Green and Vintage

Sp before mum chopped my hair off the other day, we went charity shopping and I couldn't resist this deep green vintage Marks and spencer's dress, I did have to squeeze my boobs into it a bit, but it fitted amazingly around my waist and at a size 10 I couldn't believe it. I do need to cut the length of the dress, I think it may be my perfect summer dress. The dress itself I picked up for £1, the lady who sold it to me told me the story behind the dress, she had bought it for her daughters graduation, but she no longer fitted in it, and wanted to give it away to a new home and she thought it would look great on me, what a lovely lady.  I am desperately missing the sun, my skin has never been so pale.

In the third photo you can see how wonky my hair had actually got since I had damaged it with bleach, it was taking this photo that made me realise I had to chop of my hair. So these are the last photos taken of me with long hair.

In other news I have some really fun tutorials coming up and a few vlogs, it will probably just be me rambling about life but i hope you enjoy what I have been working on.

Thank you for all the kind words about my Swansea post, I didn't realise how many of you lovely readers are welsh...amazing!

Swansea

We spent most of our time in swansea, eating drinking and being merry. As you can see from the photos the weather was pretty cold when we walked to the mumbles it was freezing, i need to remember next time to pack more jumpers and wear more layers.
We did a bit of shopping on my first day down, we went to a lovely little vintage in swansea they had some really amazing upcycled dresses, I am wishing now I had bought one.
In the evening we decided not to go into town but to go to the cinema to watch the film Mama, was entirely aware how creepy it would be, and then we decided to do a little shop ready for a mid-night feast. The sunday was spent walking and hanging out in the arcades down in mumbles ( where i ate far too much chocolate ice cream), then in the evening my brother housemates decided to go to a pub quiz, we came joint last Its probably safe to say we don't make the best team when it comes to pub quizzes, the rest of the evening was spent joking about and trying to guess the name of the rapper in sauls selection of music. Its safe to say by monday I was really tiered and ready for my own bed. 

looking forward

I spent the later part of the week in swansea visiting the little brother, it was so nice to get away from the everyday home life and drag myself away from my shop and my blog. Sometimes its so easy to get stagnant and hard on yourself about what you do. Whilst down in wales, we ate lots of lovely food, walked to pretty places and hung out and laughed a considerable amount, God i miss the little rascal!

I spent today making lists, reading and writing, trying to ready myself for my week back at work. It was a lonely one, spent reading poetry in the bath and drawing but I think it was much needed.

Thank you all for your lovely comments about my not so new hair, really mean't a lot and i am still adjusting it takes so my time and effort to do, i do miss not having to brush my hair, lazy ella.

Short back and sides

So anyone on twitter would of seen my panic tweets about my hair today, I indeed had to take the plunge and chopped off 2-3 Inches off the length, as I get a little bit freaked out by hairdressers mum kindly offered to chop it. Remember when I ombred my hair a few weeks ago, well unfortunately the bleach had split the ends and every time I went to brush it the split hair got worst and I really was left no choice but to have it chopped off. I cried for ages after having it cut, and when I say cry I mean uncontrollably sobbed as if I had lost a child, now don't get me wrong, its silly of me to cry over a bit of lost hair but after about four years of growing it, it was just a bit of a shock to see all the length gone. Within the space of five minutes I had gone from looking sixteen to about twelve...not cool. I guess at least now I have my old healthy hair back, I wanted to share with you all my shaved side as a lot of you have been asking about it so here you are. 

What do you think?

My illustrated sunday.

From the depths of my sketchbook I have summed up my sunday in illustration form. Sunday's to me now are is a day that I fill with eating and chilling out, when I was a kid saturdays and sundays were days out, trips to the zoo, park and exploring. But now with work and my businesses I do love having a day to catch up on the small things, hanging out with my family and stuffing my face. Its nice to have a day were my brain isn't constantly ticking over, or ticking to-do lists off. I'm sure there are plenty of things i could of added extra to my list of perfect sundays. Next weekend I will be in Wales were I will be probably fattening up my little brother with food from Eddie Rockets...yum yum yum!

How do you spend your sundays?

Catch up time

I've been away for a bit this week due to work commitments, it has been a crazy week, I find it always is with the run up to holidays, my working week included teaching endless amounts of poetry, lessons about the origins of zombies and trying to teach reams of non-fiction text, got to love the job!

I have't been able to snap any pictures with my camera due to my SD card being mean and deleting important photos when I take new pictures ( also because i've lost my charger!) I've been sharing my week through instagram on my Iphone _ellamasters_, you may have seen that I received the loveliest valentines from Jaymie and Jazmine who needs a man when you have lovely girlfriends hey! Thank you lovelies. 

I Just wanted to share with you a little photo I took today, after two months of healthy eating hello fitting into one of my old favourite dresses, its only taken me two years. so yay go me. Thank you all so much for your kind words about my straight hair, I still find it very strange looking at my face with straight hair,  

Anyway I digress this week I reached over two hundred sales in my little etsy shop and as a massive thank you for everyones on going support I will be doing a big Ella Masters Illustrations giveaway on Monday, so keep your eyes peeled. 

I am so looking forward to my week off work and being able to sort my studio out and get a few new products in my little shop, yes they will be tattooed and beard based. 

I will also be doing a question and answer session in a future blog post, I often get a lot of comments with questions about my hair, shopping, illustrations and job, if you are curious about anything just leave a question in the comment box and I will set up a little Q&A session soon. 

Now onto something far more important....A friend of mine Adam is raising money for YMCA, he will be sleeping rough for a night on the 8th March in  Cardiff city centre to raise money homeless young people with nowhere else to go. It would be fab if you could donate a few pennies, if you want any more info or if you want to get involved please head over here. 

New Hair with ghd

New hair is the best way to boost you a little, so in true Ella style, i didn't bother with the hairdressers I got good old mum to chop me a lovely blunt fringe, i always go back to my trusted block fringe, this was my look for about fifteen years whilst at school, I am not a fan of my forehead so I can't deal with looking at my face without some sort of fringe. 

I always find it a bit weird seeing pictures of myself with straight hair, I had never owned a pair of straighteners until ghd kindly gifted me these lovely Pink Cherry Blossom stylers My hair is naturally straight, but it does have a few kinks in it, when the weather is a bit damp, and lets face it thats everyday here in the uk, so these are perfect and I must admit that when i got to work with straight hair I occasionally take these with me.

I only ever occasionally straighten my hair, both my parents are divided on how they like me to style, mum likes it dead straight and my dad likes it curly, you can always rely on parents can't you! so what do you think straight or curly?

Roses are red

When I got a little email from the lovely people over at Interflora my inner flower lover got so excited, my first ever proper job was being a saturday girl at the flower shop my mum works at, and having a florist for a mother we both got really excited at the prospect of being sent a lovely bunch of flowers and to see what Interflora could conjure up. 

As a single lady this Valentines day, I wasn't expecting anything this beautiful so I can now say I was sent a lovely bunch of mixed roses for the day of love, Flowers are always good for the soul. 

I believe flowers are can be such a personal touch and the loveliest gift to send someone for Valentines, if you are sending them to a new love, a husband or wife or even a secret admirer, flowers are so romantic and touching. There are some outstanding Valentines gifts to choose from over at Interflora luxury flowers by post Its always nice to get something beautiful and hand assembled.