If you've followed my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I have reached a pretty important milestone recently. 100 followers may not seem like a huge deal to some more established bloggers, but the fact that so many people have liked my blog enough to click on that 'follow' button is pretty humbling! Over the past few weeks I've also got chatting to a lot of other beauty bloggers and so I decided that it's time that I give a little something back to the community!

Rules

Sorry to be a bore, but these rules are in place so that the competition is fair and we don't fall out, because that wouldn't be any fun now, would it?

• You must follow me on GFC or Bloglovin' publically - this may involve setting up a Bloglovin' account if you do not already have one. If you follow me anonymously and I cannot verify that you can follow me, I will have to forfeit your place as winner
• Please be sure to check the e-mail that you provide regularly
• I will contact the winner by e-mail on 29th September - if after contacting the winner I do not hear from them within 48 hours then I will choose a new winner

The prizes

All prizes are makeup items and are products that I have tried and tested myself. These are my favourites that I think will suit girls with a range of skintones and tastes who like makeup, which since you are reading my blog, I assume you do.

• Makeup Forever Aqua Eyes Pencil in 'gold' - This is a gorgeous, multitasking product and you can read my full review here.
• Crown Pro Blending Crease Brush - another fantastically versatile item that I could not be without, it's very similar to the Mac 117 and is probably my 'desert island' brush (not that I'd be worrying about makeup brushes if I was stuck on a desert island)
• Pink Z Palette - I have mentioned these in a post before because they are so useful - these magnetic palettes allow you to secure pans of any size from any brand which will not only save you money, but allow you to create your own versatile and unique palettes

a Rafflecopter giveaway


I hope that you guys like the look of the prizes and will enter! Remember, this is an international giveaway so anyone can enter! I will be running this giveaway for three weeks and will contact the winner when the competition closes (September 29th). If I do not hear from the winner within 48 hours I will choose a new winner and contact them!

First thing's first - apologies for my little hiatus, I was in fact on holiday with Phil and although I did intend to plan some posts, tired Emily had other plans. Anyway, here I am once again with a cheeky post for you all. As I mentioned in a couple of previous posts, last month I was lucky enough to spend three weeks interning at CCD PR as a part of their beauty team. This year at uni I have really come to love the idea of working in beauty PR as it seems to combine a lot of aspects that not only suit me really well but that I also feel passionate about and am good at. My internship certainly confirmed that it's an area I really want to pursue, and I think there are a number of bloggers/readers who are also interested in the beauty industry so I thought that today I'd share a bit with you about my time there!


Getting the job
I first found out that CCD were looking for a beauty intern on twitter (if you're also looking for an internship or any sort of work then Twitter should be your new best friend), and a few e-mails and a phone interview later I was asked to start my three weeks at CCD the following Monday. It all happened very quickly which made it all the more exciting. I spent my three weeks staying with family in Purley which really allowed me to experience what it's like commuting through London on a daily basis, and in the midst of Britain's biggest heatwave in over a decade this mostly means getting hot and sweaty.

The picture above shows what the makeup I wore each day tended to look like. I didn't give myself a huge time slot each morning for primping and preening, so it had to be efficient. The extreme heat meant that I had to make my makeup fairly water-proof as well, if you would like a tutorial on this then I would be more than happy to do so. I should probably tell you a little more about the work experience itself...

Responsibilities
From my first day I was welcomed in like one of the team; within my first hour of being there I had already sat in on a meeting and had my own e-mail account set up. My first week involved a lot of administrative work and research for the other members of the beauty team but as time went on I noticed that I was being trusted more and more with bigger jobs. My favourite part had to be writing press releases for journalists and mini articles. I've got to say though, I actually didn't mind the balance between the more "fun" jobs and the others at all. I was expected to do scanning of any coverage gained for our clients and run errands such as delivering mailers (product samples) to beauty journalists. Since the office was in a handy location this quite often meant a lovely ten minute walk in the sunshine - a nice breath of fresh air!

What I learnt
Of course I was only working for three weeks, and I know that PR is one of those jobs where no two days are ever the same and so with more experience I'll hopefully see many other sides to the industry. One thing that I will say is that even as an intern, it's not something you should go into if you want an easy job. There's always an opportunity to be thinking of more ideas and working harder, and even as an intern I always had plenty to do and also had the opportunity to contribute ideas. I may not have been there for long, but it was certainly tiring and I really found it hard to stay up past 10pm each night!

I hugely enjoyed my internship and really didn't want to leave at the end of it. I was made to feel so welcome by everybody else; I was included in company meetings, invited out to lunch with everyone, and I was even given a little gift at the end of my time there! I can honestly say that it was one of the highlights of my summer and I have learned so much.

It’s been a while since I did a Weekend Roundup, and so I thought that it was about time that I did a lifestyle post. I think that it’s fun to sometimes share things with you that go a little deeper than what I’m currently slapping on my face.





So last Friday Phil (my boyfriend) and I got the train from his home down to London. We had had this weekend break away planned for quite a few months, as they main reasons that we were going (a Michael Bublé concert and The Lion King Musical) had been Christmas presents to one another. We stayed in the Thistle hotel just off Leicester Square which is really lovely, plus the location couldn’t be better for a long couple like us who love city life!

We were pretty tired from the journey on Friday evening, and although we did go out for a quick drink our real holiday started on Saturday. Of course, no trip to London is complete without some lovely food and we definitely took full advantage of this at our breakfast times in the city. Pancakes and cinnamon rolls are just a couple of the things that we treated ourselves to while we were away!





We really did turn into tourists some of the time that we were there as you can see from the above pictures. One of the afternoons we went for a little walk through Chelsea and then got the tube to Westminster where we lapped up some of the sights as we walked back to our hotel. We were so lucky because the weather really was gorgeous when we were there! It must have been the hottest day of the year so far - I was boiling in my jeans! Our walk also took us through HEUITUHTE gardens which was absolutely beautiful. You can see my favourite picture was one of the lake - unfortunately in this picture I didn’t manage to catch the guy just to left who was doing some kind of zenny yoga type thing.





Phil always seems to make a point of visiting Selfridges and Harrods whilst we’re in London, and we were lucky to be just by a set doors on the ground floor when Pride London started parading past. We didn’t even know that the parade was on that day, but it was a really nice surprise. The atmosphere was amazing and some of the participants’ clothes and makeup were just incredible! Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery half way through and so I didn’t manage to get that many pictures. Did I mention that Toni and Guy were part of the parade and gave me and Phil some free hair products? Amazing!





Of course I couldn’t put a post up without sharing some pictures of our evening’s out. I have to admit that other than the Michael Bublé concert I was a bit rubbish at remembering to take any pictures. Saturday night was The Lion King which I thoroughly enjoyed as I had wanted to see it since I was a little girl. We had great seats and one of the puppets even came down the aisle right beside us at one point - unfortunately it was illegal to take photographs of the performance. Sunday night was the first night of Michael Bublé’s world tour. I bought the tickets for the concert for Phil months and months ago and because they sold out so quickly I ended up having to buy them through a secondary site - both Phil and I were terrified that we’d get there and find out that they were counterfeit or something, but luckily we got in without any hiccups. The seats weren’t the best but we still fully enjoyed the performance. It was so exciting to watch and hear him live, he was a true entertainer and knew exactly when to make the audience laugh and when to be serious.

Phil and I had such an exciting time away and we can’t wait until our next trip to London together - it’s one of our favourite cities! I of course also indulged in a little shopping, and so if any of you would like to see what I bought (it’s all clothes!) I will be putting the link to my haul video here once I have put it up on YouTube.

In case I hadn’t already gone on enough about it on Twitter, I went to IMATS (International Makeup Artists Tradeshow) last weekend! An incredible time was had by all - just look at how excited my Mum is to be there ;) If you want to see Part One of this post which is all about my day at IMATS then please click here. Anyhow, I thought that some of you may like to see some of the sorts of things you can get your hands on at the show and so I’ve put together a haul for you.

I went to IMATS yesterday and it was blooming amazing. I could leave the post right there but instead I thought that I’d tell you a little about my day. IMATS, for those of you that don’t know, is the ‘International Makeup Artists Tradeshow’. It is basically a huge weekend-long exhibition of makeup based brands from NARS to makeup schools to special effects makeup. The event also includes various seminars throughout that day that are mainly aimed at the professional makeup artist, but as you can imagine the show is also a haven for beauty bloggers as well as your regular beauty fanatic.


Fitting into both of these categories I decided to go along on Saturday with my mum. The event was at Olympia National Hall in Kensington which meant a five AM start for me - this may have been slightly excessive, but a beauty blogger’s got to look her best, right? This was especially true for me as one of the great thing about IMATS is that it attracts so many beauty YouTubers and bloggers that you may follow yourself. I was lucky enough to meet quite a few bloggers and YouTubers that I love which you will see later on in the post.

One of the attractions that I think is most fun about the event is the body painting that goes on all around. Some of the designs are fun, some are pretty and some are just plain scary - especially when teamed with prosthetics! There was one guy going around with special effects monster makeup and stilts. He was having great fun scaring the visitors and you would quite often hear a scream as you were walking around the show as he snuck up on his next “victim” - unfortunately I didn’t manage to get a picture! You can see some fantastic examples of some less scary prosthetic makeup in the shots of Daniel Craig and Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean above.






Every year IMATS also holds a competition for makeup students called “Battle of the Brushes”. The competition was going on throughout the day in a closed off area on the second floor. It was great fun to go up throughout the day and see how the contestants were getting on and the makeup progress into something really amazing. I managed to get a few snaps but some of them are slightly obstructed by the contestants’ mirrors. Hopefully this gives you an idea of how much talent there was in one room on the day, though!

As I mentioned before there are a few stages throughout the venue that host talks throughout the day that are all based on the makeup industry and makeup techniques. These talks are hosted by people who are at the top of their field in the industry and I genuinely found them really interesting. The pictures above are from the talks that I attended including ‘Red-Carpet Glamour’ by Gary Cockerill, ‘Tracking Trends Fall 2013’ by Kevin James Bennett and ‘HD Makeup for the Modern Bride’ by Sindy Perez. These talks aren’t necessarily everybody’s cup of tea but I found them extremely entertaining and informative. There are definitely things for you to pick up whether you’re a professional yourself or a total newbie to makeup. Mine and my mum’s favourite seminar, however, wasn’t strictly speaking a makeup seminar. You’ll know what I mean when you see the following pictures...








The final talk of the day was all about the power of social media... the speakers? A beauty blogging dream team! Unfortunately the Pixiwoo sisters (the original intended speakers) were unable to be there, so Ruth from A Model Recommends, Louise from A Sprinkle of Glitter, Anna from Vivianna Does Makeup and Caroline from Beauty Mouth took their places.
My mum found this comedic quartet absolutely hilarious. They focused their talk on the benefits of blogging and how to make the best of blogging. Their tips were mainly aimed at people like me who feel like they have something to give to the beauty community and how to be a blogger not a blagger. Their seminar felt a lot more like a chat between them and the audience, with a good bit of the D word thrown in for good measure.

As you can see I got to meet some of the lovely ladies afterwards as well as Lily Pebbles of What I Heart Today and Katie Snooks from Katie’s Beauty Blog. Writing this right now I still can’t quite believe it. It was so surreal to get to talk with these girls - they’re actually real human beings! Overdramatic? Perhaps, but for somebody who spends more time reading blogs than watching TV their kind words meant so much to me and I genuinely did feel a little star struck!


I want to say hi again to all of the lovely ladies that I met throughout my day at IMATS and I hope to meet you again one day! If you are any way involved in the makeup industry I would highly recommend attending IMATS next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. The tips and networking that you can gain throughout the day (or weekend) could be more fruitful for you than hours and hours spent on the internet. Besides, who doesn't love discounted makeup (look out for a haul post soon)?! I’m officially an IMATic fantatic. I’m a fIMATic. I really really like IMATS.

So as you may have noticed my blog has had a little makeover. I spent the last couple of weeks making all of the graphics and I've been teaching myself CSS - I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the result!

I have also bought a domain and am planning on moving to wordpress soon but this is where I need some help. Wordpress themes differ quite a bit to blogger templates but I really want to use this layout when I'm on wordpress, and sooner rather than later if possible. I'm trying to teach myself how to create Wordpress themes but any help/advice you can give me would really help! If you or anybody that you know is any good at PHP or has made Wordpress themes in the past I would love to get in touch. In other news I am officially home from university now and so you will be seeing a few slightly different backgrounds in my photos. I've got some exciting things lined up this summer which I really can't wait for - for example, if you're reading this just after it's gone up then I'm probably at IMATS aka in makeup heaven so look out for a post about that.

As you may already be aware if you follow me on Twitter, last week was my end of year university ball. I won't go into too much detail about the night as I think a lot of us felt let down by the poor planning of the Student Union, but it was really nice to see friends again before everybody started moving out for the summer. Half of the fun, of course, was sorting out the outfit. Sorting out mine turned out to be quite a last minute thing as there wasn't long between my exams and the ball, but I thought that it would be fun to share it with you all the same.



I had originally planned to wear a coral dress for the evening, but at the last minute I changed my mind and wore my back up dress. I'm not normally one to wear a body-con dress to special events, but this one felt a lot more elegant due to its long length and the lace overlay. My favourite thing about the dress is the low back. I don't know why but I've been such a fan of clothing with plunging backs recently; I think it's a great way to show a bit more flesh while staying classy.

My absolute favourite thing about the outfit would have to be the shoes (which unfortunately seem to be sold out on Aldo's website). I had these picked out long before anything else! These were from Aldo so they were a little more expensive, but I decided that it would be worth it since I hadn't invested in a good pair of heels in so long. I chose a wedge heel as I find them more comfortable and easier to walk in, plus I have a couple of holidays lined up where I hope to wear them. Besides, how pretty are they?! I'm totally in love with them and will definitely be purchasing more pairs of shoes from Aldo in the future. It's so difficult for me to find stylish, good quality shoes in my size (European 42) but Aldo fits the bill perfectly!

This outfit may not seem particularly dressy to some of you, but please keep in mind that the venue for the ball was a field. Yes, a field. I told you that it was disappointing. If you have any questions about any of the items then please feel free to comment below. I'm also planning on doing a post on my ball makeup soon!

Did any of you have any university/school/work balls this summer? Do you love these shoes as much as I do?

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