Hello, world! My name is Cayenne and I’m a 17 year old health and beauty enthusiast. I’ve been experimenting with different makeup and hair looks for years and I’m going to share everything I’ve learned with you lovelies.

A little bit about me:

I love art, culture, fitness, DIYing, being in nature, hanging out with small kids and old people, travelling, writing, drawing and more.

I live in a small suburban town not far from Vancouver, BC., though I spend practically all of my free time in the city. 

I love trying new things! From fashion and makeup to food and experiences, I’m always looking for an adventure and experiencing something different.

Some of the topics I’m going to cover in my blog posts are:

1)    How to find a look that is unique for you and accentuates your best features.

2)    How to make the best of a low budget without sacrificing quality, and recommended drugstore products I swear by. (Though I hear products from companies like Mac and Sephora are fab, my wallet disagrees.)

3)    Basic makeup rules everyone should know (and when it’s ok to break them).

4)    Tons of fun DIY beauty projects, including how to make your own moisturizer, lip balm, exfoliating scrub, blush and more.

5)    How to change your look as the seasons change without having to buy all new products.

6)    How to dye and bleach your own hair without it all falling out or looking like a very fashion-missing scarecrow.

7)    How to grow out a pixie haircut while staying totally fab and steering well clear of Justin Bieber territory.

… And so much more!

I’m so excited that I am able to share with you everything I know. I believe that everyone deserves to feel their most beautiful, and although true beauty comes from the inside out, if wearing a little makeup makes you feel more confident then go for it!

For the longest time, I was very self-conscious about looking different from everyone else, and would therefore try my hardest to blend in and look like everyone else. I realized, however, that normal was Boring with a capital B, and once I learned to love my unique features it seemed like everyone else did too! Now I get comments all the time about how unique and interesting my look is.

Anyway, the point is there are too many mundane things in the world, and there’s no need for you to be another one of them just because you’re afraid of what the world will think if you try something different. So in my posts I’m going to focus on how to stand out, and love yourself, and flaunt the gorgeous majestic one of a kind beauty that is YOU!

If you have any questions, comments, ideas, or just want to say hi, feel free to email me at bpesexy@gmail.com!

Diana Pinguicha reviews period drama Downton Abbey.

Ok, so there I was, lying down on my bed, my two kitties nearby, hacking away at C++ code and failing miserably to load textures properly onto OpenGL. Then, because my boyfriend always leaves the TV on for background noise, I hear this beautiful piano melody from a series opening.

Let’s face it: I’m a big sucker for beautiful piano pieces. It comes with having playing the instrument for so long. So, the next day, during class, I asked my friend Joana if she had watched it (being that she’s a lover of all things properly British). She had, and told me I needed to as well. I, being the TV drama junkie that I am, decided to obey.

I had all the episodes on DVR thanks to the wonderful auto-save technology of my cable provider. Plus, they were all in HD, so I had extra-pretty details to look at. Without anything to complain about, I lay down in bed, Jubas sleeping next to me and Sushi peering down from her perch atop the piano, and I start watching.

I ended up finishing the entire first season in a day.

First of all, the cast is gigantic. There’s the aristocratic family that runs the house and is composed of Lord and Lady Grantham, their three daughters, the Dowager Countess (portrayed flawlessly by the wonderful Maggie Smith), their cousin, his mother and a whole lot of people.

Then, you have the servants and oh God almighty, there’s so many of them! From butler to second footman to lady’s maid to housekeeper to kitchen helper – I kid not! I cannot tell you for certain how many there are. It’s crazy. I was often lost in the first episodes and had to go to Wikipedia to know who’s who and “Oh , so that’s what a footman’s supposed to do!” Still, it’s an accurate portrayal of a noble family and its needless amounts of staff.

As for the plot itself: the first season starts with the infamous Titanic disaster and how Lord Grantham lost his heir to the sea. You ask, “But can’t his daughters inherit the gigantic estate?” Nope. This is 1912. Women couldn’t inherit anything but a dowry once they got married – and that was to their husband, a sort of a “thank you for ridding me of a daughter” gift. It’s not that Lord Grantham doesn’t love his daughters, because he does. But be prepared for a lot of your typical early 20^th century sexism and misogyny in the series.

So, what happens when you lose your male heir? You find one and get to know him, because an estate like Downton deserves to be in good hands. But oh, tragedy of tragedies! The next living heir is a lawyer! What a common-man profession, is it not?

I kid! I kid! Still, the outrage of the family when they find Matthew, the heir in question, works for a living is hilarious and so perfectly done! It’s a joy to see, really!

Matthew comes to the Abbey and the drama unfolds. He and Lord Gantham’s eldest daughter Mary (the beautiful Michelle Dockery) are attracted to each other, but she’s a snob, and so on and so forth.

Then you have your downstairs drama, with Thomas, the first footman, conspiring with the lady’s maid to bring down the newly appointed valet, John Bates. There’s a myriad of plots and sub-plots unravelling and I cannot get into most of them, but they’re all brilliantly acted and cleverly put together.

You’ll find yourself at the edge of your seat, wanting to know what comes next. You’ll be rooting for the good people, wishing the villains to die, and then finding yourself having some sympathy for those more misguided people. You’ll laugh at the Dowager Countesses’ indignity over the most trivial things, at Carson’s properly British mannerisms; you’ll rage at how homosexuals are treated and at how women had little rights but to get married. Downton is very well-written and no one’s truly good or truly evil. Everyone has flaws – it’s just that some are more despicable than others.

Last, but not the least: the set. The series is filmed on Highclere Castle and Bampton, and the scenery is breathtaking. Everything is meticulously done to match the era in which the series it’s set and it’s gorgeous to look at. From Mary’s clothes to the Abbey’s decoration to the town nearby… everything is so well-done and pretty that I just want to go back in time and live there.

Downton Abbey will melt your heart and have your teeth grinding within minutes, always with impeccable style and, more importantly: always thoroughly British. A definite must see if you love British history, a plot full of drama and incredible acting. Trust me. You won’t be disappointed.

Seven years ago Robert lost his parents in a fire that was caused by a freak storm. He also lost the entire winter that went with that storm. At seventeen, a mysterious phone call mentioning the blood moon and the name Luthien liberates something in his fractured memory bringing events of that forgotten winter back. Soon he is searching for Luthien, the girl he once loved. And across the city graffito begins to show up, warning of the coming blood moon.

As he tries to unlock the secrets of his past, Robert finds unlikely allies in an artist, an entrepreneur and a homeless girl. In a dual world, the enemy is gathering its forces as well, and Robert will need all of his friends to survive the coming battle.

There’s a lot of charm in A Wicked Kind of Dark. It is full of lush intertextuality, giving younger readers a myriad of other books to add to their reading lists (it’s also good to read a book about a character who is a reader and actually knows about books). In atmosphere, I’m reminded of a lot of other books. Enid Blyton comes to mind as the children are thrown into worlds full of adventurous possibility. The vividly realized description is evocative of Tolkien. Not that A Wicked Kind of Dark is derivative; it just nods to a lot of the classics that I grew up with, making me kind of nostalgic.

Despite the novel’s old-school atmosphere, A Wicked Kind of Dark explores some gritty and very modern settings. A doorway to the dual world exists in the London Underground and Robert’s allies, having previously been homeless, run a soup kitchen. Merging the fantastic with the mundane does more than create gripping urban fantasy here. It puts forth the homeless and addicted as heroes in their own right, something that is not done frequently enough.

One thing that made me sad was that, while familial love was portrayed as a bond that was near impossible to break, it is still trumped by romantic love. This is my gripe with pretty much every book, ever, but here it was more poignant because there were some amazing family members around Robert and Luthien. Robert’s brother, Gabriel, and Luthien’s mother, Lady Buchanan, are two of the strongest and most faceted characters in the novel, and I would have loved to have had more page time with them.

Young fantasy readers will love this imaginative new series. Its exploration of modern teenage issues like depression and isolation works well within its classical literature framework, making it a lyrical and significant read.

 A Wicked Kind of Dark – Jonathan K. Benton

 Odyssey Books (September 3, 2013)

ISBN: 9781922200068

I made this wicked chocolate fudge for the first time over the weekend. To be honest, I’m almost wishing it wasn’t so easy – because it’s seriously smooth, creamy and very, very decadent.

What you need:

A 385ml can of condensed milk.

50 grams of butter, chopped into cubes

400 grams of dark chocolate, cut finely.

How it’s done:

Grease and line a slice tin – I used an 18cm x 18cm square tin. Over a LOW heat, combine butter and condensed milk in a medium saucepan. Stir continuously to stop it burning and sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. Once the butter has melted, add your chocolate and keep stirring until it’s melted. It does get quite thick at this point, so bring your muscles!

Pour into the prepared tin, smooth the top, refrigerate for one to two hours and cut into serving size squares. And THAT’S IT! It will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container – if it doesn’t get eaten before then.

** I did find this recipe to be a little on the rich side (but it could be just perfect for you!) so next time I might try using milk chocolate. Or white chocolate. Or maybe using one of those fancy flavoured chocolates, like salt or chilli. I might try mixing in some nuts and marshmallows for rocky road, or some jelly lollies or, or…

Let me know if you come up with any more ideas!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                          

Local authors join group of international best-sellers to create real life Choose-Your-Own-Adventures in Brisbane.

Local authors Kim Wilkins, Angela Slatter and Marianne de Pierres have joined forces with NY Times best-selling and award-winning authors across Australia, on a new interactive storytelling project that aims to culturally enrich cities around the world via real life Choose Your Own Adventure stories.

“It’s a mix of cultural tourism and storybook adventure, I jumped at the chance to bring such an exciting project to Brisbane,” says Slatter, author of four highly acclaimed short story collections and a British Fantasy Award winner. “The producer Emily Craven has gathered together a dozen award-winning authors, each with a world-wide fanbase and published in over a dozen countries, to write Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style stories in cities across the world. Each adventure is written specifically to highlight the beautiful and intriguing parts of a specific city and to appeal to a young, tech savvy traveller.”

The international project aims not only to boost tourism, but create a completely new way of telling a story, by dropping the reader physically in the middle of it. Rather than reading the choose-your-own-adventure in printed book form, this project is creating maps so adventurers can read the story in the location the adventure is happening. Each map has a series of QR codes that a reader can scan with their smart phone. Each code links them to a webpage where they can read the next part of the adventure and then choose from several options to continue the story. Each new part of the story takes place in one of the locations on the map, showcasing the landmarks of some of the world’s most trendiest cities in a whole new way. Each story happens in a specific city, and the chosen city for the three, is Brisbane, their home turf.

“Not only are we trying to create real adventures, but we’re going to lead you to the hidden nooks and secret features of Brisbane and other cities around the world, taking you on a journey you would never find in a guide book,” says Wilkins, author of over 20 novels and a lecturer at the University of Queensland. “At the same time you could be avoiding an alien invasion, solving a mystery, surviving a zombie apocalypse… Hey, anything can happen on an adventure…”

Not only is the project unusual but so is the method of funding it. “To get this project off the ground we are crowdfunding it,” says Producer Emily Craven, a Brisbane based transmedia storyteller and Digital Producer for if:book Australia (The Australian Institute for the Future of the Book). “This project is about enriching communities through storytelling; we wanted the community itself to be invested, to take part in what we’re creating.” Crowdfunding involves raising funds from the public, via ‘pledging’ to support the project start-up costs. In return, the ‘pledgers’ get rewards for contributing to the project, with different rewards for various levels of contribution ranging from maps, to books to, private conversations with authors, to actually having a character in one of the adventures being named after you!

“Each project has a time limit to reach its funding goal, in our case, our crowdfunding campaign finishes on the 4^th of October 2013,” says award winning speculative fiction author, de Pierres. “What we’re proposing is a unique, modern and fun way of increasing tourism in Brisbane. Just think, an adventure in our backyard.”

If you would like to find out more about the Choose-Your-Adventure project, see the crowdfunding page at http://pozible.com/chooseadventure.