Ah what a year eh?! Brexit and Trump is obviously the headline of the year, but beyond that what has happened? Well, to reflect on my year, major changes have happened in my life in all sorts of ways. I finished my A Levels and headed off to university to study history. This has been the biggest thing in my year and caused me to over come all sorts of hurdles and this will form the majority of this post...

I am not an extrovert by any stretch of the imagination. I see myself more as an ambivert leaning towards introversion. Yes I am, when you first meet me, shy, of few words, quiet, and yet I can be massively extroverted and loud once you get to know me and I feel comfortable within my surroundings. University for me was where all the extroverts of the world lived, the party goers, the alcohol bathers, the loud people. A situation I could never see myself being happy in, let alone enjoying! This means I have been terrified of going for as long as it became something in my foreseeable future. However, 4 months down the line of starting and I can honestly call university some of the most enjoyable months of my life so far. I have already made friends I hope I will still know 50 years down the line from now and have never laughed so often and so hard! University forced me to face my fears head on, from encountering new situations on a daily basis to calling up companies on the phone to sort out issues, because the parents are no longer there to take on my responsibilities for me. I mean I was sorting out a problem with M.A.C. customer services the other day, something I could not have done 4 months ago! I have also got train travel down to a T having had to use it so much in the past term. One day I'll get round to writing a guide to university for non-drinkers/non-extroverts, but I probably need to have completed my first year before being 'qualified' to talk about these things haha - look out for that next summer and start sending me your questions and fears you want me to address in the mini-series! 

My other achievement of the year was starting this blog! I have wanted my own online creative beauty outlet (if that's what you want to call it) since I was 11 and first discovered the world of the online beauty community on YouTube (something I am considering going into next year - YouTubeing that is), so watch this space! While it may still be early days and I haven't got an publish routine etc going yet because I'm trying to work out how to balance it with uni work, I have loved having an outlet for all my ideas :) I also got a new phone for Christmas (the Moto G4 FYI) so look out for slightly better photo quality haha!


And who's to forget that this was the year of Potter?? With an amaaazing new film (which I only saw the other day (hangs head in shame) and an announced 4 more to come I am so hyped for more potter filled years! And on my last day of term I won tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child through the Friday Forty giveaway on only my 2nd attempt!!!! Ohmydays it was the best thing ever!! I won't give away any spoilers obviously, but the special effects are incredible, the theatre itself is beautiful and gah! I loved every second. If you are lucky enough to get seats in the stalls like I was (as the Friday Forty Tickets are reduced best seats), then the experience is heightened further. If you've seen it, you know what I mean :) I really hope that they release a DVD of it in the next couple of years so everyone gets the opportunity to see it as well as read it :)

So here's to focussing on the positives of such a weird year!

What were the highlights of your 2016? Lets have a natter in the comments 😊

Happy New Year!

June xx

So just before Christmas my mum had to get a new phone because her old one broke. However this new phone was too big for her old phone case. Therefore, I took it upon myself to make her a bigger one for Christmas :) Here is how I did it:

What you will need:

-2 contrasting fabrics (thin)
-thread
-needle
-sewing machine (although you could hand sew the whole thing)
-felt
-fabric scissors
-a button
-a tape measure/ruler
-a pen/fabric chalk
-pins
-embroidery thread (or something you can make into a loop for the fastening

1) Cut the fabric

Measure the size of your phone and add 5cm on to each measurement (width and length) so as to incorporate a seam allowance.
Using a tape measure or ruler draw out the size of the fabric you will require from the measurements you just took. The width should be doubled so that you can fold over the fabric later and and get both sides of the case. This should be done once on the two fabrics and the felt. Then cut out the fabric :)

2) Sew the fabrics together

Place the two fabrics together with the right sides facing each other and the felt ontop. Pin together and then stitch along 3 and 1/2 of the edges allowing a 1cm-1.5cm seam allowance with the sewing machine (there should be a line next to the needle you can follow to keep the stitching straight and the seam allowance at the same length). Don't sew half of one of the shorter sides together so you can turn the fabric the correct way round by pushing it through the hole - make sure you have removed the pins, cut the seam allowance off to about 5mm near the stitching and cuts off the corners of the seam allowance to allow you to get a sharper point in your fabric. Fold in the raw edges of the unstitched end and sew along the fold to close up the hole.

3) Sew into a phone case

Fold the fabric in half with the outside material on the inside and pin the bottom and side edges together. Either use a sewing machine to stitch very closely to the edge along the bottom and side of the case, or hand stitch along the edge if the fabric is too thick (I kept breaking sewing machine needles so had to resort to hand sewing... :( ) I would probably change to a running stitch if I was to do it again so the stitching didn't show through the edges on the outside...

4) Add the button!

Turn the case the right way round and sew your button onto the front of the case. Then take some embroidery thread (as it's thicker than normal thread), or a strip of excess fabric (which you could make into a strap by either making into a spaghetti strap (google it) so as to hide the fraying edges, or by plaiting with two other strips of fabric - just make sure the plait is really thin) and stitch onto the middle of the top of the back of the case in a loop (if you are very clever, you could insert this into the fabric by attaching it to the case when sewing all the fabric together in step 2 by attaching it a ¼ of the way along the width of the fabric with the loop sitting between the two fabrics (not the felt).

5) Fin!

To finish you could embroider the phone owners name or do an appliqué image on the front in a contrasting fabric (though that would be easier to do before you sew all the materials on the front). Go creative and have fun with it, this is just the basic idea :). You could also design it so that the back of the case is longer than the front and folds over the case to button onto the front to make for a securer fastening :) Or you could use velcro or poppers. The ideas are endless :)





If you have a go at this be sure you tag me in your creations on Instagram: @RougebyJuneKonrad

Merry Christmas!! (only 3 days to go hehe)

June xx

 So, 5 days until Christmas, but what's that I hear? The cries of a stressed human who has that one relative they don't know who to buy for? Or maybe a broke teen who has to buy 10 gifts but is on a strict budget? Don't fret! I've complied (oo fancy) a last minute gift guide for you all, aimed at multiple price ranges :)

Quote Posters

I made this poster for a cat-lover friend this Christmas after she said the above during dinner. Whether it be a one off phrase or a phrase they say all the time, a quirky quote poster is a great last minute gift for someone you don't know what to buy for - and especially fab for us poster loving uni students. I designed it on picmonkey.com and had it professionally printed by instantprint.com costing me £10.94 (including postage and VAT). This was probably not the cheapest way of doing it but I paid for next day postage so it got to me in time for Christmas... You can save more money if you have an A3 printer to hand- there may be one at your school/uni you could borrow or at your local library) - or print it on A4 and buy a cheap charity shop photo frame to spice it up a bit and make up for it not being generic poster size :)

Top tips for quote posters

1) Use multiple fonts - each line of mine is a different font.
2) Highlight the key words in the text by making them bigger, bolder and in different colours.
3) Include a simple picture to do with the main topic without a background so it blends into the background colour.
4) Don't use a long quote, paraphrase if you have to!
5) Point out to them that they said it by putting their name and the year at the bottom of the page (I've cut my friend's name off this for privacy, but it is there in the original).

If you don't like this style, you can parody other styles of poster such as the 'Keep Calm' ones or turn a funny picture of your friend into the style of a meme. The possibilities are endless. For instance my friend has had a thing about badgers wearing party hats for years, so this year I printed out a poster of a badger that I'd added a party hat to and captioned it!

Food Hampers

Who doesn't love food? This year for my grandparents I am putting together a hamper for homemade food to suit their taste. As they don't like many sweet things, I have only given them a few things (at one stage I planned on buying fancy cheese and making biscuits). To present them I bought professional looking food bags from amazon and labels from a local kitchen store to make it look extra special 😊 I couldn't find a hamper to present them in, so wrapped an old shoe box in brown paper and ripped up strips of white and red tissue paper to fill the inside of the box.

Heres the recipes I will be using if you are interested:

Dark Cherry and Hazelnut Biscotti

(Use proper butter, not marg! They took forever to dry out, but were the biggest success of the operation. Defo making them again at some point :) )

Tuiles



Pistachio and Cranberry mini Meringues

Any plain meringue recipe with chopped pistachios and dried cranberries added to the mixture (only one of the types in each meringue, not mixed together) They didn't provide much flavour, so unless you are sprinkling them on top for decoration, there isn't much point adding them to be honest. Ah well, you live ad you learn :)

Books

Books are great for the book lovers in your life. Whether its a book you love and want to introduce them too, or a book based on things they love that you think they'll love, you can be rest assured that if they love reading they will use this at some point - just make sure they haven't read it already...

I bought A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor for my Dad. This was originally a radio series he listened too, so fingers crossed he'll enjoy the book just as much 😊

My personal book recommendations are the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Dubargo and (the similar) Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan.

Bath Bombs

Makeup

 

Perfume 

Perfume is a little harder to get right, as it is so individual. Mini perfume sets, like this one from New Look (£12.99), means the recipient will hopefully like at least one of them. These are also, once again, great stocking fillers to split up and give out individually to people- especially if you're strapped for cash!

Jewellery

Chocolate

Phone Cases

Gift vouchers 

And if you're truly stuck, vouchers are the way to go. Whether it's money towards something they've wanted for ages, books, somewhere to visit together (like this Cat Café my friend and I have had our eyes on for aaages) or promise vouchers (such as the one above I just designed on Picmonkey that you are welcome to use). I'm also going to suggest subscription boxes such as Birchbox if you can afford it and charity sponsorships such as Guide Dogs which I used to receive 😊.

Any reccommendations of your own? Add them in the comments below!

Merry Christmas :)

June xx

So as Christmas is a month of charity, I thought I would share my charitable moment of the year 😊

I cut my hair earlier this year. Not a trim, but a full 13 inches... Its funny because for the past 8 years I had wanted as long hair as I could get my hands on, and at its longest, it reached the bottom of my back. 10 year old me would have been delighted and want to keep going. But not 18 year old me. hair getting stuck in coat zips and falling into my food all the time makes long hair less fun and games and more of a pain. Also, I always pulled my hair to one side then pull it back round the other a little to cover my ears and it started to form this cool lob shape. I wanted that lob cut. But what to do with all that excess hair? Donation seemed like the obvious choice for me so my charity search began. I knew of The Little Princess Trust already, but ideally wanted to donate it to wigs for alopecia because my aunt has the condition so I have seen the impact wigs can have for those with it. However, with zero luck I decided to donate to the Little Princess Trust instead who create wigs for children who have suffered hair loss through illness (i.e. cancer treatment). While you can ask people to sponsor you so you can raise money for the charity at the same time, the day I did it was so last minute (i.e. organised a week before, there seemed little point. You can donate to their website if you would like here: http://www.littleprincesses.org.uk/donate-money/). The process was super easy and my hairdresser had loads of fun plaiting my hair and cutting it off in one chop 😂. If you are thinking of donating your hair I would definitely recommend it - just remember to take a tape measure so you know how much you're taking off, we had to borrow one from a lady in the hairdressers XD. Now for some before and after pictures hehe!

The faux-lob I was aiming for

Look how long my hair used to be - it was a struggle to get it all in shot XD

I didn't know I owned so much! And that was it plaited XD

SO MUCH HAIRR!!

The lady at the postoffice had to ask what I was posting - she didn't seem at all shocked about hair being sent off XD

If you are interested in donating your hair, you can donate as little as 7 inches (which is not very much at all). See here for more details - http://www.littleprincesses.org.uk/donate-hair/

If you were to ask me what my style was, my answer would be comfortable and cosy. Nothing lets me express this more than the cold weather that has hit the UK - a wonderful excuse to pull out my copious amount of knitwear. They're super easy to style - my go to choice is jeans or denim skirts fyi. I love snuggling up in a warm jumper or cardigan, whether it be frumpy or stylish, and today I am going to show you my pieces!

Note - Unfortunately, these items were bought years ago, or are handmade by my very clever mother. Therefore, I have linked 3 alternatives at varying price points for each piece so you can buy similar items if you want :) 

Chunky, long cardigans (Though mine is basically a coat and blanket in one hehe)

I basically wear this everyday, and more in the last couple of weeks as my heating had broken (well my radiator was full of air as we later found out 😂- we could have filled loads of balloons with the amount of air the guy who fixed it let out!). It is very thick and heavy with a rolled neckline and cable pattern in a maroon colour (one of my favourite colours to wear in autumn). My mum made it a couple of years ago following a pattern in her Prima Magazine. I will try and find out what issue it was, though she probably pulled out the pages she needed and threw the rest of it away.

Alternatives:
Romwe, Light Grey, Chunky Cardigan, £9.18 (on sale): https://goo.gl/xL3LOu 
QED London, Grey Cardigan, £22 (on sale): https://goo.gl/majGYL
Fat Face, Roslin Cardigan, £55-58: https://goo.gl/4edCki

Thick Jumper

A new addition my mum brought up to me a couple of weeks ago when she visited, having just completed it. It's toasty warm and a lot less bulky than my blanket-cardy. The pattern she used was in a Rowan Book (I'll find out which one when I go home) and she used Katia Peru wool in no. 26. As it is woollen I have to wear long-sleeved tops underneath so it isn't itchy, but that is what you get with woollen products. The more wool in wool the warmer but the itchier it will be, while the more cotton/polyester fibres in the wool, the less itchy but cooler it will be :) Something to keep in mind when either knitting or buying a woollen clothing item.

Alternatives:
New Look, Turtleneck, £9.99: https://goo.gl/cMNv2Z
Willow and Page, fluffy pale link jumper, £32: https://goo.gl/V7pbPm
Jigsaw, Navy Plain Jumper, £159: https://goo.gl/9bOIW8

Oversized jumper

This was the best purchase I made last year. The jumper is from Zara's Knit collection and is pretty oversized :) While it isn't the warmest item, due to it not being that thick and being draughty due to it's over-sidedness, it's great to just throw on and go.

Alternatives:
H&M, navy turtleneck, £24.99: https://goo.gl/Z6K4BZ
Pull&Bear, super batwing and oversized jumper, £29.99: https://goo.gl/YWcc3l
Topshop, cocoon sleeved jumper, £42: https://goo.gl/PC92bO

Cable knit jumper

I've had this for years. Its from Apricot and more cropped than the other woollen items in my wardrobe. It's also not as warm as my handmade items so you do have to wear tops under it in the cooler weather. I love the cable pattern and pockets on the front and it's thinness and cream colour mean its a great transition piece into the warmer weather in spring.

Alternatives:
BooHoo Cream Jumper, £15: https://goo.gl/zbYrpE
Urban Outfitters Crew Neck Jumper, £42: https://goo.gl/bGPZMgAran Sweater Market,100% wool (so should be much warmer than polyester/cotton) jumpers, £58.69 (on sale): https://goo.gl/psOVGW

So, party season's coming up, whether it be Christmas or going clubbing in town with your mates,
here are 3 eye makeup looks, that take 10 minutes max to achieve aimed, at all abilities :)

Look 1: All Over Bronze

Difficulty: Easy

Look 2: Smokey Glitter

Difficulty: Much harder than the other two, depends on how comfortable you are using eyeliner, and will take up the full 10 minutes.

May I introduce to you the best eyeliner I have ever done in my life!! Inspired by the eyeliner look Sam uploaded on PixiWoo this week (although I was planning on creating a look like this anyway), this is ideal for those whose eyeliner gets accidentally too thick when trying to even it out and can go with any lip colour you want!

Lip Colour: Rimmel Apocalips in 304 Eclipse

Lip Colour: Discontinued (or at least since repackaged) H&M Lipstick in Love That Red.  Any true red is a dupe for this (i.e. not cool (blue) or warm (orange) toned)

Lip Colour: Rimmel Apocalips in 600 Nude Eclipse

To create this I took my trusty Soap and Gory Supercat Pen Liquid Eyeliner in Black. I started by mapping out the wing drawing a line as a continuation of my lower lash line. I then created a wing from this line by drawing a line from near the top of the line to somewhere along the inner ⅓ of my lash line (I normally finish in the middle of my lash line so this will thicken the wing). To fill in the wing as I drew that second line I used the edge of the pen, not the tip - I will do a video on this one day by the way because this is so hard to explain :) - and then went back with the tip of the pen to fill in any gaps. Using the tip of the pen I followed the inner lash line, extending it past my tear duct until it was in line with the bottom of my tear duct where I then connected the liner to my lower lash line. This creates the pointed inner corner that I went back and filled in. I then took a black pencil eyeliner (in this case, my favourite Estée Lauder Pure Color Intense Kajal Eyeliner in 01 Intense Black) and placed it in my water line, smudging it onto my lower lash line so the pencil smoothly joined the base of the liquid liner cat flick. TaDa! You're done.

My base makeup stayed the same for all three looks:

Primer: I didn't use primer as I was wearing this to photograph, not to actually go out in - hence the jumper. However, a good primer and/or setting spray is essential to help your makeup last all night :)
Foundation: Nars Sheer Glow
Powder: Rimmel Stay Matte
Concealer: Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer over the top of the concealers in the MUA Conceal and Brighten Kit
Eye Primer: MUA Pro-Base Eye Primer
Mascara: Maybelline Lash Sensational Mascara (waterproof version)
Contour/blush colour: Benefit eyeshadow in Soft Shoulder
Brow Powder: Shade 3 in Avon's Tiger Eye's Palette (discontinued as limited edition, yet to find a dupe, let me know if you know of one cause I don't know what I'm gunna do when I run out 😭)
Brow Gel: Collection Colour Lash Mascara in 1. Clear

I know I'm late on the bandwagon (or what ever the phrase is) here, but I am finally the owner of the much raved about, very beautiful Fortune Favours the Brave Palette by Make Up Revolution and BritishBeautyBlogger. It comes with a mix of 30 matte, shimmery and baked shades and costs just £9.99 (with free shipping if you get it at Superdrug with your Health and Beauty card- gotta save your mulla as a student haha). This means each shades is costing you just 33p! The pans are smaller than usual (see comparison with my thumb below) but this is probably to keep costs down and to fit them all in a non-huge palette. Although it is a little bigger than usual, it is not as big as, say, a Morphe 350 palette, meaning that it is a great palette to take with you on your travels - the colour range means you can create loads of different looks without having to pack a tonne of makeup :) As you can see, the colour range runs from light pinks to purples, blues, greens and browns as well as highlight shades. 

Back of the outer packaging (box) (the front of the box is the same as the inner main palette's cover below) Front of the packaging (it's so beautiful!!) Back of Packaging

I love that all the shadows were given names, as far as I'm aware Makeup Revolution don't normally name their shades... It makes it so much easier to refer to shades as a blogger, provided I don't loose the plastic sheet with them on... Also, note how small the pans are in contrast to my thumb. They are smaller than regular pans, but ah well :)

Artsy photo cause blogger 😂

Now what is the all important pigmentation like you ask?? Well maybe because it was super hyped about I was expecting it to be better than it is, especially as I have the Iconic 3 Palette so can compare it against other Revolution palettes. The colours are a bit hit and miss in some areas, and to get the best payoff, as always, you will need to use a primer, or at least moisten the lid area in some way, for instance by using concealer on the lid if you don't own primer. Originally I wanted to swatch each colour on my eyelid with and without primer but when I tried I quickly remembered that my terrible phone camera doesn't do the colours justice... Instead I've done a couple of examples so you can see what I was getting at, as well as some arm swatches. Note about arm swatches. 1) to keep it as even as possible I applied with the same brush each time (removing as much of the previous product as possible) and brushed the brush in each pan 4 times before switching onto my arm using the same amount of pressure each time(this sounds like my A Level biology coursework XD). 2) You can apply a lot more pressure with the brush when applying them to your arm than on your eye hence the fact the pigmentation looks out of this world. Believe me when I say that when it comes to applying onto your lid, they will not look as good as they look on your forearm.

Swatches of every shade, laid out as they come in the palette so you can workout what every colour is. This picture is every shadow applied with a primer underneath. By comparing this to the swatches on my eyelids, you can see what I was getting at about how misleading they are about the colour intensity of the shadows.

Swatches without primer. As you can see with the darker shades, there is little difference in the shade intensity - but when on the eyelid the difference is massive. The lighter colours do benefit from the addition of a primer though. One thing I was impressed by was the black shadow- it's the one I accidentally smudged. Look at how intense the colour was post smudging; some poorer quality eyeshadows can look intense then disappear when smudged to nothing. Good work Makeup Revolution!

Shimmer eyeshadow (I think I used Brave) No primer on the right, with primer on the left. Look at how less patchy and more intense the colour is on the left - I know my poor camera quality makes it hard to see, but believe me, the difference was considerably more noticeable in comparison to on my forearm in real life.

To give you an idea what the matte and baked shadows are like. The blue is the baked shadow skylight which I'm really not a fan of- for me the blue is too bright (or at least doesn't go with my skin tone) and the gold doesn't go; I would have preferred a bronze shimmer. The matte shade on the right is Latte if I remember correctly. I was really impressed with this shade. Normally mattes struggle in palettes but it applied and blended really easily :)

Here are some looks I created with the palette while playing with it in the last week. I created a neutral pink look, a blue look (that looks quite grey. I don't know why, potentially because I took it after wearing it for a few hours cause I forgot to wear it straight away) and a green look (which was surprisingly my favourite haha). The glitter on the centre of my lids faded quite fast, which I have come to notice with a lot of drugstore eyeshadows after Sam of PixiWoo pointed it out in her high end v highstreet videos. They don't crease too badly (although the blue look did more than the other two), I use the MUA Pro-Base Primer if you're interested, which was quite surprising and a nice bonus :) My lids aren't that oily but eyeshadow does generally crease by the end of the day...

I don't know what this pose is XD. I keep finding myself pouting since watching Candice on Bake Off and I don't know why haha. Anyways, this was created using some of the green shadows. And I don't even know what's going on with my hair, it doesn't like to lie flat 😂

This was a blue look, but looked much greyer by the time I remembered to photograph it a few hours later... Worth noting from this picture though that the centre of the lids had one the of the bronze/gold shadows on and that after a few hours it had completely faded off - lets play Where's Wally but with the bronze shadow on my lids haha

A pinky, bronze look. A bit more day time friendly than the other two looks I created. Definitely something I'll be reaching for in the spring time!

So overall, how would I rate this palette?? Pigmentation wasn't as amazing as expected from the hype but still good once I got used to the palette. I have never used baked shadows before so don't know how comparable they are to others on the market, but they aren't my favourite shades in the palette although they look beautiful in the palette - New World looks like marble😍. The greens and purples are probably winners for me personally and I know I will be hitting pan on them before long bwahaha. Please don't even attempt to use the brush. It is the WORST brush I have ever used in my life. Honestly. it does nothing and the flat brush fails to pick up any product at all. I'm keeping it for special effects work cause I can afford to ruin it haha.

Pigmentation: ★★★☆
Lasting Quality: ★★★★
Colour range: ★★★★★
Value for Money: ★★★★☆

(☆= half a star fyi)

Hope you enjoyed my FIRST EVER review. I would love feedback about how I can improve these, what you would like to know about products I review in the future, so please leave constructive criticism in the comments below.

Have you ever tried the palette? What did you think of it? Or have I tempted you to buy it? Lets have a natter in the comments section :)

June xx

disclaimer: I was not paid to feature this product by anyone. I bought this with my own money and it was my own decision to review it. Neither am I a fan of the blog "BritishBeautyBlogger" meaning I don't feel obliged to love this palette as a fan of the creator of it. In fact, to show my ignorance of the blogging world, I had never heard of her before this palette.