Tintern Abbey

Tintern Abbey is just so incredibly awe-inspiring. These pictures simply don't do it justice. In the very first photograph, that's me standing in front of the window to give it some sense of scale (although I'm not standing directly in front of it, which would have been an even better indicator!). It is absolutely enormous. When you walk into the room with that window in, I defy you not to gasp or exclaim 'wow!'. Everyone else around me did too!

This is number three in the blog post series of my summer dalliances. Don't forget that these posts, whilst off the beauty and fashion content normally seen on this blog, are linked to the vlog series currently running on my YouTube channel. The vlog which is partnered with this post (meaning you can actually see the castle via the video footage I took) is linked below, along with the others in the series. Let me know what you think! I'm desperate for some sort of feedback on my YouTube and blog content. Thanks :)

The Black Prince vlog
Chepstow Castle vlog
Tintern Abbey vlog
Raglan Castle Vlog

Chepstow Castle

Following on from my previous post about Chepstow town centre, today's post showcases some of the pictures I took from inside the castle grounds. Chepstow castle is beautiful and if you enjoy that sort of day out, I would highly recommend it. For anyone who missed my previous post, I am running a vlog series on my YouTube channel that shows you some of the pretty and cool places I visited over the summer. I know it's no longer summer, but I thought I would share them with you anyway because if it's dry you can still wrap up warm and throw on some boots and see these glorious places. I hope you enjoyed today's instalment  Next up is the beautiful Tintern Abbey. 

Do you like castles and historical places?

The Black Prince vlog
Chepstow Castle vlog
Tintern Abbey vlog
Raglan Castle Vlog

Grasping Summer

Warning: this outfit of the day post features sunshine and a summer maxi dress...in September! It felt odd to have such a hot and glorious day at this time of year, but you will hear no complaints from me. I decided to share this outfit with you, mainly because a sweet elderly lady stopped me in Waterstone's Llandudno to say that she thought I looked beautiful, which made my day! So, below are the pictures. Enjoy!

Dress: Matalan | Bracelet's: Accessorize | Rings: Cut Out and Keep | Flip Flops: Matalan | Hair Flower: Claire's Accessories | Handbag: Matalan

Floral Garland

I really love putting things in my hair - mainly because I'm not great at styling it! I tend to use hair garlands, headbands, flowers, all sorts on the days where my hair is a limp mess in order to try and disguise it. So here is just one of my garlands that I like to wear to spruce up my hair and an outfit. I always feel girly when I wear it! It was a bargain at £1 in the Matalan sale a few months ago. Well worth the money in my opinion! Do you like headbands, flowers, etc. to adorn your hair?

Hippy at Heart

Hello all! I am still alive, I’ve just been swamped by my Masters dissertation. I can only apologise for my absence and thank you for those who’ve stuck by me. Enough procrastinating and apologising and on to the point of today’s blog post! Now, I am the sort of person that doesn’t really keep clothes for ‘best’ – I wear whatever I want, whenever I want, crazy British weather permitting. Sometimes, therefore, I wear things that other people would only really wear in certain situations and people give me weird looks. For example, I’ve been wanting a really pretty boho/hippy style headdress for some time. Not because I am going to a festival to wear it only once or twice, but because I like anything that adorns my head, is slightly ostentatious (my friends will vouch for this part of my personality!), and satisfies my childhood dream of feeling like a princess.

Enter the River Island feather and beaded headdress that you can see in these pictures! I was mooching about the jewellery section in River Island, saw the headdress, and then instantly fell in love with it. I had to walk out of the shop without it as, in case you missed me saying it a million times before, I’m doing an MA and have NO money of my own. I told my boyfriend about it and he went back and got it for me, because he’s a sweetheart. That was a month ago and I’ve worn it twice in that time, despite not having been anywhere special. Life’s too short to keep things for a special occasion; I just try to get my wear out of things. If I don’t think I would wear it in a variety of social or daily situations, I simply don’t buy it as I can’t afford to have unworn things in my wardrobe.

As I said, I’ve worn this twice and each time I feel as if people are looking at me as if I’m a mental patient on day release. So, what’s your take on fashion and headdresses? Would you only wear one to a festival? Or not at all? Or, like me, would you wear it and just let people think you’re bonkers? Thoughts, please! 

Rainbow Ombre Effect

You might (or might not!) be happy to hear that I have handed in all of my MA work, except my dissertation. Therefore I will have a little more time to blog in the evenings as I plan to spend 9-5pm researching and writing my dissertation until it is due in September. So, without further ado, on to today's post!

The picture above shows my first attempt at rainbow gradient nails. Yes, my 'ring finger' nail broke right down the other day as I caught it whilst going to reach for uni books on my shelf! Tore the thing off, which hurt badly. As a result, this nail is tiny to compare with the rest. I don't have fake nails to put on it and I'd rather not risk wrecking my natural nails. Here is a brief run through the steps I took to achieve this look, in case you want to replicate it!

1. Apply a base coat to protect your nails.
2. Place a make up sponge in a bowl of water whilst you carry out step three. An optional step would be to put tape around your nails to avoid having to use a cotton bud / Q-Tip to remove the excess polish on your fingers at the end.
3. Apply a white polish to act as a base. I tried it without this step but my natural nail just showed through, so it is an essential step to get the colours looking opaque.
4. Wait for your white base to dry. Now your sponge should have soaked up a good amount of water. We carry out this step as otherwise the sponge will merely suck up your polish and waste it! Squeeze it out and paint the colours of your choice directly onto the sponge in lines. Don't worry about blending them as the sponge will naturally do this for you! Just stripe them on, leaving no gaps.
5. Then use the sponge to essentially 'stamp' the colour onto your nails. You might not get an even finish the first time, so leave the first layer to dry. Then simply repeat the process - don't panic about it spoiling the gradient, if anything it actually helps to blend the colours if they aren't placed over each other exactly.
6. Once you're happy with the opacity of the colours, apply your favourite top coat and you're done! If you didn't put tape on your nails, now is the time to take a cotton bud / Q-Tip and remove any polish that strayed onto your fingers. 

Enjoy! I applied this to my nails, then decided to try and replicate the look on my eyes. This is how it came out:

Daisy Nails

I am an avid follower of Vic's blog at www.hashtaggollygosh.com and she recently posted about her camo and daisy nails. Needless to say I saw them and fell in love! I wanted to recreate them entirely, however I'm so snowed under with MA work right now, that I don't really have much time to dedicate to blogging/YouTube and beauty or fashion stuff generally, which is making me a bit sad to be honest. So I had blue nail polish on from the weekend and decided to put daisy's on top of that to save some time. All I did was apply more of Barry M's Cobalt Blue to the tips of my nails where I had nail wear, then added some daisy's using a dotting tool and white and yellow polishes, both by Rimmel, then the Barry M top and base coat. You could also use a kirby grip or a toothpick and any polishes of your choice. I'm happy with the results and I can only improve on my nail art as I'm still an amateur!

Would you rock daisy nails for summer? I can see me putting daisy's on coral polish for a boho look in the summer. Would be pretty for festival season! (Not that I can go to any this year, annoyingly!) Also, please let me know what you think of the new blog layout!

Floral Frenzy

I love floral print clothing and accessories, especially this time of the year and into the summer. I find myself drawn to coral and floral whenever I walk into a shop at the moment. That and mint green or lilac! I can't help myself. As usual, I am always drawn to the shiny jewellery, like the magpie that I am. Below is a compilation of some pretty floral things that I found online this evening. I love them and I hope you do too!

Dress: £25 ASOS Kimono: £40 ASOS Floral Headband: £5 Matalan Floral Leggings: £10.39 Missguided

Hipster Princess Leia

A face of the day/outfit post combined today. I felt like wearing a skirt and yearned for a different hairstyle. This combo is the result! Sorry about not getting all of me in one full length shot, I was taking the photos on my own and it was proving tricky to do with a tripod as I don't have a camera with a flip out screen to check my positioning. 

I had been wearing the hairstyle for a good few hours by this

point, hence why it's messy!

The only problem with doing outfit of the day posts when you're so poor that you can't buy new clothes, is that these clothes are no longer available in the shops. However, I hope you can draw inspiration from my outfit posts, whether that's 'I should never wear that' or 'I really like the way that's styled, I can use X in my wardrobe to achieve a similar look'. I just want you fine people to know how I tend to wear things as it helps me look back and think 'yes I liked that'  or 'dear God what was I thinking?!'. I won't list items for this post as all of the clothes were purchased a year, if not two years, ago. Sorry!

English Rose

I don't feel that I deserve the title of an English Rose as I associate it with beautiful women such as Kate Winslet or Keira Knightley. However I do try and channel this look from time to time in my make up. These photos are from one such occasion in the last week. I have nothing at all on my eyes (yes, not even a lick of clear mascara!), rosy cheeks and just-bitten lips. I also tried to do a slightly romantic hairstyle that was, I hope, effortlessly feminine looking. Enjoy!

Face: Estée Lauder Double Wear foundation in Shell; Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer in 1 Fair; e.l.f. Mineral Eye Brightener; e.l.f. HD Powder.

Cheeks: Sleek Blush (Santorini Collection) in Santorini.

Brows: Benefit browzings (as per usual. I hit pan today after three years!) in Light. Collection 2000 Clear Mascara.

Eyes: Nothing at all!

Lips: Bourjois Sweet Kiss Lipstick (number 51).

My hair is merely plaited from the top of a side parting to just behind the ear, pulling in sections from the front and behind as I went, then tied in a side pony tail. I really wish I had the money to have my hair highlighted again. Alas, I have no income! 

Do you like the English Rose look, or are you more of a bronzed lady at heart? Show me your faces ladies! (I invite you to post photos to English Rose or Bronzed posts below) :)

Nicole x

Photography Maniac

Hello lovely blog reader. I'm afraid that I have been unwell for the 

last week and now I have a terrific coldsore right in the middle

of my top lip. It's large and unsightly and I didn't think you lovely

folk would want to see me in this state! Hence no pictures of my face

recently.

I thought I would share some of my favourite snaps that I've managed

to take over the past year or so. I'm always taking photos of nature,

scenery, etc. First photograph is from last summer of a hydrangea bush in the 

garden. Above is a daffodil from last spring. 

This picture is of the view that can be seen if I walk about 4 minutes down
my road. I live in rural North Wales (I'm a southerner who moved here for uni)

and the Snowdonia mountain range has been a prominent feature in my life since
I moved here.

Here we have some photoshop editing so that my Ray Ban style

sunglasses are in their blue glory, whilst the rest is in black and

white. I like phptpgraphs which have a shot of unexpected colour. I hope

you enjoyed this little break from tradition and found my snaps

interesting. Normal blogging will resume once this coldsore leaves my face!

Plaits and messy buns

I thought you lovely lot might want to see what I did with my face and hair to spend a Sunday evening visiting friends of ours. Nothing spectacular really, but the hairstyle is certainly different for me as I'm not great at doing my hair in anything other than a simple messy bun, a simple pony tail or loose and wild! I was inspired by a hairstyle I saw on Morven who is currently competing in ASOS's Future Stylist competition. She was in turn inspired by another fashion blogger whose name escapes me right now, but she does mention it on her blog. It's a hairstyle that looks effective but isn't that hard to do, with a little practice. This was my first attempt and I'm sure I will get better at it the more I attempt it. I hope you like it!

Face-wise I don't have much on; Boujois Healthy Mix foundation with serum in 51, Collection 2000 concealer, Clinique Mascara, Avon gel Supershock eyeliner smudged on the lower lashline, MAC Creme Blush in Lady Blush and Benefit Browzings in Light for the brows. That's all there is to it. I didn't really want to plaster my face in make up when we were going to our mates house for dinner and to watch a DVD (Captain America in this case!).

Hope you're all well. Do you have a failsafe look for a casual evening relaxing with friends or do you always go all out?

Nicole x