Since my last post, technology is yet again failing miserably around me, left, right and centre as my SLR has now decided to take a turn for the worst! The flash board needs replaced - which fortunately still means I can use my camera okay in daylight. But no more night shots for me unless I want to pay £150... So I've decided that after 3 years with a second hand camera (which I use every single day between my blog, work, and personal life) it is finally time for me to bite the bullet and get a complete upgrade. I took the pictures in this post with my flat mates Canon 1100D, and my current camera is the Canon 350D - but I really don't know where to go next. Could any of you recommend a decent upgrade that won't totally break the bank? All suggestions are greatly appreciated! :) Here's how I got on with Katrina's camera (the show must go on, as they say)
My use of auto mode and extreme editing seems to have warped the colours in this picture a bit too much (I'll never make it as a beauty blogger eh?) Revlon have launched their 'Sweet Boutique' on facebook, giving away 100 lip butters every day until the 4th of december! Simple as always, just like to enter. I was intrigued to see how these applied on the lips, as I always associate lip butters to be in little tubs or tubes. These looked more like a lipstick to me. And doing close up lip pictures like this made me realise I sort of have a mustache going on. But I'm okay with that! It's Movember after all (and by Old Gregg from the Mighty Boosh's standards - facial hair and lippie is a good look!)
Berry Smoothie
Raspberry Pie
On application they are the perfect mix between lip butter and a lipstick. More colour than the usual lip butters I have used, and more moisturisation than you would get from a normal lipstick. I like the in between, because I eat and drink a lot when wearing lippie and dislike constantly having to reapply or make sure i've not started to loose colour towards the inside of my lips. Who would have thought it's so hard being a female eh?
Hello! Are you fed up of my face yet? These berry colours are just perfect for winter, and are a good step from summer lips into the more vampy makeup look. The nail varnish pictured is called Vixen, also from Revlon, and is a gorgeous deep red but I've managed to make it look almost black! You can see here for a proper representation. Look at all these beauty bloggy brownie points I'm winning! Kidding on, I'm bloody awful. But what I can say is that this shade will be staying on my nails for the rest of the winter, and the lip butters will be in my day to day make up bag replacing the likes of Mac's Hue and Cut A Caper. Does your makeup reflect the seasons? I've started back on Estee Lauders Double Wear again now that the colder months are settling in. Mind you, at the moment most days I am leaving the house with hair tied in a bun and a bare face because I'd rather get an extra 15 minutes in bed in the morning. But it makes it feel extra special scrubbing up nicely at the weekends.
Oh, I feel like I'm back in the Myspace days with this picture. I have been enjoying my new geeky amanda dress from vintage inspired Lovestruck clothing, and double geeking it up the other day when I wore it with my new pair of specs from Firmoo too.
I felt like a lovely little librarian in the dress. I find a lot of vintage pattern/cut clothes to be a better fit for me (Topshop take note - just because someone is a size 10 in jeans does not mean they are TALL with slim thighs) I can get so many things to fit at the waist, but my goodness never around my thighs or mahoosive bum. With Lovestruck I'll certainly be back. They only do tops, skirts and dresses at the moment but I would love to see what vintage inspired trousers they could produce. I am absolutely dying for a pair of high waisted jeans with a bit of a flare in the leg. Something right out of Charlies Angels perhaps? Haha yes please!
Firmoo are still running their free glasses scheme for first time buyers (you just pay shipping) which there is no catch with, and I genuinely can't fault. So if you haven't done it already, do take advantage. These are my second pair from the site, and the first one are still holding together nicely despite being knocked off my bedside cabinet etc by Dexter. He is the naughtiest kitten ever right now, I think he telepathically goes for anything he knows I don't want him to touch.
Tomorrow is my last day on my current CBBC show, and I start a new one on monday :) Having the weekends off has been great, and since our crazy bungee jump a couple of weekends back (thank you for all the comments, they made me giggle! Hope you don't still think we're absolutely mental!) we have decided to make our recent date nights a bit more easy going. Ladbrokes sent us on a night out with something to drool over that wasn't just food (maybe the post title is a clue?)
Firstly, John surprised me with last minute tickets to see Band of Horses on friday night, so beforehand we went for the aforementioned drool at Zizzi's in Princess Square. It was fantastic. We took advantage of their 3 course set menu for £24.95 each. This included a glass of bubbly before the starter, and a shot of Lemoncello after dessert! I was not a major fan of the shot, but I did think it was a nice modern italian touch to the end of the meal. The meal us up perfectly for the rest of the evening, and I must say I love Princess Square at Christmas Time.
Using my camera phone at this point as my SLR flash had stopped working but I still had no idea why :( To the gig I wore my new Doc Martens and Fashion Culprit dress - but all the detail was lost in this picture so I took one at home last night to show you how pretty the back is:
A playsuit with similar detail on the back caught my eye when shopping last week. I don't normally go for this sort of style but I am completely in love. I can't quite share the full pictures yet, as this is part of my entry to a challenge coming up soon. But I will post more details when it goes live on the host site :) In the meantime, a sneaky preview...
As the post title suggests, the second part of the night out was going to see the new Bond film, Skyfall, at the cinema. Since we had tickets to the gig, we planned for the cinema the next afternoon but unfortunately John got a call to work. So I called Greig up and along we went that evening. Although I wasn't faced with the REAL Daniel Craig, seeing him on screen was the next best thing. Think I would have felt just as awkward drooling over Mr Bond sitting next to my boyfriend as I did next to my uncle! Haha.
I must admit, I am not a hard core fan of the Bond films, but what I do appreciate is the enormity and the overall production values of this franchise. They are very well made. I am not very good at reviewing films, as I feel like working in the film and tv industry makes me watch things differently nowadays. I often feel like I can't switch off and let myself get caught up in the story - especially in action films where the plot often doesn't do very much for me. That aside, I was really enthralled by Skyfall. From a Production Design point of view, I was in absolute heaven. I could only dream to work on such a huge scale film like this one day.
I don't want to ruin anything for you, but the bustling market and deserted island sets really blew me away. Two very contrasting locations, but both would have had so much work put into them to make them feel 'real'. When I say real, I mean realistic enough that the viewer just takes it for granted and doesn't even blink twice to this location being anything but a genuine place. Don't get me wrong, the production designer will often try to work with location managers, to find somewhere that can be adapted or added to, rather than being completely built up from scratch. But big films like this often have purpose built film sets (like whole towns inside of a studio... complete with roads, harbours, you name it) Diagon Alley in Harry Potter for example - everything completely built from scratch and deliberately designed from cobbles to roof tiles.
Completely biased, but I also really liked the fact that Scotland was quite prominently featured in the film.
My favourite still by far. Bond in the eerie Scottish landscape.
One final thing I'd like to add is how much I enjoyed the opening titles to the film. Random, but when you see it you will know what I mean! This is something that by tradition, the Bond films are rather epic in executing. The Adele track has been everywhere on the radio recently but I don't think you can appreciate how brilliantly it fits in until you watch and listen to the opening titles. It made me hear the song in a whole new light, with my undivided attention as beautiful illustrations unfolded along to the music. Getting out to the cinema was a great break in my current routine of weekly tv series from the comfort of bed. We are addicted to The Walking Dead. Having dreams about zombie apocalypse almost every week but it is most definitely worth it! :)
Ayden x