This is a guest post by Bee at Bee Loves Beauty. Since the sun is well and truly out and long holiday weekends beckon, I thought it might be a nice idea to share some tips and recommendations for make up survival at festivals. Based on trial and (considerable) error, I’ve come up with some golden hints I swear by. Hopefully these will help us to avoid the third-day-leprous look that can afflict the make up wearing festie-goer.
I remember as a pre-teen wearing head-to-toe black (the closest I could get to a grown-up look, styling-wise) and two enormous black eyes of eyeshadow to channel Madonna for the summer camp talent show. We danced badly but aerobically to “Like A Virgin“, not having a clue what the lyrics meant. I’d seen Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan and she was the coolest of cool. In the time since then, she’s rocked some deeply dubious looks [including the rarely spotted "squatting-naked-with-a bottle-of-mineral-water"], but the 80s are back [still, FFS] and Vogue just published an online gallery of her styles through the [...]
Mini-MI and I found these classic Easter-time flowers just down the path among the council flats. Bluebell season is one of my favourite times of year. They grow better in the woods, though. Someone may well now show up and inform me that those aren’t bluebells. I don’t know if they officially are or not, but they look close enough for me, even if they’re actually something else. Want to grow your own bluebells? You can buy bluebell seeds online and plant them somewhere with a good amount of shade. They smell nice, and insects like them so you might [...]
It’s huge, it’s awesome and it took very little effort. This is the ideal cake to make if you don’t have much time. Low-energy cake-making (and parenting) at its best.
K, not quite midnight, but it’s after 9pm and I haven’t had my chicken skewers yet. The 4nim4l’s been talking barbecue since 2. Still, it smells nice, and I sneaked extra honey into the paprika lemon marinade. Win, eventually.
This is a guest post by Caitlin Kelly of Broadside blog. If you told me to jump out of an airplane or try rock-climbing or bungee-jumping or riding a motorbike, I’d say no thanks. I hate heights. Most physical risks leave me cold. But when I was 25, I left behind my apartment, dog, freelance writing clients and live-in boyfriend eager to marry me – and moved alone to France for eight months for a journalism fellowship. I was desperate for a break and a change, but I knew getting on that plane would – as it did – forever [...]
We made these cupcakes today. Frosted ones with jelly drops on top, fairy cakes with lemon curd and lime buttercream icing, blackcurrant jam filled ones with lids, and my experimental ones with frosting over lemon curd. Nom.
It was a baking hot evening on Sunday as we headed out to Reading for another night of Hot Muffins! burlesque at the Oakford Social Club. In the dressing room, we bemoaned the heat and tried to apply makeup before it melted. Our hostess Beatrix von Bourbon was running around wearing a sweet peachy pink prom dress and crinoline petticoat with 1950s geek chic glasses. After helping fellow newcomer Bette Noire (and isn’t that a quintessentially double-edged burlesque name?) into a pink corset and frilly frock that made me think of Little Bo Peep, I headed downstairs to practice biting [...]
Every year, the folk at Butser Ancient Farm celebrate Beltane (May Day) by burning a giant man made of twigs and straw. It’s a Gaelic tradition, with equivalents in Celtic & neopagan cultures, to mark the start of the summer. More importantly IMO, it’s a reason and a place to gather with people who like that kind of thing and celebrate the increasing warmth and light of evenings (in the Northen hemisphere anyway) at this time of year. Aside from the fascination & mild amusement I feel when I see a field full of people dressed up as druids/green men/maids [...]
