Wedding Outfit: Red & White

For my friends wedding I took a leaf out of @LottieLoves1 book and went for an almost vintage look. No black, a fabulous, feel-good outfit. Like a muppet I totally forgot to take a full length photo, so here is a cobbled together (& some quite dodgy) photos to give you a feel for my outfit.

The most full-length photo I have. :(

My dress (Image borrowed from http://www.janenorman.com

My shoes (Image borrowed from http://www.mandmdirect.com)

I also had lovely red nails and a pretty red bow necklace. I also wore bright red lipstick for the first time. And LOVED it. I am usually a bit rubbish, once I leave the house, at reapplying, but to maintain the effect I made sure it stayed bright and fresh all day.

Thanks Lottie - you've done it again! :)

Weddings

Why is is that such a wonderful day can be the cause of so much stress?

I got married 2 years ago & had a fabulous day. I was calm and relaxed all morning - until walking down the aisle (but that's another story).But for my friends' weddings it's a whole other story!

Last week my friend, who I've known forever, got married and while I had my outfit ready, I didn't know what to do with my hair, I hadn't done my nails and was still rushing round first thing trying to get ready.

Tomorrow is another friend's wedding and for various reasons I am again completely disorganised! I have my dress, shoes and bag. I have no idea what to do with my hair, what jewellery to wear or how I'm going to do my make up. And while I would usually have plenty of time to get ready in the morning at this wedding my husband is best man. So we have the groom staying with us tonight and all of the ushers coming round in the morning for breakfast and to get their suits on. Which means that on top of it all I need to clean the house. Plus I am meeting the bride tonight for pre-wedding drinks, so can't spend tonight preening AND have spent the last few nights making the wedding favours (cookies) so haven't had time to practice, shop or plan!

Now I know that this is all largely down to me being completely disorganised and that at my own wedding I had everything planned - to the last detail - weeks before the big day and plenty of people round to do my hair, make up and dress me!

Having said all that - I love weddings!! I love getting ready and seeing everyone dressed up and I know that even if I did have everything planned to the 'T' something would go wrong. My necklace would break or my hair wouldn't go as it should.

I am looking forward to seeing all the boys in their suits tomorrow and being able to offer last minute wedding advice to the groom. The house will be busy & full with plenty of Champagne (& lager) and it'll feel (a little bit, I hope) like my wedding day again. :)

Website Review: MandMDirect.com

www.mandmdirect.com

I was trying to decide what to blog about tonight and have decided to start a monthly series of website reviews. I have recently been scouring the web to find a pair of red shoes to wear to my best friend's wedding (of the year) on Saturday. Apparently I have an uncanny nack of choosing just the thing nobody else wants at the time, so it's been difficult!

Anyway, the bride-to-be told me about the MandMDirect website so I went to have a look. It boasts '75% off your favourite brands'. To be honest I wasnt particularly taken with the design, this is obviously subjective and does sometimes affect my internet experience, but in desperation I powered through!

I found it easy to navigate to exactly what I wanted (women's red shoes, size 3) in 4 clicks using the 'Narrow your search' form on the left hand side and straight to a pair of Firetrap shoes for £15.93 (saving £54.06). I bought them immediately! The checkout process was easy and clear, and delivery charges were fairly reasonable for this kind of website.

I placed my order late on Thursday evening and my shoes were with me on Monday, not sure exactly what time as I was out of the house but they left them in my specified 'safe place'. The arrived in perfect condition, exactly as expected and are fab!

I was very happy with their service and will definitley shop again. My friend has used the site a few times and has had some lovely clothes at great prices, never with any problems.

(No, this isn't an advert or paid for post, neither will I profit from any links on this page, but sometimes it's nice to be nice! Bad word of mouth spreads so much faster than good service. So here is my honest review.)

Wedding Outfit

This is what I wore to my best friend's wedding yesterday.

Details
Date: 14th August 2010
Occasion: Wedding

Dress: New Look
Shoes: New Look
Bag: marc b (Not in picture)
Necklace: Outfit
Bracelet: Mum made it for me for my wedding

Water is good for you

Yup. We all know this, but it is only recently that I started making an effort to drink more water. So every morning I have a glass of water, I try to drink a litre throughout the day in work (plus whatever coffee gets made) and I have a glass before I go to bed.

Whether it actually makes a difference or is just a mind over matter thing - I don't really mind! It makes me feel better in myself, and I am sure my skin looks better too (although, this could equally be to do with my new skincare routine!) Plus it helps to reduce my hangover state! :)

I guess the point is that I have found a way to fit things I know I should be doing into my routine. It's easy and automatic. I make sure my litre bottle is filled and in the fridge before I leave work and I pick it up on my way to my desk in the morning.

101 Things in 1001 Days

On my other blog I have set myself a challenge to complete 101 things in 1001 days - starting yesterday. A few of them are related to this blog, so I thought I'd add them here too - that way there's no way for me to escape! :)

#4.  Start & stick to a beauty blog.
#7.  Sort out a walk-in wardrobe. 
#24. Be able to touch my toes.
#25. Photograph everything I wear for a month.
#26. Stick to a beauty/skincare routine.
#28. Try yoga/pilates.
#30. Own a very expensive pair of designer shoes.
#59. Try a new beauty/make-up/haircare product every month.
#66. Have a week with no alcohol at all.
#72. Hold a clothes swapping event.
#82. Be vegetarian for a week.

I am sure there are a few others on the list that could be included, but these are the main ones. For now!

Bouncing my way to fitness

In line with my new life I have decided to start exercising. I am lazy and not particularly sporty so I needed something that wouldn't take much effort (that I could do at home) and that didn't require any specific skill (catching, balance, throwing, hitting etc.)

I have been hit by the 'fitness bug' before and I purchased a mini trampoline (excuse me - rebounder) which I decided to dig out. I can do it in my living room while watching friends, it only requires me to make sure I stay on the thing and is, according to NASA, one of the best forms of exercise you can do. Perfect!

And guess what! I actually enjoy it!!

The first day I planned to do 30 minutes - I mean, how hard can it be?! Huh. I managed 10 minutes. And felt a bit downhearted, until I found this article that says you should start with 3 x 3 minute sessions a day. :) That I could manage. However I do also have to go to work, and I am definitely not a 'get up and exercise' kinda gal. So I have opted to stick to my one 10 to 20 minute session a day.

Yesterday, for the first time I managed to do a whole 30 minutes - a whole episode of Friends. And I am hoping I will stick to it.

It truly does give you a fabulously smug feeling when you're sitting on your sofa later on with a glass of wine. ;) And in some cases it will even drive you to want to be more healthy and have a glass of water instead. Just saying! Progress at your own risk....

Time for a manicure

I'll let you in on a secret. I am a nail biter. I have bitten my nails for as long as I have had them. I've been much better over the last few years and I do think that I have finally (touch wood) dropped the habit. Until I have a drink or two.

So manicures are fairly new to me as I have never had nails to work on and I am a bit rubbish at it. I kind of figure it must just be practice.... so here is my first proper attempt at doing my nails. I will say that I did have a mini manicure at a spa last weekend, so they weren't totally mishapen to start with (luckily for me!)

Before:

Here's what I did.
- Removed any nail varnish with remover, just in case.
- Washed my hands.
- Masaged cuticles with cuticle remover.
- Used an orange stick to push cuticles back.
- Masaged nails with Nails Inc oil slick pen.
- Moisturised hands with hand cream.

And that was just the prep bit!! I didn't realise how much went into it - but my hands did feel lovely and soft! :) Here are the products I used:

Then:
- Filed my nails to an (almost) square tip.
- Used a base coat with some special ingredient to help my nails grow.
- Nail varnish (finally, the fun bit!) in a very dark brown (almost black) with glittery finish.
- Nails Inc top coat to keep the colour safe.

This was the final result:

But I didn't like it. So I took it all off and did this:

And I enjoyed it so much I decided to try again on Sunday and went for blue:

I am sure there is much more detail & information I could add here - but I'll leave that for another post!  Any tips to share?

New Hair

Today I have been for a hair cut. I think the last time I went to the hairdressers was September last year - nearly a year ago!

From left to right, top to bottom: 1) This is the last hair cut I had, 2 & 3) This was my hair 2 weeks ago.

Forgot to take a photo before I went this morning! But that was the first time I had worn it down in quite a few weeks, and I have worn it up in a pony tail since - so it was definitely time to get it cut.

Now, my hair looks like this:

And it feels GREAT! There's something great about changing your hairstyle, whether a drastic change or just enough that only you notice. How about trying parting your hair to the side if it's usually in the middle? Or styling it a little differently? It can do wonders for confidence. I am a bit crap with my hair (which is why I usually wear it short) and generally do the same thing with it all the time. But I am determined to try different things with it now, and the hairdresser has cut it in such a way that I do have options, but it can also be done very quickly for work.

Skincare and Make Up Routine

This is only day 2 of my new found skincare routines, but I figure it's as good a time as any to write them down so here goes.

Morning Routine
- Splash face with luke warm water (assuming I removed make-up the night before!)
- Dab on eye cream
- Moisturise face & neck with day cream
- Light layer of foundation
- Dusting of sparkly all-over-face powder or bronzer on cheek bones
- Cover eyelids with light base eye shadow
- Add a slightly darker shade on top
- Dab a bit of even darker eyeshdow to outside corner of eye
- Mascara
- Vaseline on lips, sometimes a dab of lipstick
- Liberal spray of perfume

Evening Routine
- Remove make up with eye-make remover
- Use 2-in-1 toner & cleanser
- Moisturise face & neck with night cream
- Moisturise hands with hand cream

This is highly likely to change over the coming weeks, but its a start, and I have managed to stick to it so far!

Feel free to comment below or link to a blog post with details of your routine or where you think I may be going wrong. :)

New Start

I tend to get quite stuck into things once I start them, so the first thing I wanted to do was go through all my make up, cosmetic and skin care products and sort them out. The photo above is everything I could find in a quick 5 minute dash around my house. I probably use one tenth of it on a regular basis - if that!

A bit of background before I carry on - I have been following Lottie's Finishing School Workshop the A-Z of how to become Feminine and Fabulous. This included sorting out my wardrobe (still in progress) and the latest post challenged us to wear mascara for a week. Although I do tend to wear make up, it's not something I do religously and I don't maintain a skin care routine. So I mentioned on Twitter that it was time to start using eye cream and apparently I should have been using it for a while. :) And that is what inspired this blog.

So, back to my make up. I grabbed everything I could find, I threw away everything that had gone a bit strange, was old or that I don't use. Then I selected the products that would become a part of my daily routine (including eye cream).

From left to right I have 2-in-1 cleanser & toner, lotion & eye perfector cream on top of my am/pm 'complete balance' moisturiser and eye make up remover. I'm sure I'll go into more detail on individual products at a later date. These are now in a box next to my bed ready for my before bed routine tonight.

I also separated out the make up that I tend to wear to work so that I don't have to go searching through all the rest of my make up in the morning and don't have any excuse to not wear it:

Again, I'll describe each product in a later post. But it gives you the general idea.

Then I sorted out an 'emergency' make up kit for my bag.

The main idea being that I don't have ay excuse to not wear make up. To not look nice. To not make an effort.

My plan for tonight was to give myself a bit of a manicure...but it's late now and I have no plans for tomorrow night, so it's something to look forward to on a Friday night in.

Good night. Time for my bedtime routine I guess! :)

Welcome to my new life

Hello. I am 28 and a half years old. I know that usually the 'and a half' bit is reserved for the under 10's when the half is so important. But it's dawned on me that I now have less than 18 months before I turn 30. I am not worried about it... I am looking forward to a 30th birthday party. But this knowledge has made me re-assess what I've got going on, looking at my lifestyle and realising that maybe I do need to start looking after myself a bit better.

I don't feel 28. In fact I barely feel 20 some days, and the fact that I am only 5 foot tall and 'petite' means that I don't really look it either. Yes, I know - I'll appreciate when I'm 50, blah blah blah - but it would be nice to be able to buy vanilla extract without being asked for ID!

So I have decided to start this blog. It will look at fashion, beauty, skincare, hair, food and lifestyle in general - all in the loosest possible sense as I do not particularly follow fashion or any kind of skincare/beauty routine. This is all going to be new to me and I'll be blogging as much to keep a record for me as to offer what little insight I have to anyone that chances across this blog.

Thanks for reading!