February Life round Up

February has been the hump day of term two. It arrived all to quickly but it took ages to get to Saturday (in this case March). We seemed to have started a lot earlier than a lot of other universities, our terms runs from 5th of January till 27th of March, most of my friends at other uni's started back late Jan early Feb!


I didn't really have any deadlines in for this month, which resulted in me being very unmotivated and truth be told I struggled to get a lot of work done. I've mostly been working on my dissertation and boy do I wish I picked a happier topic! Think more about your dissertation kids! It's a long research project!

Term two at uni is the longest term we have at my university. Being so far away from home means I can't just pack a bag and spontaneously go home, I simply can not afford that. Thankfully my parents booked four days off and came down south to visit me over the weekend! It was such a nice weekend and I was spoilt rotten with hugs, food, and a few cheeky purchases! All a girl really wants ;)



The weekend was not just to divide the term for me, it was also a short holiday for my parents. To get away and visit new places. They'd planned to take me to York, which made a really enjoyable saturday and a visit to an outlet which is always great to look around! For sunday, I'd planned to take them to Wollaton Hall, an Elizabethan Country House which is now the Nottingham Natural History Museum. (It's also the home of Bruce Wayne/Batman in the film The Dark Knight Raises). It was a bit of a gloomy day, hence the washed out cloud filled sky, but I think my dad enjoyed seeing a film location as well as learning a bit of history of the country house and Nottingham itself. The house is something to see, but the grounds, deer park and lake are something worth seeing in it's self! I really would recommend a visit if you find yourself in Nottingham.

If you are at university and aren't able to go home as often, maybe find the middle of the term and mark it in your diary. Either visit home or see if they can come visit you? I know how difficult it is when the rest of your house mates go home and spend the weekend with their family and you can't, especialy term two, when you've just come back from christmas and had a lovely break, coming back to uni when theres not much sun light and you aren't around home comforts, can be quite depressing.

So booking a visit gives you something exciting to look forward to! I find it refreshes me and sets me up for the rest of the term.

To Break Up The Term

Last weekend my parents came down to visit me at university. After five weeks of being at uni this was something I had been looking forward to for weeks! They came down on the friday, arrived friday night, we went to York on saturday, had an amazing carvery on the sunday and then left for
home monday morning.

This post is very picture heavy so I will stop writing..... now.

 Saturday was a bit of a spurge day, here are my favourite things I brought, all thats missing is a top from H&M, socks, The Body Shop body puff and some grocery shopping.

January Life round Up

January has seemed to pass incredibly slowly, I mean at snail speed.



One week back into the swing of university life, and it's felt like I never left! Jumping back into a project that I was mid way through at the end of term 1/start of December and I felt like I'd been back for months!

Ok so my christmas break wasn't really a sit back and relax sorta holiday and I was constantly thinking and working on my model box for my project, but come on! Four weeks off and I feel like I didn't relax?!!!

A quick 'Welcome back' talk from our tutors gave us all a very uneasy feeling when they told us that we really only have one term left. One term to get our projects together and dissertations in print. It's been a very stressful, time ticking month.

Three years ago, I believed if I ever went on to university it would take me years to complete, oh how wrong I was. Effectively I only have two months left till Easter. All project work needs to be handed in in March. Easter is looking like it will be filled with dissertation work, ready for hand in in the first two weeks of April.

After that, the remaining time from April to late March revolves around our exhibition work, building, painting and all the rest to get it tip top shape, ready opening in early June!

I thought I'd post a little update, to just let you know I am still here, just hidden behind the piles of work, books and research material. As soon as I crawl out from behind this work I will jump right back into blogging.

Winter Is Here!

Right now as I'm typing away, I wearing, a long sleeve top, a heavy knit jumper, jeans and woolly socks. It's cold in my room, and outside the wind is whirling around! Winter pushed in and shocked us all!

We live in a old house and there must be a window slightly cracked open because there is a howling noise coming from somewhere. You know the noise I mean... slightly creepy, kind of high pitch howl. Not a good noise to hear when you are on your own at night time!

We pulled numbers out of a hat to pick rooms, and I picked out one of the largest rooms, but downstairs. The window however is a floor to ceiling sort of thing and is only single glazed so it lets the cold air in. With winter imminent I am trying to find cost effective ways to warm up my room and keep it somewhat cosy. 

Coming back to uni my mum demanded I needed take the electric oil heater with me, as well as seeing it being put into the car for the drive down. Thank god she said this, I don't think I would have been healthy if it wasn't for that little heater. 

However being a student and living with other students, issues were bound to arise about my having it and using more electric than my share. ( Although I only use the electric for the heater and my alarm clock as well as when I need to charge my laptop.) 

So talking with friends and family, somebody recommend using candles... She mentioned to me that she used candles in her second year and they kind of gave a placebo effect. A little flame which when you see it out the corner of your eye, it kind of gives you that warming effect. Sounds crazy I know but trust me it does work!!!

So I went out and brought a couple of cheapy candles, I didn't really care much for a certain smell, I just wanted to try it out and I found some in Primark!

At £2.00 each you can not go wrong. They had a variety of colours and scents to choose from. I went for the purple and the light grey. To be honest, the two scents mix together quite nicely. 

I understand that for some people, the placebo effect might sound silly, but for me personally, I felt that it kind of worked. To have the candles lit, made me feel like it was a bit warmer and they also lit up my room quite nicely, not enough to do work but to watch a film in bed or something was perfect. 

I definitely recommend Primarks candles, check out the scents and colours and if you are a student, and are allowed candles in your rented accommodation, check them out and see if they help make your room that bit more cosier. 

Charlie x

How I Spot Cleaning my Makeup Brushes

So it's a Saturday night, the house is suffering right now after last nights Halloween antics. So whilst feeling a little sensitive I thought what better time than any to spot clean my makeup brushes. Not something I really love or hate doing but something that's easy enough to do whilst chilling in front of a film.

Now I know you should wash your brushes at least once a month to get ride of the bad bacteria that can settle on your brushes. But to be 100% honest, I only use the brushes on my face, if I were to use them on somebody else, I'd have cleaned them prier to use. But alas they only touch my face and i'm alright with that.

So the picture above shows everything I use to spot clean my brushes...

My brushes, a clean kitchen roll sheet (maybe two, depending no how much makeup you use and the amount of brushes) and finally the cleaner itself. I like to use the M.A.C Brush Cleaner.

Its the first proper brush cleaner I have tried but since I've started using it am constantly stunned as to how much product it gets out!

1. Layout all your dirty brushes (and if your like me, realize you probably should have done this before now)

2. Set up your drying station. (If you have the Real Techniques travel case, this is a great thing for drying you brushes on as you can angle them downwards. If not you can always use a clean flannel to rest your brushes on whilst they dry.)

3. Grab a clean kitchen towel sheet.

4. Grab your cup and pour a fair amount of the brush cleaner it to it. (You can always add more liquid, but from experience having to much left over is annoying, and you can't exactly up the dirty liquid back into the bottle!)

4. Dip the tip of the brushes into the cleaner and draw in circular motions on the kitchen towel and watch the magic happen! Once all of the colour is out of the bristles, Rinse the brush head under some warm water to get ride of the brush cleaner liquid.

6. Place your freshly looking brushes to one side to dry.
7. Appreciate the cleanliness of your brushes, it might not last long! (Yes this should be done!)

Charlie x