Our new addition to the family...

Our little kitty :) his name is Simba

Christmas Time...

My favourite time of year :)

Seen Magazine Dress illustrations...

I have recently being drawing, creating and playing about with some illustrations of our magazine dress for 'Seen', here is what I have come up with so far... 

WE WON!!! :)

Our dress was picked by judges Tony Burns (Director of Seen Magazine), Rebecca Keegan (Editor & Director of Seen Magazine) & John Maguire (Brokerage Officer at LJMU)to be modelled at the 'Death by Glitter Ball'. We were all so happy, excited and proud of our work. It was a great achievement for our work to be acknowledged by someone outside of the Uni and who is founder of the magazine.

Amy looked fab in our dress!

Our team were then given the opportunity to attend the ball and to help dress Amy on the evening, alot of us were really excited at the opportunity to go but some had other commitments and were sadly unable to make it.

In the end there was me, Sophie & Ryan who attended the ball. Ryan and Sophie were able to get there earlier than me as I had work commitments but had managed to leave earlier than planned to get to the ball to help dress Amy. They were able to attend Liverpool's photographer Matt Ford's studio to watch him shoot our dress for his blog and for the magazine. His work is excellent and we were all really pleased with final image...

Check out Matt's blog: http://firecrackerfashion.blogspot.com/2011/10/death-by-glitter-vogue-ball-2011.html

At the ball we helped out backstage to dress Amy before the show, there was a great buzz to the atmosphere backstage as everyone prepared to go out on stage...

Left to Right: Sophie Edwards, Amy Faith, Ryan Martin & Kelsey Ireland (me)

Let the show begin...

The show began aprrox 8pm and was split into 5 sections, which were:

* Bizarre

* Solos

* Femme Realness

* Erotica

* Choreography 

Our dress was featured in the 'Bizarre' section so we were one of the first to be up.

We dressed Amy prior to 8 o'clock so we could all go upstairs to watch the show.

Our time came... I could not wait to see Amy strut her stuff down the catwalk in our dress, cameras at the ready... and she was up.

She did and absolutely amazing job and really worked the catwalk using the fans as props along the way.

Photographed by Ching Lee

It was a great achievement for us to see our work getting noticed and how much everyone liked all 3 dresses made by our class. They were so pleased with all of our work that all 3 dresses will be shown at 'Seen Media Awards' next thursday. 

We are all grateful for the opportunity given to us by 'Seen' magazine and all of those involved, and look forward to anything we may be involved in, in the near future and I cannot wait for the Seen media awards as I also have the opportunity to work with the creative communications and live events company 'Meet and Potato which is really exciting... Watch this space! :)

Seen Magazine dress competition for the Death by Glitter Vogue Ball

As Fashion Communication students at LJMU we were recently asked to work to a 48hour brief for a competition for 'Seen' magazine. 

We were split in to 3 groups of approx. 8-10 people and asked to design and make a paper dress out of back issues of 'Seen' magazine which would then be judged by the directors of the magazine. Then the winning dress would then be worn by their model (Amy Faith) at 'the Death by Glitter Vogue Ball' on Saturday 1st October. This was really exciting stuff, as we were working on a live project that would be judged by someone outside of the university.

In our group there were:

Kelsey Ireland (Me)

Sophie Edwards

Natalie Oldershaw

Ryan Martin

Amie Hunt

Charlotte Hunt

Lottie Williams

Charlotte Hyland

Khloe Vaughan 

Harriet Kenworthy

The brief we were given was to make the dress from the back issues and to make it as bizarre,outlandish and theatrical as we could whilst still promoting the magazine.

So we began sharing ideas within our group and drawing down rough sketches of how we think the dress would look. Some of us had also brought in pictures from the internet as research for ideas for the shape and style of the dress. Below is a few I found so you can get and idea of what we were looking at...

Our group decided that we wanted to pleat the pages and make a  skirt so it looked full and we wanted to use odd shapes and have bits sticking out etc so it looked really crazy.


We began tearing out pages from the magazine and folding it to make many pleated fan shapes, that we could then later attach together to make the skirt.

I really liked this shape made by pleating the paper diagonally and the folding it in half. I thought this would be good to use on the top of the dress.

To get things done quicker we chose to work on separate parts of the dress in smaller groups. So the group was split and each working on a task.

Me and Ryan got together to make the top half...

One side of the dress was going to have a large shoulder structure that stuck up & out from the dress that would be loads of pleated front covers of 'Seen' magazine so this would be promoting the magazine showing their logo several times. I said it would be a good idea to make a corset top so it could be easily fitted and removed from the model and also it fitted perfectly with the brief we were given. So we took the front and back covers of the mag and stuck them together long ways to create a long rectangle shape were we then hole punched the ends to thread ribbon or string through to create the corset fastening.

Once the corset shape was made we could begin attaching other pleated pieces and the shoulder piece of front covers to it. We used staples and double sided tape to attach everything together.

This is what the top looked like once we had worked our magic...

Nat, Amie and Charlotte worked together to make the skirt. They started by making a skirt from calico so they could attach the pleated magazine strips to it to make it easy to get on and off. They stapled together strips of pleated magazine pages to make each layer of the skirt. The bottom layer was made from layered front covers from issue 4 which were all the light blue colour. There was then a smaller pleated layer attached over the top of the bottom one to create a nice layered effect to the skirt. These were both fastened using velcro. We checked the size for the dress on one of our group members Sophie who was a similar size to the model from the measurements we were given.

Khloe and Harriet decorated the shoes in theme with the dress, they looked really good, but when Harriet tried them on we had to cut the fans down on the inside of the foot because they were catching on one another as she walked. 

I also made a head dress with help from Sophie to give the outfit to give it that etc WOW factor! We attached small prints of the logo to it to promote the magazine. We then tried it all on Sophie again, we were all a bit unsure of the head dress because it looked a bit to busy and you could hardly see her head...

...but... we were then discussing our design with our tutors who liked the head dress and one of them turned it backwards and put it on Sophie and we loved it! it didn't look to busy, it fit with the dress and it was still promoting the magazine.

The fans were also made for that etc WOW factor and to fit the brief, it was Ryan's idea and the logic behind it was so the model could be hidden behind them and then appear to be 'SEEN'. I thought it was a brilliant idea as the theme for the brief was bizarre and theatrical and the model would be able to use these as props when walking down the catwalk.

All three dresses were then modelled by 'Seen' magazines chosen model Amy Faith in a mini catwalk display put together by our class in our studio. The winning dress would then be displayed at 'the Death by Glitter Vogue Ball'

My weekend in the Lake District...

This weekend I visited the Lake District with my fiance, we travelled up there early on Saturday morning, stayed overnight in a B&B in Ambleside and then travelled back Sunday afternoon.

Whilst on our journey there we stopped off in Windermere to have a walk around the lake. There were some gorgeous views and lots of people out on their boats. Here are a view photo's I took whilst wondering around the lake...

We stayed 'Claremount House' in Ambleside, this was a cosy little B&B owned by a friendly couple. On arrival David (one of the owners) offered to carry my bag upstairs and took us to our room. Our room was bright, clean and simple with a dash of colour. It had a lovely little en-suite I felt at home straight away which was great. 

We had planned to get our and do a long walk around Loughrigg Fell , we had a brief conversation with David about this were he was kind enough to lend us maps and to point us in the right direction to start our walk and we were off...

We walked 6 and a half miles in approx. 3hours, parts of the walk was hard in the heat but I wasn't complaining because we couldn't have asked for better weather for weekend of venturing in the great outdoors.

We walked right up into the mountains where we witnessed some spectacular views of Loughrigg Tarn, Grasmere & Rydal water...

After a long day of walking we headed back to shower, change and then off back out for our tea. We decided to eat in a lovely little restaurant called 'The Glass House'. And I have to say the food was delicious! I had braised lamb and it just fell apart on my plate and in my mouth you hardly had to even chew it, it was amazing I would most definitely recommend it to anyone and would eat there again myself. Also for the quality of the food the price is pretty reasonable too :)

Sunday morning we were up early for our traditional cooked breakfast before packing, checking out and off for a walk again! 

Breakfast consisted of cumberland sausage, egg, bacon, beans, tomato, mushrooms and a hash brown... 

MMMM DELICIOUS!!!

Once sorted we then proceeded to head out to Rydal Vale to take some photos of Rydal Falls. Whilst on this walk we passed some amazing views, one of my favourites was of some stepping stones across a river, the sun was beaming down and glistening off the water and the trees were in full bloom and a lovely bright green colour. The whole setting of the picture was just breathtaking I could have sat there in the warmth of the sunshine for hours just listening to the water flowing over all the rocks in the river, it was so peaceful and relaxing...

Later we arrived at Rydal Falls which again was another breathtaking view, the water looked so inviting in the scorching hot weather and after walking for approx. an hour. 

There was a little hut so sit in with a window to view the falls, but being a fan of photography I knew i wasn't going to get a decent photo of this amazing place through a pane of glass. So we climbed down the side onto some rocks where we could fully appreciate the view and could take some great photos. 

It looked like a little version of paradise...

Overall I really enjoyed the trip, we both did. It was nice to enjoy the time away together it such a picturesque place with no money or work worries just gorgeous weather, amazing views and great company!

We will definitely be visiting Ambleside again in the near future and would recommend 'Claremount House' to anybody that is looking for a pleasant, welcoming place to stay.

New York, New York...

I have recently abandoned my blog because I have had a busy couple of months including my 21st birthday, getting engaged and jetting off to New York City... all of which were amazing!


New York City is such an amazing city you can spend days, in-fact months there and still not manage to see everything! There is so much to do and see.


Once checked into our hotel (the 'Intercontinental Barclay') we dumped our luggage and headed straight out into the city. Our first port of call was Planet Hollywood were we were buying our New York Passes which gives you access to most of the tourist attractions.

The following day we were up bright and early and off to the Empire State building. I have been to New York before so this was my second time and I can say that I was still just as amazed by the views from the observatory deck of the Empire State Building as I was the first time. It is a breath taking view and I could spend hours up there just walking round and admiring the views. Here are some of the pictures I took from the top of the Empire...

 (You can see the Flat Iron Building in the centre of the photo above)

(In the photo above you can see a view of Macys from the top of the Empire)

The following photo is my favourite out of all of the shots I took up there though because it is shows the Chrysler building in a brilliant shot and it is my favourite building in New York...

We visited many other attractions throughout the trip; Top of the Rock, Central Park, Columbus Circle, Statue of Liberty, Madame Tussauds, Times Square, Washington Square Arch, Flat Iron Building, Ground Zero, Grand Central and many of the museums but I want bore you too much by going into loads of detail about each one. Here is a photo's showing these wonderful places instead...

(Marilyn Monroe Waxwork)

(Elvis Presley Waxwork)

(Lady Gaga Waxwork)

(View of the Empire State building at night from Top of the Rock)

       (Me playing about with my shutter speed which worked out quite well I think)

 (Times Square lit up at night)

 (The Flat Iron building or as I like to call it the 'cheesecake' building because it looks like a slice of cheesecake)

(The Statue of Liberty)

(The Washington Square Arch)

(Inside Grand Central Terminal)

(The Guggenheim)

After all of the sight seeing all that was left to do was SHOP!! :) and where better to do it than New York City?!? With the likes of fifth avenue just a few blocks from where we were staying how could I possibly resist.

I visited Macys, Victoria secrets, Century 21, H&M, Topshop, and loads more :)

I bought my bargains from these two stores though...

Sephora is the place to be if you have a love for make-up, it has every brand you could possibly think of and love; Benefit, Nars, Bobbi Brown etc but at a cheaper price. I found myself leaving with lots of newly purchased Benefit make-up I could of come home with a suitcase full!

Forever 21 is like America's answer to our Primark... only better!

It is amazing and there is hundreds of bargains found upon many floors. You could honestly spend a whole day just in there routing around for fab bargains. If you ever come across a Forever 21  store get yourself in there! You will not regret it if you're a bargain lover or tend to shop in Primark.

Over all our visit to New York was brilliant and I would go back within a heartbeat if given the opportunity. I LOVE fashion and there is just so much opportunity there... maybe one day! :)