Tunesday...

Oh wow, I love this song! It was only released very recently, but it's amazing! The band, Electric Century, is headed by former My Chemical Romance bassist Mikey Way, and I'm amazed! So now all four members of My Chemical Romance have released songs since the split almost a year ago!

Gerard Way - Millions
Ray Toro - Isn't That Something
Mikey Way - I Lied (as part of Electric Century)
Frank Iero - Best Friends Forever

Enjoy!



P.s. Sorry for the day-late post, I didn't even turn my laptop on last night for revision purposes!

Think Happy...20/52...

I'm so sad that the holidays are over, I wish I had another week off school! But anyway, a lot of good things happened this week, and I can't wait to share them with you all!

1. My new beauty post! Check it out here if you haven't already seen it :)

2. The Cats arts and crafts day! Post about it is right here!

3. I went to Hannah's house after Cats on Wednesday, and we spent the whole time watching our friends' Youtube videos here and here!

4. I had a two-hour long contemporary class on Tuesday night to learn a whole new section of one of our dances, and although I nearly broke my knees (long story!), it was so much fun! My friend Harry (from school and Cats) will hopefully join after our Cats show!

5. Four and a half hour long Cats rehearsal today! Wow, it was so much hard work - a couple of hours of general rehearsal learning new numbers with our new cast member (hi James!), followed by a full run-through of the show which took almost two hours!

I'm really loving these couple of hours a week I spend with this different group of people, I've made a couple of new friends (Shane, Harry, Katie, Abi, Megan, Ariane, Tia, and the rest!) and met a whole load more! It's definitely helped build my confidence levels, since I can now sing and dance on my own in front of about thirty other people, whereas before I struggled to speak in front of my class at school!

In other news, Abi sprained her thumb today doing a cartwheel! She's more than slightly annoyed, and let's pray that it heals in time for her National Cheerleading Competition in two weeks!

Anyway, that's about all the good news from this week, other than having heart-to-heart conversations with one or two of my friends!

I hope you all have had a lovely week!

My Makeup Routine Update...

Recently, I realised that my makeup and face care routine has changed slightly since I last wrote about it here.

For instance, I now use a Simple face wash twice daily, and it seems to be working to keep my spots at bay.

I also use a new 'foundation' type product. It's Maybelline's New Dream Pure BB cream, and it's extremely good, with much better coverage than my previous favourite, Avon MagiX. The light colourings work well for my skintone, which is fairly pale.

The last new product I use is Maybelline's Fit Me concealer. I find it has fairly good coverage for what I use it for - the dark circles under my eyes and small blemishes. Although if you needed heavy coverage, then I don't think this is the product for you.

Here's a shot of me with and without makeup...

Excuse the messy pony - morning hair!

This shot doesn't really do the makeup any justice, but you get the idea that the shine has been removed, as well as the dark circles under my eyes being hidden.

Poser, much?

Well, you can definitely see the mascara here! This is my go-to everyday makeup look, and I love it! I don't highlight or contour, but am I looking into getting some blush. Does anyone use any nice ones?

P.s. I won't be posting a Ballet Basics post today, but I hope to get one out next week. I need a studio to be able to take the photos, but I'll have one next weekend. Dance classes are off today. Thanks for understanding!

Painting the Moon!...

Yes, you read correctly! Yesterday, I spent three and a half hours with the Cats crew making the set and props. We only got about halfway through all of it, but it's all looking so good!

I chose to paint the Jellicle Moon alongside some other girls, and it turned out great!

We painted it with a couple of coats of white paint, then added in some black to make darker sections. We also added silver glitter paint, which I loved the most!

This is what the room looked like while we were collecting all the rubbish together, and then mid-tidy-up. It took about half an hour to clean up!

We made a whole bunch of rubbish-collages to decorate the sides of the stage...

And we made mice masks for the kittens to wear in Gumbie Cat!

We made so much more of the set and costumes...

We papier-mâchéd some cutlery, and Miss Catty is going to paint them today, I think!

I also escaped for a while and came up with some choreography and 'poses' for Mr Mistofelees...

Overall, we had a lot of fun yesterday!! Here are some of the in-progress and extra pictures!

All of these wonderful girls are sisters, except the one in the lower lefthand corner, that's me!

If you were there, I hope you had a great time, but if you weren't, I hope you enjoyed seeing our progress! Until next time :)

Tunesday...

Hello all! I should have posted this yesterday, but I had a two hour dance class last night. This song cheers me up, which I really needed last night, so I thought I'd share this with you today. Enjoy!

Fake Your Death...

For those of you who don't know, my favourite band is My Chemical Romance and they broke up nearly a year ago. Little over an hour ago they released their final song, Fake Your Death, and it is the most uplifting and inspiring song I've ever had the pleasure of listening to!

But at the same time, it makes me so uncontrollably upset to know that there will be no more songs of theirs released. I'm working on getting the lyrics down, but for now, you'll just have to settle with listening to the song :) Enjoy!

Think Happy...19/52...

Well I've now got a week off from school! How's everyone?

I've had a pretty mixed bag of a week, but let's have a look at the positives :)


1. Nail painting. Recently I've become more than a little obsessed with this, and this morning I spent an hour or so redoing mine to look like this:

The cheery rainbow colours have made me so happy today, and the amount of people who've commented on them is amazing!

These are the colours I used, the first eight are ones I was given by my cousin, and the last two (right to left) are '21 - Fairy Dust' by Collection 2000 and '210 - Ethereal' by Rimmel.


2. Dance yesterday was fun - we had cover lessons since our teacher wasn't there, but I had a right laugh with George in street as well!


3. Cats rehearsals today went very well - I learnt the harmonies I sing with Harry, Charlotte and a few others, and I had a laugh, as usual, with Katie :)

Katie and myself in the toilets :)

4. End of school! I needn't say anything else!


5. Got the highest grade possible for the dance section of my PE grade - EP! (A* equivalent)


6. Launch of my new Ballet Basics series! Check it out here if you haven't already!


That's all for now I think, so have a good week and I'll speak to you soon! Bye!

Ballet Basics: Tendu...

I was recently asked by a wonderful lady named Gabrielle to create a guide to how to get a good tendu. For those of you who don't know what a tendu is, it's a ballet step which involves pointing your foot in any direction, working through the floor.

I decided to make a blog post about how to do it, and while making it, I learnt how to make gif files and upload them to blog posts, and also that my brother makes a lousy photographer! But anyway, here's the tutorial.


You need to start with your feet in first position, or in the position you need to work with. Remember to pull up through your body, nice and tall. Bums and tummies in!

Next, you slowly start to push through the floor with the foot you want to tendu.

Keep pushing through that floor, with your heel forwards. Try to imagine the floor as being covered in sticky toffee, and you need to work and push through your whole foot to make it point.

Keep pushing your foot through the floor, but now start to straighten your ankle - this is important! In order to get a good tendu, you need to push through your ankle before you start to point your toes, as so to speak. This creates beautiful lines and works your foot better.

Now you finally get to point your toes! See those beautiful lines? Just remember to work and really push through the floor the whole time. One thing you don't want to be doing is lifting your foot slightly above the ground and then placing it on the ground in the position demonstrated below. Don't scrunch your toes up either!

An important thing to remember is not to put any weight on your extended foot during tendu, or it could end up looking like my foot does in the photo below. Not a pretty sight!

Also, you need to keep your ankle pushed forwards to maintain your turnout, which is a target I recieved in my Grade 5 IDTA Ballet exam.

Remember, these 'rules' apply for tendus in every direction!

Here's a gif I made demonstrating how to tendu a la second.

I would like to point out (no pun intended) that I am only a 15 year old girl who takes ballet lessons for an hour a week, and that I am not an expert on the subject. I am simply trying to help out fellow ballet students who are seeking help.

I also think that this would be a great idea for a series of posts, so feel free to leave a comment below saying which ballet steps you would like help with, and other basic steps I could post tutorials for.

But until I see you again, have fun and practice hard! Byee!!

Happy Valentine's Day!...

Happy Valentine's Day!! Whether you do have a special someone in your life or not, I hope you all have/had an amazing day and can treasure your friends and family :)

Tunesday...

So here we are again! As I'm writing this, I'm all ready for bed in my pjs, I just had theatre rehearsals and remembered I haven't yet posted this! So here we go, We Are In The Crowd's single Long Live The Kids from their upcoming album Weird Kids. Enjoy!

Think Happy...18/52...

Hello again, time for another Think Happy!

1. Met a lovely girl through a ballet group on Facebook. If you're reading this Natacha, then hi!!


2. Dance rehearsals have been good - we've finished a lot of our dances recently and starting new ones as well.

I also recorded a dance with my friend Tanveer in contemporary class, but I'm not sure he'd want me to post it. That said, if you're friends with me on Facebook you'll have seen it. I will try to record it again in the next couple of months before he heads off to uni.


3. I hit 12 followers on Bloglovin!! Come on guys, follow me over there if you're not already - the link is in the sidebar :D


4. Today I was playing around on Gimp and ended up creating this image.

If you're struggling to see the fairy, why not pop on over to here and click on the magnifying glass above the picture? I think that helps :D


5. I've been working on my crochet a lot! I released my Baby Hearts pattern the other day, I have another Valentine-themed pattern almost ready to be published and I'm working on an amigurumi!

Do you want a sneak peek?

There you go! Make of it what you will :D

6. I had another photoshoot today - this time it was at Cats rehearsals. Talking of which, they went really well too, so that was a brilliant end to a brilliant week, minus a few small mishaps.

7. My brother's birthday was on Thursday, so we went out to celebrate! I ate so much food!


I think that's it for today then! I hope you all had a lovely

Baby Hearts...

So it's Valentine's day in only a week! Eeek, who's excited?! I am! And to make this special day even more special, why not crochet yourself some super easy Baby Hearts?

 

These hearts are crocheted as two flat pieces and then sewn together and stuffed to create super cute little decorations! I hope you like them.

Here's the pattern!

Tunesday...

Hello you guys, how's it going? Today's Tuesday, and I'm actually posting on time! Not half an hour ago my friend sent me an invite on Facebook to like her cousin's Facebook page, so I liked and checked out his Youtube channel. This is one of his covers, and I think it's so beautiful! Why not have a listen and subscribe! If you'd like to see more of him, why not like his Facebook page for updates?

Think Happy...17/52...

Well it's Sunday again! How are you all, and how's your week been? I hope it's been good :)

1. This week I've really been able to hear the birds singing in the mornings while walking to school, and at those times it feels like spring is almost here! But other times leads me to think that winter hasn't yet started, what with all the rain we've been getting. I really hope the weather starts to cheer up soon.


2. Dance classes yet again. I had my hair in a baby quiff and tons of makeup on, all for a photoshoot for the programme for when we dance in London. I'm so excited!!

Hannah isn't dancing in London with me, but she did my bronzer for me :)

Also, contemporary class on Tuesday was so hysterically funny, from 'running like peacocks and apes' to racing to see if we were locked into the car park! Never had so much fun!


3. Cats rehearsals today were good. Because our choreographer was off ill, our director taught us a couple of new songs, meaning we're more or less done! With less than eight weeks until the performances, all we need to do now is practise and practise and practise.

Today, Charlotte (our Grizabella) watched us dance through the Jellicle Ball and gave us all feedback, including for me to act the role more. Apparantly I dance perfectly, but I need to become the chatacter more. So we ran through the twelve-minute dance once more and I really went OTT with the acting, earning a number of smiles and head nodding from Charlotte and our director, which was extremely nice!

I've never been great at acting - only scraping low level 5's in year eight drama classes (not great - at year six you want to be working at high level 5's!); so today I've finally been given some criticism to act upon. At dance I hardly ever get criticism, so it feels good to be able to see myself growing as a performer.


4. I've been working on some new crochet designs, so keep your eyes open for a sneak peak soon!


5. Just this week in general, really! I made up with a close friend after falling out, which was super nice!! Hope it stays this way! We've also had some sunny weather over the weekend, although I doubt that will last.


That's all for today, folks; I hope your week has been as good as mine has, and I hope to see you again next week!