New York Themed Gift Basket

Two of my oldest friends (They're twins, just like me) are turning 18 in November so I wanted to make their gifts pretty special, in order to that I had a little brainstorm about the things that they love. Basically what I came up with, was to theme their gift around New York as last summer they went on a trip there and had the best time. They even met Nathan Sykes formerly of The Wanted. Awesomeeeeee. Everything I got them is pictured above except for these gorgeous metal bookmarks that hadn't yet arrived when I took these photos, some photos from their holiday which I got printed with the help of their little sis (Thanks Jose!) and some Krispy Kreme Donuts which I obviously couldn't get till the day.

Items Pictured-

NYC Nail Polishes in Time Square and NY Princess // New York, I Love You DVD // I Heart New York Book // Million dollar choc bar from B&M // Colab Dry Shampoo in fragrance New York // NY Notebook From TKMaxx // NY Book Box From TKMaxx // Vintage poster from here

This idea could be adapted to suit loads of different places, whether it's a hometown, a favourite holiday destination or dream holiday destination. You can buy food and drinks that remind the recipient of the place, books and movies that are set there and really anything else that's linked to the place or trip. The possibilities are endless!

New York City: The Photos

This is the last in my 'New York' series sadly. It was a really amazing trip and I'm so grateful to my parents for taking us because it really was the best holiday of my life. Everything about New York is incredible not only are all the buildings massive, everywhere is so busy all the time, even in the middle of the night and it's so loud as well, there's always people talking and car horns beeping and adverts playing on the big screens. I'd love to go back again and hopefully will in the future. We managed to get most of the things done that we wanted to except for Ellis Island, here is our itinerary of sorts..

Day 1-The Rockefeller centre, Time square shopping in MAC, Aeropostale and the Disney Store and we went to St Patricks Cathedral

Day 2-Time Square, Bryant Park, Central Park, Bloomingdale's, 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, The Avengers Station, Queensboro Bridge and the Rockefeller at night.

Day 3- Staten Island Ferry, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Ground Zero and the 9/11 memorial plus my brother and dad went on a helicopter trip round the city for my dad's birthday present off of my aunt.

Day 4- The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum and Macy's department store.

Day 5- Empire State Building, New York Library and the children's exhibit plus we went to see Chicago the musical.

Day 6- Mainly Shopping and then the flight home

 Time Square

 Time Square

 Tangled Lanterns in the Time Square Disney Store

Times Square Disney Store

 Times Square

 The family in Times Square

More of Time Square 

I found the Pretty Little Liars collection in aeropostale and got a little bit too excited!

The Chrysler Building

 The family in Grand Central Station

5th Avenue 

Central Park 

 Central Park

 Bloomingdales (Where Rachel works in friends :))

Queensboro Bridge 

View from the Rockefeller centre (the huge green bit is central park)

Another view from the Rockefeller of the Empire State building 

 And another picture at night 

View of the Statue Of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry

 Me and my daddy on the ferry.

 The 9/11 memorial fountains which are hauntingly beautiful

 Here is a picture of the view from the Empire State Building which I think really shows how busy and huge and complicated, yet beautiful New York City is.

And finally a beautiful picture of the sunset from the plane on the way home.

That wasn't all of the photos I took of New York but if I put them all on, you'd be here for a week.

I hope you have a lovely time on your holidays if you're going away!

New York City: The Haul

Oops... There goes most of my savings...

So as you will know by now, I went to New York CIty for 6 days at the end of June and who can resist doing a spot of shopping whilst in New York! I don't think I really brought that much but my money sure seemed to disappear fast. That's the story of my life to be honest...

 NOTE: All of the prices are minus tax which is currenntly 8.75% I think.

 Victoria's Secret-  2 body mists for $3.00 each in the 75% off sale

 CVS- Nyx jumbo eye pencils in milk and black bean $4.50 each, plus the nyx eyeshadow base in skin for $7.99, EOS lipbalm in Blueberry for $4.69 and a l'oreal infallible eyeshadow in amber rush for $7.99 which is actually for a friend and shouldn't be in this photo,

 MAC-I bought my first ever MAC product whilst in New York from the store in Time Square! My friends very kindly gave me the money for the lipstick for my birthday back in March and I finally figured out which colour i wanted to buy so got it whilst i was in New York because it was cheaper. The colour is Creme Cup.

 Bath and Body Works- 5 hand sanitisers for $5 and a watermelon lemonade candle jar which was half price so cost me $6.25

Duane Reade Supermarket- 2 (huge) packets of twizzlers for $5, which is a bargain price considering what I pay in England for them and a big packet of Jolly Ranchers Crunch and Chew because someone brought me a packet for my birthday and I actually fell in love with them, plus they were only $3.79.

I'd hate to know what I would of spent if I'd gone for any longer than 6 days.

New York City: Holiday Makeup Bag

Having a rather large makeup collection kinda comes with being a beauty blogger, so when it's time for a trip, it's always hard to dwindle it down to a few key products, but this is what I have tried to do. Trust me, it was hard. Some people may say that 4 lipsticks for a six day trip is excessive but I'm sure if you're reading this you know it's important to have choices, so read on to see my holiday makeup, the products below are the exact ones I'm taking to New York but one or two are in the wrong shades as I couldn't find a good photo of them.

Holiday Makeup Bag by frankenwhale featuring lips makeup

So in the face category we have my favourite everyday concealer, foundation, bronzer, blush and powder, pretty simple really. I also have the Benefit Porefessional primer because I recently got it free in the Elle magazine (I may have spent £4 on a magazine which I personally thought was just adverts for the free gift. Oops.)

For eyes I'm taking a pencil and felt tip liner, I would have prefered a good gel one, but my Collection Gel Liner isn't very long lasting at all. Obviously I also need mascara and my MUA eyebrow kit, then I'm taking the MUA Undressed palette as it's a good neutral palette with a good range of colours and my maybelline colour tattoo in 'On and On Bronze' to use as a base/primer.

Then, for lips I'm taking Rimmel Kate Moss 110, Rimmel Apocalips in Eclipse, Maybelline Colour Sensational Vivids lipstick in Shocking Coral and Natural Collection Lipstick in Crimson. That way I have an orange, purple, pink and red and cover all my bases.

Finally I am also taking some of my Real Techniques brushes which aren't pictured. I think I'll take the Buffing Brush for foundation, Contour Brush for bronzer and blush, Brow Brush for brows, Deluxe Crease Brush for concealer and the Base Shadow Brush for my eyeshadow. Plus my good old primark powder brush to finish it of.

This is actually what I would take on a two week trip to be honest and I'm only going for 6 days...Oops...

New York City: 6 Days of Outfits

So here's the third for my holiday series, a sort of holiday look book I guess you could call it, except I wasn't brave enough to actually model the clothes! Fashion type posts are quite a rarity on Beauty By A Geek so be sure to let me know in the comments if you'd like to see more of them!

Top- Primark, Denim Shirt- Matalan, Leggings- New Look, Converse-Office, Backpack- Primark

Everything from Primark

Vest- New Look, Kimono-Market, Shorts, Shoes, Bag and Necklace- Primark

Top- DIY, Pinafore- Primark

Top- TJ Maxx (America), Skirt-Urban Outfitters

All Primark except for the necklace which is from Aspire and says 'Dreams Come True'

All Primark except for skirt which is from Urban Outfitters

All Primark except for top which is from TJ Maxx

Dress- Forever 21, Shoes-Primark

Top and Skirt-New Look, Bag and Cardigan-Primark, Converse-Office

All Primark except for Skirt from Urban Outfitters

All from Primark

Top-Asda, Converse-Office, Bag-Primark, Shorts-DIY

Things I have learnt whilst making this post 1) I shop at Primark too much 2) Editing photos takes too long 3) I have packing OCD 4) The lighting in my bedroom is terrible, though I kind of already knew this.