Summer Challenge- The Trip to London

After last week’s trip to London I am even more in love with my country's capital city than ever.

The shopping trip was a late birthday/end of exams treat and me and my friends loved it. We shopped till we dropped.
Starbucks breakfast on the train there. Lunch at Westfields shopping centre. Tube to Oxford Street to check out Urban Outfitters and the 4 storey beast of a Topshop. Then a red double decker bus to dinner at Carluccio's Italian restaurant in St Pancras station before getting the train from Kings Cross (unfortunately there was no Platform 9 and ¾ though because it was under construction and being the Harry Potter nerd that I am I was devastated) back to Newcastle which seemed so drab and quiet when we got back at 1am in comparison to the vibrancy of London.

The must have Percy Pigs- vital for every train journey. Many thanks to Emma for supplying these bad boys!

The predictable cup of Starbucks for the train as well. Mine was a Caramel Macciato, in case you were wondering.

My beautiful best friends Xanthe (left) and Emma (right)

WESTFIELDS! The biggest shopping centre in Europe! With everything from Accessorize to Miu Miu, it was insane. We even got lost it was so big haha.

The really cute little ice cream parlour in Westfields. Me and Emma were very tempted to steal the pretend motor bike seats in our favourite colours.

Me looking very happy with all my shopping bags. It was a very productive shopping day with buys from: MAC, Pandora, Zara, Topshop and Urban Outfitters.

The beautiful St Pancras station. I can't wait to go back and people watch! There are so many interesting people in London, from all over the world, making it such an exciting place to be.

And for the record people in London have AMAZING fashion sense. I had so many style crushes by the end of the day.

So as you can see from our cheesey grins, we had an incredible trip.
I can't wait to go back later on in the summer holidays (fingers crossed!) and do my usual touristy photos down the Southbank and get my lovely cousins who live there to take me to my ever growing list of galleries and exhibitions.

Hope you are all having a lovely summer like me, dearies!

Lotsa blogging love,

Beth Ruby xoxo

Best mermaid duo ever ♥

Xanthe (left) and me (right) :D

Ok so we kind of looked like mermaids right?
Unfortunately evolution hasn't let us physically sprout a fish tail (yet...) so I think the maxi dresses did a good enough job of getting the idea across for me and the fabulous Xanthe May, oui?

I ended up going way over budget for my maxi dress because I tried so many on in so many shops but then as soon as I walked into Topshop I saw this one and BAM it had to be mine.

Also at the 'Under The Sea' themed birthday bash I spied a Loch Ness Monster (cleverly wearing red tartan and green face paint) a giant yellow submarine, a pearl, a drop of water, a wave, surfers, some Hawaiians and also some sailors and pirates.

What a night.

And then it's my leavers ball tomorrow marking the end of my compulsory education and officially kicking off my 10 week summer holdiay. Wahey.

I am even going to get my hair cut and my makeup done at MAC with my BFFL for it. I know, get me pulling out all the stops.

Hope all you lovely bloggers/blog readers are having lots of fun in the sunshine, I know its unusually sweltering in England at the moment.

So layer up the factor 30 and enjoy amigos!

Beth Ruby xoxo

ps) THANKYOU SO MUCH TO EACH OF MY 200 FOLLOWERS!

Finally reaching the big 200 has made my day! Love you guys!

My summer starts here

So it's the first day of my sumer holidays; I'm free!

Finally my 17 exams are over (it was official when I tore up my exam timetable into teeny tiny little pieces and also binned all my old notes) and I now have 10 weeks of sunshine ahead of me. Hallelujah!

So to celebrate I am going to have a chilled out afternoon and visit the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize (which I went to last year and loved so I bet there will be even more amazing new talent there this year) and then this evening I am going to my best friends' joint fancy dress birthday party, which is 'Under The Sea' themed. I am going as a mermaid. Don't ask me how that is going to work- I am hoping that with my new Topshop maxi dress and with Xanthe May's genius MAC and hair crimping skills I'm going to look good.

(Might even post some photos tomorrow if you're lucky)

And hopefully because I have all this time off I can get around to a lot more blogging, checking out my favourites, finding new ones and posting lots more.

Oh and photos by me on my lovely jubbly Canon, of my darling little sister, in my humble back garden. Hope you like them!

Finally, tell me, are you up to any adventures this fine Saturday?

*Many blogging virtual hugs and kisses*

Beth Ruby xoxo

ps) Can anyone be an absolute darling and let me know how to post my photographs all big and beautiful on my blog?

David Bailey- 50 years in Vogue

This month marks 50 years in which David Bailey has worked with Vogue.
He is a real rags to riches story, and went from living in East End London as a child where he was born in 1938 during World War 2 where he says during the winter his family "would take bread-and-jam sandwiches and go to the cinema every night because in those days it was cheaper to go to the cinema than to put on the gas fire. I'll bet I saw seven or eight movies a week" to becoming the photographer whose images defined the Swinging Sixties.

He left school, enrolled in the RAF and then determined to become a photographer, bought a Canon- he said "I was smitten, and gradually the prospect of becoming a photographer became less remote, perhaps even attainable"- and worked his way up from a photographers assistant, to freelance work and then finally owning his own studio.
His images, my favourites the fashion photographs he made whilst working at Vogue, just ooze simplicity and his story shows how talent and ambition can pay off.
These photos speak for themselves but the man behind them is equally inspirational.

Photos 1+2- the truly beautiful Jean Shrimpton

3+4- Catherine Deneuve and who he later married. Lucky man, as shown in the wonderful 4th photo.

Bailey's word of advice to budding photographers:

"The first and most obvious thing to do is to ooze awareness - and really look and act as if you know what you are doing. That means knowing your camera backwards: never fiddle with it during a shooting session - load it, focus it, fire it, but never fiddle. And get your background sorted out well before its time to press the shutter. Choose where you're going to do your portrait shooting, and place your subject there without dithering."

Beth Ruby xoxo

ps) I would love to stay and reply to all your lovely comments on my previous posts but I have to go and revise for my English Language paper tomorrow. But I promise as soon as this hellish week is over (I have 10 exams left now...) I will get back to you all individually. Or follow me on twitter here @bethrubytweets and say hello, now I have a Blackberry I am addicted haha :)
Hope you are all having a good start to the week and good luck to everyone else who is doing exams!

Spring Summer Moodboard

Just a quick post with a photo of a mood board I made to let you know that I am alive and well and that the exams haven't killed me (yet...)
I have lost my voice and have been living on soothers and cups of tea for the past 2 days but still, you get the idea. 6 exams down and 11 to go so once they have all finished expect much more posts to make up for my current absence.

Anyway, back to my moodboard. It is a spring/summer themed, taken by my beautiful Canon 1000D and consists of a few things that are currently inspiring me.

From top left clockwise:
Red topshop heart shaped clutch, designer dress (any idea who designed it? I stupidly cut off the label when I cut it out of Grazia) Pastel coloured nails, feather skirt from topshop, vintage photo, Miss Dior advert shot by Tim Walker, Vivienne Westwood for Melissa heels, 50's advert cut out of a Guardian supplement, my fan I got out of a Christmas cracker, lace print nails, Emma Cook for topshop heels, makeup print clutch bag, Gemma Ward photo from Vogue, Luella SS2010 collection, Juicy Couture advert (LOVE the pink zebra) and floral Nike dunks.

Oh and a parcel arrived for me yesterday from Conde Nast...

Yes that's right I got the first of my years subscription to Vogue. Still buzzing that one of those beauties will land on my humble doorstep every single month.

Hope your all having an amazing bank holiday weekend. You doing anything exciting?
I am just off to watch Dr Who now :)

Hugs and kisses,

Beth xoxoxo