What's In My Bag?

Wouldn't you all like to know!?

You nosey buggers...

My most used bag is this one. It is by Alexander Wang and is the Laser Cut Leather Rocco with Antique Gold Hardware. I love my Wangy dearly even though it's super heavy. He's my pride and joy!

And these are the contents...

I never leave the house without my phone, keys or purse. My phone is a ghetto iPhone 3G which is super slow and the home button is dying a death. The purse I use is by Osprey London and I got it from TKMaxx on sale for £4.00. I'm not particularly fond of it but I got it so it would fit in my Cambridge Satchel because it's tiny. I have my keys which have a little Morph and Lucky Leprechaun keyring from the boyf and an Italia keyring from the Godfather. There are a random assortment of keys on there for various doors to other lands as well as my brum brum key. I also carry my little date book which has all my hours for work written in it and a Hemp Hand Protector from The Body Shop.

I also try to carry essentials such as chewing gum (no brelly smeath for me!), a pack of tissues because my nose always runs and my feet always smell. I mean...

I carry a couple of plasters incase of bloody ankle emergencies and a stash of sanitary products for the other type of bloody emergency. Along with all this lot I tend to find a thousand kirby grips floating around the crevices of my bag, as well as a pair of headphones in an untieable knot.

Finally, I tend to accumulate ten million lip products in my handbag. Here I have a little tub of Vaseline, a Blistex Moisture something or other lip balm, a Burt's Bees chapstick and a Barry M lipgloss (my fave! it smells like toffee!) I make sure I take with me a little Kabuki brush and powder to touch up any oily bits throughout the day. Of course I also carry a little compact mirror in which I look to see if I have chocolate on my face or lipstick on my teeth. And lastly I have my Travalo perfume atomisers with little pink case which I got for my Birthday last year. The silver one holds the last dregs of my favourite Calvin Klein Euphoria perfume and the pink one holds my Stella by Stella McCartney.

And that's it...give or take a few screwed up receipts and sweet wrappers and maybe a few crumbs...but who wants to see that?!

I'd love to see what you have in your bag...do you have a blogpost already? Link it to me in the comments if you do. If you haven't done a What's In My Bag post then I tag you to do it!

See you soon 

xx

£5 off Benefit Cosmetics

I have three discount codes for £5 off Benefit cosmetics in conjunction with Diet Coke. You can get them on special packs of Diet Coke which are dead cheap anyway, but I have three that I'm now not going to use because of my spending ban. So I've decided to give them away...

If you would like a code for £5 off Benefit Cosmetics, just give me a comment and I will pass one of the three on to you.

You can find out more about the offer HERE!

My NO SHOPPING pledge!

Right. That's it... I need to do something drastic!

Many of you will have seen Danielle's (ablogfromblackpool) 100 Day No Shopping Challenge...If not, you can read about it HERE. 

She has pledged to herself and the readers of her blog that she will not be spending any unnecessary money for a whopping 100 days. She is a couple of weeks in at the moment and I've been inspired to take up a challenge myself. I'm not as brave as Danielle yet but here goes!!

I pledge to you that from tomorrow, Saturday 3rd March 2012, I will not spend any money on anything other than necessities* until the first milestone of the 3rd of April 2012. For one calendar month I will be avoiding the highstreet, ebay and online shops and I promise to myself that I will not buy anything at all. If I complete this challenge, I will then continue for another calendar month and for as long as possible after that. From this challenge I aim to use up products I already have, create new outfits out of current clothing in my wardrobe, save money and not be so unhealthy.

*necessities include things I need such as: 

food and drink whilst I'm at work (I will also try and take packed lunches to save money)

gifts - birthday, mother's day etc

toothpaste and sanitary products if I run out

But, same as Danielle, I cannot buy something I already have a duplicate of. For example if I run out of my current makeup cleanser, I will have to use up any other cleansers I have instead of buying a replacement.

Rules: No shopping what so ever except if I need anything from the above necessities list.

Danielle is noting down anything that catches her eye that she would have bought if it weren't for her challenge, so I will be doing the same and blogging about it here. 

Keep checking back and keeping me encouraged, guys! No one...not even me...believes that I can do this!

As for now, I will leave you with my last sneaky purchases before this challenge starts!

See you soon...if I'm not shrivelled up in a corner somewhere from shopping withdrawal...

Neeny x

Spontaneous Charity Shop Haul

I decided, as the sun was shining, I would take a walk down to the local Charity Shop. I managed to pick a few things up for a total bargain of...£6! Here's what I bought:

Isaac Mizrahi For Target striped red and white shirt.

River Island Floral cropped tank top.

Marks and Spencer striped teal and white shirt.

G.A.P pink linen shirt.

I thought these were a total bargain and I'd been wanting to try and style some shirts for a while. I actually quite like them just with skinny jeans and converse to be honest! 

Make sure you look around the whole shop if you're going charity shopping and TRY IT ON! I found the red striped shirt in the men's section in a size Large, the teal striped shirt on a rail for size 16 and the pink GAP shirt in the medium section.  It's worth picking things up even if they aren't in your size, just to see how they fit when you try them on. What've you got to lose!

I'm also super psyched because I managed to pick up (from ebay) my favourite perfume that I'd just ran out of - Calvin Klein Euphoria. I got the 100ml for £29!! That size retails for £65 in the shops! So make sure you shop around on ebay before you buy from the highstreet!!

EDIT: GOT TOTES RIPPED OFF WITH THE PERFUME. SUPER FAKE SO SENDING IT BACK!

Product Rave: Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum Foundation and Real Techniques Stippling Brush!

Product rave for today is for my new Real Techniques Stippling Brush used to apply my current favourite foundation Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum Foundation.

This brush is so, so soft and has very densely packed bristles. You should definitely go out and try this brush as it applied my foundation flawlessly... 

I also used it to blend in my concealer and cream blusher.

Here is a picture of how the foundation looked once applied to my face with this brush.

The foundation is very natural looking and provides reasonable coverage. It is very long lasting and lasts on my skin all day. You can build up layers for a fuller coverage if you prefer but it still looks quite natural. The finish is a slightly satin glow; not too dewey and not drying. If you do have dry skin though I would recommend moisturising your dry patches first because it can hang onto dry skin if you're not careful.

I would definitely re buy this foundation and will be trying out more Real Techniques brushes. Maybe you should, too!

xx

Makeup Blog Sale!

Hi everyone. I've been going through my products and picked out a few that I'd like to put in a blog sale for you. All pictures and prices are shown below. Just leave me a comment if you would like to buy anything and we can sort it from there. I will be accepting payment by paypal only and will only be sending to the UK unless you would like to pay additional postal charges.

Let me know if you would like to purchase anything!

Swarzkopf Live Salon Style permanent hair dye in the colour Dark Violet 3-3. 

This is the colour I used in my HOW TO DYE YOUR HAIR... blogpost. This is an unopened pack that I bought as a backup before I decided to go back to my natural colour.

£2.00 plus £2.00 postage.

 Benefit She Laq Magical Makeup Sealer. 

I'm pretty sure this has been discontinued now. I've only used it two or three times so it is pretty much full. The extra brushes that came with it seem to have disappeared so this is for the product and box only. 

£20.00 plus £2.00 postage. Cheaper than ebay ;)

Illamasqua Powdered Metal in Erzule

Used a minimal amount - probably used about 5 times as eyeshadow. As new but no box or powder puff.

£13.00 plus £2.00 postage.

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Book of Shadows Vol 2

This has been used lightly. The most used eyeshadow is "Sellout" and you can see in the pictures that it's not even hit pan. There is a small chip out of the "Misdemeanor"eyeshadow as you can see. I have used the Primer Potion and eyeliners that originally came with it so what you see is what you get in the pictures.

£20.00 plus £3.50 postage.

Urban Decay Lipstick in Voodoo.

Used twice. Blue toned red with shimmer. Smells yummy!

£5.00 plus £1.25 postage.

Estee Lauder DoubleWear Stay In Place Eyeliner in 05 Graphite

Used twice.

Smudger on one end and eyeliner on the other.

£5.00 plus £1.00 postage.

Palette of glittery stuff. Can be used as eyeshadow or blush or lip product. 

Only swatched. Think NYX do a similar one but I can't find a name on this.

£2.00 plus £1.25 postage.

Toni & Guy Beach Curl Spray

Hardly used.

£3.00 plus £2.00 postage.

Illamasqua Illumine Oil in Pulse (Gold) and Volt (Irridescent)

Only tried three times but I'm allergic to it :( Boohoo! As new but no box.

£12.00 each plus £2.50 postage 

or 

£20.00 for both plus £3.00 postage.

Barry M Dazzle Dust pigments.

5 x Dazzle Dusts

69 - a peacocky blue/purple colour

89 - a purple toned mushroom colour

24 - a gold toned mushroom colour

88 - a burnt purple colour

72 - a forresty, leafy green colour

All around 90% full.

£4.00 plus £2.00 postage

Soap and Glory Trick and Treatment Under Eye Concealer.

Used a couple of times.

£2.00 plus £1.50 postage. 

Leave a comment or send me an email at neeny.art@gmail.com if you would like to buy anything from this post. Let me know what you are interested in and I will send you details on how to pay :)

xxx

Week in Pictures!

How to: Zoo animal nail tutorial!

Here's the quick and easy tutorial for my Zoo nails. I saw these nails HERE and HERE and decided to give them a go myself.

Start by picking your base layer. I chose a light purple.

For Piggy you need to create a pink section over two thirds of your nail like so.

Then add a two ears and a snout with a slightly darker pink. (I used a dotting tool for this and all other details on the nails.)

Add two black eyes...

...and two nostrils. And you're done.

For Pandie do the same as before with Piggy's base but use a white.

Use a dotting tool to add two black ears, two black eyes and a little nose. Add a smaller dot of white for the eyes...

...and an even smaller dot for his pupils. And that's Pandie finished!

For Pingu, same again but with black...

Add his eyes and cheeks in white.

Dot in his eyes and beak, followed by two nostrils on top of that.

Flamingo needs a bit of artistry. Take a pink and draw this backwards S shape...

Add a lighter pink and a black for his beak and eye.

Frog uses a green as the base layer with two more bumps for eyes.

Add white and black for the eyes and nostrils. I added a slightly darker green for his cheeks. Once the base layer of green had dried I added some dots of the same green over in any spaces to create a bobbly skin effect.

And that's it. Finish with a top coat when all layers are dry!

Hope you like it! 

x