15/05/2012 - Botanical Gardens and a get

Today I met up with Rosanna (uni friend and future flatmate) for lunch on campus, as we both had a free day. After loitering around campus as long as possible, we started to walk back. On the way, we went past the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, and Rosanna mentioned that entrance was free for students at our uni, which I hadn't realised. We both had the whole day to kill, so decided to have a look around. I wasn't really expecting much, but it was amazing. It really didn't seem like we were in England, much less in a city. 

There were chickens!

I liked this guy. He was just sitting on a beam the whole time haha.

Shortly after arriving we got caught in a massive hail storm, and had to stay in this little hut thing until it was over.

Stepping stones! 8D Had way too much fun with these.

Well at least one of us was smart enough to bring an umbrella.

Some parts looked like a jungle!

I'd definitely recommend a visit if you're in the area. I'd love to go back when/if the weather gets nicer.

Also, the choker I bought a couple of days ago from here arrived today:

-Finlay

14/05/2012 - Graze boxes and Kyary-inspired make up

Firstly, does anyone want a free box of food from Graze? If so, click here, and put in the code '9YJ7F5BD' if prompted. It sets it up so you get one every week, but you can cancel it after the free one with no problems. If you don't know what Graze boxes are, they look like this:

 The shape allows them to fit easily through your letterbox. 

You get four different punnets of food. They're all healthy and delicious! You can also rate the available food to ensure you don't get sent anything you don't like. 

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I finally tried on some of the eyelashes I cut up.

The ones on top are how the lashes came, and on the bottom are the ones I edited. Not a huge difference, but I like them.

I went for a Kyary-inspired make up look, but all the photos turned out kinda blurry so you can't see half of it :<

Outfit inspiration started off as Kyary, but changed to Takeru from SuG at some point haha. Neither is evident though lol.

I'm also really coming to like my new hair.

-Finlay

13/05/2012 - Hair cut and shoot

I had my first paid photo shoot today, and it was amazing. It was with Room 97 for their British Hairdressing Awards entry. They're the salon chain that won last year, so that's pretty cool. I actually almost turned down the shoot because I was trying to grow my hair, but I'm really glad I didn't. 

There were supposedly seven other models (I only saw a few), but I was first, so I had to be there at 9am. D: Public transport in Birmingham is pretty awful, so I tend to walk to shoots. This one was only about half an hour away, through a nice area, and the weather was really nice in the morning, so I didn't mind at all. 

Fairly soon after arriving, they got to work on my hair. There was a main hairdresser doing the cutting, and two assistants. They were originally going to make a fringe for me out of extensions so they could cut it shorter than I wanted my real one, but that didn't work out. Getting it out was painful. 

Aaand here is the hair. They thinned it out a LOT; it's maybe half the thickness it used to be, but I quite like it. It's not what I'd usually go for, but for that amount of money I can't complain. I can also move it around a bit to make it look like boy hair, which pleases me immensely (I like being able to change hair-gender at will). A bit scared to see how it'll look when it hasn't been straightened to death, though.

Hair took maybe two hours, then I had my make up done surprisingly quickly, and got changed. The theme for the clothing and make up was sci-fi. The make up was fairly subtle, with metallic blues and such (that sounds like the opposite of subtle, but nope). Most of the clothes were actually too big for me haha, but they found something for me that kind of looked like a space ship uniform. Pretty cool. 

As for the actual shoot, it was... cold. Studios always are, and it makes no sense to me, because models rarely seem to wear warm clothes. It was fun, though. The photos were in the style of the typical photos you see in salons of girls with crazy haircuts. The owner of the salon chain sat on the floor and blew a hair-dryer at me (it was kinda hard to not laugh at times) to create wind, so during the shoot it actually looked more like this:

I got to see the photos, because a laptop was hooked up to the camera, so they appeared on screen as they were taken, and they looked really good, but because I get paid, I won't get copies of them. :C I think I might eventually get the final photo they use, though, so that's something.

I leave you with some pictures I took on the way back of a pretty graveyard: 

-Finlay

GEO Angel brown lenses review

I finally got round to trying on my new circle lenses. I ordered them a few days ago from iwantcute, and they arrived about two days later.

They came with instructions, what I think is a hair tie, and a lens case (which is upside-down here, derp). 

With one in to show the englargement

 Both in with natural lighting

 With flash

With make up

iPhone picture because my camera died before I could get a photo with my full face haha.

Design: ★★★★★ - These are easily my favourite circle lenses. 

Comfort: ★★★★☆ - I could barely feel them when they were in, but my vision was pretty blurry for a while after taking them out (hopefully this only happened because it was the first time I'd tried them on).

Enlargement: ★★★★☆ - They're not huge, and they're not meant to be. They're exactly what I wanted from 14mm lenses.

I also like how they work with my eye colour. I normally have trouble finding lenses that don't look weird with my light eyes. They blend quite well, so even when my pupils aren't dilated, my natural eye colour isn't hugely noticeable. 

Finally, here's an outfit shot:

-Finlay

10/05/2012-11/05/2012 - Exams, gets, shoot

Yesterday I had two exams. I only had about 3 hours of sleep because I stayed up really late in an attempt to revise for Modern France (I'm awful at the non-language parts of the course), but in the end I'm not sure I learned anything at all haha. The exam consisted of just one essay out of a choice of four. The topics were very broad, so I managed to ramble on for a while. I guess that's something? Then there was French language in the afternoon. I was worried I wouldn't be able to stay awake for the whole three hours, but I didn't have any trouble in the end (drank as much caffeine as I could between the exams haha).

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A few more things arrived in the mail~

Spine necklace

I got all these cheap lashes from Ebay with the intention of cutting them a bit to make them look better, but the pink ones turned out smaller than expected. The black ones remind me of some of the Kyary Eyemazing ones, so I might try and get them to look like that.

Circle lenses! Had to get new ones because one of my old brown ones tore. :C Terrible picture, but I'll probably take a better one soon. I haven't even had a chance to try them on yet, I've been so tired/busy.

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I had another shoot today (it feels like I've had loads lately haha), this time with a photographer from Liverpool who wanted to do some shoots while she was in Birmingham. We waited about half an hour for the make up artist, but he never showed up so the photographer just did my make up herself. Turns out she's good at it though haha, so it wasn't really a problem (I've had bad experiences with this sort of thing in the past haha). As she doesn't have a studio in Birmingham, we were just shooting on the street and such. So cold! After about an hour it started raining, so we decided to just call it a day, but it was fun, and it sounds like she got some good shots anyway. I was also still exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before exams, so I was happy enough to return to my bed. 

I leave you with the latest PV from Misaruka, who've started to look almost identical to Versailles (which I wouldn't really consider a bad thing):

-Finlay

08/05/2012

I just got back the edited photos from Saturday's shoot; I'm impressed at the speed they were edited! 

I like how although they were for a fashion project, they have a sort of artistic feel to them that's very unlike anything I've done before. Here are a few of my favourites:

Bonus:

They distracted us for quite some time haha. So adorable.

Photographer: Adam Murrain

Stylist: Zetta Chong

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In other news, I still haven't managed to get myself to do any revision whatsoever. :| 

Also, here's a new band that I'm really coming to like:

-Finlay

05/05/2012-06/05/2012 - Super early photo shoot and white contacts

Yesterday I had to get up for a photo shoot at 6am. D8 I haven't been up that early in years haha. The shoot was for two fashion students' joint final year project, so I was mostly modelling clothes they'd made. So, after eating a nutritious breakfast of Nutella straight from the pot with my finger, I set off. I chose to walk there (about 45 minutes) with the help of my iPhone for directions, because taking public transport only would have saved about ten minutes, so it didn't really seem worth it. 

I arrived at the stylist's flat just before 8am. I was the first one there, so she made me green tea (which made me way happier than it probably should have) and we watched the news for a while. Early morning news has such rubbish on it, it's hilarious. A presenter on BBC news actually said "But owls don't actually have legs, do they?" ಠ_ಠ Eventually the other stylist and the make up artist arrived. The other model and the photographer arrived when I was getting made up. The make up was like this: 

Fairly natural, but I like it. My hair was curled kinda better than this, but it had sunk a bit by the time I took this.

The shoot itself was fun, but we had bare legs in all of the outfits, so it was horribly cold (we were shooting outside). The photographer was a laugh though, and once we actually started shooting, he managed to keep me distracted enough to not be too bothered by the cold. Getting to the locations was painful, though. One of the outfits I had to wear showed my stomach too, so that one was particularly bad haha. The stylists were really sweet though, and always made us tea when we went back in to change outfits. And at the end of the shoot they gave us sandwiches and donuts. 8)

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Today I procrastinated some more. I'm gonna have to start revising soon though, because I have exams on Thursday. :/ Anyway, I decided to wear my white contacts today, because I haven't in months:

I went for a sort of visual kei-inspired outfit to go with the contacts:

Finally wore the sword and roses necklace I got last week, but it's kinda hard to tell here haha.

I was gonna to go out, but because I'm a massive shut-in when I'm in Birmingham, I ended up staying at home and listening to Die Antwoord, eating cake, and watching anime lol. For those that don't know, Die Antwoord is this South African rap group with really interesting videos. Their music might take a while to grow on you, but it's definitely worth giving one of their videos a watch:

This one's my favourite.

-Finlay