Fables in Fashion

It’s Friday and unfortunately there will be no Book of Fables this week I’m actually out in Inverloch at the moment with some of my friends relaxing and getting creative! My goal is to shoot at least 4-5 chapters this weekend, which will give me plenty of breathing space to work on some more complicated projects In the mean time, let me share with you some photos I took yesterday

I is super classy lady no?

Toby, Neil and Nomi out on the deck

View from the deck is ammaaazing! I get excited and anxious by the shooting possibilities *_*

The deck, it really has an amazing view

Again, the deck XD You can tell, I is obsessed!

Our room, clean before I messed it up XD

The house we are staying at~

Me being silly and playing around with my new iphone app recommended to me by Neil ;D

Fresh flowers to welcome us to the house <3 This place is amazing, I wish this weekend didn’t have to end! But I’m sure going to enjoy it for all it’s worth Hope you guys have a great weekend, I will do my best, work hard and hopefully have some great videos to show for it at the end

Not sure about you, but I’m not a very consistent sort of person in some regard. For example, I can’t eat the same type of food often and I don’t like using the same products for extended periods at a time. I like mixing stuff up, even if it is just a small unnoticeable change to others.

I don’t wear often wear makeup day to day. However there are a couple of “essential” pieces that I try to include on even my most laziest of days if I can manage. Those two are eyeliner and mascara.

I switch between gel eyeliners, liquid eye liners and powder eye liners all the time. However lately, I’ve been rather obsessed with trying to use up some of my pencil liners. Especially the crazy number of sample Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencils in Zero. (Seriously they come in almost every single gift set from UD!!)

However I find it very difficult to get a smooth thin line unless I am constantly sharpening my pencils. So an alternative is using an angled brush, which if you watch my Book of Fables series you’ve noticed me do a couple of times.

I take the brush to the pencil, and then I dab the brush on my upper lash line, as the formula isn’t the smoothest, I find dabbing to be the best way to avoid dragging my eyelids.

Do you guys have any other “strange” makeup habits you’ve picked up? I’m thinking of moving back to gel liner since I’m pretty much only a few weeks off finishing up my MAC Fluidline Blacktrack. I’m hoping that this year I’ll be able to finally polish off a few other makeup products

Hope you all are having a fantastic New Year, no matter where you are <3

Another year is almost over, time to do my year in review and resolutions. It’s New Years Eve, I know I will be spending most of it with my family, plus a few hours of singing up a storm with my favourite blogging gals this evening I hope you all have exciting plans too!

REVIEWS
#1 – Last year I mentioned wanting to take my Book of Fables series to the next level and branch into videos. Well mission accomplish! (did I really just type that?). I think entering the world of Youtube has taken my Book of Fables series to a whole new level. It’s given me a new platform to express my ideas in a much more immersive way. It’s a plunge I was initially very apprehensive to take, but one I have zero regrets taking, and now only the sky is the limit!

#2 – Not really blog related, but I’ve definitely grown a lot more at work. I don’t talk a ton about work here because honestly who would be interested? Right! I’ve been given so many new opportunities and have been very blessed and need to make the most of it whilst I can.

#3 – Collaborations, I didn’t get to collaborate as much as I originally wanted, but I did do a short piece with The Age, MX Magazine, two fantastic shoots with Neil Creek and of course working tons more with Surfaced Studio when it comes to videos. I find working with other creative individuals help motivate me, so you can see why I’m really looking forward to a weekend shoot/s I have coming up in a few weeks with Neil Creek

#4 – I won my first cosplay award! Okay, small cheese for most people, but I never enter cosplay competitions because of sheer stage fright. However, with Asham’s encouragement, I bite the bullet, went on stage and won So glad I was able to at least win one award during my cosplay career!

RESOLUTIONS

#1 – Organisation! With the help of my friends and family, I’m starting to have a much better idea where I want to take my blogging and youtube “career”. But I really need to improve my organisational skills in order to balance my online and offline life. I’m going to need organisational skills like a fox!

#2 – Don’t let the negativity get to me. I’m human, we all are. One of the problems with growing the site and channel is being more exposed and hence encountering much more negativity than I’m used to. Sometimes I ask myself, “Why go through all this effort only to attract these types of comments?” And I answer, Why? Because I love it. And that’s what I need to keep my focus on. I -love- blogging and creating videos, it feeds me. And every time I remember why I started this journey, I feel more determined than ever to keep going. Often the only way to work is with blinkers on

#3 – Shift into lifestyle blogging, which is really an umbrella term to blog about whatever the hell I want! Hehe. No seriously, I still want the blog to be heavily focused on beauty, but I’d like to include more personal posts about my other hobbies. I’ve tried fruitlessly to start up blogs for my other interests, but because I’m so gung-ho on maintaining this blog, everything else seems to fall to the wayside. So I’m looking to include a post here and there about gaming, maybe a day in the life etc. The blog is just an extension of who I am, and whilst beauty is a massive part of that (oh dear, how shallow do I sound?) I will try and throw in a few other interests of mine. Better to have one active blog, then three semi-active / dead blogs right?

#4 – Photography, I have quite a bit of fancy camera equipment, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not terribly skilled at using much of it. So this year I want to take it upon myself to really focus on improving my photography, maybe do random posts of -just- photography. Who knows, but I think a cool goal would be to have my photographs appear randomly on pinterest more often (speaking of which, I really need to add photos to mine!!)

#5 – Write and read more. I was recently given an ipad 2 and kindle for my birthday / xmas and so I no longer have any excuses not to read. There are a ton of new books that have been released over the last year or two and I’d love to get into the habit of reading more, especially before bed time (as opposed to watching youtube videos ). And writing, I’ve always been a sucker for stationary, it’s about time I start putting it to good use and do more blog / book of fables planning I recently discovered whilst writing my xmas cards that I really do need to write more! (damn weak fingers)

#6 – Go strong, or go home. I want to take everything I do now, and bump it up to another level of intensity. I want to write better blog entries, take better photos, create better videos and just go go go. Work hard, Play hard!

Finally, I want to thank each and everyone of you for all the incredible support this year, I would not be as motivated nor have gotten as far as I am now without each of you. You guys are truly my friends, I value all your thoughts and opinions and really appreciate the time you take out of your day to read / watch my content I promise to keep working hard at producing content you’ll find interesting!

See you all in 2012

As a beauty blogger, the “daily” makeup I use is constantly changing, which has to be the case if I want to give proper reviews on each of products you see here. But believe it or not I still have a set of makeup that I’d call my “usuals”, which I always use when I’m not testing anything or when I’m in a rush. Makeup I know works for me. You probably saw most of it back when I showed you my neutrals in my UNII Palette a little while ago.

Well, I wanted to talk about a specific eye shadow that I absolutely loathe and love at the same time, and that’s MAC’s Eyeshadow in Wedge.

I love it because it gives the perfect “warmth” to the eyes. Very neutral and subtle, it’s buildable from a very soft look to the base of a more smokey look. And it blends surprisingly well.

I can’t stand it because the powder is like a rock! I have to swirl my brush for an insufferable amount of time just to get half an application. Yes half! This means to get one full application that I’m happy with I need to swirl my brush twice for ONE eye, so in total four. That takes a solid 5-7 minutes to apply this shadow and it drives me absolutely insane.

I am very very tempted to crush it up and re-press it, wondering whether that will make it more pigmented upon application. Worst still is I have this eye shadow twice, I have no idea how that happened, it’s the only MAC shadow I own two of, so that’s one of the reasons I’m trying to use it daily (must use it up!).

Everyday I get annoyed at how hard it is to extract pigmentation from it, but after applying my makeup, I smile and admire how beautiful the colour is.

I’m very VERY tempted to throw it out if and when I find an exact dupe, because I’m sure no matter the brand, it will be easier to apply than this.

Shadow rant over! Anyone got products they love / hate?

Okay, totally unrelated beauty / fashion / cosplay post! Just a mini-fluff post on some desserts I’ve really been loving lately :9 MacDonalds McFlurries!

Bubblegum Squash

My least favourite of all the four. Loved the marshmellow aspect, but the bubblegum syrup is really not my taste at all, too artifical (oxymoron given we’re talking about Maccas here?)

Double Choc Fudge

Great if you love chocolate, to me this was a bit too heavy and I probably won’t be reaching for it again.

Strawberry Crumble

This wasn’t bad! If I was looking for the “lightest” flavour from Maccas, this would be it.

Caramel Cookie

We have a winner! My absolute favourite flavour :9 I could eat this everyday (maybe not, but you get the idea)

Regular programming will return tomorrow ;D

I’m going to apologise upfront and say this is a bit of a fluff post, I feel like most of my posts are very proper and professional, with high quality photos. Then there are these more rambly personal posts with phone photos that I really love writing but thought who really wants to read them.

Well I figured that’s what blogs are for right? I do own several other blogs, but I’m honestly not that great at maintaining them safe for the occasional emotional outburst. I do have a larger number of readers here, and thought perhaps you guys wouldn’t mind more personal posts? But if you absolutely hate it feel free to tell me so, I promise I won’t be offended

Enough of that, on to what I originally wanted post about. I reviewed the Elizabeth Arden Lip Balm ages ago and I finally hit “pan” on it.

But what I realised is that even if you hit “pan” on tube products, there is still a good amount of product within the tube that you can’t access normally. So what did I do? I got a metal stick and basically dug up all the remaining product and placed it within the lid of my Dr Feel Good sample compact. Why? So I could use every last drop of this.

Which let’s face it, is really quiet bizarre because I already have about 10+ other perfectly good lip balms I need to work through. Did I really need to go through the additional effort to use every last bit? No, but it’s strangely rewarding. I can’t quite explain it, but seeing the tube empty through and through gives me a great sense of satisfaction! Like I’m really getting value of money… even though I probably waste 3 times the amount on products I’ll never use… *deep sigh*

I never said I was a logical person

I’m going to end this post with a highly flattering photo of myself. I was just about to head out to dinner and wanted something subtle and very natural.

I love sarcasm in text, I always manage to keep a straight face No, this is the result of my face after experimenting with new Book of Fables chapters. I always test drive the more complicated designs on my face, then transfer the design in my sketch book. Would you be interested in seeing a few previous chapters from my sketch book? It’s interesting to see how the chapters develop from blueprint, to sketch book to test run to final chapter. It’s a lot of work, but I love it so~~

I better end this post before I ramble on, which I really could do if left loose Bye~