Sunday 26 July 2015

An Update



I have been supremely busy lately, and I'm sorry. I'm just writing to let you know that I'm alive, that my hands do still connect to my brain intermitted, so I can occasionally write things that aren't shocking. I'm in France at the moment, and not only France, but the South of France no less. That means heat (thank the lord - I live in Britain, and hot days are about as common as seasons of Sherlock.) lots of pools and slight sunburn. France is particularly nice right now because of the contrast. Before we left I had Tempest performances, guitar exams, school exams, homework, a ton of trips and a karate competition, and now I'm free!

To celebrate the end of term, I've dip dyed, my hair red, which was kind of rash, but I love it. It makes me happy I guess, and I'm planning to cut it all off at the end of the summer, into a pixie cut (let me know what you think!). I used Live Colour XXL, which worked pretty well, and was quick and easy to use. The smell was nice too, although I wasn't particularly impressed with the staying power of it - it's faded to a reddish pink after only three days, but then again, I have been in the pool at least three times a day for those last three days, so you can't really blame the dye.

I passed my grade five guitar exam with a merit, which I was pretty relieved about, and which I found out while having a picnic with my friends, at school. (That was a massive success, and was my idea, which I was pretty proud about.) Anyway, happy holidays to all you guys,
Until next time
x

Tuesday 7 July 2015

Paper Toadstools DIY


I am officially a GOOD PERSON. I know I am, because when ever I tell relatives what I've been doing for the past week they always say so, and praise me, and worship me and ll that jazz. I don't want to disappoint anyone, so I'll clarify and say I HAVEN'T saved any small children from fires, I HAVEN'T solved world hunger, and I HAVEN'T quite become president. (I may not be american, but it's still going to happen. It's a 1 in 10, 000,000 chance, and also happens to be  my destiny.) However, I have created a birthday party for my little sister, and I wasn't even payed. I used these toad stools for part of it, and I'll explain exactly how it worked in a few days. Here's how I did them:
You'll need:
Some white card
Some red card
Some glue (I ditched the PVA and moved to a glue gun, because I'm hard core, but if you're patient you can just use PVA.)
A pair of scissors

                                      
Start off by getting the red card, and cutting out a big circle. I suck at making circles, but it doesn't particularly matter how straight it is. Put a dot in the centre.


Cut a slit from the edge to the centre dot.


Using the slit, over lap the edges of it so it forms a really wide coney mushroom shape, and glue into place.


Now, take some white card, and roll it and glue. This is the stem, or stump, or stick, or whatever you call that bit of a mushroom.  (I'm not exactly a botanist, I'm sorry. Although I do like mushrooms.)


Press it until it drys - be patient, young grass hopper (sorry.Sometimes you just have to say wise things folks. It just comes to me all natural like.)


Cut out a base, and set it aside.


Now it's time for more circles (oh joy.). Cut a ton of these white card beauties - I did about thirty, because I made six toadstools, but five for each is about right. 


 Stick these onto the red cone.


Now take your stem thing, and get your base. I needed the stems to open, so I could put bits of map in the hollow centre (more on this later, I promise.), so I made a sort of hinge on both sides.


I then cut a slit for the loose hinge bit to slot into, which worked perfectly.


Stick the stem into the cone, using glue (I burnt myself here - don't be foolish peoples.) I was so happy with them, and I got a few pictures of all of them together:









There were six toadstools, and six seven and eight year olds - do you see where I'm going? They each got one to take home, that's what. These looked gorgeous in the wood, but again, I'll tell the whole story of Eliza's party soon. Pateince is a virtue. Follow me people, and let me know if you want to guest post or anything. My email is bibliofille13@gmail.com.
Until next time
x


Friday 3 July 2015

A Day Out

Our school had an inset day a couple of weeks back. Imagine if you were getting married tomorrow. And you haven't planned the wedding. And you don't have a dress. And you don't know your finance's name. And that you realised this at about four  o clock in the morning. Then multiply that scene by 1200, which is the amount of people at our school, and you've almost got the sense of panic and pressure that appears whenever an inset is announces. It's unwritten law that you have to do something and that that something has to be fun, so much fun that it looks better than the queens coronation when it's being filmed for snapchat. You have to smile and laugh until your face hurts, and you have to enjoy it. This usually means that almost all of our school empties itself into Portsmouth, and in particular, Gunwarf Quays. 

Ice Cream at Scoops

This leads to some awkward chats with people that you know, but don't really want to talk to, which is extra annoying, because the likelihood is that they don't want to talk to you either because they want to have fun so others get jealous, so you're just stuck in a terrifying circle of forced politeness and silence, edging your way towards another shop, or toilet, or both. On this particular inset, a bae and I were particularly low on money, so we went shopping (obviously). This mostly consisted of having dares that we wrote on the train, and picking them out from bags at opportune times. It was ridiculously fun, I have to say, despite the fact that the part of Portsmouth that we went to isn't exactly beautiful, or a tourist attraction. I got some nice things though, including some jelly wedges that make my feet bleed, but make my legs look pretty good, so it's a fair price to pay, since I thought I was going to have to sell my soul to make me feel better about my legs.


My friend and I also talked loads, which ranged from gossip (obviously) to summer plans, which is when we came up with the summer bucket list, which I'll post soon. The people above are the ones responsible for making me go into fits of hysterical laughter. To be fair, the main reason I laughed was because we were ever so slightly following them, because they looked so cool, and we were jealous of their street style. We also managed to get LOADS of Lush testers totally free from a lovely Lush employee, and she was thinking the right thing, because I'm now a complete convert.



We ate pancakes for lunch, because we were feeling particularly healthy, and we ate at scoops, which sounds like it's purely an ice cream store, but apparently not, so that was a nice surprise.


We poepl watched for a while too, holding Costa coffees and trying to avoid another bunch of TPS kids who were wandering around aimlessly in Topshop. It was embarrassing, for some reason, but we also kind of wanted to follow them, although I'm not sure why. Maybe it was curiosity.


Overall, it was an amazing day, and we managed to prove that you don't need money to have fun at a shopping center. You learn something new every day. By the way, do you like my new template? Let me know, and also let me know if anyone wants to guest post, or anything. Follow me, my little penguins, and see you soon.
Until next time
x