Monday 30 October 2017

A TRIP TO COPENHAGEN

Last year I went on holiday with my mum and two big sisters. We'd been talking about going on a Tweedie trip for YEARS, but life always seemed to get in the way, until FINALLY the stars aligned, and we managed to find a date/time/place that suited.

A weekend in Copenhagen

We decided to head to Copenhagen, Denmark's super cool capital city, for a weekend of exploring, eating, and instagramming the world's happiest city.

WHERE WE STAYED

Where to stay in Copenhagen

We stayed in the super-cool luxury hotel Skt. Petri (thanks mum!). They market themselves as a destination of laidback luxury, and it was beautiful, with a stylish (but expensive!) bar, design-led rooms, an amazing courtyard garden (perfect for drinking gin and soaking up the sun after a long day of touristin'), and nice little touches everywhere - check out their Kanye door hangers.

Skt. Petri is right in the heart of Copenhagen, with loads of cafes, bars and shops nearby, so it's really easy to walk everywhere. We were only there for a long weekend so were keen to try and pack as much as possible in, but also wanted time to chill, so it was great being in a location we could easily pop back to.

There was a little issue around check-in (we'd booked with an external provider which had caused an error on their system), and staff were initially pretty unsympathetic - not the best start to the trip! But eventually it was sorted, and our hotel grumpiness was worn away (the very lovely hotel gin definitely helped with this).

WHAT WE DID

What to do in Copenhagen

Copenhagen is such a cool city, packed with beautiful architecture, gorgeous views and amazing tiny indie design shops (I wanted everything), so it was perfect to ramble around in the sunshine.

My family all seem to love boats (me, not so much) so we started out with a canal boat trip - it was freezing, but it was a good way to get our bearings and be mildly terrorised as we sailed under teeny low bridges (which threatened to behead the annoying tourists who refused to listen to our nice guide telling them to sit down!).

Over the weekend we packed in a visit to the National Museum (is it bad that the main thing I remember is how nice the museum cafe was?), a trip to the Royal Stables at Christiansborg Palace (really interesting AND full of beautiful royal horses!), we explored the Round Tower (the oldest functioning observatory in Europe and home to quite a creepy attic!), climbed the Church of Our Saviour's spiral tower (I'm good with heights, but the last 150 steps are on the OUTSIDE of the spire which WOBBLES and it's all a bit much), and had a really fun time at Tivoli Gardens, the second oldest amusement park in the world!

We also hired bikes and cycled around town, explored some lovely parks, and read our books in the sunshine. Bliss!

WHAT WE ATE

Best restaurants in Copenhagen

One of my sisters can't eat gluten, which meant we had to be a bit picky about where to eat, but luckily Copenhagen is pretty gluten-free friendly!

We had really great salads and almond milk coffee in 42Raw, and then went back to the same street the next day to try out Palaeo, a mega hipster, mega healthy, and (luckily) mega tasty primal gastronomy restaurant.

To balance out all the goodness we'd been consuming, we also managed a trip to Copenhagen's Bastard Cafe - a really fun board game cafe, where we discovered my mum is EXCELLENT at playing Exploding Kittens and was able to swiftly destroy us all, much to our horror. We had cheese nachos (although I don't know how I missed their Big Bastard Toast Of Doom which I obviously would have picked for the name alone).

On our last night we had an amazing meal at Tight, a gorgeous quirky restaurant, housed in an old building with stone walls, wood beams, and cute twinkly ambient lights. Everything they cook is made in house with local in season produce and it was delicious (as was the wine!).

SUCH a fun trip - I feel like we packed in loads, but there is so much more to see (and eat!) and I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Thursday 26 October 2017

HOW TO: HALLOWEEN MAKEUP USING EVERYDAY PRODUCTS

Halloween's coming! It's one of my favourite times of year because I am such a sucker for dressing up and using any excuse to pretend I can do fancy dress make up.

Last year was a Halloween dream! I was in Florida with my best pal and we went to Universal Studio's Halloween Horror Nights (which was genuinely terrifying, but really fun and definitely helped by tequila!). This year, for the first time in ages, I have no party plans, although I am planning to terrify myself by watching The Shining on the big screen at Filmhouse - maybe I need to dig out a pinafore, so I can come to work dressed as Wendy?

Anyway, as I'm not getting the chance to properly dress up this year, I thought I'd embrace #throwbackthursday and share some of my previous Halloween how to's! As ever, let me stress, I obviously am an amateur! This is just a guide to how you can do super easy Halloween looks using products you are very likely to have in your make up bag already. If I can do it, you definitely can.

Cute?

Easy cute Halloween makeup tutorials
Want to dress up, but keep it cute?


Creepy?

Easy scary Halloween makeup tutorials
Think Halloween needs to be creepy?
Spooky face makeup | Bloody zip face makeup | Bloody staple face makeup


Aaand, just in case you don't have an excuse to dress up, but still want to mark the occasion...

Tasty? 

Halloween baking tutorials
Definitely more tasty than makeup


You can see the full list of my Halloween tutorials here! 

Monday 23 October 2017

BUFF NAILS, EDINBURGH

I used to think I was doomed forever to have short nails. I was a tomboy growing up, and then spent a huge amount of my teenage years on a farm, so they were always short and scruffy. Even when I got into nail art, they were still short and a bit terrible, although I tried my best with what I had. It clearly didn't work though - sorting out blog comments recently I saw one on an old nail art tutorial that just said - 'this is terrible! why would you share this?'. Er, indeed.

I was clearly in need of a bit of a miracle, so enter Edinburgh indie salon Buff nails, who have come to my rescue and made my dreams of taloned nails come true!

Waverley Arches Edinburgh

Buff Nails Edinburgh
Photo by @buffcsvanda on insta
Buff is based in The Arches at New Waverley, a super cool street of renovated Victorian arches, that also houses a donuterie, a juice bar, coffee shops, cool bars, a make up studio and other hipster delights. Buff is a design-led nail workshop, that aims to offer an innovative manicure experience. The space is lovely, it's quite industrial and quirky, and fits their super-cool but super-nice Scandi vibe perfectly.

I first started going a year ago, when I was in need of some serious treat yo' self times and haven't looked back. I'd never had shellac on my nails before and was weirdly well nervous about it (imagining that it would all flake off, or they'd get really damaged, or it would be a nightmare to remove), but no. It turns out that shellac is exactly what I've been missing my whole life, and my nails are stronger and longer than ever. I reckon it's partly down to the fact that it lasts for ages - I get three weeks of chip-free shiny polish now, whereas before I was painting my nails all the time, which must have dried them out pretty badly.

Buff nails Edinburgh review

Buff have a good rep for custom nail art designs, so on top of getting a manicure (which costs £30) you can add on custom art for only £5 extra! I have fully taken advantage of this and they are so nice and willing to accommodate your requests (even when they are obviously going to take an age).

It's hard to choose, but I think my favourite nails were my pastel ombre rainbow nails (thanks to the very patient @buffcshelen!), followed by the custom edfilmfest nails they painted for the festival's programme launch. Over the last year I've had holographic nails, chrome nails, polka dots, pastel fades, geometric shapes, you name it - the hardest part is choosing what to get, knowing how long it will last!

I'm totally hooked. I feel so much more put together with a glossy manicure, it's the only beauty treatment I get regularly and I love it.

You can check out more of Buff's work on twitter, insta and facebook, and (hooray) book appointments online.

Sunday 22 October 2017

GUESS WHO'S BACK?

Hi! It's me! Again. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Top - Primark
Skirt - ASOS
Shoes - New Look from ASOS
I didn't intend to take an ENTIRE YEAR off blogging, but here we are. I had a whole heap of stuff to work out, which meant for a good few months last year, I took the pressure off in as many areas of my life as possible. I watched loads of terrible tv (now completely hooked on all things Kardashian), I read the trashiest books (come at me, Outlander), and I spent the majority of my non-work time in pyjamas (which, to be fair, is still true now).

I learned that I needed a break, badly. When life kicks me hard, my survival instinct is to turn into a cosy hermit, and that is totally okay. And bit by bit, things improved. Life was fun again, and I went out, and I actually read a book that wasn't an over-the-top dreamy Scottish time travel romance, and I felt so much better. It was like I'd evolved through the drama, into a more confident, braver, more sure-of-myself me. And I realised that if everything crashed down again at some point in the future, I'd be okay. And that is the BEST FEELING EVER. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you seek out a big life crisis to get there, but the cliches are true, you weather the storm.

Look ma, I'm writing again!
So, back to blogging! I'm not sure if blogging is still such a thing, and I know I'm never going to compete with the super-cool gals that are out there, but I like it, I miss it, and I hope there's still interest in my scruffy round the edges approach to lifestyle blogger-ing.

Last time I was trying this properly I just burned myself out, by setting myself intense schedules, and saying yes to every opportunity, and not thinking about how my work-deadlines and self-imposed blog-deadlines would clash and cause furious frazzlement. This time I've got to pace myself! So as of tomorrow (Monday 23rd October) I''m going to post once a week, and maaaaybe twice if something super exciting happens? No promises though.

Thanks (again) if you've stuck with me, and hello to you if you're new here! I'm going to stick to my usual formula of writing about fun things (doing them, having them, wanting them), and I hope you enjoy. We've got to make time for the daft distractions in this intense, pre-apocalyptic time we live in. See you soon!