Better late than never, but this was the finished product! I was most proud of my zebra nail art though. It was painstakingly long to complete and I foolishly didn't practice before hand but the nails ended up looking okay! As usual my left hand far surpassed my right but I'd like to think both hands were passable.

I am so excited! As an animal lover and fancy dress fiend, the thought of having a safari themed evening next Wednesday is almost as good as Christmas!

After a lot of deliberation I opted to go as a zebra. I've been a leopard a couple of times before and though I briefly considered being a gazelle (I kid you not) I decided that a zebra was a little bit easier to do. Or so I thought.. how do you dress up as a Zebra whilst trying to still look a little bit cool..? Animal print was a massive part of A/W last year so I thought I'd try my luck on my fave fashion sites to see what was on offer. Being a typical student however, I of course plumped straight for eBay and got myself a cheap pair of zebra print leggings. I'm planning to wear them with a plain black strappy vest top and adorn my self with zebra print material in my hair and on my arms.



What I'm looking forward to more than anything however is trying to create some form of zebra style make up for my face. As I tend to sometimes have adverse reactions to face paint, I'm trying to make do with different types of make up I already own. Cheap and much less likely to bring me out in a rash! My plan is to use a mixture of my No. 7 Sheer Shine Eye Crème and my white ColorTrend eye pencil as the base.


 I'll then use a mixture of different kohl and liquid black eyeliners to create the stripe effect. Simple to do on my hand...


.. but I have yet to try my face! Attempt number 1 used black eye shadow whilst attempt number 2 used liquid eyeliner. I think for my face I'm definitely going to use the liquid eyeliner more and if I have the time (and the patience!) to add some make up to my arms or shoulders, I'll probably use the black eye shadow more as that doesn't need to stand out as much.

I now have a week to practice and perfect it - wish me luck!

Jade :)

As a uni student, fancy dress has become something of a favourite past time of mine. I love dressing up for different socials and nights out, but more than anything I love trying to make my outfits as unique or as homemade as possible - anti-conformist as ever!

 

For Halloween last year I dressed up as Pocahontas. Admittedly not the most scary outfit ever but it was so much fun to make (especially as all  I used was a pillow case and some ribbon!) This year, after much deliberation, I decided to go as Minnie Mouse. Again, not particularly scary but I remember seeing pictures of one my fave fashionistas Ashley Madekwe dressed as Minnie and ever since I've been waiting for the opportunity to do it myself! Since I'm contemplating dyeing my hair soon (more on that soon!), I wanted to make the most of my Minnie Mouse-esque hair while I've still got it.

 

Onto the actual costume, I already own a number of black crop tops and black shoes so that half was sorted. I have a pair of ears so all that was left was the polka dot skirt. I searched high and low for one I could buy, even in the kids sections of shops! Determined not to admit defeat I ventured to the market and bought a square metre of red and white dotty material. Cue my DIY polka dot skirt!

 

As much as I love creating and customising clothing, I'm not very good at doing things off the cuff, so I decided to cheat a little bit and use a skirt I already own - much easier!

 

I started with the big square of material and cut it into a smaller piece that was more manageable to work with. I then started pinning the material directly to my skirt so I would be able to take it from a square shape into a more fluid skirt shape.

 

 

Once I had pinned it all the way round, I cut it to shape and thought (rather naively) to myself, well that was easy! If only!

 

Of course when I went to try it on, because I had pinned the material when the elastic of the skirt wasn't taut, as soon as I tried to pull the skirt over my legs, half the safety pins began to buckle! So after a bit of fiddling around, I tried again and voila! One polka dot skirt perfect for Minnie Mouse.

 

 

I will do a follow up post to this, complete with a full outfit picture. What are any of you dressing up as for Halloween?

 

Jade :)