Sunday

June in Review


My favourite outfit

I got a cute new River Island pinafore

My favourite shoes

Blue suede shoes a la Elvis. 

My favourite book

The perfect summer read. 

My favourite day out

Morris dancers in the rain

Other favourites
 My 25th birthday! 
A chronology in fancy dress
Lomography one, two and three

Word of the month review

My word of June was "Celebrate". I had a birthday tea, as you can see above, and I also celebrated one little thing each month (one, two, three, four). I didn't throw a party just because but I did have my birthday party. That still counts, right?

One Little Thing III


Taking selfies with my grandma in the theatre was the highlight of my week.This is my the-light-is-really-low-and-it's-difficult-to-hold-a-camera-steady-at-arm's-length-for-long-exposure face! 

I'll have a full update of what we got up to tomorrow. It was a lot of fun! 

Saturday

101 in 1001 VIII


After the craziness of May, June has been a bit of a calmer month. There's not long to go now until the summer holidays, when I intend to tick off a lot of my 101 in 1001 goals! 

#16 & 18: Get a custom blog logo and design
I've joined these two together since my new design includes a super cute logo too. You can compare my new design to my old design here. And, no, I'm still not over how stunning it is! I don't think I'll ever get used to it! 

#51: Shoot 10 rolls of film
I got three rolls developed this month, which takes my grand total to 4. Watch out, David Bailey!

#96: Read 75 books
Wow, I've read a fair bit this month! Quite a variety too.


#101: Watch the backlog of films I've downloaded
Yep, we watched Keith Lemon. I never said I was high class! 
Finally got round to watching Gambit. Three words: Naked. Alan. Rickman. 

Friday

FF XLV


I am absolutely in love with Megan's wedding invitation pack
Look how beautiful Jenny's bathroom is! 
I'm always rubbish at these photography challenges but I WILL manage it this time! Join in with Miss Indie
Ella has made cushions and they are beautiful! 
Kathryn always has the most beautiful photos. 

Book review: Blog, Inc.


Blog, Inc.^ -Joy Deangdeelert Cho
I bought this book after hearing a lot of great things about it from other bloggers. I've reached the point where I'm really trying to push my blog forwards and constantly improve it, so I figured this book would provide me with some great advice and ideas.

Written by the author of blog Oh Joy, the writing style is very easy to read with practical advice and interviews with other bloggers. Everything is explained very simply and there's no technical jargon that might be confusing. However, I did ocassionally find that the author can be quite imperious which isn't at all endearing. I also found some of advice a little odd. For example, she states that bloggers should not offer sponsorships until they have at least 100,000 views a month. Let me tell you, I'm nowhere near that level but I still feel qualified to offer sponsorships! It's also very heavily US-based with information about taxes and legalities of keeping a blog. Surely helpful for American readers but not so for the rest of us. 
Furthermore, the target audience seems a little strange. It starts by explaining what a blog is, discussing the benefits of different platforms and how to choose a blog name. Surely the vast majority of readers would already have started their blog and therefore this advice is redundant and almost seems like filler. I'm sure very few people would think of starting a blog and buy a book to read about it before starting. 

There is some helpful advice though, particularly in terms of SEO optimisation. There is also an interesting guide for pricing your sponsorships- Divide your monthly views by 1000 to find out the monthly rate for your cheapest spot. Unfortunately, these helpful nuggets are so minimal that it is barely worth the price of- and time spent reading- the book. 
All in all, this was a useful little book that I would recommend to other bloggers. Just take some of the advice with a pinch of salt!

Thursday

A wedding update


I may have mentioned it once or twice, but Rich and I are getting married in Florida this summer. At least, that was the plan. Of course, life doesn't work like that and, with less than 2 months to go until our planned wedding date, we have about £250 left in our savings. I'm pretty sure not even the Super Scrimpers could make a wedding day out of that.

So we've decided on a slight change of plan. The wedding will go ahead as planned, in Florida, with Laura officiating, on 13th August. Everything as usual, except it will be next summer instead. 

Luckily for us, we're completely winging the ceremony. In Florida, you can pretty much marry anywhere as it's the person who holds the license, not the venue. As Laura is ordained, she will be able to legally hold a ceremony wherever we like it. The plan is to find a pretty, fairly quiet location in Wizarding World of Harry Potter to hold the ceremony, although we're aware we may get kicked out of the park for that! We're just going to see how it goes and play it by ear. 

I'm the polar opposite of a Bridezilla! 

Wednesday

This one thing I really love

I've seen this concept on Jes' blog, The Militant Baker, (aka Goddess of Gorgeous Fat Awesomeness!) and thought I'd give it a whirl. Here's the deal: I've had about 7 years of ups-and-downs with my body. I've gone from pretty thin, to mega chunky, and back again. And back again. And back. Again. 
One thing has always stayed constant: My waist. It's disproportionately tiny compared to the rest of my body but I love the shape it gives me. It's sometimes a pain: Skirts will not sit on my hips, t shirts ride up and bunch around my waist, and I can't wear button-up tops on account of my insane bust-to-waist ratio, but I'm not one to complain. I love it.

In honour of my amazing hourglass waist (yeah, I said it!), here are some of my favourite photos showing it off! 

Tuesday

Sponsor Becky Bedbug in July


It's that time of year again! Just a couple more weeks until the summer holidays start! This means I will have six weeks of full-time blogging. What does this mean for you? Well, I'll have a lot more time to devote to promoting the blog, making it even better and drawing in more views which, in turn, means more people viewing your advert. Fantastico!

If you would like an advert on Becky Bedbug this month, check out my sponsorship page for all the information. 

Colour Palettes: Pandas


This week, Helen challenged me to make my colour palettes themed around pandas. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I hopped right on it. At first, I thought it would just be black, white and maybe some grey but, luckily, I found more interesting colour themes than I thought! 
Source

Monday

15 Hours with Stay Flawless

As I mentioned earlier this month, I was invited to the Benefit Stay Flawless launch and very kindly received the primer. I reviewed my initial thoughts when I got it but I thought I'd set the 15 hour perfection claim to the test. Ok, it's actually 13 hours since I wasn't prepared to stay awake for 15 hours! 

10am Make up is on and my skin is looking pretty flawless!

11am Heading off out (sans bowler hat as it was pretty windy) and foundation still firmly in place.

12pm It's started raining (as visible with the fluffy hair on top!) but my foundation is still looking good.
1pm You can't see it in this photo but it is absolutely pouring, hence my uncomfortable face! The perfect test situation for my foundation, which still looks good to me. 
2pm This is what my hair looked like when I got back.Thanks, rain! My lipstick is not holding up brilliantly, but the foundation is all there.
3pm After washing my hair and having a bath, my foundation is starting to wear off. Looking at my chin, you can see my blemishes are becoming a little more apparent.
4pm Time for an afternoon nap. I know I shouldn't sleep in my make up but it's for research purposes, and I was changing the sheets the next day anyway. You can definitely see that it's fading away now but, when compared to the mess of my eyeliner, it's not faring too badly. 
5pm A little blurry, but I'm starting to look like I'm wearing a lot less make up now. 
Not a lot happened from now on, and it's pointless having a series of photos of me in exactly the same place so I'll skip ahead a few hours.  
 11pm My foundation has all but gone. Still, it lasted longer than most of my foundation does. 

Not bad for a primer! Who needs make up to last 15 hours anyway? That's longer than I'm usually awake! 

Bloglovin'

Right, Bloglovin' is reminding me that I have a limited amount of time to transfer my Google Friend Connect followers. Now, I know Google Reader and GFC are different things but there seems to be all sorts of confusion about how this will affect GFC. Anyway, Bloglovin' is far superior. It doesn't have the tendency to decided not to show you your blogs and it's so much easier to use. It's prettier too, which is important to superficial people like me!

If you'd like to follow on Bloglovin' (and I seriously recommend you do), visit Becky Bedbug on Bloglovin' and click on the big blue "follow" button at the top left. Easy peasy! 

Sunday

52 Shoes XX


Shoes: Barratts*

Summer is (apparently) here and it's time to look for shoes that won't toast my tootsies in the sun. Luckily for me, Barratts sent me these cute Timeless toe post sandals. 

I love the patent bow. They're simple sandals but still cute and add a little quirk. They pretty much go with everything too. They're so easy to wear, comfortable and, most importantly, keep my toes cool and breezy! I can already tell that I'm going to get a lot of wear out of these this summer... Weather depending, of course! 

What do you think? I'd love some suggestions for outfits to wear with them! 

One Little Thing III


This week, I wore one of my many Topshop skater skirts to work. It was my monochrome spotted one, which you can see in action here. It's a skirt I wear to work fairly often as it pretty much goes with anything and it's easy to grab first thing in the morning.

Then, in the middle of a literacy lesson, I'm discussing the merits of using adverbs when writing a historical story when suddenly my most mature, highest-ability kid pipes up. "Miss, why do you have meatballs on your skirt?" Once you see it, you can't unsee it. This will forever be The Meatball Skirt.

Saturday

A Chronology in Fancy Dress


I blooming love fancy dress. Like, fo real. So I was pretty impressed with my fellow Osman-lover Kirsty when she posted her ode to fancy dress. I stole her idea (after asking, of course!) and created this- A (rough) chronology of my fancy dress history.

My earliest documented forray into fancy dress is this: My Clockwork Orange outfit from way back in November 2005. I loved bowlers before bowlers were cool! (Tongue-in-cheek hipster comment!)

Dressing up as superheroes with Marie, my costume partner-in-crime, way back in late 2006. Marie was Dr Awesome and I was Professor Vengeance. Yeah, we made those names up. How could you tell?

The club I frequented in 2007 had monthly theme nights. These are gangster and pirate costumes.

Moving into late 2007 and early 2008, we have more pirates- I love pirates!- and a cat with a super-spiked collar. I don't know. 

This is where my chronology goes a bit wonky. The left photo is Halloween 2006 (when I was in the firm grip of emo!), whereas the right photo is mid-2008. Awesome bee costume, right?

A little more wonky chronology here. The amazing handmade gnome costume (Laura's idea!) is from early 2010 and the Hogwarts student- taken at WWoHP- is in the summer of 2011. 

When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt I was released, Laura and I decided to dress up for the screening. I was Bellatrix Lestrange and pretty proud of my costume until I saw Laura's frankly amazing Hegwig get-up. We certainly got some strange looks as we visited the bustling city centre to pick up some much-needed tissues! 

Standard daywear for a Madrid music festival in June 2011.

Download 2011 was a dress up everyday kind of festival! 

More from Download. Man, that was an awesome year!

Zombie beach party in July 2012 and Cosmo from Fairly Odd Parents for Halloween 2012. 

For Halloween 2012, I actually dressed up every day for a week. Just for myself. As you do.

This isn't even a complete collection of my fancy dress photos. There are an insane amount! Please tell me that me and Kirsty aren't the only lovers of a good costume! 

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