Costumes

I adore dressing up, I always have done. When I was little I'd always go to my auntie's house dressed up as something (usually a fairy) and I was a witch every single Halloween without fail.
I still love Halloween now, last year my friend had a party and I went as a bumble bee. Admittedly, a bumble bee doesn't sound too Halloween-y, but type in "Halloween costumes" on Google images and it's up there. I don't like buying costumes, mostly because the majority of them are a bit low, a bit short and a bit tight for my liking, and they cost about £30 which would make me feel obliged to wear it again - but I want to be something different at every fancy dress party! So, my bumble bee was a cheap DIY effort - I bought wings and a child's tutu from Poundland. I was very impressed that I fit into an age 3-5 tutu! I then bought some black and yellow netting to fill out the tutu a little more. I wore black tights and bought yellow and black legwarmers from a market hall, along with some neon yellow eyeshadow. I made a mini top hat and attached two pipe cleaner antennae, then wore a black vest top. All together it came in at about a tenner! Bargain!  
Sadly, there's no decent pictures of me in my outfit, because I prefer to hide away from the camera!


Lookbook had a competition back around Halloween time, where people were asked to take pictures of themselves in their Halloween costumes, you can look through all the entries here.
Here's a sample - they're amazing!

Hmm... D tomorrow... I'll see what I can DO!

Baking

I love baking.

I love cake, but it's not just the end product that I enjoy (though it's certainly a bonus!) It's the process of taking a few boring ingredients (have you ever tried flour? BLEURGH!) and making it into something that tastes lovely. I also like licking the bowl, even though it's extremely undignified.

I wouldn't say that I'm the most creative baker by any means, I mostly make cupcakes with buttercream icing, it's hardly imaginative or difficult. But there's still a sense of achievement at the end of it all, especially when someone (usually my mum) says how nice they are.

Despite my uncreativity, I do have several baking books, including:

Homemade baking

Next - I <3 Cupcakes

1 recipe 50 muffins

1 recipe 50 cakes

1 recipe 50 cookies

Celebration cupcakes

I have made some of these recipes (the fudge cupcakes in the Next book were divine) and I plan to do some more baking this easter - Creme egg cupcakes anyone?

I like to take photos of the end product too.

I guess we'll C you tomorrow!

April Fool's Day

I've never been all too great at the April Fool's game, mostly because I'm more of a nocturnal being and  inventing a creative prank before noon is somewhat of a challenge to me. Luckily, I'm rarely on the receiving end of any jokes either, so all's fair really.


My brother however, was on the receiving end of an almost cruel joke this morning. His friend text him to tell him some shocking news... my brother's ex was pregnant. My brother ofcourse believed this and they were texting to and fro for a few minutes before his friend finally told him that it was an April Fool's joke.


The best part of the whole she-bang was that it was a recycled prank - my brother's friend had had the same joke played on him by his friend just a while earlier!


I found the whole thing hilarious, and highly recommend this joke for next year.

Film Review - Cemetery Junction

 

Weirdly, the main character isn't the one in the middle, maybe that was the photographer's idea to trick us? I don't know.

Either way, this film is brilliant and is available from HMV for a very reasonable five English pounds, which, for a film of this quality, is a bargain.

I've wanted to see this film since it was released in 2010, purely because of the line which the main character (Freddie's) mum says:

Why do you want to go to France? There's parts of Reading you haven't seen!

It follows a group of  men in 1970's Britain, all wanting to break out of their boring hometown, but ofcourse in movie-land nothing is ever so simple! Freddie ends up falling for his boss' daughter Julie, who also dreams of leaving Cemetery Junction - there's just the slight setback of her being engaged!

It features Ricky Gervais as Freddie's father, who is pretty hilarious, although a tad offensive in a they-could-say-it-in-the-seventies way.

Wikipedia

HMV

IMBD

Buy, watch, enjoy.

AirWair

Although me and Hannah have agreed to make this more of a "Fashion and Lifestyle" blog, I thought that I would still post fashionable things, but not feel so limited that I can only write about that. As I have mentioned before, I do not deem myself truly qualified to talk about what looks good.

Last night, I went shopping with my parents (I know, aren't I the cool kid?) and went into Schuh. I adore Schuh, they have so many quirky and unusual styles of shoes that you can't help but fall in love with them. I had every intention of coming out with a pair of Irregular Choice heels - I have been eyeing up the brand for quite some years.

                                          

I asked one of the awesome looking employees for a pair in a size six, and OHMYGOD were they comfortable! They do not feel like they have the heel that they do; it's a shame I can't say the same about my prom shoes! However, after much twisting my feet around in the mirror, I decided that I barely ever wear heels and with them being so patterned, I'd probably wear them even less than I wear my black platforms!

So, I was back to square one. 

That was when my eyes drifted over the Dr.Martins stand... I've been eyeing up a pair of the floral variety ever since I became an avid fan of Lookbook and they had a Dr.Martins competition. Even my Dad liked them, I couldn't decide if this was good or bad, but seeing as he paid for them, it more than likely helped my case. They make my feet look like boats, but I don't even care.

My brother thinks they're hideous, but he wears shorts, a T-Shirt, Hi-Tops and a woolly hat all at the same time and therefore he has no opinion on the matter.

I like them, no matter what!

I live in skinnies, so they'll go with most things that I wear, and they won't look terrible with shorts & tights either!

My 10 inspirational redheaded women

Me and Holly agreed to make this more of a personal blog from now on, and I think I need to vent.
I'm having a difficult day today, not many things in particular are immediately wrong, but I'm just one of those moods where my face feels all droopy and sad.

I don't feel particularly trapped, or like I've hit a dead end today, neither infact do I feel all that hopeless and failure prone. I feel ugly, everyday I do, but that's purely superficial and shallow, today I feel inadequate, which you may not understand. Yes, without sounding as though I'm bragging, I have got into the three sixth forms I applied for basically just because of my good grades, and yes, I may have just ten minutes ago played guitar and piano, and read and drew, and walked and breathed and anything else I may take for granted.
But all this seems in vain when I know exactly what I unconditionally want. And as I think about this and what to type to put it into a words, a song called 'Miracle' is playing, and I'm starting to think I might need one.

About five minutes ago I was on Annika's blog, reading through her previous posts, I found one named, 'Ten reasons to adore redheads', and she had listed her ten most influential and inspirational red haired women. I haven't listened to my favourite band, Paramore properly in over two weeks; I was trying to give myself a break so I would appreciate them more when I listened again. And as I was reading through Annika's list, the song on my iTunes shuffle changed, and Hayley's voice sung in my ear again for the first time in what seemed like forever. As soppy and pathetic as this may all seem so far, it gets worse, I started to cry, and as the song got to the line 'and I'm sitting here all alone, feeling empty', I realised that's what I am, today I'm empty, tomorrow I might not be, who knows with my fluctuating emotions!

The song changed again to another Paramore song, 'For a Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic', and then I started to write this, how is it that a song, something you cannot touch, something not physically existing, can fill me?
And then I decided that I should write my ten most inspirational redheaded women, number 1 being, the beautiful, uplifting and seemingly endlessly positive Hayley Williams, how I love her!

Number 2, (these, like Annika's, not in any order) Lana Del Rey;

So sorry, but this is to be continued, as today is my brother's birthday, (Happy Birthday Joshy), and I do not have a time, I hope you can appreciate the first part and await eight more amazing ginger women!

Part 1 of Hannah's prom dress trilogy

I am known for my indecisive clothes buying, and a prom dress, a single prom dress for one night only, is a massive choice!

Here is the first section of my dress journey!

So my initial idea, all those months ago, was to have a gothicy black corset dress, because I liked the idea of looking all witchy and corpse bride-y! I soon found my sense and realised prom is not a dress up party, (will someone tell this to some other girls?!), and I would look an utter fool - so i did the corpse bride thing to Halloween instead!

I wanted to look like myself! Just a version I wish I looked like everyday!

So I thought, I'll have a plum dress! A nice colour, an underrated colour, a colour that is acceptable!

So,
here I go into the nearest wedding and prom dress shop, and I'm so nervous! I really hate being the centre of interest, being asked for my direct opinion and showing more flesh than I need too, and this was a frightening mix of the three!

Oh cruel attention! I really, really, really hated it, and the people were so lovely, it didn't make it any easier for me to be critical, or infact honest! The dresses were all amazing, just not what I wanted! But after trying on a grey, red, bright purple, dark green and navy blue, I wasn't sure what colour I was looking for either, but I have to say - rare moment of self - complimenting, savour it - that the dark blue didn't look too shabby against my pale skin or contrast terribly with my blue eyes.

Walking out of that shop I felt slightly more apprehensive, I really had expected to like them more than I did, was the prom dress I wanted out there at all?!

DUN DUN DUN!!


Wait for Part 2 to find out more!