Week 35 manicure challenge

Classic shiny red.

Learning the art of hand lettering

A new obsession of mine is hand lettering. I have been inspired since joining the online Filofax community and seeing posts of beautifully decorated planner pages with gorgeous styles of writing. Particular inspirations of mine on Instagram are kikkiknetter and craftyniftydoer. They post photos of their planner pages and the writing on them looks amazing. I can only dream of being half as good as them one day. 

Instagram @craftyniftydoer

For other hopefull beginners out there I thought I'd share the first part of my journey with you. I started off with the best free teaching resource - Youtube. It seems like the starting point for me needed to be learning how to write cursively. At school I was taught how to write "joined-up", but over the years my hand-writing has evolved into a semi-joined-up scrawl. I watched a few videos showing how to do the alphabet cursively, and although each had a slightly different slant on doing things, they all had similarities. By watching a variety of these videos, notepad and pen in hand and practising along with them, I started to get the feel of cursive handwriting. My absolute favourite channel for practising is Loops and Tails which has a minute long video on each letter (upper and lower case). On their website, they also have free printable worksheets and exercise drills you can work through.

Tip: I can't remember where I saw this, but someone said if you want to make your writing look more like you've used a calligraphy pen, thicken up the downward strokes. I have been working on this technique and I quite like it. 

I also stumbled across a video on accenting, which talks you through different ways to frame, boarder and accent your hand-writing. I copied all of these out into my notepad too. I find it really handy to have a record of everything I see in my notepad so I can look back on it and use it. Saves trying to hunt down the specific videos. 

This is pretty much where I am up to right now. I keep practising my crusive lettering, the more I do it, I hope the more smooth it will look. At the moment I am having to think about it and therefore write it slowly which means it can look quite shaky. Once I have mastered this, I will start looking at other fonts and different styles of writing to learn.

I'm writing out people's names, phrases, random words that come into my head, anyting to practise really. A little untidy, but something I worked on today...

Part of my problem above with the untidyness is probably the black pen I used. It is a Uniball signo gelstick 0.7 that I had laying around at home. It's quite nice to write with, but not so good for thickening the letters as the nib is not precise enough.

One day, maybe my planner will look like a work of art. I can dream.

Magazine freebie watch

I saw In Style magazine in WH Smith today, which comes with free L'Occitane shampoo and conditioner. They are the travel size, but still an absolute bargain for the total price of £2.50. I am now kicking myself for not picking up a copy and some freebies. Back to the shops I go tomorrow. 

Bargain gel nail polish

Just picked up these "Gel Perfect" 5 minute manicure polishes from Poundworld! Bargain or what?!

I got orchid and purple luxe. Watch this space to find out if they are any good or not. The packaging says no UV lamp needed and that it sets rock solid in 5 minutes. We shall see...

Week 34 manicure challenge

After spending a good couple of hours on Sunday soaking off the acrylics, I finally have a new mani.

Bright pink, with white and glitter accent nails. The shine on the pink is thanks to my Seche Vite.

Week 33 manicure challenge

I nearly missed this week, but OCD wouldn't let me. In truth, my holiday acrylic manicure is still going strong, all-be-it slightly grown out. So for one week only I am showing you my pedi instead. 

So I have bright pink with a black pattern stamped on my big toe.

Back to work look book

Back to work for me shortly, after a lovely (almost) six week break. Being a teacher, I sometimes struggle with shopping as a lot of things on the high street are not necessarily school-appropriate. I have to make sure that dresses and skirts aren't too short, and that tops aren't see through or flashing too much flesh. I also have the challenge of finding some comfortable black heels that look stylish but aren't so high that I end up in angony by morning break.

I thought I'd share with you my recent finds...

Miss Selfridge
Mini check pencil skirt
Black lace insert crop top

New Look
Black textured pencil skirt
White gem embellished crop top

River Island
Purple swing dress

Florence & Fred at Tesco
Patent gold trim penny loafers

Next
Black asymmetric buckle shoe boots

Although I have a couple of crop tops, when worn with a high waisted skirt, no flesh is flashing!

The Next shoes are proabably (not probably Emma, they are!) way too high, but I'll keep the Florence & Fred loafers under my desk for a little shoe change when walking around. 

All items were available to buy at time of writing. 20/08/2014