After seeing so many people rock the tennis skirt trend, I decided to jump on the bandwagon like I do with nearly most things I see on Instagram and buy one myself. I now feel like I need to take up tennis and become the new Serena Williams but it turns out, I can't even hold a racket properly haha.
I love how it can go with almost everything and it gives off that sporty vibe that I definitely do not have most of the time. So I wanted to do a post showing how I would style it. Pastel, bright or striped? I've paired all of the outfits with my trusty stan smith trainers that I wear all the time and my straw bucket bag (such a summer staple for me).
Let me know which one is your favourite look; it's hard for me to pick!
Mauve cropped boxy t-shirt- Zara (£12.99)
Tennis skirt- Bershka
Bucket basket bag- Zara
Fuchsia pink cropped tee- Zara (£4.99)
Faded striped t-shirt- Zara (£7.99)
Also thank you so much to my gal, Holly, for taking these pics of me. You're a pro. (I hope you see this haha)
Bethan xx
Music was a massive saviour for me during lockdown. When I'm feeling unmotivated, a bit down about the world and need a pick me up, I always turn to music. Whether that's a bit of ABBA or Harry Styles, my mood pretty much instantly changes from bad to good.
As you may have seen from previous playlist posts on my other blog, my taste is quite varied as I can like a song that is old or in the current charts but as long as it's a feel good tune then it ticks all the boxes.
I also took part in the 30 day song challenge created by Zoella so if you saw those on my instagram stories, it might be quite similar to this! I rediscovered so many songs I hadn't heard for years and now can't get the lyrics out of my head. Please tell me I'm not the only one whose brain is about 80% song lyrics haha.
Be prepared for the most random mixture but listen to any of these and you'll be holding a hairbrush for a microphone before you even know it.
1. Dancing Queen- ABBA
My number 1 song forever.
2. Bring it all back- S Club 7
I will always ask Alexa to play this if my mood needs a boost.
3. Style- Taylor Swift
4. Shotgun- George Ezra
(politely asking if we can rewind back to summer 2018 with the world cup and my first trip to portugal, this song was on all the time and I miss it)
5. Star Girl- Mcfly
6. Mr. Blue Sky- Electric Light Orchestra
7. Adore you- Harry Styles
(I love it too but this one is for my mum, played on Alexa almost everyday and repeated 4 times everytime)
8. Heartbreak weather- Niall Horan
9. Black and white- Niall Horan
(totes emosh)
10. She moves in her own way- The Kooks
(a classic)
11. 5, 6, 7, 8- Steps
School disco vibes anyone?
12. You're my number one- S Club 7
13. Anything but ordinary- Avril Lavigne
I went through an Avril stage in April and I have no regrets.
14. Yellow- Coldplay
15. We built this city- Starship
(or on sausage rolls, if you know you know)
16. All my friends- Byron Langley
17. Blinding Lights- The weeknd
I can't listen to this song anymore without thinking of the Tiktok dance but had to include it as it was in my head for the first 3 weeks of lockdown haha.
18. You belong to me- Taylor Swift
A lunchtime jam session with my sister will always include this, I need to polish up on the lyrics!!
19. Unwritten- Natasha Bedingfield
(what a tune) Alexa, repeat please.
20. Lovely day- Bill Withers
21. I'll be there for you- The Rembrandts
I hear this song multiple times a day thanks to Friends, not complaining though and yes, I will always clap along.
22. Treat people with kindness- Harry Styles
(are we seeing a reoccurring theme?)
23. We're all in this together- High School Musical Cast
I watched the films back at the start of Lockdown and I'm obsessed all over again.
24. Riptide- Vance Joy
I love to run to this.
25. Good as hell- Lizzo
This needs no explanation.
26. Waka Waka- Shakira
If you're not up dancing at this point...
27. Where is the love- Black Eyed Peas
(fun fact: this song was number 1 on the day I was born)
28. Want you back- HAIM
The ultimate girl group.
29. Dog days are over- Florence + The Machine
30. I wanna dance with somebody- Whitney Houston
This playlist wouldn't be complete without a bit of Whitney and what a song to end it on.
Bethan xx
The more I learnt about techniques and photography, the more I fell in love with taking photos and it made me realise how much I would love to do this in the future as an actual job.
I thought I would pick a few of my favourite photo shoots, share them with you and talk about the story behind them.
Side note- if you're reading this and thinking of taking photography as a GCSE, I would definitely recommend it. And if you have any questions about the course etc, feel free to leave them below.
These photos were inspired by an amazing portrait photographer called Joseph D.Tran. I discovered him whilst searching for photographers that used glitter as I knew I really wanted to experiment with different techniques, or something that would make a portrait photo look different.
In our GCSE course, for each photographer we had to do a 'direct copy' photo shoot which meant we had to pick a photo from them and make ours look basically the same bar a few things if we couldn't access something e.g the same background. These photos were the best outcomes of my direct copy photo shoot but in my case, I had to use a lighter background than the photographer's.
Moving on to the glitter. There was really no correct way in applying the glitter on my sister's face. We tried everything and it still managed to go everywhere! I would recommend making a paste e.g with Vaseline and the glitter but make sure your model hasn't got sensitive skin or any allergies before you apply anything.
Besides all the mess, I think this was probably one of my favourite ones to do. It is something so different and there was a lot of planning and creating to do beforehand. Even if I'm still finding glitter in the bathroom 8 months later haha.
As part of my reflection project, I took photos of my granny and ended up using them as part of my mock final piece. I wanted to incorporate old photos and new ones to show growth and life. I love working on photoshoots like this and editing the photos into black and white which imply a lot of emotion.
After doing the initial photoshoot, I experimented with blending in the old photos on an app and furthermore, went into our school darkroom and did it by hand with chemicals.
And finally my spontaneous shoot in London from February this year! It was my first time doing something like this. I'm always a bit of a typical tourist; I even take photos in my own town, but I loved going into London on a day out and having the motive to do a proper photoshoot.
Mostly taken in the tube stations, this photo shoot was inspired by Bob Mazzer. After researching his work for quite a while as part of my course, I became obsessed and wanted to recreate his photography as part of my final project 'Events'.
I also edited them to create a 'grungy' effect, similar to Mazzer's photos.
Over the past 3 years, I have really experimented with many types of photography which has made me realise that taking photos of people is my favourite.
It is quite gutting that I didn't get to finish the course, my final project or complete the final 10 hour exam but I so enjoyed what I did do in photography. I would love to make this my career one day and can't wait to continue studying it at A-level.
Again, if you have any questions about the course or anything else, feel free to leave them below!
Bethan xx
I'm not really too sure where to start with this one. Have the last 5 months gone slowly or quickly for you?
When I think back to March (when it got dark around 6pm?!) when I found out exams were cancelled, that seems like a lifetime ago. And by the way, I didn't really deal with that news very well. I was seriously gutted and being real here, I think I cried for practically the whole evening. I think it just came as such a big shock that I had two more days of high school and that was it. For as long as I can remember, I've thought about the time I would sit my GCSE's and have the best long Summer. Especially after seeing my sisters go through it too.
No exams, no prom or that 'end of school' feeling. And there was such a low 'vibe' (if you will) in school on the last two days as you had no idea when would be the next time you would see everyone. It wasn't something you could get excited about either as you normally would for the end of school as you knew it was because the world was going through a global pandemic.
Thankfully I worked so hard throughout the year and managed to get good grades in my mock exams. But that's not going to stop me from still being terrified for results day haha.
I finished school on the Friday (spending most of the day signing shirts) and then on the Monday we went into complete lockdown for what we thought was only going to be three weeks. Like many people, it took me a while to adjust to the 'new normal'. It just felt like groundhog day! At this point, I don't think I realised how big scale it was. I had no idea anything like this could happen, which is obviously very naive of me to not know.
The first week was a bit of novelty, I was still trying to do school work to focus on something but I didn't feel motivated at all. We really utilised our one hour of exercise and walked up to the fields near our house almost every evening. (This slowly stopped as we got bored of it haha.)
I remember waking up on a Monday morning a few weeks into lockdown and just feeling so 'meh'. I was moping around the house, I had no energy and wanted to know when everything would be better again. I am never usually like this. I am normally very positive and a little motivator but this day was different. I kept reminding myself that it was okay to feel a bit down about the current situation. That afternoon, I put on High School Musical, went on a walk and ended up feeling a lot better. It is important for me to note that on days like these in lockdown I reminded myself of how lucky I am to have good health in myself and my family, a roof over my head, clothes and food to eat because a lot of people have it much worse than me.
One of my favourite times of the week was the 8pm clap on a Thursday for the NHS and key workers. It was so lovely to see neighbours on our street and celebrate millions of people's hard work and support in those really uncertain times. It was so emotional to see everyone come together.
The weeks passed, sometimes slow and sometimes quick, and the over-ripe bananas were turned into banana bread about once a week. And we were so lucky with the weather! Being able to be out in our garden was something that I will never take for granted.
At this point, I started 'Couch to 5k' again (post about this coming soon!) which was probably one of the best things I could have done. It gave me another focus and some time out where I wasn't on my phone and I could escape for a bit.
You may be able to see from the collage of photos, that we attended a 'Black Lives Matter' protest back in June. I can't think of words to describe how amazing, powerful and thought provoking it was. It is something that I feel so strongly about especially being a white person that before this, didn't recognise their white privilege as much as they should have done.
I think one of the biggest things for me was trying to keep myself busy. I like a plan and I'm always up to do something so not being able to go anywhere was different for me. I made a conscious effort to make a daily to-do list but also some time out for me to do something that I enjoyed.
I definitely want to talk about this in more detail another time but for me (and I think many other people), it was more about enjoying the little things. I loved going outside and having my breakfast in the morning, facetimes with my friends and family, going on walks, spending quality time with my family and eating dinner outside even if it's pouring with rain. I don't think I've ever been outside so much!
And I captured most of these moments on my disposable camera which I've used throughout lockdown, I can't wait to go to a shop and develop them. It will be so cool in years to come to look back and see what we got up to whilst being at home.
In these times of adversity, I've become so much closer to my friends even through a screen and as a family, we've all pulled each other through. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people.
I'm not really sure how to end this, I feel like I need some inspirational words haha. There has been no structure to this at all but I hope it made sense and gave a little insight into what I've been up to these past 5 months. Not everything has been easy! It's been a real ride of many different emotions but we've all got through it and somehow come out the other end. We're still in uncertain times and one of the worst things of all, don't know when we can hug people again but we will get there. Proud of us! Sending so much love to everyone. Keep safe.
Bethan xx
(p.s all the photos shown in this post are from lockdown, some of my favourite moments, not everything looked like this!)
It has been a while. A really long while. I can only apologise for my absence but I couldn't be more excited to be back with a fresh website and lots of new ideas.
If you're wondering where my other blog went, (in all honesty, same) but in a nutshell, I stupidly didn't renew my domain at the start of the year and it expired. I tried to renew when I found out at the start of lockdown, but I still can't access it. I would love to be able to one day as there are some posts on there that I wrote when I was 11 (slightly embarrassing) and a whole lot of memories made in nearly 5 years.
So I came to the conclusion that I would make a completely new blog, and here we are now! I've spent weeks planning the posts and how it would look. Throughout this whole time of preparation for the launch, I fell back in love with writing and creating. After being out of the loop for so long with school work and other various things going on in my life, it was so nice to be able to just sit and write. I started this 5 years ago because I wanted to share my likes, thoughts and life with other people and I am still doing it now for that exact reason.
I go into more detail in my 'The past 5 months in a nutshell' post about what I got up to during lockdown so I should probably keep this one short and sweet before I ramble any further.
The content I create will be pretty much the same as what I've been doing so far; fashion, photography, my random thoughts, lusts and loves.
To YOU reading this, thank you for stopping by and sticking around. I really appreciate all the love. I hope you enjoy the content I put out.
Bethan xx
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