next month and have finally settled on 'Tickle My France-y'. I might try and make another trip into Watt Brothers this week and pick up some more colours while they're such a great price!

As for the Essie polishes, the 3 shades I got are all from their Spring/Summer 2012 collection - presumably why they're only £2.99. 'Cascade Cool' is a lilacy-pink with a slight shimmer, 'Bikini So Teeny' is a lovely and very unusual mix of lavender and powder blue (again with a slight shimmer) and 'Off The Shoulder' is an opaque coral-toned pink. My favourite is probably 'Bikini So Teeny' which is very similar to Models Own 'Beth's Blue' which is one of my all-time favourite nail polishes, but I like that this one is shimmery while 'Beth's Blue' is completely opaque. The Essie polishes were only availiable in these colours, but there were about 7 or 8 shades of O.P.I. to choose from so if you're a fan of either brand but not their steep R.R.P., I'd say get yourself down to old-lady-favourite Watt Brothers pronto!

Have you tried any of these colours? 

17/5/2013 - MAC, YSL & Benefit Goodies

Bonjour!
As I'm sure many a beauty lover knows, this week is Debenhams Mega Week, meaning 10% off all beauty and fragrance which is amazing! Combine that with 20% staff discount and you're onto a winner. An expensive winner, but a winner none the less. I've had my eye on a few items but I've been holding off for this event to treat myself. I didn't mean to spend quite this much, but hey ho, you can't take it with you as they say!

Benefit 'They're Real!' Mascara - £19.50 - 10% = £17.55 - 20% - £14.04
YSL Baby Doll Mascara Sample - FREE
YSL Rouge Volupte Shine Lipstick - '9' -  £24 - 10% = £21.60 - 20% = £17.28
MAC Pro Longwear Lipglass - 'Boundlessly Beige' - £17 - 10% = £15.30 - 20% = £12.24
MAC Cremesheen Lipstick - 'Creme D'Nude' - £14 -10% = £12.60 - 20% = £10.08
MAC Amplified Lipstick - 'Morange' - £14 - 10% = £12.60 - 20% = £10.08
MAC Pigment - 'Vanilla' - £16.50 - 10% = £14.85 - 20% = £11.88

Yes, that is a grand total of £75.60, you little mathematically geniuses you. 'Oops' would be an understatement - although the fact that pre-discount, it would be £105 makes me feel slightly less guilty.

So far, my favourites would have to be the MAC 'Vanilla' Pigment, MAC 'Morange' Lipstick and of course my YSL lipstick, although that may be slightly due to it's beautiful packaging. The only one I don't like is 'Creme D'nude', it's just too pale for my similarly-pale colouring, although I'm going to try and make it work by maybe using it as a base or by mixing it with another colour.

Hope you guys enjoyed and aren't judging me for spending this amount of money on make-up in one go! Stay tuned for reviews and let me know if you're tried any of these products.

14/5/2013 - OOTD

I have a cheek to call this a fashion blog when I haven't done an outfit post since February. My apologies for that! I thought today that it was about time I changed that so here we go, what I wore today to go shopping with my mum.

Shirt - H&M

Jeans - Primark

Satchel - Warehouse

Shoes - Topshop

You know those items of clothing that you love, but never seem to wear all that much? This shirt is one of those items in my wardrobe. It's so pretty and unique and really easy to wear but I always seem to forget I own it. I'm going to make a real effect to get lots of use out of this little beauty during Summer - it's my perfect top for hot weather, light fabric, tropical print, but covers my arms, the least favourite part of my body.

13/5/2013 - D.I.Y. Phone Case

I have a joke for you all....how do you know when someone has an iPhone? Because they'll tell you. Har har har! If there's one thing that really annoys me, it's iPhone users who refer to it as their iPhone. Just call it "your phone", we don't need to know the brand! I don't call mine my Nokia! Anyway, although I don't have any particularly desire to own an iPhone, I am a little bit jealous of all the choices of cases that iPhone and BlackBerry users have to make their phone's pretty compared to my Nokia E63 which is next to impossible to find a case for. After having my phone for nearly 3 years, I decided I've had enough of my boring navy plastic cover and that I was going to take matters into my own hands and get creative - this D.I.Y. is the result!

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

- A plain coloured phone case - I bought mine from eBay for £1.45.

- A can of spray paint suitable for whatever your phone case is made of - in my case (no pun intended!) plastic - I bought mine for 99p from The Works.

- A variety of flat-back stones, studs, beads, rhinestones - whatever tickles your pickle - I bought mine from The No.1 Bead Shop, Glasgow.

- Superglue suitable for use on whatever your phone case is made of - again, plastic in this instance, and again, I bought mine from The No.1 Bead Shop, Glasgow.

- 2 pairs of rubber gloves. Don't waste your money buying them from art or creft shops as they tend to be extortionately over-priced. I'd recommend trying pound shops or the free ones you get next to the pump in petrol stations.

- Old newspapers.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

1 - Spread out your news paper as wide as space will allow. I'd save 1m squared at minimum, spray paint goes much further than you'd expect.

2 - Make sure your phone case is clean and dry and place it in the centre of the newspaper.

3 - Put on your first pair of rubber gloves and shake your spray paint well.

4 - Spray your case with a thin layer of paint, ensuring that you don't apply so much at any one time that it begins to bubble or create pools of paint. Allow to dry completely then repeat this until the colour is as opaque as you want it to be. Make sure you do your spraying in a well ventilated place, or even better, outside. I did mine in my garage floor with the door wide open.

5 - Allow your case to dry completely overnight.

6 - Start to play about with where you want your embellishments to be until you're happy with your final design. If what you come up with is complicated or you think you might forget it, take a photo of it and print it out to have beside you for reference.

7 - Put your second pair of rubber gloves and begin to glue your embellishments onto your case. If whatever you're using is particularly small or fiddly, try using tweezers to place them on. Make sure not to use too much glue, the last thing you want is glue seeping out from underneath.

8 - Leave to dry over night.

9 - Put your case on your phone and display oh-so proudly!


THE END RESULT

TAAA DAAA! For my final design, I just ended up sticking to black-on-gold as although the whole thing is a quite an over-the-top look, I didn't want to go too massively 'blingy'. I understand that my particular design might not be to everybody's taste (which is fine, variety is the spice of life!) but I'm really happy with the end result and even those it's quite bulky, I don't plan to use it everyday, just for special occasions, nights out etc. so I don't mind one little bit!

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this slightly different post - if you've customised your phone, link me below, I'd love to see!

12/5/2013 - 2 pairs of Office shoes for £7.50...?!

My oh my has it been a looong since I last went charity shopping! With all my uni work over the past few months, I've never found the time as my uni isn't near my usual charity ship route. However, today, my mum and I went to donate some stuff to The British Heart Foundation and I struck gold! 2 pairs of brand new, never been worn Office shoes for £7.50 in total! Does it get much better than that?!

Genuine leather block heel shoes - £3.50 - Leatherette flatforms - £3

How amazing? I'm usually a bit funny about buying second hand shoes cause I don't like the thought that some strangers sweaty feet having been inside them, so the fact that these are both brand new and unworn is a massive plus for me. The heels are so cute and have a great vintage feel to them, although the low block heels means they can be worn quite casually, while the flatform pumps are so on-trend at the moment with spongy foam soles which makes them so comfortable. The only downside is walking in the flatforms as you can't bend your feet - I'll have to endure some Cinderella moments til I get used to them...

Any amazing second hand bargains recently? Share! :)

10/5/2013 - My favourite Spring nail polishes

Hiii! Right, before we get into this, can we all just take a second to go and look outside? (If you like in the UK). Go on, put your laptop down, stand up, go and walk over to the window and appreciate the beautiful....CLOUDS! After what feels like the longest and most miserable Winter ever, Tuesday was glorious sunshine here in Glasgow (which believe me, is rare!) which put me in the mood to show you all my favourite nail colours for Spring time - especially because I can't go out until work at 6pm cause I'm waiting for the handyman to come and fix my broken washing machine. Exciting day for me, eh?

Left to right - Revlon 'Peach Melba'. Essie 'Fear or Desire' (which I reviewed here), Models Own 'Pastel Pink', Accessorize 'Electric Purple', Rimmel Lycra Pro 'Aqua Cool', Barry M 'Cyan Blue'.

Now I know Summer nail colours are traditionally pastel or bright, correct? For Spring though, I don't like to be too massively overly-sunny because you never know when the heaven's are going to open up and pour down with rain! Revlon 'Peach Melba', Models Own 'Pastel Pink' and Rimmel Lycra Pro 'Aqua Cool' are slightly more muted, and go with most looks, while Essie 'Fear or Desire', Accessorize 'Electric Purple' and Barry M 'Cyan Blue' are most statement and look amazing against a plain black outfit, something I love. I've had Barry M 'Cyan Blue' for years, I think I was about 18 when I first bought it, but I've only recently rediscovered it and am absolutely loving it. I think it'll look so pretty on my toes when the nicest weather really gets underway!

Hope you enjoyed - what nail colours are you loving at the moment?