NOTD: Piccadily Circus (+a dupe)

1 coat of Nails Inc. Nail Polish in 'Piccadily Circus'

Piccadily Circus is a lovely raspberry magenta colour, which is a nice alternative from the typical reds that are popular in the winter season. The application was amazing. The colour was opaque in 1 coat and the formula wasn't too dry or too runny. It dried quickly and I found it lasted well on my nails. I've never bought a Nails Inc. polish full price (£11), as I have only got them when they do the Diet Coke promotion or when they're free with Glamour magazine, but after using this one, I have to admit I'm swayed and will be looking more into their range!

As I was putting Piccadily Circus away, I had a glance through my nail polish collection and spotted 2 other polishes which looked similar and I found a cheaper dupe of Piccadily Circus!

First I looked at Nails Inc. 'Victoria', but decided that that was too red (It's like the redder older sister of Piccadily Circus), then I picked out Missguided Nail Splash 'Missunderstood', which I was given c/o Sara who works at Missguided at the Brum Blogger Meet last summer. In the bottle, they look completely different as Missunderstood looks a lot redder.

However, when swatched they are both a raspberry toned pink. Missunderstood is available from Missguided.co.uk and costs just £5 - More than half price of full price Nails Inc. The only difference I have found is that the formula of Missunderstood is runnier and you would need 2 coats to get a nice opaque colour. The wear of the Missguided nail splash is amazing and I only experienced tip wear after  approximately 4 days.

Do you like Nails Inc. nail polishes? Do you have any recommendations?

xoxo, Joy

Spotlight On: Danny Roberts

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I've been so busy this week finishing off my dissertation, having a mock case presentation and on placement.

Today's spotlight is on Danny Roberts. He is a Californian illustrator with a penchant for fashion ilustrations. I love how the illustrations are so detailed and life like and I love the modern twist to them.

Some of my favourites are:

I have a t-shirt with this Chanel girl illustration on, which you can see here.







Illustrations: Danny Roberts

What do you think of Danny's work? Who are your favourite fashion illustrators?

xoxo, Joy

Recipe: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I absolutely love carrot cake and I recently made one which tasted super yummy, if do say so myself. The recipe was adapted from a Cbeebies show called "I Can Cook", which I was watching with my little sister when I was at home for Christmas and the show shares recipes for sweet and savoury food, which are aimed at young children so they are quite simple and don't require too many ingredients. I adapted it a little as it was designed for a loaf tin and I don't have one of those and I also multiplied the quantities to make a bigger cake and added cream cheese frosting. You could alternatively use buttercream icing or make 2 cakes and sandwich icing between them, if you fancied some more sweetness.

Ingredients:
For the cake -
12 tablespoons of oil
3 eggs
180g self raising flour
120g caster sugar
120g carrot (Grated)
60g walnuts (Optional - You can add other things like sultanas, orange zest etc, depending on what you fancy)
For the icing - (Note, this makes a lot of frosting! I did quite a thick layer of frosting on the top of the cake and still had loads left over)
225g cream cheese
110g margarine
450g icing sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract To make the cake:
1. Oil your cake tin/Line with baking paper. 2. Whisk the eggs and oil together 3. Grate the carrots. Add to the egg/oil mixture. You can also add in your walnuts, sultanas, orange zest, etc. at this point. 4. Mix the sugar and flour in a separate bowl. 5. Add the egg/oil/carrot mix to the sugar/flour mix. Stir until well combined. 6. Pour into your baking tin. 7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 25-30minutes.
8. For the icing - Cream the butter and soft cheese. Then add the sugar and vanilla extract to the mix. Mix until smooth. 9. Once the cake has cooled, add the cream cheese frosting. You can garnish the top with walnuts, orange zest, etc. if you fancy it. 10. Enjoy! Do you like carrot cake? What's your favourite carrot cake recipe?
I hope you enjoyed this post! Thank you for reading. xoxo, Joy

New Glasses

Hey everyone, I'm currently blogging from my iPhone so please excuse if there are any typos or anything!

I have recently been after a new pair of glasses, as my Chanel ones are starting to wear a little after 4 years! When I chanced upon selectspecs.com and saw their budget line had a pair of glasses in a similar style for £6 including the lenses and a scratch resistant coat and UV coating, I couldn't resist! What a bargain! The postage cost £4 and considering they were coming from China, they came in just over a week and came with a plastic glasses case and a cleaning cloth.

One disadvantage of buying online is that you can't try the glasses on, but the site has measurements which you could compare to glasses you already own or try a similar style on in store. Luckily these suit me more than the Wayfarers did and I'm so in love with them :) I also really like that they're a matte black plastic, rather than your typical glossy finish.

What do you think of wayfarer style glasses?

Thank you for reading. xoxo, Joy

*I bought these with my own money. But wanted to share my bargain and good experience with Select Specs with you.