DIY Lemon Face Scrub for Glowing, Clear Skin

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Have you guys tried the latest ‘Sodium sulfacetamide acne cleanser with extracts of zinc and false advertising’? or maybe the ‘97% non-toxic facial wash gel tried and tested by the tooth fairy’? OK, maybe I’m exaggerating…but just barely. It seems like cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies are constantly coming out with new types of soap and giving them increasingly elaborate and ridiculous names. Am I right or am I right? And it would be one thing if these seriously expensive chemical concoctions actually worked, but honestly I’m pretty convinced that the majority of them aren’t that great.

Luckily, I discovered this all natural DIY face scrub a few weeks ago and haven’t stopped using it since. It uses healthy, natural ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen and leaves your skin feeling  smooth and refreshed!

You guys should definitely try it and let me know what you think in the comments below. Also, don’t forget to ‘Like‘ this post if you thought it was kinda helpful or interesting or you just feel like being nice :).

Now without further ado, here’s the DIY…

What you need

face scrub ingredients

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp lemon juice

  1. Mix sugar, oil, honey and lemon juice together (if you think your scrub is too thick, just add some more oil).
  2. Wash your face with warm water.
  3. Apply the scrub to your face and gently rub in a circular motion.
  4. Leave it on for 5 minutes.
  5. Rinse your face with cool water.
  6. Feel energised and rejuvinated and all that crap ;).

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DIY Popsicle Stick Coaster

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I thought I’d start the week off with a bit of DIY! Many people don’t know this about me but I actually drink quite a lot of tea (I don’t know why I made that sound like it was some sort of secret, intriguing fact about me. It’s really not). Especially when I’m blogging, I like to have a cup sitting on my desk beside me while I type. That being said, I very rarely have a coaster at hand and as a result have ruined many a table (OK actually I’ve only ruined one table – my own, repeatedly, and to be honest it was already pretty ugly in the first place).

Instead of going out and buying a coaster I decided to DIY one instead.  I have to say I’m really happy with the end result; it’s colourful, trendy and unique! You can either buy a pack of popsicle sticks or use this as an excuse to buy a large pack of ice lollies, which is undoubtedly the better option ;).

Make sure to like this post if you want to see more DIYs like this one and comment down below letting me know what your favorite kind of hot drink is. Are you a coffee kind of person? A hot chocolate lover? A herbal tea drinker like me? And I know you’re probably wondering why I’m going on about hot drinks in the middle of summer but just remember that I live in Ireland and I’m currently wearing a jumper in July.

Anyway, enough rambling. I hope you all have a lovely week, now let’s get into the tutorial…

What you need

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17 popsicle sticks (this might vary depending on how big you want your coaster to be/ the size of your popsicle sticks. I used a few small popsicle sticks for the base because I ran out of big ones, but honestly it doesn’t really matter)

Paints in the colours of your choice (my popsicle sticks were already dyed, so I just used a bit of gold paint to add some decoration)

Paintbrush

Glue gun

Steps

 

1. Paint your popsicle sticks and leave them to dry.

2. Next take 10 popsicle sticks and glue them together in pairs (see photo). These will act as the base of the coaster and give it some height.

 

3. Glue the remaining 7 popsicle sticks  on top of one of the popsicle stick pairs that you glued together before.

4. Glue the rest of the popsicle stick pairs onto the  base of the coaster.

5. Leave to dry and you’re done!

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Pros and Cons of Having NO Social Life

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I’ve been on Summer Break for the past couple of weeks enjoying the lack of homework and remaining in denial of the fact that next year is my last year of school. But you know one thing that holidays tend to do is emphasise the fact that I really have no social life. I mean, of course when I’m at school I socialise, but when I’m at home there are just so many other important things I have to do. Like eating…and blogging…and eating…

Anyway it got me thinking, maybe this whole social life thing is overrated. Maybe being antisocial is where it’s at. So, like the logically minded person that I am, I decided to figure this out by putting together a list of the Pros and Cons of Having No Social Life.

Let me know in the comments below if you can relate, or if you actually have friends and just feel sorry for me ;). Also, comment if you have any suggestions for future ‘Pros and Cons of…’ Posts.

I hope you guys like it, as always it’s just a bit of fun! Now without further ado, here are the Pros and Cons of having No Social Life…k

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Pro Your phone isn’t buzzing all the time with notifications.

Con That feeling of disappointment when you finally get a text and it’s from the phone company.

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Pro You don’t have to waste money buying new clothes because you’re always at home

Con You literally wear the same three pieces of clothing over and over again.

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Pro You don’t have to deal with all the drama that comes with socialising.

Con The most exciting part of your day is finding out what the latest google doodle is.

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Pro Your parents don’t have to drive you everywhere.

Con Your parents start worrying as to why they don’t have to drive you anywhere.

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Pro You can take part in marathons…reading and movie marathons that is.

Con The lines between reality and fiction begin to blur…

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Pro You don’t have to share your food with other people.

Con This results in a pretty unhealthy diet, but you’re OK with that.

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Pro You have more time to be creative.

Con There are none! Okay so maybe I’m not a social butterfly, but if I was I probably wouldn’t have this blog and all my amazing readers! And on that note (awesome segue),  Artsy Teen just reached 2000 followers so I wanted to take a second thank all of you guys so much for reading my posts every week, and encouraging me to keep up my creativity!

. . .

Enjoy the rest of your week 🙂

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Some Sketches

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of my artwork, so I thought today I’d share a few of my most recent sketches with you guys! I drew these with my HUION Graphics Tablet using a digital painting application called Krita. I usually do these sketches in 4 steps/layers. First I draw a quick ‘skeleton’ of my sketch in a light colour, then I fill out the skeleton in the same light colour. Next I outline the whole sketch in black and finally, I colour it in.  Let me know what you guys think in the comments below and which sketch is your favourite! If you want to see more of my drawings and paintings, check out my Artwork page.

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standing sketch 1

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Rich Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Every once in a while we all crave something rich, decadent and chocolatey (unless of course you’re allergic/don’t like chocolate, in which case you’re unfortunately missing out on one of the great joys of life). The summer holidays are a great time to bake a batch of brownies and share them with friends and family (or alternatively, enjoy them by yourself on the couch while watching your favourite TV show 😉 ). For years this has been my go-to brownie recipe and I’ve included step-by-step photos to make sure it’s really easy to follow. I thought this was the perfect thing to post on Father’s Day, since I’m absolutely certain that no Dad could resist freshly baked brownies. Let me know in the comments below what you guys like to bake/do during the holidays and if you found this recipe helpful!signature

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Ingredients

brownies ingredients

100g/ 1/2 cup butter

175g/ 3/4 cup caster (granulated) sugar

175g / 1/2 cup dark muscovado sugar

125g dark chocolate

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 eggs

100g / 3/4 plain (all-purpose) flour

2 tsbp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

Method

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1. Gently heat butter, sugars, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy based saucepan. Stir until mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

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2. Beat together eggs, then whisk in the cooled chocolate mixture.

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3. Sieve together the flour, cocoa powder and baking sugar and fold into the egg and chocolate mixture.

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4. Mix until ingredients are well combined.

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5. Spoon the brownie mixture into a lightly greased cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180’C/350’F for approx. 30 minutes, or until the top is crisp and the edge of the brownie starts to shrink away from the tin.brownies 8

6. Technically, you’re supposed to leave the cake to cool before cutting it into squares to serve. However, seeing as you’ve put in all this hard work, I think its perfectly acceptable for the chef to try some while it’s still warm ;).

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Summer Seashell Decor

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About a month ago, I got a really exciting job making a few shell art props for the BBC TV Show Redwater which was shooting in my town. After spending weeks collecting, arranging and gluing seashells onto random objects, I’m basically a self-proclaimed Shell Craft Expert at this point.  Incidentally, I just posted a Top Summer Posts Poll  last week asking you guys to vote for what posts you wanted to see this summer and DIY Room Decor seems to be the most popular topic. And so, I thought it was the perfect time to post a few tutorials for some cute and easy shell DIYs!

Note: You’ll need to use a glue gun for these DIYs, so please be careful! The glue is extremely hot and trust me when I say, you don’t want to get burnt.

  1. Beachy Shell Frame

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This DIY is really simple and a great way to display all your summer photos.

What you need:

  • a plain wooden frame
  • shells of your choice
  • glue gun

Steps

  1. First arrange your shells on the frame.
  2. Once you’re happy with your design, stick the shells onto the frame using the glue gun.
  3. Leave to dry and you’re done!

2. Ocean Jar
ocean jar

OK, so maybe ocean jar isn’t the best name but to be honest I was just really tired of repeating ‘seashell’ over and over again. You can use this jar as a candle holder, a place to store your pens, or even a quirky vase. Either way, it’ll add a cool, nautical vibe to your room.

What you need:

  • a jar
  • small shells of your choice
  • a glue gun
  • PVA glue
  • sand
  • paint brush

Steps

  1. Mix 1 part sand and 1 part PVA glue. Paint sand-glue mixture onto the jar and leave to dry (this part gets a bit messy so have a few paper towels handy!).
  2. Once the jar is dry, stick on the shells in a mosaic-like pattern using a glue gun.

3. Seashell Bowl

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This DIY is probably my favourite of all the pieces I made! I used a large bowl and large shells,  which means wrapping the twine around it took ages, but the end result was definitely worth it!

What you need:

  • a bowl
  • twine
  • shells of your choice
  • a glue gun

Steps

  1. Slowly wrap the twine around the outside of your bowl, gluing it down as you do so.
  2. Glue the shells around the bowl and leave to dry.

 

4. Shell Curtain

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I feel like this shell curtain really screams ‘summertime’. I used fishing tackle to make it because it’s transparent, strong and also fits the whole ‘ocean’ theme, but you could use string instead. In this tutorial, you’ll see that you can either drill holes in the shells and tie them on to the tackle, or just tape them on. I personally tried both methods, and found that the first option looks better and is much sturdier (though it’s a little more time consuming). Lastly, instead of tying each length of tackle onto a wooden poll and hanging that up somewhere, you could also hang individual strands around your room which will look very pretty too!

What you need:

  • fishing tackle
  • shells of your choice
  • a drill / tape
  • wooden poll/ pipe

Steps

  1. Depending on how long/wide you want your curtain to be, measure out the number of lengths of fishing tackle you’ll need.
  2. Tie each length of tackle onto the poll.
  3. Carefully drill a hole at the top of each shell (OPTIONAL).
  4. Now, on a flat surface arrange your shells in the pattern you want on your curtain.
  5. Once you’re happy with your design, string the fishing tackle through each shell making sure to tie a knot below each shell to secure it in place.

OR

tape fishing tackle onto the back of each shell.

6. Now hang your curtain up wherever you like!

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That’s all for today! Let me know in the comments below which DIY was your favourite :).

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What posts do you want to see this summer?

 

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I hope you’re all enjoying the sunny June weather – even Ireland has been (relatively) warm over the past few days. If you read my last post about my Summer Bucket List 2016, you’ll know that I’m on holidays at the moment! No studies means that I have plenty of time to dedicate to blogging and eating chocolate (usually simultaneously 😉 ). I already have lots of exciting summer post ideas, but I really want to see what you guys are interested in reading over the holidays. So,  if you could take a minute to vote for your favourite post idea (or let me know if you have any other suggestions ) that would be amazing!

I look forward to seeing what you guys think!

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DIY Summer Fruit Garland

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I hope you’re all having an amazing week! Here in Ireland we got a whole two hours of sunshine today, which can only mean one thing… summer’s finally on its way. Now I know summer technically starts in June, but I thought we could get a head start. Plus, in my opinion there’s never a wrong time to hang up a bunch of paper fruit in your room. This DIY is the first of a series of DIY room decor posts I’m planning, so let me know in the comments below if you guys have any ideas for spring/summertime decor!

 

What you need:summer garland 3

  • red, yellow, dark green, light green card paper
  • twine
  • sharpie
  • scissors
  • glue
  • sticky tape or glue gun*

*If you’re using a glue gun, please be careful. I’ve burned myself countless time with hot glue and I can tell you it’s not fun.

  1. Cut out pineapples and watermelons from coloured card.I feel like this step is pretty self-explanatory, but basically I recommend just sort of randomly cutting out shapes until they look somewhat fruit-like. I’m sure you’ll figure it out, but if you’re really struggling just google watermelon and pinapple templates and you’ll probably find something helpful.
  2. Glue the shapes together and draw little seeds onto the watermelon with the black sharpie.
  3. Using tape or a glue gun, stick the paper fruit to your twine.
  4. Leave glue to dry and hang your garland up on the wall. And voilà, just like that you’re room’s transformed into a tropical paradise, more or less ;).

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DIY Spring Makeup Bag

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a sewing tutorial and this little project is perfect for springtime! Seeing as I’m extremely lazy and my bursts of artistic motivation only last a couple of hours, I made sure this DIY could be finished in an afternoon. You’ll notice that I’ve included more photos than usual, partly because I feel that having a visual guide is a huge help in sewing tutorials, and partly because I got a little carried away with my camera. Let me know what you guys think and have a great week!signature

 

 

           What you need:

  • 11 x 8 inch piece of felt
  • 12 x 9 light fabric of your choice
  • 8 inch zipper
  • pins
  • scissors
  • sewing machine/ needle and thread

Note: These are the dimensions I used for my bag, but feel free to adjust them depending on how big/small you want your bag to be!

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Method

  1. Cut fabric and felt to size. Then, place the felt on top of the inside of your fabric, like in the photo below.

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2. Fold the overlapping fabric over the edges of the felt to create neat seams. Pin them in place.

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3. Using a sewing machine, or needle and thread, stitch the seams.

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bag 4

bag 6 bag 5

4. Next, use pins to attach your zipper to the fabric like I’ve done in the photos below. You can see that my zipper was slightly too big for the fabric, but don’t worry – you can just trim that off. Once your happy with the zipper’s positioning,  sew it on.

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6. Fold over your fabric so that your makeup bag is inside out. Make sure that both sides are aligned and stitch them together.

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6. Flip inside-out…

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How To Stay Organised

So, I’m naturally quite a disorganised person. I’m forgetful, I procrastinate constantly , I’m always late and my desk is a huge mess.  I’m the type of person who does my homework on bus. I’m that annoying classmate who always has to borrow a geometry set before maths exams. I’m that one friend who says I’ll get back to you later, but never will.

The worst part is that I’m in denial of how unorganised I am, so I’m always trying to convince myself that it’s a good idea to stupid things like plan events, get involved in projects, start a blog… 😉

Just last month, I thought it would be brilliant idea to plan a surprise birthday party for my friend. First of all, you should know that I only remembered it was her birthday a week beforehand. Then, I had to go through the agony of organising a venue (a task which I ended up entrusting to my mother – making a reservation is just too much responsibility for me). Finally I had to sort out the guest lists – and can I just say that getting people to confirm whether they are free or not is a nightmare (not to mention that my social skills are as poor as my organisation skills).

Anyway, in the end everything did work out all right, but I think it’s fairly obvious that organisation is not one of my greatest talents. However, I have managed to prevent my life from turning into complete chaos with a few helpful tricks I’ve picked up over the years. Hopefully, you’ll find them useful to!

  • To-do Lists

At the risk of sounding cliche, I would honestly get nothing done if it weren’t for To-Do Lists. As simple as it sounds, just having all my tasks for the day laid out in front of me makes me way more productive!

  • Set reminders

OK, so you know when someone gives you a piece of important information that you absolutely can’t forget and instead of writing it down, you convince yourself that you have the best memory in the world? But, two weeks later, lo and behold you’ve missed your doctor’s appointment, job interview and best friend’s birthday party.

Seriously, the amount of times I’ve written a little ‘X’ on my hand and told myself I’ll remember to do something is unbelievable. To avoid this situation, set reminders on your phone for the day before your event, so you’re sure to remember!

  • Timetable Tip

If you’re like me and can never remember your timetable, just take a picture of it and set it as the lock screen wallpaper on your phone. It may not be that stylish, but it’s a total life saver!

  • Sticky Notes

If there’s something you really want to remember, jot it down on a sticky note and stick it up somewhere you won’t miss it like your mirror or computer. Sounds simple, but it works!

  • Invest in a pinboard

If you have tons of paper all over your desk just get a bulletin board and pin up all the loose sheets. This way you can keep your desk tidy and actually read what’s written on each sheet of paper when you’re bored!.

Well, those are all my tips for today. Do you have any organisation life hacks? If so, leave them in the comments below – I’d love to know!

Also, I’m so sorry, I know I haven’t uploaded in ages , but I’m actually on holidays in France at the moment and haven’t had my laptop with me! Of course, an organised person would have prepared posts beforehand… ;). Anyways, don’t worry – next week I’ll be back to posting regularly.

Have a great week!

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