About time for an About Me

Hi, seens as I'm trying to get into the habit of blogging, I felt it was appropriate to do an about me post so any followers can get to know who they're following. So enjoy :)

Do you have a middle name?

Louise

What was your favourite subject at school?

Geeky as it sounds I used to love geography when I was at school, but despite it not being my timetable all year round I enjoyed Textiles the most

What's your favourite drink?

Non alcoholic-Apple and Raspberry j2o 

Alcoholic- Jelly Baby Cocktail

Favourite song at the moment?

I knew you were trouble.- Taylor Swift

What would you name your children?

I don't really think I'll ever have kids, but if I did I think about somehow including the names of my family/people who mean alot to me.

Do you participate in any sports?

Being at uni I walk everywhere, but otherwise I don't have much time for sports

Favourite book?

I love new york-Lindsey Kelk

Favourite colour?

Red (hence the hair)

Favourite animal?

Penguin

Favourite perfume?

Marc Jacobs Dot

Favourite holiday?

New Zealand Campervan tour 

Have you graduated high school?

Yes.

Do you speak any other languages?

I used to speak a little bit of french but am a bit rusty now

Do you have any siblings?

I have an older sister.

What's your favourite store?

Asos.Com

Favourite restaurant?

Yo Sushi

Favourite movie?

Bridesmaids

Favourite Tv Show?

New Girl

PC or Mac?

PC

How tall are you?

5"5

Personal Questions...

What do you order at Starbucks?

Englishg breakfast tea

One thing in your closet you can not live without?

My Black Leather jacket, I can pair it with pretty much everything

What's one thing people probably don't know about you?

I'm actually a bit of a nerd and managed to get full marks in 4 of my 6 gcse science exams.

Name one thing you want to do before you die?

show a collection at London Fashion Week

What's one food you cannot live without?

CHEESE

What quote/phrase do you live by?

Thank every single person who has ever told you that you can't because they are just another reason why you will

What was the last book you read?

meet me at the cupcake cafe- jenny colgan 

What's your most listened to song on iTunes?

i knew you were trouble-Taylor swift

What kind of style would you define yourself as having?

I wear alot of dresses... realized how bad its gotten when im down to 2 pairs of jean 3 tees and the rest of my wardrobe is dresses.... 

Two hobbies?

baking and blogging

Two pet pet peeves?

Arrogance/talking down to people, I dont care about the circumstances you are no better than anyone else.

Unnecessary drama/gossiping, i just cant deal with/understand people who thrive off drama and attention so as a general rule i try to avoid it

Guilty pleasures?

The Hills & Cheese night at Po Na Na

Red to Pink Dip Dye

So I've had red hair for quite a while now, and as much as I love my red hair I do get a little bit bored of having to keep a similar colour; in my earlier teenage years my hair colour would struggle to last 6 months before I would get bored and changed it. So to spice things up I finally took the plunge and dip dyed my hair. If you google dip dye red hair, the bulk of the results are of people adding red to the ends as opposed to Red heads adding colour to their ends. After deliberation I decided to pick a pinky red colour for my dip dye as if it went wrong I would easily be able to cover it up. 

To dip dye the ends I first had to bleach them to lift the colour. I used Jerome Russel Bblonde hair lightener for medium to dark hair , although this dye worked well and provided the lifted effect I wanted, my friend

Emily from rainydaysandcupsoftea  also re dip-dyed her hair and used L'Oreal preference wild ombres. This kit seemed easier to use and came with a special applicator brush, so I would recommend the l'oreal kit.

Very dodgy picture of me after the blonde, Emo pose came from me freaking out at the Hayley Williams-esque do.

I then added the pink to the newly bleached ends to finish my do. I used my trusted live colour XXL, they have recently launched a new range of semi permanent brighter colours perfect for dip dyeing and adding things like streaks to your hair. I chose:

Raspberry Rebel.

This was quick to develop and smelt incredibly sweet and girly, which was a nice change from the stench of the bleach. I would definitely recommend these dyes as I'm really happy with the result, you definitely need to use them on recently bleached hair though. 

The end result:

Its only a small bit of dip dye, and a tad messy, but overall im really pleased with it, and its a look I aim to stick with for a little while.

Massive thank you to Emily for helping with the dyeing :)

FFFx

Design Project

For the last month of term we were asked to spend 2 days a week working on a design project that would consist of research including 100+ images, this would then flow into 100+ initial designs ending with 4 final looks and the appropriate design work to go with them (a final line up and working drawings for each garment)
I found this project difficult, and initially started with a different theme and spent the first half of the project muddling along with a complicated theme. After a tutorial with my head of course I decided to strip the project right back and not over-complicate in my theme. The starting point we were given was structures so second time going I chose London architecture as my theme.
Obviously there was a wealth of imagery and information available and I was able to quickly get back up to the 100+ research images; another change with the re-starting of the project was that I used Pinterest to help collate my research.

http://pinterest.com/fashiongeek93/london/

Click the link to see my London inspired board :)

My main sources of inspiration were the Millennium Bridge and The Gherkin, both designed by Foster & Partners.

Line up and sketches will follow once I've had my feed back on them 

FFF x 

No excuses

No excuse for me not to get my bum into gear and get this blog up to date. I'll upload images and information about my recent design and pattern cutting projects and fill you in on my Christmas work and plans over the festive period. You may also be lucky enough to see the results of home dyeing which will either end up amazing or awful

Merry Christmas 

FFF x

The final push for christmas

Sorry for the slow blogging again, I finish uni on Friday and am working hard to get everything up to date and handed in this week so I can enjoy all the chrismassy things me and my friends have planned. I have two projects to hand in, which I will let you know more about later, a design project and a pattern cutting project. I'll admit that the design has been harder than the pattern cutting, but I think thats purely because I overthink my designing. So after re-doing the design process fingers crossed it comes out a bit better.
fff x

OOTD

Thought I'd do a post breaking down what I wore today as I forgot to note/link in my earlier post.

I had alot to do today, with lots of running about town so I wanted something that would be warm but cute at the same time. My wardrobe is full of dresses and I don't want to neglect them during the colder months.

Hat-H&M

Leather Jacket-New Look

Jumper-H&M

Belt-ASOS

Dress-H&M

Leggings-H&M

Boots-Topshop

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Today has made me feel exceptionally christmassy, despite having to go into Uni to use the studios for a little bit. My Christmas shopping is practically done, my student flat has a proper decorated Christmas tree, and i was lucky enough to be able to spare a few hours to feed the ducks and play on the park with some of my friends from halls. Being a student helps you to rediscover all the little things in life that don't really cost much but make you happy. :)

OOTD

Swans

Tree :D

Illustration Masterclass

During my first term at uni I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to have 2 days of masterclasses with Fashion illustrator Kim Dalziel. Normally I'm very reluctant/nervous about drawing and didn't have much belief in my illustration skills but Kim's teaching meant I was relaxed throughout both days and my confidence has greatly improved. So here's a snippet of some of the illustrations I did over the 2 days (the people I illustrated where all classmates and we took it in turns throughout the day)

Design Project 1

So admittedly I have been a bit slack on keeping this up to date :( I'm sorry, I'm sure once I fill you in on all I've been doing you'll understand. The first main design project on my course began with journalistic style sketches of fashion shows. This was done by watching videos of recent fashion shows and trying to capture the key looks, colours, shapes and styling in the show. From all the s/s 13 shows we watched we then had to chose the one we were most interested in and produce 6 black and white collages based on them. For my inspiration collection I chose Alexander McQueen.

Some of my favourite pieces from the collection. We then had to produce 100 sketches and 100 technical flats based on this collection...in 4 days. This was in our second week of uni which lead to some very stressed students and some very late nights.

After the stress of this initial work we then thought we were being let of gently with a trend forecasting project, we were split into 4 groups and given a theme, curiosity, the unknown, rebellion and nostalgia. This theme we were given would lead onto a body of work inspired by this initial theme which included, 100 initial images in a research sketchbook presented in a different way, and eventually after lots of crit 50 sketches and technical flats.

This was a crazy amount of work and all happened in the space of a few weeks alongside other projects which I will fill you in on later.

Sorry for the slack posting

fff x

Student Shopping

The perks of being a student, NUS cards and free stuff :D

Despite fee's being extortionate now i am still managing to keep my shopping habit, thanks to student discounts, offers and shopping events. Since starting university I have been to 3, and they generally tend to be 1/2 weeks after freshers rush dies down.

Southgate Shopping Centre Student Lock In

South Gate is the main modern shopping district in Bath, which houses most well known high street stores including:

-H&M

-All Saints

-Boots

-Topshop

-Urban Outfitters

 The centre arranged and event where the shops would open between 7-9 and offer discounts and freebies, most shops took part in the event and there was even music and food stalls dotted about the centre. I took full advantage of the discounts stocking up on basics at H&M and beginning present shopping at urban outfitters.

LUSH cosmetics Student party

A week or so after the south gate event the local lush store held there own student lock in, we were treated to in store treatments (which I took full advantage of) Bath bomb and spoon races down the high street and goodie bags for being the first people at the event :) This was by far one of the best student events due to the friendly attitude of the staff, which meant I did not feel intimidated to ask to see lots of bath bombs, try little swatches of products and take advantage of the hand massages on offer. Luckily for me, my mum had sent me a voucher to treat myself with the day before so I had a guilt free shop and bought a mixture of my old favourites: Snow Fairy and Butterball as well as treating myself to some new products: Candy Mountain and Bubblegum Lip Scrub. As you can see from my product choices I'm a bit of a sucker for any of Lush's sweet themed products. As we were about to leave me and my friends were offered a goody bag each (No minimum spend-one of the girls had only bought a bath bomb); this turned out to be one of the best goody bags ever(including full size products with a value over £20!)! So packed with products and all things I wouldn't of necessarily tried on my own, these included h'suan wen hua, Volcano, silk stockings and Miranda Soap.

Cath Kidston Student lock in

Straight after the Lush Lock in was the Cath Kidston event just up the road. Like Lush they had extended opening hours specifically for students and were offering 25% off all products (student discount is normally only 10%), and if you spent over £25 you could get a goodie bag! I saw the £25 target as a challenge and easily managed to fill my basket up to the said quota buying things I convinced myself I needed. My purchases from the evening were:

Cosmetic Bag £12

Sandwich boxes £10

Manicure Set £14

The cosmetic bag was bought to house my Sewing Kit for Uni which consists of lots of important little tools which I knew I would lose if I didn't find them a cute home soon! It works out as being pretty much the right size with only the tiniest point of my scissors poking out (as I bought slightly larger fabric shears, normal or small size shears would fit fine). Despite all that I was told on student forums I didn't bring enough tupperware to store all my food and have a lunchbox so these where the perfect excuse, bulking up my lack of storage and cute enough to be used as a lunchbox for uni, and finally a sewing kit, which was an essential I had completely forgotten about until the week before I moved out and was then unable to find one before I moved.

All in all it was a successful few days of shopping and the discount always helps!

fff x

Busy Busy

Sorry for my complete lack of posts for a month :(
Have been incredibly busy with university and settling in that I've haven't had a chance to blog.
I have a quieter weekend this week so I will go back and update and give a stream of uploads throughout the week so every things up to date :D
Need to get into more of a habit of doing this!
much love & bear with me
fff x

Bankside :D

Thought I'd get round to finally uploading my photos of my student flat, its quite small as i only share with 3 other people but its very cosy and starting to feel like home :)

How does this compare to other peoples student halls experiences? x

Sorry!

First of all I would like to apologize for my complete lack of blogging, first weeks of uni have been really hectic and literally have only just got evenings to myself this past week. Will try and do some posts to catch up with what I've been doing and also some reviews etc :) x

Settling in

Sorry for the delay in posting and photos :( As any of you know who have moved into halls or know people that have, the first few days are a bit chaotic. Been trying to get to know my flatmates better, as well as buddying up with people on my course and this is all whilst beginning lectures and trying to find my feet with the getting about and timetables.
Hectic!
Promise pictures will be up soon-weekend at the latest, as I want to share with you my little room :)
fff x

All moved in

Finally have made the long trek to bath and got everything moved in and all boxes unpacked. Room still looks a bit big and unhomely but i'm sure once i get the final pieces for my room tomorrow things will perk up a little. Pictures will also follow once my room looks a little bit nicer :D
Anyone else moved in this week?
Wish me luck
fff x

All packed up and ready to go

Have finally got all packed up and ready to move tomorrow.
Exciting stuff now :) Sorry for the lack of pictures, camera has been packed for a few days but once I'm settled in bath it will be a bit of a spam of all my photos.
Very sleepy now so I'm going to finish up and go to bed.
I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow.
Wish me luck
fff x

Packing

I have spent today having my last day out in Norwich :( See you at christmas!
I still had a massive list of things that I needed to get for my flat but managed to get them all, along with very achy arms from carrying it around Norwich and to the car. Wilkinsons has been an absolute lifesaver with loads of cheap but actually fairly good quality bits and bobs for the kitchen.
I said goodbye to one of my best friends in Norwich today, and she'll get her own special post later, http://rainydaysandcupsoftea.blogspot.co.uk/
My sister also took me out for lunch as it was the last day I'd see her aswell. If anyone does visit Norwich I would definitely recommend The Waffle House, the food is so amazingly yummy and great value for money :)
Sorry if I go AWOL the next few days, am moving across the country :P
fff x

Blog is live

Hey Everybody,
This is going to be a blog mapping my studies and adventures as I start my degree and fashion career :)
Please bear with me initially as its going to be a hectic few weeks
fff x