Birthday LOTD & Beauty Haul!

My Birthday was Monday the 7th of April! Thank you for the messages & cards, I had a lovely relaxed day with some shopping ;) a cute lil' afternoon tea with Ed & his family and went out for Wagamama's in the evening with my family which was so lovely-if you've never been..why not!?
And just to let you know, I am NOT obsessed with the colour pink, despite how it may seem after you see the pictures :P

My Full Face :)

Ma Pink n White EYes

Products used for this look :)

Nyx Jumbo pencil in milk as my base (to really make the white and pink pop), Sugarpill "Tako" for the white shadow, Sugarpill "Dollipop" & Concrete Minerals " " eyeshadows for the pink, LOOK Beauty Mono shadow in "Gilet" as my transitional crease colour to make the look that lil' more wearable ;) .
Tarte "Exposed" Blush (as I didn't want to go with a too sweet look with pink cheeks as well!!) & Nars "Copacabana" multiple for my highlighter. Benefit "Gimme Brow" was ran through my brows and They're Real was gracing my lashes. MAC's Viva Glam "Gaga 1" was on my lips (and I don't think I've ever actually made that colour work quite as well as that, so that went really well!). I was going to wear falsies but I just couldn't bring myself to look THAT fake >.<, especially as Ed's grandparents' were coming :P

My LUSCIOUS Kat Von D Shoes <3

My Full Outfit

My Dress is called "Glamour Guts" by Iron Fist Clothing (hopefully they will start up their UK site again soon!?) and I kinda wish I bought it in a medium instead of large as it's a tad loose and I would've preferred it a bit more hugging ;)

My Shoes are Kat Von D (sorry I have no idea what model) but I actually got them really reduced at a random outlet shop before Christmas!
















Anyhoo! Onto the BEAUTY HAUL (which I know is why most of you are here ;))

HAUL!

So, I am sure you can probably guess what everything is but I shall list anyways:
-MAC Colour Correct Compact (Yellow)
-MAC Hoop Lipstick (Matte, from By Request Collection)
-MAC Prep & Prime Radiance Primer (sample)
-MAC Myth Lipstick (Satin, from permanent line)
-Lime Crime Uniliner in Rhyme
-Lime Crime Uniliner in Reason
-Lime Crime Coquette Lipstick
-Lime Crime Styletto Lipstick
-Lime Crime Cosmopop Lipstick
-Duo Dark lash glue (from Cocktail Cosmetics)
-Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette!
-Real Techniques kabuki brush

(L-R) Hoop, Myth, Styletto, Coquette, Cosmopop

I am so in love with the products from Lime Crime I am going to HAVE to try some more! Coquette is such a beautiful colour (I have worn it tonnes already) and I can't wait to wear Styletto somewhere too! I have already tried the silver uniliner (I believe that one is called Reason) and it's staying power is fantastic and it's buildable in pigment too!

And contrary to what I thought, I do actually really like the Naked 3 palette! I find it works nicely for day to day wear-kinda wish it had a couple more lighter/creamier shades though, find I am using my Naked Basics in conjunction with it quite a lot. But nonetheless the shadows are still high quality, butterey and smooth to blend :)

I shall do some more updates on the products as I use them!

As you can see I was well & truly spoilt! I had such a lovely day and I hope you guys enjoyed reading this post! See you in the next one! :) x x x

Cystitis. One woman's pain?

So I am sure a few of you who follow me on Instagram/Twitter etc will be aware that I suffer with Cystitis. I have done for as long as I can remember (crazy right?! an 8yr old sat on the toilet all night in pain!) and as some women have NO IDEA what it is and some know exactly what I was going through-I thought i'd do a post on a HUGE run through about it, the symptoms, causes, remedies etc. So those of you who suffer may pick up something useful and those of you who have no idea what it is might gain a lil' sympathy for your friends/family members who do suffer from it.


Friendly Warning: Please note that in this post I will be talking about female bodily parts etc and if you are not comfortable with reading things about this topic then please just X now as I don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable.


Here we go then! What the hell is it?
This is the actual definition: inflammation of the urinary bladder. It is often caused by infection and is usually accompanied by frequent painful urination.

And here's my definition: Stingy/Burning sensations during urination or just after and lingering painful feelings in vagina sometimes with lower abdomen pressure.

(please note that if you haven't suffered with it before, you're really not going to understand the sensation, it's a really strange horrible feeling. I tend to not like to be around other people when I have it as they can't tell I am ill as they can't see any physical changes in me-like a cold, y'know?)

Caused by:
Stress (is actually the main cause for the next bit-), infection/contamination from bacteria from anus (ya bum hole) to urethra (wee tube) going up to and infecting the bladder. My Doctor told me that it's made worse in younger females and those going through the menopause as Oestrogen levels are lower and therefore the bladder lining not as good at defending itself. (whether this is true or not, I am not sure as she wasn't very good at curing me-but we will not go into details and to me this is a plausible explanation). It's also easily caused cos'-Think about it, ya bum and ya frou frou are actually pretty damn close together >.< .
Sexually Transmitted Infections/Diseases will cause it also.

Preventative Methods:

• Cranberry Juice-drinking unsweetened/no added sugar cranberry juice helps strengthen the bladder lining and therefore can help prevent future infections. Note the no sugar bit, all fruit naturally contains sugar but juice drinks with a high sugar content are going to feed the infection and make it worse.
  
• Cranberry Concentrate Tablets-If like me, you're not overly keen on the taste of Cranberry juice (especially no added sugar, although healthier, is a tad sharp!) Cranberry tablets are a good alternative (I've just ordered a S'Tonne from Holland & Barrett and as soon as I finish my Antibiotics plan on taking on everyday for the rest of my life).
  
• General good hygiene around your lower regions-I doubt this needs much explaining but wiping front to back is one real quick way you can help lower the chance of contamination. Simple, but effective.
  
• Weeing before & after intercourse-if you are having regular sex (with one regular partner, I hope!!) then peeing before sex (I am not saying right before btw, you don't have to wait :P) and then afterwards (again, not straight after "get off me, I gotta pee!" but within the next half hour) will help flush out any bugs pushed further up into your vagina/urethra.
  
• Is there a chance you could have an STD? -sexually transmitted diseases like Chlamydia are one of the main and most frequent courses of Cystitis/UTI's. Any Doctor's surgery/sexual health clinic will be able to help you with this-in fact, in most surgeries you don't even need to see a Doctor an appointment with a nurse should be sufficient (for more guidance on this kinda thing go to: http://www.nhs.uk/sexualhealthprofessional/Pages/index.aspx)
  
• Drinking your daily recommended allowance of WATER!-WATER IS SO IMPORTANT AND I HAVE SO MANY FRIENDS THAT DON'T EVEN DRINK IT AT ALL!?!? (and the most frustrating thing?-they never get cystitis at all!) 1.6 litres is the recommend amount for daily consumption, this will help flush all bad toxins out of your system.
  For the real human being who likes the fizzy and works hard so thinks they deserve it-do what I do and just have one small glass of pepsi or lemonade with meals, I don't drink alcohol as I find it's too hard on my system and I always suffer the next day anyway, but Pepsi Max is my one thing I cannot go without!
  
• Notice any changes down there? Go see your Doctor! -Have you started noticing discharge? Smelly white or other colours in ya knickers when it wasn't there before? Go tell them, it can help prevent further infection/most of the time is a very minimal thing.
  
• Wearing loose clothing/NO TIGHTS!-tights were the worst invention ever. They make you sweat and that harbors all sorts of bacteria! Hold ups all the way gal! And men find them sexier-bonus! ;)
  
• Wearing Cotton Knickers-Don't get me wrong the lycra and the lace is great when you wanna get ya sex on, but day to day dealings and work-Cotton Panties only please! This material is just going to not promote sweating and bacteria growth. Nice...

These are just a few of things I find help, if you google cystitis/UTI's you'll find a whole other realm of preventatives that may or may not work for you, it's all about finding what your trigger/cure is. One lady once said to me about Dairy being her trigger! (but I do not find this is the case with me).

Treatments:

• Cystitis Sachets: They come in a lil' box (generally 6 sachets) of high sodium powders that you dissolve in a glass of water and (generally down as quick as you bloomin can as they're disgusting!) these neutralise the high alkaline amount in them means it helps neutralise the acidity in your bladder/urine and helps relieves the symptoms, when I was younger I found these helped and when I have accute Cystitis now I find just one or two help in "nipping it in the bud" when I get the tell-tale lil' sting at the end of one wee. Now, I take no chances!
  
• Ibuprofen: Can help with the pain relief I find paired with the sachets works best-don't just use this on it's own, it really will not work at all in getting rid of the infection.
  
• Go to the Doc's and get some Antibiotics, generally they'll ask you to do a sample-I do this so often I have a stash of test tube/sample pots and I just do one before I leave to go to my appointment/do it quick whilst at the Doctor's before my appt. After popping some coloured bits of paper in your urine to see the result (the different colours mean different things are present, be it puss cells or blood etc.)
  they'll know what to prescribe.
  
• Drinking nothing but water/cranberry juice-I find that Cranberry juice once you have the cystitis isn't great (just my opinion, a friend really swears by it) but it makes a nice break from the water!
  
• Sit/Stand/Squat/do whatever you feel comfortable doing-my friend very often tells me to go get a hot water bottle, so I am assuming this helps her, I prefer personally to feel cooler/cold. So doing what makes you feel comfortable is best. I tend to stay in the bathroom, be it on the loo or just squatting on the floor or stood in the bathroom...but I just like the bathroom. (This really is not a nice experience gals, so I hope those of you who have never had it are starting to understand it!)
  I find a lot of the problem too (and after some discussion with my mum who also suffers, agreed) is that once you feel the start sensation, that lil' niggle after that first wee, you start to dread it as you know the pain that is coming...so, after a while it almost becomes psychological. I keep myself in the bathroom until I literally cannot take anymore and then go to bed, that may not necessarily be because of the pain, but because psychologically I feel better.
  
• One of the horrible things about Cystitis is that there is no real-quick sure-fire cure, you do kinda have to ride it out a bit. Just remember lots of towel holding and deep breaths are good too!

I have suffered with it, as I said, for a long time but I have never had it as bad as this last time. I had to go to A&E it was so bad and I am pleased I did as they insisted I go back to my GP and get referred to a Urologist and also gave me a significantly better antibiotic than my GP I saw on Monday...but anyway, once I have been to the Urologist I will update this post and let you guys know if anything useful has come from it :).

I hope this post has helped you some what and for those of you suffering, I know your pain-and it is horrible, I have cried so much from the pain and will not let those tears go to waste! I am determined to now find out why the hell I have been/have been allowed by various GP's to suffer with this for nearly 10 years now.

The crux of Cystitis/UTI's: You're in so much pain and discomfort, you can't and don't want to do anything. And NOBODY should have to feel that low.

I love you guys and leave a comment if you have any suggestions of preventatives/treatments and please send me suggestions for updates to this post x x x

Pin Up/Rockabilly LOTD inspired by Punky Pins!

You know those days when you're really down and you just want something to just pick you up a little bit? Well, I thought that Riri Woo maybe the answer-and it was!
But that wasn't the only thing inspiring me to look a tad pinup-esque though-It may have something to do with my good ol' friends from PunkyPins and the necklace I got from them!

My Necklace <3

So, I am sorry this is so soppy and throw-ey up-ey but this is the only thing I have ever bought that is personalised to and Ed & I because I normally hate things like that, I think it's self-obsessed and not nice but there was something about this necklace that I was just like..."Yeah, I really like that!" Possibly because on the site they use John & Yoko and Elvis & Marie as examples and those are couples that were quite glamorized, so perhaps that's why I liked it :P You can choose from 3 colours but seeing as I don't have very much Green based jewellery I thought this would be a good choice :) You can find that necklace here: http://www.punkypins.co.uk/name-necklaces-c6/double-name-leopard-heart-necklace-p1093

My Full Face :)

Anyway, moving back onto my face look! I just had really plain, good coverage skin and my Riri Woo gracing my lips, for my eyes I used Benefit's Foiled Cream shadow (which was limited edition but down below I have swatched a colour you can get that's exactly the same) all over my lid, Lined my eyes with liquid liner & topped off my lips with H&M's lipgloss in red.

All Products Used.

So there ya go, Pinup styles like this are generally very simple, but very effective! They look so fantastic and once you're not shy of the liner technique-they're very easy to create in little amounts of time :)

Dupe for Foiled!

So, the dupe I found for Benefit's Creaseless Cream Shadow in Foiled was Bareminerals pressed powder eyeshadow in Ooh Lala. Foiled has a slight more sheen due to the cream texture but apart from that they have the same metallic and mauve mix in them, plus I am really getting into Bareminerals shadows as they are ever so creamy and blendy :3

Hope you guys like this LOTD!? Why not give it a +1? ;) x x x

Filofax Showtime!

So I know that this is primarily a make up blog but I am sure most of you are aware I could NOT function without my filofax! Purely because I am quite forgetful about times etc and I am a very organised person who believes punctuality is extremely important (omg, so sad I know >.<)  that is the main reason I need my filofax in my life.

Pre-Warning: This is a LoooOOoooOOooOOOOooong post! XD

I got it from TK Maxx so I got it at a cheaper price than buying it from WH Smith or Filofax directly. I have the Metropol (the style) Personal (the size) Organiser in this pretty Blue/Lavender colour.

So the first initial inside flap has two stickers on it, one "Oh, Honey!" sticker from the Katy Perry Eyelure lashes and a 3d lenticular (I think they call them?) sticker from Barbie :P
It then has six lil' pockets to hold business cards and one large pocket that I put the "Stick & Memo" Flap around so I can always reach stickies and notes quickly & easily.

Next up is my first divider, I actually made all these dividers from paper packs I got off of Amazon (I measured out the old ones and drew round them then cut them out and glued two sides together :)). I decorated this one with my Sugarpill Heartbreaker palette sleeve (which is just waaay too pretty to throw away!), a lil' cupcake embellishment I made and a small hello kitty heart sticker :3.

This divider holds the "Month on two pages" pages I have which I actually just use for blogging! It gives a really easy, quick overview that I can just see when each post needs to be up, when to tweet it etc.

These are little stickers that I got from Amazon and I use these anywhere in my diary! You get lots of little birthday ones, holiday, dentist, medical, car mots, dinners out, special occasions, sports-all sorts! These are just so useful, you get two pages of them as well and they're fairly inexpensive too. Just Love these :')

Month on two pages-Didn't want you to see what I had coming up! :P

I had to blur it out as I didn't want you guys to get a whiff of what's coming up ;D but you can see I use lil' fluorescent stickies as my markers (nah, different colours don't really mean much, just the colour I was feeling that day :P). I also mark around the actual month as it shows you days of the last month and next month and that really confuses me >.< So, I highlight around the actual month to make it easier to see at a glance.

Next divider is Week View! (I like the week on two pages as I find it gives me enough space to jot everything down for each day, I also have found I like to use the lined/ruled pages as my handwriting can be appalling without a little guidance :P) I would ideally like the day on one page but they don't make it in Personal size that I could find... as it has a nice layout of hours for the day and I like to be precise :P. As you can see I used my Sleek Candy Collection Palette box for this divider and added some embellishments (lil' hearts & flower).

Lil' Snapshot of Week on two pages layout

So you can see in the pic above that highlight comments differently, Green is something to remember, pink means I have to go somewhere/leave the house and then I add stickies, I have these adorable lil' camera ones that I like to write on them what I am photographing-you can see on this one it's for this post!



Address Divider: (not pretty enough to photograph!)
These adorable pages of Adventure Time themed Address Spaces I made myself on Publisher. I measured the Filofax pages and then edited the page size on publisher to that size so they printed the right size :) I actually typed up addresses I already had but just left spaces for ones I don't so I could write them in later.

So this divider is my "orders" divider, because I hardly do any shopping in store anymore (apart from the odd makeup and clothing) so I keep track of all things ordered in here! Then I can chase up deliveries of stuff if I've forgotten I've ordered it haha! Oh dear... But you can see this divider's paper is so pretty, I wanted just one brightly coloured thing in the centre and this Illamasqua lip booklet cover seemed like the thing! You can see the set this booklet came from here:
http://januarybeautyful.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-amazing-illamasqua-lip-set.html

Next up is my "Important" divider, perhaps the busiest looking divider I have!? It's pretty much the opposite to the Orders divider, I had a really busy paper style and wanted something quite simple to sit on top of it and this Iron Fist label (comes on all their clothes) was something I wanted on display somewhere so this seemed perfect :')
In my Important divider I just keep important bits of info I might forget like blood group etc :).

Now this divider is my favourite! (Go on, just guess as to why :P) It's actually for my To Do lists but the decoration on this one definitely steals away the prize from any others to me... I used an old Benefit box from the One Hot Minute powder! I just cut it more neatly and added a pic of Ed and I underneath and bingo! Really cute divider :3
I WILL NOT be showing you a picture of my To-Do list layout as it is pure MAYHEM!

So, as you can see I basically keep old boxes/cute packaging as you never know when they might come in useful for a craft project like this one!

My Divider for finding my place!

Believe it or not, this page finder is made of an old Tissue Box, the black parts were actually furry but I had to laminate it to make it stronger but I still love this print & in real life you can see the indents from the furry stuff and I love that :3









This divider & the next one are made from old pages of Benefit Catalogues!! This one I loved as Simone looks so pretty in the circus themed ring leader's outfit and I liked the horse :P
This divider is my Post Note pages, so any posts I am making like this one gets two to three pages for me to just doodle on and make notes on what I am going to say so I don't forget what I thought was important at the time!!

This was the advert for the new box o'powder plush glosses when they came out :3 I do really like them actually!
And this divider is for my exercise/healthy eating progress log/ideas for lunches etc. Everything to do with that side of my life basically!

This is the last bit of my Filofax, it's a personal sized sticky notes (official Filofax product) bought off of Amazon also. You can probably tell by now that Amazon is my life lol :P

Above are all the sticky notes I have that I slide into the front sleeve of my organiser, I got all of these off of eBay literally by typing in cute sticky notes (Be warned, you may end up spending over £30 on sticky notes as I very nearly did!). I chose these, though, because they have one nicely sized note sticker and lots of little tabbies which I really like to use as they don't take up much space and the camera ones I use (set not pictured here) to remind myself to take pictures of things/products!

This picture is all my pens I use in my Filofax!! On different coloured papers, I like to use different textures/colours whatever that stand out and make it more easily (in my opinion) read. I have a nice range of Sharpie Fine Points in lots of pretty bold colours, another nice range of Stabilo fine liners in nice bold & pastel colours, a great set of Crayola thin pens (I love soft feeling colouring pens like these! :3) and finally a small set of coloured metallic pens also! So it's a big range of textures, colours etc to match the paper types in my organiser.

Anyhoo. That is FINALLY IT! Well Done & Thank You so much if you made it all the way to the end! Even if you just scrolled through the piccies :P I hope you like this and this has given you some ideas on how to organise/spruce up your old Filofax/whichever organiser you use. I love you all very much and will see you in the next post! x x x