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Monday Amusements

Monday Amusements 9

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Some products I’ve been loving recently and will review soon!

It’s a very short one this week as I’ve not had much time to pore over posts, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! If you want more, investigate the archive!

I’m not a daisy lady but I loved seeing this post about them at Daisies and DMs as it reminded me how much I love roses – definitely a subject for a post of my own! I’ve been collecting rose hair clips for years and last week bought some beautiful black and purple rose print fabric that my mum is going to make into a dress for me. I know once it’s finished I’ll struggle to convince myself to wear anything else!

 I’ve been an M&S tight addict for years now but haven’t bought anything in the last few seasons as all the fashion tights have been the thin, one-use (two if you’re lucky) variety, whereas I like opaques or at least durable lace! I’m starting to look elsewhere for my tights fix, and I loved this outfit post at sparklyvodka, those tights are fantastic! I like the black ones but they’re not very opaque so I wouldn’t get much wear out of them, still tempted though!

Phyrra’s Best Cruelty-Free Beauty Brands list is an excellent resource, there are loads of companies on there whose products I’ve either already tried or am longing to try. I’m really pleased that she’s included international shipping details on the listings so that I don’t click through only to be disappointed.

I loved SillyGrrl’s post How to get off the blogging bandwagon. I’ve never felt a strong need to blog in the same way as someone else, but I feel that this is something I want to remind myself of now that blogging has become so popular. I don’t see the point in creating a tutorial if someone else has already made a wonderful one for the same item or look, and there are some memes I love as they provide a great jumping off point but others I avoid as its too easy to find yourself repeating what others have said. Even in these Monday Amusements posts I try to provide some sort of commentary on every link I include because otherwise I might as well just  tweet the links and be done with it! As a reader, I’m not going to follow a blog just because I know the person from another site or because someone else recommended it. If it’s a fashion or make-up blog, I need to want to imitate the person’s style, at least sometimes, because I read for inspiration as well as community. No matter how good a make-up blogger is, if all their looks feature neutral eyes and nude lips I’m not going to subscribe to their blog, because it’s not relevant to my interests.

Finally, if you haven’t seen this video of a pug getting excited over the ending of Homeward Bound, you must!

Monday Amusements 8

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Hello! Remember me? I hope you do so, and fondly, because this blog is coming back to life in a big way. I’ve got a lovely spreadsheet schedule sorted out, and one of the first steps I’m taking is to bring back my Monday Amusements posts. I’ll be posting Monday Amusements here every other week, starting today, and doing the same (but reading and writing themed) on this fleeting dream, which I started last week. Therefore you can expect my next Monday Amusements post here on the 27th May. Coincidently, this Monday Amusements post and my last Monday Amusements post on this fleeting dream have the same number, which I think is quite nice.

Just as I have on this fleeting dream, I am going to try to credit my sources when I didn’t just find a post or article myself via RSS feed, website e-mail newsletter, ‘surfing the web’ (as I believe the kids called it in 1998, I should know, I was one) or the publisher’s twitter. Previously, I’d just bookmark the piece and by the time I got around to putting my Monday Amusements post together, I’d have forgotten how I discovered it. From now on I will bookmark the relevant tweet or Facebook post instead, so that you can find and follow interesting people too!

One thing I’m going to stop is sorting the links into categories, as I did with the original posts. I’ll still group them into paragraphs where it is appropriate, but I found that my attempts to stick rigidly to one template for all the posts failed, because I go through different phases (or obsessions, if you will, haha). For example, while some weeks I’ll want to share loads of craft tutorials, other times I won’t have bookmarked any new ones, so having a ‘Craft’ section doesn’t work, and it’s the same for almost every other section I was using. Except for ‘cute’. I can always manage to find something adorable.

Any feedback on this would be much appreciated, so do leave a comment. I’d also love to know which links you find the most interesting, as that will help me decide what to include in future. Now, on with the links! 

The Beauty Milk has a feature that I really enjoy, and kind of wish I’d thought of first, called Try It Out Thursday. The most recent post in this series is about using tape to help create blunt-edged winged eyeliner looks. I am definitely going to try it out, although I’m quite happy with my eyeliner technique at the moment.  I usually blend my eyeshadow out and then draw my eyeliner on top, so the eyeshadow goes out past the wing, and I want to find out what it looks like when the wing marks the edge of my eye make-up. I’m not sure it’ll work because the natural brown colour of my eyelids extends past the edge of my preferred wing position, and I usually use eyeshadow to cover it up, but I could try covering it with concealer or powder afterwards instead.

On a similar note, if you’re attracted to coloured eyeliner but are not sure how to wear it, Anitacska at Pleasureflush has three different ideas. Three is the magic number this week, as Robyn shows us how wearing a different lipstick can alter the overall effect of a make-up look, at Stay Beautiful. And on the subject of ‘different’ lipstick (I’ve got to stop these corny segues), Leanne at Do Not Refreeze reviews Illamasqua ESP, a surprisingly wearable purple lipstick. As I wrote in the comments, with the Boost lipgloss it reminds me of Lush’s Passionate lipstick, a bright pink with a blue/purple duochrome effect, as well as the ancient Rimmel purple lipstick that I mentioned here.

As you may know from my tweets, I am currently obsessed with dyeing – more on this in an upcoming post.
I don’t have any shoes at the moment that are suitable, but I will definitely revisit the Dreams that Glitter tutorial on DIY Ombre Dip-Dye Shoes.

It’s finally starting to feel more like Spring here in the UK, after about six months of alternating rain, snow, and freezing cold weather, but I like to be prepared, and Owl Girl‘s post How to dress on windy days! is really useful.

My favourite area of study at university was cultural studies, so I love reading posts that explore the social and political implications of self-presentation, such as this post about beauty/fashion ‘rules’ and stigma, from The Beheld. I also enjoy fashion history, and I wanted to visit the ‘BIBA and Beyond’ exhibition at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, but never got around to it. It’s finished now, so I’ll have to settle for revisiting this review at Lipglossiping. I love that purple patterned dress with the bell sleeves and the lilac halter-tutu dress in the photo below it. I also enjoyed Victorian Aristo Tattoo Crew on the pamflet blog, and Stylist‘s 50 Style Icons of the 1920s – a decade I love reading about in books, as frequently mentioned on my other blog.

Finally, some cape eye candy from The Cherry Blossom Girl, and the traditional ‘cute’ inclusion, with a not-so-traditional animal: Snake as hair scrunchie.