A cheeky update

Hi folks! I'm writing this from my desk at work - don't worry, I'm on my lunch break, not skiving - as this seems to be the only free time I have at the moment. As I've already mentioned, my commute to work is nearly two hours each way, which doesn't leave me with much time to myself in the evenings. Joe and I still haven't moved into our new house as there's lots of work being done on it, however, quite a bit of my spare time (and a lot of his, as he's doing most of the work!) is being spent on sorting things out for it; I spent most of Sunday painting the newly plastered ceilings in our bedroom and bathroom. My arms were killing me by the time I'd finished, as I was using a roller on a big pole so that I could reach and it was seriously hard work! Still got a lot more painting to do, but maybe I'll end up with super-toned arms? Here's hoping...

Anyway, I thought I'd do an update post for June as I've not done one in a while and I like talking about things that I like... because, well, I like them! (Don't I have a way with words?)

I'm currently loving;

Once Upon A Time. If you've not heard of this, it's kind of understandable as it's on Channel 5, which is the one terestrial channel I (and most other people) never seem to watch. The basic premise is that the evil queen from Snow White banished a load of fairytale characters to a town in modern day America, however none of them have any memory of their previous lives. So Snow White is a schoolteacher and Jiminy Cricket is a therapist. Anyway, it's down to Emma, a bounty hunter, (and also Snow White's daughter, just to confuse things...) to beat the evil queen, aka the mayor of Storybrooke (yep, that's the name of the town). It sounds silly and it is to be honest, but I'm a big fan of fairytales and I like how it flashes back and forward from the fairytale world to the present day. Plus, I love love love Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays Snow White. She's such a cutie!

Obnoxiously neon nails. Seems like everyone's rocking the neon at the moment. I bought a box of four cute little neon nail polishes from Primark a few weeks ago but I only tried the green polish recently. I've had so many compliments... or maybe just comments from people remarking on how bright the colour is. I think it was about £3 for the four polishes, which is rather bargainous, considering, as Selena pointed out recently, no other high street makeup brands seem to be doing neon nail polish and the American Apparel one, while lovely, is also a bit on the expensive side.

No7 Vouchers. Boots have done it again and brought back those pesky £5 No7 vouchers. I can't resist them, it's so silly! I'm currently absolutely fine when it comes to beauty and skincare products, I have everything I need and am not running low on anything, yet every time I get a voucher I just *have* to buy something. They were initially due to expire on 17th June so I spent my last voucher and breathed a sigh of relief that there'd be no more coming, only to be informed by the sales assistant that they've now brought a new voucher out that doesn't expire until July. Aaaargh! I've now managed to accumulate two more (I practically live in Boots...) so I'm sure my ever-growing collection of No7 products will soon be growing a bit more...

Buyapowa. I mentioned this in my most recent vlog, but Buyapowa is a seriously addictive site. Basically, it's a co-buy site, so the price of something drops the more people sign up to buy it. They get loads of high-end beauty products on the site, so it's a great way to get your mitts on things that you can't justify buying at full price. I recently bought OPI Nail Envy from there (check out the massive box it came in! They clearly got a bit packaging-happy on that one) and I'm constantly eyeing up the 'coming up' section of the site as they list everything they'll be selling over the next few weeks. Guttingly, I've missed the Caudalie Beauty Elixir co-buy twice; I assume it must sell really quickly because of how much hype it's received. Next time, you're mine you elusive little bugger!

This video. Oh my days. I am the biggest musical fangirl ever so this to me is way too exciting. I love Hugh Jackman and I'm sure he'll be amazing as he's done actual Broadway shows anyway. I'm intrigued to hear Russell Crowe singing though as I just can't imagine it and his character has an amazing song near the end. Also, I love the fact that Samantha Barks, who was one of the contestants of I'd Do Anything (the Andrew Lloyd Webber TV show where they were looking for someone to play Nancy in Oliver!) has got the part of Eponine, which is, most would argue, the best female part in the show. She's only 21, comes from the Isle of Mann and made her name on a TV talent show. Now she's in a massive Hollywood movie alongside some of the world's biggest stars! Amazing. It was rumoured that Taylor Swift was going to play the part, but she's rubbish and has an annoying face so I think they made the right decision.

Anyway, that's enough musical rambling - apologies if you're not a fan of musicals at all, but I really, really am! We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

I'm currently hating;

Whoever makes the buying decisions at Boots in Liverpool. As much as I love Boots (and I mean LOVE it), the Liverpool one is frequently disappointing me. I think I mentioned a while back that I found it bizarre that they stocked every type of Denman brush possible, apart from the backcombing brush (or 'Dressing Out Brush' as it's officially called), despite the fact that Liverpool is quite obviously the backcombing capital of the world. After weeks of frequently checking the brush section of the store just in case it was out of stock, I gave up and bought it from Amazon instead. No big deal, but I just found it weird. Well I've been disappointed again this month by promises of Essie polishes that simply haven't been fulfilled. As you probably know, the Essie diffusion line is now available in some branches of Boots and Superdrug, which is wonderful news for a nail varnish obsessive such as I. Unfortunately though, once again, Boots have let me down; no Essies at all! Why would they do this? Why? WHY?! Luckily, there's a Boots not far from where I work, so I've taken a couple of lunchtime trips with my partner in nail varnish related crime and got my mitts on a couple of bottles. But still, I'm not happy. Liverpool Boots, sort it out!

Lazy writing (Fifty Shades of Grey). So there's been a lot of hype recently surrounding a rather (and by rather I mean really really really) racy book by the name of Fifty Shades of Grey. Being the massive FOMO-sufferer that I am (FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out) I quickly headed to Waterstones and bought a copy of this supposedly brilliant book. Oh how foolish I was. To be fair, I don't know what I was expecting because I had already heard that it was a rudey so I should have know it was never going to be some kind of life-changing reading experience. Even so, it is crap. I'm a few chapters in and it's not so much that the story is crap (which it is) but the writing is so damn lazy! Maybe it's because I did English Literature at uni so I'm a bit overly critical when it comes to novels, but MY GOD, it's so badly written. For example, the protagonist (Ana Steele, who is a massive dweeb) frequently refers to her best friend Kate as being 'tenacious'. By frequently, I mean, IT IS THE ONLY THING SHE SAYS ABOUT HER. This is Kate. She is tenacious and nothing more. That's only one example but it's one that's really stuck with me and pissed me the hell off. I'm very tempted to send a strongly worded letter to E L James advising her to invest in a good thesaurus. E L James, learn some new words! Apparently, the novel started life as a piece of Twilight fanfiction and you can definitely see similarities between the main characters of the two books, which also annoys me, because surely, SURELY nobody would want to base their characters on Edward and Bella would they? They're rubbish! Anyway, apologies if you've read the book and liked it, because I know a lot of people have. I doubt I'll bother to finish it as I don't want to waste valuable reading time on what is basically a weird, X-rated Edward and Bella fantasy when I could be reading something, you know, good.

Yeesh, that turned into a bit of a rant there! Apologies folks, but sometimes I have a lot of anger.

Have you read Fifty Shades of Grey? What are your thoughts on neon nail polish? How do you feel about your nearest branch of Boots? Tell me things and make me happy!

an April fool

So, in terms of blogging, I think we can safely say that March, for me, was a bit of a write-off. I just got into one of those slumps and I really didn't feel inspired at all. There was a couple of times when I sat down to write a blog post, but just wasn't really feeling it, so I knew that whatever I wrote would be a bit pointless and rubbish. I don't want to blog just for the sake of it so I didn't blog. Anyway, moan over, April is here so it's time for me to (in the words of Sister Mary Clarence, aka Deloris Van Cartier aka Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2) wake up and pay attention. I promise I'll be better this month, I've already got plans, big plans, the biggest bloody plans this side of Kentucky, oh yeah!

I thought I'd do a bit of a summary type thing today; quite a lot of other bloggers do them, and I always enjoy reading them, so hey, let's give it a go.

I'm currently loving;

Polka dot nails (as seen above) The genius that is Gem Fatale did a marvellous Tuesday Tips post all about how to create perfect polka dot nails. Following her advice, I used the end of a hair grip to create mine. Still not absolutely perfect, but they're getting there. Sometimes I find it hard to decide what colours I want to put together - I have a stupid number of nail polishes but obviously, can't use them all, so this was a good opportunity to get lots of my favourites involved in one design. I was also inspired by this image;

Source

Sleek makeup. I managed to get my hands on the Avoir La Pêche palette and I'm loving it. I showed it to my sister, Izzi, and she wasn't a fan (pink eyeshadows can be a bit hit and miss) but I think it's beautiful and a lot of the colours can also be used as blushers, which is fine by me! Also, Sleek have gotten themselves into my good books this week, by FINALLY sending out the voucher codes they promised months ago after a lot of us had difficulties in the 50% off sale. I'll be treating myself to some super cheap goodies (as long as everything isn't sold out - eek!)

This video - I don't feel I need to really say anything about it, just watch. This guy is AMAZING.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I bought this book on a whim; it's really not the sort of genre I'd choose to read, but I'd heard a lot about the films and thought I'd give it a whirl. It's a bit of a slow-starter, but boy, once you get into it, it's hard to put down. I spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon reading it and have only got a couple more chapters to go until the end. I'd quite like to watch the film but am a bit worried about how violent/disturbing it is. We've already established that I'm a massive wimp and this book deals with some really dark and upsetting stuff, which I imagine would be pretty unpleasant to watch on screen. Even so, it's definitely worth a read if you haven't done so already.

Primark jewellery. I bought this ring a week or so ago and I absolutely love it! The majority of my rings are from Primark nowadays. At £2.50/£3.00 a pop, you can't really complain, especially when the equivalent in Topshop would be at least £8, probably more. Bloody love Primark.

I'm currently hating;

Paper cuts. Yes, this is pathetic, but the other day I reached into my bag for my house keys and caught my finger on an insanely sharp bit of paper. I couldn't believe how much it hurt and my initial (clearly quite illogical) reaction was "oh my god, there's a knife in my bag". I just wanted to include this story to emphasise firstly how ridiculous I am when it comes to even the smallest injury and secondly that my brain works in the strangest ways.

My spending habits. I've decided that I am very naughty when it comes to spending and therefore, for the next month, I'm not allowed to buy any makeup at all. (once I've bought my Sleek stuff, obviously...) I realised this when I went into Superdrug last week, saw that Collection 2000 was offering a free Hot Looks nail varnish if you purchased £4 worth of products and decided that I HAD to find something to buy because I NEEDED another nail polish. Now I know that £4 isn't a lot of money at all, but I do this sort of thing way too often. Not only that, but I definitely did not need another nail polish. I have about 40 already. It took me ages to decide what to buy (because I really didn't need anything) and in the end I went for two Lock and Hold lipglosses, which are lovely, but completely unnecessary. Bad Franki. No more spending for you.

When stuff breaks for no reason. You may have noticed that I didn't do a POTM video for February. This is because my Flip Mino video camera broke for seemingly no reason whatsoever. It just won't turn on. I'm not happy, it was a birthday gift, so it's not even a year old yet. I don't know if I can get it fixed, but I certainly can't afford a new one, so for now, my vlogging will have to be put on hold, which is a shame, because I really enjoy doing those videos. Gosh this has turned out to be a lot longer than planned!

I thought I'd end with some blogs that I'm really enjoying at the moment - I'll try and make this more of a regular thing because there's so many amazing bloggers out there and it's nice to share the love. So, without further ado, five to follow;

Whimsy!

It's All Peachykeen

EFFIESMAKEUPBOX

I Need More Clothes

Where Are My Knees?

Weird and wonderful

I'm loving these images of Helena Bonham Carter from last week's issue of The Times Magazine, I think she's absolutely beautiful. I know HBC is one of those people who always appears on 'worst dressed' lists, but I get the impression that she really doesn't give a monkey's (hahaha 'monkeys' - coz she was in Planet of the Apes!. Get it? Hahahaha!) about that sort of thing; she marches to the beat of her own drum and that makes her very cool in my book.

What a fittie

Speaking of Helena, I finally went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last weekend. I can't believe it's taken me so long to go, as I'm a MA-HOO-SIVE HP geek fan, but it was just one of those things I didn't get around to doing. I really enjoyed it; out of all the films I'd say it's probably the one that stays most faithful to the book, although, that's to be expected really as they've done it in two parts which means they couldn't really get away with missing stuff out. Obviously there's a few bits that are changed (I HATE how Bill Weasley isn't introduced until the seventh film. Ridiculous), but they do manage to keep in most of the really important stuff.

HBC is back to her usual psychotic self as Bellatrix LeStrange. She really was just the perfect choice to play that character; she's exactly how I'd imagine her to look, plus she's got the whole evil and unhinged thing down to a T.

Yes, ok, she's a psycho. But look at her hair! She's a curly girl after my own heart!

I decided to re-read the final two books before I saw the film and they've completely re-awakened my love for the whole series. They're just so brilliant. Anyone who's only seen the films but not read the books, please, I urge you, just bloody well sit down and read them. The films are good, but they miss out so much vital information (and also add some really random stuff). The books are amazing and JK Rowling's brain is just magical. Seriously, just read them. Please? PLEASE! Once you've read them, you will thank me, I promise ;)

Another Helena film that's out at the moment is The King's Speech, which also stars Colin Firth. If you've not heard about it, it's about George VI, who suddenly became King after his brother abdicated the throne. He had serious difficulties with public speaking as he suffered from a stammer - kind of problematic when you're the King and are expected to be all speechy - so he hired a speech therapist to help him out. Had I not known anything about this film and just read the description, I probably wouldn't be that fussed about seeing it, however, I've already seen so many good reviews of it and there's been so much hype about Oscar nominations etc that I'm dying to see it.

What do you reckon? Does it sound like your cup of tea? And what do you think of Helena? And Harry Potter? Tell me things! Go!

[first three images scanned from The Times Magazine, Harry Potter image from IMDb]

If I only had a brain

I warn you in advance, this is kind of just a random post of random thoughts because I can't really be bothered using my brain properly today.

I've just finished reading The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I bought on a whim in HMV last week. I've not seen the film (which was directed by Sofia Coppola and stars Kirsten Dunst) but after reading the novel, I'd quite like to see it. Anyway, I thoroughly recommend the book, it's lovely and tragic.

"The Lisbon girls were thirteen (Cecilia), and fourteen (Lux), and fifteen (Bonnie), and sixteen (Mary), and seventeen (Therese). They were short, round-buttocked in denim, with rounded cheeks that recalled some dorsal softness. Whenever we got a glimpse, their faces looked indecently revealed, as though we were used to seeing women in veils."

I scanned the image from the cover of my copy (you know how I love to scan!). I really like the shoes in that photo!

I'm currently on a mission to read all the books. While I was at uni, I read a lot of books, but they were mostly books I had to read because of my course, so now I'm trying to make up for that by reading everything I can get my hands on. Got any recommendations? Please share!

I realised last week that the beautiful floral pieces from the Dior Couture show reminded me of the Flower Fairies poetry books I used to read when I was about twelve. Yes, I know, it all sounds very twee, but when I was younger I loved looking through the pages upon pages of pretty pictures and reading the silly, whimsical little poems that went along with them. You may recognise the images or at least the style of drawing, as I think a lot of them are now used on the front of greetings cards and notebooks etc. Anyway, FYI, each photo corresponds to a poem about a particular type of flower fairy and the author, Cicely Mary Barker penned and illustrated hundreds of them.

The Narcissus Fairy

The Scilla Fairy (Have you ever heard of the 'Scilla' flower? No me neither...)

(Images scanned from "A Flower Fairies Treasury" by Cicely Mary Barker)

Cute, aren't they? I know, they're hardly Dior Couture, but I do like that blue hood/cloak thing in the last picture. Galliano, take note!

You may have noticed that I've added a 'legal stuff' page to the blog. This is mainly due to the fact that I recently joined the IFB and have spent a lot of today and yesterday reading articles about blog copyright and other important, serious things that you might not think about as a blogger, but really should. Anyway, I doubt that I'll ever need to enforce my 'copyright regulations' because I'm such a tiny wee blog really, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Potential copycats, bugger off! How do other people feel about blog copyright etc? I'd be interested to hear other bloggers' thoughts on the matter because I think it's quite an important issue.

Meyer, Meyer, Meyer

So, remember how I said that even though I wasn't particularly fussed on Edward Cullen and his nauseous little face, I was still going to give the Twilight books a go, because I want to know what all the fuss is about? Well I'm currently reading the first book and I have to say it is quite readable. It hasn't changed my life or anything, but it definitely hasn't been a chore to read. I still think it's massively overrated though. Maybe it's because I'm 22, not 15, or maybe it's because I'm massively cynical about love and romance in general, but I do think that Edward and Bella's relationship, right from the get-go is completely ridiculous and weird. And Bella is really f***ing annoying. I can't see how any teenage girls could relate to her, she's a nob. But yeah, I'm enjoying it...

Anyway, I was reading it on the bus the other day, and I got to the part where Edward and Bella go on a little trip to the woods (as you do) and she describes what he's wearing, and I suddenly read a sentence that made me pause and question Stephenie Meyer as a credible human living in the 21st century;

"His white shirt was sleeveless, and he wore it unbuttoned, so that the smooth white skin of his throat flowed uninterrupted over the marble contours of his chest,"

Does anyone else see the problem here? No seventeen year old boy, regardless of whether or not he happens to be a vampire, would go gallavanting around in an unbuttoned sleeveless shirt. I can't even imagine what that would look like, because nobody would EVER wear it. I'm not even talking about fashion here - they live in a small town, there probably isn't much in the way of reputable fashion stores, that's fine, I accept that. But unless the only store in a one hundred mile radius is the Jean Paul Gaultier Sailor Suit Cast Offs Store, there is no excuse for Edward wearing that shirt. No excuse. Stephenie Meyer, I don't know what kind of weird-ass, sartorially challenged world you're dreaming up, but you need to sort it out. Sure, the whole Twilight 'world' is full of mythical creatures (vampires, werewolves, Dakota Fanning) so obviously, we don't have to see it as completely realistic, but Steph, please at least try and be credible with the stuff that you actually can be credible with.

I feel like Carrie in that episode of SATC where Burger writes about the woman wearing a scrunchie. But at least some people actually own scrunchies.

No. Just no.