Happy New Year : Deborah Lippmann, Drinks and a Dress.

My New Years Eve Nails - 'Candy Shop' Deborah Lippmann

'Get This Party Started' - Deborah Lippman

Champagne ready and waiting.

Metallic pink wrap dress with shoulder pads - ASOS - Link Here!

New beginnings.

I've spent my last day of 2011 painting my nails. As if by a stroke of magic the aptly named nail set 'Get This Party Started' by Deborah Lippmann arrived on my doorstep today, over a week before the estimated delivery date. I chose the colour 'Candy Shop' for tonight, I will post about the whole set in more detail another day.

Of course when I say 'I spent the day' I actually mean a few hours,whilst tooling around in between doing various other things. I've spent a lot of time today thinking about the year that has just passed and the things that have happened. I have been living in Korea for the third year so that's been a big experience. I've learnt a lot more about the cultures there and made many more great friends. I also had my mum visit me which was a highlight of the summer. And now I have the pleasure of being back in England with my friends and family here. There's been two big events that stand out for me though. Steve and I got engaged (still smiling) just a few weeks ago and in August I began this blog.

The five months since I first created this little piece of internet feel like they've flown by but I couldn't be happier with how my blog is growing. I'd like to take this chance to thank you all for your support over the last few months. I am so grateful to all of you who read, comment and follow my blog!

I wish you all the very best for the New Year. I hope that with a new year comes lots of fresh new opportunities and great experiences for you all. Have a fantastic night tonight, celebrate the new beginning in style whatever you do (I know you all will)! Make sure you come back in the New Year because I have lots more to share with you and I aim to make my blog better and better.

Happy New Year Lovlies! xxx

I Wore: A 'Schoodie', La Mer Wrap Watch & Leopard Print Nail Art

After a productive Saturday packing up the apartment we decided to fit in a spot of Christmas shopping  today. It's icy cold here at the moment so all hopes of looking chic go out the window, unless you're prepared to freeze. I prefer not to, so when the weather is like this I like to wrap up in cosy cute knits instead. This scarf is a favourite of mine, well actually I think the official term is 'schoodie' since it's a scarf and a hood combined. Either way I love it because it's so warm and wintery.

Jumping shot - FAIL. I learned today that I suck at jumping.

 

I paired my schoodie with a cream jacket from F21, simple black tights and skirt combo and my tasselled boots. I even found time to coordinate my nails. I did a metallic gold polish with a leopard print design on my ring finger. You can see how to do leopard print nail art in a post I did - here. This week my boyfriend surprised me with a late birthday present a La Mer wrap watch! I love it. You might remember I wrote a post about them a while back. He'd actually ordered it about three weeks ago but their service is shockingly slow. If you plan on ordering one as a gift for anyone I'd recommend you do it now. It's a lovely watch though and goes great with loads of my outfits.

La Mer black studded wrap watch & leopard print ring finger nail art design.

Seoul's main shopping district - Myeongdong. Do you still think it's busy where you shop?!

Christmas shopping, complete with the Starbucks red cup and some festive decorations.

The Christmas haul & me wishing you a (very early) happy New Year!

I managed to pick up lots of nice gifts for friends and family. I purchased a couple of little things for myself too (and something extra special that will be getting it's own post later). I haven't even made a start on packing my clothes and accessories away yet and instead I'm adding to the collection, ooops!

So what did you get up to this weekend? Have you begun your Christmas shopping yet?

xxx

Terrible Tuesday and Cath Kidston Flower Nail Art.

For me today was 'Terrible Tuesday'. I always feel like Tuesdays are the worst. On Monday you have a little energy from the weekend, Wednesday you're always thinking 'I'm half way there now - I can do this', on Thursday you know tomorrow is Friday and on Friday, well...it's Friday. But Tuesdays....Tuesday's are just horrid. I'm not going to bore you with the details though and waste more energy on it. Instead, I'm going to tell you what I've been up to this evening.

Tonight my boyfriend is out so it's just me. I quite like a little alone time - I've read a few of my favourite blogs which always seem to feature (I don't know why I do it?!) skinny, pretty, immaculately dressed girls who appear to have fantastic lives to go with it. Darn them!

When I read these I think several things like, I need to go shopping (again!) next weekend, I really ought to fake tan and I want to whiten my teeth today. So....here I am, sat with the whitening strips on my teeth, in a little while I'm going to apply some fake tan (just enough for the sun kissed look not like Orange Fanta or Cheetos, do not fear!) and I'm writing this. The other parts will have to wait.

During my Internet browsing the other day I found some cute kinda kitsch Cath Kidston wallpapers for your computer, they're free if you want to download one. There are several more to choose from but here are the ones that inspired me...

She's a fairly popular designer in England, when I was about 16 I had a limited edition phone of hers, I loved it so much, until I dropped it down the toilet that was! *cries* Possibly nothing more annoying than when you do that, is there?!

This is how the floral prints inspired me...

Floral, pink flowery nail art - easy, trust me!

It was fairly simple to do. Here's my simple how to guide.

• Select a base color and apply two coats.
• After that has dried splodge on a dot of light colored pink, then on top of that add a darker pink. You don't have to wait for them to dry. The number of flowers you should do depends on the size of your nails, for smaller nails I'd suggest less flowers or it may turn into a bit of mish mash mess.
• Add a tiny highlight of white to the splodges.
• Use a green polish to create small leaves around the splodges.
• Wait for all this to dry then add a glossy top coat to finish it. 

And hey presto you're ready to go.

Pink floral nail art inspired by Cath Kidston.

I love to wear florals, they look so pretty and feminine. Occasionally I'll wear a floral dress but the easiest way to wear them is just by adding a hint to brighten up a plain outfit. You don't want people to start thinking of you as a walking garden! I recently picked up two over sized corsages from H&M which are perfect for adding that flirty, floral touch.  I like to attach them to my handbag and wear them on my clothes or jackets. If I'm feeling lazy or in a rush I just tie my hair in a messy bun and plonk one on the side. They make everything look prettier!

Pretty femine and floral in just the right amounts. Corsages - H&M.

My messy hair with a floral corsage from H&M

Leave me a comment to let me know what you think :) Have to go see about that tan now...

..ta ra!

xxx

PS: I've just set up an account on bloglovin'. Please help me out by clicking to follow me :) If you're feeling really really nice you can follow me on twitter too, the links on the left. Thanks ladies! x

Blixz a lot like Minx - Metallic Nails!

As you know I'd been wanting to find Minx Nails for quite a while now and stumbled across another kind called Blixz Nails in a shop here in Seoul the other day. They seemed to be the same apart from the names. Actually that's the only difference I can find. Having a slight small teeny tiny problem with decision making I ended up buying three sets! They only cost about £5.50 (just over $9) each set though...I can justify everything to myself when I want to! I thought that was actually a pretty good price, it's cheaper than I've seen Minx being sold for online anyway.

I'd been dying to get the metallic gold or silver so clearly had to buy both of those and then I thought I'd try something a little edgier and a bit different so got the leopard print. The print has a white base color with metallic silver and black leopard spots. Inside each packet there are two sets of seven nail appliques, which is 14 in total, just in case your maths is worse than mine! They look like this....



So how do you apply these kind of nails like Blixz and Minx....??

Here's my how to guide as simply as I can explain it:

• Remove all previous nail polish
• Gently buff the nails with a buffer or fine nail file. Just a few swipes back and forth, don't over do it as you'll weaken your nails
• Cut one of the nail appliques off the strip (closest to the size of nail you're doing) with the backing film still attached.
• Trim the edges of the nail applique so that it fits to the shape of your cuticle.
• Stick it on to your nail starting at the base and smoothing it down to the tip.
• Fold the excess over the tip of your nail.
• Use a cotton bud or one of those rubbery cuticle pushers to smooth the applique from the centre outwards to the edges.
• File the excess off by moving downwards across the tip of your nail. Only go one direction so that you don't pull the applique up off your nail.
• Repeat this until all your nails are done!

It's pretty simple although does take a little while. It took me about 30 minutes however this was my first time using these and I'm also a bit of a neat freak especially when it comes to my nails!

A lot of people online suggest using a hair dryer on a low setting to make the application easier. I tried doing these with and without the heat and honestly it didn't seem to make much difference. There's nothing on the Blixz nails that suggest you should use heat. I'm not sure if the same applies to Minx though, sorry.

Blixz metallic Leopard Print nails.

Wild huh?! Ignore the really red bit round my nail...
I nearly drew blood with a stupid cuticle tool! Owwww!

At first I really wasn't too sure about these, I feel like they look a bit 'stuck on'. I trimmed the edges further away from my cuticle with one of those cuticle tools (No idea what they're actual name is!) and it looked a lot better.

I wore these for a day but then I took them off. (Side note: to remove just hold your nails under warm water for a few minutes or heat with the hair dryer then gently peel them off.) This kind of animal print, as cool as it is, somehow just didn't look right to me on my nails!

Maybe it's because it's not as sparkly as I'm used to. I've seen similar one's on other people though and always thought it looks wicked! I don't know what's wrong with me...I guess I just know what I like and have the thing's I know suit me and my style.

I'm looking forward to trying the metallic gold and silver though, I know I'll LOVE both of those.

I'm off out to get sushi with Steve now, see you later! xxx



All sorts of side-tracking.

So this weekend I was intending to write at least one post maybe two but I failed. Well and truly failed in fact because I wrote the grand total of zero posts for this blog. In the post I wrote earlier this evening I mentioned I was side-tracked and I said I would explain how that happened. I'm mainly blaming this.....

Chambord <3 <3 <3 Black Raspberry Liquor

Since I'm living in Korea it can be really difficult to find some of the luxuries I love from home. Chambord is one of these luxuries. It's a liquor made from black raspberry and it is quite honestly AMAZING! I can't explain the taste except for saying it's sweet without being sickly and makes every cocktail you mix it into taste incredible. Haha! I found it in Korea and I'm very excited about this :) 

I also spent a large portion of my weekend painting my nails. I did them three times. Yes, I have a problem.

First I did this - 'Cracked' hot pink nail polish over baby blue.

I like the effect of cracked nail polish when I see it on other people but when I try to wear it I never feel it matches my style. This one looks particularly messy because I rushed it before going out for the night on Friday. It got replaced by the rose coloured metallic polish (mainly because it's easy to apply quickly and still looks faultless) I wrote about a few posts back..

On Saturday I went out with my boyfriend for a browse at the shops. I decided to go casually in a new oversized t-shirt I picked up from H&M.  I teamed it with blue leggings (just too comfy to ever stop wearing). For a touch of the girly sparkle I love I added a silver Swarovski paved crystal heart necklace and a Links of London 'Sweetie' Bracelet. The pink watch is a Chanel Mademoiselle watch (gift from the b/f) with the patent pink quilted design strap. I don't get to wear it as much as I'd like to though because being pink it doesn't match everything :( 

It was raining so I got to wear my lovely Hunter rain boots. They're 'duck egg' blue in tall gloss and I love them. Can you tell from the picture? Hehe!

In the evening my boyfriend and I went out for a rather late dinner to one of my favourite restaurants here. It's called Queen's Park and has a lot of British inspirations in the menu, which is partly why I love it. It's really pretty and the food's delicious which is the other part of why I love it.

We then continued the fun by inventing our own cocktails (including the Chambord of course!) at home after.

Then, with not a lot else to do on Sunday, I figured 'hey...why not paint my nails again?!' Yes I think it's a serious problem.

Third time, I did this! - graduated silver glitter french tips.

Pretty though, aren't they?!

That's all folks. Goodnight from me.

xxx

Practicing self control in Forever 21 and Accessorize. Plus metallic nails!

So with yesterday being the first Saturday after my pay day *woooohoooooo* naturally I decided I had to buy some new things. Not that I don't buy new things during the rest of the month. It just feels necessary and justifiable to do it when you've just been paid!

So, here in Korea there aren't hundreds of shops that stock my size, everyone here is so darn petite!! You can imagine what I look like by comparison, 5'11'' and sadly NOT petite at all :'( *sob sob*

Thankfully they have H&M, Zara, Mango, and Forever 21 here so all is not lost! Actually it's not even close to lost, I LOVE all these stores! Haha! What makes me feel even better is that if I were in England I'd have to be living in Birmingham or London to experience the joy that is Forever 21. The London location only opened on the 27th of July this year.

I read an article on the Daily Mail about the 'scores of shoppers' lining up in the street to get in and it actually made me smile, a little triumphant that I've been shopping in Forever 21 happily line-less for about 2 years here! Hehe!

So here is what I picked up:



Forever 21 - Short floral dress



I love that this dress has built in moulded cups!

The dress I bought is here, it's $22.80. I can't seem to find it on the UK site only the American site, sorry :(

I also bought a scarf. Yes, yes...I know, it's summer! You don't have to tell me that, it's 32 degrees Celsius here today. It's just that I'm kind of obsessed with scarves and when it comes around to autumn I'll want a leopard one just like this and I won't be able to find it in any of the shops. So it seemed to make sense to just buy it now.



It's really light material with a ruched effect.

I actually did amazingly well not to buy a lot LOT LOT LOT more. Forever 21 is more expensive here in Korea than in the U.S. but it's still pretty damn cheap in the scheme of things. Sometimes that fact lures me into a bit of a buying frenzy. It goes like this....

I see something...'ooh that's pretty' I think...I kind of like it....I definitely don't LOVE it. 'No, it's not 'wow', I'm not getting it...I'm walking away now...but...'Oh wait...how much is it?...'It's how much??!!...'Oh what the hell, it's only blah blah £/$s' ...It's in my basket!

I'm finally at the checkout now...the shop assistant says to me: 'The total is $200 (£120)'...My face grimaces....I think to myself...'a a h ...Sh*t! I've done it AGAIN'!!

And that's how Forever 21 goes for me.  Every.  Bloody.  Time.

I actually bought the same maxi dress in two different colors a little while ago along with two maxi skirts that I've worn once. Basically the cheapness usually entirely voids me of my ability to shop discriminately. Do you see the problem I face??!

Anyway...if you're not lucky unlucky enough to live near a Forever 21 like me you can shop on their U.S. website or U.K. website. I warn you, you may spend more money than you mean to!

I also visited my favorite British export here, Accessorize! Another mistake. As the name suggests it's an accessory shop. My lack of control in Forever 21 pales into insignificance when compared with this place. It's just all so sparkly and pretty!!

Accessorize goodies!! The photo doesn't show how nicely
the crystal bracelets twinkle. Trust me though... they're so pretty
and they won't tarnish either (I HATE when that happens!)

Finally, I picked up some new nail polishes to add to my ever growing collection ~ which quite frankly is worrying! My mum said I have a nail polish hoarding problem when she visited and saw how many I have. She's probably right but I'd rather have that problem than the problem of FUGLY hands and feet!! Hehe ;)

I've been hoping to find a place that sells the Minx nails but have yet to do so. If you don't know what Minx Nails are then take a look here but I warn you it may cause serious cases of nail envy!

I think I may have to order from the Internet instead. But I did find these metallic nail polishes to use in the meantime. They create a fairly good shiny metal effect, nothing like Minx does, but it'll have to do in the meantime.

Nail polish from The Face Shop.

I bought these from a Korean store called 'The Face Shop' but I know that they're really similar to metallic polishes that brands like Orly and O.P.I make so you'll be able to find them if you do an Internet search.

Here's what the metallic rose pink looks like (on my feet though, sorry, feet are odd, I'll do finger nails in future!):

Rose pink metallic nail polish - It's no Minx but it is pretty.

Right, I'm off to find other things to spend my pay check on. Please feel free to leave a comment if you read this and follow my blog. I will happily follow you back :)

Have a great Sunday everyone!

xxx