DIY CREPE PAPER FLOWERS

When you're stuck at home sick there's only one rational thing to do: craft day! I found a couple of DIY's on Pinterest (by Craftberry Bush and Martha Stewart) on how to make crepe paper flowers. I find often times fake flowers can look pretty chunky and... you know... fake 'n' stuff. God I'm eloquent. But these crepe flowers looked really beautiful and delicate. So I thought “hey, hey big guy, let's do this.” I mostly followed Craftberry Bush's tutorial as I thought hers had a little je ne sais quoi. Actually I do know what the what was – the watercolour effect. If you're going to follow a tutorial it really should be that one, not mine, but I thought I'd take you along for the ride nonetheless.

DIY SEA SALT SPRAY FOR BEACHY HAIR

I have to say I love that effortless, beachy, I did nothing to it, but my hair looks fabulous look. Kate Hudson anyone? I think everyone would like to feel like a natural beauty and there's something about beachy waves that read that way. Sea salt spray is an awesome way to help get that look. You just spray it into damp or dry hair and your hair will dry (or re-dry) with more texture and wave. There are loads of brands doing these sprays, most notably Bumble & Bumble with their Surf Spray, but I find it hard to fork over such a large sum of money for something that's so easy to make at home. So here's a quick little DIY sea salt spray recipe for you guys:

DAY TO DAY MAKEUP

I guess I don't often show you guys my day to day makeup, other than what I mention in my monthly favourites, so I thought it might be fun to do just that for a change. I've mentioned before that I don't usually tend to go hog wild on glamourous makeup – I'm not really a eyeshadows out the wazoo kind of person – so my picks are often fairly simple.

HELLO FALL

Fall seems to be upon us now. As I was riding home yesterday on Scooty Puff Jr. (my scooter), I could smell that fall smell. Does anyone know what I mean? Somehow you can just smell the air getting more crisp and fresh. I may actually be a little late to the fall edit compared to everyone else, but we all know by now what fall means – time to vamp up the look with deeper, plumier tones. And well, gaul darnit, I have an array of suggestions for you guys that I think you might enjoy.

BLOG NAVIGATION: INCREASING YOUR VIEWS

When you've gone to all the effort of writing a good post, it kind of sucks for it to disappear off the face of your blog after a short period of time. That's unfortunately what what tends to happen without decent blog navigation. You write a post, it sits on your homepage getting views for a while and the more time that passes, the more it gets buried under a sea of posts, never to be seen again. So ideally, you want to set up a number of systems to ensure your posts are still available for people to view.

LIPSTICK AND A TEE

Is it just me or is there something inherently cool about a bold lip paired with a casual tee? It's kind of like “yeah I'm cool, but I didn't even try... I must have just accidentally rolled onto some lipstick this morning as I dragged myself out of bed. Whatever, I guess I'll keep it on.” I may not actually be that cool and casual, but I'm damn well going to try to look like it. So I recently found two new additions to zee collection that I think pair quite nicely together. The first is this excellent tee from (who'd a thunk it) Old Navy and the other is a thoroughly underrated shade from the Rimmel Kate Moss Matte Lipstick range.

10 THINGS I'VE LEARNED ABOUT MAKEUP

I've seen quite a few of these “10 things I've learned” posts, most notably from Jennypurr, and I've always found them enjoyable to read. I thought I'd get in on a piece of the action by sharing ten things I've learned about makeup. A few years ago I was a total noob about this stuff. I couldn't do a smokey eye for shet and I was rubbish at covering spots. But through finding wonderful ladies such Lisa Eldridge, Sam and Nic and Tanya Burr (and I guess going to makeup school... though honestly I think I learned less there) I feel like l've come a decent ways. So here we are with 10 tips about makeup:

MOISTURIZING HEAVEN FOR OILY SKIN

I am an oily, blemish prone skin kind of person. At the same time I have trouble with dehydrated and flaky skin due to the acne fighting products that I use. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this issue. The dilemma that I end up with is that I want to wear moisturizer during the day to help with the flakiness, but because of my oily disposition I can't stand how greasy my skin feels with moisturizer on. Even most lightweight moisturizers have me looking shiny by midday despite the fact that I powder. So I've been on the hunt for a moisturizer that feels truly weightless and I think I've found one. *Double doors swing open* Enter Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel.

BACK TO VICTORIA

Oiii. I am tired, but from a good trip. It was back to Victoria this weekend to visit the fam again. It's so beautiful there that I couldn't not put up a few pictures. There's something about that city that reminds me a bit of London. A bit of Canada and a bit of the UK. What more could you ask for?

5 MORE WAYS TO CLEAN UP YOUR BLOGGER TEMPLATE

Hoki Doki. My last rendition of “5 Quick Ways to Clean Up Your Blogger Template” went over way better than I anticipated. Surprisingly it was far and away my most liked post on Bloglovin'. Wouldn't have guessed that. At any rate, I'm extremely happy that some of you guys seemed to find it helpful and I figured why not squeeze every last drop of goodness out of this thang and go in for round two. Let's flog this (nearly) dead horse! So here come 5 more tips on how to clean up your blogger template. I hope these aren't too finicky for you guys.

DRY SHAMPOO FOR YOU

I can't stand the feeling of my hair getting greasy, but I still only wash it every other day because the last thing I want is to stimulate any more oil production. Dry shampoo is a Godsend for those of us stuck in this dilemma. It does a good job absorbing oil and preventing that "I just rolled out of the 90's" stringy hair look while you're waiting for a wash. As my sister is a hair stylist, I've been lucky enough to try a fair few dry shampoos over time and I think these two that I've got picked out today are among the most impressive for a few different reasons.

10 THINGS ABOUT ME

I got tagged by the wonderful, talented, beautiful Brittany from Life, Set Sail to do a 10 Things About Me post. Ahhh she's great. She may be busy currently as she's off riding a horse backwards with me, on a boat. The tickets are now diamonds! Nope, that never happened, but I can dream. I did actually get tagged by her though - that part is true - and hers made me laugh so much that I thought "jesssss, I do this too." So here are 10 things about me that you probably didn't know. Warning: they're weird. Also there are more than 10. Yikes. It doesn't look good that I can't stop talking about myself.

AUGUST FAVOURITES

August favourites aren't overwhelmingly exciting folks. I apologize for that, but I got pretty sick for a good chunk of last month and it did not inspire me to get fancy with things. I didn't wear much makeup at all and when I did it was pretty much just a few base products to stop me from looking like death.

I JUST BLUE MYSELF

For anyone who doesn't watch Arrested Development that is going to be one strange title. To be fair it's strange no matter what. Recently I've had a bit of a thing for blue mascara. It all started when I found pictures of that Stella McCartney's show (granted I'm a few years late in my finding) where Pat McGrath custom mixed a beautiful blue/violet mascara that was painted heavily onto the models lashes. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. It's such an eye-catching statement. 

I GONE DONE SEPHORA

There were a few things I'd been wanting to pick up from Sephora for a while now and I finally caved and did it a couple of days ago. I don't have the easiest time spending big chunks of money on cosmetics (it still makes me cringe), so naturally I have a love/hate relationship with Sephora. They have everything you could ever want... but it'll cost you your soul. Well apparently I was okay with selling my soul this time round. I haven't given anything a proper go yet so this will be more of a show and tell with updates to come soon.