It's 2020!?

Happy New Year everyone!

First things first, where did 2019 go?! 

This year has had its fair share of ups and downs for me. At the start of the year, I created Frantasmagoria after months of debating the content I wanted to create. As a result, I’ve become part of an amazing community and have over 4,000 awesome followers on twitter! 💛

In September 2019 I married my best friend and love of my life. Everything was perfect! The sun was shining, everyone had a great time, and even though it flew by I had a fantastic day with my husband and loved ones. I don't think I have smiled so much in my life!

The confetti throw at our wedding!

For our honeymoon, we crossed Canada off of our bucket list! We visited Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Vancouver, and Whistler. We both loved seeing the epic mountains and National Parks, getting a rare glimpse of Canadian wildlife, and eating lots of food! After months of watching what I ate it was lovely just enjoy myself. (Maybe a bit too much mind you...)

This photo was taken by myself while we were traveling through Canada.

As happy as 2019 was for our family, we did have our fair share of bad news. My husband lost his uncle before our wedding day which shattered everyone. Then after our honeymoon, both my husband and I were told we were facing redundancy. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

Things got too overwhelming for me, which meant I had some time away from my blog to focus on organising my life.

Since then my husbands' job was saved, and I have found a new job in recruitment. So, each cloud has a silver lining. 😊I am still a little overwhelmed but 2020 is a new year, which means another year of opportunities!

My plan for 2020!

I told myself I was not going to give myself any resolutions going into 2020, as I never accomplish them! I put too much pressure on myself doing it, so I have a shortlist of things I want to achieve.

1. Start creating content again 
2. Try to read at least one book a month this year
3. Decorate our home
4. Become more active and go on more walks
5. Take more photographs
6. Learn to drive! (Already on it.)

I know I have been quiet for the last few months, but I am back now! I look forward to creating more content for you all this year! 

What do you hope to achieve this year? Do you have any specific goals or resolutions? Please share them with me in the comments! 😀

Hello guys. Today is another post that is a bit different from my usual content. I have been nominated by the lovely Maritime Mama for the Sunshine Blogger Award! Please check out her blog because she is so awesome and creates great content!

Rules

• Thank the blogger who nominated you in a blog post and provide a link back to their blog.
• Answer 11 questions the blogger gave you.
• Nominate at least 11 bloggers to receive the award and write them 11 new questions.
• List the rules and display The Sunshine Blogger Award logo in your post and/or on your blog.

The Questions

1. What are the top 3 things you cherish most in your life?
My friends, family and fiance. I cherish them because they make me happy.

2. If you could trade places with any animal for one day, which would you choose?

My cat because I witness them sleep all day and eat a ton, and I wish I could have that!

3. What are two things that have made you happy recently!?

Being noticed at work for my performance and given a new opportunity. Oh, and getting my wedding dress! 

4. Do you blog for fun or are you hoping to make a career with it?

I blog for fun and because what I write about is interesting. 

5. What are your top 5, hands down, favourite Disney films?

Fox and the Hound, The Little Mermaid, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, and Pinocchio. 

6. Do you have any pets? What are their names?
We have two house cats called Willow and Enzo. 

7. What would be your "perfect" day?

My perfect day would be waking up without an alarm, having breakfast and getting dressed to go for a walk with Ryan. Then we would have food together and then go watch a movie together.

8. Do people in your everyday life know about your blog?
Only a few people do, but I don't really talk about it because they are not interested at all.

9. If you could choose an age to re-visit for however long you wanted, what age would you choose?
I would choose when I was very small and I was on holiday dancing to Whigfield's Saturday Night at a disco haha.

10. If money were no object, what would you buy?

I would make sure all of my family were set for life and they had no worries every again. So, mortgages and bills because they have done so much for me. I know this is not what people would expect, but I am not a very materialistic person.

11. What's your go-to meal when you have to make dinner?
I love me a jacket potato with cheese and beans!

My Nominations

I would love to get everyone involved! You are all amazing and the support you give me is so lovely. So if you read this post, please answer the questions and let's learn more about one another! 💛

My Questions

1. What is your biggest pet peeve?
2. If you could have one superpower, which one would you choose?
3. If you could meet one person dead or alive, which person would you choose to spend a day with?
4. Peanut butter question! Do you prefer it crunchy, smooth or not interested at all?
5. What is your biggest fear?
6. Time to big yourself up. What do you like most about yourself?
7. If you could only wear one outfit forever, what would you pick? 
8. What is your favourite song of all time?
9. What would be your ideal holiday if money was no object? Tell us what you would do!
10. What is your favourite season and why?
11. Name one thing you could not live without! 

I am terrible at thinking of questions, but I hope you enjoy answering the ones I have created! If you complete this please share your links in the comments or tag me on Twitter! I can't wait to read your posts and get to know you. 😊

Hey guys! Today I have a post that is a bit different. It is a new thing for me, and because I like these kinds of questions I figured why not. We've all sat with friends and played the Would You Rather game. Sometimes it can get pretty strange, but this should be fun nonetheless! 

This first post will be about cats because as you may know, I have two of the little monsters myself! So without further ado, let us start this Would You Rather post.

Would you rather have one giant cat that you can ride like a horse or lots of regular sized cats?

This is a difficult one because I love the idea of riding a giant cat around! However, I remembered that a giant cat would probably have gigantic poos too. I don't know about you, but picking up the poo of 2 regular sized cats is bad enough! 😅That being said I don't think this is enough to sway me from having a giant cat. I guess it would be like mucking a horse out? Maybe? 😂

Would you rather speak to cats but humans will never understand you, or speak to humans but cats will never respond to you?

Hands down I would choose to speak to cats. Our cats are so different personality-wise, and I’d love to know what they have to say. I like to think Willow is bitchy, constantly judging us, but loves us deep deep deep down. On the other hand, I think Enzo would be like Joey from Friends because he’s bloody handsome but can be so dumb sometimes. 😍

Also, the fact I don’t like most people made it an easy decision. 

Would you rather have cat hair on all your belongings but never your clothes, or have it all over your clothing and nothing else?

Errrrrrrm. This is just life for me now, but I think that I'd rather have cat fur on all of my belongings. If I had cat fur all over my clothes it would drive me insane! I think it's because I wouldn't like hair on my clothes for work or on special occasions. Just having a bit of fur on my clothing irritates me, but I do wear a lot of black clothing so it is super obvious when it's there. 

Would you rather have a dog with a cat’s personality or a cat with a dog’s personality?

Cat with a dogs personality! To be honest I think our cat Enzo is like this anyway. He's very cuddly, always follows you around for love, and he really enjoys playing with balls (as in toys 😂). Willow is a lot more cat-like as she's more independent. She only wants attention when she wants it, and if she doesn't you'll know about it. They have very different personalities but I love them equally.

I may do more of these posts in the future, but I will try to give them themes if I can! 

Do you enjoy Would You Rather questions? Do you have any suggestions? 😊Let me know in the comments!

How did I feel on the day?

The day was finally here and I was freaking out. I was also tired because we had been at a party the night before, but back to the point... As I didn't know what the pain would be like I decided it was best to cover my eyebrows in numbing cream and hope that it worked! 

I had a mini panic attack while we were on the way there because I thought I was going to be late. I hate being late for stuff, and I didn't want to lose my appointment. However, my panicking was uncalled for as we got there just on time.

When I got there she wiped my makeup off, drew the shape I asked her for and then checked I was happy with the shape. She also told me that I had one eyebrow lower than the other! Which was a surprise to me! I knew one was thinner but I didn't know I was uneven. 😅After we got the shape down and we were happy, I laid on the bed and it was time to begin the procedure.

What did it feel like?

When she started I didn't feel it at all and was able to lay there without any pain. The one thing I noticed was the sound, and I heard that scraping sound every time she dragged the needles across my eyebrow. Honestly, it was awful at first but I got used to it eventually.

Between each step she would apply more numbing cream to make sure I was comfortable, but I have to admit it started to get raw. It was still bearable but when she went over one area 5-6 times I started to feel it. 

There were points when she was doing the inside of my brows that I wanted to sneeze, and that was because it was so close to my nose. I felt like I spent most of my time fighting them back!

Before and after shot! Ignore the lack of makeup and redness haha.

The aftercare information was given to me on an A4 sheet of paper, and it gave me in-depth instructions on how to care for them. I was also given an ointment to use daily to help the healing process. It has been awkward avoiding water in the shower and I haven't been able to exercise as sweating on them would affect the healing too.

How has the healing process been?

Day 1-3: The first few days were okay but they were very red. My eyebrows were a bit sore but it was manageable. They looked dark and exactly how they did when they were just done. I expected them to look dark, but that isn't a problem for me because I like that look a lot.

Day 3-7: One word: Itchy! For the whole 4 days, it was a constant battle to resist the urge to give them a good scratch. They also started to scab a fair bit and they became patchy as the scabs started to fall off naturally. They looked a lot lighter where the scab had come away, but I was reassured they do go darker when it heals further. (It still made me worry they were going to be too light.)

Day 7 -14: More of the scabs started to fall away after day 7 and the itching subsided. They started to get a bit darker where they faded before. I had to fight the urge to pluck them, as she told me not to do that while they healed. I guess I am so used to plucking I can't help myself, but that's what got me here in the first place! 😅

What happens next?

I have my touch up booked in April and I am kind of excited about it! I may go a bit darker this time because I like the way they look that way. I'm happy with the result so far and would recommend it to anyone that overplucked like me.

The next post I write about this will be after my touch up and about the final results! I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you have any questions let me know in the comments. 😊

You can find part one of this series here. Thank you for reading!

What is Microblading

Microblading is a popular beauty procedure that involves tattooing the eyebrows with semi-permanent ink to add more shape and create a natural look. The microblading is done using 10 - 12 small blades in a pen-shaped holder, and it creates natural looking hair strokes in the eyebrow. 

The microblading process is bespoke to each person that is undergoing the procedure, as the artist will make measurements to ensure they create the perfect brows for each face shape. 

Why am I having it done?

This is an old photograph but it shows my large and bold brows.

Back in the '90s when I was a young girl it was fashionable to over pluck your eyebrows and make them super thin. As a result, my eyebrows are thin, have little to no shape, and I despise filling them in. 

The reason why I hate filling them in is that I am garbage at it. That is literally it! I used to make them way too big. Seriously... It became a running joke at my previous job. I would laugh along because looking back I was just so terrible at it. However, as time went on I became lazy with them and don't bother too often. I always make them too dark and they never end up natural looking.

So, I figured since I am getting married in September I would like to have more shape and have natural looking brows that don't need much any work.

How am I feeling before I get it done?

If I am being completely honest I am a bit anxious about it. Naturally, I have been watching YouTube videos and reading articles online, which was both good and bad. A lot of people say it was a great experience with no pain, and others that it was awful and the results were disappointing. I also checked out how they looked after the healing process is complete, as it can be misleading when you see the before and after pictures online.

The things that I worry about the most after watching the videos are discolouration, infection, and them looking worse than they did before. If that's even possible! 😂I also have very oily skin so I am a bit worried about that, as it could make the healing process difficult. 😓

Even though I am scared and have read good and bad things about it I am still excited to have it done. I have been playing with the idea for ages, and I just bit the bullet eventually and booked in. I've been busy reading reviews and looking at the images on the artists' website I have chosen, which adds to the excitement!

Have any of you guys had this done? How did it go for you and were you happy with the results? Please let me know in the comments because I am really curious! I will update you guys after I've had it done. 😀

You can read part two of this series here. Thanks for reading! 

For as long as I can remember I have loved seeing enamel pins on jackets and backpacks. Seeing those items of clothing absolutely covered in pins was awesome, but I would hate to lose any of them. It was never an option for me growing up because of my fear of losing or damaging anything I like. 😓

However, it wasn't until recently that I decided to start collecting enamel pins myself to decorate my woman cave. After looking online at some shops I found tons of cute and quirky ones. You can get so many different designs it's unreal. I didn't know where to start at first! I found cats, cacti, food and many many of the things I love. I struggled at first I'm not gonna lie.

To help me decide I started thinking about things I really love, and one of my favourite TV shows of all time is Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It's a show I could binge watch until the cows come home, and I named my black cat Willow due to my obsession. 😁So I decided to go for a vampire themed pin first.

I chose this one to start my collection because I thought it was really fun. I think it was the heart shaped mouth and the fangs that caught my eye. I'm definitely going to get more Buffy themed pins in the future, but I plan to update you on my collection regularly and share where I buy them. 

My fiancé and I also collect Funko Pop! figures. In the future I may even start sharing that collection with you too. 😅

Do you guys like to collect anything in particular? I would love to know! You can share them with me in the comments below!

Warning: I am terrible at talking about myself so bear with me while I struggle to think of things to tell you haha.

The Blogger

This is my face. Enjoy! 😂

My name is Fran and I live in sunny Yorkshire with my fiance. I’m just a normal girl that spends most of their time working, eating, sleeping and trying to keep fit. Granted I do need to be dragged to my kickboxing classes sometimes.