My Everyday High Street Make-up

Hey everyone,

Now if you're anything like me then you enjoy going about your day to day life with a splash of make-up on. You don't have time to go the whole hog and contour, put eye shadow and bronzer on, etc (who does?!), but you always feel better about yourself when you have something on to cover up your insecurities or bring your eyes out. That is why today I have decided to share with you the make-up that I wear on a day to day basis that takes me around 5 minutes to put on, which is great if I'm running late to school (life-saver!) and is pretty easy on the old wallet as well.

1. Rimmel London Scandaleyes Mascara in Extreme Black - £6.99 I love this mascara as it makes your eyelashes look really long without making them stick together and go all gloopy. You can also get this make in black and waterproof, but I tend to stick with the extreme black as it is way more noticeable, so therefore it makes your eyes stand out a lot more.

2. Rimmel London Match Perfection Foundation - £6.99 Now I don't wear foundation on a daily basis as I find my skin is a lot less spotty if I refrain from wearing it and allow my skin to glow naturally. However, I know a lot of people do wear foundation regularly, so I thought I'd share with you what I wear when my skin is having a particularly 'patchy' day and all I want to do is cover it up. This foundation is SPF 18, so great for all weathers, and it comes in 11 different shades, although I just stick to the lightest as I live in fear of the slag line. It also gives quite a matte finish (well it does on my skin anyway xD) so you don't have to worry about looking shiny ever!

3. Rimmel London Stay Matte Pressed Powder - £3.99 This powder is such great value for money so I wear it every day with a bit of concealer as it manages to cover up my spots and blemishes without rubbing off within an hour or making my face break-out in a horrible mountain of spots- ew. It comes in 6 shades, but unfortunately you have to provide your own sponge to apply it:/ however don't let that put you off as literally EVERY drugstore sell about 10 sponges for £1.

4. Rimmel London Wake Me Up Concealer -  £5.49 Can you tell by now that I'm a bit of a Rimmel slut!? So this isn't the best quality for money concealer out there, but it does mean I don't have to bother visiting the other make-up stands if I'm running out of time and it sure as hell does it's job. It comes in 4 shades, and a small amount will make your skin tone look a lot more even and cover up dark, under-eye circles. FAB.

5. Seventeen Make Your Mark Liquid Eyeliner - £3.99 & 6. L'Oreal Paris Super Liner- Perfect Slim - £6.99 I also don't wear liquid eyeliner on a regualar basis, I usually just put a bit of whatever eyeliner I can find just below the lash line of my upper lid to make it stand out more as I really am a last minute sort of person. However, again a lot of people wear liquid liner on a regular basis and I use either of these two when I do. They are both pens rather than brushes/wands, which I find makes them sosososo much easier to apply, and they both last a long time without cracking or rubbing off like many other cheaper liquid liner do. I buy the Seventeen liner when I'm being a bit more frugal with my money, however the L'Oreal Paris pen is a better buy as it has a much thinner tip, so is easier to use when you want a much thinner line, making it a better 'all rounder'-although I must say both are good if you want to vary the thickness of your line from time to time.

There we go, these are the things that I use on a day to day basis. I excluded brow make-up from this as I simply use an old brown eye shadow which I'm not even sure you can buy anymore. Plus, you probably shouldn't use eye shadow on your brows, I just find it so much cheaper and it makes them look less fake. I also didn't include eye shadow as I only wear that on special occasions and NEVER on a daily basis. The way I see it that means I can have the extra wow factor when I go to something nice rather than appearing the same as I always do!

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this style of blog. I'm thinking of doing something more 'booky' next week as I have a few ideas up my sleeve and I want to see if they will actually come together. Thankyou for reading,

Love Katie xo

MADEIRA

Hey everyone,

Two weeks ago I was on my summer holiday on the lovely island of Madeira! For those of you who have never heard of Madeira before it is a Portuguese island that's quite far off the north western coast of Africa (I think that was an okay description xD), and it's quiet, cultured and very very beautiful.

We arrived on the Monday and spent our days exploring the capital city- Funchal- going on tours of the east and west, levada walking, swimming in the pool, and of course doing a bit of shopping here or there. So here are some snaps we took along the way, I'll describe what's going on as we go along...

My sister sitting on a rock at the highest point on the island

We visited a fish farm, awwwww

 Me, looking mightily squinty, with my new bird house. This was an ongoing joke throughout the holiday, it's probably too confusing to explain :/

Some FAB photography skills shown here by me

There was a food fair a town called Santana, and I thought this looked really cool

We decided to play a game of 'spot the Emily'in the Botanical Gardens. This round may have been too easy though...

 My sister liked the trees a bit too much

 Evening drinks out, that's me on the left and my sister on the right

 A big thing in Madeira is tobogganing down the hill, unfortunately we didn't get to do this, but we got to sit in a nice replica outside of our hotel 

It was very windy on top of that hill

Some nice street decorations

This is a traditional house in Santana, there is only one person that actually still uses the houses as his home, and he very kindly lets people have a look around for free (as you can see in the picture below). I thought seeing the houses was great as it really gave you a feel for the history and culture of the island, plus they look freaking amazing am I right?!

Casual person hang-gliding 

This is one of the views from a levada walk we did. Levadas are the water system that they use on the island to transport water from the mountains to all the different towns and you can do guided walks along many of them which give you some stunning views and allows you to see things you can see from the road-side. 

This was the pool and bar area of our hotel at night time

We thought this tree was really cool

We had lots of coffee, and as Emily put it I needed to 'Instagram the shit out of that stuff', and like a good little hipster I did!

And of course there is always time for a good old selfie (ew that word makes me want to vom)

Obviously I have many many more photos that I'm not going to share with you guys because I don't want to bore you to death, but I thought I would share some to show you this snippet of my life. It honestly was an amazing holiday and if you ever get the chance to go I would really recommend it. It's not the usual sort of place for young people as it's not really a party island, but me and my sister really enjoyed it, so I guess it's down to personal taste, and what you want from your holiday.

I was so happy because I managed to read the whole of the first Game of Thrones book and Divergent whilst there which made me really happy, but that's not really important :3

Anyway, I've got quite a few book reviews I want to share with you guys pretty soon, which I'm excited to write, and as it is also the summer holidays I will probably be doing some baking pretty soon, because why not?!?

Thank you for reading,

Love Katie xo

Pudding Date

Hey everyone,

Today is Monday, which means it's officially a week since I came back from holiday, say whaaaaat? and it also means that it's been absolutely AGES since I last blogged, for that I am sorry. This past week since I got back has been Cr-A-zy, I've been volunteering every morning; trying to catch up with all my friends afterwards; and then I've been working all weekend, so yeah, no free time there! I promise that within the next few days I will upload a holiday post (I would have done it sooner but mum went away with the camera that had the majority of the photos on it, so it's been literally impossible for me to do!)

Anyway, onto some more important stuff. A few weeks ago my sister came up with the fab idea to go on a pudding date, and boy was it good. Today we went to a pub that was about a 25 minute walk from my house (which trust me is nice when you've had lots of pud), and searched the menu for what we fancied. We decided we wanted a chocolate chip cookie dough tray, which was covered in sauce, brownie pieces, whipped cream, ice cream, and many other delicious things that I can't remember. Unfortunately that was the one thing on the menu they didn't have *sobs*, but with plenty of other tasty treats on the menu we didn't find it hard to choose something else aha.

In the end we chose a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Baked Cheesecake, a Sticky Toffee Waffle Cake and we shared a Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Sundae, although I didn't eat so much of the sundae as the cheesecake was so rich (but nice!) that I wasn't very hungry afterwards. Here are some pictures of our AMAZING puds:

Me with my Cookie Dough Cheesecake, nomnomnom...

And here's a close up of the beauty, it was so creamy and rich that I honestly felt like I'd gone into cheesecake heaven.

My sister and the Sticky Toffee Waffle Cake. 

This cake was sooooo scrummy, I only had a little bit but the cake was light and fluffy and filled with flavour!

The Sundae! My sister was upset by the lack of shortcake, at one point she thought there wasn't going to be any, but she found a bit right at the bottom so that made her happy:'3

aaaaaaaaaand a bit o' Crabbie's Ginger Beer to wash it all down

And there is the best lunch I've ever had. I think we're going to make this a tradition as we had some nice sisterly bonding time, and  we want seek out other nice pubs and cafes that do really nice looking puddings also. 

Thankyou for reading and stay on the lookout for my Madeira holiday post in the next few days!

Love Katie xo

Banoffee and Marshmallow Cake!

Hey everyone,

Last week was one of my bestest ever friend's birthday and she had a special request for me. For ages I'd been raving on to her about this banoffee and marshmallow cake that my family always made for birthdays and she thought it sounded fabulous, so she insisted this was what she wanted. The cake ended up tasting very delicious but it did look a bit of a mess as all the filling insisted on oozing out! But being a vegetarian this did not matter to me as I couldn't eat the marshmallows in the filling anyway, and it made it easier for me to just get at the cake.

So on Tuesday night I put a bit of Lana on in the background and got baking!

To make the recipe easier for you before you start I have come up with some top tips to help you out:

• The recipe says to bake the cake all together in one tin and then cut it into three. If you have access to 3 shallower tins, I recommend using these instead as it means you don't have the challenge of cutting the cake proportionally and straight, and you lose the risk of the cake falling apart.
• When whipping the cream for the filling use an electric whisk as otherwise it takes FOREVER, as I found out, and also make sure you whisk it until it is very thick, as this will stop it falling out of the sides when you assemble the cake. 
• Don't put too much dulche de leche between the layers, save more for the top. This will also help the cake keep it's shape.
• Make sure the cake is fully cooled before assembling the layers together with the filling or the cream will turn runny again.

The cake should serve about 10 people, take 30 minutes to prepare and take around 50 minutes to bake.

Ingredients:

165g butter, plus extra for greasing

165g soft light brown, or light brown muscovado sugar

325g self-raising flour

1 rounded tsp baking powder

1 rounded tsp ground cinnamon

4 large eggs

4 tbsp milk

2 large ripe bananas

(for the filling):

300ml double cream

1 banana

50g marshmallows chopped for the filling, whole for decoration (I just bought small and large because I'm lazy)

450g jar dulche de leche (I simply bought caramel)

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius or 170 if you have a fan oven. Grease and line the bottom of a round 21cm tin. Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth and a pale, creamy colour. 

2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and cinnamon (I always think sifting makes the cake less dense in the end, although it is such a bore). One at a time beat each egg into the butter mixture along with a tablespoon of the flour mixture, and then beat in the milk. Fold in the rest of the flour mixture until well combined.

3. Mash the bananas until smooth and lump free- the best way to do this is using an electric whisk- then fold into the rest of the mixture until well combined. Spoon the mixture into the tin and smooth over the surface.

4. Bake for 50 mins. Put a skewer into the cake and see if it comes out clean, this indicates that the cake has baked fully. Leave to cool for 5 mins in the tin, and then remove and leave to cool fully on a wire rack.

5. Cut the cake horizontally into 3 equal layers. Whip the cream until it is tick and forms stiff peaks, the chop the bananas and marshmallows into small pieces and fold into the cream. On the first layer spread some dulche de leche until it covers, followed by half of the cream mixture. Sandwich the second layer on top and repeat. Spread the dulche de leche over the top of the cake, and arrange the marshmallows on top to please.

 

 This is how mine tuned out (sorry for the bad photo), messy I know, and trust me it looked worse after it had been in a tin all morning and transported to sixth form! This is definitely my favourite cake though and it is very satisfying, do you only need a small slice. 

So what do you you think? Recon you'll have a go at making this for you or one of your friends? If you do let me know in the comments, or if you have any good recipe ideas I'm looking for something new to try:) 

Love Katie xo

Super Summer Haul

Hey everyone,

It's one week tomorrow until I head off on my summer holidays (yaaaay), so I've been starting to think what outfits I want to take with me. Recently, whilst I've been out and about, I've been looking for cheap items to buy that would be great for the sunny weather. Obviously a lot of the stuff I'm going to take with me I have had for a while (I'm not made of money), but I have also found a few little gems which I'm going to share with you now. I'll be honest though, practically everything I've bought has come from Primark, so if you're not a fan I'm sorry!

ahhhhh, as soon as I saw this dress I fell in love. I just loved the colour and the pattern made me feel really girly. I don't usually wear light coloured clothes (boring right?) because I don't really like standing out too much, but it's summer so everyone else will be anyway. The elasticated waist makes the dress really slimming, and I liked the and the triangle cut outs at the top as they reduce the need for a necklace in my opinion, which really helps me as I'm never brave enough to use half the necklaces I own aha. I also thought the dress would be good for cooler days as well as you can just throw on a denim jacket and some tights to keep warm whilst still looking good. This dress cost me £8 from Primark.

 These shorts are definitely my style, and the more I look at them the more I love them. They weren't my original choice, as I preferred another pair which has a white, lacy, flower pattern totally across one half, however this pair just fitted so much better. I love the lace trim and the acid wash (which is more noticeable in person) however they are quite short, so maybe not sixth form appropriate, but definitely holiday appropriate! These were yet again from Primark, for the slightly more expensive price of £12.

Now I was slightly disappointed in Primark's choice of crop tops, however I fell in love with this and thought it would go wonderfully with my new shorts above ^^ I am usually more of a dog person, but the top with a puppy on was no where near as cute, and it had a blue background, which I thought made it look a bit more tackier so I decided the kitten was the way forward, and at £5 I couldn't say no.

 Woooo, finally something that isn't from Primark! I bought this Denim Jacket from New Look online a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. I decided to put it into the summer haul, as here in the UK summer doesn't always mean sunshine, yet the jacket goes perfectly with summer dresses, meaning you can stay summery even when the sun goes in. So far I've mainly worn the jacket for a more 'grungy' look, so I think it is great for all styles. It is also slightly acid wash and over-sized, which I love love love as it means it's really comfy and easy to move around in (I HATE tight things, I buy all my clothes at least one size too big as I can't stand anything that clings). The jacket cost £22.99 plus £5 delivery if you buy online, unless you get it delivered into store, but it is definitely one of my favourite buys recently, even if I am very late to jump on the denim jacket band-wagon!

 This is a denim camisole top and when I saw it I thought it looked very cute and it only cost £6, so I thought why not? I think it would go great with a pair of shorts and sandals on really hot days as it is very light and loose. I saw the perfect pair of creamy, lacy shorts in the Urban Outfitters sale last week when I was in Liverpool for only £20 (and I say only because if you've been in  UO you will know that is very good for them.) However, it was right at the beginning of the trip and I decided to leave them in case I saw anything else I preferred throughout the day. Needless to say I didn't, and we never got round to going back *cries*, biggest regret EVER! 

It really annoys me how you have to buy bikini parts separately because I find it hard enough to find one that I like, and then you have the added issue of finding both top and bottom in your size. Anyway, I'm really picky when it comes to bikinis, so I always end up just settling for one which will do as I grow bored of looking. I was a bit weary of this as I'm not really a pink person, but it is definitely growing on me.I bought this from Next, the bottoms were £8 and the top was £12, which believe it or not was the one of the cheapest bikinis I could find.

For the past month I haven't worn earrings as I literally have no pairs. I seem to go to parties and when I wake the morning after I have always lost an earring, and it got to a point where this had happened with ever pair I owned. So I bought this pair from Primark for £1.50 (sorry for the shoddy picture) as I thought they were really summery and big, and I looovvvveee BIG studs.

This pair of sunglasses were sort of an impulse buy as I already own 4 pairs, but when I saw them for £2 in Primark I didn't even contemplate not buying them. I just thought they were really chic, and unlike any of the other pairs I have, and I know I will definitely wear them so I have no regrets! 

I don't really know why I'm showing you my bobbles, but 50 for £1 is a pretty good deal. I know after a few months I will have lost them all and will be down to just one that is about to snap but will hang on for a few moths until I end up buying more, but at that price who can complain?

This dress was £8 from Primark and I have just fallen in love. The patterns and colours are just beautiful and it goes great with tights and a bowler hat for more cooler weather, or with bare legs and sandals in the heat, and because it's so patterned it is really easy to style as you don't need anything else bold to go with it. The dress was quite long when I bought it so I had to use my fabulous sewing skills (ahahah, I kid) to shorten it so it looked a normal length on me as I am really really short!!

This cost me £5 from Primark and soon became my new favourite dress! It's plain and simple, which is sometimes all you need. I like to pair it with a simple gold chain necklace, little blue socks,a pair of brown brogues and of course a pair of sunglasses, which if i'm honest I mainly use to keep my hair out of my face as my hair is very long. There were loads of other colours as well which I'm tempted to go back and get as I literally don't think I can over-sell this dress.

I haven't bought any new shoes at all this year as I still have many that are in good condition, including my favourite ever pair of shoes- my black and white deck shoes <3 I did really want a pair of black jellies, and I was tempted to get a Juju pair for £20 from Schuh, but I was feeling a bit frugal at the time aha. 

I hoped you liked this type of blog, I'm tempted next time to take the photos of me wearing the clothes to show you how I would style them as I feel it would look better, so let me know what you think. (I had already spent too much time taking photos of all my clothes by time I had this idea to actually do it) :3 

Stay tuned because I have soooooo many book reviews to do that I want to share with you, and a few events coming up that I think will be interesting to show you. Leave a comment with anything you've bought for the summer.

Love Katie xoxo

Super Healthy Blueberry and Banana Muffins

Hey everyone,

I always find myself constantly having to choose between being good and staying healthy or treating myself and eating something I shouldn't. Unfortunately I tend to choose the latter, and once I've started I assure you I cannot stop. It'll start off as one cheeky chocolate raisin, and then I find myself thinking 'oh one brownie can't hurt', and before you know it I've got my fingers in the peanut butter and nutella jars and mum is asking me why there is none left for her morning toast. 

SO, a few weeks ago, when I was in a big baking mood, I decided why not combine the two? All I needed to do was bake something that wouldn't pack on the pounds but was still enjoyable, hence making my treats a little less naughty. And that's when I found the Healthy Blueberry and Banana Muffins recipe...

(my lovely feet in the background xD)

To make 12 muffins you will need:

300g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

100g light muscovado sugar

50g porridge oats, plus 1 tbsp for topping

2 medium bananas (preferably very ripe)

284ml buttermilk

5tbsp light olive oil

2 egg whites

150g blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/ gas 4 (this is the bit I ALWAYS forget to do) and line your muffin tin with your cases. Put the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Hold back 1 tbsp of sugar as you will need this as a topping at the end, and then pour the remainder into the bowl along with 50g of oats. 

2.  In a separate bowl mash the bananas until smooth. This bit took a lot of effort, probably because my bananas weren't as ripe as they could have been, but I left a few little lumps in there and they still tasted FAB! Add the buttermilk oil and egg whites to the banana and mix until evenly combined. 

3. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the banana mixture in, stirring quickly, but be sure not to over mix even if there are lumps- these lumps are normal and not panic worthy. Combine the blueberries into the mixture and bam you're ready to add it to the cases. 

4. Once you've filled all the cases - the recipe should probably make twelve but if you like your muffins big like I do you're looking at more like 10- add the spare oats and sugar on top. Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden (mine took slightly longer) and leave to cool completely. 

I found the longer you left them after baking the easier they were to get out of the cases, as if you tried to eat them right away they got stuck and I found myself nibbling at the cases trying to get every last crumb, but once they'd fully cooled there was no problem!

And there we go, quick; easy; healthy and tasty, what more could you want!? Let me know how they turn out if you have a go at making them, or if you have any other tasty recipes you think I should try:)

Love Katie xo

Delirium

Hi everyone, 

Since my exams have finished the weather here in the UK has be fabulous, so I have taken advantage of this by catching up on a lot of reading time that I have missed in the garden. The first book I read was one that my friend had recommended to me over a year ago and I finally managed to find it in my local library. The book is called Delirium, and it is written by an amazing author called Lauren Oliver, who has written some other great books like Before I Fall, which I have also read. Delirium is a novel for young adults that was first published in January 2011, and I'm pretty sure a TV movie will be released later this year (better keep our eyes peeled)

The book is set years in the future, and the premise is that love is a considered a disease and in the past it was thought to be the route of all anxiety, depression and mental illness. When you turn 18 you are old enough to receive an operation to remove the illness, after which you are paired with an appropriate 'husband'. All towns are locked in and there is a curfew to stop boys and girls meeting, which would result in the spread of amor derliria nervosa (love). People who rebel against this (basically people who believe in love) are kept in quarantine if they are caught, whilst those who escape (wildlings) live in the wilds away from civilization. 

I feel like I've made that sound like a really weird book, but I promise it is actually really good! Stick with me...

Predictably, the main character is a normal seventeen girl, Lena, months away from her operation, who has family problems, has a much cooler best friend, and who would never dream of rebelling. And without giving too much away she meet a boy, Alex, and trouble ensues. 

The book is really easy to read and gripping right from the beginning. I found that this was not due to the fact that the story got going really quickly, but mainly because your hooked on wanting to find out more about this unusual world. Although the concept is a little confusing, the book actually isn't complicated to read as the story line is pretty simple, yet Lauren has a knack of making simple become very interesting and leaving you thinking at the end. 

Delirium is the first in a trilogy, the other two books being Pandemonium and Requiem. I've heard these two are not as good, however I will still probably read them for myself to make a proper judgement! 

Overall I think Delirium is a book definitely worth reading, especially if you like teenage romance that's not too 'mushy' and 'mouth-vomit worthy', but that has a twist. The book is easy to read really quickly so perfect for a summer read, however if your looking for something a bit more lengthy and sustainable, it perhaps isn't the book for you right now.

I would give the book a nice rating of 4/5.

How about you? Have you read Delirium, or perhaps even the rest of the trilogy? If you have leave a comment saying what you think. If you have any ideas for books I should read next (I'm currently reading The Pact by Jodi Picoult) then leave a comment as well to let me know. I hope you enjoyed this post and like the new style of KLBOF,

Love Katie xo