Sunday 26 January 2014

KIKO - Milano Lipstick

Today, I went to London on a mission to find the office that I will be spending the next week taking part in work experience in. With my useless sense of direction, I decided to take the sensible option and find the office before starting work tomorrow. Surprisingly, I found the office without much difficulty which was a definitely plus as it was absolutely pouring it down and I was getting drenched. I had a quick sneaky peak through the glass windows of the office and all I can say is, 'I can't wait to start tomorrow!' I am working for REVEAL magazine which is published by Hearst Magazines. The building hosts: REVEAL, InsideSoap as well as BEST magazine, so its a fairly small office block which works in my favour as I'll be able to 'hopefully' make a few contacts and gain a real insight into the life of a journalist working on a weekly magazine. 

MY KIKO LIPSTICK   

As I was walking back down Regents Street, I just couldn't refuse not going into Kiko! This stylish yet affordable makeup brand from Italy had a handful of lovely makeup artists/ assistants providing helpful advice and the huge selection of gorgeous makeup sent me to heaven, quite literally... I had to stop myself from buying the whole store because I am seriously broke at the moment but that didn't stop me from purchasing a lovely lipstick. 

The lipstick I purchased is called 03 Glare Fuchsia. It cost me just £3.70 instead of £7.50 which I thought was a bargain and a MUST HAVE! It's called a 'Latez Like Lipstick' and its soft, smooth and creamy. It's available in 6 colours and it has been dermatologically tested, it's non-comedogenic and paraben-free. Check out the website fro more info! Happy makeup shopping girls! 

http://www.kikocosmetics.co.uk/make-up/lips/lipsticks/Latex-Like-Lipstick/p-KC02102011

This is my lovely KIKO lipstick product ... Mwaaah

This is what the product looks like!
I'd say it is definitely a perfect size for handbag/ clutch for a night out.
Ahhh look at that gorgeous fuschia colour! I can already tell that i'll be using this a lot come the SS14 because its so summery and fresh. 

If you want this lipstick, here's the number (03) You can buy online but hurry, it may sell out as this was a sale item!


This is what the colour looks like up against my skin tone! With a tan this will look fab! 



  

Saturday 25 January 2014

Swarvoski earrings

When I was younger, my sister and I were very close as there's only a 16 month age gap between us. We were both very entrepreneurial and after working out some overhead costs, we decided to set up our own little business in attempt to make a decent profit whilst taking part in one of our favourite creative hobbies.

We were designing, creating and selling handmade earrings with Swarvoski crystals and Swarvoski pearls.
We found a good online wholesaler, where we bought the swarvoski and overall, they were a massive success with our consumers. (All earrings came in a silver pouch and were all gift wrapped - making them perfect presents!)

Here are a few samples of the earrings that we made from scratch!

These were my favourite pair of earrings, as it involved a lot of skill and time. My sister called these the twislers and we sold a lot of this particular design because they can be worn on any occasion - casual/ formal and because the colour is neutral, people are able to wear these with any coloured outfit.  


These are the lovely pearl swarvoski earrings that are a basic yet classic and elegant design. Perfect with any outfit and occasson! 




My favourite colour is purple and I just absolutely love these earrings because they are glamourous but can be dressed down as well which is what I love about all these earrings. The multipurpose wear is why they were such a great success. 


These were also a good seller and very simple to make.


If you're a girly girl and love a splash of pink, then I'm sure these earrings would appeal to you because there's a hint of soft pink along with the gorgeous Swarovski pearls! 


I would love to take up this hobby again when I have some free time and lots of money to open up the business again and start making! If you are interested in any of the above earrings then please get in touch and I can see if I still have any left over. 

San Francisco


In 2009, my grandma, sister, step-mum and I visited San Francisco for a 4 day shopping trip. We flew upper class and there and back, as well as sitting in the upper class lounge at Gatwick airport before boarding the plane.
This is me in the upper class lounge. 

The journey was about 11 hours flying time from Gatwick to San Fran so I was so glad we were sat in Upper. 


Before going to San Francisco, my sister and I both worked together in a really nice coffee shop every Saturday. We both managed to save over £700, which we happily spent in just 4 days!  

I remember going to Abercrombie and Fitch out there and spending about £500 upfront. That was pretty fun but the amount of bags I had really killed my arms.  


I loved San Francisco so much and would most definitely go back there again.  


One breakfast time, we went to Lorries cafe and it was absolutely AMAZING!! 





The decor was stereotypically American and the food was delicious. I definitely left very full up as the potion sizes were just huge. 

Every lunchtime, we went to the Cheesecake Factory because they did the best cake ever! We sat on the rooftop and had a great view of the city, as well as catching a really good tan. We generally had a healthy salad along with a naughty but nice chocolate dessert.


 This was the view from the cheesecake factory rooftop! 


After much shopping, we decided that we had to see some sights, so we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge which was so fun and such a great experience. It also helped burn off all those calories from breakfast and lunch! As you can see from the picture, it was pretty cold and very windy on the bridge but that didn't stop us from having tons of fun and taking lots of crazy photos! 



I loved the city so much because the people were all so friendly and it felt like I was going to bump into Ann Hathaway because my favourite film was Princesses Dairies, and that was filmed here! 

We usually jumped on a tram to take us up and down the city as it was so steep and we always had tons of shopping bags in our hands.



Looking back at the photos and reminiscing on San Francisco just reminds me of what an amazing time I had out there. I will definitely be returning as soon as I've saved up lots more money. The houses down some of the lanes were incredible and I wouldn't think twice about moving out there in the future! 

Friday 24 January 2014

Hong Kong

When I was 12 years old I visited Hong Kong with my family. I travelled upper class there and back which is definitely an advantage when it's 12 hours flying time. 

I enjoy flying upper because it reduces my jetlag as I'm able to sleep well on the plane. I also like the luxury of choosing a nice meal from a menu and eating lot of Hagan Diaz ice cream! 

When we arrived in Hong Kong, we got a taxi straight to a 5* hotel called 'The Majestic'. We stayed there for 2 days before jetting off to Thailand.

Hong Kong was an amazing place and I would most definitely visit again. I loved the hustle and bustle of the city and I felt culturally enriched by the surroundings. 

Browsing the ladies market was one of my favourite memories from Hong Kong. I remember being so overwhelmed at the long stretch of market stalls which sold all sorts of fake designer goods for a very small price.



I remember my parents wanting to go up the peak - which is a vertical train that takes you to the highest point. We had an amazing view of the city but I remember being so bored, hot and wishing we had stayed at the ladies market for longer.



I remember Hong Kongs underground tubes being absolutely immaculate and so much safer than the UK. There were glass panels which opened and closed when the train arrived - preventing people from falling onto the tracks. The trains had TV's onboard, as well as refreshing air con - keeping passengers nice and cool. 

Hong Kong was an amazing city and I can't wait to visit again! 


Me, myself and I

Me, Me, Me 


I am 20 years old and if I were to describe myself in one word, it would be ‘spontaneous!’
I chose to go to Southampton Solent University after I finished my A levels but I had no idea what I should do my degree in, I knew I enjoyed writing and I.T so I decided on Magazine Journalism because it blended the two of my passions together really well.
I cannot believe that I have almost completed my degree! Hooray! It’s gone so quick, but at the same time, so slow. This time next year i’ll be working full time and the luxury of long lay ins and big nights out will be something of the past. Instead I’ll be faced with 9 am starts and a busy life in the world of Journalism and honestly, I cannot wait!
My Life so far
1st year – Revisiting my FRESHER year ..  :)  
My first year at university was scary, in fact it was absolutely terrifying. I am the eldest in my family and the first person to go to Uni, so I had no idea what to expect.

I wasn’t granted Halls of residence because it was my second choice uni, therefore I had to find 4 students (strangers) and arrange to move into a house with them all in a matter of hours, how daunting does that sound …
Everything happens for a reason and my housemates turned out to be amazing people and great company! I lived with 3 boys and 1 girl.
As you can only expect from a FRESHER, I was out clubbing 24/7; making the most of Southampton’s nightlife and overall just settling in and making new friends with like minded people.

In April 2012, I met the love of my life, my first TRUE love, my best friend, my boyfriend! He made me feel complete and my first year ended very happily.
2nd Year – Living with my boyfriend! YAY
After meeting Lloyd in April we spend a lot of time together and even jetted off to Barbados in August!

After our romantic get away, he invited me to live with him in his family home. I was so happy at the prospect of moving in with him and jumped on the opportunity.  His family were so kind and welcoming which made me feel at home right away!
Living with Lloyd was great, we used to do lots of couple things like going on ‘date night’ every Wednesday when it’s 241 on cinema tickets and we also used to sing our hearts out to Kanye West on road trips. We used to go surfing most weekends, play basketball on Sundays and visit fish shops frequently because we had an awesome marine fish tank in our room.

When I first met Lloyd, the first gift I ever bought him was a baby Nemo fish which we both loved before it got sucked up in a tube and we later found its skeleton. Poor fishy. But on a happier note, I loved my life, but more importantly, I loved the person who was making me feel so complete.
 3rd Year – Taking things further 
Well, after roughly 7 months of living with Lloyd in his family home, we decided to take the plunge and get our own place together! Aggghhhhh…. I was SO EXCITED! I mean, what girl wouldn’t be?! It was an absolute dream come true, it was everything I had ever wanted and with the man of my dreams!
I’ve always been interested in interior design through my mums influence, but having a place of my own just took it to a whole new level! I was able to decorate and buy home things for MY VERY OWN HOME, I cant begin to tell you how excited this was for me.
Living independently with my boyfriend proved challenging, we faced many obstacles along the way and it was a new experience and concept for both of us. We had our ups and downs – like most couples who live together.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, we did have some truly AMAZING times and we loved each other so much. No matter what our ridiculously petty argument were about, we were always able to just have a cuddle and forget about it because we got on so well that there was never anything big to fight about.
After our tenancy ended in September 2013, we didn't renew our contract again because Lloyd broke up with me. 

Right now, I’m blogging from my bedroom in shared student accommodation. I was lucky to find students who are as clean and tidy as me. The house I’m living in has recently undergone major refurbishment, so everything is brand spanking new. I live on the very top floor with my lovely housemate, Daisy. We call each other ‘Princess Barbie Daisy’ and ‘Princess Barbie Amy’ because we are both blonde and live on the 3rd floor of what we like to call ‘our castle’

Me

Hello lovely readers,
I’ve finally decided to start blogging again and this time, I’m not going to give up or keep swapping from WordPress to Blogger, this time I’m here to stay!
My name is Amy Danielle French, I’m 20 years old and I am currently blogging from my Uni bedroom with a big tub of delicious Ben & Jerrys Cookie Dough ice cream. 
I’m a 3rd year Magazine Journalism student with a passion for Beauty, Makeup, romance and everything that sparkles! I also LOVE Interior design, cake baking & chick flicks.
My dreams of becoming a professional writer will soon be reality for me come May 2014! I am so excited about my future in this industry and I want to share all my experiences with you along the way, so wish me luck!
Mwaaaah xxx

French music

When I was 9 years old, my parents moved to France. I was consequently in an all French speaking school for several months, therefore I can speak French quite well this is always a plus but my parents unfortunately divorced and we had to move back to the UK. However, I love French music and ‘Pas besoin de toi’ by Joyce Jonanthan is one of my favourite songs. 

Lincoln

I’m in LINCOLN! Yep, that’s right. Today I traveled all the way from Southampton to Lincoln to see my sister at University and it took me 7 hours by train -It was the longest journey of my life but I’m staying here for 5 whole days so it was definitely worth it and I’m so excited to be here. Plus I’ve never been before and she is now in her 2nd year so I thought it was about time I made the effort to visit her.
After all the stress that I have had to deal with recently, I thought a mini break away to see my lovely little sister would be the perfect solution and already I feel tons better. My head feels clearer and I’ve only been here for a few hours so by the end of this 5 day break I can see that I’ll be feeling on top of the world again and that is exactly how I need to start feeling to pull myself out of this horrid depressed state of mind and be me again!
When my sister came to get me from the station, I got a little glimpse of Lincoln and it was truly overwhelming because its such an amazingly beautiful city!!!  I can definitely see why my sister chose to live and study here. I never thought places this picturesque even existed, I cant wait to explore what Lincoln has to offer tomorrow!

A few of my favourite films


My favourite film is ‘How to lose a guy in 10 days’ It’s about a Journalist who has to find a guy and do all the things that guys hate in a relationship, from calling and leaving 1000′s of messages to being over cute, clingy and extremely needy.  With cuddly toys and a furn that she calls the ‘baby of our relationship’ this film is a MUST SEE for anyone needing some advice on what not to do!
Bridget Jones Diaries is just a classic and is definitely one of my very favourites! If you’re single or in a relationship, this feel good film makes you realise what love and heartache is all about.
Get him to the Greek is just hilarious! I absolutely Love Russell Brand and this film really captures his comedian talents. From start till finish, I am literally on the edge of my seat laughing uncontrollably! If you haven’t watched this already, then it’s a must see if you enjoy the weird and wonderful antics of what singers get up to on tour….
View from the Top is a hilarious comedy about a girl trying to achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a flight attendant. She gets everything that shes ever wanted in the end, ‘Paris, first class, international’ but she realises that she misses her boyfriend to much and soon returns back to Clevelandland and be with him.
The Proposal is a light hearted comedy, starring Sandra Bullock who is my favourite actress. The film is about a woman who tricks her employee to marry her so that she can extend her visa, she then ends up falling madly in love with him and the film ends with a very happy ending.
The Notebook is a romantic film about young love from different social classes. They get separated from each other when the summer is up because her parents find out that she has been dating someone from a lower class and are not happy with her decision. This film shows that true love never dies and in the end, they find each other and grow old and die in each others arms.
Harry Potter is an all time classic, which is suitable for the whole family. I love every single film and think J.K Rowling deserves an absolute medal for her imagination!
I love the Twilight series because it takes you to a different world where romance holds a young teenage girl to her vampire crush! From the first film to the last, I was kept very entertained and intensely gripped!
The Devil wears Prada is a great film and is about a young woman in New York that lands herself a job as an assistant for an editor in one of the city’s biggest magazines. The cast stars Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, etc. I love this film so much because its a girly chick flick centered around a stylish career in journalism that I will hopefully go into.
Titanic is a romantic classic that makes me cry everytime, even though I’ve watched it about a 100000x

Cakes

I love baking cakes and the cake below was what I made for Lloyd’s 24th Birthday! I was so chuffed with how pretty it looked and tasted!
How I made this yummy cake:
Victoria sponge with lots of Dairy milk chocolate powder to make it chocolaty
Decoration: Chocolate fudge butter icing which tasted amazing!
A big bag of magic stars, along with smarties and chocolate buttons with sprinkles on them to brighten the cake up and give it some colour!
I got the ‘Happy Birthday’ sign along with the colourful candles from pound-land believe it or not, they do some really nice decorations in there for cakes so have a little look when you’re next shopping.


Chick Flicks

I LOVE reading, especially when it comes to a good chick flick.
The first book I read from my little collection was ‘When you walked back into my life‘ this book really stood out to me because I was feeling very low after my recent break up and I wanted some positivity and hope.

I really enjoyed this light hearted book and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an inspirational and moving read that is attention grabbing from start to finish. (I read it in about 4 days because I was that hooked) The book wasn’t what I had expected because the heartache of losing her partner was not mentioned, we are just told about when her ex boyfriend reappears back on the scene and confesses his undivided love for her three years of absence. The story has a bitter twist and is very emotional at times (It had me in tears at parts so be warned!) It is a very unexpected read and isn’t really about dealing with heartache.
Three little words, by Jessica Thomas was such a lovely book and definitely very unexpected. It was a combination of several different anecdotes which all seemed very different from one another at the start, but by the end of the book all stories came together to form  the overall picture.
Three little words is essentially about love, murder and forgiveness, it is a very thought provoking and moving story about a young woman whose partner was tragically murdered by accident. The small anecdotes of all different stories on love, tragedy, disfunctional families and separation all blend together to form the overall story and forgiveness is the happy ending, as Bryony forgives Keon – the boy who murdered her loved one.
Three little words: MAX… I love you … I forgive you – This book is a ‘Must read’

Cosmopolitan Event



The Cosmopolitan Master Blogging Class. 
On the 14th May 2013, I attended the ‘Cosmopolitan Master Blogging Event’ in London with my sister, Katie. This was the first event I had ever been too, so I wasn’t sure what to expect but as soon as I entered the doors of the British Library I felt like I had died and gone to Heaven. The first thing I remember seeing was a woman dressed in a LBD with a pair of Christian Louboutins, sipping on Champagne.
My sister and I were greeted with caviar, champagne and a goodie bag which consisted of makeup, skin products, popcorn, fake tan, perfume testers, the latest edition of Cosmopolitan and lots of other fabulous girly things.
Mingling & Becoming very excited
Whilst we were waiting to go into the lecture hall, my sister and I took the opportunity to mingle with other like minded people and find out there interests and what they blog about in their free time. There were also photographers taking snaps of everyone which were later found on cosmos social media sites.
The Experts
My sister and I were so excited about the event that we made sure we were the first people in the room to ensure we snatched up front row seats! In front of us on the panel were, Cosmos edition Louise Court, digital editor Pat McNulty, Vicki Fogwill, Social-media manager for Next, Dominic Smales, Founder of social-media agency Gleam Digital Kat Williams, Blogger who runs cult wedding site Rocknrollbride.com
Andreas Pouros, COO of Greenlight Digital Emily Johnston, Founder of influential style blog fashionfoiegras.com
The panel were a truly amazing selection of experts which taught me an awful lot about blogging, content advice, SEO and how to use social-media channels correctly in order for content to circulate the web.
I feel very lucky to have met Louise Court as she has been my idol for many years now. After the masterclass had finished, I bravely went up on stage (With a little encouragement from my sister) and asked if I could have a photograph with her. I must admit, I did feel very cheeky asking, but I’m so glad that I did.
The masterclass has given me the motivation, passion and enthusiasm to write about all the things I love. Louise Court is an amazingly talented women who is in fact very friendly and seems to have an awful lot of patience and time to talk to people like myself who are just starting out in their Journalism/ blogging careers. I was warmly surprised at how much she listened and gave great advice to me, considering her enormously busy schedule.
I am extremely glad that I have finally met Louise, the lovely lady who has been editing the magazine I have loved for so many years. It was a fantastic night and I recommend you keep your eyes peeled for these type of magazine events because they really are very inspirational and I will definitely be returning to more events like this one, that’s for sure!

My style

I love my new cropped top from Topshop! It was only £15.00!

I think it goes well with my black mini skirt but I wasn’t sure whether to choose the black skirt or the Orange glittery one …


This is my new necklace from Topshop, it was originally £12 but I bagged it for just £5.60 in the sale! Gotta love a bargain!


I also brought these gorgeous boots for £45.00

I love my red festive dress from New Look, what do you think? I’ve teamed it with my black Topshop boots!

Do you like my new boots from Zara? These were £39.99