So, last month (31st August, to be precise) it was my 24th birthday. Yep, I'm properly in my mid-twenties now - I can't pretend to be on the cusp anymore, let's face it, it's all downhill from here. Anyway, I finally got around to making a haul video of all the lovely goodies I got. (Not that I'm materialistic or anything...)
I realised, after I'd finished filming, that I didn't mention the present my boyfriend got me. This is not because his present was rubbish or weird or anything, it's because I am foolish and forgetful at times. You see, everything I talked about in the video was a physical thing I had in front of me, whereas his present wasn't. He took me to see The Sound of Music in Manchester and because I am foolish I didn't think to keep the tickets or buy a program as proof. Anyway, it was marvellous, I'd really recommend it to any musical fans out there. Verity Rushworth (who used to play Donna Windsor in Emmerdale) was absolutely brilliant as Maria and Jason Donovan was supposed to be playing Captain Von Trapp, but we saw the undertsudy because he was ill. Fab show though... "the hills are ALIIIIIIIIIIVE with the sound of music!" Thanks Joe!
Finally, finally uploaded this video to Youtube. I really enjoy vlogging but it is SUCH a faff at times! I actually filmed this right at the beginning of August but when I uploaded it to Youtube it was removed straight away for being too long (by a minute and a half grrr!) - why can't I upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes but other people can??? Anyway, I decided to have a go at editing it down, rather than filming it again so I downloaded some video editing stuff and then spent about five hours editing (would have been so much quicker to just film the video again...) Anyway, here it is, in all its glory... well actually, it's just the first part, I've still to film a second part because I've got loads of lovely products to talk about.
I've never edited a video before so if it's a bit jumpy in places, that'll be why - hopefully it's something I'll get better at...actually hopefully it's something I just won't have to do again because it took far too long.
I hope everyone's had a lovely weekend, I've been mainly chilling today, had some time to catch up on returning blog comments and read some blogs, which is nice. As I mentioned in my last post, I went to the Jacques Townhouse yesterday and had such a good laugh, I wish I could have stayed there all evening. I'll do a full blog post about it soon, but if anyone is in/around Liverpool over the next few days, I'd really, really recommend going - you can register for tickets here.
I can't believe it's Friday already - this week has flown over like a flaming bat out of hell shot from a catapult (that's fast!). Hope you've all got nice things planned for the weekend! I'm off to the Jacques Townhouse event in Liverpool tomorrow - I can't wait! Has anyone else been/is anyone else going? I know they've done one in London too, it looks so fun! I'll probably write a post about it next week. This here is my monthly update post for August (it's very difficult thinking up punny titles each month - this one is rubbish, I know, because it's not really a pun, but seriously, the word August is a tricky one! If you can think of something better, please tell me!) I'm aware it's a bit late, and my Products of the Month for July is VERY late :( I've actually filmed the vlog, just haven't uploaded it to Youtube yet, I promise I shall do so very, very soon! (Maybe even now...)
Anyway, with all the nonsense that's been happening in the UK over the past week, I'm not going to do a "currently hating" section this month, as it seems trivial and silly. It's just going to be about love this time. "All you need is love, la la la la la...."
I'm currently loving;
This video. I was tempted to write a separate blog post about the riots but to be honest, I don't even know where to start and so much has been said already. My lovely friend Jay is a singer/songwriter/genius and has written this cover of the song Made In America (from the new Kanye West/Jay-Z album Watch The Throne) as a response to the riots. I think it sums up how most of us are feeling pretty well.
Milka Chocolate. As a chocolate fiend, it's hard for me to say which brand I like the best - Cadbury? Galaxy? Lindt? At the moment though, my bar of choice isMilka Happy Cows. Look at it! It's patchy, like a cow! Cow print chocolate, bloody brilliant. I physically can't stop buying it. If you haven't tried it, seriously get some, it's yummy!
Twinings Revive & Revitalise Lemon and Ginger Tea. Another food-based one. I randomly found one bag of this in our kitchen cupboard (Lord only knows where it came from) and I liked it so much I went out and bought a box. I've had a cold this week (damn rainy weather) and this has been the perfect remedy to help soothe my throat and clear my head. Lemony gingery goodness.
The Killing. My boyfriend and I have really gotten into this series on Channel 4. It's an American remake of a Danish series and follows the aftermath of the murder of a teenage girl. I don't normally care much for crime dramas but this is seriously addictive TV; it's full of unexpected twists and turns. I thought it was just going to be a three part drama type thing, but I checked on IMDb and there's actually thirteen episodes, which is a bit frustrating as I really want to get to the conclusion!
Sudoku. This is an incredibly geeky admission to make, but I've actually become obsessed with Sudoku! My Dad buys The Times most days so is providing me with a constant supply of puzzles to feed my habit. I like to think it's making me smarter...
I've been making a bit more of an effort at finding new blogs to read lately, as quite often I tend to just stick to my favourites. If you have any blog recommendations let me know! I always check them out. Here's some I've been enjoying recently;
Somehow, we seem to be over halfway through July and I've yet to do my monthly update post - bad Franki! Anyway, here it is, better late than never, right? RIGHT?!
I'm currently loving;
Festival funsies. You may have noticed that I've been holidaying a lot lately - Glamping in May, Lanzarote in June and I got back from Lisbon in Portugal last week. I'm really not the sort of person that normally goes on loads of holiday, it's just how things have worked out recently. Obviously, I'm not complaining though! Lisbon was fab - I went with Tash and a few guy friends and we spent the first couple of days checking out the city (and lounging by our hotel pool) and the rest of our time was spent at the AMAZING Optimus Alive Festival. We were actually a little bit concerned that when we got to Portugal, we'd discover that the festival didn't really exist because nobody had heard of it, fortunately though, it did exist in a massive way! I'm pretty much the worst person ever when it comes to music and bands (I'm a musical theatre girl through and through) so I'm probably not the obvious person to go to a massive music festival, but I had loads of fun and saw some amazing bands including Foo Fighters, Primal Scream, Bombay Bicycle Club and Fleet Foxes. I'm so up for going back next year - Glastonbury and the other British festivals look like fun, but a festival with guaranteed sunshine and no mud whatsoever is far more my cup of tea :)
Churros. Being the foody that I am, I had to make the most of all the different food stalls at the festival - most of it was pretty standard - burgers, pizzas, kebabs etc - but there was also a waffle and churros stand which sold the most amazing chocolate filled churros. I had one every day and I'm not even a little bit sorry.
My new vintage skirt. I bought this at a vintage fair in Liverpool just before we went to Lisbon and I think it's fabulous. The label inside it is BhS and it's in really good condition so I'm not sure just how 'vintage' it really is. Saying that though I'm definitely getting a very 90s vibe from the pattern, so it could be at least 11 years old - who can say for sure?
One Day. I've been meaning to read this for ages and when Tash offered to lend me it last week, I said yespleasethankyouverymuch. The basic premise is that Dexter and Emma meet on the day they graduate from uni and stay in touch, despite their lives going in very different directions. Each chapter in the book takes place on the same day (15th July) but a year later, so we basically see how their lives unfold over twenty years. I've been reading it for the past few days and sat down on Sunday night to read a few more chapters before bed but then got to a really good bit, couldn't put it down and stayed up until 1am to finish it. I'd definitely recommend it, though I must warn you, it's a bit of a weepy one. It's been made into a film starring Anne Hathaway and comes out next month, though I'm not sure I'll bother seeing it as, having just watched the trailer, it's really annoyed me how Anne Hathaway is doing a really bad generic British accent, even though her character is meant to be from Yorkshire. Hey producers! Crazy idea - why not just cast a British actress who can actually do the correct accent in the first place?!
This video. I've still not seen the final Harry Potter film as I'm planning to go with my sisters but Liv is away on holiday this week. Fortunately, this video has provided me with some much needed Potter brilliance. Wizarding kittens? Yes please!
I'm currently hating;
Not fulfilling my tanning potential. Ok, 'hate' is probably a strong word, I'm just a bit miffed really. After two holidays in lovely hot countries, I was expecting to spend the rest of the Summer looking like something from a St Tropez ad. Sadly, this is just not the case - I am tanned, just not as tanned as I could be. I think it may be because I've not actually been abroad for the past six years and my skin had just forgotten how to tan. It was like "what the HELL is this?!" - it got to a certain level of brownness and then refused to go any darker. It could also be that I should have used a lower SPF - I used SPF 20 both times, but I think I could have gotten away with 15 in Lisbon - maybe that's where I went wrong? Either way, while it's nice to have a bit of natural colour for a change, I'm feeling drawn to the bottle of St Moritz currently at the back of my cupboard...
Ok, normally now I'd link to some blogs I've been enjoying lately, but to be honest I've been mainly reading all my usual faves and not come across any new ones - if you have any suggestions of new or lesser known blogs that I should check out, please let me know! I'm planning to do a favourite blogs post at some point soon.
So that's this month's update over and done with - hope you're all well and enjoying graduations/holidays/other exciting things that tend to happen around this time of year. Peace out, eight town.
There I was, all smug because everyone around me was getting ill, going on about how my daily Effervescent Vitamin C Tablets have made me completely invincible, when suddenly I started feeling a bit grotty...
I'm not even THAT ill; just a bit snuffly/sore throat-y but I HATE it. Whoever the sneezey bastard was who gave me this cold, know this, you're on my list you germ spreading little monster!
Anyway, that's enough of that. This is just a quick update really as I slipped off the radar last week. The mean reason behind that was this;
Remember how I said I'm in a glee club? Well the glee club is a part of What We Did Next; a Liverpool-based theatre company, and last week I was helping backstage during their production of Spring Awakening. What a fantastic show! It was so much fun to be doing something theatre-y again and to get to listen to lovely live musical theatre songs! If you've not heard of it, search for Spring Awakening on youtube, it's amazing. Lea Michele starred in it on Broadway!
In other news, Operation Foundation-Free February is going ok-ish. I'm not finding it quite as difficult as I expected to, although I am spending a lot more time on my concealer than I usually do. I did kind of cheat on Saturday night as I went out to celebrate the last night of SA and decided to put fake tan on my face. Does that make me a cheat? It was only a bit... mixed with moisturiser... I won't do it again... probably... :P
Two weeks ago I bought series 3 of The Mighty Boosh on DVD and I've been watching it a little bit obsessively ever since because it's mad and brilliant. I've watched all the episodes (there's only six in the series) plus all the special features and possibly one of my favourite things on the DVD is this music video for the Blue Song by Mint Royale;
Oh Noel, how I love thee, you are so attractive in an odd way. I was talking to my friend about people we fancy and by the end of the conversation, her general opinion of me was that I have seriously STRANGE taste in guys. I'd agree with this to an extent; I have been guilty of some weird crushes in the past, but come on, I'm not the only one out there who fancies Noel Fielding am I? AM I?!
Happy New Year! This video was supposed to go up on the 1st but for some reason my videos take five or six hours to upload to Youtube and this one kept failing halfway through (grrr!) Finally, after muchos messing about, I've managed to get it up here. Technology, you will not beat me! (see after the video for a full list of products with links to where you can buy them)
This is the pixiwoo video using the Sleek Graphite Palette that I loved so much. Like I said, the colours in the Bad Girl Palette are very similar, so you could definitely recreate this;
Last night I was bored and decided to make a "what's in my bag" video. I warn you, it's extremely rambly, I'm just kind of talking nonsense for most of it.
Also, I'm such a nob; I say at one point in the video that I don't remember what Cowbiscuits' name is; actually, it's not that I don't remember, it's that I don't know because she always goes by Cowbiscuits, lol. I'm so silly...
Also also, I don't think I explained myself very well when I was talking about the Twilight books - I don't hate them, I just don't think they're anywhere near as good as everyone makes out (like I know people who say that they're their favourite books - WTF?). However, I read the first one to see what all the fuss was about, and like any trashy novel, it was quite readable, and once I'd read the first, I kind of wanted to know what happened in the other books. So I'm up to the third one now, and I still don't get what all the fuss is about, but I'm sticking with it because I still want to know what happens. Does that make sense? I feel like this is some kind of shameful secret!
Also also also, I know I've said this before, but it seems like every time I post a photo/video of myself, I've straightened my hair. It's making me look like a bit of a fraud, since my blog's called "the little curly girl". I promise I do have a whole head full of mental curls. Next time I do a video, I'll make sure my hair is curly, to prove it ;)
Despite the fact that I get irrationally angry with Zooey Deschanel's character in (500) days of Summer (says a lot about my past relationships I think), I do love her quite a lot. She's just so darn cute and cool and pretty and has nice hair and wears lovely clothes AND she can sing! In fact, have you ever noticed how many of her films she sings in? Well I've not counted, but it's a lot of them. In fact she sings so well, that's she's even in a band. If you don't already know about them, they're called She & Him - it's just Zooey and a guy called Matt Ward and the sound is kind of gentle, folky pop. What I really like about them is that everything's very simple. By simple I mean, they're just very much 'about the music'. And I mean that in the least pretentious way possible. There's not a lot of production on their tracks, it's mostly just voices and instruments; maybe it makes me sound like an old woman, but most of the time I hate when artists do loads of post-production on songs and use all that computery/technical/synthy stuff (see how I really know what I'm talking about here?) - why can't they just sing?! Anyway, She & Him's sound is very pure and Zooey's voice is dreamy. Also, she and Matt do most of the backing vocals themselves too - they're very good at harmonies (something which always impresses me, because I'm pretty shit at them). Also, their two albums are simply called Volume One and Volume Two. And they don't have a load of posey photos in their album sleeves - they're just illustrated with cute, whimsical drawings (not that I have an issue with artists being pictured on their own records - it wasn't that long ago I was gushing over Paloma Faith's album images). And the actual CD itself just comes in a little card sleeve, rather than a plastic case. See what I mean? It's all very simple. Just music for the sake of music. There's something very refreshing about that, don't you think?
Cover and insert from Volume One, designed by Maggie Fost
Remember how Liv was in the Flashback Boutique fashion show where everyone had their hair styled with faux bangs and victory rolls? Well yesterday I decided I'd give it a go and after several tries and a fair bit of frustration, I managed to achieve this;
I don't know why I decided to pull that face - I think I was trying to go for 'cheeky pin-up girl', but I just look a bit like I'm going to be sick don't I?
If this look wasn't so tricky, I would wear it all the time, because I love it, but it really is very fiddly. I don't have a fringe, so I just used the front section of my hair, and the fact that my hair is quite long probably made it even trickier, as the key is trying to keep all the hair together in one big roll, and obviously, the more hair there is, the more difficult it gets. I used this tutorial, by Iris, whose youtube channel, ilovegerardo features loads of brilliant hair tutorials and lots of variations on pin up hair.
I guess it's one of those things that gets easier the more you do it, so I'll definitely be giving it another go. It definitely helps to curl your hair with a wide barrel tong first, to make it a bit easier to roll, and you need lots of hairspray to tidy any stray hairs.
It stayed in really well, considering it was quite windy yesterday. I did get a few funny looks, which I found quite ironic as it is currently a social norm in Liverpool for girls to happily wander round town on a Saturday afternoon with a head full of velcro rollers (I'm not joking), and nobody bats an eyelid. Seriously, a head full of rolls vs one roll? How am I the one who looks silly in that scenario?
"Zeerust: the particular kind of datedness which afflicts things that were originally designed to look futuristic" - The Meaning of Liff, Douglas Adams & John Lloyd
Before you read the rest of this post, please, please watch the video - it's very important! And you'll enjoy it, I promise...
I could quite happily watch this all day long. I love the idea that in the 1930s, a woman's biggest concerns were bagging a man and maintaining a comfortable temperature...
While some of the predictions are completely bizarre and off the mark, a couple of them are actually more than a little bit accurate. I don't think they've ever been a massive trend (and hopefully won't ever become one), but you can buy trousers with zips on the lower legs that turn them into shorts (I think they're quite popular with outdoorsy types who go hiking and climbing etc) and, when I was little, I owned a bubble jacket with removable sleeves. It was the height of sophistication, let me tell ya! Also, the 'cantilever' heels, have actually been a trend for years; I've seen vintage 'floating heel' shoes from the 1970s for sale on eBay and more recently, after Marc Jacob's inverted heels on the Spring 2008 catwalk, a lot of designers have experimented with inverting and even removing heels altogether!
Antonio Berardi, Marc Jacobs and Nina Ricci. Does anyone own shoes like these? How do you walk in them?!
Despite a few similarities with modern-day fashions, most of the outfits in the video have (sadly) not been made a reality in the noughties. I find it interesting that the designers in the video seem to have concerned themselves more with designing clothes which performed several functions rather than trying to predict actual trends for the future, but then I suppose that's quite a difficult task; if someone asked me what I thought people would be wearing in 70 year's time, I wouldn't have a clue! Even so, when it got to the point where that woman had a big torch tied into her hair, I did get a little bit hysterical with laughter. And the man! That poor, poor man! He had a phone strapped to his chest!
It got me thinking about some of the trends that actually have made the catwalks recently and what the people of the 1930s would have thought of them. If the concept of a dress made from 'transparent net' seemed whacky, imagine their reactions to these beauties;
(for your entertainment, I've added a mildly sexist narrative to accompany the photos, imagine it being spoken with a very clipped, RP accent.)
Dolce & Gabbana Spring/Summer 2007
"This fine filly doesn't leave much to the imagination in a dress made completely from steel. Unfortunately for her husband, he may need a can-opener to get her out of it."
Viktor & Rolf Spring/Summer 2010
"The ruffles on this jacket act as an excellent muffler for even the most delicate of ears. Now you can play your Glenn Miller records as loudly as you like without having to worry about deafening the little lady!"
Gareth Pugh Fall 2008
"The fabric of this gown is both flame-retardent and water-resistant. Perfect for even the clumsiest of cooks!"
Valentino Spring Couture 2010
"Eve may not have a very good sense of direction when she's out and about but you'll be able to spot her from a mile away when she's wearing this brightly coloured ensemble. Think you may have gone a bit overboard on the makeup there, Eve. Haha, silly Eve!"
Commes des Garcons Spring/Summer 2009
"A hat that covers most of the head and face will allow Eve to spend less time fussing over her appearance and more time worrying about what's really important, like tonight's dinner."
For a while now I've been intrigued by the Lady Gaga "bow-bun". To be fair, the first person I saw wearing it was actually Paris Hilton, but Lady Gaga has kind of made it her own. Since I'm a little obsessed with bows, the idea of literally making your hair into one just seems too wonderful not to try. I found this video on youtube which shows exactly how to do it - the girl makes it look so easy, although it probably helps that she's got incredibly thick, straight hair.
I decided to try it out and although it is do-able, it's pretty tricky and if you're an impatient person like me, you might end up tearing your hair out in the process. Make sure you've got lots of grips to hand, and some hairspray. The more hair you have, the better, because it's all about making the 'bow' parts really fluffed out so that they stand alone.
My attempt - not bad but it's nowhere near as good as the girl in the video's. This was my second attempt and by this point my arms were hurting so I gave up after taking this photo.
I'll definitely try it again when I've got more time and maybe someone to help me.
Lady Gaga, I know I'm a bit slow on the uptake but I'm finally paying attention to you and very much appreciate that you are extremely cool. I'm a sucker for a quirky girl, I hold my hands up. But why Lady Gaga, when you're so stylish and quirky and wonderful in all other ways did you decide to go for the boring, dance/pop/electro route with your music?! I ask this because, having seen this video;
it's quite clear that the acoustic version of Poker Face is so much better than the one that was actually released! And she's got such a good voice! Silly, very silly. Either way, I bloody love that bow-bun. Do you think that's her real hair?!
