Blog Update In Photos

I've had a life changing couple of weeks and I've been too busy to blog about it, so I thought I'd catch up with photos :)

001. We got engaged!! This was a complete surprise to me, but Adrian had planned the whole thing. He got down on one knee in the beautiful countryside while we were having a Saturday walk. He made some chocolate coated strawberries and got me pink glitter edged roses. In the evening, he booked a table at a surprise location, we had a cosy candlelit dinner in a beautiful country pub in the middle of nowhere. It was the most romantic day/night.

002. Pretty work clothes. I have officially left my previous job, and I'm due to start my new job next week! I'll be working in a law firm, so for the office environment, I've invested in a few key pieces. I've mainly stuck with pretty tops, plain cardigans and black trousers. It's been strange getting my own uniform, because I've always been given one in previous jobs.

003. Naughty treats. I've been to Cardiff celebrating my new job & engagement with family. While I was there, I nipped into town and went to MAC. I purchased a few naughty bits. I got a lipstick (Snob), an eyeshadow (Plum Dressing) and one of the eyeshadow duos from the Semi-Precious collection (Pink Split). I think I just about caught the Semi-Precious eyeshadow as the collection seems to be on its way out now. I regret not buying the Rose Quartz blush, although I think I'll treat myself to Dainty from the general line soon.

I also got my hands on a lovely Heirloom shadestick from the MAC Me Over collection. I felt pretty lucky as I purchased it on the 30th August, when it was due in September. The lady mentioned that the particular store was releasing it slightly earlier than other stores. It's in a beautiful beige champagne sort of shade.

If you want any swatches of these items, just leave a comment on this blog post :)

004. Owl Necklace. I got this from the Dorothy Perkins website (link here). I thought it would be tiny, but actually, it's huge compared to what I expected! At first I was a little put off by it, and I wasn't sure whether to return it. But I took it to Cardiff with me, and almost wore it every day. It's so cute paired with a nice plain top, as it's a pretty big statement piece.

005. Custom Order. After the jewellery stall, I received a custom order for someone who loves butterflies. I found these beautiful vitrial butterfly beads on Ebay and turned them into this charm bracelet. I've sent photos over, she loves it, so it'll either be collected or dropped off v.soon.

Love,

Fiona x

Giveaway WINNER!!

I drew up the list of entries this morning, and whizzed the numbers through random.org, and got our giveaway winner!!

And the winner is....

Noodlebubble!!!

Congratulations!! I'll be emailing you shortly for your address to send the goodies to you. A big thank you to everyone who entered :)

Love,

Fiona x

Giveaway Reminder!

Don't forget to enter Flonightingale & Sparkleroses Giveaway! It ends just after midnight tonight, so there's a bit of time left!

Click here and comment to enter.

Good luck everyone!

Love,

Fiona x

Jewellery Stall Day

I've been a bad blogger, very bad indeed. But, I have had a crazy couple of weeks, so I've been a busy bee.

As mentioned earlier, I was attending a summer fete today at Stonesplace in Lincoln. I've been preparing for it for weeks, so I was super excited to wake up this morning and get myself ready to go.

Sparklerose Designs Business Card

We had two tables, one for all the jewellery and the other was for my portfolio and a general packaging area. I realised I'm not very good at wrapping things in tissue, I might be best just using my paper bags!

It started out raining outside so we decided to go indoors, but later the sun started to shine, typical!

I wrote down my sales, and I did quite well. Better than I was expecting. I also have a potential repair, something to drop off tomorrow and a custom order which I need to do some research for.

I made lots of £5.00 glass beaded silver-plated sets, they seemed to have tons of interest, I sold quite a few of those. I also sold alot of £1.00 beaded earrings.

It was a lovely day in general. I sampled a chocolate fudge slice which tasted amazing, met alot of lovely people, got alot of lovely compliments on my jewellery, and I've learnt alot about doing a stall now.

I'm also hoping to go back to their Christmas fete, with lots more goodies, of course ;)

Adrian's auntie came to visit us and see the stall with her friend Christine, she won a cake in the raffle they had. I had to take a ton of pictures, it's the most beautiful cake.. ever..

It would make the perfect style for a wedding cake. Simply gorgeous.

Tonight we're off to a place called The Homestead for a general celebration/treat. Turns out that some of Adrian's family are going too, so we've turned our twosome meal into more of a get together, which should be super fun.

I promise I'll blog more, promise!

In the meantime, the Flonightingale & Sparklerose giveaway is still running, go enter now for your chance to win!

Love,

Fiona x

Craft Projects: Fimo Clay Cupcake Charms

Over the weekend I nipped to The Range, which is a store in the UK that sells a little bit of everything.

Their craft section is pretty good and reasonable in price, so I went there to get some general items for the jewellery stall, packaging etc.

I picked up some fimo clay blocks while I was there, and spent an evening making cupcake charms :D

Here's what I used:

1. Some greaseproof paper
2. Facial wipes for your hands (these are handy when transferring to a different clay colour, I find washing and drying my hands leaves tiny fibres behind which catch on the clay)
3. Silver-plated headpins
4. A base colour for your cupcake, as well as some frosting colours
5. I used the skewers for quickly slicing through the clay, I recommend a knife

I used a light beige coloured clay and made a large roll of it, then sliced it by pushing a skewer through the roll, trying to split the roll into equal mini bits. I would suggest using a knife, I just didn't have an old craft-type one available.

I rolled each little section into a ball, then I pressed the ball either side into the greaseproof paper, rotating it so I ended up with a cone. I used a silver-plated headpin to press lines into the cone, then I turned the cone upside down and pressed it down a little, creating a flat bottom.

The bottoms turned out flatter than I was hoping, I'm sure there's a trick to making them taller. I also added blobs to the middle of each base, as something for the frosting to stick to.

Here are the finished cupcakes, right before baking. I decided to try some with white shimmer frosting, others with a red glitter frosting and some with pink frosting. As you can see, most of them have a headpin through them, ready for making into charms. I'm not entirely sure if any of these are good enough to feature in my jewellery though ;)

The pink frosting with white shimmery heart on top is my fave :)

I definitely don't work well with fimo clay, but it was fun to make them. Maybe with lots of practice I'd get alot better, haha.

Love,

Fiona x



Nottingham Make-Up Haul

Last week we decided to go to Nottingham and I bought a few bits & pieces, mostly make-up. I've been meaning to write this post sooner but I've been super busy getting ready for the stall.

Anyway, onto the goodies :)

Primark watch pendant necklace - £4.00

The first item was an amazing find in Primark. I absolutely love pendant watches, and this one is only £4.00. I have a really nice one I bought from River Island a while ago, but this one's great for casual wear.

Paul & Joe Lip Gloss G in shade 02 (found in TK Maxx) £6.99

I was so excited to find this lipgloss in TK Maxx, I've always wanted to try some Paul & Joe products, and the packaging is just the cutest. The tube has a raised floral detail and a beautiful pearly pink lid, the box is also pretty sweet as you can see from the photo. The lipgloss itself is in a beautiful light nude sparkly shade (as shown in swatch below).

Paul & Joe Lipgloss Swatch

Clarins Single Eye Colour Eyeshadow in Icy Turquoise (found in TK Maxx) £5.99

I fell in love with the colour of this eyeshadow, it's a beautiful shimmery deep blue (as shown in swatch below). They also had one called Pink Frost, which looked like a pale shimmery pink with light flecks of golden glitter, I was tempted to get it but I do have a similar colour so I was good ;)

I think the colour is quite pigmented and strong, stronger than I was expecting actually. I was just curious to test out some Clarins make-up, so far I'm pretty pleased.

Clarins 'Icy Turquoise' Swatch

I was pretty excited about picking up the next items.

Nars Blush in Deep Throat (bought from Space NK) £20.50

I've been wanting to own a Nars blush since reading so many amazing reviews and seeing so many swatches, but the price tag has always put me off. After having a good look at the testers in the Space NK store in Nottingham, I decided that Deep Throat looked like the best blush for me. I thought that Orgasm was quite orangey and a bit too pearly for me. And I could also understand why people say that Super Orgasm is too glittery, it really is! I could never pull that one off.

I also checked out the lipglosses, and I was rather disappointed. Alot of people really love them, but I really dislike make-up products that have that certain smell, I can't really think of a word to describe it. I love products that are either scentless, or have a lovely vanilla/almond undertone.

Here's a swatch of Deep Throat:

Nars Blush - Deep Throat

It's a bit of a rubbish swatch, but that was just a light application. You really don't need much of this for impact. I imagine I'll have mine for ages and ages. It has to be my favourite blush, ever.

I also invested in a couple of MAC Lipsticks:

L-R: MAC Cremesheen in Creme Cup + Speed Dial - £13.50 each

I've wanted to try MAC lipsticks for a long time, but I'm not really a lipstick person generally, so I figured I'd buy them and never use them. How wrong I was. I absolutely LOVE Creme Cup, I've used it almost every day since I bought it. I'm applying a thin amount of it and using a bit of my Vaseline Cocoa pot on top for a bit of extra gloss. Speed Dial is the nicest pink, but the smallest amount is super bright, so I have used that one less. As mentioned above, I hate badly scented products, but these lipsticks are heaven to me because they smell of vanilla :D

While in the MAC store, I browsed the eyeshadows as well as the lipsticks. I think my favourite eyeshadows are Satin Taupe, Expensive Pink and Patina.

Anyway, here is a swatch of Creme Cup & Speed Dial:

Top: Creme Cup

Bottom: Speed Dial

Wow, this is a pretty long post!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far. I have tomorrow off work (yay!) so I'm looking forward to a day of jewellery making and preparing for the stall.

Today I got myself some fimo clay with the intention of making cupcake charms. The results were.... rather bad, but I did remember to take pictures, so I'll share that crafty project with you in my next post :)

Love,

Fiona x

The Happiness Project

A few days ago, I linked up with Lindsay at Scenic Glory to join her Happiness Project, which is a weekly marking of progress towards a goal. I have tons of things I'd like to focus on, so I imagine my very own little project will last a long time ;)

This is technically week #2, but it's my first post, so I'm calling it week #1.

This week I have decided to.... get organised.

Here are my goals:

1. Get my savings account sorted out.
2. Finally tidy the cupboard.
3. Transfer all important dates (currently on scrap bits of paper) into my diary.
4. Eliminate the 'clothes for ironing' mountain that seems to be growing, eek.
5. And the fifth one is quite exciting, I need to get myself ready for a stall in a summer fete, in less than a month! I'll be talking more about this one in upcoming posts I'm sure.

So I'll check in next Thursday with this and hopefully I'll be ticking off my goals :)

Love,
Fiona x