Mesh Sleeve M & Co Prom Dress and Victory Rolls

This weekend I had a leaving do to go to so of course I wanted something new to wear. I did have it in my mind that I wasn't going to spend any money but it wasn't completely out of the question...

I went into town in the morning with the Mothership for breakfast and to get some bits and she was looking for a dress so we went into M & Co. I'll be honest it would never usually have been my first choice of shop. No particular reason I just never venture far from Primark or New Look. I'm still in a student mentality where anything over £15 is just too much.  However, the last few times we've been there I have awe struck by the gorgeous dresses but didn't really have an excuse to buy one. They actually fit me too, getting anything in high street stores to fit a bust over a D cup can prove difficult. 

So when we were having a little browse I happened to find myself in the sale area and walking myself to the changing rooms with this beautiful little number. I love it because it reminded me a little of the style of dress Adele wore the the Brits when she sang 'Someone Like You', not that I remember or anything... I'm also a sucker for a black rockabilly dress.

 Sorry about dodgy Instagram photo

It was £30 in the sale down from £49, which considering it's labelled as a prom dress, is pretty decent in my books. The dress itself falls just below the knee, my favourite kind. It was light but still had a lot of body in the full skirt with an almost faux petticoat and had a lovely sweetheart neckline. I'm one of those who don't like their upper arms out too much so to find one with a mesh top with sleeves was perfect. Polkadots are my favourite pattern so that was a winner straight away and it also came with it's own belt to tie into a bow which was handy as I find I do need to belt dresses and my bust is bigger than my waist so I need to pull it in to keep its shape.

The zip went up really easily, I did need a second pair of hands to do the button at the top but I do think I could have done it up myself if I didn't have a second pair available. I just love the dress - and after seeing it on instagram one of my lovely followers snapped it up too! The only thing I had to add was a little modisty panel to my bra as I can be a little booby and it was a works do I wasn't sure how they'd hold up so I added it just in case. I'm starting to love sharing outfit posts so hopefully I'll continue to get braver. I get a lot of inspiration from the gorgeous Fuller Figure Fuller Bust - check her out, total lady crush. 

I teamed the dress with red lipstick, victory rolls and red heels. The lipstick is from the Kate Moss collection by Rimmel shade 1 (£3.99) outlined with Barry M's red lip liner (£2.99). I've started to team these two together and I'm loving the shape and full colour they give. I do like to have the choice to rub a lipstick off and this isn't one that will stay on and you have to practically scratch off your lips with a brillo pad (make up remover wipes usually do the trick though!), but it does hold up extremely well. 

Excuse the shameless selfies... #sorrynotsorry #yesihastaggedthat

For my victory rolls I usually use V05 Plump It Up Dry Backcomb Spray (£3.79) and go to town on it. I wanted a smoother look as I have noticed it can look a little wispy in places so I bought some V05 Soft Moulding Wax (£2.99) which actually way pretty good. I always think of wax as a product only boys use, but I found it helped with a bit of structure to the rolls and helped me control them a bit better. I was also able to brush it out when I woke up bleary eyed in the morning from the night before and could leave my friend's house to get to mine without looking like a total psycho indulging in a bath and collapsing in bed.

I always use Eye Studio® Lasting Drama™ Gel Eyeliner In Blackest Black by Maybelline (7.99), it's the only way I get my winged eyeliner shape and I like the control it gives, it also lasts all day which is always a winner. One pot usually lasts me about six months and I wear it every day sometimes re-applying if I'm going out so you can't argue with that. 

I do need to find some new heels though, these were just cheap ones I found online and when heading for the taxi one of the heels broke off! Luckily I have some flats in my bag so I didn't have to do the crazy tipsy uneven walk to the taxi rank, but I do need to find some that aren't too high but also have a strap across the top - any ideas?

This basically gives you an idea of how the night went...

 

Red Stag, my FAVOURITE

 

Image credits - Superdrug

Follow me on Instagram - victoryrollsandmixingbowls

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Directions Hair Colour

I've been trying to get my hair the reddest I possibly can, especially since I've become a bit obsessed with rockabilly style. In the past I've tried every colour and have been using Olia 6.6 for a while which is the brightest it's been in a while. 

But then I discovered this semi-permanent colour everyone's been using so I thought I'd give it a go. It's called
La Riche - Directions, and while it's semi permanent they offer a wide variety of colours, from all the colours of the rainbow and there's definitely something for everyone.

I chose the shade 'Poppy Red' and bought four pots, you don't mix them with anything so they go straight on as they are - and I have a lot of hair so I thought I'd get four. I still topped by roots up with the Olio 6.6, but instead of going over the rest of my hair with it as I normally would, I washed and dried it (important, dont mix makes, always do them separate),  and then I applied 1.5 pots of Poppy Red. Left it on for about half an hour as I normally would, and freaked out when I washed it out.

It runs practically magenta, so don't freak out. When it's dried, all beautiful and shiny you'll see it's brilliantly BRIGHT RED! It was amazing to me, I've never had such red hair. I had to say I do have to top it up after two weeks as it's not permanent but to go from vaguely red to looking like Ariel bursting out of the sea I would say it's definitely worth it. I think I paid about £3.50 a pot, and then £7 for Olia, so not even £20 a month for bright red hair, what more could you ask for?

 Before

After

 

I did add a couple of filters, because, well, I'm a girl, but they barely effect the colour, it is actually that red. Buy it, buy it now. Don't wait! Perfect for my victory rolls I must say.

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Easter Hair!

This is my first hair post, it's just going to be a mini one. I wear my hair in victory rolls and pin curls a lot, and they've always got comments and a bit of attention which is great when it's nice. 

We were at work talking about Easter and one of the lovely ladies I work with jokingly said I should turn them into little nests with little chicks for the Easter period, so I thought 'You know what? I will!' Step down Easter bonnets!

And that's exactly what I did, I used some decorations we got from Poundland that were actual little nests with speckled eggs in and I bought some cute pastel chicks from Tesco. The nests came with feathers in so I ripped those out (didn't want to look crazy, right?), I then secured the chicks with hair grips in the nests.

 I put my hair up in victory rolls but had them more flat so that they could be used to hold the nests, which I secured in place with more grips, lots of grips! I did a little Easter egg hunt for the guys at work so I had to have hair to match, and considering I always do crazy things with my hair I don't really think too many people thought much of it.

Has anyone else done anything similar?

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Baking Buys

Another Baking Buys post, I can't seem to stop shopping at the moment, not healthy for the bank balance...I just can't help myself. Some of these were bought a little while ago and kept for this post that you will have seen me use in past posts.

On one of my last trips I managed to pick up some red,white and blue sprinkles, red writing jelly (these use this a lot on their iced cakes), cake flags and also some tutti fruitti flavouring, it's a tiny bottle but it's super concentrated so a little goes a long way :) You'll see these feature in my next post so keep a look out.

The first of which are my Norway purchases, these were actually bought a while ago but I've only used them recently which reminded me that I actually had them! Today is actually Norway's independence day, I really wish I could have been there but instead I had the day off. Normally we do something fun like going to a theme park but there's been so much going on it didn't feel right this year so we had a nice day at home with a bit of shopping, eating and baking. Which is why I bought some of the following bits you'll see in a moment. Norway love their baking - LOVE IT! I love trawling their baking aisles in the shops as they stock so many great products we just don't get that would be so useful.



Last Week I had ANOTHER shopping trip, I couldn't resist popping into TK MAXX where I picked up this cupcake cutter, I've been wanting one for ages and this one was perfect. I also picked up a plain icing rolling pin which I forgot to take a picture of before I covered it in icing sugar, it's great for fondant and gumpaste work. Which bring me to my trip to HobbyCraft, there I bought two boxes of gum paste mix, I never bought ready rolled until my mum pointed out the price difference, £5.99 for the mix, £12.99 for the ready to roll stuff. As I was buying it for my brother's wedding cake, not knowing how much the mix made I bought two, but after mixing it (in fear) I discovered one mix made up 500g of gum paste - exactly the same as the ready made but less than half price! Love it.

 My next hit was Tesco and the garden center. I love the new products the garden center is stocking, I couldn't resist the patterned rolling pin, set of girly cookie cutters, apple blossom plungers and the cute polkadot petit fours cases. The range is so reasonable the rolling pin was only £6.99 - bargain!

 My next hit was Tesco, it's not that exciting for most but I found the blue table cover in the picture above, actually I got the cupcake one there too! I also found the Jubilee golden syrup tin, I think this would love lovely in my baking room when it's empty to hold some of my various tools, and a nice keepsake :)

Finally I hit my town to pick up something to help me make my cake pops more rounded, I found this Joseph Joseph measuring spoon, I have tried it out and while it doesn't make them perfect it definitely helps. In another little shop I found these star cookies cutters for making a star tree, I know it's stupidy early.... but I thought these would come in handy for Christmas, or do you think I could use them at other times?

 

Now I did do a big order from Sew White, a lovely website my work friend told me about, but I've already tried some of the products out so I think they need a post all to themselves :)

Nom!

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4th Birthday Snow White Giant Cupcake

So it's that time of year again, my niece's birthday and this time she turns four.  I've made her a birthday cake the last two years so this one could be no exception.

The first one I made was an In The Night Garden Cake, and while I loved it, I was very new to it and didn't even level the layers! So it was very lumpy and bumpy. This is what gave me the cake bug! The next year I made her a little princess castle cake, I hadn't researched it much but I think it turned out well.

This year she is still very much into the princess theme, Disney Princess to be precise, and Snow White in particular, I've lost count of all the times she made up watch that film! And while I'm not sure how making Snow White would actually look, so I thought maybe another giant cupcake would look good. I know I make a lot of these, but she loves cupcakes so I though it would be quite fitting. I decided to make it in the theme of Snow White's dress rather than what she actually looks like.

The base is covered with blue fondant icing, coloured with Baby Blue sugarflare paste, and the red stripes in Christmas Red. I made the buttons from Melon yellow, wet them and covered them in cake glitter, not shimmer - girls can never have too much glitter and she ate these the first!.

For the top part I rose iced it with melon yellow buttercream, and dusted it with yellow shimmer this time. I decided to put the 'posion apple' on the front, though for obvious reasons this was posion free! To make this I just carved an apple shape from the christmas red fondant, brushed it with corn syrup and drenched it in red cake glitter and left it to dry. I used the corn syrup rather than water so it would still look shiny. I then piped on a stalk and the number four.

Luckily she loved the cake, we ate it for breakfast and the rest went home with her. Unluckily I seem to find glitter EVERYWHERE and have a feeling it's going to be around for a while...at least it will make the kitchen look a bit more magical! Pin It Now!