Face & Outfit of the Day ~ vintage vampires.

Spiked alice band ~ Topshop
Velvet dress ~ vintage from Etsy
Burgundy wedges ~ New Look
Inverted cross necklace ~ St Vicious

Black lipstick ~ Portland Black Lipstick Company
Red eyeshadow ~ Sugarpill in Love +
White eyeshadow ~ The Body Shop Eye Shimmer in 01
Black eyeshadow ~ from the Chilli Pepper palette
Eye primer ~ MUA Professional

  

(I absolutely stole most of this outfit title from the amazing Annika of The Pineneedle Collective because it's an awesome name.)

Halloween! I'm not actually doing anything for it, although the boyfriend and I have carved our annual pumpkin for the 3rd year running - for those of you who don't know his is a weighted companion cube from the game Portal, but I wanted to dress up a little bit anyway. I probably would've done a bit more in terms of make up but as always at the moment I've been a bit tight on time, nonetheless it was nice to play with my only Sugarpill product. I was inspired by the amazing makeup on all of the shop assistants in the Camden Cyberdog - by the looks of it their makeup was Sugarpill, and just gorgeous, there was this one girl who had blue hair and was dress liked a nurse and I pretty much stalked her for a small while.

Also, I've been meaning to show it for a while but look at my new necklace! The lovely (& talented) Sophie from St Vicious sent it to me after I featured it on this post and I love it so much! I also adore the fact that it's the same one as their mascot wears - "the Patron Saint of Blackeyes & Bloodynoses". The necklace also comes in pink, mirrored silver and without the rosary beads, but this version is definitely my favourite. It's sturdy and light, came in adorable, professional packaging and the acrylic has been cut so neatly, with absolutely not raged edges. Just perfect ♥.

The dress is something the boyfriend bought me ages ago when I reached 50 followers (yes, he is adorable) but until now I couldn't quite think of how to wear it which was shame since it is such good fit, but I really like giving it a vampy-goth twist.

Apart from Halloween life has slowed down just a touch since I handed in two assignments and had a statistics test (I don't know how much I managed to get 80%). I'm usually super excited for Guy Fawkes night but this time I'm working so I'll be missing all the fireworks, I can't tell you how heart broken I am. Also, I saw Loserville in London last weekend! It's basically like Big Bang Theory meets Glee which sounds blood-curdling but was actually really sweet (if not slightly predictable) and the songs and choreography were brilliant - even with the fake American accents!
What are you doing/did you do for Halloween?

Dip Dye ~ Hair Inspiration

It has come. It is finally approaching the time when I will be re-dying my hair. In order to give my scalp a few more months to recover (it got a little beat up last time I bleached the hell out of my hair - be warned, learn from my lessons) I have decided to do a proper gradient/ombre dip dye! I'm so excited! I'm thinking of going from blue to purple and maybe ending on pink but there are so many cool options out there!

sources: 

one ~ natural brown to pink to purple

two ~ light pink to dark fuschia

three ~ red to orange 

four ~ dark blue to light blue 

five ~ natural brown to dark pink to pastel pink 

six ~ ginger to blonde

seven ~ pastel purple to pastel pink 

eight ~ black to purple 

nine ~ white to black

ten ~ pastel pink to pastel blue, I love how the eyebrows match the beginning of the gradient

eleven ~ natural ash blonde to pastel pink 

twelve ~ natural brown to green to purple

thirteen ~ light purple to light turquoise

fourteen ~ natural brown to forest green

fifteen ~ light grey to purple

So, have you seen any amazing ombre hair recently?

DIY ~ customised diary

I meant to do this DIY a while ago as a "back to school" sort of post but now is as good a time as any. I wanted to offer an easy and quick way of customising a boring diary in a fun and completely unique way. You could do this with a normal annual diary, mine just happens to be an academic one. I actually quite like the idea of maybe doing this as a quirky kind of personalised Christmas present, if you're that way inclined.

You Will Need
~ a plain diary/notebook
~stickers! Lots of them!

I got my academic planner from WH Smiths for £4.99 which is a lot less than other ones with designs on them. As for the stickers I've decided to give mine a bit of a theme. I've mentioned it a few times but I'm a bit of a nostalgic geek when it comes to the old anime Sailor Moon so I thought I'd decorate my diary with these adorable quirky stickers, which don't scream geek but are a really cute tribute to my childhood. The lovely Miss Coconut kindly sent them to me and I just want to stare at the all day, even if you're not into Sailor Moon I suggest checking out her numerous other adorable designs, seriously. You'll fall in love. I also have a million stickers hanging about and they never get used that I buy at various craft shows.
I don't really need to take you step by step through this since it's pretty obvious. You can either plan it out (like I did with the Sailor Moon stickers) or just go with the flow (like I did with the circle stickers). This literally took me about 5-10 minutes and I really like the outcome.

front

back

adorable detail shots of Chibi Usa and Sailor Jupiter ♥ 

I've got to say I think the back is my favourite - that drawing of Chibi Usa (the character) is just too cute, and the two little stars are sweet and subtle. I quite like the idea of getting some more of those stickers and do another diary or notepad and just layering them on top of each other, I think that could look pretty cool.
So, what do you think? I'd love to see someone take this idea and go crazy with it! Let me know if you try it.

Outfit of the Day ~ show me your stars.

 Chiffon maxi skirt ~ New Look

Creepers, boyfriend beanie ~ Ebay

Astrology vest top ~ Truely Madly Deeply via Urban Outfitters

 Cardgian, belt ~ New Look

Bracelets ~ gift, Pieces via ASOS

I love this vest top so much! Galaxy print, zodiac signs, astrology symbols, constellations - it just has everything I love. The only this is I wish it was slightly longer and that the sleeves had been cut better, but I can forgive it. I tried to get away with the hat but I don't think it worked...it blended with my hair a bit too much and just made me look like I had an alien head (the boyfriend was pretty smug since he had said as much). At the moment that cardigan is all I wear, it's comfy, oversized and the perfect shade of green (which if you hadn't guessed from this post is my new favourite colour at the moment).
In life related news today I am having a craft day with two of my favourite babes and I'm really excited! We're taking a trip to Hobbycraft and then all number of fun things will occur. So hopefully there will be a tonne of DIY-esque stuff going up in the near future. Tomorrow I have another Open Mic with my singing counter part, we're covering Lady Antebellum and Maroon 5's Out of Goodbyes. We spent about 4 hours solid on it which means we're really not ready but it should be fine.

Trending ~ The Emerald City.

Emerald green, forest green, bottle green. Call it what you want but  the colour of the moment is definitely vivid dark green.With the strong gothic vibe at the moment, pairing this colour with luxurious fabrics like velvet and chiffon is just the perfect autumn statement.
I personally adore this colour and you can see me wearing it here, here and here.

From left to right

Top row:  Etsy blazer ~ £20.40, H&M gloves ~ £14.99, Lime Crime Serpentina lipstick ~ £9.92, My 1st Wish shoes ~ £29.99, Barry M nail varnish in Racing Green ~ £2.99

Bottom row: Bourjois Eyeshadow in Verte Profond ~ £6.99, New Look cardigan ~ £17.99, Romwe velvet cross skirt ~ £26.85, Ebay skirt ~ £6.99

Others that didn't make the cut: this pretty ASOS satin prom dress and these amazing Topshop shoes.

So what do you think of the emerald trend? Have you seen anything gorgeous and green recently?

Autumn Shopping Haul!

It's that time of the year again! Today I thought I'd share with you some of my recent purchases from the past couple of months. I've been going a bit spending crazy recently mainly because I've acquired a fair bit of money from my french gran and I'm normally pretty frugal so I've been treating myself! But now I'm panicking because I don't like spending that much money in one go.

Motel Rocks

Gothic Placement Jordan Jeans, £24 (50% off original price)
Hayley Sheer Flocked Shirt, £22.50 (50% off original price)
When I logged onto Facebook and saw Motel was having an hour long 50% off sale I nearly died. Seriously. I cannot tell you what state I was in whilst the code wasn't working but when my order finally got through I was basically euphoric. I absolutely love this print - have ever since it launched, so I'm so happy to have them now and they fit perfectly (you can see me wearing them here)! Even though I forgot to take a photo of it, I also got the Hayley flocked shirt. I've got such a thing for burn-out velvet so I got this shirt too. The material is really stretchy, but I've found the slit on the cuffs goes really far down the arm, which is a bit annoying.

Models Own
Nail varnishes in Utopia, Emerald Black, Indian Ocean and Aqua Violet, £2.50 each (50% off)
It seems everyone's having massive random sales at the moment. Models Own had one as well so I took advantage to get some of their nail varnishes I'd been eyeing up for a while. If they are as good as they seem I'll definitely be purchasing more!

Look Beauty
Nail varnishes in Catsuit and Pearl Effect, 2 for £6
After having bought all those polishes from Models Own you would have thought that'd be enough but when browsing Superdrug the other day with Bekki I spotted that a) the Brighton Superdrug has had a refurb and now has a Look Beauty counter but also b) the nail varnishes were 2 for £6! Bekki basically picked out the dark blue one and I'd been eyeing the pearl effect one for a while. I've got plans for one of them. Oh ho.

Urban Outfitters
Paper punch, £3.20 (20% off)
Astronomy vest top, £16 (20% off)
Not only was there 20% off, there was also free delivery. Whilst I was working on this challenge I stumbled across this vest and I pretty much had to buy it. I am in love with all things symbolic and astromonical (although I don't buy into it) so I was pretty damn happy about that discount code. As I continued to browse I came across the paper punch as well and couldn't resist buying it - I'd been looking for a leaf shaped one for ages (no lie!) for card making and this one was a proper steal as well, even without the discount.

Topshop
Spiked Aliceband, £8 (20% off)
Cross t-shirt, £17.60 (20% off)
Even though I already own one spiked headband I decided to get this one - I love that the spikes are bigger and that it's on an alice band! Yay for making childhood clothing gothic! I am running out of cool, casual tshirts and whilst I was shopping around on in Topshop I saw this babe, the material feels really nice and light and soft and the design is cute.

ASOS
River Island sunglasses, £5.00 (on sale, 50% off)
120 Denier tights, £7.20 (10% off)
I saw these glasses last season and loved the little star stud detail so I'm pretty pleased to snag them now for half price ready for next summer! The tights are a winter/all year round staple. My last ones laddered after a lot of wear. I've also just purchased this dress from the current ASOS sale...hopefully it'll look good!
(I also snagged the last one of these River Island Cosmic jumpers from ASOS but the size didn't quite fit right, sad face.)


Others
Head garland, £4
Yes, you read that right, £4! I went to the Weald of Kent International Craft + Hobby fair which if you're local and a fan of beautiful, unique stuff, from jewellery to photography to furniture and plenty in between then I highly recommend you check it out. I'd been looking for another head garland (to add to this one) and not only was the lady selling them lovely, at £4 there was very little reason not to buy it.

Rookie Yearbook 1, £15.19
This was sort of an impulse buy. I was watching an interview with Tavi Gevinson about her new book and it seemed really cool so I went ahead and bought it! It looks so quirky and fun, might review it.

So that's pretty much it. Have you made any purchases you're happy with recently?