Book review:)

Recently, I've tried to get back into the habit of reading. Reading for me is not a chore, it is really relaxing, and sends me off into a good deep sleep. I always forget about how beneficial reading is for me, and how I lead an extra life through characters in books. Call me a freak, call me weird but if you read books you'll understand what I'm saying.

A few weeks ago, I finished reading "ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES" by Jennifer Niven. I was a little reserved about reading the book, because I knew it was going to be a sad one, which it most certainly was!

What is the book about?
All the bright places is about a girl (Violet) and a boy (Theodore (Finch)) who are both having suicidal thoughts. Without giving too much away it is really hard to say what the book is about but on the cover of the book it says: The story of a girl who learns to live from a boy who wants to die." You probably now see why this book is very emotional and leaves you with so many emotions.

Where did you hear about the book and why did you buy it?
I didn't necessarily hear about the book from anyone, I was just browsing online because I was given a gift card and I loved the design on the front. Yes you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but I did okay and I'm not ashamed of it:P. Coincidentally, it was in Zoella's monthly favourites around the time I eventually bought it, which made me want to read it more.

Why should you read this book?
You should read this book because although you may think that it's obvious what the book is about, but you really don't. The story is not only about love, but it was about the way in which we deal with things. The book, for me, was a real page-turner and kept me awake for nights trying to read to the end of a chapter. The book is engaging and interesting, and has so many hidden mottos inside.

What I liked most about the book?
I think, if I really had to choose, my favourite part of the book is how the ending is worded, and how lovely it is. I would say but it would be a major spoiler alert, but honestly it is so sweet and I love it a lot.

Who I'd recommend it to:
This book is definitely one for the teenage years and upward, if not a little later. I think this is a great book for friends to give to one another for Christmas, or even for your Mum maybe, it's a really humbling story.

Buy it now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Bright-Places-Jennifer-Niven/dp/0141357037
Thank you for reading,
Subscribe if you haven't already,
Speak soon:)

Everyday makeup routine:)

7am every morning and I'm up, getting ready for the day. Most of the time this means that I’m sat down, applying lipstick, or curling my eyelashes. One thing that I cannot stress to you enough is that I do not wear makeup to hide my face, I do not wear makeup to be popular and I do not wear makeup to show off. The reason I wear makeup is because I want to, its because its something that interests me, like a sport may interest you.

This is obviously Zoella’s makeup bag from her range of products, and inside here I have all of my products that I use everyday. This includes makeup brushes, and pre-makeup base products, along with all the lovely little luxuries inside. This makeup bag costs £8 and is the perfect size for your basic, everyday essentials (well for mine it is). The first thing I do is pin back my most annoying fringe or tie back my hair.

Then, being the most important step in my makeup routine, I moisturise my skin. The one moisturiser I swear by is the simple light hydrating moisturiser. I put this on as soon as I wake up, faff around with other stuff for 10 minutes and then rub in another layer, so that my skin is very well hydrated. I like the fact that this moisturiser soaks into the skin, and doesn’t leave it looking too greasy or shiny. It also acts as my primer as that isn't a step for me usually.

The next thing that I like to do is apply my foundation/BB cream. Quite often I mix the two, so that the foundation isn't too heavy on my face. More often than not I will use my trusty Nivea BB cream in the colour natural. If I’m using a BB cream I will use my hands and work a small amount onto the skin, then taking my real techniques buffing brush and working this is further. However if I use foundation I apply with my foundation brush and then buff it in using the same buffing brush.

I then take the MaxFactor pan stick concealer and lightly dab a little under my eyes and around my nose. This concealer is very full coverage and so therefore is only needed in very small amounts. I use the colour 13 nouveau beige, which is the perfect colour for my skin. For this I use the real techniques buffing brush. The next thing I will do is take the setting brush and using my Rimmel stay matte powder, I will just set under my eyes. Most of the time I don’t need to set my makeup, as I find that I just don’t need to but if I’m going to be wearing makeup particularly long or need it to stay for a certain length of time I will apply powder.

Then I take my fluffy crease brush by Real Techniques and sweep on a little of the copper colour in the Revolution Iconic 2 palette. This palette I have been told is a dupe for the Naked 2 palette, and if it is then I am sure you could use the Naked 2 palette in the same way. The reason I love this palette is it has got such a good range of colours and the colour pay-off is just excellent. I then take a little of the lighter brown shade (yes, I’ve hit pan on that one) and lightly taking it through the socket line, to define the eye. I by no means go all out with my eyes on an everyday basis because I try to keep the look quite neutral and laidback.

I don’t often make the effort to do eyeliner but if I do I use a mixture of the MUA extreme line eyeliner and a No7 one. I find that the MUA eyeliner is amazing for lining the actual eye and the No7 better for a cat eye, just because of the shape of the nib. They are both liquid pen styles, which I find the easiest to use. The way I create a cat eye effect is with a plaster. Some people use a spoon or tape, or free hand, which I sometimes do but using a plaster is the best way I’ve found. Plasters are meant for your skin which is a pro of using them because they don’t irritate your skin. I just put the straight edge where I want the flick to go and then I draw it on. It’s so simple and quick that way.

Then I do my brows, which to be fair probably takes me the longest in the morning, especially when I haven’t had them waxed for more than about 4 weeks. All I do is brush them through with a little brow comb and then take my brow definer brush and a little bit of the Revolution eyebrow kit in medium brown. I run this through the brows, in light strokes, and then define the arch. This is increasingly difficult because there are stray hairs all over my brows at the minute so I’m going to have them done tomorrow (thank the lord). Then, after a good few minutes of matching up, I take some of the Maybelline brow drama and run this through the brows. This picks up all the little hair and sets them in place.

I then apply some Lash Sensational Mascara, which I have been loving and apply a good thick layer onto my lashes. It curls them, elongates them, and volumises them. It is just amazing. I then use some of the Maybelline New York rose rush lipstick in 940, which is a pretty, rose pink. It is a moisturising matte lipstick, but I do like to put some of the menthol pink baby lips on top.

Thank you for reading,

Leave comments on anything you’d like to know,

I’ll see you very soon,

Bye:)

Makeup/beauty favourites recently!

Ahhh bliss, the nights draw in at 6 and the hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream are cracked open, as we spend many an evening warming our hands by the fire! Yes that's right, it's Autumn and thank god too, it's my favourite time of the year.

One of my most favouritist, preciousist and most essentialist (I have amazing grammar okay) to do in Autumn is a smoky eye and great palettes achieve great things! I absolutely love the bare Browns palette by chilli pepper London. It has the perfect balance of warm toned colours. My favourite, by fair, is the gold shimmery shade. The colour is a pale gold,but it is definitely a build-able colour. It is so pigmented and doesn't crease on the eye, as it shouldn't. I love the lighter brown too. The browns are a sort of brown, greyish shade, but they are perfect to use as a shade in the crease, to line the eye or as eyebrow shades for me. The Chilli Pepper eye shadow palettes come in a range of shades and are so affordable, they only cost £6 for 4 beautiful, pigmented shades. You can't really go wrong to be honest.

Another beauty favourite of mine is the Real Techniques Buffing Brush. Now, I realize I previously mentioned in an older post how I would rather pay for a brush not a label, but I was bought the Sam's picks set for my birthday last year, and I have to say they are great brushes. I really like the buffing brush, I use it for most things, but i especially love it for blusher. It is the perfect size, and makes blending blush a lot easier. I also like using it to set my concealer under my eyes, it is great! I feel like it is really similar to the Real Techniques sculpting brush, but it is a circular brush, which personally I really like. 

These brushes are also really easy to wash, and hold their shape. The hairs of the brush don't come away, the brush is pretty much the same as when I got it. I still love the Primark P.S. brushes, and they are a lot more affordable than the Real Techniques brushes, and are the same softness.

I have also been loving some jewellery that my friend Hannah gave to me. I can't remember exactly what brand it was, I'm pretty sure it was FatFace but I couldn't be certain. However I really like these bracelets, as the colours aren't really bold, more like pastels and were a set of around 7. The ones in the picture are my favourites, but I really like the set as a whole. I've also been loving a nighttime themed set of bracelets I bought from New Look in the sale a few months ago.

And last but not least, I have been thoroughly enjoying using the Rimmel Kate Moss lipstick in the shade 111, Kiss of life.

 It is a moisturising red lipstick, that is slightly mattifying, and has amazing staying power. I also really liked the look of 107 but I feel like cherry red lipstick doesn't suit me.

These lipsticks are really affordable and are long wearing, so I rarely have to apply this twice in one day, and I'm not going to lie but I don't think I'd have to apply it again if I didn't take it off and wore it the next day, I'm not even joking.

Thank you for reading, I hope you had a great weekend and I'll be back on Thursday with a new post!
Bye:)

Sorry:/

You may have noticed, or may not have, that I have taken down tonight's post! I wasn't happy with it and want to do a much better post so hopefully I'll upload it on Sunday, sorry ♡ 

Autumn smoky eyes♡

Autumn has arrived, 'tis the season for electric blankets, mugs of hot chocolate and most importantly Autumn makeup! It's time to crack out your orange and warm toned browns and home in on smoky eyes, with nude lips or nude eyes and dark lips! 

I love to mix and match my colours, no two smoky eyes of mine will be exactly the same, but a really elegant smoky eye is one of my favourites. You don't need a face of makeup for a smoky eye either, just a spot or two of concealer and a lipstick could do you for a whole day, paired with a little powder to control your pores. I love this palette which is Frontcover's winter box palette thing, because it has a variety of warm and cool toned colours. 

Along with this I take my MUA bronzer which I've shown on here before probably about a year ago. I use this bronzer as an eyeshadow and even though you may be thinking why the hell would you use bronzer as eyeshadow, it really works for me as it is a warm orangey tone, bringing out the hazel in my eyes. 

I also take a little bit of a copper shadow from revolutions iconic 2 palette, just to sweep across the finished look to add a little sparkle, I also run this along my waterline to brighten up the eye.

I also use Makeup academies fine line eyeliner, I've tried a few eyeliners, like no7 and collection and they've all been a bit rubbish and at the same time I would not spend over £20 on one from benefit, so when I found MUAs fine liner I instantly fell in love. It not only has great staying power, it's also really easy to apply and also wipes away with ease, so your not madly wiping away at your eye, pulling out all of your eyelashes at the same time. The other thing too is that I have really sensitive skin and so a thick product can really irritate my skin, however this product really works and does not leave my skin feeling anything less than normal:)

To recreate this look you could use similar products or just swap out products for ones of your own, tailoring the style to you. 

First of all I took iron stone from the front cover box palette which is a greeny toned brown and swiped this all over the lid.

 I did this lightly because I wanted a more orangey toned brown on my eye but you could really go to town with this shade and make the look a lot more greeny! 

After blending iron stone a little just to soften the shadow I took the darkest brown in the iconic two palette and lightly traced my crease, rocking the brush back and forth to provide a transition colour for our actual prominent shadow to blend to. 

Then taking the Mua bronzer in shade 2 I applied this generously to my whole lid, slightly dampening the brush to make the colour stand out even further. Blend this in and blend it into the darker brown shade in the crease so that you do not have blocks of colour but a nice gradient. 

Taking the same dark brown shade I added a little black eyeshadow and focused a lot of drama to the outer corner of my eye again sweeping this through my crease. For a more dramatic look you could take the further and further toward the tear duct, depending on how prominent you want your eyes to be. 

I then took a setting brush (random I know) and lightly added the copper colour to the eye, just delicately to make the eye sparkle. This added a little shimmer and sort of completed the look. This stage is optional, you could stay for a very matte bold eye or make it a little more shimmery with a touch of glitter, whatever you like it's totally up to you. 

I then added a thin line of eyeliner really close to my lashes and then a really thin line from just below my bottom lash line line, following the eye until the two lines meet. I then created a flick by drawing from the bottom line up and increasing the thickness to an amount I was happy with. 

I then took the copper shimmery colour that I used on my eye and packed this very delicately onto my waterline with a Barry m eyeshadow brush. This really helps to open up the eye and to make the eye stand out a lot more. 

And finally to round it all off I applied lots of mascara to add another dramatic element to the look. You can add as little or as much mascara as you like, making sure none goes onto your smoky eyes;)

I then proceeded to fill in my brows, highlight my brow bone, add a bit of concealer and a nude lip, finishing a really fun, creative and simple makeup look that is really effective and can be tailored to suite most occasions, and can be done with many different gradients of colours! 

Thank you for reading,

Make sure you've subscribed if you would like to be updated on when I post and add my Instagram and snap chat for updates too. Leave a comment if you like too, on any suggestions or questions etc. 

See you soon,

Bye;) 

Baking ~ chocolate brownie cookies:P

Heyyyyy,

So I made chocolate brownie cookies and they were delicious; I just had to share them with you! This is Tanya Burr's cookie receipe but I just took different amounts of chocolate and played around with it to create these wonderful brownie like cookies. These are perfect as a big chunky cookie for pudding or as a little treat. I also made one without all the chocolate inside and the cookie mixture without the chocolate is divine, although it tastes better with chocolate if I'm honest. Tanya states that it makes around 10 cookies, I made 13, it just depends on how big you make the cookies.

What I used:
*300g of caster sugar
*200g of butter, softened (I used baking spread, but butter would work too)
*75g of cocoa powder, sifted
*275g self-raising flour, sifted
*1 large egg
*1 cup of white chocolate pieces (quite big chunks)
*1/4 a cup of milk chocolate pieces (quite big chunks)
*1/2 a cup of dark chocolate pieces (cut up quite small so that they incorporated better)
*1-2 tablespoons of milk (depending on ho easy your mixture is to stir.

*remember you can put in whatever chocolate you like and the amounts are up to you really*

I also used a hand whisk, but as you add the flour it kinda get clogged up inbetween the whisks and it gradually gets harder and harder to work, this is where you can use a wooden spoon or your hands.

Method:
1. After preheating your oven to 200 degrees celcius / I used gas mark 6, you want to grease and line 2-3 large baking sheets. Set these aside.
2.You then want to take your bowl and add in your softened butter. Then with a wooden spoon I just beat this for around 1 minute, just so that it is smoother and is not in big clumps. Then I pour              around a third of the flour at a time, beating thoroughly between each increase in sugar. By the second lot of sugar I usually start using my hand whisk. You want the butter and sugar to be a pale yellow!

3. Then you want to crack the egg into another small bowl, or a jug, and beat it lightly. Then add it to the main mixture. Beat this in lightly.
4. Then you can add in the cocoa powder and flour, again adding in small increments just so that you don't get a cloud of flour when you turn the whisk on. (As I explained before, this is when you may want to use your hands to incorporate the ingredients)

5. At this point you can add a tablespoon of milk if the mixture is looking dry, it has look like a dough so don't overdo it with the milk, it mightn't even be necessary.
6. Now you can add the chocolate.

It is best if you use your hands to make sure the chocolate is evenly spread throughout the dough so you get at least a piece of each in each bite. Keeping the           chunks big means that you can bite into a lovely gooey mess but the chocolate has not melted into the actual dough.

7. Then you want to take a small handful of the dough and mold it into a ball (it should be 1 and a half times the size of a golf ball-ish) and spread these out quite far apart on the baking sheet, making sure you have chocolate in each ball. Try not to manhandle the cookie dough a lot as it does become greasy on your hands.

You will get little bits of chocolate peaking out and that's good!
8. Then pop them into the oven. Now I know that in the oven I use it takes exactly eleven minutes but I'd leave them for no longer than 15. The cookies shouldn't feel hard when you take them out the oven, if they are then they wont be crunchy outside and soft in the middle, they'll be more like a biscuit. The cookies should be soft to the touch, and have spread out quite a lot. You then need to leave them out on a work surface to cool; the outside will become crunchy! You can eat them slightly warm or cold and they keep for 2-3 days. Do not refrigerate as they do go soft in the fridge.

This picture does not do these cookies justice but we couldn't wait to eat them. When warm the chocolate inside is melted yet still has a structure to it (once you've baked these you'll know what I mean). They were quite big, but not too big. And you got a hint of the dark chocolate but it wasn't really bitter, it was a good combination. 

Well thank you for reading,

My posts are more regular now on a Thursday at 10pm England time♡ see you next week;)

DIY desk storage:)

Hellö again,

This is a different sort of post for me today, but I've been tidying up my whole room for the last week and I decided to make some DIY to put on my desk/inside my cupboard on the school shelf. They are one of the easiest things to make and the "preparation time" is really up to how quick you do cover the pen pots.

List of things you need:
- a range of plastic/glass tubes (a pringles tube, kitchen roll tube, gravy pots etc.) I advise you to use plastic because it won't break as easily or won't get damaged if it gets wet.
- a range of coloured paper/wallpaper/wrapping paper
- pva glue/sellotape
- paintbrush
- newspaper (optional if you don't want mess then it would be beneficial)
- water
- stanley knife/sharp scissors/a really sharp knife
- a sharpie

The Pringles Tube.. (dun dun duuuun)
So for a pringles tube pen/stationery pot you will probably want to cut it into two, or you could cut it into more but I cut it into two. You will want to do this because or else you will have to reach in to grab your smaller pencils and pens and it can be really annoying having to tip them all out just to find hat really old grubby pencil that is now shorter than the length of your little finger but it's your favourite pencil and you just want to use that one. No, just me, oh okay then:(

What you'll then want to do is take your halves and find the end with the lid. All I did was tape the lid to the tube so it was secure, therefore it is not going to have a hole in the bottom and let all the pens fall out. Once you have the bottom taped up, flip it so that it is on it side. Then measure the amount of paper you will need to use for your pen pots; leave space for overhand so you can fold it in to the pot, giving it a more secure hold. Cut around the length and then cover your pot, outside and the top sections of the inside. You then need to take your papers and cover the Pringles tube. Any overhang may be easier to stick with sellotape as it is a funny angle. It is probably better to leave this to dry overnight but at least 3 hours for the glue to dry. And there you can make two cute easy pen pots to fit lots of pens, makeup brushes or just little necessities you want them to hold.

You can then just repeat the steps above with different tubes that are all shapes and sizes. 

Thanks for reading,

See you soon, goodbye :)