My July in photos.

Just a little fill in post on what I've been getting up to, in and around work, from my Instagram. 

I took this photo when I went fruit picking with my friend Fleur. I picked this massive punnet of strawberries and it was a bit more expensive than shop bought strawberries but tasted so delicious. We also cheekily sampled a few along the way! 

This is my dog, Charlie, obviously something very gripping was on the One Show at this point!

I saw the cutest bulldog puppy when I met up with some friends one afternoon, I just had to take a picture. 

Having a few drinks one Friday night with some friends. 

I met my lovely friend Sam when I was at work for lunch!

I had to go on a course to Southampton for the day and my mum and sister came along too, to do some shopping. After I finished we went for dinner and this was our view. 

My dog looked so cute when he fell asleep on the floor a few nights ago. 

If you liked these pictures and wanted to follow my Instagram my username is _abfabx. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post! Love, A x

Cleaning my make up brushes

I'm not very good at cleaning a lot of things, my room and workspace will remain tidy for about a week until I need to look for something then it becomes a bit of a squalor. My make up brushes on the other hand are things that I use nearly everyday and they looked a bit grubby. 

I only really got into using make up brushes at the start of this year I'd say. I used to find it easier to apply make up with my fingers, or sponges or with eyeshadows I'd use a cheap pack of about 20 eyeshadow brushes that I'd throw away after using them quite a lot. 

I didn't get quite the look or coverage I was after by using my fingers or sponges, as sometimes different methods can change the make up too, so decided to purchase some different brushes off of amazon. I was also incredibly lucky to receive a Real Techniques set from a competition I entered as well as purchasing the Real Techniques sponge. 

After a lot of uses I noticed they looked quite unclean and wanted to give them a little zhoosh but didn't know how or what with as the hairs/fibres could be ruined. After asking other bloggers what they used or looking on various blogs I noticed a simple baby shampoo seemed to be a very popular choice. So I picked up Johnson's baby shampoo when I was in Boots it was about £1ish to wash my brushes. I know you can also get a No7 brush cleaner and other people use other things but I found this very effective.

Look how dirty those brushes look! Sorry about the angle on this photo. I can't seem to switch it round! 

This is the shampoo I used. 

I squirted a blob into my hand about a little short of a 10 pence size. I ran the tap a little too and got some water in the shampoo to help lather it up. 

Soaking up all the shampoo I swirled the brush in a circular motion. You can see the old make up on my hand. I then put my hand and the brush until the tap. Still swirling the brush helping to get rid of any excess make up or shampoo. 

And this is it finished! 

Here is the Real Techniques multi use brush. I did the exact same method for every single one of my brushes, I won't show pictures of every single one as that might get a bit boring. 

Looks almost brand new!

With the sponge, it's a lot denser compared to a brush and I use this a lot more I took a little more time and a little bit more baby shampoo. 

This one probably took the longest to clean too. 

I squeezed the baby shampoo directly onto the sponge and rubbed it in between my hands until it formed a lather. As the soap got inside the sponge it took quite a whole to make sure all the suds disappeared and there was no more soap left. 

To this! So much cleaner! 

When cleaning the other brushes, when wet and about to be laid to dry, remember to form the bristles back into their original shape. With the sponge as it gets into contact with water it will swell up in size but when it's dry it'll go exactly back to normal. 

I left all my make up brushes on a towel to dry. I actually left mine for well over 24 hours but I went to work and completely forgot about them. So they definitely dried by the time I got in at 5:30. I'd totally recommend this super easy, cheap way of cleaning your brushes as it doesn't take very long to do at all. If you do, do it. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post! Love, A x

Love and Hate nails

I've got a few days off of work this week and had a lot of time to think and plan out some new nail art design posts. Last night I uploaded a new Pastel striped nail art post and today I took some inspiration from a Wah Nails design called Letterhead. 

For this design I used: 

Barry M gelly hi shine- 10 lychee 

Models Own black nail art pen

Models Own white nail art pen

Max factor nailfinity- 549 red passion

I used the Barry M colour as the nude base colour. I think this colour is quite close to my natural skin tone anyway so would look really cool on. 

 

I used two coats of this and left it for well over an hour, whilst I took the dog for a walk, so it was fully dry too. 

Studying the picture and font carefully so I was really sure what I was about to be drawing. I also had a little practice on a piece of paper beforehand so I knew how I was going to write it and how big too.

With my nail art pen I tried using the striper application as well as the nib and found the nib applicator a lot easier to use and handle. 

Ta da! The finished look. Comment below if you would like me to do a tutorial on how to do this. I would say as this was quite fiddly the difficultly would be a 8 out of 10.

I hope you liked this post, love, A x

Pastel stripe nails

I haven't done a nail art post in a while and I took some inspiration from some pretty beach huts I saw the other day which looked so nice in the summer sunshine. I think this nail design is really easy to do and looks so cute for the summer too.

For this look, you will need: 

Some pastel nail polishes

A white nail striper. If you don't have one of these you can use a white nail polish and dip a toothpick in and drag the polish along the nail in a line. 

I used these colours as a base. 

These are the polishes from left to right:

Barry M- 318 Peach Melba

Rimmel London-406 Cute as a Kitten Heel

Rimmel London- 874 Breakfast in Bed

Barry M- 304 Mint Green

Barry M- 305 Pink Flamingo

Rimmel London- 622 Oh Boy You're So Fine!!

Sinful Colours- 1033 Pistache 

Rimmel London- 504 It's a Scorcher

Barry M- GNP 10 Lychee

I used the Model's Own nail art pen in white to do the striping. This cost me £6 from Boots. 

From this pen I used the striper attachment to draw the stripes. 

To draw the stripes, I started with one line in the middle. 

I then drew a line either side. 

This look is so easy to do and looks so cute too! 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post. Let me know if you try this look out too! Love, A, x

My June in photos

Why hello there! I know a lot of people see these types of Instagram posts as a bit of a cop out when it comes to posting but I really like doing them and filling you all in on what I've been up to! 

The picture on the left I took after a meal with my best friend Vicki. We went for a burger and a walk around town. 

The picture on the right is the welcome sign in the house we stayed in on holiday in Cornwall. 

The picture on the left is the first sunset whilst on holiday. This picture doesn't even really do the sky justice here. 

The picture on the right was a cute seafront house I saw in a place called St Mawes.

The picture on the left is the sunset on the second night we were away at the beach which was a five minute walk from where we were staying. 

The picture on the right is a beautiful beach we went to, just the other side of Padstow. 

The picture on the left is of an Oreo ice cream cookie sandwich. It was so yummy, I'd say if you like Oreos you should definitely try this! 

The picture on the right is of a clear blue sky. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky!

The picture on the left is of a cleaning company van I saw called Spruce Springclean ha!

The picture on the right is of Salisbury Cathedral. I went shopping in with my friend George. 

The picture on the left is of some cocktails my friend Vicki made before we went out. They were so nice!

On the right is a picture of a cocktail I had with my mum and sister. It was nice but so sweet because of the pineapple juice in it. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post. Love, A x 

I went away on holiday

Last Sunday but the one before I went away for six days on a family holiday to Cornwall. Which was really lovely to get away, relax and have some time off of work too! I thought I would share some photos of my trip away with you all here too. 

We stayed in this lovely holiday home for the week which was very contemporary and cool. 

It had three floors, the ground floor was bedrooms, the first floor was an open plan kitchen/diner/living room. The second floor was a roof terrace which you got to via this spiral staircase. 

It had two loungers up there to soak up the sun! 

This is the view we had from the top and you could just about see the sea.

The view from the other side of the terrace. 

This was about a thirty second walk from where we were staying. The beach was just down this cliff edge. 

This was the beach. Apparantly Richard and Judy live nearby here!

On Monday we went to a quaint little fishing town with some really pretty buildings. 

The pottery shop.

Fishing boats in the harbour.

'Scuse my finger!

This house was covered in so many shells. 

We then went on to another town after this and had a little look around. 

Sorry for the awful angle on this one.

This place was really quaint and all the cottages along the waters edge were painted in pretty colours.

On the Tuesday we went into the town about a mile away and had a look around and bought some food to take home for lunch. Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos but it was lovely, sunny and hot and I got a bit burnt!

On the Wednesday we went to Padstow and on to another beach nearby.

Padstow is a little town with a fishing port that has become a lot more famous and well known over the years as TV chef Rick Stein has a fish restaurant, a cafe, a shop and a cookery school there too. 

We had some fish and chips from Rick Steins and they were really nice, but a tad greasy I'd have to say. 

This is the beautiful beach we went to after. 

It was really lovely, and quite quiet for a gorgeous beach. 

On the Thursday we stayed in all day and sunbathed on the roof terrace or went to the gym or swimming pool which was in the complex. 

On the Friday we went to another small village nearby which was quite small and pretty 

I also saw this cleaning company and I liked the name so much I took a photo. 

Spruce Springclean haha! 

Saturday was our last day and we had packed up and left by 10 and made our way back home. I had a lovely time away with my family and it came a bit hard when going back to work last Monday!

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post. Love, A x.