Lipglossiping Paris competition entries

The beautiful Charlotte from Lipglossiping is having a competition (sponsored by Vaseline) where the prize is a holiday to Paris! It ends at midnight tonight and I only discovered it yesterday so spent the afternoon hastily making entries because of course I'd really like to go to Paris! Here are my entries

1. Gargoyle

This was based on the gorgeous gargoyles that sit atop Notre Dame. Notre Dame is an absolutely gorgeous building but the gargoyles are my favourite bit because I just love them and their plaintive faces. This is a relief sculpture made from fake nails and then painted with nail polish in various shades of grey (and black and white) I used China Glaze, Barry M and Models Own polishes and the nails are off a generic unbranded nail wheel:

 

And here's a couple of work in progress shots because it looked really cool before I painted it too

 

2. Another gargoyle!
Yeah I really like the Notre Dame gargoyles. This time I carved his little face from an old lipstick. It was basically impossible to get a photo showing all the detail but I hope you can see some of it at least!

 

 

3. Mona Lisa Face

So while the painting is of course not Parisian it is probably the most famous painting displayed in the Louvre which is in so to me the painting always reminds me of Paris. This was made by rubbing various eyeshadows (mostly Barry M Dazzle Dusts) onto paper with cotton wool balls and buds. Then I added some detail using Illamasqua medium pencils in Sophie (black) and Vow (creamish). I just did the face as it's the most iconic part (and if I'd done the whole thing it would have taken forever!)

4. Pontilist Eiffel

And finally a more simple entry, an Eiffel tower. I used the French pontilism technique (tonnes of tiny dots) with colours inspired by fauvism and just covered a piece of paper, then I cut out the shape of the tower and stuck it on some plain white paper. The dots are all nail polish (various brands and colours)

I hope you like them all! Even if I don't win it was really fun to play around and got the old artistic juices flowing :)

Exciting stuff!

So for the last week or so I've been very excited about a new vlogging project. You may have seen posts about this on other peoples blogs as I've been being slow due to the various woes of the early part of this week. The fabulous Wendy from Turtle Beauty has set up a youtube channel for a group of beauty bloggers to collaborate with each other - The Makeup Heroes! And I am very honoured to be part of the group :)

Our youtube channel is here .You can see all the videos so far and information about all the bloggers involved there. Our first videos are introductions and 13 Questions Tags. Here's Wendy's intro and the intro to the whole channel:



And here's my video:



... Oh dear :P

Peoples videos are still going up so they'll be more to come soon. Please feel free to subscribe or comment :)

And the second exciting thing is this competition I heard about through Kimberly . Candace at Cinnamon Candies is asking for people to nominate their favourite bloggers to win the Cinnamon Candies Beauty Blog Awards!

' How would you like to win some awesome prizes from Darling Girl Cosmetics, Dark Heart DesignsEvil Shades just for being a beauty blogger? Here’s your chance. Susan from Darling Girl, Tina from Dark Heart Designs and Andrea from Evil Shades have all agreed to work with me to bring you all the “Beauty Blog Awards”. and
How does it work? Easy! Send me an email with your nominees in the following categories:

• Best swatches
• Best reviews
• Best eotd/fotd blog
• Best overall beauty blog
• and the fun category: Best indie make-up company!

Once the nominations close, nominees will be put to a vote. The winners will be announced and receive the awesome prizes from the companies mentioned above. Don’t worry, the winner of “Best indie make-up” will receive a lovely body pampering gift basket to give themselves a much needed break.'
(Taken from original competition post. You can find more rules and the email to vote on there :D )

I think this is just the sweetest, most lovely idea! It's so generous of Candace to have put this all together herself and such a nice way to build a community spirit among bloggers and indie brands. I'll be voting for my favourite blogs and it would be great if you did too!
(Please note I am not asking you to vote for me, vote for whoever you really feel is the best in those catergories! Not saying you shouldn't vote for me if you actually want to though! :P If I do happen to get nominated I will be incredibly honoured and grateful.)
You can even nominate yourself if you want to! (I'm tempted to because the prize sounds amazing, but I would feel too guilty XD)
Nominations close 7th July.

Anything else big and exciting happening in the blogging world that I've missed?

A couple of things you've probably seen before

But I just thought I'd post anyway, just in case :P

1. You can get a free Barry M makeup kit with Buzz magazine from the Sun on saturday. You just need to collect one voucher this time, and the kit includes a pencil eyeliner, lipgloss and nail varnish worth 'over £9'. It looks nice, I looove Barry M, but there's no way in hell I'm buying the Sun! :P

2. No 7 are having a 'best wink' competition to celebrate their new Exquisite Curl mascara. Upload your picture or video to their facebook page and you could win a goody bag or a star prize of a pampering weekend including a makeover by Lisa Eldridge. That would be awful for me, craven creature that I am, but I'm up for a goody bag! :P Also I like the advert because the musical backdrop has a proper 70s glam rock drumbeat. Just needs some 'heys!' with air punching. And a man with dodgy hair and platform shoes... Ok i'm waffling. The competition ends on the 15th so get your wink on ladies!

... Now I want some Glam Rock!


Oh boy!



Disclaimer: Someone from a company representing No 7 emailed me and informed me about the competition. I am sharing because I thought the Idea was cute and interesting. This is NOT a sponsored post, I am under no obligation to post about it and recieved nothing in return.

Amazing Contest

Hullo everyone! I'm home from holiday now (it was fantastic, post will be coming up on one of my blogs after i've sorted out the 500+ photos) but unfortunately have caught a nasty bug :( poor Claire had it from about our first day of holiday and i caught it near the end. I either have it worse or just make a lot more fuss than her :P
Anyway being ill may be a good thing for my blog cause all i have the energy to do is sit around eating tomato soup and toast and watching telly in my pyjamas (so basically like always, but i have an excuse to not actually get on with anything important) so will hopefully get some posts done :)

A lot of people who read my blog probably found it through Mizz Worthy's Illamasqua contests. In fact some of my very first posts were entries to the Heroes and Villains contest around the end of last year (they were pretty much all terrible!). Since then I have entered several looks for each of the two contests there have been since and have been lucky enough to come in second place both times!
Well there's a new contest and it's bigger and better than ever!

http://www.mizzworthy.com/2010/09/illamasqua-contest-mystery-guest.html

The prize is just amazing - the entire Art Of Darkness collection plus an intensive 2-day makeup course.

Anyway this is super late so i am sorry but hopefully you will still be able to enter!

I have quite a few ideas and will be entering any that turn out well. However this time I am pretty sure i will not come anywhere close to winning. The scope of this contest is just too big, so many amazing, talented people entering I don't think my ideas and ability will stand a chance. Also I guess i wouldn't be fair if i did win seeing as I've come in second twice already. But it will be fun and i hope you will enjoy my looks :)

Speaking of the Art of Darkness collection, i do still have a write up of the bloggers event coming and i am sorry about the delay!

Updated Giveaways post :)

Here are all the blogger giveaways i'm aware of at the moment :) Good luck ladies!


http://makeupper.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-first-ever-giveaway.html


http://www.nailjuice.com/2010/01/chocolatey-sweet.html


http://makeupbycrystals.blogspot.com/2010/02/200-reader-appreciation-giveaway.html


http://legseleven7.blogspot.com/2010/03/giveaway-time.html



http://www.londonbeautyreview.com/2010/03/win-hoochie-lip-tar-brand-new-shade.html

http://fashionlaunderette.blogspot.com/2010/03/50-followers-giveaway.html

http://purplecrownprincesscosmetics.blogspot.com/2010/03/competition-alert.html

http://chelistax3.blogspot.com/2010/03/125-follower-giveaway.html

http://kimber-doll.blogspot.com/2010/02/giveaway.html

http://meibelle.blogspot.com/2010/02/giveaway-time.html

http://livaphotos.blogspot.com/2010/02/mini-giveaway.html

http://tina-bobeena.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-first-giveaway.html

http://www.theglamorousgleam.com/2010/03/200-followers-giveaway.html

http://rijah.dk/2010/03/birthday-giveaway.html

http://paintedladyfingers.blogspot.com/2010/03/konad-eight-plates-contest.html

http://visualaspect87.blogspot.com/2010/03/contest-time.html

http://frailheartsofhope.blogspot.com/2010/02/first-giveaway-featuring-lush-mac.html

http://thelacquerfiles.blogspot.com/2010/03/oh-no-its-nail-art-contest.html

http://allyoudesire-ayd.blogspot.com/2010/03/500-followers-giveaway.html

http://emeraldsparkled.blogspot.com/2010/03/200-giveaway.html

http://www.nailjunkie.com/my-first-giveaway/

http://insideofmypurse.blogspot.com/2010/03/250-giveaway.html

http://sawan-heaven.blogspot.com/2010/03/claires-mood-polish-giveaway.html

http://www.body-soulbeauty.com/2010/03/st-patricks-day-contest-goodies.html

http://www.lipglossgossip.com/2010/03/giveaway-benefit-elf-sally-hansen.html

http://purplecrownprincesscosmetics.blogspot.com/2010/03/competition-alert.html

And finally don't forget to enter my Lush Giveaway if you haven't already :)
http://lillianfunnyface.blogspot.com/2010/02/lush-giveaway-time.html

Good luck everyone!

Updated Giveaways post :)

Here are all the blogger giveaways i'm aware of at the moment :) Good luck ladies!

black nail polish and lipgloss is celebrating reaching 300 followers!:
http://blacknailpolishandlipgloss.blogspot.com/2010/02/300-follower-giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BlackNailPolishAndLipGloss+(Black+nail+polish+and+lip+gloss)

Makeupper is giving away some great Mac pigment samples among other things:
http://makeupper.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-first-ever-giveaway.html

Beautyliciouslove is giving away a Mac lipstick and lipglass of your own choice! (very generous!):
http://www.beautyliciouslove.com/2010/02/250-followers-giveaway.html

The London Beauty Review is giving away 2 fab selections of goodies (hurry this ends today!):
http://www.londonbeautyreview.com/2010/02/giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LondonBeautyReview+(The+London+Beauty+Review)

Lady Gray is offering some great toilettries and makeup:
http://www.ladyofthelane.com/2010/02/50-followers-giveaway.html

Charly is celebrating reaching 100 followers and giving away a great Urban Decay set (this ends tomorrow):
http://www.whatcharlythinks.net/2010/01/100-follower-giveaway-d.html

Really beautiful prizes at Pearls and Poodles:
http://pearlsandpoodles.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-pearlie-girlie-giveaway.html

Sweet-themed Nail art contest from nail juice (this is so my kinda thing :P):
http://www.nailjuice.com/2010/01/chocolatey-sweet.html

250 follower giveaway from Laquerized (win some stunning looking H&M polishes):
http://lacquerized.blogspot.com/2010/02/yeah-baby-giveaway-time_20.html

Some great makeup prizes at Rhamnousia's blog:
http://makeuptrialsandtribulations.blogspot.com/2010/02/roll-up-roll-up-girl-giving-away-makeup.html

Get Gawjus is celebrating getting to 500 followers with 3 prizes!:
http://getgawjus.blogspot.com/2010/02/500-follower-giveaway-d.html

Caz is celebrating 250 followers with a prize of makeup, skincare and haircare! (ends tomorrow):
http://thisiscaz.blogspot.com/2010/02/250-follower-giveaway.html

My gal Noobarella is having a really generous giveaway, you can pick your own prize, and it's MAC!
http://secretbeautyblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/100-follower-giveaway-woop-woop.html

Beautiful Emily has got some FAB prizes (want want want):
http://sparkleandshade.blogspot.com/2010/02/something-happier-aka-giveaway-time.html#comments

Romika is giving away some great handcare and nail polishes:
http://romikanails.blogspot.com/2010/02/100-followers-never-thought-of-this.html

Illamasqua are having a great contest, you get to create your own unique nail polish if you win!:
http://illamasqua.blogspot.com/2010/02/dreamt-by-you-created-by-us-worn-by.html

Crystal is giving away 2 very generous Urban Decay prizes:
http://makeupbycrystals.blogspot.com/2010/02/200-reader-appreciation-giveaway.html

Good luck everyone!

Lush Giveaway time! - Extended deadline

DIT: Giveaway extended to the 1st of April.

Happy Valentines day everyone! I thought that a day dedicated to love might be a good time to show my appreciation for my followers by doing a giveaway :)
So the idea for this giveaway is to bring a bit of christmas cheer to the gloom of winter (well it's gloomy if you're in the same hemisphere as me anyway :P) so i hope you will enjoy!

First prize:



Snow fairy gift set including snow fairy shower gel including iridescent glitterbug massage bar, angel delight soap and 10% off your next lush purchase (not sure if this is applicable outside of the UK); snow fairy solid perfume (in a clear jar. I bashed the original jar and it wouldn't open easily so i decanted it for you, i promise it's exactly the same); chunk of father frost soap; christmas pud bath ballistic and ruby slippers bubble bar

Second Prize:



Snow fairy shower gel, chunk of father frost soap, noubar soap, big blue bath ballistic, geophyzz bath ballistic.

and there is an additional 5 prizes for runners up, but these are optional as until now all the prizes have been purchased fresh recently by myself. These prizes were given to me by a friend who is always given lush as a present but hates it, so i can't tell you when they were made. I've used some others she gave me and everything has worked fine and still been really nice, but i know a lot of people might not want these, so if you don't please tell me in your comment and i'll only enter you for the first and second prizes :)

(clockwise from top)  miranda soap, unnamed soap (possibly ice blue), tisty tosty bath ballistic, bubble bar mystery (may be sunny side)
So 5 people will get 2 of the above items each. You can choose and the first runner up will have first choice of what they want and so on :)

So a few little rules for entry:
1. You must be a follower to enter.
2. Comment on this post with 'enter me' and please leave me with a suggestion/request for posts you'd like to see on my blog.
3. If you post an entry in your blog linking to this leave me another comment with the link and you will get 2 entries :)
4. Anyone anywhere in the world can enter, but if you're outside the UK obviously the prize will take longer to reach you. If you are under 18 you can enter but you must get permission from parents/guardian because obviously i'll need your address if you win.
5. The closing date for entries will be March the 14th.

Good luck everyone!

My Illamasqua prize came today! 3 brushes and a postcard complete with a little message from Alex (presumably from the Illamasqua blog, not Alex Box but there is no surname on the signature, so i can't be sure). I've never ordered from Illamasquas website as i live in London so i can visit their counter in selfridges, but after recieving the lovely box this morning i stupidly want to just so i can have more of the gorgeous Illamasqua tissue paper (gold with the logo printed) and the address label had a beautiful sticker i shall take a photo of.

Now the thing is (i know this probably sounds a bit ungrateful, but i don't mean it to be in the slightest! I am so so thrilled to have won anything in a competition, let alone an absolutely amazing prize from my favourite makeup brand worth over £60!) the three brushes i recieved were not ones i would ever have chosen myself. I recieved the highlighter brush, blender brush number 2 and blusher brush number 2. I'm just not sure what to do with them, i have copies of each of the shapes and uses in my ELF brushes, and while i'm sure the Illamasqua ones will be a higher quality, i don't even use the ELF ones that often. Reasons being 1 the blending brush seems too big for eyeshadow (i checked on the illamasqua website and it says its suitable for any cream, powder or liquid product, but they sell a smaller blending brush designed specifically for shadow) but presumable is great for blush, foundation etc, but really my needs for those are met. The blusher brush is angled, which i can imagine being really useful, but i generally apply blush in little dolly-ish rounds to the apples of my cheeks and the highlighter brush seems very similar to the blending one and i just don't know how often i'd use any of them.
So the thing is, i could sell them and then spend the money to buy 3 brushes or other products of my choice. But then again these brushes might be the most amazing things i've ever tried and change my life and i'll never know if i don't at least test them, but if i do i wont be able to sell them (or at least not for the same price as them unused) and it just seems in a way wrong for me to sell my prize, i'm so proud of winning and it just seems like i should hold onto them to keep as a sort of trophy :P
At the moment i would be leaning towards keeping them, because really there are only a couple of Illamasqua brushes i wouldn't already have matches for, but then £60 is a huge amount of money for me, over a quarter of what i make a month. And i could buy about 5 of my favourite Illamasqua lipglosses or something. But then that makes me feel like an awful, ungrateful brat and i really don't mean it like that!
So i really don't know what to do. Any suggestions would be great!

I also recieved a prize from one of my favourite bloggers, Grey, today. It was a lovely christmas card with a rainbow selection of mineral makeup samples. I can't wait to try them all, thank you so much Grey if you're reading this :)

Oh and while i'm asking for your advice, i have a thought which is meant to be a good thing, but some people may see it as cheap, so i thought i'd ask. Soon i'm going to do a post-christmas giveaway of some Lush products (i bought specially for it), however for christmas i recieved a huge box of lush goodies from a friend. She hadn't bought them, but hates bath products and kept getting them for gifts for many years. There are way too many for me to ever use up so i thought i'd offer them as runner up prizes in the giveaway. Does this seem cheap or rubbish in any way? Also as these are re-gifted from her the products are not fresh but all entirely useable and retain their lovely smells and qualities. It's all bath bombs, bubble bars, massage bars etc so none of the 'fresh' facemasks or anything i can imagine going 'off' but still i'd like to know what you think :)

last night i had a dream that was mainly about me going to Lush to take part in the 'gifts a plenty when you spend £20' offer. Now that is sad! I haven't taken part in the offer and assume now all the free goodies are gone or at least whittled down extremely and apparently my subconcious is very sad about this!

I stupidly forgot to mention that i won second prize in Mizzworthy and Illamasqua's 'out of the box' contest! My winning look was the 'reverse rococo' one (http://lillianfunnyface.blogspot.com/2009/12/mizz-worthy-illamasqua-contest-entry.html) and i must agree very vainly and arrogantly that, while it may not have been executed amazingly, the idea behind it was quite original and interesting :) My prize is 3 illamasqua makeup brushes and i really can't wait to get my mitts on them! Also finally i will have some higher-end brushes to compare my ELF studio brushes to (review of them is coming up shortly, but basically they are amazing) instead of my old cheap-as-free horrible shedding, scratchy brushes and sponge applicators :P

The first-prize winning look was an amazing voodoo/tiki/jungle man look you can see here: http://jackgatsby.blogspot.com/2009/11/out-of-box-into-jungle.html very much deserved :)

This week has been a lot busier than i thought it would be, firstly there was my birthday (thank you all for your wonderful messages <3) then i had to take down the christmas decorations which is always such a sad job, then today was my nephews birthday and i've been editing and uploading a documentary on one of my favourite bands which took a whole lot longer than i thought it would. Also there has been a huge amount of snow, it is beautiful but england is pathetic and calls it 'arctic conditions' and public transport grinds to a halt. So i apologise again for the shortage of posts and my terrible lack of commenting, i'm trying my best to remedy it. The biggest hindrance to my blogging is that recently something went wrong with my girlfriends laptop, which is what i usually post from, so now i have to do all of my internetting upstairs on the desktop. This makes me feel anti-social so i tend to leave all the windows i want to comment on up and then leave the computer, meaning i have about 100 open tabs D:

I got money for my birthday and have gone on a beauty spree! I've finally splurged on a lot of mineral makeup companies i've wanted to try before but haven't had the money to, so expect in the next few months hauls/reviews from:
evil shades
hi fi cosmetics
fyrinnae
spell
ELF (though i still need to do my first review X/ i stink!)
and morgana minerals

also already arrived but i need to photo/review is a huge order from aromaleigh and christmas/birthday beauty gifts including a bunch of OCC liptars!

Tomorrow i'm free all day so i'm hoping to get down to some serious swatching and photographing :D
xxxx

Giveaway time!

To celebrate reaching over 50 followers i'm having a giveaway.

I decided to try and buy prizes that could make a whole 'look' together. So i chose to do a sort of super bright, glittery disco look. Of course you can also use all the bits separately :)

One winner will receive:
A Steve Madden cosmetics bag
2True glitter eyeliner in a beautiful turquoisey green
2True glamour lashes
2True lip and cheek tiny in Blush pink (i have my own bottle of this and LOVE it, review to come shortly)
Eyeko Disco nail polish
Collection 2000 Poptastic Eye Palette



So a few little rules for entry:
1. You must be a follower to enter.
2. In your comment please leave me with a suggestion/request for posts you'd like to see here.
3. Anyone anywhere in the world can enter, but if you're outside the UK obviously the prize will take longer to reach you.
4. The Winner will be chosen randomly on 30th november.

(sorry for the poor picture, again the lighting is terrible in my house! I will post more photos ASAP showing the prize in natural light)

Good luck everyone and thanks again for following! :)