Top Tips for Organising a Hen Do!

 This summer I organised a hen do for one of my gal pals. I have been to many a hen do but this was the first time I organised one! We ended up having a weekend away at a beautiful lodge with a hot tub and we spent the day at a spa. It was perfect and everyone had a fabulous time! However being the organiser was an eye opener! It made me realise some people are pure bonkers, I am waaay to polite and people love sharing their opinion.... so I thought it would be fun to share a few tips, words of wisdom if you will, for anyone who may have the pleasure of organising a hen do themselves sometime soon....

• find out what the brides dream hen do entails, if there was something she hates or something she has always wanted mow is the time to find out! I was told no willies from the start!

• Its not about you! Put your perfect weekend/night out into your back pocket and leave it there. Its all about the beautiful bride!

• Its the little things – I surprised the bride with a personalised ‘bride to be’ dressing gown and slippers at the spa and a got her a customised ‘mrs..... to be’ pj set! She loved it and those touches made it seem a lot more special.

• find out if there are any ‘tricky’ invitees. If they are all your mates and you know them well then you are very jammy! I had to deal with friends and family I had never met and who deemed it appropriate to ring me at 6am to tell me they refused to share a room with certain people! Real story.

• know your hen party! I had to cater for mums and god mums and was warned blow up willies were a no no! My bride was also tee-total so going to a cocktail making class (as one of the other bridesmaid actually suggested!!!) was a no go!

• Sort out the money early on! For two reasons – you don’t want to be left out of pocket and you don’t want the cost for everyone else doubling! Work out a total cost early on and add a few pounds on to cover any extras. So everything was paid for a couple of months in advance and included everything! Trust me this will save you so much agro later on!

• Have a plan before contacting everyone. Giving options is a terrible mistake! People have an opinion on everything, no one will want to do the same thing and everyone will want a different price range. Give a plan and limited options! All for an easy life!

• Have a back up plan – make sure you have a few spare games to play if you need to fill any time up as well as make sure you have a back up plan for any activities just in case anything goes wrong!

• And finally the most important tip I can give you is to learn to smile and bite your tongue! You cant please everyone, just focus on making the bride happy!

Pretty in Pink // Bedside table upcycle

I love checking out upcycling projects on Pinterest and various blogs and I love a good crafting session, however I’ve never been brave enough to take on a piece of furniture and upcycle it myself. This is, until now!

My poor bedside table was purchased from B&Q about 8 years ago and has followed me round many numerous accommodations’ and as you can imagine was looking a little battered! The white paint on the top surface was peeling off and compared to my other pieces of furniture (its a giant mish mash of various pieces) it didn’t really fit anymore. So I decided to challenge myself and see what I could create, I figured it couldn’t look any worse than it already!

I’ve got a thing about the colour pink at the moment, after many years of being a tom boy I am finally embarrassing the colour and I love it! I’ve unconsciously been gaining more and more pink things for my bedroom and it now got a pink and grey theme happening. So I decided to fully embrace that and incorporate it into my cabinet. I therefore chose to go for a baby pink base with a marbled top.

To get the look, I decided spray paint would be a lot easier than actual paint, which I think is true but you may get a nicer Finnish with paint? Unsure on that one! I was patient, very unlike me I know and used a spray paint primer as a base. I did a couple of coats of this to make sure it was even. Once the primer was dry I then used the pink spray paint, and did three coats over all. I think finished it with a clear gloss top coat.

For the top I found some marble print laminate sticky paper in B&Q. I absolutely love this stuff and think it looks fab! It was quite easy to apply, you just need to make sure you squish all the air bubbles out!

I love the final look so much! On pay day my plan is to treat myself to a industrial style pink table lamp to Finnish off the look! What do you all think? Are you an upcycler?

20 Reasons Why I LOVE Autumn!

Source

1.       Halloween!! I love any excuse to dress up and party! I am currently prepping my little red riding hood outfit – think the grimms brothers rather than Hans Christian Anderson....

2.       Fireworks – one of my most favourite things ever! I love a good fireworks show, there’s something very magical about them!

3.       Log fires – cosy and romantic

4.       Candles – I love snuggle evenings with lots of candles lit around the room. There set such a relaxing mood.

5.       Lazy days

6.       Netflix- am I the only person who can’t do Netflix binges in the summer as I feel too guilty being inside on a nice day?! Although that all changes at this time of year!

7.       Autumn leaves, the colours of the trees are pretty spectacular

8.       Blankets and lots of them!

9.       Chai Lattés – forget hot chocolates this is what autumn is all about...

10.   Crisp air – its so fresh and energising

11.   Wrapping up warm

12.   Berry lips and Smokey eyes

13.   Pumpkins

14.   Fuzzy socks

15.   Wellies and long walks

16.   Thick winter pyjamas

17.   Cosying up with a good book

18.   Oversized jumpers

19.   Darker evenings

20.   CHRISTMAS IS ONLY WEEKS AWAY!!!!

Firstly, hello! Is anyone still out there? If so how are you? And boy have I missed you! I don't think I've properly blogged in over a year. I've tried dipping in and out in that time but nothing's really inspired me to keep at it. I love blogging so much but life has just massively got in the way and blogging always felt like a big commitment and as I couldn't commit to it as much as I liked I stopped. Which is silly really as blogging was always a good outlet for me and I shouldn't put so much pressure on myself about it.

Anyways, where have I been? Well let me start with where I am now. I  currently lying on a bed in Portugal on day 3 of a 10 day holiday feeling pretty sorry for myself. For the past 24 hours I've felt pretty rough. I've got a really horrible headache and keep getting dizzy spells and I feel exhausted. I think I'm just ill but I keep wondering if I've just burnt myself out lately and it's led to this. My anxiety is back with a vengeance too which I haven't experienced in a long while and I feel ridiculously low.

So what's led to this? Well I think a huge number of things. I genuinely can't remember the last time I had a weekend off, one where I could be lazy and do nothing. Life has beyond hectic, I have 3 jobs, there's been friends wedding, hen parties to organize, I care for my mum and I also work out on average 8 times a week. I've also started seeing someone I really like but it's long distance so I've been questioning that tons. My brain feels like it's going to implode. I am exhausted.

And all of this makes me laugh, as non of its things I don't want to do. However I feel like I'm working my backside off and still getting nowhere. I'm 30 and live in my parents loft. I'm skint, like ridiculously skint and I feel like I'm stuck. I'm at that age where all my friends are getting married, having babies and buying houses. Which is awesome but I'm nowhere near any of that. Which is not necessarily a bad thing but I'm also hugely aware that my life isn't moving forward.

So therefore I've arrived on holiday with my lovely friend and her son and I think it's hit me with an almighty whack. They've gone to the beach and I'm laying in bed feeling sorry for myself. I feel like I can't switch my brain off and that trying to stop and chill out is so unknown to my body that I'm
In this mess. I'm hoping a day of rest, naps and lots of water will do some magic and tomorrow I'll be as right as rain.

What a messy first blog post back in a while! I forgot how therapeutic getting my thoughts out into this little space on the Internet can be.

BOOK CLUB: The Book Swap!

So if you’re a regular here at Lipsticks and Lashes you will know I adore sending lovely things in the post and I am also a complete book worm! I can’t think of anything better than getting lost in a book, I adore it. This has also lead to piles of books filling my house!

Around this time last year here on ‘Lipsticks and Lashes’ I ran a book swap and had so much fun doing doing so that I thought I would do it again this year! This concept stemmed from the fact that I am always keen to find new books and authors that I will fall in love with and putting all of this together I had a bit of an idea! A rather glorious light bulb moment!

LET’S DO A BOOK SWAP!!

So here’s the plan... I will collect everyone’s info and I will then email you a person who you need to send two books too. I will try and match you to someone who has similar tastes, this may not work completely but I will try!

So TWO books – the first has to be one of YOUR favourite ever books, one you want to rave about and share! The second is to be one you think that person may enjoy and suits their tastes.

With me so far?

The two books should be ones you have at home and are just passing forward. If you spot a cool book in a charity shop you think your person may enjoy then that’s great too. I don’t want this swap to cost much money – ideally the only pennies spent should be on postage!

So want to join in?

Send an email to whatsinyourmakeupbag@gmail.com with the following info...

Name:

Address:

Favourite Book:

What genres do you like to read?

What authors do you love?

Are you happy to post internationally?

You have till the 29^th May to sign up, ill then email you who you’re going to be sending to... you won’t be receiving from the same person you’re saving to! 

The Bloggers Snail Mail Project - Sign Ups For The Spring Round NowOpen!

Welcome to the Spring round of The Bloggers Snail Mail!! Wahoo! I love this project so much and I’ve met so many awesome bloggers through this project and want it to continue in 2016 so spread the word, tell all your friends, let’s make this a round to remember! 

So here is how it works: A quarterly gift exchange where you can meet other bloggers from around the world and spread a bit of positivity! People get paired up in February, May, August and November. During the sign up period, every participant will be paired with one other new participant and you’ll spend a few weeks becoming BFFs (i.e. reading each other’s blogs, sending happy e-mails, you name it!). After that, you’ll send your partner a gift from your country that you think they may like from the info you now know about them. There’s a £5 limit on the gifts to make this project as affordable as possible. Be as creative as you can and make it meaningful! Motivate them, tell them all the beautiful things you learned about them, and make them feel special! We could all use a little encouragement, especially from our new friends. Also, each package should include a postcard (or a letter if you can’t find one!) with some motivating love or positive words of wisdom written all over it.

So to sign up for the ‘The Bloggers Snail Mail’ you just need to send an email to whatsinyourmakeupbag@gmail.com, title it ‘The Bloggers Snail Mail’ and include in it your name, where you are from, and your blog! Sign ups will be open until the Friday 29^th April. I will then randomly match you all up aiming to make sure you are with someone from another country or at least in another area from you! I will then let you know by Monday 2^nd May who your partner is and you then have 4 weeks to get to know them! So the week of the 30^th May, you can then send your new buddy their Snail Mail

Once you receive your gifts, write a blog post about your experience, sharing what you gave, received, and learnt through this being part of this and meeting your new pal.

If you want to tweet about this project, use the hashtag #TheBloggersSnailMail, You can also tag me @GemmaMarieJames and ill retweet your post, so everyone can share your experience!

Please only sign up if you definitely are willing to take part and if you want to be matched with someone from the same country as you to save on postage then please let me know!!

Also please share this post and let all your friends know about this project, it would be great to get as many people involved as possible!

Health & Fitness Roundup - March

You may remember my ‘Health & Fitness Roundup’ posts from the beginning of last year, well they are back! I found it super helpful to put out there how I’m getting on and it helped me to keep focused.

I have been over weight for a long time, I have an under active thyroid which doesn’t help matters but at the end of the day I have eaten way too much of the wrong things! It definitely affects my confidence and self esteem and I don’t want to live like that anymore. Over the past year I have massively got into my fitness but my nutrition lets me down and has meant the weight doesn’t budge much. I want to feel fitter and healthier, I want to feel confident in my own skin. So each month I am going to share with you all how I am getting on, so here goes...

Food...

I feel like I have finally seen the light with this one! I have started eating clean, meaning my diet mainly consists of single ingredient foods and no caffeine, sugar, wheat or alcohol. I stuck to his religiously before I went to Australia and lost a stone. I also found that I felt a thousand times better, I had more energy, my eczema disappeared and my thyroid levelled out. It was amazing! But then Australia, Christmas, my30^th and a mass of social occasions happened and I fell off the wagon big time. Nightmare! However I’m finally back on it and have been pretty good this month up until the last week as I’ve been on leave and do you know what, I don’t want to not be able to have a life, so I’ve been pretty naughty but I’m ready to go back to being good next week. I’ve also been doing a massive food prep session on a Sunday evening so I’m all ready for the week ahead. As I juggle 2 jobs I find that I’m sometimes in a rush or too tired to go so I eat crap on the go, so prepping for the week ahead I have no excuses any more! I think I’m also going to post some of my clean recipes on here to share with you all!

Exercise...

Boot camp x 8 sessions

Physiques x12 sessions

Runs x 12

I’m still doing my boot camp which is a circuits class, I do 2 sessions a week and I’ve been doing it for over a year! I think its the longest I’ve ever stuck at any form of exercise! The guys who run it also run a physiques class which is a ladies weight lifting class which I’ve joined and been doing 3 times a week. Before this I had never lifted weights in my life and I LOVE IT!!

I’m also still going at the running, I’m horrendously bad at it!  I really wish I could improve but I am so slow and regularly have to stop and walk 1whilst other runners lap me! Mortifying! Saying that though, I’ve signed to do another 10k this summer and I’ve signed up to do a half marathon in October, bonkers I know!!! I can barely run 5 k at the mo but I need to have aims to keep me motivated!

I’ve also signed up to do another tough mudder at the end of April, I loved it last year it was such an amazing experience! However everyone I’m doing it with are amazing runners and I’m terrified I’m going to be left behind!

Progress...

Chest:   -0”

Hips:  -2”

Thighs:   left -0.5” Right -0”

Bottom: -0”

Arms:  Left -0” Right -0”

Waist: -0.5”

Weight loss this month: 6lb

Total Weight loss: 6lb

I am pretty chuffed with this month’s progress! On average I’ve not lost many inches and I’m 6lbs down! Over all I need to lose 4 stone, I am hoping I can achieve this by the end of the year, fingers crossed!