Mad rush with Mum

NEVER leave your Christmas shopping until the last minute.
I was quite good this year, I'm a monster when it comes to Arbonne, so when their Christmas range came out in October I jumped straight in to do my main Christmas shopping before everything sold out. There was a couple of bits I still wanted to get in town to finish off some home-made presents for my friends, so I went in with my mum yesterday morning as she needed to get a couple of things as well. We thought considering it was Sunday it wouldn't be too busy, but oh my goodness we couldn't have been more wrong! I don't have any pictures to show you because we were so busy rushing around and crowd surfing for a lot of it I couldn't stop for enough time, but bustling past the Thornton's cafe we somehow ended up inside....

I must say I'm quite a fusspot when it comes to hot chocolate, I am deeply offended if I'm served one without cream and marshmallows (just kidding, sort of) and I have yet to find one better than M&S Deluxe Hot Chocolate special...although I do make a mean one as well if I do say so myself. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by Thornton's one though and it's going to be a tough decision if I need a HC in town as I won't be able to choose where to go for one!

Here is my dreamy HC from yesterday

Walking through town we also stopped at a lovely stand by the Owl Sanctuary where you could pet the owls, there was a little fella called 'Darling' who loved being stroked. When we said hello to the handlers the guy played the whole 'what's under your nose' trick, and I fell for it!! Darling was very cheeky when it came to taking his picture, I think he was avoiding looking at me in case he laughed at my gullibility! Hehe just kidding, it did look like it though, he even looks like he's giggling!

Eventually we did finish our shopping, and when we finally got home dad had a lovely Curry waiting and my boyfriend Tom, my sister Claire, and her boyfriend Adam were all waiting for us so we could tuck in. Later on in the afternoon Tom and I went to church where we had a fun quiz evening about the birth of Jesus, and when I came home I played Mario cart with the family and Adam as he was still there. Overall a lovely but busy day and I definitely slept well!

Mini make-overs

When my little sister and I were quite a bit younger we used to play out in the street with all our neighbours kids. I have lots of happy memories of building forts with giant umbrellas, climbing trees, and tobogganing down the massive hill together on skateboards.
I don't often get to see them any more as I'm away for Uni for most of the year and they're all busy with their own lives or have moved away, but little Lauren loves the fact I'm now a make-up artist and when I'm home she's excited to hear all about what I've been up to at Uni, and jumps at the opportunity to play with my make-up.

When I last saw Lauren in the summer she told me she was visiting the Aquarium the next day, so we had some fun making some mermaid nails for her which she said all her friends loved, and Galaxy nails for myself.



Last Friday I had the pleasure of spending the evening with Lauren again and her friend Megan who has moved to our street within the last few years. I did a smokey eyed look on both of them, and then Lauren did my make-up afterwards, I think she did an awesome job!

I did the same basic look on both Lauren and Megan. I used my Arbonne brush set to apply, they didn't need any foundation or concealer as they have lovely skin. For the eyes I used a base colour of Arbonne's Festive Eyeshadow Pencil in Silver Bell, and highlighted with Illamasqua's Pure Pigment powder in Breathe. I contoured with Urban Decay's Naked eyeshadow palette in Naked and used Gunmetal on the outer corners, I used Collection's Eyeliner Pen in Black and a coat from both Triple Action and It's A Long Story mascaras by Arbonne. I also used Arbonne's blush in Apricot, lined the lips with a red pencil and filled it in with Rimmel London Kate collection lipstick in 110, and finished it off with Arbonne's lipstick in Runway Rouge.

This is the make-up Lauren did on me, It's not how I would usually do my make-up but I love letting other people put some on for me to see how they do it differently. I love the thin liner, I think it looks very subtle and pretty with the statement red lips. Thanks Lauren!

Vision

I'm definitely an artsy fartsy kinda gal. I love DIY craft tutorials, home-made gifts, hand-made birthday cards...you get the idea. I just love the personal touch!
I remember when I was quite young I stuck a picture of me and my friends on my wall and my dad told me to take it down because he didn't want the blue-tack to ruin the wall, so I did...and then sometime later snuck it back up. Then another picture appeared...and a couple of cinema tickets, then a poster, and gradually my walls were taken over by an explosion of colour! 

Please excuse the boxes, I was packing for Uni at the time

When I moved away for Uni I couldn't bring myself to take it all down, so it's still there to this day. However, when I moved into Halls of Residence I was horrified upon the first impression of my new room; I felt like I'd moved into a prison cell! So naturally I unleashed my art freak nature on it all :)

For my second and third year of Uni I moved out of Halls and into a lovely little shared house with a few friends, and during my second year in that same house I stared my third business. I feel truly blessed that I'm self employed, as a make-up artist, photographer, and entrepreneur of awesomeness I'm truly privileged to be able to work with some of my best friends and work on our vision and passions together. In business training we're encouraged and motivated so so much to focus on the positive and quite honestly it's changed my life! One of the pieces of advice I got from one of my business partners was to start a vision board, she said it would help me build my dreams and help me to achieve them.

This is my first vision board, I've started to collect images of things I'd like to attract in my life, and I add to it whenever I think of something new. From 'Graduating as a mua' to 'getting my first car', and 'swimming with dolphins', to 'my skin clearing up', gradually I can see them start to happen in my life!

If you don't already have your own vision board, I'd definitely recommend starting one! I keep mine at the end of my bed and it's such a lovely thing to wake up to: to open your eyes and have such positive thoughts to motivate you and start you off to a fantastic day.

Change your thoughts and you can change your world!

I'm staying at my parents house over the Christmas hols and rummaging through some of my childhood things, and I came across one of my old diaries. Reading letters from my 16 year old self is quite frankly making my skin crawl..I can't believe how dramatic, self absorbed, obsessive and whiny I was! For example:

Like most people, I've had my dark past. Growing up I had a lot of things to deal with both at home and at school, and I feel like I was a bit of an emotional tornado. I wore my heart on my sleeve and told everyone everything, I felt like I barely had a handle on my life and my brain was telling me "the more people you tell about your problems, the more advice you'll get and the more people will understand when you have a weird mood swing or an emotional breakdown". In reality all that did was allow people to walk all over me as they saw how vulnerable I was for not having a backbone, and also gave people something to talk about. In the long run it also meant I found it hard to trust people, and I spent a long long time feeling sorry for myself and blaming everyone around me for how I was feeling. Things went from bad to worse and I didn't know what I was doing, where I was going, who was on my side and who wasn't, and I kind of got a bit lost inside myself for a while.
I guess when you're in that dark place you're so overwhelmed with what's going on in your own head it's hard to see what's really going on around you and how you're coming across to other people.

I remember one day in particular I'd been pushed to my absolute limits. I was so angry I felt like I might do something stupid, I'd locked myself in the bathroom again so nobody could come near me, my hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms, heart beating so hard and fast it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest, teeth gritted so firmly together I was starting to get a headache...and suddenly a quote popped into my head which I'd read a couple of days before...

I thought to myself (being the dramatic teenager I was at the time), "Well everything is the opposite of alright at the minute!!" I didn't get it at first but as I calmed down I thought about it more, 16 is still so young, Id barely started my life and yet I thought it was all over! I took a long hard look at myself in the mirror, decided to get over myself, start being grateful for what I do have, and start changing my negative thoughts for positive ones.
I don't remember much of what happened later that day but I've just found this entry in my old diary:

I used to wish my future self would shake me by the shoulders and tell me what I was doing wrong so I could fix it, but I'm glad I went through all the negativity and came out the other side, because it's made me the optimistic happy person I am today. I've recently learned about the Law of Attraction, and I can see now that the reason I was so miserable was because I was looking for things to go wrong! Nobody else can tell you to change your thoughts, it's a decision you have to make by yourself, but the more positivity you look for, the more you find!

Once I decided I wasn't doomed forever, I discovered I was actually a better person than I thought I was! I'm currently running 3 businesses alongside Uni, one of which I'm in partnership with my best friends, in a long term relationship with one of my best friends, I build my vision and work on my self development daily, and I'm working towards a future of financial freedom, fun, and awesomeness for myself, my family, and my friends!

I hope that if you can relate to what I've been through, you can feel inspired by the changes I made and how it's changed my life. Finding cheesy quotes to cheer me up definitely helped! So I've included a few of my favourites below to make you smile :)

Who am I?

Nice to 'meet' you!

Considering I'm starting a new blog I thought I should probably introduce myself and give you a bit of an explanation!
My name is Katy, I'm a 21 year young art student and I live in a shared house with three lovely girls in Somerset, England. My parents, younger sister (who is often mistaken for my twin), and boyfriend of three years all live on the South West coast of England, and I often travel between the two with three businesses, and a thirst for creative craziness!



When I was younger I had lots of imaginative ideas of what I wanted to do when I grew up: In primary school my friend and I planned to open a bakery where we could paint art and bake delicious cakes to sell together, but we gradually drifted apart and so did our dreams. When I moved to secondary school I made new plans with a new friend: we dreamed of opening our own bridal shop designing dresses and helping brides create their perfect wedding. Somewhere in my parents house I have a notebook full of sketches of dresses I'd liked or designed myself. Again, my friend and I grew apart and our future plans did too.

I landed my first real job by chance I guess! I was taking product design for my GCSE's, and we had a guest teacher come in to talk to us about textiles. I decided I wanted to make a 50s style shirt dress, so I asked her for advice and she invited me up to the bridal shop she owned so she could teach me a few tricks of the trade. Over the next few weeks I went back to her for support and advice, and at the end of my project she offered me my dream job! Admittedly I wasn't designing the dresses myself, but at only 15 I had the chance to help brides find their perfect dress and feel their most beautiful on one of the best days of their lives! How awesome! 

Messing around backstage at a wedding show with Ash

We had a whirlwind adventure, exhibiting in wedding shows and catwalks, I got to help backstage as well as model for a few shoots myself (although, I was so tiny my boss had to hire in dresses tiny enough for me to wear!). For two and a half years there I had many happy memories and lots of stories to tell, but in the end I decided as much as I loved it, it wasn't something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

It was during my time working at the bridal shop that I got given my first camera. It was a little blue Lumix and I carried it everywhere I went, I got nicknamed "shutterbug" within my group of friends because I took pictures of everything! I used to spend hours playing with make-up in the evenings and do little photo-shoots late into the night when everyone had gone to bed, and I had so much fun that I ended up taking A-Level photography and using make-up in my final project!

One of my late night creations

For my final project I had to take a picture of myself every day, and convey each one creatively different by portraying my emotions of that particular day. Throughout the weeks I learned a lot about myself, but the most important thing for me was that I finally knew what I wanted to do with my life.

This picture was the turning point for me, the lioness style hair and the leopard spots represent the fact I was feeling wild and courageous by stepping out of my comfort zone with a big choice, and the white tones added in were to signify that I was also calm with my decision and to represent a new chapter in my life.



So, over the next few months I applied to different colleges and Uni courses, and I was accepted onto Somerset College's FdA Media Makeup course! I spent the next two years learning an array of make-up and hairstyling techniques for film, stage and TV, and after graduating two months ago I'm currently in my third and final year of the college on the BA Media Make-up top-up course. I freelance alongside Uni doing both make-up and photography for weddings, photo-shoots, proms and more, and I love love love my life!

On top of that, this summer I started a new business adventure with a good friend of mine who is now my business parter. I can't go into too much detail now but it's given me the chance to dream big and fulfil my hopes and dreams and help my friends do the same thing, so when I finish Uni I'll be able to do all three alongside each other as they all fit hand in hand, I'm so excited!

Louise, myself and Lizzy, just some of our fantabulous team!

So I hope that's given you an insight into who I am and what I do, it's been lovely sharing my blast from the past with you, and I wish you a happy rest of the week wherever you are :)

Welcome!

I'd just like to give you a warm welcome to the beginnings of my creative colourful beautiful blog!

Recently I’ve stumbled across some amazing things and amazing people which have made me reconsider who I am and the path I’m heading in my life. I’ve decided to step out of my comfort zone and make some big changes in my life. Why walk along a narrow path when you can fly with the birds and the butterflies? This is the start of my journey to becoming who I want to be.

My aim is to be the best version of myself I can be, do what I love, and make people smile along the way. Here’s to the start of a beautiful adventure.