a little day trip to Brighton

 

 

 

Yesterday I didn't have anything planned as it turned out I wasn't actually needed to go into work so me and mum took a little last minute day trip along to Brighton. The trains were delayed (as per usual, Southern Rail you suck) but it only takes around an hour to get there from where I live. I did a few photography things like I mentioned I might do in my A2 photography post, mooched around the shops, got lost in the lanes, ordered large drinks from Costa without realising how big they would be, spent too much on overpriced chcocolate in cybercandy, started off a new addiction by buying my first mac brush, walked along the beach and took lots of photos.

I love taking little last minute trips like this and I've been doing lots of travelling around recently. I'm off to Bournemouth tomorrow and back to Brighton on Fridy with my friend Carissa (please check out her blog!), work Saturday and I might pop up to London on Sunday!

so hold up and take it through the night

Levi denim jacket: brag vintage*
jumper: charity shop
tartan scarf: H&M
treggings: topshop
shoes: converse
lipstick: mac 'ruby woo'

 I haven't taken outfit photos in forever due to rain/thunderstorms/dark evenings so when it was sunny today I took my opportunity to take lots of photos! I've wanted an oversized Levi jacket in forever and I love this one from Brag Vintage. It's a mens size large and I find it looks best with a thick jumper underneath to stop it from completely swamping me. They have sooo many vintage pieces on there- all at reasonable prices too. The jacket is £24.99 and if you bought it on Brick Lane or Spitalfields etc it would probably be around £40!

 I've been wearing my tartan scarf non stop as soon as it got slightly cold outside- I think it's my favourite winter accessory! My mum bought this wooly jumper for me when I was in Brighton the other day and wasn't prepared for how cold it would be and I'm so glad she did! It was only a fiver and I wear it so much- thanks mum!

although I was sent this Levi jacket from Brag Vintage to feature in a post this does not influence my opinion of it and it is 100% honest as always 

the view from my bed

I like to spend a lot of time sat in bed- it's cosy, I have everything I need and my matress is memory foam so it couldn't be any more comfortable. As I spend a lot of time here I like to have pretty things to look at whilst tweeting/blogging/watching YouTube so I thought I would share with you what I am currently looking at now above my laptop screen while writing this post. 

My shelves currently need sorting out, they're the IKEA billy bookcase and weren't too expensive at all. On my other shelves I have some shoes, my favourite photo from the sixth form summer ball and a vintage box from one of my favourite shops Liberty which my mum found at a vintage market. I have a 'keep calm and eat cupcakes' canvas I bought in Primark ages ago which I want to replace with an instagram collage type thing. My wardrobe has lots and lots of train tickets stuck onto one of the doors- the orange really clashes with my room but I quite like having them stuck there. One of my favourite parts is my pretty fairy lights which I got for Christmas probably ten years ago and they're still going strong. I only really use them in winter but their soft glow makes the room feel so much more homely.  My cushions are from Cath Kidston and British Home Stores (I think?) and my duvet is from Tesco and as you can probably tell- I don't believe in there being such thing as having too much floral. My mum made the bunting for me using Cath Kidston fabric years ago but if you look on etsy/eBay you'll probably easily be able to find some you like.

I hope you liked this little look into one of my favourite corners of my room so please let me know if it was something you enjoyed.

#AXParty event

on Thursday I took a little trip up to London to go to the AXParty for the launch of the new Christmas AXParis advert and their new clothes. It was arranged by Etail PR which is a blogger network type thing and I was really excited to be invited! I didn't manage to get too many photos as there wasn't very good lighting but here are some of the ones I managed to take! It was loveely to see Lauren and Sam again and to finally meet Ashleigh for the first time along with a load of other lovely girls! Jade Thompson from Britains Next Top Model was there and she did a little talk- she was my favourite from the show and was lovely to get the chance to speak to her for a few minutes! Look out for the new AXParis advert coming to the TVs soon!

Cocoa Brown one hour tan mousse review

I'm not one those girls that won't go out somewhere with a load of fake tan on but at the same time I do like to be looking like I've just spent a week in the South of France so when the Irish brand Cocoa Brown asked if I wanted to give their one hour tanning mousse a go I said yes!

I'm a sucker for anything pink so I love the packaging and the mitt. The bottle is one like you'd find on a hair mousse bottle- it really helps to cut down the mess of tanning as it sometimes can get everywhere! The mousse itself it quite thick compared to the St Moritz one I had previously been using but it blends so easily. It doesn't have too much of a guide colour to it which means it's not always easy to see if you've missed any bit of leg. You're meant to apply it using the mitt, wait an hour and rinse it off. I did this initially and noticed barely any change (my legs are pastey white as it is so I was quite surprised at this). I reapplied it again to the same leg using slightly more and left it for a further two hours to develop. As you can see from the photo above there is a difference in colour but considering it's two layers and one had been left on for double the recommended time I don't think it's made much of a difference. I'd day I used about five blobs the size of the one in the photo to do one leg- am I just not using enough product?

The best thing about this tan is that it doesn't have the horrible 'biscuity' smell which fake tan is famous for. It smells quite fruity when you put it on and after it is rinsed off you can't smell it at all which is really nice for a change! It dries quickly once you have applied it which is a plus side as you're not wandering around feeling sticky for ages!

Overall I like the idea of this tan- how it's meant to develop in one hour, the packaging and how it doesn't have the typical tan smell to it. I think it would be nice if they came out with a couple of different shades so that the colour is stronger as I am very pale and it hardly showed up on me.

The Cocoa Brown one hour tan is available on Feel Unique for £7.99 and the tanning mitt is £2.99 (free postage too!)

Although I was sent the Cocoa Brown one hour tanning mousse and tanning mit for review this does not influence my opinion and is 100% honest as always

twinny outfit post with Laura

I've been friends with Laura for what seems like forever now. We both have very similar tastes in clothes and when we were talking on twitter the other day we both realised we had enough matching clothes to be able to do a completely matching outfit, sooo here it is! Unfortunately- due to Laura living in Holland and me in England we weren't exactly able to meet up to take photos together so this little arrangement will have to do for now!

My outfit
Cardigan: Primark
Top: eBay
Scarf: H&M
Boots: clarks
Skirt: ASOS
Lipstick: mac 'ruby woo'
Necklace: eBay

and you can see where all of Laura's clothes are from in her post! I hope you liked this little collaborative post for a bit of a change and don't forget to check out Laura's blog!

how to make money by selling your old clothes

buying clothes is fun, right? But what's even more fun than buying clothes- selling them and making money of course! (because then you can buy even more clothes with the money you make!!)

There a couple of different things I do when I want to sell my old clothes and here are a few of my favourites

♥ Firstly is eBay-

everyone and their mum knows about eBay- it's a pretty easy and failsafe website to use and one which I have been using since I was around 13 years old. There's always someone wanting to buy your old bits and by using clear photos, good key words and a good description along with having lots of positive feedback you're likely to get some bids! I love getting people bidding on items I am selling and the countdown of the last minute is always so exciting!

♥ Next is musicmagpie-

This is a website I have just discovered recently- they make it very easy to sell your clothes along with old DVDs, games and technology you may have lying around the house. Simply make an account, fill in the details of the product and you will get an instant price for it. As the prices are instant you know what you're getting and you don't have to wait for bids like on eBay. Because Music Magpie has a free courier service to avoid high postage costs like you get on eBay and money isn't taken from the price you're selling it at

♥ Finally bootsales-

Bootsales are probably the most fun out of the bunch. Personally I haven't been to one in years but when I was much younger myself and my mum used to go every sunday morning and either sell out old bits or pick up a bargain. It's fun to meet everyone face to face- barter with them and get a bit of a bargain. These do take a while to set up and price up all of your items, unless it's inside then it's weather dependent and some have quite high prices to have a stand. On the other hand you don't have to make countless trips to the post office to send everything off!

My overall tips are:

♥ make sure photos and descriptions are very clear so people know exactly what they are getting- always point out if your items are marked at all

♥ at a bootsale prepare for all weathers, put on a positive face and be happy to bargain with people- it's better to sell something for a slightly lower price than you were asking for than not selling it at all!

♥ when posting items to customers on eBay make sure you do it promptly to avoid negative feedback from buyers which will prevent people from buying from you in the future

♥ use key words when describing your items- e.g. instead of 'blue dress' do 'short blue skater topshop dress- size 10' to help people find what they are looking for and for your products to come up in the search results when they are looking for something in particular

red indian fancy dress/halloween coustume OOTD

I thought I'd do a bit of a different OOTD post today as on Saturday me and my friend Carissa (check out her blog/YouTube/instagram/twitter) were going to one of our friend's fancy dress party and we decided to dress up as red indians. We got the dresses on eBay for just under a tenner (link here) and I think they would be perfect for any fancy dress parties you're going to, for halloween or if dressing up is just a regular occurance for you then I guess that's cool too...

This is just a short post but I wanted to do something a bit different for a change! Don't forget to check out Carissa's links too!

Life update- October

inspired by Shona's new post I thought I would do a bit of an update for you. I've been pretty busy with trying to fit things around sixth form, work and blogging but I've been doing quite a bit too. 

♥ It's my birthday on Monday aaaand I haven't really planned anything. I'm going out for dinner with my family on the Sunday and then with my best friend Megan on my actual birthday. I'm just going to have a few of my friends round for a girly night in with mean girls, a takeaway and some wine as everyone is still 17 so I can't go out! That reminds me- I need to actually organise that at some point, hmm...

♥ I'm off to the AX Paris event in London on thursday which I'm really looking forward too. I saw all the pictures and blog posts from their last one and it sure looks like they can throw a party so look out for pictures which I will be posting soon.
♥ I've been doing lots of work for my a level photography, including several trips to London, Brighton, Portsmouth, Winchester and Southampton to take lots of photos over the past few weeks. You can see some of it in my a level photography post if you want. My topic for this term is 'cities'- I've been getting lots of lovely comments from people so have a look and see what you think!
♥ I've been busy organising to look round universities over the past few months. As I mentioned on here before I'm wanting to do a marketing course. Brighton is my favourite at the moment but I'm hopefully looking round Bournemouth in the next week or so as it is supposed to be very good!
♥ I'm meeting Sarah this afternoon for a coffee and a wander around Chichester. I've read her blog for ages and it will be lovely to finally meet up with her!

♥ On saturday I'm going to my friend Jodie's birthday party. It's a fancy dress one so I'm dressing up as a red indian with my friend Carissa- would you like to see an OOTD/get ready video? ;) We're hopefully going to film a couple of videos on Sunday too, the common white girl tag and a bubble tea recipe are what we have planned so far!

♥ I went to see Mike Dignam in Brighton with a few of my friends last week. I hadn't heard of him before my friend Megan asked if I wanted to go but I actually really like his music and it was nice to see someone live as I haven't in ages! I was meant to see Tom Odell with my mum in Southampton last week but he changed the date last minute to the end of November so we still went to Southampton and had a wander round the shops (mainly IKEA) and went out for dinner, it turned out to be a quite good evening!

♥ I've just found a 'best of the 2000's' playlist on spotify and I've been LOVING playing it non stop (literally). It has everything from Beyonce, Jason Mraz and Katy Perry on it and I promise it will bring back a lot of memories for you! ps I hope that link works so you can enjoy the amazingness of it!!

♥ I'm off to Brighton next Thursday with my friend Carissa to go to an event (and do a bit of shopping). I feel like I've been to Brighton loads recently but I love it there and it will be nice to have a bit of a wander round and then meet up with some of the Brighton girls who are all lovely and I haven't seen in forever!

♥   I reached 7,000 followers on instagram yesterday which is a bit crazy! Thank you to all of you- you're all so lovely! My username is islaay and there is a little link in my sidebar if you want to give me a cheeky follow (wink wink)

This was a bit of a different post and something I haven't done before so please let me if you were bored to tears when reading it or if you want me to do another one at some point!

A Level photography- cities project

after doing a similar post some time last year showing you a little bit of my AS photography and since then I've had loaaads of people asking me to do more similar ones. For the first term of A2 I have chosen 'cities' as my project and this is a few of my favourite images I have taken in the first month of this project. I'm not really sure where I'm going to go from here but I need to do some more experimentation images such as the two above to ensure I can get the higher  marks as I am hoping to get an A overall (I was two marks off of an A for my AS project, gaaaah!)

I hope you liked this different sort of post- sorry if you only read islaay.com for the beauty/fashion/nail art posts but I thought I would change it up a bit. Let me know if you want me to do some more posts like this as once I've done some more work I'll easily be able to!

To save me answering a million questions of the same thing: I used my Canon SX40 camera to take all of these and Photoshop to edit them