Sleepless Weekend of Crop Over | Festival Friday

It’s finally here! The final shows, the last jump up, the final hoorah before we have to wait another year for the Crop Over festival to be back with us again. I know this weekend, there will be many people who would not have slept since Emancipation Day (1st August), because they’re busy attending jump ups, concerts and fetes. I’ll try to do a round up post with all of the winners of the competitions next Friday, but this weekend, I’m going to be at Bridgetown Market (which starts on Friday) with the thousands of Bajans that pass through for the local craft, garments, fashion shows, entertainment and of course, the YUMMY food!

Friday is also the big Pic-O-De-Crop Calypso Finals where Aziza Clarke one of the contestants from the Juniors competition (a mere 18 years old) will be competing with seasoned veterans and a few newer competitors. I think that’s amazing really, as it’s about time that the younger generation starts coming into these “big people” competitions and giving them a run for their money. I’m really happy to see it happening.

Saturday morning will be the Fore-day morning jam, something that hardly ever interests me, but thousands of Barbadians join T-shirt bands, now evolving to costume bands or revel in their own “costumes”, partying through Bridgetown to Spring Garden. The customers are becoming very sophisticated these days, and I kind of miss the days of strictly T-shirts, paint, mud and water. But changing times, I guess. This jump usually takes place right after the crowning of the Pic-O-De-Crop Calypso King or Queen.

Of course on Sunday there will be Cohobblopot (pronounced Co- hob-boa- lah-pot) haha! This is being marketed as more of international event and besides our local artistes, Lil Rick (one of my favourites), Biggie Irie, Rupee, Red Plastic bag, Bobo and Fadda Fox,  there will be RDX from Jamaica (Dub/Dancehall), and a number of Trinidadian Soca artistes such as Patrice Roberts, Faye-Anna Lyons and Bunji Garlin. I actually wanted to go this year, but sadly I’m not… :(.

Finally on Monday, my favourite part of the festival…. Grand Kadooment where Bajans parade in beautiful costumes, though the concepts aren’t as inventive as years previous. I’m still a huge fan of beads and feathers, but I would love to see a bit more creativity go into both the male and female costumes.

So here’s a quick run-by of this weekend in case you didn’t follow all of my yapping…

Friday, 2nd August 2013 – Bridgetown Market on the Spring Garden Highway (and all weekend long)
                                         Pic-O-De-Crop Finals at Kensington Oval (more details here)
Saturday, 3rd August 2013 – Fordeay Morning Jam from Carlisle Carpark/ BTI Carpark (Lower Bay                                                        street) to the Spring Garden Highway (more info here)
Sunday, 4th August 2013 –  Cohobblopot at Kensington Oval
Monday, 5th August 2013 – Grand Kadooment from Warrens through the National Stadium and to the                                                    Spring Garden Highway
Friday, 9th August 2013 – Crop Over Visual Arts Festival Ends at the Grande Salle, Spirit Bond Mall and                                              Queen’s Park Gallery at Pelican

Summer Copper make up look | Beauty

Most days I wake up and wearing make up is the furthest thing from my mind, other days I wake up with a colour on my mind. I woke up last Friday with thoughts of copper eyeshadow flooding my mind.  Sadly I don’t have the exact copper I was thinking about, but I did come up with this look using my Coastal Scents and BH Cosmetics eye shadows.
Don’t forget, it’s Wednesday!! Click the button below to visit TGL!

yaw, I’m on the phone here hahah

What I used: 

Face:

Smashbox Photo Finish Primer
NYX Stay Matte But Not Flat Foundation- Chestnut
NYC Smooth Skin Loose Translucent powder
Coastal Scents 10 Bush palette- Bright coral
e.l.f  Blush and Bronzing kit- Turks and Caicos

Eyes:

Coastal Scents hot pot- S36 (golden orange colour)
BH Cosmetics 88 matte palette-orangey red eyeshadow
Wet N Wild Don’t Steal My Thunder trio- Charcoal (crease colour)
Coastal Scents Liquid eye liner – Jet
Maybelline Volum’Express The Falsies Big Eyes Mascara- Blackest Black
Maybelline MasterShape by Eyestudio brow pencil-  deepbrown
e.l.f. clear mascara and brow gel

Lips:

LA Colors pencil liner- Mahogany
Revlon ColorBurst lipstick- Peach
Revlon ColorBurst lipgloss- Papaya

Songs of the Festival Fever | Festival Friday

Hi everyone, this post is coming to you a bit late today, been somewhat of a hectic week. I really don’t even know where the time went. Before I knew it, today was Friday and I hadn’t gotten to write this post :(. Also don’t forget to check out this week’s Aloha Blog Hop!

Last weekend was filled with steel pan events as I had mentioned in my last FF post. Sadly by the time Sunday rolled around, I did not even feel like going to Pan Pun de Sand. I think it was for the best too, this year unlike previous there were less bands performing and one of my favourite bands, Mosaic wasn’t a part of the line up. I did watch the highlights of the event and both my dad and I enjoyed the Neal & Massy All Stars from Trinidad.

This weekend, I’d really like to go to a Pork Lime but since the week has crept up on me so fast, I doubt that’ll be the case. The Crop Over season is flying by really fast and although there are still lots of events to go to, there are so many that have been missed. See below for what’s coming up this weekend and next week.

Friday, 19th July – Pic-O-De-Crop Semi-finals at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium (more details here)

Saturday, 20th July – Junior Calypso Monarch Finals at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium

Sunday 21st July – Crop Over Feast at the Concorde Experience

                             Crop Over Read-IN! at Foursquare Heritage Park

                             Soca on de Hill at Falrey Hill National Park (more details here)

Friday, 26th July –  Crop Over Folk Concert (during the Day of National Significance) at the Frank Collymore Hall

Also I wanted to share some of the festival fever with you, so I’ve created this playlist of some of the Soca songs I’m loving. I can’t even remember hearing any Calypso yet (although the Semi Finals is this week), but that’s because I exist in my little cocoon, hardly turning on the radio as I do work lol. Enjoy!

Accessorizing with a Scarf! | Fashion

Hey all, today we’re sprucing up or look with a scarf. No we’re not talking about cotton bandanas, but watercolour, bright, flowy summer scarves. ALSO some time back in March I said I wanted to either be a part of a blog hop, or start my own, So I finally took the plunge and joined one :). Yay! This is the Weekly Wednesday Blog Hop by Melissa from This Girl’s Life. Although I’m just a student, I love to follow her blog, she does a lot of lifestyle posts, DIYs, and still a bit of of beauty too!

Here’s 4 ways you can wear scarves this summer.

Classic… Throw it around the Neck

The easiest way to wear a scarf. I sported this look on my trip, you can see the full post here.

Put it n a Bag

I actually have a scarf on my taupe bag and I love how it brightens up the look of my bag. I can also switch up the scarf according to my outfit. For my bag, the scarf tends to go with everything.

Wrap it around your Head

I look like a pirate wearing this style, my head is just way too small to look normal in hats or scarves, but it looks great on others, like my sister and loves with longer hair than mine.

Belt it

Ever had an outfit that looked like it was just missing something? Or your belt just couldn’t add anything to the pants or skirt you were wearing? Well a scarf is a great alternative to a belt! Adding just the right amount of pizazz to a plain outfit.

First Day of Summer…New Friday Series! | Festival Fridays

Today is 21st of June, the Summer Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere, also the official start of Summer 2013! Check out Wednesday’s Summer Swimsuits Guide for more summer fun! Yay to summer! (edit: my apologies, I miss counted my posts and thought I had 250, when it’s really 248 published posts, but just a few more days to 250!)

Not my own image

If you’ve been following along this blog for some time, you would be aware that around this time every year, Barbados celebrates Crop Over, our prime festival for the year. I would typically post some features on Crop Over during the festival, but this year I want to tell you a lot more about Barbados’ biggest festival! Enter Festival Fridays, a new section of posts I will hopefully be doing every Friday about the major Crop Over Events coming up that week/weekend and some information on Crop Over.

Source

Already for this Crop over Season we have had a number of Calvacades (2, and 3) in May, as a warm up for the festival. This was then followed by a Heritage Walk and a Heritage Tour through Bridgetown earlier this month. Junior Monarch calypso tents as well as the Pic o de Crop Calypso tents are slated to open and be judged this upcoming week. The Junior Monarch tent had already opened earlier this week, and judging is to take place very soon for the big Calypso titles up for grabs. I’ll explain those later as this post is bordering being long-winded.
Coming up this week!
21st- 23rd June– Opening night of a number of Pic o de Crop Calypso Tents
Sunday, 23rd June– Junior Calypso Monarch Tent at the Lester Vaughan School
Tuesday 25th June– Start of Judging for Pic o de Crop Calypso tents

I hope you enjoy this new series, it’s not about make up, but our Crop Over festival is a beautiful event that should be shared with you!

Summer Swimsuit Guide 2013 | Fashion

I was reading the June issue of InStyle Magazine a bit earlier this month and I loved the piece they did on Swimwear trends for 2013. This inspired to do a swimwear guide of my own.

Floral prints never seem to go out of style for swimwear, and this year’s no exception. Besides your typical granny florals (small floral prints), larger flowers and even leaves are making a splash this year! I am loving the one-piece swimsuit on the left corner which sports a bright leafy print. 

Cut-outs are also making a statement this year with whole pieces and even bikini bottoms are showcasing risqué slits. Something about cut-outs feels more bold and sexier than just a bikini.  I am not so daring when it comes to baring so much skin, so the black high waisted cut-out bottom in the top right would suit me fine.

Another trend I’ve been noticing was the bold prints and colours. This multicoloured print monokini in the center is just so fun. It has a bit of a retro feel too it too, and that deep V-neck is just so daring! Besides bright colours, pastels are also still floating around from Spring and I must say I’m still in love with pastel coloured swimwear. Sadly, I couldn’t find a picture of one that I loved.

Finally, mixed and matched prints and colours, once something frowned upon is looking more and more tempting to try. Of course, you have to be able to mix the right prints or colours, that could be pretty daunting. For me, I think the turquoise fringe bandeau is nicely paired with the black and white Aztec print bottom. It’s a easy mixed and matched combo. You could be more daring and try mixing polka dots with stripes or florals with other things. I’ve heard the key in that is keeping one colour the same in each print.

What do you think of the swimsuit trends for this summer? Not as many retro-styled bikinis as last year, but bits and pieces of the retro fun. My top favourite trends are the bold colours, pastels and cut-outs.  What are yours?