Work, ill, work.

This is actually an outfit from a couple of days ago - I went to meet a friend for coffee, went thrift shopping and bought a metal frame  (see previous post) and a set of 6 vintage soup bowls then went to my pole fitness class. Very busy day that ended pretty badly with me going to bed early due to feeling like I would pro-vom everywhere. I even had to call in sick to work yesterday which I've never done before and felt so guilty about!

Been doing plenty of sewing recently so stay tuned for a few crafty posts and maybe, if I feel like it, a few cooking posts as I've been doing quite a bit more actual cooking recently rather than stick-in-the-microwave ready meals.

Extremely excited to hit Nottingham with Nancy tomorrow night - can never beat a night out in a new city!

DIY // How to use an empty frame as a photo display.

This is a really simple but effective DIY project that literally takes a few minutes to put together - the hardest part is finding the perfect frame! I stumbled across this gorgeous frame in a vintage store on Oldham Street (Manchester) and completely fell in love with it. I had no idea what I was going to do with it but I had to have it, and after all everyone's had that feeling a few (hundred) times right?

So anyway I remembered seeing some photos of this kind of thing on Tumblr and decided to have a go. All you have to do is cut as many lengths of cotton (or string) as you want - my frame is quite small so I chose to have 3 then attach them to the back of the frame. There were already screws on the back of mine making it really easy to attach the string however you could always tie the string to the frame itself. You need to make sure the string is tight as adding photos will make it sag otherwise.

Then finally - add photos! I used paper clips but you could use clothes pegs or even bulldog clips.



So there you have it - a 2 minute DIY project that is so easy but looks great. Now I just have to find a place to hang it as with this being a student house I'm not really allowed to hammer nails into the walls.

Sunday Round Up #2

Sleeping arrangements with all my cushions | Denby mug brought from Oxfam for 99p | Finally got bored and cut in a full fringe |

This week I've been really rubbish with taking photos which is why I only have a few for this week! I've been very busy working, charity shop shopping, making cushions, trying new recipes and cutting my own hair - I'll go into more detail with some of those in later blog posts.

Regarding my hair, you may or may not know that I've been battling the full fringe/no fringe dilemma for the past few years. I'd finally grown out my full fringe completely when I realised that now my hair was extremely boring - nothing that can't be fixed with a box of hair dye and some scissors. And that;s exactly what I did - bought a dark brown hair dye and chopping the beloved full fringe back in. I'm sure I'll get very frustrated with the freshly cut fringe within a few days but for now I'm very glad to have it back in my life.

Weekend Letters.

Dear Nana, happy birthday - I love you.

Dear coffee, thank you for keeping me afloat.

Dear 30 Rock, please keep making me laugh.

Dear room, I demand that you stay tidy from now on.

Dear filofax, I'm not yet willing to find out what life is like without you.

Dear Nancy, I'd quite like to win Scrabble once in a while.

Dear red wine, I really love you but please don't make my lips blue. 

A quick outfit post & RAK Week.

I'm so glad that I've finally got to wear this skirt! I bought it about 4 months ago and have never found anything to wear with it. That was until my birthday shopping spree when I picked up this dip-dye style top from Topshop and it so happens that it goes with the Primark skirt! Success!

In other news, I spent the morning at Forever Manchester being productive, composing Facebook posts and writing about Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week. RAK Week starts this Monday and is actually quite a sweet, straight forward idea - an entire week of random acts of kindness.

So I've decided to have a go at RAK Week and although most of my acts of kindness will be small, here are a few ideas for slightly bigger acts:

Cheesy I know, but doing something like one of those examples can make you feel good, and we did learn from Phoebe in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. that there is no such thing as a selfless act - we all take pleasure in doing something good! So if not for other people, do it for yourselves and spread the loveeee.

Enough of the cheeseball blog post now, until next time!

19 things while I was 19.

My original plan for this post was to write about 20 things I want to accomplish while I'm 20, however I soon came to realise that there isn't 20 things that I would like to do that are significant enough to mention. So instead, I'm going to write, if not ramble, about 19 things that I did or accomplished in the year that I was 19:

#1 - Got a 2:1 average in my 1st year at uni.
#2 - Went to Ayia Napa with my best friends.
#3 - Moved into my first house (if a student house counts).
#4 - Finally got a job in Manchester.
#5 - Started a volunteering role in marketing.
#6 - Lost one of the most important people in my life, my Grandpa.
#7 - Got a tattoo - a lovely fox on my ribs.
#8 - City-hopped like there was no tomorrow.
#9 - Started pole fitness classes.
#10 - Bought a laptop with my own hard-earned money.
#11 - Got my phone stolen for the first time in my life.
#12 - Spent Christmas without my little brother for the first time.
#13 - Spent the best few days in Paris with my family.
#14 - Got a centre parting (ish).
#15 - Chopped all of my hair off.
#16 - Then grew it again.
#17 - Got pet chickens (at home, not at uni).
#18 - Beat Nancy at scrabble - which is a bigger deal than it sounds.
#19 - Spent way too much money on fast food and clothes.

Just after my 19th birthday

Just after my 20th birthday

So I think I've changed quite a bit over the past year; in looks and as a person (cheesy, I know!) But it has been a great year. I guess now I should start acting like an adult? Or not, either way I hope that being 20 is just as great as being 19 was.

P.S. Have some photos from my birthday meal with my lovely friends:

Sunday Round Up #1

As I mentioned in this post, I'm attempting to take a photo a day for 2013, so for this Sunday's round up I'll use the photos that I've taken this week:

Remastered skirt | Lumberjack shirt | A very full Filofax | Freshly planted amaryllis | Volunteering at Forever Manchester | Lazy day 

This week has been so busy, with work, volunteering and planning which is why today I spent the entire day in bed on my iPad - a well deserved rest I think. And just in case you noticed that Saturday is missing, that's because I was working all day and was so tired by the time that I got home that I forgot to take a photo.

Today I found an app for my iPad, Sketchbook Express, which is perfect for adding text and handwriting to pictures (as you can see from the photos) and it's free - can't really go wrong! 

It's my birthday tomorrow so I'll be spending the day spoiling myself with both food and shopping to try to forget that I'll no longer be a teenager. Even though it's a shock that I'm going to be 20, I do think I've grown up a fair bit over the last year (how cliché). 

See you on the other side!

Femi-what?

Something that I've been becoming acquainted with recently is feminism (sounds scary - right?), a term that I've heard being thrown around a lot in the past but never really understood. So what is feminism? I'll start here; I can guarantee that if you asked the question "do you believe in equality for men and women?" the majority of people would reply "yes - of course!" but when faced with the question "are you a feminist?" they would run a mile. But that's all feminism is really isn't it? Equality. Nowadays there's so much stigma attached to the word feminism with words such as man-hater and feminazi being thrown in the mix, that people will do anything to avoid being associated with such "extreme feminists" for lack of a better phrase.

I was in a lecture last semester discussing sexism in the media when the lecturer posed the question (to a room full of women) "who here is a feminist?" to which only another girl and I raised our hands. When those who didn't raise their hands were asked why I heard such responses as "because I want to shave my legs and armpits, I don't want to be hairy!", "because I'm not a bra-burning hippy" and "because I want to be a stay at home mum". But something that I've come to realise is that feminism is about having the choice to shave and having the choice to be a stay at home mum rather that it simply being expected. Feminism is being able to do these things because we want to, not because society says that we should.


(Illustrations taken from Mum, I'm a Feminist)

I'm not an expert on feminism, nor am I claiming to be, I simply want to try to get across the message that feminism isn't complicated, it's not man-hating or any of the other negative connotations that have become normality in today's world. Feminism is about making choices about your own body, it's about pay equality, it's about being able to walk down the street at night without the fear of being raped. "But that last one's just common sense!" I hear you say - it's not. It's rape culture. But I won't go into all of that at this moment in time.

I know I've rambled quite a bit here and I hope that I've made enough sense, I just think it's important for you to scribble out any negative preconceptions regarding feminism and take the time to find out a bit more about what being a feminist is really about and how it doesn't have to take over your life - just make it better!

So if I've got your attention and you're interested in finding out a bit more about modern day feminism, here's a short list of books and websites that I've found interesting and helpful:

• Mum, I'm a Feminist (blog) - if you don't want to spend any money quite yet, this is the place to start! A humorous, cleverly written blog complete with reader submissions and everything you need to know about real feminism.
• Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti (£8.27 from The Book Depository or £7.43 on Amazon eBooks) - in the process of reading; easy to read, well written and a "young woman's guide to why feminism is important".
• How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran (£8.39 from The Book Depository or just £3.67 on Amazon eBooks) - haven't actually read yet but recommended as an English alternative to Full Frontal Feminism.

What's New?

So I have been extremely slow on the blogging front recently, as always, but for about the gazillionth time I'm going to try to get back into the habit of posting more frequently as I'll have quite a bit more spare time this semester. What's new, I most definitely don't hear you ask? Well it's 2013 for a start, a year that not so long ago seemed so far away, and even though it's only January, so much has happened since the new year.

Forever Manchester
One thing that's new in 2013 is that I have started doing some volunteering with the charity Forever Manchester on the marketing team helping with the social media. It's an amazing opportunity that I found through taking part in the Manchester Uni mentoring scheme and is a great start towards a career in marketing after I graduate!

Getting Organised
I like to think that I'm organised, and I am providing that I keep up the organisation momentum. Once I slip that's it, I go back to my usual disorganised self. I have, however, started to rely on my lovely Filofax again - so much that I can't function without it! To be honest I've become a little obsessive with post its and templates but that's besides the point, at least I'm being organised. As well as the Filofax, my room's had a good old tidy and organised - tidy space tidy mind and all that.

Photo a Day
This was actually instigated by my dad who told me that he was doing a photo a day and that meant that I should too. I'm a bit skeptical, my track record for keeping things like this up isn't great but may as well have a go! Might be nice to be able to look back through an entire year's worth of photos. So here are a few of my "photo a day" photos for a quick overview of the past couple of weeks: 

My newly organised Filofax | A trip to Leeds with uni friends | Foxy phone case | Self explanatory | Snow day | Uni family | Too-full Filofax | Gin bottle collection | Perfect train journey | Recycled skirt

I know that this post has been a little text and picture heavy but there we have it, a little catch up before back to normal blogging.