Talias Tuesday

I feel genuinely saddened to be writing this post today but it simply felt wrong to be writing about makeup, glitter, holidays or clothes, so I've decided not to shy away from the importance of today. 

Today the inspiring Talia Joy Castellano of YouTube of The Ellen Show of CoverGirl Cosmetics and of spreading a lot of love and joy (true to her name) died one month shy of her fourteenth year on earth. 

 

Besides being outright adorable, she was extremely talented at makeup application and presenting herself to the world. She was a genuinely good influence and such a huge ball of positivity despite dealing with neuroblastoma and preleukemia in her short but significant years here.

Life has a lot of bad heartache and sadness that touches everyone but Talia was not held back by what life threw at her and told us all about how to 'just keep swimming' when the going gets tough. 

I hope that her spirit is now freed, and that there is no more pain- only dancing around being even more joyful than before.
Join me in thinking of her family at this time and sending them lots of prayers to ease the pain and grief in their sore hearts and trying to uplift their spirits in rejoicing in Talia's wonderful, beautiful life.

My favourite foodie viewing

One of the things I've really missed since coming home for Summer is cooking for myself, although I can cook for myself here at home of course, it's not the same when you're not in 'your' kitchen and you don't purchase the food yourself. But I've been looking at lots of new recipes to try when I get back, I like watching cooking videos on YouTube a lot, but it takes a bit of leg work to find a really great channel with high quality filming and obtainable ingredients in the UK.

My absolute favourite of the moment has been the Taste made channel which I will link here
They post new videos Sunday to Friday with a different show and presenter for each day of the week. My favourite day is Tuesdays for the Raw.Vegan. Not gross
The presenter is Laura Miller, and to be honest I firstly just love her, she has this wonderful rich voice that just soothes the soul! She's also entertaining and easy to watch. I've been addicted to every video she's done on the channel, which isn't many since it's a new channel and I've probably watched them all twice. For most (maybe all?) recipes you need a food processor which is a tool that we don't have, but today is my mums birthday (happy brithday mummy) and she wants to get one with some vouchers that she got for Lakeland, so now I'm dreaming of making tomato tarts and chocolate truffles.

I'll a couple of my favorites here:

Let me know if you watch any cooking channels and what your favourite ones are!

Little achievements - Big achievements

Today I reached 223 subscribers and over 50,000 video views
It's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things but it's wonderful to think that 220 people out there enjoy my hobby enough to want to keep watching my hobby come up with new things!

Yes I have a screen grab of that! Is that sad? Maybe!

I just want to say 50,000 thank you's if you've come from my channel and watched what I get up to.

and another ton of thank you's if you're reading my blog / have read it for months/ read it for the first time today!

Lots of love!

New Video: It's BATHTIME

Yayyy!
Who doesn't love a beautiful bubble bath once in a while?
It's something that I should do more often, but in this video I forgot to mention that you could burn candles, and even have chocolates with you!
If you don't have a bath, don't panic- I've got some fun videos that do not bath discriminate!

It's been a filming bonanza!

Today I've been struck down with the filming bug where I had a whole day to myself, so decided to pre film for as much as my brain of inspiration would think of ideas and let me so that videos would be guaranteed, and out consistently over the coming month or so!
Here's a little look at some clues for the upcoming videos!

 My inspiration is all out for a new and exciting blog post, so hopefully the wait for the next videos will be worth it!!

It's a pre-Christmas treat!

A nifty new video Super quick, super easy and very useful and practical How to turn your nutella jars into Makeup brush holders or makeup holders in general!



Woohoo for freebie DIY Projects!

Video Tutorial: Highlighting with Makeup

Here it is:

My long delayed part 2 to the 'contouring and highlighting' videos

The countring video went up a while back...

the highlighting one was put up today

HOORAY

(That rhymed)

It's very short too but hopefully you think it's jam-packed with fun!



Don't forget to subscribe if you like things that are

• Free
• Fun
• Free and Fun

Yayy!

Premature end of week blues

Are you feeling what I usually call 'That Sunday feeling' ?

Where you feel gloomy at the thought of a new week and all the things that you'll have to do?

I know, it's the worst!
Dread and greif, ugh worst two feelings ever.

I hate to say that the solution to every problem is on YouTube- but I think that it pretty much is!

A video or type of video makes me feel so much happier and gigglier and forgetful of all the annoying things that I want to forget!

So here you go:



You can thank me later!

First bloom of Spring!

I'm very relieved to be able to finally upload my first makeup tutorial for spring.
It's very beautiful and understated- and blue is one of the freshest colours that there is (except for maybe a lime green)
So we most definately should put it on our eyes to signify the new season.

I especially love this look for the afternoon/evening- garden parties and Spring Flings and all other shenanigans that one might get up to on Spring nights!



Let me know if you'll 'dare to wear' a blue eye this Spring- even if you wear blue all the time!

Mummifying Makeup

How should I travel with my makeup?
Travelling with makeup is an art in it's own right! It's not easy to lug potions and lotions of every consistancy, formula and texture in every kind of screw cap, pump and squeezy bottle imaginable half way across the country or world unscathed.
However, it is of course possible with the right know how- and it certainly doesn't involve spending hundreds on special cases and containers to put everything in.
All you need is:

A roll of cling film!


The cling film trick certainly was not invented by me- but I've no idea where I learnt it as I've been doing it forever and I wonder if I just picked it up through trial and error!

Here's a quick video breakdown of how to prevent arriving with a case full of sticky, gloopy, lotion and bronzer and blusher and foundation infused mess, and half your makeup being washed down the drain before you've even put it on:



Of course, to guarantee your makeup survives the journey is going to need a little more than just cling film but to go through it all- well! That's a lot of ground to cover in a quick tip video! But certainly something I'll continue to touch upon to ensure we all learn a thing or two about travelling with our makeup!

Mirror mirror on the tray...

Ever since I watched the 'Whatisstyletonickel' video on Youtube about his perfume collection (which I'll link below)  I fell in love with the mirrored tray he had his perfumes sat on.

It's from www.anangelatmytable.com ,which is an online store specialising in luxury french home decoration.
I'm not a major fan of gold home decor, but I loved the little feet on the tray, it gives it that cute little luxurious edge.
So I headed onto www.anangelatmytable.com and found the same beautiful tray in silver!

Everything about it was perfect except for the fact that it was 'temporarily out of stock' and £25.

I've been checking back pretty much every day for the past month wondering:

1. if it will be in stock 
2. if i can justify buying another decoration for my room that I don't actually need.

Upon my second search of the day on www.anangelatmytable.com just incase they'd updated their stock mid day- I was struck by the tempting offer that looked like this!

I clicked hurredly wondering just why this beautiful tray was 50% off and what made it a slight second- it turned out that it's due to 'slight marking' on the mirror tray part. 'No problemo' I thought, because I can just cover any marks with perfume bottles!

Although I clicked my way to the online check out faster than ever before in my life, it turns out I needn't have worried! As there are still some 50% off trays available in both silver AND gold! Although what makes the gold tray a 'slight second' is for a different reason to the silver trays (due to a gap between the mirror and the edge)

And here is the beautiful tray itself that arrived on my doorstep today, and honestly, truly I think it makes no difference with the 'slight markings' as long as the tray isn't empty, and who peers into empty trays in your bedroom/bathroom/any room anyway?

Here's a little close up of the pesky smudgy marking!

So perhaps your a perfectionist and you'd rather wait until the full priced one comes back in stock or for another tray altogether, but I'm super happy that it was out of stock now as it meant I had to wait until it was restocked at half off, I know this often isn't the case with lots of stores- if you don't snap it up when you see it, you regret it later when it's gone, and I predict it won't be much longer until even the 'slight seconds' are gone too!

Here's Richie Nickel's video!

Uploading alllllll night long

I spent all night last night finishing off editing my Valentines day look, creating a video always begins as a simple feat, but so many new complications arise with each video, some of which included:

-Filming the whole tutorial then realising for pretty much all of it my eye is out of the camera shot
-Filming it again and it coming out blurry
-Editing it and waiting for it to upload before realising the whole end part is just a black screen with my voice chatting away!
-Re editing, saving and uploading again and realising that it's way past my bedtime but the uploading has already begun so I left my laptop on while youtube took so, so, so, so, soooo long to upload!

Anyway, after all that I proudly give you:




And I sure hope you enjoy it!
My next video is me going into a whole lot more detail on the fun little makeup treats that I've bought, most of which are used in this very look!

Valentines day countdown: 15 days!!

Why today has been wonderfully lucky...

1.My beautiful patches from the other side of the world arrived! In an envelope covered with exotic stamps, here's a little peek of the patches!

Expect to see lots of wonderful Hello Kitty and Harajuku designs up soon, meanwhile, you can see the current treats I have for sale here:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/alexias_closettt/m.html?item=320828592214&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649&_trksid=p4340.l2562

2. I was able to rescue my videos from my camera!

3. While editing, I saved my video for the first time once it was nearly all edited and then thirty seconds later the software crashed!

4. Some footage that wasn't importing correctly suddenly decided to import correctly once the programme had crashed.

5. My friend has leant me the book 'One day' which I'm really excited to read although I've heard mixed thoughts- some people love it, others have said it's mediocre, I'm not sure where my thoughts are on this one!

New Video! 'No Makeup' Makeup Tutorial

Hoo-rah, I've uploaded a video all about using mineral makeup, it's technology has exploded in other regions and is leaking further afield as the hype is spreading. I've done a blog before on Bare Minerals and how much I love them so it was fun to use their products entirely for a whole video. I think the before and after is refreshing, I dont look glooped up with makeup (don't get me wrong, sometimes I love being glooped up with makeup for nights out) I just look like me only much better, less blotchy and tired version.



I don't want anyone to think that I'm turning my back on the mainstream drugstore type liquid foundation, nuh-uh not a chance, still my favourite form of foundation always this was just a refreshing change to afterwars not feel as though I'm buried under eyeshadow and shimmer and waxy, creamy textures.

Birthdays and Camera troubles

Today I've been wrestling with my camera once again to recover lost videos that I've had recorded for some time now, I'm not going to give in and share what they are yet because I still have hope of them being edited and uploaded, but my camera at present is refusing to turn on.

After the frustrations of that I went to dinner for my friends birthday and then a group of us stayed at her house, it was fun to have a slumber party like back when we were little. I sported a cow print onesie for jammies, it was a christmas present and it came from Primark, they did all other kids of fun prints, tigers, paw prints and blue stars! I liked my cow one the best and it kept me snug because there wasn't much bedding between eight of us and it's pretty freezing in Janurary to sleep without a blanket!

Last night was a great night for inspiration as I've been waiting for a great Valentines day makeup tutorial to pop into my head and a little something came together in my thoughts yesterday so I'm looking foward to filming that and showing you guys what I've come up with!
I love taking requests so show me what you've got and I'll try and make it happen (trying to avoid the smokey eyes though, Youtube is all smoked out!)
Whatever time it is where you are, have a great rest of your day and I'll 'blog you later!'
(instead of see you later, geddit?)