Real life Fangirl- Meeting Rainbow Rowell!

Yesterday I got the chance to go to Waterstones in Liverpool, where Rainbow Rowell was doing an author’s event! Beth from Plastic Rosaries very kindly gave me her spare ticket (or rather agreed to give it to me when I said I’d very kindly take it off her hands!).

Unfortunately transport was against me. Train was over 30 minutes late and once on it, the train company thought it would be wise to terminate it at the second last stop, because we weren’t late enough as it is! Which meant a 10 minute wait for next train. I eventually made it and caught the last 20-25 minutes of Rainbow, where she was answering questions from the crowd. Later I found out I missed her reading from Fangirl at the beginning! Damn you train company! (also, had a nightmare getting back as well, let’s just say I’m not a fan today of public transport).

After Rainbow was signing copies of her books, so I used this as the perfect excuse to buy the special collector’s edition of Fangirl. It’s sooooo pretty!

          

Cover; signed by Rainbow!

 

Without dust jacket, awesome Simon Snow picture in metallic pink!

                                      

Pretty cool to have the name on the pages; inside of dust jacket, Emergency Dance Party!

Isn’t it just the best?! It was too pretty to leave behind. PLUS, if you bought a copy of the special collector’s edition, you got a tote bag too! Couldn’t not get it!

 

Meeting Rainbow was great, she’s just so happy, super funny and seems like great fun. I wanted to hang around and chat more to her but I doubt all the girls and guys in the queue behind me would have been happy about that! I did get a picture with her though.

Afterwards, I finally got to meet Beth, I probably looked like a demented person trying to find her in the queue! I queued with her and then after we went to go chat for while, only leaving when a hen party entered the bar! I honestly could have sat talking to Beth for hours more, she’s great to talk to, especially since we have a common interest: BOOKS!

Overall I had a great time, this is the second author I’ve seen in person for a signing (the first being Suggs from Madness, got his book signed as a Christmas present for my Mum). I’m going to be on the look out for more book events. And thanks again Beth for the ticket, it was great meeting you!

Throw Back Thursday Nail Edition with Catrice The Nude Scene & Essence The Huntsman

Another Throw Back Thursday Nail Edition! This time I went for a beautiful nude colour by Catrice, it was part of their Hollywood Fabulous 40ties Limited Edition Collection. It’s such a pretty, delicate and feminine polish. I had forgotten about it until I went rooting but I think it’s one of my all time favourite nude polishes.

I decided to jazz it up a little and so added another limited edition polish, this one being from Essence and their Snow White collection a few years ago.

I love how this polish has a mixture of small glitter, hex glitter and large shards. Only downside is it does take a bit of time to dry and it smudged a small bit. I have an older post featuring Huntsmans, over another of the Snow White LE nail polishes, Sleepy, which you can see here.

Tips & Tricks for Completing BookTubeAThon 2014

So excited! BookTubeAThon is back for a second year running, I did it last year, you can read my wrap up post here. For those of you who are asking ‘What is BookTubeAThon?’, it’s a week long reading marathon created and hosted by booktubers (YouTubers who talk about books) Ariel Bissett and Raeleen Lemay. It was a great success last year, with reading challenges, Twitter Sprints and lots of talking and excitement. This year will be bigger, as I’m pretty certain other booktubers are going to be involved with posting content to the official BookTubeAThon Twitter and YouTube page.

I’m going to get right to my hints and tricks in a moment but first here are the reading challenges for this year!

1. A book with pictures
2. Start and finish a series
3. A book with red on the cover
4. A book someone else picks out for you
5. A book from the genre you've read the least this year
6. A book to movie adaptation
7. Read seven books/Read an average of 300 pages a day

My number one tip if you’re interested in hitting all the challenges is to double up on challenges! So pick books that fit the criteria for 2 challenges (No more than two though, you can’t pick a book that satisfies 3 or more challenges). Believes me, this WILL make it easier to complete. I recommend going through the challenges and pick out the books you want for each challenge. These don’t have to be set in stone, I’ve already gone through mine and picked out books but I know these could change, due to the library not getting them in on time or even just losing interest in a book I picked. I’m going to go through each challenge now & give my thoughts on them.

A book with pictures

This is just so vast, there’s so much to choose from! You could go from something as simple as a Dr Seuss book, to maybe an older children’s book like a Roald Dahl one that has pictures peppered through it. You could choose something like a manga or graphic comic or even non-fiction with photos (fashion, art, nature etc.).

Start and finish a series

This one is probably the hardest!! I suggest going with something with only 2 books (or 3 even) and ones that are relatively short or quick to read. Now is not the time to pick up the Game of Thrones series!! You could also go with a children books here, one that just popped into mind is Charlie and Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

A book with the colour red on the cover

This has to be one of the easiest to tie in with the other challenges! I had a hard time picking out a red book!

A book someone else picks out for you

For this you can ask for recommendations, get someone to pick from your Goodreads TBR list or pick a selection of books (5 would be a good number) and get someone to pick from that pile. I will agree with Ariel and say don’t read something you don’t want to read, it’ll drag you down trying to get it finished. So if someone picks a mystery and you don’t like them, get them to pick something else. I tied this in with the red cover challenge, laid 5 books with red in the cover in front of my boyfriend and got him to pick.

A book from a genre you’ve read the least this year

This is good and bad. It’s bad if you know what genres you’ve barely read but have no interest in that genre (I’m guilty of this when it comes to sci-fi). If that’s the case with you, again I suggest not forcing yourself to read that. Just pick a genre you enjoy and that you haven’t read much from this year. On the other hand, this is a good challenge if you like to do just that, challenge yourself. Never read manga? Now’s the perfect time to try it out! (and also tie it in with challenge 1!). Don’t read a lot of non-fiction? Give something a whirl.

A book to movie adaptation (watching the film after)

Again I think this is really easy to tie in with others. I know Chloe is thinking of doing the Divergent trilogy and then watching the film, it ties in nicely with the series challenge (as would Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!).

Read 7 books/Average 300 pages a day

Not much you can do about this one but read! I’m going to aim for both (just because 7 books can be easily done by reading 7 graphic novels!). In order to keep on track of the page goal, I suggest bringing a book everywhere with you. EVERYWHERE! Use idle time to read, even if it turns out to be 5 mins here and there, it adds up. So read if you commute by public transport, read waiting in doctor’s office, read if you’re meeting someone and they’re running late. Bring a physical book with you if you want though I find that if you have a smartphone, using an e-reader app is very handy. Also, use audiobooks, so if you’re out running or driving or generally you’re just busy but not able to read, at least you’re being productive. I would suggest that if you decide to listen to an audiobook, don’t do it in one go. Read a physical book alongside it, using the audiobook to break things up or when you’re able to multitask!

Finally make sure you’re having fun! Forcing yourself to do something really just makes it a chore. Join in on Twitter Sprints if that’s your thing, do the video challenges if you want, chat to people on Twitter who are also doing the challenge. Getting all the challenges completed is great but it’s not the end of the world. If you don’t read a lot as it is but want to join in, maybe set your own challenges? It could be something as simple as saying you’ll complete one book in the week if it usually takes you two weeks. Or it could be picking one or two of the official challenges and doing them.

I will probably do a post Sunday with the books I’m planning on reading and then I’ll do a wrap up post when it’s all over.

Coral Crush- 5 Coral Nail Polishes

So I just love coral colours, especially in the summer. I just can’t get enough of them! So I’ve decided to put together my favourite 5 corals that I own.

Thumb- Maybelline Bleached Neons in Coral Heat. Not the best picture of it but I wasn’t too fussed considering there’s a whole post about that range which you can check out here!

Index- Essence in Off To Miami! This was one of the polishes I knew I’d want to try before going to the Essence Launch. This is on the more pink coral side and it is beautiful!

Middle- Wet n Wild in Club Havana. This is the only Wet n Wild I picked up when I was last in Ireland and I was just drawn to how summery and juicy it is! On the more orange side of the scale and I love the brush.

Ring- Barry M in Papaya. This one is more on the peachy orange side of the scale, it has a great shine, as all the Barry M Gelly Hi Shine polishes do.

Little- Catrice in Meet Me at Coral Island. I tried to keep the polishes as current as I can but I couldn’t resist putting this one in! It’s discontinued now but I love it, I keep coming back to it. It’s probably my favourite of the bunch. The Essence one does look a bit similar though in the pictures above, I’ll have to swatch them side by side to see how similar they really are.

What’s your go to shade for summer? Let me know in the comments below?

Samaritans Talk To Us Campaign

The other day I was going about my business, hoping to nab a bargain for the shoes I need to start work when I crossed paths with a charity volunteer. In the past, I would usually stop and listen to what they had to say, usually before politely declining to sign up for direct debit donations. Though recently, the last few times I’ve been stopped, I walk away feel worse than I usually did, usually because the person is over aggressive (in a happy way, not threatening) with their pitch. And because increasingly they kept saying I should be able to afford to donate, even after I explained I had no job. So these days I’ve taken a stance to say a polite but firm ‘no thank you’. Which is what I did and off I went on my journey, bagging my shoes for a grand total of £1.50 (thank you charity shops!).

On my way back, I passed him again and this time he said ‘Hello again’. I decided to tell him ‘sorry, but I have no job or money so I can’t really afford to donate’ and he said that’s fine, he wasn’t looking for direct debit sign ups, could he talk to me about what he was there for. I decided to listen and he told me that the amount of calls The Samaritans receive has increased, to the point where there’s a call every 6 seconds. Unfortunately they don’t have the funds to answer every call, even though they do try their best. They are running a new campaign called Talk To Us, where volunteers will be out on the street, raising awareness for what they do and asking people to text to donate. I did it there and there and continued on my merry way.

I wasn’t going to write a post about this but after seeing all the tweets and photos about the man on the roof of Abercrombie and Fitch in Dublin, I decided I had to make a post. Luckily the man was talked down but I was sickened that people were taking photos of this, like it was some form of entertainment. And I know many other people I follow on Twitter feel the same. I don’t want to go on about this as I already have a post from a while back but there is always a way out, no matter how dark it feels. Please do try to talk to someone, a friend, family, a doctor or even a stranger like the Samaritans.

To text donate to the Samaritans, text SUPPORT to 70080 to donate £4 if you’re in the UK. Sorry Ireland, I don’t have a number for Ireland texts but if you do want to donate or even donate more than £4, you can do so through their website.

The Samaritans are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Check the website for the different ways and numbers to contact them. And if you don’t get through because they are busy, please try again later, it will be well worth it.

Throw Back Thursday Nail Edition with Essence Blue Addicted

I got idea the other day that I really should try use some of my older polishes that I used to love more enough. And thought that a Throw Back Thursday sort of series would be a fun way to motive me. So I went straight for Essence in the shade Blue Addicted, a polish everyone went mad for when it came out as it’s a dupe to Deborah Lippmann’s Across The Universe.

I love it, I think it’s so beautiful! And that it reminds me of a jelly sandwich without the topcoat over it. I really wish it wasn’t discontinued but I’m guessing that when I run out of it (I have 2 bottles) that I can always shell out for the Deborah Lippmann one if I still love it this much.

I’m very excited about this series, I have rooted through my polishes and already picked out a good handful to show on here. I even have the pictures for the next post ready! Talk about dedication.

Did you manage to get your hand on this shade? Is there any other shade that’s been discontinued and you’re still mourning? Let me know in the comments!

June Wrap Up

Half way through the year already! And well into summer too. We’ve been lucky to have some good weather here but I miss being by the beach! Luckily in a few weeks time I’ll be heading back home. Here’s some of what I got up to in June.

Walking- Around the local water park when the weather has been good, taking pictures of the geese and swans and one day we also had a picnic!

 

Watching- Orange Is The New Black! Though considering the fact I watched it in one weekend, I don’t think I can consider it what I watched in June! I did finish off Numb3rs and I’ve only watched one World Cup game so far.

 

Playing- QuizUp. An app that allows you to pick a topic to answer questions on and then either challenge your friends or play random matches from around the world. Perfect for my competitive side! I got in the Top Ten in the UK in the Ireland topic.

 

Making- New friends. I had the chance to go to the Essence Launch the other week (post here) and got to meet some people I had got to know online (Like Lou from Painted Nails and Baking Scales) as well as meet new people. I joined blogger Facebook groups as well and was especially excited to discover The Lucky Rainbow, who’s another Irish expat here in Manchester. I also made friends with my neighbours cats and dog!

 

Winning- This book! I had entered the First Reads competition on Goodreads and won Lionheart by Justin Cartwright, published by Bloomsbury. Got it in the post yesterday, looking forward to reading it.

 

Listening- To Fancy by Iggy Azalea. I wasn’t a fan the first few times I read it but then it got stuck in my head as it’s so damn catchy and I think I know most of the words now! Plus I love the Clueless inspired video.

 

Reading- Here’s the link to yesterday’s June Reads post in case you missed it. Managed to double last month’s total!

 

That’s it for now. Hoping to have a super packed July to tell you about, I’m really looking forward to it!