L’Oreal Paris and Cheryl Cole Need YOU! *competition

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After spending all summer attempting to “go blonde” I made an executive decision last week – I decided that it was time to go back to the dark side. I popped on a deep cherry red colour and I have to say I am once again embracing my glossy locks. Seriously, I have never been able to master the blonde glossy look.
Anyway, that brings me around to competition from L’oreal Paris…

L’Oréal Paris is looking for three girls to star in the next Casting Crème Gloss advert alongside spokesmodel, Cheryl Cole. From 31 October to 27th November, fans of Casting Crème Gloss will be able to cast themselves in the role of either: deep brunette, fiery redhead or honey blonde.

To enter visit the L’Oreal Paris UK Facebook Page and click on the application button which appears on the left hand side of the page, follow the steps to enter and upload a picture of yourself then ask friends and family to cast their vote from the 28thNovember to 4th December 2011.

Those shortlisted will be sent for a L’Oréal Paris Casting Day where they will receive a makeover by hair & makeup artists in preparation for a live audition, in front of a panel of judges.

This will be your chance to go in front of the camera and tell us why you love Casting Crème Gloss. And yes, you can even utter those famous words,

“Because you’re worth it!’

Disclaimer: Opens to female UK and ROI residents aged 16+. Entrants must register with L’Oréal Insider, colour their hair using Casting Crème Gloss and upload a photo on facebook. No purchase necessary. Closing date 27/11/2011. For full Terms & Conditions and to enter visit this page.

*sponsored post*

How To: Turn your hoodie in to a computer sleeve

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I’m not too sure I’d want to carry my beloved macbook around in my jumper BUT I have to admit to finding this pretty cool. So now when you’re sorting out you’re wardrobe ready to cram it full of next seasons must haves you can scout out some old jumpers and upcycle them to create a handy laptop sleeve.


via sayingimages.com

Big Knit: Innocent & Age UK

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Have you seen the innocent smoothies with their little hats on? Cute right? Well, it’s not just because the smoothies are fashionistas – the little hats are all part of the big knit.

What’s it all about? Each year Innocent smoothies ask the nation to knit little hats (which then go on top of the bottles) in order to raise money for Age UK. 25p from each bottle sold goes to Age UK helping them supply blankets, hot meals and advice for older people who struggle to keep warm throughout the winter.

The Special Project and how YOU can get involved:

This year the project is being taken to facebook…

www.facebook.com/innocentdrinks

Innocent and Age UK are asking you get a hat (you can buy the smoothies from Boots and Sainsbury) and take a photo and upload to the facebook group. As well as helping AGE UK raise money (they get 10p each for each photo uploaded)  you can also win prizes.

The aim is to be creative and take pictures “wearing” the hat. Just hold the cat between the camera and the subject and voila. I’ve done a bad impression below:

I’m going to take a few more pictures this weekend but I’ve got 3 little hats to give away if you fancy having a go…send contact me below or drop me a tweet…@rachaelphillips

Travel Notes: Cream Tea & Champers

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Hello…are you here because of this offer?

Below is a review of the champagne and cream tea, I’ve bought this groupon deal myself so I’ll make sure I pop down a review but if the cream tea is anything to go by I’d say go for it!

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Cake and champagne? I’m there. I’ll be honest you’d have had me at cake but throw in some bubbly and you’ve a guaranteed guest.

I went along to The Deck Oceanhouse in Cardiff Bay to enjoy one of their Champagne Cream Teas. I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much as it was a groupon deal, I thought it would be some cheap cava and a piddly scone – I was so wrong!!

The Deck Oceanhouse is situated down a side street opposite the new police station in Cardiff Bay. It’s not in the main “hub” of the Bay, which suited me perfectly as I was able to park right outside (and considering we were experiencing some true Cardiff weather this was beyond ideal). As soon as you walk in you can see what a wonderful little place this is, absolutely full to the brim with atmosphere. There isn’t a large seating area upstairs and we were instructed to sit downstairs where whilst still a lovely setting the full on lights meant it didn’t quite have the same ambience as it did upstairs.

Down to the food – The scone was HUGE! And I mean HUGE! It was served warm which left us in no doubt that they were baked on the premises and not bought in. The jam and cream that accompanied the scone were also plentiful and very tasty.

The champers was lovely, served cold and was a decent sized glass and we also had a pot of tea (we were offered a choice of tea and coffee) each.

The ONLY two things that I wasn’t that impressed by was the constant tidying of our table and the snaffling of the unused sugar. We had barely finished our scone when the plate was taken away from us. The same thing happened when we finished our tea etc. I appreciate maybe they needed the plates or wanted to keep things tidy but it felt as though we were being rushed and one thing which stops me enjoying an experience is the feeling of being rushed.

The sugar snaffling? Well, basically I don’t take sugar in my tea so of course my sugar sachets remained unused. I have no issue with a business re-using sugar sachets – of course I don’t, I would reuse too BUT the lady who had the obsession with the plate clearing popped the sachets in her pocket before moving anywhere. I know that sounds such a petty and stupid thing to put me off but I’d rather have not seen her do that…

That said I would definitely go back. They look as though they’ve a great range of meals and their new late opening hours mean for sure that I’ll go have dinner there some time. They also provide comedy nights and live music!

Definitely recommend! Marks 9 out of 10

Love your lippy!! #Lipcote

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I can’t believe lipcote is 50 years old…in fact I can’t believe that I’d forgotten all about lipcote. I remember it being a staple in my grandmother and mothers make up bag when I was growing up…especially when I went through my “Heather Shimmer” phase back in the 90’s it was an essential part of the look (no one wants to rock the smudged purple lips look – no one).

Continue reading →

NaNoWriMo begins…

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And so it starts, 30 days of literary abandon. I’ve accepted the challenge to write at least 50,000 words (aka a novel) in just one month. I’ve got my story laid out in my head, my main characters are in place and I’m looking forward to just getting stuck in.

But this isn’t the first time that I’ve tried to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge, I attempted to give it a whirl last year but ended up falling so behind that I just gave up. However, not this year, I’m ready and waiting.

So I stumbled across this blog post, which has given me a great idea for keeping that motivation going. It’s all about setting up a reward system and that reward is that on day thirty you only have to write ONE (YES ONE) word. Now, if you’re like me and usually wait until the last day to cram in as much work as possible then this idea will seem pretty strange. But I think it could work extremely well.
The reward system is all about embracing the motivation you get at the beginning of the challenge and therefore relieving the pressure the rest of the month.
Here are the recommended daily word quotas: Continue reading →

Sunday Stumble: Halloween Edition

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Evening all, hope you all enjoyed the hour extra sleep this morning (if you’re in the UK that is?!), I certainly did and after a day of hitting the shops in Cardiff I’m glad to be back on the sofa, curled up awaiting a large hot chocolate.

Since it’s Halloween tomorrow (is it just me or is Halloween getting bigger every year?) I thought I’d kick off this weeks Sunday Stumble with this story from gawker.com

It appears that top foreclosure firm threw homeless-themed halloween bash.

Treadmill v’s Outdoors: This article in the L.A Times looks at running in doors v’s running outdoors.

Want to ward off the vampires this Halloween (or maybe just this rotten cold that’s doing the rounds)? then make a batch of this French Garlic Soup.

I’ve resisted the urge to go out a get a little costume for Georgie and Scooby this year (temptation was there, especially as it’s Scooby’s first year with us) but looking at these cute dogs on their Annual Thompsons Park Halloween walkies I’m not sure if I can resist much longer…



* pics via daily mail online

starts on Tuesday…I’m taking part – are you?
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people” – Thomas Mann

And finally…
The best celebrity costume has to go to Heidi Klum
Before:

After:

More pics via @heidiklum on twitter.

Daily Pick: Chick a Dee

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Who thought a smoke alarm could be cool? I love this Chick-a-Dee smoke alarm from Dutch by Design.

Available in white, pink, blue and white/black is a stylish and quirky new smoke alarm in the shape of the cute bird.

Like any smoke alarm, the Chick-a-Dee smoke detector is easily fitted to the ceiling. It boasts an impressive 1.5-year battery lifetime, as soon as smoke is detected an 85 db alarm signal is activated. When the battery goes dead, an alarm signal will be played so you will know when to replace the battery. Under normal conditions, a control light flashes once a minute. The Chick-a-Dee can be tested by pressing the test button. It complies with the latest in (NEN- EN 14604) smoke detector regulations that apply to the entire European Union as per July 1 2008.

Lazy at work? Think again…

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If you spend more time in work poking your friends on facebook or tweeting Gary Barlow then you may want to rethink your attitude.

A leaked report from Downing Street suggests that the law maybe changing making it easier to sack unproductive employees and “lazy workers” losing their benefits.

Now unless you want to spend more time at home watching Jeremy Kyle on your cute corner sofa scouring the internet for work then here are a few tips* on how to NOT lose your job…

1. Improve your performance. Yeah I know, that’s obvious. If you can’t improve your performance through selling more, achieving more etc etc then befriend a boss and go down that route.

2. Avoid procrastination. I’m the Queen of procrastination, I can turn the simple act of checking my twitter feed in to a mammoth tweet session resulting in several hours passing without so much as a cuppa tea.

3. Get a new job. Quit. Go out and do something you love doing. If you hate your job that much that you just can’t *do* it then stop job blocking and go find yourself something else. The jobless person taking over your position will be grateful and you’ll save yourself health issues in the near future.

* Clearly my role in life isn’t to work in the careers market and this is very much tongue in cheek! But still, be careful in work and turn twitter off!!