Meet me under the stars tonight

Desire Clothing - Chunky Knit Boyfriend Cardigan
New Look - Stripy Top
Topshop - Velvet Leggings

You wouldn't believe how long it took me just to get this one shot. Outfit posts are the hardest things to take, ever. I need some sort of tutorial to follow, so if you know of any, let me know! Excuse the mess behind me but this was literally the only alternative I could find to having to stand on my bed in bad lighting. I swear there is not one plain white wall in my house, so annoying!

Work experience has finally finished and the Christmas Blogger meet was a great way to top it off. Although I was working for most of the night, I still got to chat to lots of amazing bloggers, some I recognised and some I didn't. I definitely want to attend a meet again next year, perhaps somewhere a bit quieter and less hectic.

Today Vince and I are going to Bristol for lunch at a new all-you-can-eat restaurant! We absolutely love those types of places and Zaza Bazaar has the biggest range of food to choose from, we're literally going to stuff ourselves and then slowly move around the shops for a few last minute Christmas bits.

Last call to South West Bloggers!

Bloggers all over the country are waking up this morning with excitement...no, it's not actually Christmas day, it's the MyStreetChic.com Christmas Blogger's Party!

For the past two weeks I've been on work experience at MyStreetChic.com so I've had some great behind the scenes peeks at what's going on at tonight's party. I'm also helping out at the event before the official kick off at 7pm, and let me tell you, it's going to be brill!

I'm really looking forward to meeting some of my favourite bloggers and this is a last call to any South West based bloggers who fancy coming at the last minute!

The event is taking place at Java Cocktail Bar on Park Street, Bristol. This is right next to the College Green which is well signposted, so it should be very easy to find! As I mentioned, it all kicks off at 7pm and for just £5 you will receive entry to the club, a goodybag, free MyStreetChic Cocktail as well as entrance to the party room.

I don't want to give everything away but it's going to be a really fun night and there'll be lots of opportunities to talk to all of the different bloggers.

Your Hair December '11

You may remember when I posted about my work in Hair Ideas magazine. Well, now I've got something even better to show you!

When I was on work experience back in August, at Your Hair magazine, I was asked if I would fill in for someone who had dropped out of the reader makeover. I was told I'd get a lovely haircut and make over and would appear in the magazine. I was a bit unsure whether to do it at first but everyone told me I should as it would be a great experience and probably something I'd never get to do again.

On the day I arrived at a hairdressers in Bristol and was given a consultation. I definitely wanted some colour in my hair and we decided on some Red, which I loved. We had the lovely team from Indola doing our hair and the company's global ambassador, Leonardo Rizzo, cutting it.

My change of hairstyle wasn't as drastic as the other girl's, but I really loved it. Unfortunately there was no way I could keep it up at home, but I did love the new found volume of it.

It was absolutely HORRIBLE having my photos taken. I had to stand in awkward poses and was made to show my teeth, something which I really hate and am concious of, but I think the photos turned out OK in the end. I wouldn't like to see the ones that were rejected, haha!

So, you can see my full make-over and hair restyle in the December Issue #124 of Your Hair magazine!

Hair Ideas November '11

Back in August I took on a weeks Work Experience placement at Your Hair magazine and it was one of the best placements I've done! I'd never been to a specialist publication before and I did more in my first day than I did at other, bigger magazines I was at for two weeks.

As well as writing content for the website, I also produced a little bit of content for Your Hair and Hair Ideas magazine. A teeny tiny portion of my work appeared in November's issue of Hair Ideas and I was extremely pleased to see I was also listed as a contributor to the issue.

As someone who wants to get into the Journalism/Magazine industry, this is great for my portfolio, which is missing a lot of printed work. The majority of work I do is online so this is great for me! I'm hoping that there might be a little more of my work in future issues but we'll have to wait and see! In the mean time, I took a few pics so you can have a peek!

When someone says you're work is going to be printed, it's normally been edited quite a bit but everything I wrote and sourced for the 'Guess The Celeb' page hasn't been changed one bit and I'm so so pleased! It may not be much but I have something to show for my week there and I'll also be appearing in Your Hair magazine in December or January...which I'm a bit scared about seeing!

Work Experience at Your Hair and Hair Ideas magazines

So, this is where I have been for the past week and the reason why I haven't blogged in a while. I started a weeks work experience placement at Your Hair magazine on Monday and after working a full day and then having to travel home, I just couldn't be bothered to get on the laptop and start writing! At least I'm being honest here, I have barely been on the laptop all week which is quite a record!

The placement was actually at Your Hair magazine but the team work on a total of three magazines between six of them so I also helped out on Hair Ideas as well! I can't believe that such a small team manage to create content for three different hair magazines every month, when I've been to magazines that have huge teams just for one mag.

In my first morning at the magazine, I was given more to do than most of the other placements I've been at. I was given four celebrity images and asked to write a step by step guide on how to re-create the celeb's hairstyles. Now, I've never been to a specialist magazine before and I'm not too hot on hairstyles but I managed to pull it off and wrote the guides quite easily.

The girl who was mentoring me for the week was quite impressed with what I wrote and I was trusted to upload the content onto their website, so I'm pretty pleased about that!

For the rest of the week I did a lot of celebrity image sourcing, in particular images of Blake Lively for a 'Style Icon' piece, images of celebs with 'mid-length' hairstyles and a 'celeb vs' piece featuring messy vs neat hairstyles. It doesn't sound like much but it takes quite a long time to get just the right image, especially as the celebs had to be looking at the camera and looking their best.

And as if that wasn't enough I had to research an Organic hair product feature and source sample images of the products from a range of PRs as well as generally searching for great celeb hairstyles that can be used in a back catalogue.

I managed to complete all of the tasks given to me and I think the magazine will end up using a lot of the images that I sourced. I've also been assured that the images I sourced and clues I wrote for a 'Guess the Celeb' feature is going to be printed in the next issue!

I'm saving the best until last now and revealing that I shall be in Your Hair magazine! On Monday I was asked if I would be willing to take part in a 'Reader' make-over feature as one of their models had pulled out. I was a bit sceptical at first because I HATE having my photograph taken and I knew I'd have to pull some dodgy poses and fake smiles but I was told by Vince and my family that I should definitely do it. So I went ahead with it yesterday and got a free haircut and colour by the people from SanRizz, my make-up done and photos taken for the January issue of the magazine.

I was quite nervous but soon felt more comfortable when I had a lovely new haircut. It's not too much of a different style, just a bit shorter with more volume and red/chocolatey colours. I had my make-up done which of course, for a photoshoot was a bit OTT. I wasn't keen on the blue/black eyeshadow that I was given as I felt a bit of a clown but I went along with it and was first up to have my photographs taken.

It was SO embarrasing as I was made to pose with everyone watching me and the photographer kept wanting me to show my teeth, which if you know me, you'll know I can't STAND doing. So I'm a bit worried about how the pictures are going to look but at least it's all over and done with now! The theme was 'Girls Night Out' along with two other readers. We had solo shots taken first and then a group shot which was luckily over very weekly. It was a great experience from a Journalist point of view as I got to see how it all worked and it's a great experience personally as it gave me a little confidence boost and it's something I'll probably never do again in my life. I will have to keep my eye out for the piece in the magazine and will show you all when it's printed! In the mean-time, here's some shots of my new hair and the top that I wore for the shoot which I brought after seeing Zoe from The London Lipgloss wearing the Yellow version! Love it! (I always seem to take photos of myself with no make-up on, sorry about that!)

I had a great time this week and really felt like I contributed a lot to the magazines. The team were really friendly and urged me to keep in contact. They also advised me to contact Perfect Wedding magazine, of which they share an office, for some more work experience! I'm gutted it's finished so quickly but they were lovely enough to give me a goody bag at the end of it!

Blogging will now resume as normal and I should have a little giveaway for you on Monday!

Weekly Wishlist!

Ladies and Gentlemen (not quite sure there's many)...please welcome back the Weekly Wishlist feature! It's been a while hasn't it? For a while I stopped adding things to my wishlist because I just have no money, but I wanted to bring back this feature because I really enjoy writing it and scouting out items.

1. I know I'm not a dress kind of girl but this is utterly gorgeous! It would be perfect for a special occasion...if I had any coming up, which I don't. Boo.

2. I am really loving these studded slippers. I don't like the fact that they're called slippers though, as they are actually loafer style shoes. Unfortunately they're sold out at the moment!

3 & 4. Need some new earrings in my life. These are listed as tunnels but look thin enough for my eyes. Might have to check them out in real life though.

5. Cute, cute, cute!

6. A bit school uniform meets referee but I love the contrasting collar. This comes in a load of different shapes and patterns but this is really simple and perfect for casual and office work.

7. A gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous maxi skirt that will probably never be mine! I'm way too short for maxi skirts but a girl can dream, can't she?

8. The other day I got a real craving for Converse style trainers and spotted these on the website. I think they're lovely, perfect for winter with some black skinny jeans, which I practically live in!


Now let's see if I can keep this up on a weekly basis again! In other news, yesterday morning I had a lovely little trip to town with my sister and niece Daisy. This was my sister's first outing alone with Daisy so hopefully I helped as well as I could and she didn't feel too nervous. Daisy was so well behaved! She slept right through us mooching around the shops and the noise from the cafe didn't bother her at all! She only started crying when she was hungry and had tummy pains and by that time we were on our way back to the car anyway. It was a lovely little morning out with tea and a cupcake as well! Delish!

Tomorrow my work experience at Your Hair magazine starts for one week. This will be my fourth placement at a magazine and I'm hoping to get a lot out of it. My previous placements haven't been too successful if I'm honest but now I know how everything runs, I'm quite used to it and think I can make the most of it. This time around it's in Bristol instead of London which means only a 15 minute train journey! The only downside is that the office is right in the middle of the town centre, where all the shops are! I will have to be on my best behaviour! Wish me luck!

Long time, no see.

I'm back! Did you miss me? I feel like I've missed SO much. I've been getting up at 6:20am every morning and leaving the house at 7:10am and I haven't been getting home until 7:30pm, so there hasn't been much time for blogging. I've literally come in the front door, eaten dinner, watched a bit of TV and then gone to bed every night for the past two weeks.

My work experience placement was good. I feel like I could have got more out of it, but I quite enjoyed being in the office and slowly learning everything. Towards the end of the placement, I did get to do some research for some magazine features, so I really hope they use my ideas. I'll be checking! It's so interesting to see how an Office works though and how everybody works together to get each issue complete.

The best bit about the experience was the beauty sale! The beauty team get SO many free products every day. I was the one that had to open their post and collect their parcels so I got to have a good old nose at what they got, and while I was wowing at everything, they were simply chucking it into a trolley, ready to be put in the beauty cupboard. This made me sad as I would have loved some of the products. Luckily, they were holding a beauty sale in the week I was there, which basically meant they completely cleared out the cupboard and sold everything dirt cheap! I picked up LOADS, including two MAC Wonder Woman products and a Clarins palette worth £30.

Now that is what you call a haul. I'm thinking of having a blog sale. I really need to make some money and I want to try and avoid eBay listings fees, so I thought a blog sale would be ideal, though I'm having trouble pricing things up. How much would people be willing to pay for some of the products above? Please let me know in the comments!

I felt a bit guilty about how much I had spent afterwards, but then found out that the proceeds were going to help Japan. They raised over £2000, which is brilliant! All the make-up and products that were leftover (yes, can you believe it!) were donated to a women's refuge centre, though I'm sure they need more important things that eyeshadow and lipglosses?

I really enjoyed being in London again and once I was used to the early mornings, I started loving the busy, bustling city. My placement was situated on North Row which is right off Park Lane, so it was extremely posh! I spent my lunch hours on Oxford street and sitting across from the park which was pretty relaxing.

As a thank you for all of my hardwork over the two weeks, I was presented with a goody bag full of MORE beauty products! Haha! I couldn't believe it, I've got more beauty products in the last two weeks than I've brought in my entire life! Included were two nail polishes volumising hair gel, a Rimmel and Miss Sporty eye shadow, Light up lipstick, Eye treatment, Models Own Mascara, Concealer, Foot cream and Soothing Gel!

I'm so glad it's all finished with now though as I can get back to normal. I have some promising writing work coming up soon so I'm going to get stuck into that and settle back into life with Vince. He has treated me like a Princess over the past two weeks, cooking me delicious meals and tidying the house for me!

Again, let me know what sort of prices you'd be willing to pay for some of the products and I'll get the blog sale set up soon!

City Buzz

Hello! Time for a proper update now that I'm at home for the weekend. It's nice to of had a lye in this morning, but I'm actually getting used to the early mornings that come with my work experience. My train is at 7:30am every morning, which means I'm getting up at 6:30am and it definitely helps that the mornings are much brighter now, if it was still the middle of Winter, I wouldn't be finding it so easy to jump out of bed.

The train journey isn't too bad, just 1 hour 20 minutes, and I spend most of that sleeping. The only thing I hate is that it's so packed with London business people all tap tap tapping on their laptops and mobile phones, and I never get to sit on my own and stretch out, instead I'm squished up against the window as I sleep.

As I mentioned in my quick update during the week, my Work Experience is going well. The office has a nice relaxed atmosphere and everyone is very friendly. I've been put next to the features intern who is interning for a whole year (lucky thing) and she is helping me out if I get stuck. I have a list of daily tasks to do which I've gotten into a routine with now. When I come in, in the morning, I hand out the papers, check the emails and readers letter and update the files until the newspapers get put back on my desks with various pages that have been marked. The pages are marked with Celebrity, Health and General stories that might be of interest to Red magazine readers. Sometimes there are lots of pages marked, sometimes there aren't, but there are 8 papers in total so photocopying all of the marked pages takes quite a while! Once these are all photocopied, I have to make up packs for the features team so there's even more copying to be done, I keep getting extremely muddled up with all the packs and photocopies but slowly I'm getting it right and getting it done quicker and quicker. While all this is being done, the post is usually delivered which I then have to sort and hand out. Again, I kept getting muddled with this in the beginning but I'm slowly learning where everyone sits. At least the office map I've been given is correct, unlike the ones I've had at other Work Experience placements!

This usually takes up most of my morning. Through out the day I have to visit the post room and pick up the deliveries for the Beauty and Features desks. The beauty team get so many products and freebies. It's my job to open the beauty post so I get to have a cheeky look at what they receive and I'm so jealous! There is a little freebie desk opposite my own which attracts a lot of people and I've had a sneaky peek myself and picked up a spray that is supposed to help you sleep. I thought I'd give it a try but it's pretty much just Lavender scented water that I'm spraying all over my bedding!

I get an hour for lunch which I've been spending sitting in an area on Park Lane. The past few days I've been going for a little walk down Oxford Street and popping into Selfridges. I managed to finally find a Glamour magazine with the free Clinique Make-up Remover and Eye Cream which I was very pleased with. I did spot a magazine on blogging but quickly replaced it when I saw its £15 price tag, RIDICULOUS!

I quite enjoy the rush of being in London actually, but when you're rushing to get to Waterloo in time for your train, it's not so fun bashing into tourists and slow walkers! At 5:30pm I turn into one of those Londoners that run up and down the escalators and attempt to run across Waterloo station, darting inbetween everyone to try and get to my platform. While I'm on lunch I quite enjoy just wondering around and watching everything that's going on. I've been taking my own packed lunches to try and save money. The building has a small kitchen and microwave room so there's no need to go out and spend loads of money on an overpriced sandwich when you can bring something cheap from home.

The afternoons are spent doing odd jobs. I keep an eye on the emails through-out the day and file them away as well as flicking through book catalogues and noting down which ones might be of interest to Red readers. At the end of this week I've had to search for press contacts for camcorder companies as the magazine want to hire some. I've had to call various companies and actually came across a really rude man from Practika who was basically horrible to me. I hate talking on the phone as it is so I got a bit flustered and didn't know what to say to him. Typically, I managed to think of something to say once I'd already put the phone down!

I still have a week left which will hopefully lead to some new tasks. I definitely need to stop myself wondering down Oxford street on my lunch breaks though. On the Saturday after my placement finishes, I have an induction at River Island and then start work on Monday! I can't wait to be working again and earning some money! As well as working at River Island, I hopefully have a writing job lined up to go alongside it, which means more money! The River Island job is 15 hours a week, Monday, Thursday and Friday which is great as I won't be working on a busy Saturday!

I'm off now to have a lovely dinner of Burgers and home-made wedges, made for my by Vince. H's been great this past week. I don't get home from London until 7:20pm every dat so he's been making me dinner every night and picking me up from the station! Aw! <3

I'll try and do another quick blog during next week but no promises! In the mean time, if you're not a follower, why not become one?! I'm so close to reaching the 200 mark!

Quick hello!

Hi everyone! Wow, l94 followers, I can't believe it! When I have a moment I promise I will get round to you all and return the follow favour. I'm currently on Work Experience at Red Magazine, so haven't really had a chance to blog. I've been getting up at 6:30am every morning and catching the train to London ready for work at 9:30am. It's all going well at the moment, I'm still learning (and making a few mistakes) but it's a nice friendly atmosphere and I'm slowly getting into the swing of things. Hopefully I'll get to do a few more bits and pieces over the next week or so. I'll have a chance to blog this weekend, see you then!

Good things come to those who wait

If you're a regular reader of my blog you would have heard me moaning on a regular occasion about the fact that I can't find a job and have no money at the moment! Well, in the past hour or so three pretty cool things have happened and I feel like a little weight has lifted off my shoulders!

You might remember how I didn't get the River Island job that I had an interview for a few weeks ago. Well, I just got a phonecall from them out of the blue offering me a 15 hours a week job on a Monday, Thursday and Friday. It does mean I can't go home during the Easter holidays but I'm sure I'll survive!

I thought I didn't get the original job because of my Work Experience placement at Red Magazine which starts on Monday (OMG nerves!), but I mentioned this on the phone and they were fine with me starting after it. So I've got a 3 hour induction on the 26th and start on the 28th. Finally I'm going to have a bit of spending money to play with (hello Discount!), but I also want to make sure I do the sensible thing and save some of it as well.

Not long after that I found out I was one of the winners in Ellie Loves... Bourjois Effet 3D lip gloss giveaway. I'm not usually a lip gloss fan but I've seen this being raved about all over the Blogosphere so I thought why not enter and I can review the product for the blog when I recieve it!

After these two bits of good news I was pretty damn happy and certainly wasn't expecting to be contacted by a staff member from my University who I had previously worked with. He offered me a Content Writer position on the University website! And the best thing is, I can work from home!

Now I'm really starting to believe that good things come to those who wait, and I have been waiting a pretty long time! I start my Work Experience placement on Monday and although I'm extremely nervous and dreading the early mornings, I'm determined to get as much experience as possible and be one of those annoying people that bugs everyone for jobs to do! I really want to make a good impression as it could lead to other opportunities! Wish me luck!

A day in the life of a workie - Day 1 & 2

Day 1 at Sugar magazine didn't get off to a great start. Getting up at silly o'clock in the morning to catch the train is bad enough but racing from the tube to the offices, only to find that the building flooded and has no power, was an interesting way to kick off the day! I was told to go home and because I just couldn't be bothered to walk around London yet AGAIN, I did just that.

Day 2 was slightly better. At least today we were actually allowed into the building. We were given tasks such as sorting the post, then going through our daily tasks such as writing letters for the letters page, writing embarrasing moments and coming up with bits and bobs for features. To be honest, I was expecting more but as it's only my first official day, I'll give it a chance.

Heres to day 2...

Busy Busy!

I've been a bit of a busy bee recently. Yesterday I went to London for an interview, which went well, I think, but it's all in the hands of the big bosses now to decide whether I'm right for the position or not! (Fingers crossed) So I got to spend the day in a rainy London, splodging around in my not very rain proof Primark shoes. I visited Oxford Street, Camden and Covent Garden but to be honest I was pretty glad to just get home.

Today was pretty much my only free day until the end of next week and we spent it picking up our new puppy! He's a border Collie which we decided to name Jasper! He's so cute and cheeky...Here's a quick pic I managed to snap. He doesn't stay still for very long.



So it's been an exciting day of playing with Jasper and getting ready for tomorrow, where I'll be blogging from the Cabot Circus Fashion Weekender. I'm a bit nervous, mostly about writing about the catwalk show straight afterwards and having it projected onto a big screen! It's great advertising for Styleclone and hopefully we'll get some new visitors too! I'll be blogging tomorrow and Sunday with a little shopping trip added in to calm my nerves!

On Monday I'll be heading back to London for my work experience placement at Sugar magazine, which I'm really looking forward to. After that I hope I'll be kept busy with work and settling back into student life - without actually being a student!

Bring it on I guess. :)

Life as a Freelancer & Styleclone posts!

My first day back at Uni today and I was only there for 2 hours but in those two hours I got very scared about life after Uni again. We had to fill out a questionnaire for the lecturer to 'get to know us,' or just have a really good nose. Basically one of the questions was 'What are your plans after Uni,' and since I was being REALISTIC I put that I will probably end up back home trying to freelance while searching for a job. I'm not sure that was something she wanted to read but I was only being honest!

I surprised myself by actually doing the work though. We had to read the newspapers and pick out stories that could potentially be made into other stories for other newspapers and magazines and I managed to pick out two good stories that she thought would make good features/articles. Usually I end up sitting and doing nothing but I really need to work in this unit as it's what I'm going to be doing when I'm finished with Uni.

I've also cracked on with my dissertation and I am now 500 words in to a feature on British Rock Music. I can see I am going to struggle with fitting fifty years worth of music history into 1500 words but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. So far I've touched upon The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and have gone into a little more depth about The Who..which has also lead me to think about another feature about rock music and fashion. Good/Bad idea?!

I need to email a whole range of bands and get their opinions on British rock music and I need to do my Freelance work but other than that all is dandy. No shopping for me today, except to buy magazines. I decided to ring up Kerrang! and Company magazines about work experience but all I got was the usual line that placements were full and I should email. Yawn.

I'm wearing my new jumper today, it's a bit low cut so I've put a vest top underneath and I really like it. I'm glad I didn't buy the size 8 because that was just too baggy, anyway, here are last weeks Styleclone.com posts for you all! Enjoy!

JIMMY CHOO TO COLLABORATE WITH UGG AUSTRALIA

ASDA'S TUMMY TAMER DRESS

NEW £100K NOKIA SUPREME PHONE