Day 2 – My last holiday destination!

So day two of my little blog challenge I made was to describe the last holiday I went on! I love talking about holidays as much as I love going on them and I also love to read other bloggers describe their holidays as well so I thought this would be a good one to add to the challenge when I was thinking it up. So without further ado…

My last holiday destination was: Gran Canaria!

So lets start with the basics – where is it? if you didn’t already know then Gran Canaria is part of the canary islands which is a little off the coast of north west Africa but the island themselves are apart of Spain. So what was is like? Well it was like paradise! The weather when we got their was surprisingly lovely for January, we only had rain I think one night for the whole week we were there and the rest of the time it was hot but there was also a constant breeze which made it bearable.

It took a while to get to Gran Canaria by plane approx I think 4 hours and 30 minutes (it isn’t the longest flight I’ve ever been on but it was still tough!) I get unsettled and then I have to move around but I generally do enjoy flights, on the flight as well I was quite anxious because it was the first holiday we had booked all alone, done ourselves and paid for and it was just going to be the two of us in a different country so I was a bit anxious! but luckily all went to plan smoothly and once we arrived it was night time there, we got off the plane and found out coach to go to the resort and off we went.

Booking into our resort was easy enough, we got our room card and got told all the essentials and we went to find our room in the night time darkness with all the other holiday makers following suit. Like I said it was dark so we didn’t see much of the resort that night for obvious reasons but in the morning we were just blown away by how beautiful it was and how comfortable we felt there – Plus we had a random cute kitten outside our apartment every night which was adorable!

We went all inclusive so we got breakfast, lunch and dinner and late night snacks and drinks all included which was lovely. Every night after dinner we tended to go watch the entertainment for the night and have a few drinks and such which was lovely and then throughout the week we did some other little exciting bits like finding the beach, exploring the city, playing mini golf and eating at a panorama sea view restaurant and seeing the famous sand dunes!

But that was mine and my partner’s last holiday all wrapped up for you, I hope you enjoyed it! I thought I would wrap it up now because I could just go on forever 🙂

So I hope you’ll be around for tomorrows post on day 3 which is 5 things I dislike!

 

(These photos are mine own and belong to me only)

Uni, fashion journalism & blogging!

Hello, Bonjour, Konnichiwa, nǐ hǎo, Guten Tag, Hallo! 

So I have been gone a long time and haven’t posted in a while, however I am back and I am hoping that this summer I will get time to blog quite a bit so fingers crossed! Since I haven’t blogged in a while, I think you all deserve a reasonable explanation and that is because last month I had an incredibly difficult amount of university work due in the same week and it meant a lot of hours staying up till the morning, barely eating and being overly tired 😦 Luckily however now I have finished my university work and my second year at university and I am home for summer!

Before I broke up for summer I was planning on doing quite a lot of things this year and I am still hoping to do them at some point like first aid and learning to drive but something which I have been thinking about more lately is my old dream of becoming a fashion journalist. For those of you who were with me from the beginning, you’ll remember I wanted to be a fashion journalist and I put all my time and effort into juggling my university work and writing for various magazines, in total I wrote over 30 articles published both online and in print format so that was successful for me however eventually it all got a bit much and I couldn’t juggle the two much longer, so I gave up writing for magazines and at this point I was writing for at least 6 or 7 different upcoming or amateur magazines so it was a lot to give up after working so hard on it but it had to be done. After a long long long break of not writing, lately I have been looking into getting back into the fashion world! I want to write articles again, so I went and started writing for some of the ones I use to write for but now I am looking into other areas of fashion as well which might be interesting like photography and styling (I don’t know if I’d be any good but that’s why you learn and try!).

I’m not completely sure which direction I want to go into for my future career but there is three different industries I am thinking about which is fashion, teaching or health care and I have routes planned for all of them – so we will all have to wait and see what next year holds 🙂

Other than that, I’ve been worrying a lot about various things like finances and health, but I am still smiling so that’s good! 🙂

Well I hope you’re all well and I am back now!

 

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Nearly blonde! A cautionary tale of attempting to go blonde…

For a long time I had been trying to decide whether I wanted to be blonde or have pastel pink hair or do all sorts of jazzy stuff with my locks, it is a fact that I can’t leave my hair alone for a long period of time cause I just get bored!

(Warning – It’s rather a long post but it does have some cute gifs!)

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So from the top lets begin! I have brown hair (there are probably a billion shades of brown hair and I could try and find my shade but it’ll take to long so let’s just go with brown for now) and I decided on a whim that I wanted my hair to be lighter for summer and I was thinking of pastel pink or maybe trying blonde out. I had spent days and days online reading reviews of bleaching kits, highlighting kits, dyes, toners, you name it I read a post on it! But I finally decided to go to blonde or at least try, so I went and brought the much raved about BLEACH London total bleaching kit and I brought two because apparently the mixture in one box was a small proportion and wouldn’t cover all my hair as other bloggers had stated in the reviews I read so I followed the advice that I’d most likely need two boxes. I had to then make the choice of what shade of blonde I wanted to be and I eventually decided I wanted to be a golden blonde or a little darker than platinum so I also brought the Jerome Russell BBlonde Champagne blonde toner as well!

So onto the main event! I bleached my hair which is one of the most hardest tasks ever even with an extra pair of hands, luckily my partner was on hand to help me out but nevertheless it was a hard task. After bleaching my hair my head was stinging and I had a while to kill while the bleach was doing its thing, after I washed it out I saw that it was gingery blonde so I put in the toner following the instructions and waited for that to do its business too.

Washing out the toner I was super excited to see my lovely blonde hair BUT to my horror it was blonde on top and gingery blonde towards the bottom, it wasn’t a big deal that it was two shades but it was mighty obvious when I stepped outside in the light and it looked ghastly! (It was like platinum white, sunshine yellow + tangerine orange with a bit of browny blonde thrown it – what a lovely mixture right?)

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In the end I was thinking of buying more toner to make it one shade but this was becoming a very expensive endeavour and I had been missing my brown hair a lot so I decided to dye my hair brown once again and luckily I had a ‘golden brown’ hair dye at hand at home and chucked that on today and it came out a nice light browny colour which is great! But it has made me realise not to attempt this again and if I do then do it professionally at least, but for those of you wondering about the condition of my hair it is perfectly conditioned and healthy still! 🙂

As for the products I used I’ll add a mini bit in about them as I did want this to be a normal post not a review but the BLEACH London total bleaching kit seems to be over hyped in my opinion, it’s just like any other bleach in the sense that it does smell, it does sting and it does dry out your hair despite the reviews I read where others said it didn’t the only positive really is that it is a little cheaper and the box is quite snazzy however I also got within my BLEACH London kit a conditioning reincarnation hair mask tube which you can buy separate anyway and this is wonderful for your hair if you’ve dyed it – definitely worth purchasing!

On the other hand the Jerome Russell BBlonde Champagne toner did its job to an extent, it did remove brassy tones and gingery yellow bits but not all of it as well as this it is a very darkish blonde so if you’re looking for a light blonde or platinum I wouldn’t recommend this one specifically.

Well anyway that is that and I hope you enjoyed reading this little tale and had a good laugh or it helped you in anyway! 🙂

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Sparkle Sparkle! – Vashti Embellished Shoulder Jumper in Mint from Fashion Union Review!*

Fashion Union is a wonderful online store that has some awesome pieces of clothing! I love regularly looking through what they have to offer and the prices are incredibly cheap for the quality and style they provide, so it is a definite go to when looking for some unique pieces of fashionable clothing.

I wanted to do another sample review for them because their service has always been excellent and the clothes they stock are beautiful and sophisticated but casual and edgy as well, so I luckily got to review the Vashti Embellished Shoulder Jumper in Mint*!

I anticipated the little packet that would come in the post in the next few days and I was excited, when it finally arrived I was pleasantly surprised with this little number. It’s a sweet pastel mint green and the quality of the material is really soft, just thick enough to be warm but not to chunky and overwhelmingly hot so it was perfect and the jumper itself comes with embellished shoulders which is a bright edition to a normal jumper! (Hint the title, sparkle sparkle :D)

In the photo’s below I chose to wear the jumper with a leather skirt and black tights because it was cold outside! But in my preference I believe that the jumper goes well with all types of clothing such as jeans but especially looks good with leather! 🙂

If you want to check out Fashion Union their webpage is here – http://www.fashionunion.com/

http://bloggernetwork.e-tailwebstores.com/scripts/click.php?a_aid=Anothercityurbanite&a_bid=a79e7709

I would like to thank Fashion Union once again! 🙂

30 Day Photo Challenge – DAY 12 LOVE

(Super lovey dovey post ahead! But don’t we all love a good lovey dovey post now & then anyway? 🙂 )

So yesterday was day 12 of my photo challenge and the keyword was love which is such a simple but strong little four letter word.

My photo I chose was actually a collage I made (cheating a bit as I didn’t actually take a photo but made a collage) however I think it best sums up love for me.

This is my partner, the reason I am using him for day 12 is because he showed me what loving someone and being loved was like (I’m talking about romantically, not the family kind of love) the kind of love that you feel when you think you’ve found your soulmate or the person you feel you could spend your life with and never feel bored.

That’s how I feel about my partner I’m in love with him for many reasons; we are best friends, we know every little thing about each other and we have so much in common, he makes me feel confident and like I can do anything, he does so much to make sure I’m happy and he’s just overall wonderful in my eyes.

I won’t lie though like all relationships we’ve had some super tough times and arguments but we always come out of them learning, forgiving and making steps forwards rather than backwards – there for each other through thick and thin 🙂

Well hope you enjoyed my little day twelve post for yesterday. Today day 13 is a film! And shall be uploaded later 🙂

Comment or follow me on twitter/blog loving or WordPress! 🙂

How to survive at university – House hunting!

It’s the thing that every student faces once there first year of university is coming to an end – moving out of halls and finding a place of your own.

It can be tricky, infuriating, tiring and uninspiring searching for the perfect or near enough perfect place to live for your second year (&3rd!) at university believe me I’ve been there and done it! Before I started university I used to have this conjured up notion in my head that finding and buying/renting a house would be so much fun as an adult (Just one of those things you see parents/adults doing as a kid and think wow I can’t wait!) but once uni came around and I had the urgency to find somewhere before the end of term I saw the realness of searching for your first property – It’s tough, but don’t worry here’s some pointers to help 🙂

• Estate agents, private landlords and other search engines will be your first port of call, get looking early to avoid lack of properties available and missing out on some great places.
• Look for somewhere close to uni, these are sometimes more pricey than properties further away from your university but it’s worth it when you’re super tired and can’t wait to just go home and sleep!
• If you want somewhere further away, make sure there is good transport links or walking routes to any amenities and your university.
• Locate the closest doctors and dentists and get signed up! Looking for a house near these sorts of practices are beneficial, no-one wants to make a long journey to the doctors when they’re sick or injured.
• Look for a property in a safe area, if you’re in a big city chances are crime is common but that doesn’t mean you have to be a victim of it – make sure there’s locks/burglar alarms and any other security systems.
• Remember you’ll have to pay bills now, things like electricity and water so make sure you find a place where the rent isn’t to high and you can afford to pay bills still and survive!

Anyway I hope these little tips help! Everyone is different, you may desire a house with all modern furniture whereas someone may be looking for one with all vintage and traditional decor but these are just general pointers 🙂

 

Bright, Sophisticated, Natural, Outgoing – what’s your kind of lipstick?

I never wore lipstick but now I do, not everyday but frequently –  to this day I am still uncovering new make up (like primer!) & make up tips to try out (like contouring!) and a while ago I came across some excellent magazine articles on lipstick & they really intrigued me to try lipstick out. Personally I love to keep my make up minimal and natural but I also love to see make up that shows bursts of colour so why not combine the two? I went to town to trifle through the shops looking for the perfect shade of lipstick to compliment my natural make up and I came across two lovely shades of pink so I thought I would share them with you all and do a mini review! 🙂

• Rimmel Lipstick in 006 Pink Blush
  This lipstick caught my eye because I know Rimmel do some absolutely lovely lipsticks, glosses and tints. The shade is very light bright pink, when I first brought it I was worried that it would come out like a fluorescent pink but I thought I’d take the chance and actually it came out in a lovely pastel pink shade so I was happy. It glides on my lips really smoothly and feels lightweight, the only problem is you need to reapply often as it wears away a bit.
  
• Collection 2000 Lipstick in 13 Vintage Rose
  My favourite at the moment! It’s a dark pink shade the name of the colour describes it perfectly – Vintage rose. If you want a darker shade of pink that isn’t too dark and compliments natural make up then this is one to try! It is applied easily and goes on my lips without any issues, it is relatively long lasting although it does come off when drinking but doesn’t when eating or at least that’s what I’ve found others may find different 🙂
  

Thank you for reading lovelies! Let me know if you have any lipstick suggestions as I am on the lookout for new ones, also let me know your favourites as well 🙂

30 Day Photo Challenge – DAY 10 A DOODLE & DAY 11 HANDWRITING

Apologies for not posting yesterday I am actually two days behind on posting because I have had an awful migraine lately, if you’ve had one you’ll understand why I couldn’t post because of the excruciating pain! However here is my day 10 photo challenge and also my day 11 as well!

The first is a doodle of myself drawn by me of course 🙂 and the second is a picture of my handwriting from my coursework 🙂

I went on holiday!

In January I went on holiday to Gran Canaria with my partner, although me and my partner have been together for ages it was our first time going abroad together and that was mainly because we are students and the bank balance is not always smiling upon us!

Gran Canaria is part of the Canary Islands, the weather according to my handy guide book told me that it would be nothing less than 20 degrees which I was happy enough with considering that England is always most of the time raining anyway. So once we had picked Gran Canaria we had to book all our tickets and such which was left down to me, bearing in mind I am not only clumsy but forgetful I was a constantly worried the whole way there that I forgot something or booked it wrong! Thankfully that wasn’t the case and I can say I successfully can book a holiday without messing up the details – Woohoo! 🙂

The holiday itself was amazing, we got to see and do a lot! (I even held two parrots! ;)) we went to San Agustin and the beach and the surroundings were lovely, our resort had a massive pool and crazy slides so the child in me came out and I couldn’t resist going down them even with a full face of make up!

But overall it was brilliant, if you ever get a chance to go then do! Here’s some holiday snaps below…

 

Back To Uni – My 2nd Year & What To Expect In 1st Year

So I recently came back to the north as I am about to start my second year of uni here! I also moved into our new apartment which is very cosy and at this specific moment I am sitting on my little sofa writing this post for you guys, the apartment is nice and quite big which is great and enough for two people (Me and my lovely partner) 🙂

Well you are probably wondering overall how did my first year go? Well I have said before it included a lot of ups and downs, a lot of sleepless nights staying up doing coursework, a lot of fun stuff as well which I guess makes a good balance. I learnt a lot of things as well, I now make an excellent sponge cake! 😉 but I also learnt the basics like cooking, cleaning, shopping, doing my own washing, learning to budget (didn’t go as planned!) and such. If you are heading to uni this year that’s what to expect haha but it is definitely an unmissable experience as I am sure anyone who has been would agree.
I know a lot of people before they head to uni can sometimes get worried about whether they’d fit in or what to do if they don’t like clubbing and drinking and such like I did before I arrived here but honestly I realized no one actually cares that much whether you love to stay out all night or if you prefer to have cosy nights in at the end of the day, it is all about your personality that counts.

Tips (Don’t worry I won’t bombard you with a thousand tips to live by, just a few that may help 😉 ) – Sometimes when you have stacks of work you feel like you’d rather just hand in an unfinished piece just to get it over with but that’s when you need motivate yourself, don’t leave any work till last minute unless you are like me and enjoy the pressure because it makes you get things done faster. Do not blow all your loan on freshers and on alcohol because you will end up regretting it when you are living off beans and have no toilet roll and everyone else is enjoying spaghetti bolognese and eating out. Lastly don’t put yourself in danger always be safe, you are an adult now.

Well good luck to those heading to university this year! 🙂