July Round Up

Sorry for the absence recently, it's been all go here! This week I spent some time down at my sisters and had a few really lovely days, shopping and picking out wedding flowers. I've also indulged in some British patriotism and watched the opening ceremony and most of the dressage (three day eventing, somewhat important to be up to date with as I'll be at Greenwich watching the show jumping final day on Tuesday!). So, busy all round. But it's a cloudy Sunday morning now so here's my July round up! It seems crazy that we're nearly in August already...

Since my June round up post, I've now acquired a job volunteering at a charity shop. It's unpaid and I only do two or three hours a week but it's really good fun and it's nice to get out the house and do something that's not pressured or targeted towards selling the most that you can. The people I work with are lovely, and the customers are amusing! Plus I get a nice warm glow knowing that I've contributed to society rather than sat in playing Sims all afternoon.

I struggled a bit with the loves and hates of this past month, as I don't really feel like I've discovered anything that ground breaking. The only things I really want to rave about are graze boxes and poundland bargains, which I think I've covered quite comprehensibly in previous posts here and here! I don't think there's really anything I've hated this month. I've loved the weather, the ability to get my shorts out, and the buzz around the Olympics so much I've been fairly distracted from make up and cosmetics and things! One thing I am definitely not loving is that my nails on my left hand are peeling rather severely and they refuse to stop :(

I've been spending a lot of time this month on money earning website SwagBucks, it's a website where you perform daily tasks such as surveys, polls and games in order to earn points that you can redeem for Amazon gift cards, Paypal gift cards or other rewards - So far, having joined on the 5th of July, I've earned 3 £5 Amazon gift cards and am well on my way to another! Fantastic site that I would thoroughly recommend if you have a few hours free.

I've also discovered Lookbook, a website that most of you fashion bloggers will be familiar with I imagine! It's not one I've really explored before but I'm giving it a go and so far, it seems fun and a great source of inspiration.

In August I'd love to get a twitter account for this blog set up, something I keep saying but not getting round to! I'd also like to experiment more with different nail varnish techniques (I have one planned for this evening that is very unusual - Olympic themed with a twist! If it goes well that post will be up soon, either tomorrow or Tuesday as a scheduled post as I won't be here) and hopefully earn a few more Amazon gift cards and paypal credits from SwagBucks, to fund my uni books in year 3. I'll need to have a good good clear out; another thing I've been putting off for a while, and make sure that everything is ready to go back to uni with. Where has the summer gone?!

Nail of the Week - Matte top coat

I never really wear reds on my nails, they're rarely the right tone for my pale skin and they remind me of a desperate 45 year old secretary trying to get into her bosses pants... Yeah. However I knew that the new Matte top coat by Rimmel I'd bought would need a really high gloss finish varnish to show of the effect to the max so I reached for my Nails Inc 'Milan' bottle and voila!

My idea was simple; mattify the middle finger half the index/ring fingers and leave the rest glossy (which later turned into put matte dots on the thumb and pinkies - failed quite considerably). As you can see, Milan is really glossy which is great when you want to make a feature with matte effect top coats!

I really like the matte top coat, it's so easy to use and makes a massive change if you use it on the right nail varnish. It doesn't work very well on muted colours or metallics but on really glossy colours it's great. I definitely prefer it used in conjunction with the normal colour as well - I've had my eye on some lovely reverse manicures done with matte top coats recently, can't wait to try that!

As a tag onto this post, I've set up a lookbook account! You can access it here or from the tab in the sidebar. I'd love to know if you have one - share me your link!