Wednesday 27 February 2013

Style Icon: Audrey Tautou

Hello!

Long time, no post! I was going to post a what's in my bag tutorial the other night, except for the tiny little dilemma where my camera decided to stop working half-way filming it meaning I couldn't really upload it all for you, so for that I do very much apologise. I'd also like to make a mention that I was nominated for the Liebster award and I was going to do that though I never really ended up doing it properly so I'll probably do that sometime in the next month too!

Anyhow, let's talk Audrey Tautou.




In a word, Audrey Tautou is ...well...French, and how much more amazing could she get? Audrey's been in several films that I know including Amelie, The Da Vinci Code, Coco Avant Chanel as well as several others of which I'm not going to name due to you getting bored of hear them all!

Ever since I watched Coco Avant Chanel in my French class last year, I fell style-crush in love with her, not just because she played the part as Coco Chanel so perfectly, but because her style and aura is amazing! She's French, she's got amazing fashion sense and she's absolutely stunning. For me, Audrey Tautou is up there with my other famous four:

- Audrey Hepburn
- Kate Middleton
- Emma Watson
- Coco Chanel
and Audrey Tautou....

What do all of these girls have in common, I hear you asking? Well, for me, these five are all symbols of feminism and elegance, two things I have high regards for. I love it when a woman is self-respected, stern but still elegant as they are and for me, Audrey Tautou checks all of these boxes.



Fashion wise, I think that her style shows impeccability. She's casual, but still smart, pairing a casual grey knit cardigan with a pair of tailored jeans. While for some, they may call this slightly tedious and boring, I beg to differ as I find outrageous pieces like over the top neons and florals hurt my eyes. I find it minimalist, simplicity yet it still has a strong sense of pure elegance and beauty about it.




In terms of red-carpet fashion wear, I love how Audrey does tend to lean more towards simplicity rather than a lace cut, silk threaded, floral designed frock with a bold ruby red necklace. As I'm looking up pictures of her red-carpet fashion, I can't help but jealously eye how glowing she looks in a soft pink colour for one of the movie award ceremonies in 2010. Though I do find the initial puffy arms of the dress slightly odd, I love the short cut hemline and how she's paired the red shoes (for some reason, this pops it for me). I think that the contrast of her Alabaster countenance and the bubblegum pink dress really juxtaposes, but at the same time, it really harmonises nicely with one another.



Having said that, I think that the winning cut would be the advertisement campaign she signed on to for Chanel No.5 - Having just done Coco Avant Chanel, Audrey Tautou replaced Nicole Kidman as the spokeswoman for Chanel No.5 and the dress she wears just does it for me. It's a gorgeous midnight blue floor length dress that reminds me of a sophisticated 1940's evening dress that glamorous women would wear to soirees with gorgeous men wearing clean cut tuxedos.

Overall, if you're looking for a glamorous, elegant style icon, Audrey Tautou is definitely one I'd go to for advice, and I'm dying at the thought of someday meeting her!

Hope you have a happy week and i'll see you tomorrow (maybe ;P)

Xx

Saturday 2 February 2013

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Marshmallow Icing



Sorry about the saturation!!




Hi everybody!

Long time, no posting, eh? The rather stupid and ignorant reason for this is because as you may know, I am still in school and last week was the beginning of the term so I was, for lack of a better word, obliged to go, plus I've been doing a lot of music related things because I'm a muso and it's kind of in my blood to do that in my spare time, but nonetheless.

If you haven't already guessed, yesterday brought a friend round and we were intending to make Red Velvet Cupcakes through the White Wings box above, and though the cupcake sponge turned out really spiffingly, we decided to go a little stir crazy (pun intended heeehee) and spruced up the icing a little bit by adding some melted marshmallow.

 I just thought that because it was fun and I was taking loads of pictures on the day, and I haven't really bought anything new for a haul, that I would do a fun cooking post again. I absolutely love food and cooking (and eating it...) and I know that someone reading this would love food in general to so I hope you enjoy today's post!

 

 We used these marshmallows - they are friggen enormous. If you clamp your hands together, that's literally the size of one of the marshmallows in the packet. I have honestly never seen a marshmallow the size of both my hands together before, it's insanely amazing. So, naturally, being two crazy teenage girls, we popped three marshmallows into the microwave for about a minute, just enough to melt it, but not enough to cook it and waited for them to turn into something deliciously gooey.



We then needed to add a bit of milk (2 and 1/2 tablespoons), butter (1 tablespoon) and caster sugar (sorry - I didn't really get a real measurement for the caster sugar as we just added it in until it was a bit less watery from the milk - not on the recipe but we were experimenting, eh?)







And then pretty much just whisk it until it's thick enough to pipe and quite consistent as well. As you can see, ours above had a few lumps from the caster sugar but once we'd beaten that down, it was fine.



As if we weren't crazy enough, we decided to bling things up a bit and went out to buy a few sugary charms to add on top just to make them as professionally looking as we could. 

 

 Et voila! My friend, who is slightly crazy like myself, went a bit more insane and decided to mix up some of the left over marshmallow icing with chocolate cooking powder (just basically the powder one makes hot chocolate with) and added a bit of a dollop onto the top. Icing wise, it didn't really turn out as professional as she'd hoped but they were still amazingly delicious!










Xx