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VIDEO: Finish 15 in 2015 Project Pan Update #1

Hi Everyone!

Can you believe that we are 1/4 of the way through the year!?! Neither can I!

So, for those of you who have been wondering how I've been getting on with my Finish 15 in 2015 Project Pan, I thought this would be the perfect time to film my 1st update.

The Products:
1. Elizabeth Arden Tinted Lip Balm ✓
2. GOSH Eyeliner
3. B. Finishing Powder in Medium
4. Urban Decay Primer Potion
5.Urban Decay Mini Lipgloss in Naked
6. Top Shade from the No.7 Trio in Good Earth
7. Maybelline Brow Drama in Dark Brown
8. Nars Brow Sculpt in Kalamata
9. Estee Lauder Disappear Smoothing Creme Concealer in 02-Light
10. Garnier BB Cream
11. Rimmel Bronzing Powder in Light Matte
12. Urban Decay Perversion Mascara
13. Urban Decay Half Baked from the Vegan palette (aiming to hit pan)
14. Maybelline Colour Tattoo in Pink Gold (aiming to hit pan)
15. Nars Orgasm Blusher from the Foreplay Palette (aiming to hit pan)

Are you doing a Project Pan?

What are some of the products you'd like to finish up?

Tania Xx

#BLFW Thursday 26th March 2015

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to share with you my experiences of this season's Bloggers Love Hub #BLFW. I shared with you my experiences of the Gossip Girl Gifting Event in this vlog. It did't go to plan & I know a number of people were hurt & upset by this & some of the events that followed. Including one of my very good friends.

I originally thought that the Gossip Girl event would be my last for a while as I will begin to come off my medication on Tuesday. So when I got the email about the two main events & noticed that one coincided with my hospital appointment in London I decided to make the most of the train fare & go along.

I knew these two events had a lot riding on them to restore people's faith in the Bloggers Love brand & I have to say, they didn't disappoint!

Please don't judge my photography - I'd had 31 injections in my head, 3 of these in each shoulder so I wasn't brilliant at holding the camera steady!

I met up with Beth from Cow Heart Girl - I'd seen on Twitter that it was her first blogging event & suggested meeting up. It's always nice to meet another individual illness sufferer & Beth was so lovely! I've definitely made myself a new friend!

As we entered the first part of the studio there were some yummy looking sweets & though I couldn't partake because of my allergies, they were a nice touch to come in to.

The first brand Beth & I spoke to were Magnitone. We had both spoken to their beauty expert, Gina Akers on Twitter earlier that day & were very excited to find out more about the brand.

Gina gave us a brilliant demonstration of how intense a clean the brush achieves with the use of long wearing makeup & a normal cleanser in conjunction with the brush. I was very surprised by how soft the bristles were - I'd never imagined that something that removes so much dirt could be so soft!

You can really see how much dirt the brush has picked up!

From here we moved on to skincare brand Exuviance. I have to give an extra special mention to these lovely ladies, who not only gifted me one of their Gentle Cleansing Cremes, but were so patient & understanding of my need to read ingredients. I'm looking forward to trying this cleanser & reporting back to you!

We bumped in to Aneela from Little Li at the Comb stand & she told us all about the brand. If you haven't heard of them, Comb is an app where you can take a photo of something you love, be it a pattern, colour, etc. You upload it to Comb & can then search for a specific item of clothing (a skirt for example) with that feature & purchase it through the app.

Comb had a sefie stick for us to take photos with & they printed out polaroids for us all! I've loved the idea of having a polaroid camera ever since I first saw one. The drawback to them is that if you take a naff photo you've lost some expensive film! I'll definitely be looking in to getting one of the printers - being able to take a pic, view it & then print it out - who wouldn't!

We went over to lip care brand #LipGlam who had some amazing looking lip balms to show us. Aneela had already told us great things about them, so we were really excited to learn more!

I've put the lip balm on whilst writing this post as my lips were feeling awfully dry & so far I'm very impressed! Keep your eyes peeled for a full review!

Lingerie brand edge o' beyond had some stunning items to show us! They were expensive, but you get what you pay for with these garments in the quality & luxury of each piece.

We had a nice chat with the lovely people from Mink&Stone, who showed us their ingenious website for designing your own jewellery! You choose the item you want (necklace, bracelet, etc.), choose the materials you want (wood, crystal, beads, etc.) & then design! Your finished product is then shipped to you.

Beth had a go at designing a necklace.

We headed next to accessories brand Snoody Do, who had some beautiful winter hats, gloves & scarves to show us.

This hat was my favourite piece & Beth loved the mittens!

I then met fellow Essex beauty, Jess. Jess is the owner of fashion brand Masquerade Girl, a brand she created when struggling to find something to wear on a night out. Most of Jess' pieces are bandeaux, slimming the figure beautifully. All embellishments are hand sewn by Jess herself & she can custom make to a client's specific taste. As well as occasion wear, Jess has branched out into everyday clothing & is recently begun working with swimwear.

Unfortunately I had missed the first fashion show as I didn't know where it was, but I managed to stumble upon it in time to see Kryptik Rose showcasing their S/S15 collection.

I bumped in to YouTuber Rhianne, who was working as one of the official event YouTubers, earlier in the evening. We had met at the end of the Gossip Girl event & it was great to catch up! I enjoyed snapping some pics of her on the sly!

I didn't take any pictures of the Umberto Giannini stand unfortunately, as I was becoming fatigued (sorry UG!). So I'll describe it to you instead! To the left was a table with a display of their Curl Friends Create A Curl Scrunching Jelly, which I believe is new. To the right was a pop up hair consultation, where bloggers could ask questions about hair styling & get their hair done. I spoke to the lovely lady on the display table, as I didn't want anyone going near my hair just after having my Botox treatment. She loved my hair & was kind enough to give me 2(!) of the jelly's to try. It was perfect timing as I'm looking for a good styling product. Really excited to give these a go!

Then there was the cat! I first noticed him (pretty sure it was a Tom cat because of the shape of his head) whilst I was talking to Jess. He was wandering round quite happily & no one seemed to know anything about him! If you know his story please let me know!

I hope you liked my overview of Thursday's #BLFW!

Did you attend either of the #BLFW events?

What were your favourite parts?

Tania Xx

VIDEO: An Exciting & Life Changing Announcement

Hi Everyone!

I've some really exciting news that I wanted to share with you! It's exciting & scary as I'm going to have to come off a lot of my medications. I will do my best during this process to keep to my blogging & vlogging schedule, but can't make any promises, which I know you will understand!

Here is my schedule for reducing my Sodium Valproate (Epilim)

AM PM

Week 1 & 2: 700mg 900mg

Week 3 & 4: 700mg 700mg

Week 5 & 6: 500mg 700mg

Week 7 & 8: 500mg 500mg

Week 9 & 10: 200mg 500mg

Week 11 & 12: 200mg 200mg

Week 13 & 14: - 200mg

Week 15 & 16: - -

At this point I will see my neurologist for my next course of Botox & to work out how we are going to reduce my Gabapentin.

Tania Xx

Center Parcs Day 4: Just Keep Swimming!

Hi Everyone!

We mixed things up a bit on our last day at Center Parcs (see Day 1, Day 2 & Day 3 if you’ve missed them). We still followed our formula of swim, eat & nap (I think Dan planned the napping in for me!), but this time we chose a different pattern…

We decided we wanted to go to the the Subtropical Swimming Paradise during the evening, so had booked an early dinner at Huck’s (5pm). We had an early lunch, before heading off for our first swim of the day.

We retired to our apartment for a nap, then headed out for dinner.

My 4th OOTN:

Top: Primark, from more than a year ago

Scarf: Dorothy Perkins, last winter

Skirt: Primark, £8

Tights: Primark 300 Denier

Shoes: TKMaxx, purchased a year ago

The pool was wonderful in the evening! We were a little concerned about me being in water with the pool being lit up by coloured lights (I have Basilar Type Migraine that causes me to loose consciousness & am photosensitive). I did really well though & not only did I not loose consciousness/coordination/speech, my headache score (a scale between 0-10 with 0 being no pain to 10 being most pain ever experienced) didn’t increase!

We headed back to our apartment after about 2 hours.

Though we didn’t have to be out of our apartment until 10am the next morning, we got up, packed the car & left by 9am. You do have the option to make use of the activities, including pool, for the entirety of your departure day, we decided to head home.

We had an absolutely fantastic time at the Longleaf Center Parcs. Staff were helpful & friendly & we really couldn’t have asked for more! We will definitely be returning! I am planning a post with some pics of the pool once the film has been developed & want to write a post on our favourite eatery - Huck’s. Keep your eyes out for those!

Have you been to Center Parcs before? Which one?

Tania Xx

Labels: Fashion, Life

VIDEO: Finish 6 By Summer - Project Pan

Hi Everyone!

I've been really enjoying making progress on my 'Finish 15 in 2015' items, but wanted to also do a seasonal project to work through some of the categories where I own a lot of products that have a shorter shelf life - namely lips & nails.

I decided to pick 2 products for each of these 2 categories, then also add in a couple of cream based products to give a little variety.

Go ahead & watch the video. I've also listed the products & a little information about them down below.

The products:

Rimmel Soft Cream Blush in Baby Pink

I've never seen these being sold in stores - my Mother-in-Law was given it & felt it was too young for her so passed it along to me. I really like this blusher, the shade is beautiful! One of the reasons I chose this over some of my other cream blushers is that the shade is perfect for spring! Another reason is that the lid has become loose & now opens at will, so I can't travel with it. I get frustrated with broken packaging, even when I've got more than enough other products I can travel with!

Daniel Sandler Long Lasting Waterproof Eyeliner in Blue Velvet

I have a review on this product, which you can view here. As I explain in this review, the product has a tendency to break. I was reviewing it at the height of summer & Daniel Sandler's people told me it should stop doing this as the weather cools. Not really what I'd expect - to me the 'Long Lasting Waterproof' part of the name would lead me to believe that it would be perfect for the summer & holidays to hot countries. I have another blue liner that I prefer, so I figured I'd try & make some substantial progress on this one before the weather

gets too hot!

Chilli Pepper Nail Polish

Another product passed on to me by my Mother-in-Law. She didn't feel the colour suited her. To be honest, this one has sat in my draw unused as I have so many nail polishes! With it's colour, I thought it would be a perfect choice to bring out for the spring months. Unfortunately there is no indication as to the shade name or number.

17 Lasting Fix Nail Polish in Royal Rose
I have had this polish for many, many years. It's a beautiful shade & I thought I'd be better off starting to working through my older polishes first.

No. 7 Perfect Lips Pencil in 20 Nude
I've a lot of lip products, but have only recently started to get into lip liners. I've had this one for a while though & think it's high time I used it up.

Dior Addict High Shine Lipstick in 222 Casual Beige
I've been informed by a Dior employee that this lipstick is no longer being made. It's a lovely nude shade that goes brilliantly with the No.7 lip liner I've also chosen for this project. I've used up quite a bit of this lipstick & really want to finish it before it goes off (though I don't think that'd be any time soon ) to get my money's worth.

While I can only see myself finishing the lipstick, I'm going to take this opportunity to really make some progress on the items I've chosen.

Excited to see how I get on? You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to get all my Project Pan updates as well as many more videos!

What 6 items would you choose to finish by summer?

Tania Xx

Center Parcs Day 3: Starbucks & A Selfie

Hi Everyone!

Our third day at Center Parcs was a slower one (find out what we got up to on Day 1 & Day 2). We started out in the pool but left early as Dan was experiencing stomach pains. While Dan spent the rest of the morning in the apartment, I ventured out to take some pics of the inside of the Plaza as it was fantastic!

WARNING: Lots of pics!

After we’d had lunch, we ventured out to the plaza to have a Starbucks & sit on one of the little islands surrounded by fish. It was one of the things I got excited about - it’s the little things that please me!