My Youtube Videos!

I've had a Youtube account for years now, but haven't made any videos on it. Like I mentioned in my first post on the subject, for a while I made videos about makeup and beauty stuff but I wasn't really enjoying it. So I stopped and deleted all my videos.

Now two years on and I've started making videos again! But they're about books and I'm so happy I started. I'm so glad I found the Booktube community. I've had such a wonderful response from others in the community, that I really wasn't expecting. Everyone is just so involved and active, commenting on videos and replying to each other. It's so lovely!

I've made four videos so far and I've got a few more that I plan on making soon. Including the Taylor Swift tag! And a few other tag videos and some "get to know me" type videos.

Here's the videos I've made, except the introduction because I didn't make a thumbnail for that. I'm so proud of myself for figuring out how to customise the thumbnails and make my own!

Click the link below the photos to see my videos.

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix Book Review

This is the first review I've posted and I'm really pleased with it, this is such an awesome book and I wish more people knew about it!

November Wrap Up

First wrap up video, I was very excited to make this and very proud of how many books I read last month. I'm going to try and read more in December so I can talk about more books at the end of the month.

First Book Haul

Buying books is my new favourite thing, I've got another haul planned for next week because I bought loads of books online from a really cheap website/shop.

So these are all the videos I've made so far and I can't wait to make more as I read more books!

Book Selfies!

The other day I started deleting stuff to make room on my laptop. I went through all my old college work and music and made some space. Then I went into Photo Booth to get rid of all the rubbish photos I have on there.

I've had my laptop since my 16th birthday and now I'm 21 so I had a lot of photos! I deleted loads but I kept most of the good ones.

I also kept all the ones of me and the books I've read. I thought it was quite funny how many photos I took of myself reading!

I think these were all taken from early 2010 to late 2011, so I would have been 16/17

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

I remember reading this book and loving it! But I didn't carry on with the series because I didn't like it as much.

 

 GCSE Maths Revision Book - Does that count? I doubt I read much of it!

 It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

I saw there was a film coming out based on this book and I did some research and decided I wanted to read the book first, I'm so glad I did. It's a great book and a great film!

 The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

After seeing Sophia Copola's adaptation of The Virgin Suicides and loving it instantly I really wanted to read the book. But I just couldn't get into it. I think I need to read it now I'm older, maybe I'll appreciate it more.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 

THIS BOOK! This is my favourite book of all time. It deserves it's on post entirely. I'm going to save that for a video though, on my new Booktube channel!

I read this book during the summer and then lent it to a friend, big mistake! I never got it back. So I bought another copy and read it again, that copy has a better cover as well!

 Harry Potter (1, 2, 3 and 4) by J.K. Rowling

I can't remember why but at some point during this year I wanted to read all the Harry Potter books! When they first came out I listened to them all on audiotape, so I'd never actually read them...

So I bought the first four from a charity shop, just to get me started. But I never carried on with it after these ones.

 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

 Harry Potter Companion books, also by J.K. Rowling.

Again, I was VERY into Harry Potter this year!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K Rowling. 

In the time it took me to read the first two books I've cut and dye my hair blonde!

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffret Eugenides (again)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

I absolutely love The War of the World, I listen to Jeff Wayne's musical version every now and again. I used to listen to it with my parents when I was little, I will always love it!

1984 by George Orwell.

I never finished 1984, I just couldn't get into it!

This was when I was a bit obsessed with Doctor Who, especially Matt Smith. He has been my favourite Doctor. "Bow ties are cool"

I should start doing this again, on my laptop. I think it's a cool idea to document the books I'm reading, what my hair looks like and other little bits in my life.

I hope you enjoyed seeing what I read and how young I look!

Booktube!

I've started a Booktube channel! I've had a Youtube account for years and this one I've had since 2012, when I tried making a beauty/makeup channel and failed!

But I'm really excited about booktube! I've been watching videos about books for a few weeks now and I just really wanted to get involved and post my own. So I tidied my room, charged my camera and hit record! And this is my introduction video to my new channel! 

I spent the other night trying to make a banner/channel art for my page. It's safe to say that it's pretty rubbish, but I'm not a graphic designer and it took me all day to make the header for my blog, so the Youtube one was bound to either take ages or be crap!

I just wanted to make something quick so I could get started. Also, I'm liking the fact that I still have 10 subscribers from my old channel! I'm not enjoying that my channel is actually called TeenageWaasteland. That's what my old tumblr account was called and I thought it was really cool! Oh well, I've changed the settings and my name is what you see on it instead.

I've got a few videos planned/recorded that I'm going to post. I know I've already said it, but I am really excited about this and I can't wait to really get into it and have a few videos on my channel and maybe get a few subscribers and people I can talk to about books!

This is how much I love Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Please prepare yourself for an explosion of words and feelings. Because I'm not sure if I can put into words how much I love this book.

But I think the fact that I read it in three days says a lot. As soon as I started reading this book I just couldn't put it down

There's a quote on the cover of the book from John Green that says "Reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love, but what it's like to be young and in love with a book"

And I agree with this statement 100%! I am a huge John Green fan and this is one of the reasons I read Eleanor and Park. As well as the fact that it's set in the 80s which I love.

The story starts with Eleanor moving back home after being away for a year. She meets Park on the school bus when there's nowhere else for her to sit, so she sits next to him. At first they don't talk and for a while he ignores her, until he notices that she's sneakily reading his comic books that he reads on the bus. One afternoon she gets off the bus but they haven't finished reading a comic so he gives it to her. And that's where it all begins! Over the course of a school year, they share comics, mixtapes and their hearts. That sounds so cheesey but I couldn't think of how else to put it! Because that's what happens! But it's not cheesey at all, it's so well written!

It's full of references to comic books, films and awesome music! The "soundtrack" of this book is amazing. You'll find yourself up at 2am reading, listening to The Smiths and wishing you could give Rainbow Rowell a hug for creating such a wonderful story with such magical characters.

You'll experience every emotion reading this book. It's got everything and it's beautiful.

I feel a bit like Peter Pan with my choice of reading material, the little boy who didn't want to grow up, like I'm refusing to grow up myself. Even though I'm 21, I'm still reading books about being 16 and falling in love for the first time. Not that I'm complaining, I love a coming of age story! And I don't ever want to stop reading books about teenage life and falling in love.

AND another thing, the cover of the book is the same colour as my other favourite book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Coincidence? I think not!

If you like The Perks of Being a Wallflower or anything by John Green then I think you'll love this.

(All the artwork in this post I found on Pinterest, they are by a few different artists. Here's links to them on their tumblrs. paperpie, siminiblocker and oh-clock)

Cornwall

I've been a bit absent from the blogging world recently! Blogtober didn't exactly go to plan, but I think posting 16 times in a month was pretty good! Considering I have never done any kind of regular posting before.

But where have I been? What have I been up to?

Last week I went on holiday, with my mum and her partner Janine. We went to Cornwall to visit my Aunt and Uncle in their new house. When we got there the weather was pretty foggy and grey! But that didn't stop us from doing all the things we wanted to do.

One day we went out for lunch at a seaside town called Looe. We had Cornish pasties and went for a walk through the town and along the beach.

Because it was Halloween we carved pumpkins, we all did really simple designs, except for Janine because she always does really cool pumpkins! By the way, that's my pumpkin in the middle, looking cute and scared!

They have a fire in their kitchen so we toasted marshmallows as well, which was my idea and what a great idea it was!

  

The next day we went for another walk but this was a much more serious walk. It was up a hill/mountain! It was probably just a hill, but there were large rocks everywhere that made it feel like we were rock climbing up a mountain.

It's a place called Bodmin Moor and it was beautiful and so much fun to walk around. 

The view from the top of the hill was great and I bet on a sunny day it would have been even better.

It was so windy on the walk up and especially at the top, as this picture proves!

After the long walk up and back down the hill we went for cream teas, but I had a toastie instead! Because I don't like cream. But then my mum gave me half of her scone and I just had jam on it.

In the evening we went for fish and chips in Padstow, which is such a lovely place to visit. It's a harbor town and has really great shops. It's just a shame that we went in the evening and everything was closed!

It was only a short visit and now I'm back to working loads!

Here's my mum, me and Janine on the pier at Looe, looking like we really want to be there and have our photo taken!

Oh and here's me in a little cave thing!

Filofax Madness! (Blogtober #16)

A few months ago I got a Filofax when it was reduced at John Lewis and I hadn't used it since I bought it. But recently I decided to start using it after I watched a few Youtube videos of people decorating their planners. The planner I have is the Patent Pocket Organiser in the colour Lemon and it's lovely! Yellow is one of my favourite colours and this is such a cute shade.  

I had a few washi tapes lying around in a drawer somewhere but that wasn't enough. So over the last few days I've been to a few different shops and stocked up on craft supplies and stationary. First I bought some stuff from Wilkinsons and Paperchase.

Now I have loads of pretty washi tapes all in different colours and patterns. I bought some coloured paper as well to make my own dividers and pages with. As well as a few other bits and bobs, like pens, post it notes, stickers, zip pouches, mini pegs and a tape dispenser.

Then  on Saturday I went to Hobbycraft and went a bit crazy in the stamp section, I nearly bought everything! I got three different types of alphabet stamps, which was probably too many but it's good to have options! I also got a few stamps with pictures on them.

This is some of the stuff I bought.

You can never have too many post it notes, so I got a few from the brand La De Dah with different patterns and words on. After buying the coloured card from Wilkinsons I decided to get some patterned ones to make my dividers more interesting.

I'm really enjoying decorating the pages in my Filofax, even though they're not that exciting so far because I'm still thinking about what I want to do with them. But I made this little insert today and I thought it was really cute! And now I'm going to try and make a few more, maybe something inspired by The Fault in Our Stars?

I've started knitting! (Blogtober #15)

I've wanted to learn to knit for a while now, since I started cross stitching in the summer I've been thinking about it. But I didn't want to start right away. After I finished a few cross stitches and I was improving at that I thought I'd give knitting a go. I tried knitting when I was about 15 and I was never very good at it, I think because I didn't really know I could find lots of help online and I chose a gross coloured wool to make a scarf (baby pink and yellow) so I wasn't that bothered about it. But this time I chose colours I actually like and hopefully when I've finished my scarf I'll want to wear it.

So on Saturday I went to John Lewis, mainly to try on watches for my birthday but I also had a little nose around the haberdashery department. Which was great! I chose the colours of yarn I wanted to use and then the woman working there was really helpful and showed me what needles I needed and how to get started which I wasn't expecting at all. It was so helpful and she was really nice!

It's safe to say I've got off to a bit of a rocky start, knitting is really hard! I've probably done about 5 rows and then pulled it all off the needle and started again. About three times. But I'm sticking with it now, no matter how horribly it goes. It's only my first one and it's just practise really.

This is how much I've done so far, it looks a lot better in the photo! There aren't many wholes in it, it's just a bit uneven. And when I say "a bit uneven" I mean "very uneven".

I'm just going to keep going with it and see how long I can make it. Then I'll make a blue one and then a green one. Then I can open my own Etsy shop! (I'm kidding).