Manicure Monday: Strawberry Pop

Hello Princesses!

Today I have a super cute and happy manicure featuring OPI's Strawberry Martguerita and Born Pretty Store pastel blue studs. ^.^

I really liked the way this manicure turned out! It was quite flattering on my short nails, and would be great with gel polish for traveling (I find it looks nicer to have a design that is clear at the nail base if you don't have time to touch up your polish).

What do you princesses think of this design? Would you wear something like this on your nails?

Blogging 101: Custom Fonts and Signatures

Hello Princesses!

Today I'm going to be showing you how I get cute fonts for my blog images! Unfortunately I can't figure out how to install them in Blogger, but they are quite useful for creating cute signatures and picture based headers. You can also use these fonts during your picture editing in Picmonkey! I found this tutorial through Pastel Cutie's tumblr so I can't take credit for the tutorial at all, but I can show you how I get mine installed!

Here's a How To since I get this question a lot.
Instructions:
1. Download the .zip file (doublefeature.zip) using this link http://desktoppub.about.com/library/fonts/dd/uc_doublefeature.htm
2. Open the .zip file
3. Install
4. You should now be able to use "Double Feature" on Microsoft Work or Paint

I use a couple of different websites to download my fonts, including 1001 free fonts, Cool Text, Font Space and my personal favorite - Dafont. Fonts in 1001 Free Fonts, Cool Text and Dafont have little pop-up button that tells you what is commercial friendly and what is for personal use only, and some fonts have a "donate to designer" button for optional donations.

But what differentiates Commercial Use and Personal Use? This is a massive grey area for a lot of people, and if the fonts do not have a license or any type of usage instructions how do you know whether you can use this text for your purposes? I personally consider my blog to be "Personal Use" as my I don't use my blog to sell products or make a significant amount of money. However, if you were to use the fonts on business cards, artwork or any signage for stores or businesses that would be considered "Commercial Use" because you are directly using them to make money, then you would need to purchase a license to use the text.

Navigating each website is fairly simple, I tend to gravitate more towards the cute or elegant script, but I also download some of the wingding/shape texts too! This time I've been looking through Dafont's Valentine section because they have the cutest little fonts there! I'm going to download Sweat Hearts BV by Blue Vinyl (I'm going to assume the mean sweet hearts, but I'm not 100% sure there).

All you need to do is click the download button on the right of the page and then click "Open with WinRAR" (which I assume everyone has, if not, go and get it).

This will open up the file in WinRAR where you will find two files, one being the Readme file (please read it) and the other being the font installation folder. Blue Vinyls readme says;

Blue Vinyl Fonts
(c)1997-2004 bvfonts@bvfonts.com
http://www.bvfonts.com

 The Freeware Font(s) included in this pack were created by Blue Vinyl Fonts, (aka Jess or bvfonts@bvfonts.com). I have been creating fonts since September 12,1997.I am inspired by my uncontrolable love for music and computer graphics (my only freinds).All fonts are original works from the mind of bluevinyl,wooooo scary. 

Please do not include this font on any CD-Roms without written consent from bvfonts@bvfonts.com.  This font is not to be resold or remarketed.  This font is free to use in any private manner.  If you plan to use this font commercially in any manner please contact bvfonts@bvfonts.com concerning this for terms of commericial use. 

NO WARRANTIES. Blue Vinyl Fonts expressly disclaims any warranty for this SOFTWARE PRODUCT. This
SOFTWARE PRODUCT and any related documentation is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, without limitation, the implied warranties or merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. The entire risk arising out of use or performance of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT remains with you.

NO LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. In no event shall Blue Vinyl Fonts be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or any other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use this product, even if Blue Vinyl Fonts has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Blue Vinyl Fonts reserves the right to make changes to this license at any time.
Thank you ; )

All Rights Reserved by Blue Vinyl, 1997-2004.

Double click the installation text file, an click install. You can then close that window along with the WinRAR window and open up MS Paint or Photoshop.

In Paint or Photoshop, open up your text folders and scroll down to the font name (in this case - sweat hearts) and proceed typing as normal!

You can change the colours as normal, and use two or three different types of font to create your signature or post headers.

I recommend saving your picture text in the PNG format if you're uploading to your blog via Paint, because otherwise you can get odd shadows, greying and unnecessary noise if using a JPEG. The top picture is in JPEG, bottom picture is PNG.

To create a signature image for you blog you will first need to create the signature through a picture editor of your choice. Then you will need to upload the image to the image hosting site of your choice (I use Photobucket). Create a static image code like I showed you in my Simple HTML Codes post, and insert the image link at the bottom of your post or wherever you want it to be! 

If you want the signature to appear on all of your posts automatically, you can create a post template by going through the Settings - Posts and Comments - Post Template and inserting the HTML code there. You can also insert regular text if you always start your posts the same way as I do. This is what my shortened template looks like.
 

<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hello Princesses!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Today I'm going to be</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Cute Kitty Gif
<a href="http://media.tumblr.com/4b4ea2eccd1cf6b7a0ae93037a75afa7/tumblr_inline_mjlc6iMqDD1qbwjq3.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.tumblr.com/4b4ea2eccd1cf6b7a0ae93037a75afa7/tumblr_inline_mjlc6iMqDD1qbwjq3.gif" /></a></div>
 

Social Media Icons

Signature 
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-45LXv3KXct8/Ugi0dNQTXrI/AAAAAAAACfU/YOeSwb5l65Y/s1600/Signature+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-45LXv3KXct8/Ugi0dNQTXrI/AAAAAAAACfU/YOeSwb5l65Y/s320/Signature+2.jpg" height="134" width="320" /></a></div>
 

Google Analytic Code 

I hope this has helped you guys with creating fonts and signatures! ^.^ If you have any questions, leave them down in the question bar below and I'll do my best to help you out!

Next week I'll be showing you how I edit and watermark my blog photos! If you have any specific questions about the way I edit my pictures leave a comment and I'll include it in the tutorial! 

First Impression: LUSH Angels On Bare Skin Cleanser

Hello Princesses!

Today I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite cleansers at the moment - Lush's Angels On Bare Skin Cleanser! This is another top seller for lush, and when I was browsing my local Lush store one day, a lovely Lush assistant recommended this cleanser to help soothe my angry acne and allergies.

What Is It?

"Angelic, medieval cleansing wash with rose and lavender. Angels on Bare Skin is the Lush version of an expensive medieval skincare recipe. Rare, precious essential oils were first brought to Europe by the crusaders who encountered Arabian medicine. The church immediately banned them because their ability to alter states of mind was considered the devil’s work! But the final result was Cosmetics 1, Church 0. Rose oil and lavender oil were discovered to do wonderful things for the skin, too. Almost a thousand years later, you’d be hard pressed to find a better all round cleanser and exfoliator than Angels.

Quantitative Ingredients

We buy our ingredients from suppliers who do not test on animals

Ground Almonds (Prunus dulcis), Glycerine (Glycerine), Kaolin (Kaolin), Water (Aqua), Lavender Oil ((Lavandula angustifolia)), Rose Absolute (Rosa damascena), Chamomile Blue Oil (Matricaria chamomilla), Tagetes Oil (Tagetes minuta), Benzoin Resinoid (Styrax tonkinensis pierre), Lavender Flowers (Lavandula angustifolia), *Limonene (*Limonene), *Linalool (*Linalool)

* Occurs naturally in essential oils" (1)

This product is such fun to play with, all you need is a small pea sized amount for your whole face! The exfoliation is incredibly soft but effective, and when water is added to the solid cleanser to form a paste, the ground almonds create almond milk which helps to tone and brighten the skin. You can use this cleanser once a week or once a day, it's that gentle!

Would I Purchase This Product?

Yes, I purchased this two days after I finished my tester pot! I absolutely love this cleanser, it's super soft and gentle on the skin, but provides a great clean and gentle exfoliate. The Lavender in the cleanser helped soothe my skin and left my face feel super smooth and moisturized. I cannot recommend this product enough, and if you have a local LUSH, go in and ask for a tester to try it out for yourself! 

What do you think of this cleanser? Do you prefer gentle or harsh exfoliators?

Update: Doxy-50; Doxycycline (6 Months)

Hello Princesses!

Today I'm going to be talking about my second three month session with the acne medication Doxy-50. After the first three months of Doxy-50, I was prescribed another three months worth of Doxy-50 and told to stop taking the medication after I felt that I had achieved "perfect skin". I reached my ideal skin after one and a half months into my second session and stopped taking the medication. I still had a lot of scarring which made my face seem imperfect, but I had zero acne!

This was my skin before I started taking Doxy-50

 And this is my skin after 4 and a half months taking Doxy-50 and 1 and a half month adjusting.

 Close ups of my beautiful face before, and 3 months into the acne medication.

 And this is my skin another three months down the line.

I still get the odd breakout along my forehead due to stress, and along my chin from hormones, but I'm largely acne free! I know my skin looks awful but a lot of the blemishes are just scarring, there are only 4 pimples present which is a massive improvement for me!

During the past 3 months I was still experiencing allergic reactions. These reactions were becoming more severe, and I seemed to be reacting to more and more products until the only skin care that wasn't triggering painful hivey whiteheads was my trilogy rose hip oil and cleanser.

Then one day, I had a brainwave. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't skincare that was the problem. It turns out that I've developed an allergy to adhesive.

Here's the back store. 

I am currently studying towards my Master of Music, majoring in Performance Flute. I play in orchestras, operas and do a lot of teaching and performing. When you're performing on the flute, it can get very hot on stage, and you sweat from the heat and the pure terror of playing in front of crowds. This seems like TMI, but it's important to the story, trust me. When your face sweats (and it will) it makes it very difficult to keep the flute from sliding around on your face since wet metal is very slippery, especially when it's balanced precariously on your face. To increase surface area on the lip plate (section of the flute that rests on your chin) you can tape a small section of masking tape to the lip plate. This effectively stops the flute from accidentally sliding around if you have tricky passages, playing during the summer or when you're just a nervous sweaty performer. I don't always use the tape, but reserve it for important concerts, because you can get too dependent on the security of the tape and forget what it's like to play on a smooth metal head.  The tape also stops the flutes metal/silver/gold reacting with some types of skincare (Clearisil is notoriously bad) and makeup corroding your flute and leaving tarnish stains on your chin (also known as that gross flute chin thing).

I've been using masking tape on my flute for four years now with no problems, but during my last concert I noticed that the tape was making my chin feel super dry and itchy, so I did the only thing that would make my skin feel better, which was to remove the tape and keep playing. That evening my skin was absolutely on fire with itches, and the following morning was covered in itchy painful hives. I couldn't understand why, because I hadn't changed any skincare or makeup! Honestly, this allergy made me upset in ways you cannot imagine, (unless your also allergic to the things you love most), because I assumed I was allergic to skin care and makeup, and I though I would have to give up blogging for sure, and live out my days as a gross skinned makeup-less hermit.

Only then did it occur to me that it was only on my chin ... and my chin was itchy after playing the flute ... after using tape. It seems so obvious in retrospect, (especially considering both my boyfriend and younger sister are allergic to heavy duty adhesive), but at the time I was so confused and scared! I thought that I either had an allergy to silver (totally possible) or an allergy to the tape (almost as bad because I do rely on it for performance), so I stopped playing with the tape, and I stopped getting the allergies. I'm left with horribly scarred skin which is no fun, but it's miles better than the painful allergies.

So after 4 and a half months of Doxy-50, how has my skin fared?

I really liked being on Doxy-50! It cleared up my skin without having too many side effects. I experienced severely dry lips and minor photo sensitivity, but that was it! To combat the dry lips, my holy grail life saving product was the Clarins Moisture Replenishing Lip Balm, which was well worth the $40! I wore a high SPF sunscreen and sunglasses constantly to combat the photo sensitivity.

There is just a pre-warning and a mini disclaimer - even though Doxy-50 worked well for my skin, it does not guarantee the same results for your skin. Everyone has different skin, and between the severity of acne, hormones and eating habits that can contribute to acne, so you may have to try a couple of different acne medications before you find something that works for you, but I hope this update has helped some of you princesses out there that are suffering from acne (or extreme stupidity + adhesive allergies) like me!

If you have any questions about Doxy-50 leave me a comment down below and I'll try my best to help you out! ^.^