DIY: Painted Make Up Brushes

This post on A Beautiful Mess inspired me to make these fun, cute custom make up brushes. This was a reeally quick'n'easy project but it makes my bathroom cabinet look so much more put together and stylish! I love that my brushes are a matching set now, instead of the mishmash of collected colours and brands I had before.

You'll need:

A handful of make up brushes you want to perk up

Masking tape

Sandpaper

Base colour paint

Top colour paint - or do like I did and use a Sharpie

A paintbrush 

Doom and Gloom and Cartoon Jumpers

It's super near the end of the semester and my brain is just constantly doing this now:

So let's have a nice quiet photo and gif filled kind of a post. Here is a bunch of stuff I've been wearing:

It Was A Red Dress Kinda Day, or, How To Cure Winter Blues

Ugh, winter is taking its toll on me. I am sick of being cold and tired and lethargic all the time. And I'm living in a north-facing ground floor room in Manchester in November. I miss daylight.

Best cure for winter blues? Dress all in red! Match your dress and earrings and lipstick! Go wild!

My umbrella is greeny-blue and fuschia pink. I was so happy it didn't rain today. I don't think I could have brought myself to carry it wearing red. I'd have had to just be rained on.

Jacket from Miss Selfridge, dress from Closet at Dorothy Perkins. Earrings from Dorothy Perkins. Pearl & gold necklace belonged to my grandmother. Lancome Le Crayon Kohl Noir eyeliner. GOSH Velvet Touch lipstick in 60 Lambada.

A Week in Sheep's Clothing

So, I had a busyish week and a run of semi-interesting outfits. Who wants to look at them?! Oh right, you do. ...

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... Well anyway here they are. Please to excuse my super crappy photos.

On Monday, I wore a black sheer asymmetric shirt dress that I will forever think of as my funeral dress (I don't wear a lot of black), a silk scarf I got in Paris for like 15 euros, and a giant man's tweed suit jacket that I found on top of a wardrobe in my house with all the tags still attached, and no one in my family recognises it at all or remembers buying it, so I just brought it with me.

 Tuesday I insisted that because the sun was shining it must still be summertime. I went to Nandos and ate my weight in chicken, and then we went to Spoons and had puddings and two pitchers of cocktails and then I exploded. Dress is from Dorothy Perkins. Sunglasses are NEW (protip: buy sunglasses in the autumn, they're all on sale. £4 from Urban Outfitters.)

Wednesday I went shopping and made believe that I live in a sepia tone photograph and can pull off a trench coat. The black sleeves are dated already but I like them. I'm not fancy enough to have black leather sleeves.

Thursday I sat on a train for four hours, and I wore a new shirt because Urban Outfitters are infuriating but I can't stop giving them my money. Don't worry, it was in the sale. Everything I buy was in the sale. Including this jacket, which was from Miss Selfridge and cost me £20. In the background of the left shot you can see the horrible fuchsia holdall I use (it was a prize or something). Carrying it and wearing orange, I was like a walking neon sign. This was my least favourite outfit of the week, I felt like it was awkward.

Friday I went out for dinner and discovered that it's really hard to take photos without a full length mirror. Another new Urban Outfitters shirt. Oops.

Saturday I went to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower (liked it!) and started to work out the picture thing. Um, sort of.

Sunday I went for brunch (smoked salmon bagels, hello!) and sat on a train for four hours AGAIN. But it was sunshiney and pretty and I didn't really mind even though I finished my book in the first forty five minutes. I wore a green dress with flowers on from ASOS that I bought 65% because Anna Kendrick wore it (she is a famous person and how often do you get to wear the same clothes as famous people?), and I added a cable knit jumper when I got chilly, which was immediately. Plus I bought a new lipstick and added that (why yes that is a selfie on the train), but I'm not sure about it because it's like, REALLY pink.

BONUS: Here's today's outfit!

And another shot of my new lipstick (sorry, "lip butter" - it's Revlon in 075 Lollipop. I thought it'd be a lot more sheer but, it's SO PINK.) 

HAVE A GOOD WEEK I LOVE YOU.

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge - The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China

So, last week I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, to see this gorgeous exhibition, The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China. (The virtual exhibition at that link is well worth having a look at.) The Han Dynasty existed between 206BC and 220AD; the things in this exhibition were excavated from the tombs of the elite and royal classes, which were replicas of their own palaces complete with everything they could need in the afterlife, including their servants. The Han Emperors were buried in what is now Xi'an (the site of the Terracotta Army), but those tombs have been looted or lost (and the main tomb site in Xi'an, where the warriors are, can't be excavated because apparently it is protected by a lake of mercury.) The objects in the exhibition come from the tombs of the Kings and Queens of Chu, located in Xuzhou, the home of the Han family. They contained hundreds of intricate, decorated pieces of goldwork, jade, bronze, and pottery to prepare the body for the afterlife; these pieces have never been displayed all together before. It's astonishing and fascinating. It's also kind of heartbreaking to think of these beautiful things being jealously walled up in a grave, but at the same time, that's the only reason they've been preserved and not lost.

In the Museum Director Timothy Potts's very interesting podcast about this exhibition, he explains that they kept the exhibition rooms very dim on purpose and spotlighted the objects to create a tomblike feel and a "dramatic experience". It makes for a very beautiful and intriguing space.

Along with a bunch of postcards (below), I bought this little guy! It's a replica of a turtle seal from the exhibition, and way heavier than it looks. The name on it is Liu Zhu, who was the sixth king of Chu.

The exhibition is running until 11th November. Way more images below. Some are from the podcast and some are postcards from the museum shop. All images copyright the Fitzwilliam Museum, I guess?

Things I Am Doing Today

1. Wearing my new blue dress.
2. Wearing some new blue nail varnish.
3. Going into Cambridge for the day.
4. Going to the Fitzwilliam to see the Tomb Treasures of Han China, which was spectacular.

Gold seal

Jade dragon ornament

5. Having lunch with my mama and finding our waiter was the most beautiful man I've ever seen in real life. Seriously, he was so pretty I could barely stumble out "Bacon and brie panini and a Diet Coke, please" without bursting into tears when he looked me in the eye.
6. Going to the Anthropology and Archaeology museum, which is also an utter delight.

Can I move in here?

7. Listening to Paul Simon's Graceland for a World Music class and drowning in white guilt for enjoying it so much.

8. Having a barbecue and eating strawberries. Yeeerrrmmm.

9. Packing for a weekend trip to Scotland.

10. Reading Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. I'm on page 70. So far: intrigued. Reminds me of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.