Currently / 01

This week has been a busy one. Family birthdays, appointments and just general life-ness has made this week be a one where my feet have barely touched the floor, all for good reasons. Since we don't get much chance to talk on here other than beauty or blogging related, I thought I'd bring in a new feature. You should know me and features by now - I find it hard to stick to them as I get bored quickly but I'll try my best!

+ A  N E W  L A P T O P  Last Sunday was my birthday and I was very gratefully gifted a new laptop to replace my old one which was clinging onto it's final straws of life (that may sound like I'm over-exaggerating but seriously, waiting 10 minutes for it to turn on is mundane at the best of times!). I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to setting up new technology - I love it! It's nice to have a fresh, clean space to do all my blogging work on that also doesn't break my arm when I pick it up.

+ S N O W  I posted last week about the snow that we had recently (read here) & it actually stayed around for a fair amount of time. One of my highlights from the week was being woken up by my mum screaming "Elise, look at the snow!" and pointing out of my bedroom window. She soon regretted that when I dragged her out at 8am for a Winter morning walk, just me, her & my camera. Although Meenie wasn't a big fan of the snow, I thought it was perfect.

+ I N T E R A C T I O N S  I've also noticed a huge surge in my blog comments, stats and Bloglovin' likes recently & haven't the slightest clue why but I'd just like to say thank you! I don't mean this to sound like the start of an award-winning speech but I am so thankful for the support I get from the people who read my blog, even if you do live miles away! I love how I'm able to turn on my phone at any time of the day and there will be someone with an answer to your question. That's one thing I love about the blogging community.

+ D R I V I N G  Also for my birthday my dad bought me driving lessons which means I should be on the road sometime this year! When I was younger, my dad & I went camping every Summer and I'd beg him to let me drive his car in one of the spare fields. Since then I've loved the idea of being able to drive and it's pretty much first on my bucket list. All I need to do now is start my lessons and get learning - I'm so excited!

What was your highlight of this week?

Easy HTML For Beginners

One of the things I found most difficult when it came to creating my first Blogger templates was managing to crack some coding. I'd be up all night scouring Google for tutorials on how to do now what seems like the simplest of things, then re-designing my blog all over again because I'd made a mistake in my HTML coding. These days I have a small notebook which contains all of my HTML / CSS coding in for my blog & I thought I'd share what I think are the basics for any blogger!

Important! Before altering your HTML coding I'd definitely recommend backing up your template. Find out more on that here. The text that is bold in the codes below are customizable. :)

+ C E N T E R I N G   P O S T  &  D A T E   T I T L E S
Personally, I think that centering or alligning post & date titles is one of the key pieces of coding that everyone needs to know and amazingly, it's super easy that you could do it with your eyes closed. Go to your Blogger Dashbord, Template, Customise, Advanced, Add CSS & add the following:
.post-title {
text-align: center
}

.date-header {
text-align: center
}


+ R E S I Z E   P H O T O S
Blogger tends to do that really annoying thing where it cannot automatically resize your photos without this piece of code. Go to your Blogger Dashbord, Template, Customise, Advanced, Add CSS & add the following:
.post-body img{
width: 680px! important ;
}


+ C U S T O M   S I G N A T U R E 
Some people like to sign off their blog posts with a signature in the form of an image. If you don't want to add this photo individually on each post then add this code in your Post & Comment settings. To get there, click through Dashboard - Posts & Comments, Template and add:
<img class= "left" alt= "post signature" src="URL OF IMAGE">


+ S I D E B A R   T I T L E S
Customizing your sidebar can be tricky. Go to your Blogger Dashbord, Template, Customise, Advanced, Add CSS & add the following:
.sidebar h2 {
padding: 5px
background: #ffffff;
border-bottom: 1px solid #eeeeee
color: #444444
font: 16px JosefinSans;
}


+ I N C R E A S E   S P A C I N G :  B L O G   &   S I D E B A R
Increase space between blog & sidebar
If you want to achieve the clean, simplistic blog layout then I'd recommend adding some spacing between your posts and side bar. To do this, go to your Blogger Dashbord, Template, Customise, Advanced, Add CSS & add the following:
#sidebar-left-1 {
position: relative;
left: -50px !important;
}

That's all for today! I hope you enjoyed this little HTML post & found it useful! :)

A New Favourite Mascara

If you've been a regular watcher of my Y O U T U B E   C H A N N E L over the past few months, you'll know that I was obsessed with the Rimmel Wonderful Mascara. It was the only one I used & I thought there was nothing better. I was wrong. I picked up Maybelline's new Lash Sensational mascara whilst on an impromptu visit to Boots and I haven't looked back to my old obsession. This mascara is on a lower introductory price at Boots at the moment so it's an absolute bargain of £6! It's life-changing (as much as a mascara can be...).

This mascara makes my lashes look so separated and fluttery; something which I always look for in a mascara. The thing which amazes me most about this is the brush. The plastic brush is shaped in a strange way that works so well - it has the top section of the brush curving downwards to mimic the shape of the eye, & if you flip the brush upside down you get a brush the perfect shape to apply mascara on your bottom lashes. It's the blackest of black formula and doesn't crisp up my lashes. Although it is much cheaper than many other mascaras in the drugstore, it's gone above & beyond my expectations and would definitely recommend if you're on the hunt for a new mascara!

Favourites From January

Today's post is coming to you in video-form! You may know that I've been getting back into filming regular videos over on my YouTube channel but if you didn't... Now you do. Anyway, instead of writing up my monthly favourites (which seems like it takes FOREVER!), I've decided to film them and just share them on here. So if you'd like to see some of my favourites from January, just click above :)

I'd also really appreciate if you'd subscribe to my channel, if you like my videos. If you don't, I won't be offended! :)