Eye Heart You

I see a lot of discussion online about the ins and outs of blogging and vlogging and why people do it and what's changing about it regarding community and industry and blah blah blah. I find it so interesting how online media like this has evolved since the clunky computer situation of my childhood, when MSPaint and CD-ROMs about dolphins were what got me excited to use a computer. I've read heaps of things about the evolution of blogging and advice posts on how to start a blog and grow your audience and all of those currently popular blog topics. I recently watched a selection of thoughtfully and emotionally put together vlogs of Summer in the City (here's one by TeaMakerJason, who is excellent) and even though I didn't attend, I caught a serious case of the feelings.

The reason I know doing all this is the right thing for me is the endless passion I feel for it all. Sometimes I can't sleep because I'm too excited about videos I could make or little adventures I could document. A lot of the time YouTube or my blog are the first things I think of when I wake up and the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep. It's buzzing through my brain just about all the time. I've heard people talk about YouTube/blogging being pretty all-consuming, but I don't think this is a feeling you can ever be quite prepared for. I mean, it's infatuation. A great big, bouncing love of all this space on the internet just for me. It's like I have this huge room the size of the earth to fill up, so I'm itching to fill up as much of it as I can.

I'm just so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be making things and doing things and being things. I get to sing and draw and laugh and hug so many cats. And I get to document those things and talk about them until my tongue falls out. And I get to talk to people and make jokes with people and inspire and be inspired. So thank you for reading this, and thank you for being here, and thank you for all the pictures of hedgehogs that I can access within ten seconds whenever I want. I love this (and I love hedgehogs).

Drawing Harry Styles With Pins

I decided to try making pin drawings, since I figured it's probably pretty easy to do - just get a picture and pin through it, right? And I wanted to pick a really famous person as my subject. Someone who I could easily find some good pictures of. So I went for Harry Styles.

I printed off a few different images in different sizes, because I wanted to see if bigger or smaller was easier or better. Above is the result of my test attempt, which used a picture of Katie Price (I looked through a magazine and her picture was the first one I came across at the right size). I lucked out and got the detail pretty decent, although the likeness isn't too good here. The Blu-Tack looks cool like this, though.

This was my first attempt with a Harry picture and the definition just isn't very clear. His mouth was open in this picture, so it was much more difficult to define. I do like the shape of the hair though, and I started to use two different pin sizes, which has a nice effect.

My second attempt was with a larger picture, which I thought might make it easier to get more detail in, but it didn't really make much of a difference, so I think on preference I'd use smaller images. This one was a bit haphazard, but at least does resemble Harry.

This is my final attempt for now, and my favourite of the three. I was a little more careful and slow with this one, and tried to make more delicate pinpricks in the lighter shadows, which helped to give a more defined look. The eyes and mouth are probably the important areas to get right as they carry the recognisability of the whole face.

Now what am I going to do with all these holy Harry Styles pictures?

Diary: Scared Sausage

This week I met up with Ed to record some vocals for a series of new Rescue A Family songs (I vlogged some of this here). This also meant hanging out Floyd the sausage dog, who is at least a little less scared of me than the last time I saw him. He still tries to bark me to death when I emerge from the bathroom though.

I also watched Summer in the City unfold via Twitter and it looked like so much fun. I would really like to go along in the future (especially to hug one of the giant Pikachus). I wasn't feeling too great over the weekend, but I did go for the usual walk in the forest, and I ate a delicious mushroom burger at newly revamped pub The Duke (here's a cool little review of the place).

My mum also found my Blancmange t-shirt, which had mysteriously disappeared. I think this t-shirt has a propensity for getting lost. I'll have to keep an eye on it. For now, we are reunited.

Make Up

This is a post about make-up and my relationship with it. Growing up I was into wearing combat trousers and having short hair and trading Pokémon cards. I didn't care about being feminine at all and I still don't for the most part. I guess I kinda accidentally started to like dresses and stuff. It wasn't a conscious switch or something that I particularly cared about, but in my late teens I tried it out and thought it was okay. Make-up is a little bit like that for me too.
Mostly what I like are lipsticks. Most days I don't wear any make-up, but on the odd day when I do, it's usually just a lipstick. They are fun colour tubes! I only enjoy a bit of make-up sometimes these days because I literally do not care at all if it smudges or if it's not applied perfectly. I hated wearing make-up when I first tried it out as a teenager, because it HAD to be perfect. It made me a million times more self-conscious of my face than I was previously, because I could feel it. There's no way I'd wear make-up now if I felt the slightest bit self-conscious about it. I don't have any obligation to wear any at all, ever, and I don't have have any obligation to look a certain way. Besides which, my face might look different with make-up, but it's always gonna look like my face, ultimately.

I thought I would do a little comparison, so here's some close ups of my face without any make-up:

And here's a full shot of my face without make-up:

So that's my face, which enables me to make all manner of goofy expressions. I like my face bare most of all, because it will always be my face. My natural face, with it's particular colouring and moles and freckles and dark spots and dimples and lines and all that good stuff. Make-up gets to be a fun novelty for me because I am used to seeing my own face as it naturally is most of the time. Make up is fun for me precisely because I have learned that what I look like isn't of huge importance.

And here's my face with make-up (lipstick, 2 eyeshadows, mascara, and blush):

So I guess I look more bright and colourful and a little shiny. I have a bit of glitter on the old eyelids because I'm so jazzy. I never use foundation because in my experience I can feel it way too much and it makes me uncomfortable. After years of not using an eyeliner I dread to think how bad I'd be at it. I'd be interested to try concealer though, because I never have. Obviously I've not gone for a hugely different look, but to me it just solidifies how much I like the sort of meadowy, faded, colourlessness of my bare face. I like all the gentle hues and marks of a face, the starkness of a face, the eyelashes like a whisper.

Make-up is weird. It's fun, sometimes and in the right context, but it's weird. I like a dark, plum lip colour (I coloured my lips in with a purple felt tip once - it was a good look), I like a post box red, and I like a warm peachy orange at times, but most of all I like the colouring provided by my own cardiovascular system. Thanks, cardiovascular system.

my lipstick collection: Natural Collection - Raspberry, Seventeen - Make An Entrance, Kate Moss - 01, Barry M - 160/319

Outfit: Simple & Black

top & shoes - Primark

skirt - H&M

socks - UNIQLO

It is exciting fashion time again here, with your host, me. What I've got here is a pyjama top and a tube skirt. A super basic outfit which looks quite neat. I also have some frilly socks and canvas shoes, which for some reason reminds me of American college movies.

The top is really, really light and airy but is very fitted, so you get the tight-fitting look without feeling restricted and uncomfortable when it's hot. I like that because in hotter weather I wear the comfy baggy t-shirts to save myself from the sun, and in colder weather I wear tight t-shirts but I have to put a jumper over them. It's difficult for me to find a good time to wear a tight t-shirt. Usually I'm fine with looser fit tees, but sometimes I just really want the variety of wearing something that fits differently. This top is usually an indoor top though.

I like that this outfit kinda looks like a dress when it's not. That's my favourite. I like a good old two piece. Lately I feel odd about clothes. I think I've just been wearing shorts for so long (because of the heat) that I feel weird in anything else. I guess something has made me feel overly conscious of my clothes, so I'm trying to remember how comfy and fun clothes are and remind myself that's the most important thing. I have an urge to wear denim lately for some reason too.

Love Lula Beauty Box: August 2015

Alright, I'm doing it, I'm a beauty blogger now. I'm gonna blog your face off about some skincare. To be honest, I enjoy reading beauty blog bits and pieces, but I feel like a bit of an imposter writing an actual beauty post myself. It's a bit silly, since, y'know, I too sometimes wash my face and use a lipstick, but since my attitude to beauty and skincare and make up and all of that stuff is quite flippant I feel a bit like I am NOT ALLOWED to do beauty posts. But I guess there are a lot of folks out there with varying interest and opinions on these things, so maybe my voice will actually be interesting even though most days the only things that touch my face are lip balm, pastry, and the cuddly toy reindeer I press my head into whenever someone asks me to complete a mathematic sum.

The thing is, I am interested in all the cool colours you can put on your face and all the fruity gunk you can use to clean it. So without further ado let me share some of my Enlightening and Meaningful opinions on the items present in this month's Love Lula Beauty Box that my mum has kindly let me borrow (okay, she left it in the bathroom and I tested it all out without asking - sorry for being a terror child).

I'm gonna talk about the products in the order they appear in this post's topmost picture, just in case you desperately need a visual reference.

1. John Masters / Lip Calm

The lip balms in these boxes are always lovely. This one is very lemony and soft and is full of all sorts of natural oils. Beeswax and natural oils make for really nice lip balms. It's a simple enough formula but for a decent lip balm you really need those natural ingredients. I probably won't be using chocolate scented lip balms made from melted down My Little Pony figures and Kylie Jenner's tears again any time soon. Also I very much enjoy the wordplay of "lip calm". That's cute and nice. Good job.

2. John Masters / Geranium Grapefruit Body Milk

Another John Masters product. I like the simple packaging here. This stuff is nice and light. Its smell is reasonably light as well, although it did linger just a teeny, tiny bit, which I actually really like. I like to smell a little bit of a fruit after I wash. I'm not really a big fan of grapefruit, but the smell is gentle enough for me to like it. It's more the taste of grapefruit that I don't like, after all. A pretty simple and pleasant product.

3. Lovea / Pink Clay Purifying Mask

This stuff is great! I think a face mask in a tube makes a million times more sense than a face mask in a sachet that you have to rip apart and scoop from like a toddler scooping up some mud pie. I don't really like to use face masks on my entire face, just a few particular areas, so I just tested this out on my nose. It dried out pretty quickly and came off really easily, so I'm happy with that as some face masks are a bit like scary mud aliens that want to cling onto your face forever and invade your body. No one wants that. And my nose felt nice and clean afterwards, so thumbs up.

4. Balm Balm / Frankincense Light Facial Oil

I have never tried facial oil, so this is a new and odd concept to me. I can't say too much about it because of that, but I can and will say that it was reasonably light and quick to sink in (which I suppose you would expect), and the cheek I applied it to does feel nice and soft. A bit softer than the other cheek, I think.

5. Ren / Instant Firming Beauty Shot

This is the weirdest product to me. The word "shot" makes me think of tequila or an injection. Perhaps a combination of both. The language is a bit odd and surgical sounding, and I'm generally very suspicious of any anti-aging focused products. Applying this felt pretty much like putting water on my face, only this stuff is a gel. You're only supposed to apply a small amount as part of a moisturising routine, so I guess it would be hard to notice any effects, but given all the text telling you it will "instantly lift" your skin and all, you'd kind of expect to notice something, right? Well, I didn't notice anything at all. No smell, no feeling, no apparent effect on my face. So I don't have much to say about that.

***

My favourite products in this box are the clay mask and the lip balm. They work well and feel nice, they're smooth to apply, and just generally feel pretty satisfactory to me. The contents of the box in general are pretty well considered, and what I like about Love Lula is the care and attention to the ingredients of the products. Each box costs £12.50. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and overapply some lip balm.

The End Of My Art Journal (ft. Louis Tomlinson)

I'm pleased to announce that I have used up all of my art journal and that means I will have to start a new one shortly. I used up a bunch of the final pages collaging, so here are all the last pages! I mostly just wanted to collect textures, so I didn't think much about form or shape and just stuck big blocks of things down. I like the crinkliness of magazine pages. I put some nice paintbrish strokes in as well, and a Louis Tomlinson for good measure. Should I make One Direction collages in my next art journal? MAYBE.

Sometimes I like to be more meticulous and conscious of my placing and create a cool shape with my collages, but a lot of the time it's nice to just cut squares of almost random things and glue them down. With collage I always feel like anything goes and that anything will work. I mean I guess there is a methodology to it in my mind, but it feels very unconscious. I can feel myself making all the decisions and sizing everything up as I go along, but it's all so instinctual that I don't know how to explain it.

I can't wait to get started on a new journal and fill it with magazine pictures of noses or something (who knows).