Nailing it

One of my favourite things to do is paint my nails so expect quite a few nail related posts from me! I can't wait to be a bit more creative closer to Christmas with nail art designs, but for now here are my favourite winter nail colours:

Nails by Topshop in Rumours and Lies:

This is my favourite everyday polish for winter, it goes with pretty much everything and the tone of the colour is dreamy.

Matte Nail Paint by Barry M in Mocha

This is my go to polish for work as it goes with any outfit and fools everyone at work into thinking I'm as sophisticated as this colour suggests!

Nail Paint by Barry M in Magnetic Blue

My favourite method to cheat my way to nails that look like they've taken hours!

Rimmel London 60 seconds in Green with Envy

This colour is perfect to brighten up dark winter clothes - I love wearing all black and just having a pop of colour on my nails.

 Technic Nail Varnish in Calypso

This is such a perfect party colour, I wear this a lot at weekends. I can't stop looking at my hands when I wear this as I love the colour so much!

Raising Eyebrows

I'm a champion of the natural brow - I've not really touched my eyebrows since I was a teenager (when yes, I used to pluck them into a line so thin you could blink and miss them). Since then I've left them well alone, partly because I'm scared of using eyebrow make up in case it leaves me looking like I've plastered two slugs to my face.

Recently though I've been having eyebrow envy - I keep seeing people with eyebrows that look amazing, but natural at the same time. I'm a bit late on this one, but I've finally decided to jump on the eyebrow bandwagon.

I wanted to go as cheap as I could find for my first time so I bought Rimmel's Brow This Way brow sculpting kit. Rimmel is one of my go to brands and I've never had a problem with any of their products so my hopes were high.

It comes with a wax and a powder so you can sculpt your shape and then set and fill with the powder. It was quick and easy to use and I love the little shaping brush that it comes with. I'll definitely carry on using it, but if I'm honest I can't really tell the difference between this and using brown eye shadow to achieve the same effect. I'm probably not using enough yet either as I'm still a little bit apprehensive about using it, but I do like the fact that my eyebrows look fuller and they did stay the shape I wanted them to all day.

Homemade Gift Tags

I'm not usually one to get excited about Christmas so early, but this year I've got the festive bug well in advance thanks to a trip to a very Christmassy Meadowhall. I like to add a bit of a homemade touch to Christmas presents (and when I say homemade you can definitely always tell when something is homemade in my case) and this year I've made my own gift tags.

I love Christmas shopping - I like searching for gifts that my family and friends will really like, but I usually fall down when it comes to wrapping because I spend so long searching for the presents that it ends up being rather last minute and I end up grabbing whatever is left in the shop. The reason I chose gift tags to make is because my usual style is to write the recipient's name in black marker pen straight onto the wrapping paper! Hopefully people will notice the difference this year.

So this year, as I've got most of my shopping done ridiculously early (stress-free December for me!), I've got plenty of time to wrap them all nicely too. I got some festive red wrapping paper from Wilkinsons for £2 and bought some coloured card for 85p to make my gift tags with.

The gift tags didn't take long to make at all - I just cut out some Christmas shapes (the fish is relevant to the gift rather than Christmas!) then sewed names into the card and added a little bit of glitter nail varnish to the edges. A really cheap and quick idea that just adds a little bit extra to my gifts even if, as my boyfriend put it 'they'll get scrumpled up and thrown in the bin straight away!' My presents for everyone are now tucked in a little corner wrapped and ready to be opened on Christmas day!

Blonde

About a year ago I decided that I wanted lower maintenance hair. I've dyed my hair a variety of darker colours since I was about 15 (bar one or two DIY blonde moments that didn't last long). My natural colour is sort of a mousey blonde so I used to have to re-dye my hair fairly often as my roots were so noticeable.

So about a year ago I embarked on a mission to return my hair to its natural colour. A year later and its still a long way off - mousey blonde down to my ears and then a faded orangey brown colour past that. Not the best look.

So on a weekend impulse I decided to sort it out. I've dip dyed my hair before back when it was brown and it's a look I really like and is very low maintenance in terms of re-dying because you can leave it as long as you like!

I'm pretty stingy when it comes to having my hair done - I have my hair cut once every six months and I've only ever had it salon dyed once. Inevitable dying disasters have occured, so I was determined this wasn't going to be one of them.

I've used a home dip dying kit before (L'Oreal Preference Wild Ombres) and found it easy to use, but a bit disappointing when it came to how my hair actually looked. There wasn't a gradual ombre effect as promised on the packet, it was more a straight line of two-tone hair!

Because I knew this I decided to do it differently this time to achieve a more natural looking fade to blonde, with some of my natural colour still mixed in. So instead of buying a dip dye kit, I bought 'L'Oreal Preference Brush-On Glam Highlights' kit, with the intention of just applying it to the ends of my hair.

The kit was super easy to use, with a three pronged plastic comb to apply the mixture to before brushing it through my hair. I applied it to the underneath of my hair so that the change in colour wouldn't be too sudden and I started from the ears down. I applied more of the mixture towards the very ends of my hair to achieve a gradual lightening effect. I used the medium coloured kit, which is for dark blonde to light blonde hair. In hindsight I'd maybe go for the darker kit for brown hair as the colour is very slightly yellowy, maybe because it was a little bit too light for my hair colour.

For a first attempt I was extremely happy with the results. It's a really easy method to get a gradual dip dye highlighted effect and it's a lot cheaper than getting it done at the hairdressers - the kit cost me £7.49 from Boots. I think I'd definitely use it as a full highlighting kit in the future as well as the highlights are really even as long as you top up the brush each time you do a stroke. All in all I'm just happy to have interesting hair again!

Cosy

This week has seen a return to that time of year when you can't get away with only wearing a cardigan outside (believe me, I speak from experience). My usual habit is to wait until the January sales to buy a winter coat when I'll go straight to Topshop, having already picked the one I want weeks previously!

This year however, I found this gem in Asda for £32 - cheaper than anything I could buy in the Topshop sale and I get to wear it all winter long.

I love wrapping up and red and grey is one of my favourite colour combinations so I taught myself a new skill and knitted this red scarf for winter.

I also found a blue check scarf from H&M at the back of my wardrobe from a couple of years ago that matches perfectly.

On really chilly days I wear a faux fur headband, which I love and is really warm!

I find that having the perfect winter outfit makes the cold days much more bearable. I look forward to wearing these every time I go outside!

I hope you've found your winter favourites - I'd love to see them so share them with me in the comments box!

I'm wearing:

Coat - George at Asda

Check scarf - H&M

Red scarf - homemade by me

Faux fur headband - Winter Wonderland Christmas Market
Polka dot trousers - Sainsbury's
Shoes - Primark

New

I've been wanting to start a blog for ages, but never quite got round to actually doing it so I'm mega excited to have finally started one. So, a little bit about me and what my blog is going to be about...

I'm Amy Eade, very nearly 24 years old and living in Hull. Hull isn't quite where I pictured myself living at this age, but I live in a dreamy flat with big windows and tall ceilings - what more could I want? Plus you can buy a house here for about 2p. 

Day to day I work in television operations at a rather well known broadcasting company. 

My blog is going to be about the main things I am interested in - fashion, pretty things and places, homemade bits and the like.  

Introductory posts are dull, so I'll say ciao for now and please keep reading my blog for more interesting posts than this one!