A weekend in Ireland

I've just got back from a lovely weekend away with Scott and his family to Northern Ireland! I'd never been to Ireland before and it's always interesting to visit a new place/country :) For those of you who haven't been, it's a lot like Wales !! E.g landscape, weather, sheep etc, but has it's own special edge too....

We went as part of Scott's Nana's 75th birthday and there were about 15 of us in total!We stayed in a nice hotel in Cooks-town (about an hour from Belfast) and explored lots of attractions, and ate a lot of food, as per for us really :)

I've finally got Scott to buy some desent trainers/shoes, so here are his new navy blue converse (FINALLY) and my Topshop burgandy thick Mary Janes , for those of you who know me I rarely wear shoes that are not red, so this is a step forward at least...

The blob in the middle of the photo is a rain droplet on the camera, the weather was pretty bad the whole weekend, but we still had a fab time.

We liked the freeebies from the hotel (who dosn't?!) So we had sparlking water in a glass bottle and some chocolate chip cookies as a snack.

We visited the Giant's Casueway which is a landscape on the northern coast of ireland that has been weatherd by conditions such as ice age's and general poor weather conditions to create these fabulous effect in the rocks. 

The rocks look hand carved or even part of an art installation, but all is done naturally by the erosion of the bastille rock by the weather conditions.

Tourists always find a way of cramming coins into tourist attractions, and here was no different. I liked how many of the crevasses in the rocks were crammed full with coins, some badly weathered and some new. The rust was pretty too (I'm sad with things like that), I tried picking some coins out but they were too tightly packed in!

More of the corseway! 

We drove along the coast and stopped to take some snaps of the coastiline. The waves were ridiculously high in some places. I always like the chalky rocks that surround a lot of the Brisish coastline. They looks so pretty with the grassy hilltops!

 It was very windy so we both had eyes and mouths full of my hair flying around for a lot of the weekend!

Scott and I are both hige fans of the Titanic. We love the film, and like nerding up on our facts about the real thing. This meant we were very excited to Visit the museum in Belfast dedicated to the Titanic (as most of the hull, and ship were made in Belfast). The building is shaped like the stern of the ship on each fours sides. It was full of interesting facts and reconstructions of parts of the ship. I particualy liked the room where they showed artifascts and videos of what people have recovered from the wreckage e.g shoes, glasses, bottles etc. It reayly was fascinating :)

But embarrassingly enough, I was mostly impressed by THE DRESS !!

This was the original dress from the film Titanic with Kate Winslet who is one of my favourite actresses. It was even tinged brown and grey from when it had been worn in the water for filming, which was pretty cool!

 We visited the Bushmills Whisky factory and went on a tour. I'm not a big drinker and usually don't like whiskey, but they had a type blended with honey which was delicious! ( I had mine watered down, as I am a big pansy with alcohol) but that helped the honey flavour and sweetness come through :)
It was very informative and interesting to see, and makes you really appreciate why it is so expensive, as the most basic variety has to be held for at least 3 years and be 40% to be considered a whiskey

 Scott in the causeway museum/fact place. (Inside a shark mouth....)

Lastly a bauble I wish i'd bought in the factory shop of the whiskey factory. :(But I was being stingy and didn't want to pay £6.50!

I'd really recommend going to Ireland as it was very pretty and the attractions were really interesting to see ! but if you go in Winter wrap up warm as it's very VERY nippy !!! 

Halloween Skeleton Make up

I love Halloween, Always have always will. I'll admit I love christmas and that is my favourite time of year, but autumn and Halloween are a definite close second. Dressing up has always been something I enjoy doing, that topped with treacle toffee, pumpkin carving and scary movies is just on for a winner really. This year i went as a skeleton,... as you can see below :) I cut bones out of an old T-shirt for my top - Martha Stewart's DIY and painted my face and spinal cord.

there are lots of videos on youtube you can look at (and I sure did) to create this look, but this is how I did mine :)

It took about half an hour - 45 mins to do, but the time went quickly :)

 I admittedly used acrylic paint, and probably shouldn't have as I imagine it's not very good for your skin, but I'm a student and we make do with what we have and I didn't have any face paint... on the plus side the acrylic left a much more opaque colouring which worked well. It also peeled/washed off easier than i'd anticipated.

I started with a base layer of all white except round my eyes.

I then filled the eye area in with black felt tip eye liner (I don't like taking risks with my eyes) . I painted the majority with the eye liner, but filled the outline of the socket in with black acrylic, and the same along my eyebrows. I then painted my nose with black acrylic to create an almost hollow nose like skeletons have!

The I painted a little black around the top of my skull to define the shape a little better, but thats optional. I would advise doing it along the cheek area though as this is necessary for a realistic skull. I followed the lines of my cheeks and shaded the outsides with more black acrylic.

I also added a spinal cored (which I rushed a little) but you can see from the picture it gives the rough idea... Just before leaving the house I also painted my lips white and painted rough teeth on (below), this was so

it would last as long as possible as the moisture from lips make the paint peel easier.

 Admittedly by the end of the night the paint had started to peel, but it did add to the scary halloween effect.

 I had a great night and hope you all did too! I don't think i'll ever grow out of enjoying Halloween, so hopefully their will be many more years of costumes, candy and spooky goings on :D