broonylou

Friday, 11 April 2014

The Photoshoot

Before I handed in my collection for final grading I had to do a photoshoot that showcased the clothes on some live models, just as a reference for my lecturers to look at when marking my project.

Now I am not a trained photographer, I just decided to save money and shoot the girls in a window display at my work to get the effect that I wanted and personally I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out. It's crazy to look back to this blog a year ago and see the photos from last years collection and see how far I've come!

So here's some of the photos from the evening in a shop window, at the local shopping centre!

I have to say, some of the photos where we just had a laugh really turned out to be some of my favourites!!

Sunday, 6 April 2014

Juice Plus

It's safe to assume that every girl has their 'new start' routine. For me it involves a nice long soak in the bath, exfoliating every inch of my body, shaving my legs etc and then ill trim the dead ends off my hair before lathering my favourite body butter on my arms. For most girls this routine comes after a particular nasty break up but for me it represents a fresh start.

Whilst university has been so busy I've had no time at all in which to go to the gym and because I've been in uni most days from 7am to 9 at night I've not exactly been eating or sleeping the greatest either.

A few weeks ago before my schedule got so overwhelming that sleep was put on the back burner, I attended my best friends engagement party and had a fantastic time, which translates into "omg I had a two day hangover it was that awesome." The day after, when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself whilst lying in bed and watching Game of Thrones I decided to take my friends advice and sign up to Juice Plus.

Now Kirsty (http://www.krstyvns.blogspot.co.uk/) is a friend of mine from university and a promoter of the brand and I had seen on Facebook that she's lost a tonne of weight and inches to her body on the brands shakes and capsules.

The products are mainly fruit based and the aim is to immerse yourself in clean eating in order to achieve an overall much healthier lifestyle.

After a heavy night of drinking and smoking far too much I decided I would give it a go as well after Kirsty explained to me that she has tried every diet under the sun and this was the only one that she felt healthy doing. By healthy she means she was energised, her skin had improved and she was finding it enjoyable.

So I ordered the shakes which costs me £24 a month for 4 months and tomorrow I will start my detox!

Juice Plus recommends you detox your body before starting the shakes for 4 months in order to maximise the results you get from the product.

So I feel all fresh and brand new and ready to start the 2 weeks of detox tomorrow. Juice Plus recommend 2 weeks of detox but some people tend to range between 7 and 10 days purely because of how rigorous you have to be with the diet in comparison to when you start the shakes.

I'll start a new section on this blog for the Juice Plus posts so that they aren't lumped in with all my lifestyle posts but tomorrow I'll take my measurements and hopefully in 4 months time when everything is over there will be some serious differences!
I'm hoping there's a noticeable change come Grad Ball in June cause everyone loves to shed a few pounds before putting on a gorgeous dress!!

Wish me luck!

4th year is OVER!!!!

I really must apologise, after my amazing trip to London (which I will post about soon) I came back to uni to find that it was all hands on deck in order to finish my collection.

There are no words strong enough to describe how hard the last month and a half has been for some of my class.

However! It has been finished and was handed in on Friday so now my 4th year is officially over in terms of there no longer being any classes.

I have a few automatic hand ins I need to complete and one exam before I graduate so apart from going in to uni for that I'm back home with family and having a well-deserved rest.

So looking at the collection now that it's finished I would have to be brutally honest and say that whilst I love all the detail and effort I've put into making it, I think I prefer last years work.

I also feel like last years stuff was made to a higher standard because there was much less riding on it so I wasn't as stressed out.

I think as well, because I've had to spend a whole year designing this, practicing this and then creating the final collection, I've gotten really sick of looking at it.

In the past few weeks I've had to pull several all-nighters in front of a series of The Walking Dead with nothing but my sewing machine for company but it all seems worth it now that everything has been handed in and its no longer something for me to worry about.

If I had to put together a survival list for 4th year fashion students it would definitely include Pro Plus, Dry Shampoo and face wipes because there are definitely mornings where time devoted to showering is nowhere near as important as time devoted to finishing that last specification sheet.

Here are a few photos of the finished collection, I had to do a photo shoot to accompany it as well so I'll post those later on :)

So that's the majority of my collection, honestly it looks just how I wanted it to but I am actually so sick of the sight of it. Only a few months left until I graduate!

Sunday, 9 February 2014

Broony Back in London!

Well boy do I have some exciting news! A few weeks back Vodafone done a Facebook competition to win two tickets to London Fashion Week and I won!

As it was a facebook competition I was a little bit dubious about whether there was actually tickets to be won (you know how these online competitions can get) but the tickets have arrived and my trains to and from the capital have been booked! (Nearly wrote Capitol, that's some crazy Hunger Games obsession there!)

I cannot tell you how excited I am to be going back to London, especially when I thought it was going to be a long time before I even considered going back but I'm going and this time I'm going solo (which is also terrifying! eek!)

Last year everything was crazy planned down to a T because I was trying to fit in about 15 different activities for my 21st but this time the Wednesday is just family time and Thursday I've planned to be a little tourist and go on an open top bus tour before meeting the wonderful Lindsay again for a bite to eat and a few drinks whilst I spill the beans on 4th year.

On Friday - which is also valentines day - you will find me at Somerset House, probably bouncing off the walls from excitement because the show I'm seeing is the DAKS show which just looks awesome so I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures and post them on here as soon as poss after. What a way to spend V Day, with my first love, clothes!

If not I'm armed with the blogger app so expect some posts to go up during my visit because lets face it, I need something to do with the train journey apart from play my old Pokémon games on the Gameboy... cause I'm cool that way.

Did I mention I'm excited?!?!?!

Sunday, 2 February 2014

YSL Rouge Volupte and Pur Couture swatches

Guys and Gals it is FINALLY HERE!! My YSL lipstick swatch post. This was originally meant to be a video but it's 12am and I'm watching the Superbowl so I decided photographs would be much easier.

So I fell in love with these after watching a Chloe Morelo Youtube video and much like her, the obsession grew.

First of all I should say that yes, these are luxury lipsticks and as such the prices vary from about £24 to £28 but I am very fortunate in that the company I work for gives me 20% off and I collect points to receive further discounts etc so only two of these lipsticks have ever been bought at full price.

If I were to describe these first of all the packaging is blatantly gorgeous, I'm the first to admit that I love how these look in the lipstick holder, I'm a girl and I like pretty things so these lipsticks tick all the right boxes and there are times when I like to go through them all and just open each one up to look at the colour.

The lipstick texture itself is super moist, you need very little on the lips to get a good coverage and for that reason they will last you quite a long time. I use number 1 Nude Beige almost daily and got it in September, I still have over half a tube left.

So onto the swatches, I apologise because obviously it's late and I've literally smacked some foundation around my mouth for the benefit of these photos looking half decent but you get the idea! As the photos go on you can see that half of the foundation ends up wiped off anyway...