Behind The Scenes: Bits & Bobs & Assorted Fanciness!

Shoes!Top shelf, L-R: Senso, Steve Madden, Steve Madden, Miu Miu knock-offs.Lower shelf, L-R: ASOS, TopShop, Chinese Laundry, ASOS.

“Behind The Scenes” is a new proto-feature, where you get to see — you guessed it! — a little glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes of my life. From outfit details to new obsessions, it’s all going to go here in a delicious menagerie! Let’s see how it goes!

Office exorcism: performed! That’s some of the biggest news of my week, for sure. I’ve been reading this book called Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui & it’s a revelation.

Lydia & I have been like crazed Virgo demons, putting things into piles, donating clothes, moving items into storage, & hauling enormous bags back & forth across the place, for the last couple of weeks. I guess I didn’t realise how much of a state my office was in until we started! Anyway, finally it is all coming together, & it’s such a relief to actually be able to WORK in here!

At the top of the post you can see a little section of my brand spanking new shoe shelves! The construction is really simple, I basically just bought two white Billy bookcases from IKEA & placed them next to one another. They make for a perfect shoe display. One day, ONE DAY I will have a walk-in closet, but in the meantime, these shelves are a fabulous start!

More shoes!
Top shelf, L-R: Steve Madden, Steve Madden, the shoes I designed (!!!), Forever 21.Lower shelf, L-R: Christian Louboutin (wedding shoes!), necklace & bracelet stands from The Container Store, Zigi.

I also had a grand old time at The Container Store, buying organisational knick-knacks. Very Virgo, that is totally my idea of a good time! I love the necklace & bracelet holders I picked up, & I also decanted my vast & somewhat ridiculous collection of cosmetics into a couple of jumbo train cases from Sephora — a smaller, silver rhinestone one for everyday use, & a large raspberry one for everything else.

In fact, you can see the silver train case in the picture below!

Arm party!

One bonus of performing an exorcism on your personal space is that you rediscover old treasures. Hence: a party on my left arm!

L-R: Silver & pink spiked bangles by nOir, Betsey Johnson watch, something with no label I bought on Gilt, tangled crystal bracelets from Forever 21.

Lights!

This is one of the easiest ways of making a lamp that I know: stuff fairy lights into an oversized jar. This is just a huge cookie jar I bought on Amazon. I would only recommend using LED lights for this, though; regular ones might melt together!

My office is definitely not finished yet, but I’m hoping to share more pictures as soon as it is!

Maybelline Baby Lips

Beauty madness!

My latest obsessions are the newest lip products on the market, Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters & Maybelline Baby Lips. I learned about both of them from watching Youtube beauty videos (it’s like falling into a black hole, I tell you!). I am always on the search for a very moisturising lip balm with a hint of colour, but finding the right product sometimes feels like a fool’s errand. The more I did my research on these two, though, the more obsessed I became. The Lip Butters get insanely good reviews on Makeup Alley, the swatches are fantastic, & well, what more can I say? I am a woman possessed.

Maybelline Baby Lips
I finally found Maybelline Baby Lips on the very bottom row of a Rite Aid display in an unsavoury part of Alphabet City, & snapped up Peppermint, Pink Punch, Cherry Me & Peach Kiss. Peppermint is a clear, peppermint-scented balm, Pink Punch is a soft bubblegum pink tint, Cherry Me is a gorgeous raspberry stain & Peach Kiss is a nude shimmer. My favourite is Cherry Me, the colour is really subtle & the look is quite gorgeous. Peach Kiss makes me look like I’ve been bitten by a zombie & I’m about to “turn”. It’s not good on me!

Ultimately, I don’t know that these balms live up to the hype. One of their major features was supposed to be that they’re great for really dry lips. They’re not what I would call super-moisturising, unless you obsessively re-apply them, but then, who wants to do that? (I do like the colour of Cherry Me a LOT though. I’d recommend picking it up.) You can read about other people’s experiences with Baby Lips here.

Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters
As for Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters… Oh my! How can I be so obsessed with something I have never even tried?! Everyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I’ve been caterwauling about how I can’t find them anywhere in NYC; I seriously feel like I have been into every drugstore on the island, but no dice!

AMAZINGLY, on Thursday night the incredible Dolly Dahl messaged me to say, “I’m in Vegas & I found the lip butters!” I have a nice little package winging its way to me from Nevada, so hopefully I’ll be able to give you an update on them soon!

Tweet!

Instax!

…You’ll find out more about these pictures (& that tweet!) in a couple of weeks!

Other things I’m into right now include sour gummy bears, buying candles from White Magick Alchemy, making a huuuuuge list of movies for the winter now that we are finally members of Netflix (!), & our new towels from IKEA. There is something about fresh white bath towels that is so sweetly optimistic, especially when one of you has pink hair… !

Here’s to a beautiful week! Oh, & if you enjoyed this feature, hit the Facebook “LIKE” button below my signature!