Nails (11) - sweet and dainty

Yes. Yes I was in my pyjamas. Aren't they beautiful

This is definitely another nails post. The novelty of being able to have them painted at school now has not worn off yet. 

I love these nails. I think they look really sweet, dainty and girly. They're also different to anything I've done on my nails in a while so it makes a nice change.  I got the 'inspiration' for these nails on Tumblr, but I can't find the exact photo. If you recognise it then please shout up! For anyone who hasn't already, I really recommend looking through the nail art on there, I look at FuckYeahNailArt a lot but If you just do a general tumblr search for nail art you get loads. It's very good if your bored with your nails or want some new ideas. 

This is really quick to do but took me a while because the pink base colour I was using is really old and gloopy and took forever to dry and would then smudge so I had to re-do that about seven times (trooper, I know) but with a decent polish it would have taken less than half the time. I've put the Models Own WAH nail art pen in white on my Christmas list which will make this even quicker. 

What do you think? 

Victoria x

listen to my voice, it's my disguise

flash. 

Up close - No flash.

I've had this for a while now and have been meaning to post about it but got lazy/procrastinating. You know how it goes. I love this jumper. It's warm, colourful and cute. 

This is from Tesco, it was around £14ish when I bought it but I cannot find it on the website and think I saw it in the sale in store so the price may well have changed by now. 

I think this is so perfect right now as the colour is really Autumnal and when we do get into Winter it will still be as perfect because Winter = knitwear.

My brother said he hadn't realised I was a 75 year old women but haters gon' hate. Granny chic. I love it. 

Ever been told you dress like an elderly woman?

Victoria x

nails (10)

Barry M - Instant Nail Effects Gold.

The purple colour nail varnish was part of a set that I recieved as a present, it is a Colour Works nail varnish but doesn't have a colour name or code so that's really all the information I have about that one. The gold Barry M is £3.99 and I really like it in this design. It's the classic background colour (purple here) and then put the cellotape across the nail and paint your top colour (gold here) to create this. 

I put my Avon nail experts gloss coat top coat on after taking this and it really is very glossy (obvs). That is my favourite top coat (and the only one I have right now) but it's running out and I can't see it in the Avon catalogue or website so I'm assuming it's been discontinued. 

Have you ever used the cellotape technique?

Victoria x

Neutrogena Hand Cream: I adore you.

This is the Neutrogena Hand Cream. It is amazing. 

I suffer from dry and chapped hands pretty much throughout the whole year, but it can get especially bad in winter due to the cold. A couple years ago my hands were so bad they would bleed, lovely I know. It was painful, sore and people would ask me about it which wasn't great. Enter Neutrogena Hand Cream. 

This cream works so fast, especially if you put in on before you go to bed with those hand cream gloves you can get. This cream is to my hands what Vaseline is to my lips. I've tried many hand creams in the past to see which is best, I mean seriously a lot, right now I have five hand creams but two of those are my trusty Neutrogena. 

I adore this product. You don't need to apply to much, although when mine are very sore I tend to coat it on before bed then wear the gloves. It is a thick cream and so sometimes you may need to rub it in for a little while but this just gives you a chance to massage your hands and make sure the cream reaches everywhere like the spaces between your fingers which can get dry. 

If you want a hand cream, which you may find very beneficial as it gets colder, I cannot recommend this one enough. It's not too expensive, I have two tubes of 50ml and individually they were under four pounds, which for the time they last you and the benefit of them, is very reasonable in my opinion.

Have you ever tried this product?

Victoria x

Make Your Christmas Shopping Make A Difference

source

Christmas is coming up, a mere seven weeks away, and the shops are already full with Christmas gifts and deals. This means Christmas shopping will commence soon if you haven't already begun. There are lots of present ideas out in the shops, chocolates, clothes, books and so much more but in this post I'm going to write about a different kind of present. This year, instead of getting your dad another pair of socks get him something completely original. Get him a gift from Good Gifts or Oxfam Unwrapped. 

What are Good Gifts and Oxfam Unwrapped I hear you cry? Well, these are charities that help people who need it by giving gifts the really count. These gifts aren't your standard chocolate orange but more the gift of a health check, education and so much more. These gifts make a real difference and the people who receive them need these gifts. They benefit people all over the world.

I think to give you a true idea of what these charities do I will list you some of the gifts you could give in either a family members name, a friends name or even your name. They vary in price as well so you'll be able to find a price suitable to spend on your dad or your postman. 

source.

Good Gifts:

• Bike for Midwives - £45
• Buy a Cow - £100
• A cherry tree for Japan (replacing those destroyed by the Tsunami) - £12
• School Uniform  (so an African child can go to school) - £7
• 50 bowls of rice for 50 hungry children in Africa - £5
• Feed an abandoned cat or dog for a month - £8
• Elderly persons hospital kit - £25
• Loos for african schools - £450
• Maternity Kit (to help increase safe births) - £35
• Rescue an abandoned child - £30 for one month - £360 for a year
• Sheep Investment - Lamb £25, Ewe £30, Whole flock £250

source. 

Oxfam Unwrapped:

• Safe Water for 10 people - £9 - For 18 - £20 - For 50 - £45
• A goat - £25
• Health Check - £6
• Teach a Teacher - £27
• Fix a well - £22
• Feed a family - £7
• Protect Women - £30
• Natural Flood Barriers - £75
• Hygiene Kit - £14
• Repair a class room - £1,428
• Build a bog - £50

These are just a few of the gifts you can buy and hopefully I've shown the varying prices. Any gift given through a charity like these is something positive whether its big or small in size it's going to make a massive difference to someone, somewhere in the world. 

I'd like to just give a bit more info on two gifts, one from each, just so you know a little bit more. I am just re-writing the descriptions they give in the catalogue, so these are their words.

From Good Gifts: Afghan Girls Cry For Help - £20

Life's unfair enough for young girls in Afghan juvenile detention centres. Their alleged crimes (e.g. refusing to enter into forced marriage, often with much older men), are hardly conventional. Abandoned by their families, they lack toiletries and warm clothes and subsequently their health suffers. Please help to improve their health and wellbeing by supplying these essentials.

From Oxfam Unwrapped - Educate a Child - £30

This gift is as easy as ABC - it's an A-Z of giving a child an education. It could mean training a teacher, buying school books or fixing a classroom, right through working with governments and communities to help make planned improvements a reality. 

There are so many amazing gifts that you can give that it was hard to choose which ones to write about because they all stand with so much merit and worth. Please take a look on their websites or if you have the catalogues make sure you have a flick through. Each member in my family chooses a gift they would like to give out of the catalogues and then that is one of our presents. My mums work all put in the money they would usually spend on christmas cards together and buy gifts from charities like this. This year, my friends and I are going to each put in a fiver and choose a gift to give instead of doing secret santa. 

These are obviously not the only charities that do this kind of thing but as these are the only ones I have the catalogue for at the moment they are my focus as it allowed me to be reading about what I was writing about. Here is a list of some charities I have found that do similar good things:

Good Gifts

Oxfam Unwrapped
Send a Cow

Present Aid
Practical Presents

I'd love to hear if you buy one of these gifts. 

Victoria x

Nails (9) + Needing French Manicure tips.

Before I begin, press play on this and listen to the song whilst reading, it is so so beautiful!

I haven't blogged in forever! I just haven't been on the computer since I can do most of what I need to do on my phone, which you don't expect when you look at it, but I'm here now. I had half term and used that week incredibly unproductively, I did learn the Horid Henry theme tune words which when you've heard it wont be that impressive. However, I went to a halloween party and that was really fun, I went as a vampire (reality was just a dress, £1 cape and some 5p fangs that didn't fit in my mouth) I looked a treat. Also I have a job! Woo. It means leaving my netball group and moving to one in the same club that train on a different day, so i'll still see a few of them but I'll miss the others :(.

 Anywaaaaay.

I did these nails for my mum and then really liked them so did them on mine too, so yep we match right now. The base colour is a Beauty UK polish called 'Lilac Girl' (cheap and cheerful too) which dries really fast and I used two coats to get the opaqueness I wanted. The glitter polish is Models Own 'Purple Haze'. That takes a while to dry properly but looks really nice I think.

The overall effect at the end is quite a deep purple with a gorgeous glitter. 

I did my nails as french manicure this week so I've been practicing the white tip as I don't like using those stickers. I'm pretty pleased with them but they never last very long for me before the tips start peeling off or chip. I use a top/gloss coat on them. 

Does anyone know why they do this or what I can do so that they don't?

Hope you saw some pretty fireworks last night!

Victoria x

Finding the Right Pair Of Jeans With The New Look Body Scanner

Here is a link to an article explaining all about the body scanner. (It seemed a little pointless me writing one that would be giving you the exact same information).

What do you think of this? 

Victoria x