Making Jewellery

Yes I know, me making jewellery, something that requires time, patience and an eye for detail which I don't often have time for.  As you know I love art and creating new things but it's more rewarding and easier for me if there is a purpose to the art.

This time I am creating pieces for my wedding which is couple of years away, but who's counting?  I have seen so many wonderful hair vines on Instagram and on stalls at wedding shows and I though I'd  have a go myself.  It can't be that hard, can it?

These "vintage" pieces seem to command a £100 price tag which seems pretty crazy to me as it takes about £10 or less to make.  It does however take a lot of time and skill to get to that standard.

So I popped to hobby craft, got so wire and beads then set to work.  Of course I watched a few videos  on YouTube to get gist of it.

I got silver plated wire that seemed decent at £2.90, some pearl 6mm beads for £1.20 and some crystal cushion cut 6mm beads for £1.20.  I had a few tiny other beads to at home as well.

Generally what you do is put the beads on the wire, fold and twist the wire together to secure this close together or further apart to create a pattern.  I think it looks better with a random pattern but I like to have control in a pattern.

First off the wire was too thick and hard to manipulate but the beads went really well with silver and I made this small piece;

I also tried my hand at earring hooks but I shaped them round a sharpe and seems a bit too thick;

I decided to buy some thinner more flexible wire from a local sewing shop but I think I went from one extreme to another as it was too thin.  This means I decided to combine the 2 together so using the thicker wire as a central twine and then twist the thinner wire around it to secure the beads.

At first it looked very straight and unnatural so I decided to brush all the "branches" one way to create the effect that they have "grown" from the centre stem which can be wrapped around hair.

Wedding Planning; The Initial Stages

I have decide to focus are starting wedding planning for the start of this year for the following reasons;

1. Venues can get booked up fast
2. It will cost a lot of money
3. We can't buy a house yet due to scedualling at the moment
4. There are lots of weddings shows and fayres on at the start and the end of the year when it isn't main wedding season

This means that I have now been to 4 wedding shows/fayres during January at 4 different venues in my area.  I will be going to many more so that I can see most of the venues close to me to consider for the big day.

I have made a checklist criteria to score the venues out of 10 on each aspect so that I can compare them in a similar way.  My important points to mark, are as follows;

• First Impressions (so how great I first think it is)
• Size of Venue (how many people can they accommodate)
• Size of Car Park (or if there is anywhere else to park)
• Rooms to Sleep (are their bedrooms and are they decent)
• Gardens & Grounds (is the outside grounds nice, photographic and big enough for all guests)
• Decoration/Character (does it need decorating, is anything included and does it have character)
• Access for the Elderly (are there lifts, ramps or no steps to make things easier)
• Exclusivity (will anyone else be there, general public and how many)

With all the marks out of 10, each venue racks up a total score out of 80 to give an overall picture of the suitability.  I also have a section for whether the venue is availblie on the date and also the price.  The price is difficult to get without going for a full quote from the event co coordinators at the venue.  Most serious wedding venues have a PDF or hard copy brochure that has guide prices on for most aspects of the day so that you make make up a rough price.  Most venues also have packages with a ceremony included for a certain number of guests and a price per extra guest.  Things can change often so I will get proper quotes once I have narrowed down the best contenders.

I am also looking at themes and what the stationary should look like to reflect the themes.  Pinterest is really helping with ideas and visualising what everything can look like so I recommend to go there first.  

I have also completed my guest list so that I know how many people for quotes and space. So I have 80 people in the day and about 100 for the evening.  My main tool for this has been www.bridebook.co.uk which I found through a Facebook advert.  It is great because it allows you to set a budget for each item, shortlist suppliers, venues and create your guest list including a wait list.  It also has a task list that shows small steps that you can do each month closer to your wedding.

My other guide for planning and finding wedding shows and information is www.guidesforbrides.co.uk Where you can look at local information and events.

Organisation

Organising my life is hard and it's about to get even tougher this year.  I am buying a house, moving out and planning a wedding.  Yes, my wedding but that isn't until 2019, phew!

My main obstacle is the sheer amount of possessions I have collected over my 24 years of life.  This includes clothes, accessories, shoes, bags, ticket stubs and toiletries.  I have filled every draw and cupboard; I even got a lift up storage bed.

It's time to make a start tidying and getting rid of a lot of stuff, in preparation for moving out later this year.

I realised this, just trying to sort out my toiletries.  I have at least 3 bubble bath bottle, 3 anti humidifying hair treatments, numerous body washes and loads of body lotions.  Then just look at the picture below to see my mini travel tolletries, inspect repellant and tolletry bags overflowing from the draw divider I am supposed to be keeping them in;

I am ok at being organised in work and with events as I always carry a diary as well as my iPhone.

I'm back!

Apologies for the long lack of posts but I have been on holiday in Mexico!

With a holiday or "vacation" as the Americans say, there are airports involved and that means duty free shopping!

So this time I got 2 new beauty items as follows;

I firstly bought this MAC matte lipstick in the shade, Please Me and it was 280 Mexican pesos.  Now this is my first ever MAC purchase so I had no idea what I was doing but all I knew is that I wanted a nude, pink, peach lipstick in matte finish.

After filling my hand with many swatches I finally settled on the above colour but when I tried it on at home, it was way brighter than I expected! The matte finish and time it lasts it great but will have to play with the colour application a bit.

The second product I bought was on the plane with Thomas Cook and I saw it I their summer duty free magazine as well. It is a mineral bronzing powder that also tans your face with the help of liquid foundation or moisturiser.

It's called Vita Liberata Luxury Tan and I love the colour of it and glow it gives you but I don't personally think it tans my actual skin underneath my make up.

7 Pounds in 1 Week

7 pounds, in 1 week?  Is this how much I've spent or how much I have saved?  No, this is how much weight I have lost!

I have adopted the lifestyle of Slimming World.  The Extra Easy plan is really easy to follow as there are only a few key rules.

I'm not 100% great on rules and regulations but basically you have 15 Syns a day (20 for a man) then a healthy A and a healthy B.  The A is dairy so either milk or cheese and the B is wheat so 2 pieces of whole meal bread or 2 weatabix.

The "free" items are meat, pasta, rice, vegetables and fruit so you can eat as much of these as you want. Most over things will be a number of Syns defined by the slimming world lists or information found online.  The best thing to do is join a group, with support and guidance on how to plan you meals.  You will also have a weekly weigh in and get rewarded for mile stone weight loss such as 1/2 stone, 1 stone, 1 1/2 stone and so on.

There are lots of blogs, forums and books with plenty of support from like minded people and receipies to make you favourite meals, sun free.

How I started is by popping to Iceland, picking up some frozen slimming world meals and rice then also picked up some mug shots for lunch times.  This has started me off and inspired me to try my own receipies and think creatively about everything I eat.

If you want to shift some weight, I recommend this plan to everyone and you can even just do an online version with an app.

New Tips and Tricks

Whilst looking on my Facebook timeline I spotted a makeup artist I followed ages ago, so looked at her work and saw some great "cut creases".  I have tried and kinda failed at trying this look as I had no idea how to achieve it.  But this is because I just thought you put the eyeshadow on and just blend but it's a bit more technical.

This is before YouTube;

And this is after;

Turns out, this make up artist has a YouTube page with tutorial videos which include a cut crease here; https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCyHvYKdVpwjei4H80VHAAsg

What I learnt from her videos is the following;

1. Blending is key on your face which I knew anyway but she uses serval different types of brushes to blend the face make up
2. I need me some translucent loose powder for baking and protecting my under eye from eyeshadow fallout - apparently collection have a cheap one that I must seek out in Boots or Superdrug
3. Liquid bronzer or darker liquid concealer is perfect for contouring your face
4. The secrets to a cut crease is to start with the crease, slowly adding shadow blending and building up the darkness in the crease.  Then you cover just the eyelid in either eye shadow primer or a long wear eye cream/pencil such as the NYX Jumbo Eye Crayon (think I'm gunna get this in the colour "milk").  This can be moved around and right up to crease with a flat eye shadow or concealer brush. Then you can finish by putting a lighter or different colour eyeshadow on the on top of the lid only and then your usual eyeliner and mascara routine.

Plump Those Lips

I'm Recently I've seen loads of girls with insanely large lips pumped up with injected lip fillers, especially on Instagram and I think it looks gross!  On the other hand I see normal girls everyday who have thin lips and may not be able to afford these expensive treatments or simply disagree with the procedure.  I am not against cosmetic surgery or alterations as long as it makes you happy, confident and you don't go over the top.  There is also nothing wrong with thin lips but sometimes you want to make them look bigger so I have put all my tips together in a lip tutorial.

To achieve this look, I did the following;

1) Use lip scrub in a circular motion, then wash or wipe off (optional to use a lip plumper cream or suction tool at this point)

2) Use lip balm to calm the lips

3) Line lips with a neutral dark lip liner, just over the edge of your natural lip line, in a cross on the cuspids bow and 3 lines  in the middle of the bottom lip to create definition

4) Then fill the lips in with a slightly lighter nude lipstick, I had to mix 2 shades together

5) The next step is to add lipgloss to just the centre of the lips to make them appear plumped (I used a lip plumping gloss from Soap & Glory)

6) Carefully add a creamy concealer around the edge of the lips with a flat concealer brush to neaten the lines

7) Add highlighter (cream, liquid or powder) to the Cupid's bow on the skin above the lips to make this area stand out

I used the following products along with some others;