Preparing for the Hols!

This Friday I'm off to Center Parcs which is somewhere I've been to pretty much yearly for quite a while. I just love the variety of activities there and, even better, now I'm 18 I'm set to enjoy a full spa day on the Friday with my boyfriend with a massage, a facial and everything. Although I'm only going away for a long weekend, my family are actually off to France for nearly 3 weeks, so I'm going to be moving between several places, none of which will be home. This left the very daunting task of packing for that long. Make up bag wise, here's the selection I've finally decided on.

The bag is from Smashbox - ones of those free gift with any purchase deals which I think always makes it worthwhile signing up for company emails so you get to hear about them. It's compact enough for travel but also quite easy to keep organised because of the compartments. In one side I have tubey shaped products like mascarara, concealer and lip balm and in the other is flatter products such as powder and my go to Naked Basics palette. Brush wise, I'm keeping them in their own travel bags but will bring the Real Techniques Core Collection, a Mac travel set and my favourite bargain 4 eye brushes from eBay (only £3.38 for the set here)

Are you going anywhere this Summer?

Lara xo

Easy Nail Art for Super Short Nails

Summer Triangle Nail Art

    

With leavers' ball coming up I decided it really was time to start trying to grow my nails again after nail-biting exam season. I've always enjoyed splashing creativity on my nails and hopefully now I'll also be less tempted to have a quick nibble!

My nails are naturally small to start with, but I began by filing them all down to an even length and buffing them to remove those tell-tale bite marks. I used Boots 4 Way Buffer Block here - cheap and cheerful.

     

As a base I used Essie's 'Grow Stronger Base Coat' here which both stops the bright polishes staining the nails weird colours and helps strengthen them from breaking. I painted 4 of my nails  with Mystify by Misguided which is a standard hot pink shade and added an accent nail on my ring finger using Barry M's nail paint in 'Indigo' here.

Using a nail art brushes which I picked up from Ebay for only 99p for 15 brushes here, I added a triangle on each nail before using a dotting tool and a white nail polish by Natural Collection. As the dot covers the tip of the triangle, this means the point doesn't have to be precise!

I finished with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Speed Drops on Ebay here which lock in the design and reduce drying time.

Lara xo