HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Hey lovelies,

I'm really sorry but there wont be a Make Up Monday this week! I was going to be filming my final Halloween look for this year but I have lost my voice and my throat is so sore! So rather than do nothing I thought I would put up a couple of pictures from this past weekend when I worked at The Big Chill Bar in Bristol for a Halloween Charity event doing Halloween Make Up!

I went along with two of my friends Michelle and Simon, we had a great night despite the fact we did our last make ups at 2am!! So here are some pics for you to see!

 Simon did this on himself and is AMAZING!! you can find more of his work here 

 Michelle still looks gorgeous even when she's halloweened up!

 These are two of my favourite make ups of the night!

To see more of the make ups I've done take a look at my Facebook page (A 'like' would be very much appreciated too!)

I hope you have all had a great weekend and if you were out doing Halloweeny things I hope you did it in style!

Happy Halloween

Stay Spooky

Grace xoxo 

VIVO cosmetics

VIVO cosmetics were at TOWIB, they are a brand new range of cosmetics that are exclusive to Tesco. Not only did we get a demo from VIVO cosmetics with the very lovely make up artist Karla Powell, she showed us three looks, but at the end we got to chose which look we would like to recreate and then got a goodie bag with the products to do just that!

I chose the Twilight look, which is slightly more dramatic (could be a good one for Halloween!)

Twilight face chart

Black Sparkle and Purple Passion

Highlighting Cream (amazing to mix with your foundation)

Very Berry Lip Stick

Feather Boa False Lashes

So as if getting a goodie bag full of amazing products wasn't enough, VIVO set a competition for us all to recreate our chosen looks! There will be one winner for each look and when the finalists are chosen their picture will be put on the VIVO Facebook page, and it will be judged on the most 'likes' they get.

Here is my entry picture

I love this look, its really wearable (well maybe minus the lashes!) and its a great way to get colour into your look with out going too far out of your comfort zone!

To see how I got this look take a peek at my tutorial video....

So fingers crossed my picture might get picked! And in the mean time pop down to tesco and try out some of VIVO's amazing products!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model Live 24 hour Blogger Bargain!

I'm sure that most of you are aware that this weekend is Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model Live at the Excel Centre in London (running 28th - 30th October). Which is classed as an essential weekend of Fashion, Hair, Beauty, Style, Shopping and Music!  I am going on Friday and I know I have seen others that are going on twitter but for those of you who haven't made up your minds yet or thought it was too late to buy tickets fear not, I have great news for you!

Britain & Ireland’s Next Top Model Live 24 Hour Bloggers Bargain!

To celebrate, readers of Oooooh Pretty have the opportunity to snap up 2-4-1 Standard Tickets (£20 normal price) for the closing day of the show! These tickets are available for 24hours only with the offer starting at Midnight tonight and ending at 23.59 on Thursday (tomorrow) so you better set your alarms! Go to www.bintmlive.com, click book tickets and enter BLOG24 when prompted.

As if you needed any more excuses to book your tickets fans of the TV series will get the chance to join the show’s infamous judges Charley Speed and Grace Woodward and the 13 gorgeous contestants from series 7 for the ultimate three day live event which will be London’s biggest fashion and beauty fix, and the ultimate girl’s day out!

Ready, Steady.......GO!!!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Halloween Pumpkin Nail design

So this is the last Halloween Nail design for this year (not that I need an excuse to create nail designs), so you now have plenty of choice for your nails this Halloween!

To create this design I used Atomic Orange from OPI as my base colour and then Black Shatter also from OPI over the top. For the ring finger I used a black nail art paint to paint on the details of the pumpkin and then a dot of green nail art paint at the top.

I am far from an expert pumpkin painter so with this design is something you can have fun with and not worry if its neat and perfect!

To see how I got this design take a peek at my video tutorial....

How are you painting your nails for Halloween?

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

FashionistA

Last week I attended The only Way Is Blogging (TOWIB), it was a great day catching up with some other gorgeous bloggers, I haven't done a specific post on towib as there are so many others that have, so if you want to see take a peek at these lovely ladies blogs, Em from Its-em, Emma from Flossies Beauty Love, Stacy from The HQ of beauty.

One of the companies that came along to showcase some of their goodies was FashionistA, they are a brand that works with Superdrug to bring you affordable high quality cosmetics, and I have to say they didn't disappoint!

The lovely Katie Hughes was there doing her Make up magic with three demonstrations using the FashionistA range to create three catwalk inspired looks, after this we could choose from three different palettes to take home and try out!

I chose the Blush palette, I have lots of eye shadow palettes in my kit but only have two blushers which are about to run out so this was definitely perfect timing! The colours are great and if you wanted they could double up as eye shadows, there is a blush to suit all skin tones!
There is an amazing highlighter which if layered up is super shimmery, and you could use the darkest colour to contour, so this is definitely your one stop shop for blushers!

You buy the colours separately and there are 49 eyeshadows and 12 blushers to choose from (all priced at £4.00 each), you can keep them as individual items or them pop them into the handy palette priced at £5.00 (which has a mirror so its perfect for your handbag!) and create your very own custom palette!

They are currently on a 5 for 3 on superdrug.com  so what are you waiting for? Get creating your own palettes for this seasons hot make up trends!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Make Up Monday - Halloween Zombie

This weeks Halloween Make Up Monday is one of my favourite tutorial that I have done this Halloween!

I have made my dad into a Zombie for you all! I think he secretly wanted to be in one of my videos!! For this tutorial I am not really showing you the base as that is fairly easy, I am showing you how to get an infected looking zombie skin! I know it sounds disgusting but it is super effective and is an easy way to scare everyone at any Halloween parties you go to!

To get this look is used black and white aqua colours (face paints will do) to give the skin a grey look and then used grey, black and red eye shadows to create the contouring and shadowing, you could go slightly whiter on the base than I have and still look realistic.
Now to get the infected skin part you need some gelatin granules, mix it with a small amount of hot water and mix until its a thick paste, you can then apply it to the face. The other things you will need to complete this look is either grease paints (if you have them) or eye shadows in a dark red, black and blue, this will create the bruised look, and then some fake blood, if you have professional special effects blood that's great but if not there is loads about in the shops at the moment so you can use what ever you have.

To see how to finish the look of take a peek at my tutorial video....

(I promise my dad is alive in this video....despite the fact he looks like he might keel over any moment!!)

I hope you like this look, and if you give it a try I would love to see some photos!

Happy Make Up Monday

Stay goulish!

Grace xoxo

Jib Jab!

Have you guys heard of or used Jib Jab before? Well if you haven't you should, It is the funniest website ever! Before I go on, I would just like to say I am not affiliated with this site in any way, I just think its amazing and wanted to tell you all about it!

On this site you can make send-able e-cards and videos with pre made characters which you just add your head to. I was obsessed with site last Christmas as you could do something called Elf-Me which had me LOL-ing for hours!

I noticed on a friends Facebook that she had something similar but rather than Elf's is was more Halloween like so I clicked on it and saw it was the same website so I had to do one myself! The good thing is you can do it as a surprise for people by using your Facebook account to log in and you can use their photos to place their heads in!

Here is my Halloween Monster Rap....

I have used me, my mum, dad and sister in mine.

If you want to make your own monster rap or elf-me at christmas go to JibJab, but I warn you, you will become addicted!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo 

Halloween Alien Nail design

This weeks Halloween Nail Design is the perfect match for this weeks Make Up Monday as it is an Alien design! I was trying to think of nail designs that I haven't really seen before which is a hard task as when you Google Halloween nail designs or tap it in to YouTube there are so many and lots of the same so hopefully this is slightly unusual!

 Its fun and simple and so easy to do! I met a friend for coffee yesterday and the girls in the shop noticed them and said Oh My God, look at your nails!! I'm assuming it was a good OMG! ;)

For this design I used a green base colour, try to go for a brighter green if possible and then I used a black nail art paint for the details.

To see how to get this look take a look at my tutorial video

If you have any request please let me know.

Hope you liked this design and that it has given you ideas for Halloween!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Gold Obsession

For some time now I seem to have developed a bit of an obsession with anything gold! It started with bangles and has moved on to make up and nail varnishes!

Here are my most recent purchases!

First off is Molten Metal in gold from Sleek Cosmetics, this is a cream eye shadow duo. The colour on the skin is amazing!! At £6.95 this is a bargain and with the festive season just around the corner this is the perfect make up bag item for those glitzy smoky eyes!

This is the Barry M instant nail effect in gold foil, In the picture I only have one coat of varnish on and it is really nice so with two coats it will be even better! Its a matte finish which is a great way to wear gold every day! I got mine from superdrug for £3.99.

Have you tried either of these products? Do you have any gold items you think I need to try?

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Make Up Monday - Halloween Alien Tutorial

This weeks Halloween Make Up Monday I'm bringing you an Alien tutorial!

My inspiration came from this picture

And this is how it turned out!!

Ok, Ok, you can all stop laughing now!! That was the reaction when I walked into the front room painted green! This is such an easy Halloween make up look and literally takes 10 minutes. You will need green and black aqua paints, a sponge and a brush, and you can start painting your way to Alien chic!
One thing I would recommend is that you paint the ears black, I haven't for the tutorial but if I was going to wear it for a fancy dress party I would, and also I have worn a black polo neck top but if you didn't have one I would paint your neck and chest black too!

To see how I got this look take a look at my video tutorial....

I hope you have enjoyed this post!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Sunday Summary!

Its strange to think that this time last week I was typing my Sunday summary from the garden almost complaining it was too hot and now i'm back on the sofa with the heating on!
Well this week at weight watchers the scales went down by 1lb which saw me get my first silver seven! It got read out in the meeting which is slightly embarrassing but although it was a loss I cant help but feel a tiny bit disappointed, I know I have to look at the bigger picture but 1lb per week seems a bit slow when you work really hard at a diet! Any way winge over!

I went along to Blog Camp this week which was good, I came away with a few ideas and also a bit more knowledge on the techy side of things. If you get a chance to go along to a blog camp session you should.I went to the one in Bristol but the also hold them in London and Manchester.

At college this week I have finally got to grips with my Gothic fantasy piece! I have designed my make up which when I did a practice I changed it completely, I know how I want the hair and costume (I hope my sewing skills are up to it!!) so hopefully it will all come together!

I'm not very good at imagining the whole thing coming together when I can only see one part but this project has to be as over the top as possible, so there is going to be hair extensions, feathers, gems, airbrushing, you name it it will be in there! This is a work in progress, but considering I'm about as far from Gothic as it gets I don't think I've done too badly!

My final thing is to let you all know that Marie Claire magazine has a lovely 30ml L'Occitane hand cream freebie this month. I chose Desert Rose which smells gorgeous!

I hope you are all well and have had a great weekend.

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Tonight blogger, I'm going to be.......

.....Well I don't know about you but sometimes I don't know the answer to that statement! Today I went along to Blogcamp which was a chance to hear from other successful bloggers, PR experts and tech wizards, how to get your blog noticed and to reach the goals you set for your blog when you started it!
One of the key points that kept coming up (and to be honest it is pretty much common sense) is that you need to be yourself when blogging, your personality should shine through! There is one small problem with that, what if sometimes you aren't quite sure who you are?
Now obviously I know I'm Grace, I'm 29, I have brown hair and blue eyes but sometimes the rest can be a little bit blurry!
When you are amongst a blogging community that has some people that are hugely popular and have thousands of followers sometimes it can make you look at what you're doing and think hang on, do I need to be more like them?
As I talked to a few other people at blogcamp it became apparent that I wasn't the only one who feels this way, a lot of people are worried that what they have to say is silly or are too worried about what others think.
I know there are a few bloggers and YouTubers that I love and have found myself thinking I wish I could be like them, Jessica Harlow and JulieG713 are two of them, not only do I like their videos but I even wish I had hair like them (I think I was having a high school moment at the time!!) and then you have people like Em (EmHerbert_) and  Natalie (BlushBlendBeaut) who come across as such a friendly, fun loving people, it makes you want to instantly be friends with them.
Now when you sit back and think about all those things that those people are, the chances are you're actually not too bad yourself! I tried to say to the people at blogcamp that even if you only get one follower or if you only get one comment, that still means you have touched one person and they have been interested in what you had to say.
The moral of my story is that no matter what your goal is with your blog, be it to make millions or just have a place to express yourself, be true to you and be yourself, who ever that may be!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Halloween Nail Series - Cobweb nails

This week is the first of my Halloween nail series, I have created a cobweb nail design which is really easy to do.

You can do this design in about five minutes, its great if you don't have much time but you want something festive for all those Halloween parties! You just need a white and a pale pink for the french polish and then a black nail art paint with a fine brush. I have added a spider on the thumb using bundle monster plate BM13 but that is optional.
To see how I got this look take a peek at my video tutorial.

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Good Hair Day!

I had my hair cut today, despite being a hairdresser myself I get really nervous about getting my hair cut, I worry the stylist will get a bit scissor happy and hack away at my long locks! But today I went to Hair at 58 in Bristol and am so happy with the results I had to share them with you all!
Here is my before picture, my hair is naturally wavy which most people think is a good thing but actually its has a tendency to do its own thing and be a bit wild, as you can see here its quite big!!

 And here's my after pic! The shadow on the wall isn't helping to show that its had the weight taken out of it, more layers added and my fringe has been shortened so I can now actually see what I'm doing! A sleek blow-dry finished it off keeping the wave their but in a slightly more tamed way!

Hope you are all having a good hair day too!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Make Up Monday - Halloween Vampire Tutorial!

As it is October I have decided that all Make Up Mondays this month will be Halloween related!
This weeks tutorial is based on a Vampire!

For this look I used a foundation that was a shade lighter than my skin tone to make me paler, I used black eye shadow to do a really dramatic smoky look on the eyes and I also added a bit of red glitter gel on the outer edges (because I love sparkle!). For my lips I used a red lip liner and a bright red lipstick and used some gel blood to finish the look!
I also used some fangs, you can get these from fancy dress stores, the ones I have are two individual teeth that you can stick on using tooth putty.

To see exactly how I got this look take a peek at my video tutorial!

Happy Make Up Monday!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo

Sunday Summary

I can't believe the weather we are having at the moment....can someone just confirm that it is October?? Well I'm not complaining as I write this post whilst sitting in the sun out in the garden!
This week I will start with my Weight Watchers update, I lost 1lb this week, it may not seem much but I had a big loss last week and all that matters is that its going in the right direction, so that's 6lb in total! Fingers crossed for this week!
Last weekend I was shopping with my mum and we popped into homesense which is the home division of TK Maxx, they always have a festive section and at the moment it is full of Halloween things!!

I love anything festive, Christmas, Valentines day, Halloween, basically anything that gives you an excuse to decorate things! I wish we were a bit more like America as they really celebrate Halloween, maybe I should have a party!! Talking of Halloween, as it is October I will be doing Halloween based Make up Mondays and Nail tutorials so watch this space!
On Tuesday I went along to an open evening at Q Clinics, Dr John Quinn is a renowned Botox and Fillers specialist, but he was launching a new treatment which tightens the skin, the idea is that the probe he uses heats up the tissues under the skin using radio-frequency which will then cause a healing process to occur which increases the production of collagen, and viola you have an instant face lift (well not quite but you get the gist!)

Here is my mum being his model, now to be honest my mum doesn't really need any of these kind of treatments (and I seriously hope I take after her as her skin is amazing!!) but even still we could definitely see a difference after he did the demo! At £600 a pop it is not a cheap treatment to have (lucky mum getting to be a model) but for people who want to have something that makes a difference it is the treatment to have!
And finally this week at college we are working towards a project piece which is based on Gothic Fantasy, now I'm a bit of a girlie girl so Gothic doesn't come naturally to me so I'm still working on my ideas, but I am being one of my class mates model so on Friday I looked like this....

This is just the start of her design, her design chart looks amazing and I cant wait to see it all put together (will keep you updated!)

Well I hope you are all enjoying this amazing weather and have had a great week!

Stay Gorgeous

Grace xoxo