websites for deciding career

Like many students, I'm not at all sure which job I want to do in the future. These websites are worth a look to help see which direction you're aiming for!

autumn sixth form capsule wardrobe

I love watching all of the minimalist capsule wardrobe videos, so I thought I'd try my own post, specifically for sixth form looks!

review: lush 'honey I washed my hair' shampoo bar

Lush is always irresistible to me, so I tried the "honey i washed my hair" shampoo bar: much hyped by minimalists!

reduce food waste when eating out

Eating out is fun once in a while, and it always makes me feel sad to see food go to waste. Here are some little tips on being eco friendly in restaurants!

review: palgrave student planner

I decided on trying a planner rather than a bullet journal for the new school year - if you're considering this too, why not read my thoughts so far to help you decide!

minimalism: ditch the duplicates

Probably the largest proportion of items you will clear out consists of duplicates. It's easy to lose track of how many mugs, socks or pens we have, but without the excess, your space will be much cleaner!

try no nail polish month!

I didn't question until recently how toxic those pretty nail polishes might be for the environment. Surprisingly, giving up painting my nails has been super easy, and I'd recommend it for any minimalist with an environmental concern!

minimalism monday: glass jar aesthetic

Everything looks better in glass jars. I think the jar must be a minimalist essential. It's durable, recyclable, and nothing's hidden away. Here are my fave things to put in jars.

minimalism monday: losing the labels

Hi guys!
I'm starting something new - a fresh minimalist tip every week, called Minimalism Monday. I hope you like it :)

how to make money online!

Scouring survey-answering websites doesn't always have to be frustrating and time consuming - you can actually make money sometimes, albeit at a minimum wage rate.

minimalism: culling CDs, DVDs, books and games

How often do you re-read the books you own, or put a CD in the player? If the answer is, like it was for me, "barely ever", then you should clear them out and make some money from it!

minimalist room tour!

Yesterday, I finally took the last bag to the charity shop from this month-long room tidy!

I've been inspired by blogs and youtube to make my room more minimal. So I donated, binned and sold a lot of my possessions, and now I'm down to what I really need and use. Having a clean, spacious room feels great!

DIY: musical theatre collage

As a huge musical theatre fan, I had loads of tickets and little leaflets i picked up, which were cluttering up my room a bit. So I chopped them up and concentrated them into a collage for my wall, eliminating the clutter and making something pretty!

july psychology reads

We all know how good some reading is for a fab personal statement. Uni recommended books can be intimidating, but here are some fave popular psychology books which I've borrowed from the library and really enjoyed reading for pleasure this month. I'd recommend these to any aspiring psychology students!

feeling productive over summer

Not having the daily routine of school can take its toll on your productivity during summer. 2 luxurious free months to do... nothing? This is how I try to keep the ball rolling over these months, and I hope it can help you too.

How to get an A* in GCSE music composition

I look back on GCSE Music now as a great time! I don't miss the stress of composition deadlines though, so I thought I'd share my advice for anyone trying to write something good for their GCSE.

fave charity shop finds!

Charity shopping is my absolute favorite, so I was super excited to make this post! I love to search through the rails for bargains (with a smug recognition that I don't need to be funding sweatshop labour to find some mad cheap clothes), don't you? The little town where I live has, like, six charity shops, so it's perfect for me. 

advice for year sevens

I finished Year 12!
Seeing, on my last day before summer, some new kids looking around the school, made me a little introspective and thoughtful on how much I've changed since starting high school.

Although I've lost a lot since then (namely, a taken-for-granted freedom from exams and an ability to find joy in neon animal-shaped elastic bands) I've also gained wisdom over my years.

I think maybe my year 7 self would've done well from taking this advice from her older counterpart. Good luck to new year sevens, hope you find this useful!

inexpensive self-kindnesses

If I were to give any kind of advice, it would be that there should be more self kindness.

Acknowledge that you matter. You're a kind person, and you should be so proud of what you've made it through. A lot of your time is spent doing things for other people, for school or work, and you deserve time to be kind to only yourself; peaceful and relaxed. Not scrolling through facebook, but knowing yourself and knowing that you matter.

what's in my sixth form pencil case?

I'm a huge fan of stationery! There's nothing better than a beautifully well coloured and organized page of notes, using lovely pens.

I hope that this serves to maybe give you some advice on what you need to bring to sixth form, as well as feeding the need to look at pictures of nice pens.

(When I was taking these pictures, my boyfriend was pretty confused over what the point was -"what's in my pencil case? let's see... pens?"- but I hope that, unlike him, you share my combined love of stationery and nosiness which is fueled by these posts.)

kind ways to use your words

At school, you can often slip into a state of fearing that your actions are ineffectual. You feel you're not doing anything to help anyone, and there is always someone outperforming your exam results. 

From an inward-looking viewpoint, kind acts are a perfect antidote to the feeling that your actions don't matter: you can directly benefit others from your choices, at no cost! 

I've just started reading How To Win Friends and Influence People, and despite its presumptious title and slight (in my opinion) overuse of case studies, it's been very useful. One of Carnegie's key themes is the universal human need to feel appreciated.

So, here are some of my favorite ways to make others feel appreciated!

an outfit for reading in the garden

 It was a gloriously sunny day today, perfect for wearing a floppy hat and finding some flowers!
This charity shop skirt is a particular favorite of mine. I love twirling around in it and it's pretty long, but cool for the summer. I did have some shoes on when I started taking photos, but I just kicked them off in the end because the feeling of grass under feet is just too good.

Having finished with my exams, I had the free time today to make a giant mess of all of my possessions on the floor of my room, and sort through what I'm going to sell, give to charity shops or recycle. I'll be blogging all of my big tidy up.
I also had time to start rereading The Great Gatsby - I almost forgot how much I love it!

I hope you like my first outfit post; if you do, I'd love you to subscribe to the blog!

I hope you find a glossy tulip petal,
- L✿

DIY: paper diamonds decoration

As my exams finally finished yesterday, I had a little time to make something nice for my room!
It feels so relaxing to have exams over; to not have to put aside things I want to do, to have to revise.

I found the template for some pretty diamonds at minieco (here) , and cut them out with my scissors. The card I used to cut them from came from the covers of my old exercise books - you can recognize that peachy colour of a maths book there - and i pinned a string of them on the wall.

I think it's a very cute little garland.

I hope this summer brings a lot of cuteness to your room,
- L✿

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smarter reading

There's nothing nicer to me than an afternoon with a cold peach iced tea, in a sunny garden with a book. I know for a fact that my reading list this summer has spilled over a page already!

But looking back, although I know I love to read, I can hardly even remember the books I've read in the last year, or what I learned from them. This summer, I'm hoping to do a few things to make sure this changes.

on making a difference: interview with Sarah Brook, CEO of The Sparkle Foundation

(Hi!! I'm planning on starting a little series with interviews from people in various jobs, as it's always important to know details about different careers. Let me know what you think! - L)

A great deal of any student's motivation or anxiety is wondering about how we will, some day, make a difference in the world.

For Sarah Brook, it was to give up her marketing career in Dubai at 25, to fundraise £35,000 and set up her own charity, The Sparkle Foundation. Sparkle currently work in Malawi to provide food, water, education and medical support to orphaned children, saving lives every day.

DIY Standing Desk

So I was googling ways to be more healthy (biscuits and revision seem to go hand in hand to me) and came to a realization which is probably true for most people who go to school:

We sit down for most of the day!

Sixth Form Bullet Journal: Getting Started

I have this kind of obsession with recording everything. If I'm not able to flip back to a page telling me what I did on a certain day, the time will have been "empty".

I've dealt with this in the past by keeping about a thousand notebooks. Poetry in one, diary in the other, another for my homework tasks, one for dreams... the list was endless, and I always was misplacing them.

But I've been reading some organization blogs lately and found out about bullet journalling.  I've felt so much more productive and in control ever since I started!

AS Biology Study Games

Little games and flashcards are super fun to revise from, so I summarized AQA AS level biology onto memrise, unit by unit, from the CGP textbook.

A* GCSE Art Sketchbook + Tips

GCSE Art last year, despite the massive quantities of coursework, was actually really rewarding in the end! Although it can be a little stressful, here are some things I think helped me on the way to that A* grade:

Fun Language Learning

Although learning a language is daunting, I find that with these methods, my revision sessions for AS Spanish pass so quickly. The great thing about language learning is that you can have fun viewing media as you would anyway, just in a different language.

A Grade AS English Essay, Edexcel 2015

As a student of the new 2015 Edexcel AS English syllabus (I'm studying "A Streetcar Named Desire", "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Frankenstein". How about you?) I'm finding the lack of any resources or past papers a tad offputting.
I therefore thought I'd share with you a poetry essay I did, which somehow got me 21 out of 24 marks, an A1 grade.

I hope you find this helpful!