The Vamps & Windy Selfies

 

Back in 2010, Taylor Swift released a song called "Today Was a Fairytale" as a single from the soundtrack for the film Valentine's Day. It wasn't included in any of her albums so nobody knew if it was going to be in the setlist for her upcoming tour. When she discussed the idea with her band, her banjo player Mike Meadows suggested that they should "only play it if that day actually was a fairytale." (x) So shall we do the same with Weekstagram?

All you need to know about this week is that The Vamps are awesome live and you should go a) check them out b) see them live if you have the chance. And that we suck at taking selfies when it's windy.

 Have a nice last week of May

and best of luck if you've got your finals coming up.

Tania x

"Love Letters to the Dead" by Ava Dellaira

 

In a nutshell

After losing her older sister May, Laurel transfers to another high school so that nobody knows her story. She's asked to write a letter to a dead person as an assignment for her English class, for which she chooses Kurt Cobain as it's someone she and her sister both loved. She never turns her letter in, though, but soon enough she's got a notebook full of them. This amazing novel is made up of little letters to the dead people that are listening to Laurel's story: from her first love -and heartbreak- and the struggles that come with being a teenager to her messed up family and how the person she looked up to the most may not have been living the perfect life she thought she was.

Thoughts (5/5*)

Touching. Brilliant. Wonderful. A "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" kind of wonderful, which I loved as a freshman myself at university. If you're a Young Adult reader you will know how frustrating it is to come across a good story with frustrating, childish characters as protagonists. I think it's so easy to cross that line when you're writing from the perspective of a teenager when you're no longer one yourself, but our protagonist, Laurel, is so smart and so interesting. She's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, dealing with her sister's death, a messed up family and her own thoughts and memories while living life as a young teen who's just starting high school and all that comes with that, which is not easy to begin with.

The main topic, dealing with grief, is a tricky one. I recently read a book with very similar starting points (little sister trying to be like her passed older sister) and it failed completely at making me feel sorry or sad or even understanding the protagonist's actions. It's the complete opposite with Love Letters. In the end I couldn't dislike any of the characters even if, I admit, I kind of wanted to. I truly loved it - and it made me tear up on a crowded bus!

For more literature related adventures, follow me on Goodreads!

Tania x

Bittersweet & Red

 (I really have been an Instagram junkie this week, huh?...)

Another week over and this bittersweet feeling keeps growing and growing. Happy things first, I had a great weekend watching The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with a friend (it is, indeed, very amazing and I really want Gwen Stacey's closet and hair and makeup, please and thank you) and meeting up with a couple of other friends to study for our Italian final, which basically ended up becoming a massive gossip session and  The Wanted sing-along. That was fuuuunnnnnn.

On the other side, my thoughts have been all over the place this week. I feel like the Universe is pushing me and testing my patience and I just want to scream my lungs out about 70% of the time I'm awake. I guess that the fact that we have our first finals coming up next week isn't helping much. And neither is listening to all of Taylor Swift's albums on repeat. (Note: at some point this week I actually described my current situation as my "emotional funeral". So there.) 

I've been loving...

 Music

Taylor Swift - Red ♪

"Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words 

to your old favourite song." 

Beauty

17 Smoulder Gel Eyeliner 

 Rimmel Lasting Finish Matte lipstick by Kate Moss - 104

(a rediscovered old favourite!)

Film

(Isn't it obvious...?) 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2!!

So that's what I've been doing and enjoying this crazy week.

Let's see how I get through the next one!

Tania x

Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin | Soundtracking

Style Crush: Bethany Joy Lenz

Bette - Please ♪ (x)

Today I'm here to open up a new section on the blog: Style Crush! What we see in other people, whether we would wear it or not, always inspires us when it comes to our own style. That's why I wanted to share with you who are the women I look at and think, "Woah, I wish I could pull that off... wait, could I? Should I try?"

The first one is Bethany Joy Lenz. Does the name ring a bell? You may not know her because she's not on the cover of every magazine, but she's an American singer and actress - and a really good one, I must add. She is best known for her portrayal of Haley James in the TV show One Tree Hill (2003 - 2012), but she's been on her fair share of tv shows and theater productions.

Now let me make you wish you could steal her wardrobe...

I chose Joy as the first woman whose style I look up to because she's definitely the type of person that makes me wish I could pull off her clothes. Quite a long time ago she started a section on her own blog called Wardrobe Wednesday (x) and I would spend hours just going through the pictures and admiring her style. There is no way I could wear some of these items without making myself look like a homeless woman, but she always looks so vintage-y and put together and for that I am jealous.

I wanted to show you pictures from her day to day life as red carpet looks are not something that we normal humans get to wear that often. As a disclaimer, know that all of the pictures above belong to either Zooey Magazine or Joy herself as they've been taken from her own posts.

Catch Bethany Joy Lenz in E!'s new comedy Songbyrd, to premiere later this year. In the meantime, you can also visit her blog or download her new single Please. 

Whose wardrobe do you wish you could steal?

Tania x

Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin | Soundtracking

Family & 2nd Semester (and teachers that shouldn't be teachers)

Row 1:  1. Trip down the memory lane, playing hairdressers with mum a long, long time ago. 2. Dougie Poynter from McFly playing in Southend-on-Sea back in 2012 (first row!) 3. Heart shaped lollipop for the topic of the day, Blue. 4. A little plush of Marie from The Aristocats that my sister got me. Row 2: 1. Me and my dog, me me and my dog! 2. Quote from Ava Dellaira's young adult novel "Love Letters to the Dead".

This week has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. It started out with me feeling completely exhausted, which made me skip a couple of classes (hey, it's May, these things happen) and then mid-week I just had a bit of a silly breakdown thanks to a teacher who, excuse my choice of words, made me feel like sh*t in class and basically screwed up what was being a very nice day for me. Once again. So cheers, teacher. Now I would say I can't wait for this term to be over but that would not be entirely true. I do want to stop attending certain classes and stop seeing certain people, obviously, as going to uni to feel humiliated is not something that I enjoy, but on the other side I'm having so much fun this semester and it's an era that's going to be hard for me to let go. Am I being overly dramatic? Probably. I have actually written a post that's somehow related to that, although I'm not sure it will ever go public as I'm still trying to decide if it crosses the "too personal" line of things that I can/want to post on the blog.

 My weekend, however, was a nice, chilled one. My favourite kind. I spent most of the time with my parents, sister and dog and a day spent with my family (and a good book) is never a day wasted. We only got out of the house to go to the cinema and we laughed our faces off, so that was pretty great. My family is pretty damn great.

Here's what I've been enjoying this week:

Music

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Cowboy Boots ♪

"And we hold onto these nights,

trying to find our way home by the street light.

Over time we figure out this is me, right?

Learn a lot about your friends right around 2 am."

Beauty

Topshop lipstick "All About Me" 

Rimmel Lasting Finish lipstick by Kate Moss 01

 Rimmel Match Perfection concealer

Book

"Love Letters to the Dead" by Ava Dellaira

What did you do (and enjoy) this week?

Hope it was a nice one!

Tania x

Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin | Soundtracking

May Wishlist

So it's already day 6 - time really does fly! I wanted to post my wishlist earlier in the month but I wanted to let you know about the #photoamay challenge and create my first Weekstagram post, so this one has had to sit on my drafts for quite a few days.

Here's what I'm hoping to get my hands on this month!

Coral Plain T-Shirt Dress

My youngest cousin's baptism is coming up and I may or may not be going (still need to know if I'm going to be in town that day!) so I started looking for dresses and I found out that apparently I'm very keen on the t-shirt dress trend. It does not necessarily have to be this one from Miss Selfridge, although I really do think it's the cutest thing ever!

Sleek Face Form

While I've been using makeup for a long time now, I'm still a newbie when it comes to bronzing, contouring and highlighting. I've been looking for a simple palette containing the basics and I think it'd be cool to start out using this one from Sleek as it's very affordable and I won't regret buying it if it ends up getting forgotten about in my drawers. Which, let's face it, will probably happen.

Sleek Blush by 3 in "Lace"

Another Sleek best seller! When it comes to blushers all I own are pinks and darker shades which don't really look too appealing for summer now that the sun's coming out, so I think this blush palette might be exactly what my collection is missing!

Earcuff

Okay. FBloggers. BBloggers. LBloggers. Bloggers in general and other people stopping by. Where on Earth can I find earcuffs?! I've been looking everywhere for them and I have not seen any and I am so so so in love with the earcuff trend. I need one in my life. Please send your secret info my way. 

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion

I've seen bloggers complaining about it recently but my mum got me a sample when purchasing the Naked palette and I honestly love it. It keeps *most of* my eyeshadows in place (especially those by Sleek, MaxFactor and obviously UD) for the longest time without creasing or any signs of fading away. Now that it's nearly running out I really would like to get the bigger size, which I saw in stores but can't seem to find online to link it!

Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet

See, every single morning on my way to uni I walk by a drugstore that always has the prettiest stuff on the shelves that can be seen from outside. And I obviously always find myself staring at everything like a fool. I kept seeing these liquid lipsticks every day and I am now obsessed with them and cannot wait to try them - I don't even care about the shade!

So that's it for May! (More than enough considering that I'm supposed to be saving up for adventures and exciting things going on this summer! lol)

What are you planning to buy? 

Any of these things? :)

Tania x

GNO & Shopping

One of the main reasons I joined the #photoamay challenge was that I hardly use instagram. If you check out my page, you'll see that while it's not absolutely dead I can go days and days without even using the app. In order for that to change, I decided to start doing some kind of lifestyle-y posts on my blog including my Instagrams of the week and a little bit of an update on what I've been doing (not that anyone cares anyway lol).

So here's this week's snaps!

 After a long three-day week (the irony) my friends and I decided to meet up downtown for drinks at an Irish bar called The Payno The George Payne. Sadly it was too crowded so we went to Ryan's Pub and, to sum it all up, we ended up making up ridiculous sentences about each other (drinking games, wehey!) and singing Backstreet Boys, Jonas Brothers and One Direction. Duh. Afterwards we went to a club and, as you may now if you read my quiet life post (x) I'm not too keen on the party scene so I really didn't enjoy that as much, but overall it was a great night and definitely one of the highlights of my week.

Another cool thing about this week was having a girls day with mum and sister and just going shopping and spending the day at the mall. I purchased a couple of items I'm not sure I'm ever going to wear but hey, I love them. I didn't think I was ever going to wear patterned tights either and here we are. Also, my little sister got me a little plush of Marie from The Aristocats, which is one my favourite Disney characters and films ever, so that's definitely worth a mention.

As for today, I'm having the laziest Sunday so far, sitting outside and reading "This Is A Love Story" by Jessica Thompson - although I will have to drag myself to my desk and start revising some time soon!

Song of the week

 Ariana Grande & Iggy Azalea - Problem ♪

Makeup product of the week:  

Makeup Revolution Lip Lacquer "Keep Lying For You"

Book of the week:

"Wild Awake" by Hilary T. Smith

What are some of the highlights of your week?

I really do hope it was lovely. :)

Tania x

Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin | Soundtracking

Instagram Challenge: #photoamay

Good evening, ladies!

This is just a simple little post to talk about a photo-a-day challenge I will be taking part in during the month of May. The lovely Hannah from Cosmetic Crave came up with it and it's self-explanatory really: each day you'll have to instagram a picture following the topic of the day. 

I will be trying my best to post pics every day, although chances are I'm probably going to skip a few, especially given that it's finals season and my inspiration tank tends to run low at this time of the year (great timing, huh?) . Anyway, it sounds like such a fun and entertaining idea so don't hesitate to join in - and remember to use the hashtag #photoamay if you decide to do so :) 

The topic for today was Fresh Start so I chose one of my favourite song lyrics as my first post, which is from Taylor Swift's Innocent (x).

What would your take on fresh starts be? 

Join in and share your interpretation with the rest of us!

You can follow me on Instagram to check out my daily posts :)

Tania x

Twitter | *Personal Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin

*Personal Twitter as it is where I usually post direct links to my pictures on Instagram.