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Tag: plus-size blog
Get Glammed Up With BeGlam – App Launch Event
Everybody loves a little glam
If you are like me you will love to get proper glammed up once in a while when having a night out with the girls, going to any other sort of special event or sometimes simply just because. The only thing that does feel even better than glamming yourself up is getting glammed up – and there is a new kid on the blog when it comes to booking experts.
A Little Glam Can Go A Long Way For Body Positivity & Self Love
Getting glammed up really can do so much more than just getting you ready for a special event or a night out. Practising some self-love & self-care by trying out some new amazing makeup looks or getting your “hair did” can do soo much for your self-esteem and make you feel soo good about yourself and even your body.
This does make me think of “Cheap Thrills” by Sia. It does express in a great way how treating yourself to a little makeover (and hitting the dance floor with your loved ones) can make you feel a million dollars.
Everybody needs a little glam once in a while. At least this is how I feel.
So What Is BeGlam & What Has It To Do With Getting Glammed Up?
Like I said earlier, the only thing that feels even better than glamming yourself up is getting glammed up with some professional help, making you look your best and pampering yourself a bit – and this where BeGlam comes in.
BeGlam allows you to easily browse and book your local makeup artists and hair stylists. The great thing about freelance MUAs and stylists is that they will come to you rather than you having to go to their studio or salon, so this is perfect for a little pamper party at home or especially if you are looking for a somebody to do your wedding makeup and hair for you and your bridesmaids.
Source: www.beglam.co.ukYou can book via the website or the iPhone/iPad app. I believe an Android versions in planned and will follow soon. If you are interested, keep an eye on my Facebook page, I will let you know as soon as BeGlam will hit the Google Play Store.
Bubbly, Celebs & Makeovers At The Release Party
The release party at the Artisan was good fun: Celebrity guests (Housewives of Cheshire), makeovers, tasty food and bubbly.
Oh and yes, I mentioned celebrities. Who they were. I was told they were part of the cast of The Real Housewives of Cheshire. I have to admit I would have not recognised them or had the faintest idea who they were wasn’t I told as I do not really watch that sort of show, but once it was pointed out to me who they were it was actually interesting and nice to meet them.
I guess while this would have been an exciting point for many, it was a little lost on me.
However, celebs or not the event was great, you simply can’t beat the combination of bubbly, yummy food and especially makeovers.
My OOTD
Dress: ‘Ionia’ Sea Blue Polka Dot Tea Dress – Lindy Bop
Shoes: Old Season – Deichmann
Here is a quick glimpse of what I wore on the day. The beautiful Lindy Bop ‘Ionia’ Sea Blue Polka Dot Plus-Size Tea Dress. I do love this dress and I got a lot of compliments for it. I will fairly soon post a full review of this dress to give you a better idea and include some better pictures of what I mean by that.
I want to leave you with one little word of warning though: If you consider buying this dress and your boobs are a bit on the larger side, you will have to be careful with this dress.
What do I mean by that? Take a closer look at my left boob in the picture (a thing I did not expect to say today…) . You should see a seam going across my boob. If this dress would fit as it was intended, this seam should lead around my bust, not across it. In my case the seam luckily ends up bang in the middle of my boob wich makes it kind of look like it was intended this way and I more or less get away with it.
All in all a lovely dress that I very much love but I guess if you are on the more well endowed side you will have to try the dress on and see where this seam ends up on you.
What Makes You Feel Glamorous?
What do you do when you want to feel glamorous? Have you ever booked a freelance make-up artist, mobile hairdresser or maybe a mobile nail artist?
Now go out put your make-up on do your hair and hit the dance floor, hit the dance floor….
Lots of love
#HealthyCurves – New Blog Section
Up till now my blog has centered mainly around fashion, body positivity and self love with the occasional beauty post sprinkled in, going forward I am going to add a new section to the blog: #HealthyCurves.
Invisible
From the runway to the Sports Illustrated Swimwear Issue, we plus size ladies have by now conquered so many domains. The gym-scene however is still one of the main areas where we lack visibility.
The result of this is unfortunately quite often that plus-size individuals are afraid of going to gym, scared of standing out, being stared at or maybe even being ridiculed. I myself have suffered from that in the past and still find myself once in a while looking around when I am at the gym.
Time For Us To Conquer The Gym
It is time for fat women exercising to be more visible making the sight of us in the gym a lot more normal – we need to conquer the gym and flaunt our curves proudly, showing off that we are fat and fit or at least fat and working on it.
Body Positivity – Loving Yourself To Make Healthier Choices
But this is about more than being confident enough to wear a gym outfit and to conquer your fear of being stared at. This is about loving yourself enough, to make healthy choices for yourself.
The issue is that most of us, if and when we were going to the gym, focus most of the time so much on weight that we end up failing so often, ending up in a never ending spiral, hating ourselves.Rather than focussing on weight, like I too used to do for so long, we should be focussing on making healthy choices every day, being the healthiest self we can be that day, just a day at a time. If it means that we are losing weight or not.
If we are stubbornly chasing a weight that is difficult for us to reach, it will most likely lead to us being a lot less healthy, either by us following unhealthy fad diets which do not only lead to bad nutrition but in most cases also to yo-yoing, in the worst case it might lead to eating disorders or other mental illnesses and finally in most cases it will lead to simple plain unhappiness which is practically guaranteed by chasing an in many cases unattainable number, or at least unattainable in the short time we give us.
Torturing ourselves like that is often even unnecessary. While I am pretty sure no one will argue that weight does not have an influence on health. The idea of how thin we actually have to be to be healthier is also over-estimated. Not everybody is made to reach a size 8. To be healthy it is important to listen to our own bodies, however, to do this it is important that we are honest with ourselves.
My Story & Relationship With My Own Body And Fitness
I myself had to make theses experiences myself in a quite painful way. I have yo-yoed around most of my life going from crash diet to crash diet most of the time following a self-hating low till a few years back I decided that it was finally time to follow through and make the big chang, become a new person.
I was convinced this time I would make it and this time, I would make it to make the long-term change, a lifestyle change not a diet. I put all my effort in it for a very long time and over the time of more than 1.5 years I lost 30 kilos (ca 5 stone) slimmed down to a size 18 and even ran a half marathon. I was so proud of myself.
Then I hit the wall, the weight did not want to budge further, but my BMI still called me obese, I still bought my clothes in plus size shops and society still called me fat?! What to do? I kept and kept trying, counted my calories, exercised obsessively, struck more and more foods out of my diet but still the weight did not budge. There it was again, that anger with myself…
At that time I did not have the confidence I have now, I still thought I was fat and ugly. I completely missed how great my body felt, that all tests said I was fit and healthy that I without issue was able to run 10kilometers. I look amazing now and looking back I now know I looked amazing then, but all I could see was that my clothes still said plus-size, that despite all blood and heart tests saying healthy the BMI chart still said obese. The official classification and the german society still called me fat. And so at some point, I gave up hope and the inevitable happened and I ended up unhappy and annoyed with myself and ended up gaining everything backover time.
Self-hate is not a good motivator. I am very very happy that after coming to the uk I stumbled across the body positivity movement who taught me that my self-worth is not tied to my weight. It took me a long time but now I love myself and my body and know that I am fucking beautiful.
Unfortunately however after I always used to be fairly fit more weight I have recently noticed that I am by far too quick out of breath and I have also picked up some lower back pain and the occassional early pain in my right knee – the typical weight issues. There is no way round it if I want to tackle that pain and make sure that knee stays healthy I need to tackle that gym and work on my health and this is a journey I would like to share with you and also want to use as an opportunity to as a fat woman be as visible as possible going to the gym and also beating my own residual phobias.
Love Yourself & Be Our Healthiest Self Every Single Day
The best we can do for ourselves is love ourselves and realise that we are beautiful and worthy as we are and do every day the best for ourselves and our body. Ultimately this will lead to our healthiesst self – should this in each individuals case mean losing weight or not.
This is ultimately what I am going to be working on and will try to convey via my new #HealthyCurves posts. I am by no means planning in turning this into a dietblog in any way shape or form, but from now on you can look forward to hopefully being able to me on my way back to an even happier, healthier self.
Look Forward To #HealthyCurves
Over the next sees you will see the occassional post seing me trying out an online training system, working with a personal trainer, testing out yoga, trying to make more health conscious food choices and, as this ultimately is and stays a fashion blog, lots of plus-size gym wear and plus-size bikinis.
What Is Your Philosophy On Fitness?
Where do you stand when it comes to fitness? Are you a fitness fan or do you go nowhere near a gym? What is your favourite sport or fitness routine? What is the one fitness/self worth tip you would like to give to your younger self? I would love to hear from you?
Burlesque Valentines Day – A Night At Cirque
My other half and I were lucky enought to be invited to Amour at Cirque for the Valentines Night .
Cirque is a relatively new burlesque club that has recently opened it’s doors in Manchester in a lovely victorian building.
Cirque has a really great atmosphere, some nice cocktails, great tunes to dance to, combined with some sexy and well choreographed burlesque entertainment. A great place for a night out.
Cocktails, Drinks & Refreshments
The Location
The Dancefloor
The Show
What Do You Think?
How have you spent Valentines Day? Have you been to Cirque or do you plan going or do you maybe know some other great burlesque venues?
Cheap & Easy DIY Plus Size Costume: Ursula
Plus-Size Halloween
Halloween choices for us plus-size ladies are still a little meagre but slowly seem to be getting better. We still have to put a little more effort into finding our perfect plus size costume but at least options do exist.
There are some great bloggers who have for years already shown some amazing costumes on their blogs and also have this year put together some great resources.
- Betty Pamper has recently writen a great article giving you 5 tips how you can ace your costume – including how and where you can obtain some awesome options.
- Georgina from She Might Be Loved is always a great place to find awesome make-up ideas and also some great costumes.
One of Georgina’s awesome costumes this year was a great take on Ursula from Disney’s Little Mermaid. The costume was available at website based in the USA, that also does some other great plus size costumes. The Ursula costume, unfortunately, has now sold out.
Halloween Is Almost Here
If you are like me, you keep putting finding your Halloween costume off and off, and before you know it is almost Halloween. By that time you are either too broke to order a great costume and/or the ones you do find are either sold out or do take too long to arrive.
So, if you are in need a last minute solution, but still would like to channel your inner Ursula , fret not, I have a great alternative for you.
Last Minute Plus Size Costume – But Not Less Awesome
This Ursula costume is super easy to make and mainly using cheap items and or items you might already own.
All the items can be ordered with next day delivery by following the links should you really be under time pressure.
All you need is:
- a black peplum dress – get it here (or any other black peplum dress)
- a belt
- some black fabric – get it here
- some purple fabric – get it here
- an Albert Einstein Wig – get it here
- a snail shell (Aquarium decoration) – get it here
- Pillow/Toy Stuffing
- kitchen roll, toilet paper, cotton balls or whatever other stuffing materials you can find her
- kitchen roll, toilet paper, cotton balls or whatever other stuffing materials you can find her
- a bit of string
- optionial: some stiff but bendable wire, if you want to be super-cool.
- optional: leggings/bolero if you like and want to save on the purple body paint
Step 1 – Mark The Shape Of Your Tentacles
Sewing the tentacles is really easy, although I would recommend using a sewing machine if you have access to one.
Pick a marker that you will be able to see on your fabric and mark on the inside of your fabric the shape of your tentacles as large triangles. I personally found it the easiest to decide how wide I wanted the tentacles to be at the top and then to start marking said width on one side of the fabric with always with 3cm space in between. Then do the same on the other side, making the first mark in the middle of the first tentacle marking of the other side and then keep going on this side (see image below).
Once you are done you can simply start connecting the marks across the fabric and there you have the shape of your tentacles.
Step 2 – Sew Your Tentacles
Secure both fabrics and make sure you have the side you want to show on the outside, on the inside and sew along the markings you have just made. Once you are done just cut the tentacles apart by cutting along the 2-3 cm space you have left between them and *boom* there you have are your (limp) tentacles.
Step 3 – Filling The Tentacles
Now you only need to turn the tentacles inside out and fill them, using the toy filler you have bought or any other filling material. I actually used kitchen roll as I was a little desperate when I made it and that was all I had, but it worked fine. So you can use kitchen roll, toilet paper, cotton balls or whatever else you have around and think works best for you. Make sure you leave about 10-15 cm for fixing them on the belt.
If you want to make the supercool you can add some bendable wire along the tentacle and then you can bend them in shape when you were them, but they also look awesome without this.
Step 3 – Finishing Off The Tentacle Belt
You are almost done with the tentacles. Just take the top of the tentacle that you have left unfilled and roll/fold it over and either sew it in place or fix it with safety needles. As I had filled it with kitchen roll I wanted to keep the option open to maybe reopen them one day and fill them with the proper filling material.
Once you have created the loop, slide the belt through the loops of the tentacles then space them out and you have your tentacle belt. When you hold the belt they will all bunch together but you can space them out once you wear it.
Step 4 – Put Your Tentacles On
Here it becomes obvious why you need a peplum dress, next to them looking awesome at any time, the peplum bit is perfect for hiding the tentacle belt. So grab your tentacle belt and fasten it tight enough to stay in place and to keep the tentacles in place but also loose enough so that you can adjust the position of the tentacles.
Once you have made this far, the largest part is done.
Step 5 – The Snail Shell Necklace
At the time I made this costume I ordered a big snail shell from the aquarium decoration section on Amazon. This specifc large shell does unfortunately not seem to be available anymore, but there are multiple sea shell selections available and I am sure there are going to be some nice snail shells in there.
Carefully drill a hole into the shell. I did it by hand, using a drill bit. Slowly but surely I drilled through it by turning the drill bit manually. I was a bit worried, using a power drill might break the snail shell, especially as I only had the one shell available.
You will need two holes – one on either side. Feed the string through the hole and knot the end of the string until it is bigger than the holes. Et voilà – you have your necklace holding Arielle’s voice!
If you happen to have the right shells and the time you could get even another step closer to perfection and look and consider making some seashell earrings. All you need is glue, some old drop earrings, which you are happy to recycle. Select suitable shells (see image below) and just glue the seashells onto the old drop earrings or attach via a hole you drill through the shells similar to what you will have done to create the necklace. It won’t last forever but will look great for an evening.
Step 6 – Ursula Makeup
With the make-up is where the real transformation begins. The Ursula makeup is easier than one would expect. 
What I used:
- Purple Base – Snazaroo Body Paint
- Dramatic Blue Eyeshadow – Barry M Dazzle Dust Electric Blue
- Dramatic Grey Eyeshadow – Barry M Dazzle Dust Petrol Black
- Draw Eyebrows & Beauty Mark – Black Kajal
- Red Lips – No7 Stay Perfect Pillarbox
- Dramatic Eyelashes – Dramatic Falsies
The most important points are, the eyebrows are very very high, so use the charcoal dazzle dust to conceal your eyebrows (if you do not want to go so far as to use the glue trick). A strong electric blue for the eyeshadow is key as much as the dramatic red lip.
And most importantly don’t forget the beauty spot – and don’t mix up the sides like I did the first time! The spot is on Ursula’s right.
There are some great YouTube tutorials. Simply search for Ursula make-up and you will be spoilt for choice.
Step 6 – The Nails
The longer the nails the better. Ultimately your want to create proper witch nails, seawitch nails to be specific. Therefore I got some Long Red Nails
Step 6 – The Hair
The final and easiest step – take the Albert Einstein wig
Hello Ursula
The great thing about this costume is that it can also be dressed up or down for the occassion. Wear an officewear peplum dress for day occassion or use a mini or low cut dress if you want to turn it into a sexy costume. Depending on your personal taste you can also add leggings or a cardigan and wear it wither with ballerinas or high heels. It is completely up to you.
What Do You Think?
What do you think. Do you make your costumes yourself? What will you be wearing this year?
Jewellery, Delicious Italian Food & An Armed Robbery
An Invitation by Victoria Highfeld
I recently attended an event at Victoria Highfield, a jeweler in Didsbury. On this evening they reminded me that I should probably have my family heirlooms enlarged to breathe some new life into them and opened my eyes to the world of jewelery beyond cheapo fashion jewelery . (read the event post here).
ChloBo
This tie Victoria Highfield incited me to introduce me to the world of ChloBo followed by a lovely dinner. I had never heard of of ChloBo before, so I did a little research before the day.
According to what I found online the jewelry brand produces handmade pieces inspired by the island of Bali and the story of the company, as you can read it on their facebook page, just sounds adorable:
When ChloBo founder Chloe Moss turned 21 she packed her bags and embarked on a journey around the globe looking for creative inspiration […] eventually she ended up on the beautiful island of Bali.
Discovering the island’s beautiful soul, the stunning craftsmanship and the amazing silver, Chloe was utterly inspired and here marked the birth of ChloBo.
Upon returning to her home in the UK, Chloe transformed her spare bedroom into her studio. [..]
The Bali inspiration gives this brand a bit of a sophisticated hobo chic. I particularly like the the concept of stacking and combining the pieces with each piece being reasonably affordable.If you want to go for the stacked bracelet look though like in the image below, you will fairly quickly reach a spend in the hundreds.
With the cheapest pieces starting at around £45 though there definitely is not too much I can complain. ChloBo seems to offer something for every wallet, if padded or not – and there is no need to start at a big stacked bracelet collection right away. I can imagine that becoming a long term collection, buying each piece to mark a day or memory, similar to the Pandora bracelet charms- and the pieces do appear like they would last.
But Then There Was An Armed Robbery
I was really looking forward to this day however the event unfortunately had to be cancelled as there was unfortunately an armed robbery on the day of the event at one of their branches. The robbers apparently did not use guns, but whatever the weapons were, this does not make it less frightening
My thoughts are with the staff that had to go through this traumatizing experience. I hope that nobody got hurt and that there wasn’t too much physical damage to the store.
Stil A Lovely Evening At Gusto
I do absolutely understand why they had to cancel the event. While we wait to hear to when the event might get rescheduled Victoria Highfield still was so nice to invite us to a lovely Italian meal at Gusto, an absolutely amazing Italian restaurant. And not only that, they also had a lovely little goody bag for me.
Oh So Delicious Food
I promise I won’t turn this post into a restaurant review (although that might actually come later) but the food was absolutely amazing.
I had been wanting to go out for a nice steak for ages and so I chose the thin char-grilled steak which came with Parmesan shavings and rocket, which was absolutely delicious. And not only that, in the uk it seems to be quite difficult to get your steak actually served medium even when you ask for it specifically, despite how thin this lovely steak was cooked to perfection. For dessert I finally got the chance to test sweet cannelloni which had been wanting to try for ages.
The More Than Lovely Goody Bag
Victoria Highfield made not only sure that I still would have a good evening but also a goody bag was awaiting me in the restaurant. I was quite excited about what I would find inside.
I did not expect to receive an actual piece from the collection, but that was exactly what it was, a beautiful bracelet with cross charm.
It is not only beautiful but also feels great and really meets the expectation I had from the website – a great quality piece to last, won’t be “so last season” next year thanks to it’s classic design… – bottom line. I like ChloBo.
It does fit okish, while you can notice it is not made specifically for plus size wearers. For pieces like this that range between £45 and £250 depending on bracelet I would wish that it was possible to add an extra bead or two for perfect wear if needed. However if you are not planning to wear it 24/7 it is perfectly comfortable on my rather larger than average plus-size wrists over the course of an evening.
Thanks A Lot For A Lovely Evening
Thanks Victoria Highfield. I hope everyone who had to go through the trauma of the robbery has recovered well and despite the event not happening, you made me very happy this evening. 😉
Lots of love