YouTube Pick of the Week

Here we go again!

This isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste but hear me out! I’m a bit of a London Underground nut, it fascinates me. The above video is the 1st part of a 6 part documentary done by BBC last year called The Tube. Each one focuses on a different aspect of the The Tube (the above is all about what the Tube is like at the weekend, the highs and lows. The others in the series are Revenue, Emergency Response, Upgrading the Tube, Rush Hour and Night). It shows drivers, engineers, fluffers (they go into the tunnels at night and dust and clean them!), people who work in the ticket offices and so on and so forth. I think it was fantastic and if you’re any bit curious about how the Tube works, then it worth a look.

Last YouTube Pick I had the 3rd in this series and then a few days after this one came out! So I had to add this next one. They are just so funny.

The Great Gatsby is all over the place. But what if Disney did one? With animals? Well, look no further! The audio of the Gatsby trailer has been used with clips from The Aristocats to give us The Great Catsby. Genius.

They Actually Made That is a new YouTube channel, there are only 3 videos so far, but I’m enjoying them. The channel is so far showing toys that have been produced. In this video there’s an array of Playmobil sets, some of them are just unreal!

Sticking with toys, we move onto Lego. This is the beginning of Casino Royale done completely with Lego, with the audio added on top. It’s incredible!

Last up is a video from Charlieissocoollike for YouTube’s Comedy Week. It’s a trailer called The Tea Chronicles and looks a bit creepy to me!

Maybelline Color Show Polka Dots

I was SO excited when I saw these in Superdrug last week. I love Superdrug! They seem to get things in faster than Boots at times. Not to mention they have loads of different brands not available other places (like MUA, I snapped up 6 of their nail polishes last week thanks to Cherry Sue!). Also I was in luck, as it was buy 3 for 2 on cosmetics and as my boyfriend said when I told him all this ‘Sure, at that rate you’re just making money!’. Usually I try and space nail posts apart but I had to post this one today.

I picked up 3 out of 4 of the shades: Shooting Star, Rain Forest Canopy and Speckled Pink. I left Chalk Dust as I had just bought L’Oreal’s Confetti Topcoat the week before (swatches here). The other 3 are not topcoats like Chalk Dust though, rather they are jelly based nail polish with the same type of glitter pieces in it. A similar effect to China Glaze’s It’s a Trap-eze and Nails Inc Sprinkles range. I was especially excited to try Speckled Pink as I thought it might be similar to Nails Inc Topping Lane or Revlon’s Girly.

Natural Light

Speckled Pink actually didn’t turn out to be light the Nails Inc or Revlon polishes at all, because while they have a pastel base, this pink is almost bubblegum. It’s definitely my favourite of the 3. My next favourite is the green Rain Forest Canopy. I will have to give the blue Shooting Star another chance, I was quite heavy handed on the swatch above so it doesn’t look as nice as the other two.

I also decided to mattify these too just to see what they looked like.

I prefer them without the matt topcoat but it is an interesting effect.

I’d love if there were more colours in the range, specifically an orange and a purple one. Fingers crossed Maybelline add some more!

L’Oreal Confetti Topcoat

I don’t really tend to look at the L’Oreal stand when I’m searching for nail polish. However I won some L’Oreal goodies last year and got a Color Riche nail polish in Marie Antoinette in the package. I really liked it, it was very glossy and had an in built top coat and it lasted pretty well. So when I saw L’Oreal were doing a topcoat effect range, I had to check it out (I love topcoats!). Confetti was the one that caught my eye, full of black and white dots. I couldn’t wait to use it!

L’Oreal Confetti top coat over essence Bashful (Snow White Limited Edition)

L’Oreal Confetti topcoat over essence Hello Marshmallow

So far I’ve only used it over pastel colours and I love how it looks. I will use it brighter and darker colours in the future. As for if I’ll buy it again, I’m not sure. Not because I wasn’t happy, because I was, but because this look is all the rage at the moment and there are two cheaper solutions: Maybelline Polka Dots in Chalkboard Nails and Seventeen Graffiti Nails. I do love the look of this and I got a lot of compliments.

Art Deco Cloud Nail Art

This is my second nail post that is inspired by all this 1920s, Art Deco and The Great Gatsby (1st found HERE). I’ve actually tried this look before, in my Black and Gold Nails for New Year’s Eve (where I got my inspiration from the amazing Lynnie on Beaut.ie). Ever since then I’ve been dying to try it with a mint green background instead of nude. And I love how it worked out!

Natural Light

With Flash

I recommend using the brush of the polish to create the clouds, I tried using nail art brushes but it just made things messier. If you have a particularly wide brush, I suggest turning it on its side to make it thinner.

Products Used

Green- Sinful Colors in Mint Apple

Gold- Revlon in Gold Coin

Black- Wet N Wild in Black Cream

What other colours do you think would look good? Let me know and I might try them out!

The Great Gatsby Art Deco Inspired Nails

I have a grá for Art Deco designs. I don’t know much about it but it sure does look pretty! The Roaring 20s also intrigues me very much. Combined this with my love of Baz Luhrmann and the fact I do like The Great Gatsby, I think I’m going to love this new Gatsby film! Here’s hoping poor ol’ Leo at least gets an Oscar nomination for it!

So I decided to try out some nail ideas thanks to all above. Today’s one is inspired by the poster art from the new film, I love the black and gold together. I was originally going to go with a lighter gold (in fact, the gold I used for the second look) but this one caught my light instead.

 

It’s not as straight as I’d like, I clearly need some practice when it comes to using striping tape, but I really liked it!

Products Used

Gold- Catrice in Oh My Goldness

Black- Wet n Wild in Black Cream

Striping tape from eBay

DIY: Galaxy Shoes

I fell in love with the idea of having galaxy shoes some time after I did my Galaxy nails. This week I finally got around to actually making some! I’m very happy with how they turned out.

They are really easy to make! Here’s how

Supplies

Tape

Scissors

Paint brush

Sponge

Fabric paint/Acrylic paint in navy, park purple, white and black (and pink too if you want)

Something to mix paint on (old plastic plate, artist palette, paper plate)

Old toothbrush

White canvas shoes (you can use black too though)

Glitter paint (optional)

Newspaper

1. First set up your work area, use old newspaper underneath to protect surfaces. Tape the white rubber parts along the edge of the shoes so paint won’t get on this part. Remove laces.

2. Mix your paint up. You’ll need navy, dark purple, black, white, lighter blue (mix white and navy to get the colour you want) and light purple (mix white and dark purple to get the colour you want).

3. Start by dabbing on navy around the shoe, though do not cover the entire shoe in blue. Dab purple on as well, the sponge is the best for this to help blend in areas of different colours. You’ll want to pretty much cover the entire shoe with navy and purple. Leave to dry for 20 mins or so.

4. Once dry, you’ll apply the lighter colours on top to give some shading. Make sure they’re no harsh lines, that everything blends together. Use the black as well to add some extra dark shading. It’s really up to you what you want it to look like, I kept some of my navy and dark purple paint so I could dab on top of the light blue if I thought I had too much light blue. I didn’t use pink but I’ve seen a lot of pink used and it is very pretty. You can Google images for inspiration, I used this video by stylishteenbeauty on YouTube, there’s other videos to use as well.

5. If you are working with black shoes as the base, I should start with the light colours, leave dry and then add the dark colours as shading. I just think the dark colours will shoe up better over the lighter background rather over the black.

6. Using the old toothbrush, or a paint brush, dip into the white paint and splatter over the shoes to create the stars effect. You can use a small paint brush and paint on random bigger stars here and there if you’d like.

7. If you want to use some glitter paint, you can either splatter a bit on with the white paint or else just dab it here and there. I didn’t use a lot, just a few dabs per shoe as I didn’t want it too glitter.

8. Leave overnight to dry and you’re done! You can finish with an acrylic sealer but I didn’t. I’ve painted on shoes before and not had a problem. Put back in your laces and rock your look!

 

As you can see, I wasn’t very careful with the tape so some paint seeped down. Other than that though I’d say it’s a success! My brother even knew what they were supposed to be which is always a good sign!

YouTube Pick of the Week

Another week, another YouTube pick!

This video of some ceilidh music and dancing on the Dublin-Galway train amused me. Not sure I’d be too happy if I was in that carriage at the time but it sure is entertaining!

I’ve definitely posted the previous videos of this Celebrities Read Mean Tweets series Jimmy Kimmel does. I really love this idea! And how some celebrities respond back basically saying ‘Up Yours!’.

While I don’t watch it religiously, I do enjoy catching Republic of Telly every now and again and do watch some of the videos online. This one had me cracking up, it’s hilarious!

I know I posted one of the animated Stuff You Should Know clips last week but there’s a part in this from 2:50 onwards that had me in stiches, I love the clever word play and the animation that went with it.

My boyfriend watches the vlogbrothers and often sends me videos. This one was amazing, I love the cat, the squirrel and the pine martin. I didn’t really pay attention to what was being said, I just liked the animal clips!

Finally, I heard this on Tuesday and it’s been stuck in my head ever since! Don’t worry, this is the relatively SFW version! I’m loving all these things Pharrell is involved in recently, needless to say I also love Get Lucky with Daft Punk. Pharrell is too cool for school, I can’t believe he just turned 40!

And that’s it for this week! What have you been watching? Leave it in the comments below, I’d love to know.

Hedgehog Cake!

Growing up, my Mum only ever baked one thing: hedgehog cakes. Ok, so there was the Halloween version of it when it became a rat cake but that was it. Every time our school had a bake sale, Mum would make two of these and they would be the first things to sell out. There used to be fights over them! It’s incredibly easy to make. My brother asked me to make one for him to give to someone as a gift so I said I’d give it a whirl.

To make, use this recipe here but instead of using it for cupcakes but it in one round tin. Once it has fully cooled, cut in half vertically. For the icing, use 100g butter, 200g icing sugar and one tablespoon cocoa powder and beat together until smooth and uniform. Sandwich the two halves of the cake together with the chocolate buttercream icing. Coat the entire outside with the rest of the buttercream icing, run a fork along the cake to add an extra texture effect (I forgot to do this) and then add flaked almonds as the spikes. To finish, add Smarties for eyes and a nose. Very simple but impressive! For the Halloween version, Mum used to make the inside buttercream icing red, the outside icing black and added liquorice for a tail.

Mint and Gold Nails

I was at a wedding Saturday and of course I had to do my nails! I was wearing a navy dress with a minty aqua coloured cardigan so I thought I’d match my nails to my cardi, but perk it up a bit with gold crackle.

They look more like the paler green in the top two photos but I like how it looks in the bottom photo too. I was so impressed with how the gold crackle turned out as well. I haven’t used crackle too much and only ever in a black colour so I might venture into using some more colours.

Products

Rimmel Lycra Finish Pro in Peppermint

Essence Oz The Great and Powerful Crackling Topcoat in Good Witch (special edition)

April’s Reads

I can’t believe it’s May already! The year has flown so far. And I’ve already hit my Goodread’s yearly reading target of 30 books. So I’ve increased it to 50 seeing as I seem to be on a roll! I only got 5 books finished this month, though I am 70% through another book that I should have really finished by now.

Gulp by Mary Roach

I was very excited to get this book, Mary Roach’s 5th book. I’ve previously read Stiff, Bonk, and Packing for Mars. And this one didn’t disappoint. Mary takes you through science research connected with the alimentary canal, from beginning to end. I really enjoyed it but of course I would, seeing as one of the very first pop science books I ever bought was a Horrible Science book called Disgusting Digestion by Nick Arnold when I was 11! But Gulp brings it to a whole new level, answering questions like how much can our stomachs hold before bursting and what a faecal transplant is.

 

Sushi For Beginners by Marian Keyes

It took me quite a while to finish Gulp, as it does with most non-fiction books. So afterwards I wanted something light to read and when wandering around my small library I came across Sushi For Beginners. Having previously liked Keyes’ other books centring around the Walsh family, I thought I’d give it a try. This book has 3 main characters it revolves around, all living in Dublin. I wasn’t mad about this book, I only really liked one of the main characters but I did want to know what happened and it did keep me interesting. Just not my favourite Keyes book but maybe I’m biased because I love the Walsh family so much!

 

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Reading a Neil Gaiman book was on my Reading Resolutions list so I ordered Coraline. I was actually in the middle of another book when this and the next two books arrived from the library but I really wanted to read Coraline straight away. It’s a short book so I finished it pretty quickly but it’s very charming and delightful. I have the film on DVD and love it but I kept that out of mind when reading this so I could imagine how it looked like to me. I’m going to recommend the book to my younger siblings too, I think they might like it. I’m looking forward to reading other Neil Gaiman books now, so any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

After Coraline, I couldn’t hold off reading this after hearing so much about this. And it had me hooked! I was enjoying it right up to the half way point, where there are two narratives. Then a third narratives started and I was really hooked! It’s well thought out and it’s quite dark, but I enjoyed it. It did leave me with one or two questions at the end and at first I was a bit disappointed with the ending but I got my head around it and I’m not as disappointed. I don’t want to give too much away, the story revolves around Nick, who arrives home to find his wife has disappeared and all signs of a struggle that has been covered up and the evidence that follows all seem to point to him as main suspect. But not everything is as it seems.

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan

I’ve read two other Jenny Colgan books and enjoyed them so I was looking forward to reading this book. It revolves around Anna, who moved to Paris to work in a chocolate shop. It’s a far cry different to the factory made chocolate Anna used to make back in England, but encouraged by her old French teacher Claire, she moved out to work with master chocolatier Thierry, who is Claire’s old sweetheart. The book tells the story of Anna and how she adapts to gay Paris and also the past story of Claire and Thierry. It’s a sweet book (pun intended!) and I’ll admit I was bawling crying in some parts. I’m such a softie!

 

April’s Stats

Number of books read- 5

Ratio fiction to non-fiction- 4:1

Number of eBooks- 0

Number of books borrowed from the library- 4 (all bar Gulp)

Number of books from Reading Resolutions- 1 (Coraline)

And that’s it for April. I know, you must be all shocked there’s no Joanne Fluke books mentioned! I have a feeling that I’ll end up rereading The Great Gatsby in May, so I can have it read again before going to see the new film, which I’m looking forward to seeing, mainly from a visual point of view as I’m a fan of the Art Deco look.

March Reads

February Reads

January Reads