Bargain Beauty Buys

Cara Pharmacy and their bargain make up brands will always be a godsend to me, and this time I 'popped in just for a look' I happened to find some of the cutest amazing little products.

First up has got to be the one I am most excited about this incredible Sculpt and Glow palette by Sunkissed. I've always been on the search for a really bright good pigmented highlighter and the second I saw this palette I knew it was the one and for only €3.50 I couldn't let it pass. I can not describe how soft and full of colour this highlighter is. It is so strongly pigmented you only need the tiniest of amounts to give a strong effect. Excuse me while I drool over it, there is not enough words for this you just have to go get one immediately.

The second product I picked up was this Playboy bronze bunny matte powder. Again I have been searching for a good finishing powder as the one I've been using has been dropped (continuously). The fact that is Playboy I know its a good brand and the fact its also a bronzing powder is a bonus for this pale skinned Irish girl. Another bargain at just €2.50.

Autumn Looks

I absolutely love Autumn, the colours, the layers, and the chill in the air. Soon as October hits its like a whole new world with crunchy colourful leaves all over the pavements, a crisp bite when you go outdoors and the excitement of Halloween, its such a lovely feeling. The leaves falling always reminds me of Halloween when I was younger and would go out trick or treating, can't describe it Autumn just makes me so excited.
Along with all the feels I get to dress in my favorite style, boho layered looks with scarfs, cardigans, long skirts and hats I love mixing them all up and creating a colourful warm look.

The beginning of Autumn here has been quite warm which is strange for Ireland but it was nice to pair typical autumn accessories like this cardigan and dark boho dress along with a light crop top.

One of my favorite dresses has to come out at Autumn because of the warmness and dark colours its perfectly casual and adding a scarf and some boots (which clearly are not on my bare feet oops) really finishes of the look.

New Dorm Room

After three very stressful moves I finally, third time lucky found the house I'm (fingers, toes everything crossed) staying in for the college year. I've won the lottery with the lovely lady I'm staying with with have great gossipy chats and the house is an adorable little place where I can come in from college and cook up a bit of dinner, do work and chill (chilling being she just got me a tv in my room and is letting me use her Netflix, HELL YAAA!!). 

The bedroom is adorable with a skyline window looking out on the countryside and a big old bed that I'm not using to having (me, boyfriend & dog squished into a single at home). 

I learn't this year to not go crazy and bring so many things so I kept it to minimum decorations such as my candles and incense. 

 

Trying to back lightly was an extreme challenge for me but I settled on bringing just six books (that's not a lot okay don't judge), the basic college things, laptop, pens etc, and minimal make up as I don't plan to go out too much here, its my golden year here (we'll see how long that lasts).

Bookstagram

I have become addicted to following bookstagram people on Instragram who daily upload pictures of their 'shelfies' and being a book lover and someone who thinks organizing by colour is simply genius I got on board and have organised my own books into little categories.

My animal books are first on the shelf as they'r he main ones I use. After putting them in colour order I placed some of my animal ornaments around the books to emphasize this is the Animal Section. 

Although this is a mixture of books I do like this section as I love dark mysterious looking things and I think this shelf has got this. I kept my favourite books the Morganville Vampire series in order along with a Charles Dickson collection then the rest are random books.

I was worried about this looking a bit cultured as I tried to capture the Harry Potter shelf that many Bookstgram accounts have. It obviously includes the series but also any Potter memorabilia I have including posters and letters  I made, my wand and my little Ron vinyl Pop figure.

I also put my potion bottles that I collected and was given on this shelf as it adds to the Harry Potter theme.

 

Lastly my recipe books which annoyingly I just noticed aren't in colour order but this shelf is an issue as short girl problems come into play when trying to reach this shelf as it is so perhaps I will let the colour order rest for this shelf. 

Our Adventure Book: The Summer Page

I've been planning this all Summer. 

Every trip we went on I've been recording little clips and now that Summer is over I've combined them all into a little movie and put it on a disk to keep in the book. I kept this page simple as I wanted the main focus to be on the DVD so I kept with bright writing to be Summery and noted down a few of the little trips we went on.

I've planned to surprise my boyfriend with this and the book on our last day together for a little while while we go to college in different county's. 

Our Adventure Book: The Holiday Page's

 The key with most scrapbooks is to keep tokens, tickets, receipts leaflets and anything you get your hands of from a certain memory you want to remember and with our little holiday to Dublin I collect everything I could along the way.

On the first page I have the map that was well used throughout the whole trip and was the only way we found our way around, the train tickets that brought us to Dublin, a card from the BnB we stayed in and plans we made so we wouldn't miss anything.

 I like to be able to lift up the leaflets and look at them so I only glued half of pictures and left them able to be lifted as shown in the video.

 This busy page is one of my favorites because it is the day we went to one of my favourite places ever, Trinity Library and I spent the day in amazement. I kept it simple with just the leaflet , our tickets and a photo of us there as these speak a lot for themselves. 

The other page is tokens from when we went to Comic Con included the brochure, our wristbands, badges we were given and a photo booth photo we got. 

 Going to the zoo you're left with endless amounts of pictures of animals so instead I kept the tickets we got, bus tickets and the map we were given.

While we were in Dublin it was also my boyfriends 21st birthday so I wanted to make a page to remember when we went out to dinner. I picked up a card from the restaurant we went which is a perfect way to remember as you have the name and where it is and I also added some pictures and a note about what we did that day.

Our Adventure Book: The Festival Page

Those of you who know me know I love my festivals and if you read back to this time last I had one of the best weekends of my life volunteering at Sea Sessions so its without surprise I went again this year, also dragging my boyfriend along for the ride. 

It didn't really go to plan as last year as we had few problems the first few nights with the wind at the tent and the noise from campers we were so wrecked by the time we finished our shifts so we decided to book into a BnB for the last two nights which was luxury to have a comfy bed and somewhere to keep clothes dry. It was more like a little holiday this year then a festival as we were tourists looking around the village but it was a really nice time and of course the festival and acts were amazing. 

For this page I actually cut the logos of my volunteer t-shirt to keep them forever in the book along with our wristbands, the receipt from the BnB and some shells with collected on the beach. 

Our Adventure Book: The Tree Carving Page

One day while in the woods for a walk we decided to carve our initials into a tree like the old school romantics that we are and I wanted to dedicate a page in the book to this because its one of those special moments in the relationship that I want to remember for ever. 

 I simply clued on some pictures we took that day and also I collected leaves from the tree that we carved on as an extra token and I pressed them for a few days then stuck them around the pictures.

Our Adventure Book: The Text Me Page

Its safe so say all girls screenshot cute messages from their Bae, right? 

So I thought a nice way of keeping these messages is to print them out stick them onto cardboard to have them more study and slot them into a make shift envelope in the scrapbook. 

It really is that simple but a nice way of keeping them forever. 

I may yet do some more doodles and things on the page as it does look quite plain so I will update it here if I  do. 

Our Adventure Book: The Carnival Page

This has got to be one of my favourite pages because it has great memories from this day and because it's so bright and colourful.

I wanted a carnival themed page going here so I glued down a white page and then stuck red strips of paper along the page to create the common carnival bunting colours. Using photo corners I picked up I placed photos around the page, I love the pattern on the photo corners it blends well with the theme and gives more of a pop of colour. 

I kept the second page quite plain with the carnival brochure and a picture from the opening parade. Also adding in the label of the teddy himself one for me at the hook a duck stand. 

Our Adventure Book: The Busy page

I was dedicating every page to an individual moment but I've been holding on to these wrist bands and pictures for awhile so I decided to just but then together with more memories from different days and work as I collect things.

The top of the page captures our adventure on our last night of college with a boat party a long with the wrists hands we wore that night.

The bottom of the page is an idea I got from my friend who made me a photo album using envelopes gluded together. We had a busy couple of fun days together so I wanted to remember what we got up to by giving each day an envelope. 

 

Each evenlope contains pictures and a note about what got up to on that day. 

This envelope is my favourite because i put in this little recycled gift bag containing pressed petals from the flower himself picked for me on that day. 

Our Adventure Book: The Beach page

A scrapbook is all about saving memories and one of them for us is our special day at the beach, just the two of us walking along the sand dunes, exploring an old church and finding a throne made from stones to sit in and watch then sea. 

There was many bautiful photos from this day but I decided to keep it focused on just the one so I printed a large copy of one (I print my photos using normal paper as they are going in the book anyway there's no need for photo paper)and made that he central piece. There was so many moments from this day that I didn't no how to express it on on page so I kept it simple with the picture and bus ticket from that day along with a note telling the story of what we got up to. Adding in a shell sticker and wooden butterfly topped it off nicely.

Our Adventure Book: The Movie page

From the beginging of plans for this scrapbook I always had in my mind keeping cinema tickets, it's a common date night and so easy to keep tickets to remind you of the movie and even the date you went. 

I used simple black card to make a pouch to slip the tickets into then used some white card and tip-ex (can use white paint either I don't no what notion I took to use this it was messy but I wanted it to be bright and standout) to mark it out like a movie clipboard.
I felt like the page was quite plain so added in popcorn using card and crepe paper. Was thinking of maybe adding pictures of other films we are on tv or DVDs at a later stage.

How I scrapbook...

I hope it's not only me, but when I go into a shop and see the stationary aisle I get a flush of excitement, maybe it's how neatly arranged everything is or seeing all the possibilities to make things using this stuff whatever it is it's fair to say my collection for craft bits is building so I wanted to share what I use for scrapbooking.

I mainly get all my craft bits and bobs in pound shops as no.1 they're cheap and no.2 they surprisingly have a really nice selection and most of the time things you wouldn't find in other places. 

I came across these fun felt fabrics along with collecting old wrapping paper and crepe paper to use as backgrounds and layering on pages which obviously decorates the pages more and can help you make a theme.

stickers are a most as you need headings and notes its a colorful way of doing it. Also have the essentials of any crafting project, glue, scissors, gel pens and double sided tape. 

As I've said before pound shops are great to find little nacks and I found these gorgeous tiny wooden picture frames which will look lovely in any scrapbook along with some paper banners ( they have writing on them but I'm using the other side as they are colourful and shaped nicely, you could also make these yourself using card.  

Collecting random pieces to stick in the book is what real scrapbooking is about, the ideas are endless as you can see from some of my examples such as a gift tag, an old wooden flower that came off a bouquet, feathers and even birthday card. 

These photo corners are possibly the cutest thing I've found they come in all different colours and patterns and actually really add to the page making the picture stand out more. To be it looks like the washi tape you often see crafters using but I've never seen any of it around here. 

Our adventure book

We've all seen Up and dreamt of having our own adventure book with the person we love.
So bearing that in mind I've decided to make one for my boyfriend who also had the idea of making something to keep little tokens such as tickets from events and notes we've given eachother.  I'm going to post pages as I finish them so for now I'm leaving you with the cover and opening page. 

I kept both these pages quite simple as I felt that's all they needed to be. 

Sumner is off to a bang

The town carnival has kicked summer off with a bang and over the past few days I've ticked off quite a few of my Summer bucket list goals. My boyfriend came to stay so we spent some amazing few days doing coupley things along with that I've been fostering baby blackbirds hand feeding them every haf hour so it's been a crazy rollercoaster of fun rolled into five days.
We also stayed out in a tent in the garden, did it up with lots of pillows, blankets and lights and had midnight snacks while playing some old school games.

It started with the carnival opening parade with big floats, music and dancers. It was great fun to watch and something different than the usual St Paticks day parade tractors through the town.

Afterwards bae treated us to a takeout pizza which we had along the riverbank watching an amazing air stunt show which was incredible (and also a teeny bit scary).

We met up with an old school friend of mine and the three of us then went to the funfair. Walking around holding hands with my man all I could think about was Grease the movie and the funfair scene especially when himself wanted to win me a teddy on the hook a duck stand, treated us to candy floss and when we went on the bumping cars, I felt like we were in an iconic  80's movie where they had cute dates at the funfair.

Next day after helping paint the shed out on the farm we took to the hill and went up the field for a picnic. Again lying back on his chest with him stroking my hair and the sun beating down on us isolated in our own world in the middle of the field it felt like a movie scene. I'm so not used to all this cute couple things and every moment is so special I will never get used to it but will always be left with butterflies of happiness.

After coming back from the farm we took the dog up to the woods which was surprisingly empty, we were the only ones there on all the walks and lake areas. We took a refreshing dip in the lake which was so nice and cool we were tempted to go swimming, then after a nice walk around we had the idea of carving our initials into a tree to find another time. He went  in search of the perfect tree which he found as the sun shone on only one he said it was special then surprisingly he came up with the idea of keeping the stone we carved with beside the tree. It was such a special moment to be alone in a beautiful woods beside the lake with someone I love doing something so special.

Sunday brought my brother, his girlfriend and an old family friend to our house for a Barbecue. While mum was preparing the food the rest of us went up the village to a 1916 memorial garden opening. It was nice to see people dressed up in old clothes and a good crowd but we couldn't hack the speeches for more than half an hour and snuck off to the playground before meeting dad after he watched the opening on the way back home for a big (very big, never seen as much food) family BBQ.

After everyone left and we rested in a food coma for awhile me and bae got dressed up and went into town and met another of my schoolfriends for a drink then watched a dance and fireworks display over the river. It was so incredible to see as we stood on the bridge over the water with our arms around eachother it felt as if the world stopped in those twenty minutes of fireworks as a huge crowd all looked skywards in amazement. 

For our last morning together for a little while we went to the town treasure hunt which was great fun figuring out the clues and going around all the places in town. Afterwards we got an ice cream and a subway to end the weekend perfectly.