Visiting the V&A

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Last week was half term for me so I went to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with my dad. If you don't know what that is, displays lots of different cultural things such as Roman artifacts and paintings ect. I especially wanted to go because they had an exhibition on Wedding dresses which was interesting and I really enjoyed looking at all the pretty dresses. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take photos of that exhibition. However I was allowed to take photos in other parts of the museum so here are a few...

It was a really interesting place with various different things to look at so overall a good day out.

Thanks for reading!

Lots of Love

Becca x

Prom Dress Hunting

Hey, how you doing?

I was meant to post this ages ago and I had a couple of other posts in mind but things have been difficult lately so it just hasn't happened. Instead of having a long sad post to read about what's been going on (which don't worry will come later) I thought I would finally post about the recent hunting I did for my prom dress.

I live in England so we get one prom at the end of Year 11 when we are 16 years old. You also have a prom if you go to sixth form which is two years when you do A levels but I'm not there yet! My prom is in May, the Friday before exams start. Not going to lie I'm not looking forward to prom. I am trying to enjoy it especially for the people around me but I just don't seem to be feeling it. Anyway last Saturday my very good friend took me out prom dress shopping (obviously our mothers came because they're the ones with the money!) She is planning to make her dress which I think is amazing so she insisted on taking me so she could have the experience and try on a few dresses too.

If you are wondering we went into Harrow shopping. I mostly tried on dresses from Debenhams from the brand Quiz. They have really nice dresses and it's not too expensive. In the end my dress cost about £70 which is pretty good for a prom dress.

The following are photos of me trying on dresses. I won't include the dress that I actually bought. I'll save that for later! Here comes some really awkward photos of me in the dressing rooms...

Even though I find these kind of things uncomfortable, I still had fun.

Thank you for reading!

Lots of Love

Becca x

How to...Make Friendship Bracelets: Fishtail

As I'm sure you can tell by the photo above (that I spent way too much time editing instead of doing all the work I was set over the half term holiday) this post is about how to make friendship bracelets. I really enjoy making bracelets and I find them to be a really good distraction. Plus they are really pretty to wear. I mainly make them for myself which sounds sad because they are called 'friendship bracelets'. I'm just referring to them as this because that's the kind of style they are, if you know what I mean. I am thinking of making this the first of a little bit of a series with a few posts on different types of bracelets you can make. Enjoy...

To make this you will need to measure out fairly long pieces of thread. I have chosen to use three different colours but use as many as you want. Then you sort of fold them over in half and tie a knot at the end. You will end up with 6 pieces of thread in pairs of matching colours. Set them out as shown above so they are symmetrical. I have pinned it to a pillow to make it secure and easy to work with but you could cello tape it to a table or something if you would prefer.

How you make the bracelet is very similar to how you make a fishtail braid. You take the outside thread from one side (in this case the left side) and put it in the middle to the opposite side (in this case the right side)

Then take the same colour thread from the outside of the opposite side (right) and place it in the inside of the other side (left). It sounds confusing but hopefully you can see what I mean from the photos. 

Just continue the pattern. Put the thread on the outside to the inside of the opposite side.

Remember to pull the threads tight to get the best result.

I should start to look a little something like this. Just continue braiding until it fits around your wrist then you are done.

I should end up looking a little something like this. As a three thread bracelet in this style is quite thin I like to make it long enough to wrap around my wrist twice.

Thank you for reading.

Lots of Love,

Becca x

I didn't mean to push you away

I don't seem to be very good with people right now I don't think I have been for a very long time. I didn't realise how bad I was for a while. I don't really know where to start my head is buzzing with all these thought and I need to get them down which is why I am writing this.

I guess we'll start from the first time I realised I push people out. It must have been nearly two years ago now...god I haven't thought about how long ago it was...I think I had had fairly bad anxiety for a little before this but this was when I started to feel awful and was really hating myself to the point that I would harm myself. Obviously I wasn't in a very good place. I became extremely paranoid about what people thought about me including my closest friends. This had negative effect on my friendships.

The friendship that I got the most paranoid about was one with two of my oldest friends. I think a friendship between three people can be hard because someone can easily feel left out or like another friend is more liked than them. Really that is what happened. I got extremely insecure about what I did, what I said, what I look like and basically worried that they were judging every single part of me. I thought they thought I was stupid, silly, childish, ugly, annoying, clingy, a try hard and pretty much all the things you don't want anyone to think about you never mind some of your closest friends.

I got to the point where I had accepted I was the least favourite friend. I was the one who tagged along. I was the ugly friend. I was the fat friend. I was the unpopular friend. I was the quiet friend that nobody really cared about. I was just there. This is when I began to subconsciously push them away. I genuinely didn't realise what I was doing. I would talk less, become very shy, when we were together I was on my phone all the time because I was too self concious to socialise properly. 

These negative feelings about myself projected to them as negative feelings about them. After talking to my friend a long time after all this happened and when we were rekindling our friendship, she said to her it seemed like I didn't want to be with them. I was as if I didn't like them and they weren't good enough to be friends with me. To them I seemed quite bitchy. I never realised I was acting in this way. I was just trying to protect myself from what I thought was negative judgement and I was protecting them from having to be friends with me. I thought it was an awful friend and I wasn't good enough to be friends with them. I was sure they didn't want me in their friendship group. I was sure they hated me. I began to notice them doing things more just the two of them. I stopped hanging out with them and communicating in any way. I thought it was what they wanted.

Although I hated myself too and I wouldn't particularly want to be friends with me and I didn't think I was good enough for them, it hurt. I was really upset, disheartened and angry both at myself and at them. While I was thinking to myself "Well done, you just ruined years of friendship. You're a stupid cow that deserves to be alone", I was also thinking "How could they leave me! I do they not care about me at all. They're horrible." I think when I pushed them out I was really wishing they would run after me. When they didn't, I felt awful and worthless.

After months and months, something happened. One of the two friends goes to my school so we had had the odd conversation due to necessity as we were in some of the same classes and stuff. It was all just pleasant small talk where we pretended nothing happened at all. But one day she messaged me saying she needed to talk to me so we talked at break. As my problems had flourished during the time we hadn't talked, she had noticed some scars from across the PE changing rooms. As a sufferer herself she was very kind and understanding. In the days and weeks to come we cleared things up. She understood why I started to act the way I did. I understood that I was all in my head and we had only started to grow apart when I let the negative thoughts affect my friendship.

I tried to be friends again with the second of the two friends but it didn't really work out. I didn't see her much because we didn't go to the same school and I had stopped being involved in the youth group that we had all met at. Also I never believed she really understood or forgave me. I don't really want to be horrible about her because she doesn't deserve it. I just didn't feel good enough and like my problems were good enough for her. How I feel around her is complicated and we both have too much to struggle with right now that being friends isn't really working.

Even though this experience had made me realise a lot of what I think is real is actually just in my head, I think it could also have increased my paranoia about friendships. I worry way too much that I am pushing people out and self consciously acting bitchy when I'm feeling down. They way I feel inside doesn't seem to come out and be expressed to others as they actually are which is very frustrating and makes me feel insecure. I keep thinking that my friends hate me. I never want to ask though, in fear of being annoying and needy, in fear of offending them and in fear of it being true.

My friends are amazingly strong people and I am so incredibly proud of them. They have problems of their own to deal with and I always feel guilty, irritating, weak and undeserving telling them things. So if I decide to keep it from them for their own sake, I have to hide some of myself. I then feel worried that I'm pushing them out and I am not close to them any more and they are going to find new better friends. It's a horrible tightrope act of not wanting to burden them and wanting to be close to them.

All I really want is to be there for them! I want to care and listen and hug them when they need it. I worry they think I'm too weak and I can't handle it. I worry they don't want to burden me which I know is actually what I just said about them. It's just so complicated and difficult. It upsets me it has to be this way. I remember when friendship were so easy. Now we are all individually battling with problems which I fear will tear us apart.

Whatever I do and whatever they do. I don't want to loose them. They mean way too much to me. I want them to know that I'm there for them and I care. I hope they know that and I hope they know how fortunate I feel to have them as friends. I'm just sorry they have to deal with me because I can be very difficult to be with.

Yeah I don't really know what this is either. It's just a massive ramble about friendships. Hopefully it didn't bring you down too much that wasn't the intention.

Thanks for reading

Lots of Love 

Becca x

Beginning to Deal with Anxiety

Anxiety is your friend.

If someone had said this to me a week ago I would completely disagree and assume they haven't had the delight (and I mean the kind of delight that is a living hell) of dealing with some kind of anxiety disorder. You might be thinking that too but bare with me. A conservation with my counsellor last week made me change my perception of anxiety.

When I think about anxiety I have very angry, bitter and sad emotions towards it. I feel like this because it is something horrible to feel and to make it worse it has awful physical effects on you. While I am over actively and unnecessarily feeling it, it prevents me from being happy or even content. I try to fight it and repress it however it seems to be a battle I very rarely win.

My anxiety happens when I am anticipating or experiencing something that makes me feel uncomfortable or unsafe. My counsellor told me to think of it as your body warning you of this situation that you think is dangerous. Your anxiety is only trying to protect you so we shouldn't feel angry with it. It's just like if your parents know you're going to do something that could put you in danger, they would warn you not to do it. If you ignore them or fight back, they are only going to persist that you shouldn't do it and argue with you. Anxiety is like the protective parent inside us it can just be a bit too protective sometimes.

Instead of being annoyed at your anxiety, you should thank it. This seems kind of crazy I know but it makes sense right? Anxiety is a part of you, a part of you that is trying to protect you. When you start to feel anxious then just say to yourself "Thanks for the warning. I am a fully functioning human being with the instinct to protect myself." Then try to comfort the anxiety just like you would comfort an upset friend. Focus on the thought you are having when you are anxious and counteract them with calming thoughts. Tell yourself that you can handle the anxiety you are feeling because it can definitely feel overwhelming. I don't know what you think when your anxious about something but I find reminding yourself that things are temporary and you can't handle them helps. 

For example I have a German speaking exam tomorrow and I keep thinking that I can't do it and I'm going to mess it up. I remind myself that I have practised. I don't know I can't do this unless I try. If I do mess it up it's not the end of the world. If I feel embarrassed and bad about it going wrong that the feeling is only temporary and I can handle that feeling. I just have to get through the less than 10 minutes the exam will take and by this time tomorrow it will be done and I can forget about it.

I have tried to fight against and control anxiety for a long time and I have never found that it really works. Remember the old saying 'two wrongs don't make a right'? Well fighting the negative feeling of anxiety with another negative feeling of anger and frustration will not make you feel positive. Instead I'm going to try to work with and sooth my anxiety. I will try my hardest to inject some positivity into my low feelings. I know that after having these different thoughts and change perspective on anxiety its not going to go away and I won't now be able to handle it easy-peasy but its a start. It's a method that I can practice and improve on that will help to contain and deal with my frequent and horrible anxious thoughts.

I don't really know if this made any sense or was very helpful at all but thank you for reading.

BTW: the photo is just meant to be calming, nice to look at and to make the blog post look pretty.

Lots of love

Becca x

Rimmel Kate Lipsticks

Hello!

Now I'm pretty sure you're rolling your eyes right now and saying "These again? Really?"

Yes really I'm talking about the lipsticks which everyone who has ever come into contact with make-up has raved about. But there just that good and I wanted to have a little chat about them.

So the lowdown on these lippies...

• They apply really smoothly
• Great colour pay off
• They last a long time and even survive eating (I mean you eating with lipstick on, not you eating the lipstick. Unless that's what you like then in the word of Tyler Oakley "you do you")
• They don't dry out your lips or cling to dry patches or anything nasty like that
• They are very affordable and easy to get (I got mine for £5.49 in Superdrug)
• The colour range is great

I'm sure you'll agree overall great lipsticks. I particularly want to talk about the colours I have because I really really like them which is a good enough excuse to talk about anything right? From what I've heard these lipsticks are best known and loved for the red colours in the range but they have loads of other really lovely colours as well just like these ones...

On the left is the colour 08 and on the right the colour 05

(don't mind the awkward freckle in the swatching shot...)

08 is a dark nude, kind of browny reddish colour...why did I start with this one I can't describe it! But its okay you can see it, you don't need my words. You can see the swatch and this is what it looks like on me...

Warning you will scroll down to reveal a photo of my face. Yes, my actual face.

Ah. Yep there it is. Just ignore...well everything expect the lipstick that's what the photo is for to look at the lipstick. I'm just telling you to stare at my lips which is not creepy at all. Okay I need to finish the post and go to sleep.

05 is a much brighter fairly dark pink. The finishes on both of them are quite matte not very shiny or anything.

Here's another photo of me coming at ya! God, you lucky people. I'm just whacking my face all over the internet for you to stare at now!

Personally I like the 08 lipstick better with this make-up look.

That is all for today. Thank you for reading.

Have a good day, night, life...yep I'm gonna go now

Byeee

Lots of Love

Becca x