A little bit of a lot

I am sooo sorry, its been quite a while since I've posted something :( I've been trying really hard this school year to keep up to date with work, so I've been doing lots of putting-into-folders, cutting-and-sticking and general sorting and of course, homework.... but in truth, and this might sound a bit strange, I'm actually sort of enjoying the satisfaction that I'm getting all my work done, and being organised! I feel like I'm actually achieving something, getting somewhere. Which, is great! Wonder how long its gonna last :P

So I think this is going to be a bit of a bits n bobs post, if that is okay :)

First things first, its Tania from forget me not's birthday on Sunday! So why not pop over and wish her a happy birthday on the 3rd :) I need to buy her a present... If you're reading this Tania, I'm not going to tell you what I'm thinking of so haaaaa ;)

Second,

its also Tania's sister's birthday party soonish as well, and I need to rustle up a fancy dress costume, on the theme of a 'fictional character'. Naturally, of course, I want to go as a princess :P So if anyone has any ideas or suggestions how I can become an Aurora or a Cinderella, but cheapishly, that would be wonderful!

Oh, and! I came across this amazing shoe website! It's called Discount Shoe Store, and they sell beautiful heels and other shoes for the cheapest prices ever - you can get heels for like, £10! So its definitely worth having a look, here's the link: Discount Shoe Store

I'm not sure how much they charge for postage though, I've never bought anything from there, I just admire how preeedy they are :P But I'd really recommend the 'Black Gardenia Satin Platform' shoe, I have them, but I bought them off the Barratts website a while back, and they are beautiful, and comfy too :)

And one last thing! I've been busy playing piano and singing a lot recently, which I actually LOVE! I normally learn chords or piano parts from songs I like and then sing along with them :D And, quite a lot of these are by Lady Gaga , whose music I absolutely adore (that's one of the things I put in my first blog post ever!) She has a lot of acousticky lovely music that isn't very publicised.

So one I came across about a month ago is You and I , and its going to be on her new album. (EXCITED!) I just thought I'd share it with you :) And maybe if you look out in the future I might post a clip of me singing it :P

There we go, quite a lengthy post in the end! I hope you enjoyed it!

I love all you lovely people x

Natural Beauty Treatments

We all know how many beauty products there are out there, claiming to have wonderful benefits, most with huuuuge price tags. So I've put together a few beauty treatments you can try out at home for a fraction of the price. :)

Problem: Dry, limp hair

Treatment: Olive oil

The first time I tried this, I was a little sceptical. I warmed up a small cup of olive oil in the microwave and used enough to cover all of my dry hair, using my fingers to ensure all my hair was covered. Then I left it for about 15 - 30 minutes, and washed it off afterwards thoroughly with shampoo. Make sure you thoroughly rinse it out, or your hair will be greasy, even once you've dried it. I blow-dried it and I have to say, I could REALLY feel the difference! My hair felt MUCH thicker, and very soft, and very shiny. The next day at school, several people commented on how nice it looked, even after I'd slept on it. And it wasn't at all greasy, either!

I tried it again the same week, and I didn't see the same effects, so I think its something that's best done about once a week, otherwise you overdose your hair a bit :P

RESULT: Softer, shinier, more volumised hair

Problem: Dry, chapped lips

Treatment: Sugar

Yes, believe it or not, sugar is just wonderful for this. Use some caster sugar, or any other sugar you happen to have (except icing sugar), and rub it against your lips, and it will gently scrape off dry skin. And even better, you can lick of any remaining sugar at the end! I have a posh version of this, from Lush, and its a lovely product of flavoured sugar scrub, but you really don't need to bother buying something when plain cheap sugar does just the same job. Just finish off with Vaseline, Carmex, gloss or whatever takes your fancy!

RESULT: Soft smooth lips

Problem: Spot scars

Treatment: Lemon juice

If you have ever had a horrible pimple or spot, and after time the redness and lump goes down, but you're still left with a teeny red dot? And while they are very small, once you have a few, they don't look so great? Well, I have read that applying a few drops of fresh lemon juice onto each scar and leaving for about 15 minutes, and washing off. If you do this every day for about a week, it should make them fade. I've only just started doing this, but after about two goes I think they have begun to fade a little.

RESULT: Hopefully, no more scars!

Problem: Tired eyes

Treatment: Cucumber

This works so wonderfully! It's best to chill the cucumber in the fridge beforehand, so it is very refreshing. Just cut two thin slices, lie back and relax for about 10 minutes, and afterwards, your eyes should be more awake and hopefully dark shadows should have faded. Really does make you feel better!

Result: Awakened, refreshed eyes

I hope you've learned some useful new tips! :) x

Holiday house

Regular readers will know that I recently went to France, and we stayed in a little woodland cottage the first week which which lovely, and the second week, an absolutely GORGEOUS place, done up by an extreeeemely artistic English lady. Everything in the house was wonderfully vintage and mismatched and just loverly loverly. I, of course, felt it was far too big an opportunity to miss out, so took some photos to share :)

Looking up from the stairs.

There were loads of vintagey hats and old books everywhere.

And a huuuge amount of pots, vases, glasses, ornaments, and general decoration.

I LOVE this mirror! Looks like its from a church or something :P And there were lots of those metal lantern all over the house.

Not to mention a MASSIVE collection of DVDs to keep me occupied! I just had such an amazing time :)

Someone has a new dress...

I have a story to tell. So here we go, enjoy!

I popped into Miss Selfridge the other day with my friend Rhiannon and had a look in the sale rail, and I found a lovely satin dress, that I quite liked, and it was in a size 4 too :D I tried it on, and really liked it, but it had a broken zip and I thought that it couldn't be mended. When I got home, I told my mum about it, and she said that she could really easily show me how to fix it, so I rushed back next day, and found the dress. But unfortunately, it wasn't there in a 4, a 6, or an 8. I found one in a 10 though, with a broken zip, but it was massive on me. I bought it anyway, but didn't feel too hopeful. When I took it home, my mum showed me how to fix the zip, then helped me sew in two darts which only took about five minutes, and then it fitted perfectly.

I'm so bad at taking pictures of myself xD

Its a lovely pale greeny colour, in satin. And its GORGEOUS! And the most amazingest wonderful bit of it all it the PRICE! Make a guess now... and see if you're right! You'll be surprised! It was ....

...

...

...

£3.50

I KNOW! Three pounds fifty for a beautiful prom dress! That's only 40p extra than the price of a Starbucks Vanilla Cream Frappucino (my favourite :P )

It was reduced from £50, in the sale! SOOOO happy about that! Ahh, bargains like this make life worth living :D

What bargains have any of you lovelies got recently? :) xx

(I've only just noticed I have quite obvious tan lines in this picture - you can see two white triangles where I was wearing a halterneck bikini all summer hahaha :P )

No more summer

And so, the summer comes to an end. :( And I'm back at school. I'm gonna miss just being able to sleep all the time and go out with all my friends up to London and round each others' houses... But the good news is I get to see them all at school EVERY DAY YAAY! So its not so bad.

I had another wonderful time at Tania's a few days ago, yes, the lovely Tania of forget me not . She is interested in photography, and I am always willing to offer my services as a model for her :P And she has given me all of the images, so I thought I might share some of them with you all. I've put most of them in black and white and sepia, I think they look better :)

Here's my lovely £14 New Look maxi from a few posts back, with Accessorize earrings (a present) and my bikini (we went swimming :P ) And the sunglasses are Tania's.

Wearing a Primark skater-type top, £6. With a Topshop £3 (in the sale :D ) necklace.

It was kinda windy xD

I wish everyone the best of luck for the new school year! xxxxxx

Body Shop

I have always lovvvved the Body Shop. I used to go in when I was younger and try out all the free samples with my mum :) And if I'm honest, not much has changed! I went in about a week ago with my friend to try out some of their lovely products, when I saw something AMAZING! By the door, there were little free plastic pots for you to fill with Body Shop samples and take home with you! As I'm sure you can imagine, I was insanely excited by this, and proceeded to fill as many as I could to try out at home :P In the end I left with this:

I've put together a few reviews of everything I've tried out :)

BODY SCRUB:

This is cherry body scrub (from cherries grown in Italy, the nice lady in the shop said), and it is really good. You can see some of the little black seeds in there that help to scrub off dry skin. It smells more of artificial cherry sweets than actual cherry, but I'm not complaining as I love both.

Even now as I type, I can still smell the sweet smell wafting up :P Such a lovely product :)

BODY LOTION:

These are really good, I have here satsuma on the left and strawberry on the right. The lotion is quite thin, but feels very soft and light to use. They both smell incredible, both sweet, fruity and fresh. The only thing I would say is that often they don't come out of the dispenser easily - you can see the satsuma tester is only half full. But otherwise, just wonderful.

BODY BUTTER:

I've always loved these. Much thicker than the body lotion, but incredibly moisturising. The scents aren't quite as intense, they all have a similar underlying smell, but they are very thick and feel luxurious. However they can leave your skin a little greasy if you use too much. Here I have satsuma on the left, then mango, then cherry.

SHOWER GEL:

I've never tried these before, but I have to say I'm impressed. They lather well, and the scents are great. Here I have, from left to right, strawberry, cherry and satsuma. They leave a very fruity smell in the air as well as on me :P Lovely :)

I never thought I'd like any of these products as much as I do now once I've tried them in place of other products at home, but I love them all! Whoever came up with such a great idea to take testers home is amazing! I definitely know now what I'm asking for for Christmas....

Summer

Now I'm back from holiday, my mum doesn't go back to work til I go back to school, so this is again the time of the summer when we do house projects, woo! This involves painting bedrooms (four years back), getting new wardrobes (last year), and relaying carpet (this year). So I've had eeever so much fun taking everything out of my room, and have only just put it all back. Which was kind of boring, but also really nice just to check through all my stuff, rediscover little presents or craft kits, and make everything tidy and pretty and exciting. I guess it's a good thing to have to have a bit of a clear out really. I really tried to make it look very personal so I've taken a few photos to show you all my hard work, and you can find out a bit more about me from them :)

I have a long line of all my books, in alphabetical order by author. A bit like my own little library :) I'm not particularly patriotic or anything, but I couldn't think where else to put a Union Flag and I thought here sort of worked :P

Lanyards from two concerts I won tickets for, Pixie Lott and JLS (which were both AMAZING), which I've hung here to make me look like a festivally type, haha :P You can also see the beginnings of my mini indoor jungle on the right. I love having plants in my room, makes it feel healthier :)

Here you can see my radio/tape/cd player, tuned, of course, to my favourite radio station ever, 95.8 Capital FM :D oh the love. That blue envelope under it has all my tickets of concerts I've been to in it, including the Jingle Bell Ball (I won tickets, yays! you can see a red confetti heart on the shelf above that I caught there, which I've kept just for a reminder of how wonderful it was), and Scouting for Girls :) Also a fresh rose in a vase on the far left, I love a little natural beauty.

An overall view :) I'm aiming for a warm, cosy comfy feel, but also very tidy. Haha, you can see all my cuddly toys at the top lined up in size order :P And of course my laptop so I can write to all you beautiful people :)

That's it, I hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit more about me! Also a HUGE thank you to everyone said such lovely things to me about my results :)

And its results day......

So, today came at last.... I'm not in year 11 yet, so I didn't have that many results, but but I must admit I was SO SO SO incredibly nervous. I'm extremely embarrassed to say I started crying before I even got the results, I just really didn't know what to expect! And now I can say I am so impossibly happy with them! I got:

GCSEs:
Latin - A
IT - Distinction

GCSE modules:
Physics - A
Chemistry - A*
Biology - A*
Maths - A*
DT - A*

I am so happy, I worked so hard and I'm so pleased it has paid off! I hope anyone else with results did brilliantly! :)


So, that aside, I thought I might share some of the lovely dolls' house photos I took the other day at the dolls' house shop for my art project, because the attention to detail is amazing, and I just think they're beautiful :) If you didn't know the scale, you would probably think they were actual size rooms! I hope you enjoy :)

Dolls' Houses

I love dolls' houses. Aren't they beautiful? All my life I have been fascinated by them. I have video of me at about two getting furniture for my first ever dolls' house. I wasn't a messy sort of child, I was very very very neat. I laid everything out perfectly, and you can see me adjusting the position of the pillows very very slightly, just so it was perfect. Nothing much has changed! Haha, I still tidy it up sometimes. :P

I'm trying to find a way of incorporating them into my prep for my art gcse mock as I have the idea of making a little room, about the size of a large shoebox, with everything in it, but miniature and made by me :) So for prep I've been taking some pictures of my dolls' house and I popped along to the dolls' house shop near me and took some photos.



This is what I wore on my way. I have no idea what compelled me to take this photo, I guess the sun came out and I felt inspired :P It's quite an un-me-ish outfit, but I thought it worked and its always great to try something new :) This maxi dress is from New Look, AAAND in the sale :D £14 from £30, I think. I love a good bargain, I do! And the bag is from my uncle, and the worst thing is I can't remember where its from! I know its from some of his foreign travels, but I can't for the live of me remember where! :( It's one of those things that I put in my wardrobe and retrieved recently and thought, yeah, I like this! So this is its first appearance with me :)

Holiday!

Ahh, you must forgive me! I have not blogged for like, ever! I've neglected my blog again :'( I've been on holiday in France! Which was so good, but now I need to tend to my blog :)

While I was out there, my mum was trying to immerse me in the language, suggesting I read books on french history, which I erm, refused. So our compromise was french fashion and beauty magazines :D which are basically the same ones as in Britain but translated :P And I have seen some BEAUTIFUL things which I'm going to show you.

These pictures are all scanned in from the August edition of Glamour, en francais :)



I officially love this. I just, adore fifties fashion. This is just so beautiful, so elegant, so feminine. VERY flattering, chic, glamourous, and just one of my favourite things ever. LOVE LOVE LOVE. It reminds me of when I was younger and spent all my time drawing princess dresses with tight bodices and huge skirts. So uhh, if anyone happens to have 2734 euros spare to give me to buy this outfit, then I'd appreciate it. Hahaa, I can always dream... :P








I never thought I'd actually like a all-in-one knitted ski-suit. But somehow, I love this! Knitwear is coming back and this Dolce and Gabbana jumpsuit just does it aaall for me. I adore all those patterns and the cute little reindeer :)