Gem and Jo's College Essentials

As college veterans, we are here to help you put aside your college newbie worries and guide you through your first few weeks of getting your degree. Here is our video on what you are going to need when the time to start college comes around.

1.  Get yourself a diary or a date book for your first day where you can keep track of important dates.

2. A notebook and Pen is essential for your first day as you'll be given a load of information that should be written down. 

3. Get a map of campus and keep it! You may need it at exam time or even in the next few years of college.
4. Bring a plastic folder to keep all the important documents you'll receive on your first day in. (Keep everything you're given during those first days, they'll likely be important and needed at some point in the future!)
5. Have a memory key on you at all times for printing assignments and saving in class work.
6. Wait a while before buying text books for lectures to make sure that they will actually be used.
7. Get a good water bottle. Most colleges have drinking water taps on campus so you can fill up your water bottle and not have to spend a load on bottled water. 
8. Get a small lunch box that you can put snacks in. You won't always have time to run back to your dorm or to the cafeteria every time you're hungry. This will save you from disturbing a lecture with a loud rumbling stomach (we've been there. Not a lot of fun!). 

Stay tuned for our next video which is all about how to mentally survive those first few, terrifying days and has some handy general tips that may be helpful too! 

Gem and Jo take on the Crucible

This past week we were given the chance to get our culture hats on and see Waterford Youth Arts' latest play, The Crucible, in Garter Lane Theatre Co. Waterford. Waterford Youth Arts is a youth and community based organisation which gives teenagers the chance to participate in artistic activities. They've spent this last summer getting ready for their production of the Crucible.

For those you unfamiliar with the Crucible, it was written by the American playwright Arthur Miller in 1953, and tells the story of the 1690s Salem witch trials. Since it's first production, the play has become part of the canon of American drama and has seen many professional reproductions. As the cast of the play is usually professional adult actors, we must admit that we were a little curious of how a teenage cast would present the play. However, we needn't have worried at all.

Waterford Youth Art's production was fantastic! As soon as the first act began we were enthralled. Each character contributed something different to the play and in all made it into something highly engaging. The acting was superb and rivaled some of the professional performances we've seen. These are some truly talented teens.
 If you are around the Waterford area in the next few days and get the chance to see this play, go! You won't regret it and if you are anything like us, you'll truly enjoy it.

The play runs from now until Saturday August 30th and tickets cost €18.00 with concessions at €15.50.
Buy tickets from Gater Lane's Website here
Check out Waterford Youth Arts here 

Thanks for Reading!
Until next time,

Gem and Jo Take On The Ice Bucket Challenge

Well the challenge was bestowed upon us and we feel we rose to the occasion. You may find the following video highly disturbing and young children should be ushered out of the room now.
 Joke! we're actually very proud of this video!

P.s. this video is also known as "Johannah and the Disappearing Wine Glass" Keep an eye out for it, we seriously can't find it...

Until Next Time.

Gem and Jo Take Connemara

You may have noticed that we haven't been posting as regularly as we usually do, that's because we have been in Connemara where there is absolutely NO internet or phone service!! (That's two trips we've been on where we survived with no internet! Success!) 

Now a lot of you are probably wondering what the hell a Connemara is, our Irish viewers probably won't be but for those that don't know, Connemara is a beautiful town on the coast of Galway. You can see it here, on this pretty little map, it's the area in the square! 

MAP: connemara-holidays.com

We stayed in Gem's granny's mobile home, which is really cosy, and it's literally a little, tiny walk over some small sand dunes to get to the Atlantic coast! 

The first night we got there the weather was a little wild and the tide was really high, because of the Supermoon!! So the beach wasn't very accessible that night but we got this pretty picture! 

                         

The next day was a bit of a dud too, the weather was really not on our side but we donned our coats and hats and went walking along the beach while the tide was out! The good thing about this camping site is that the beach isn't too big, so with kids and dogs they can never get too far away from you, but it also the perfect size for a nice little walk to stretch your legs! 

                                     

                                 

                     

Now our third day there was absolutely glorious and we took advantage of it! We went pier diving, which we unfortunately didn't get any pictures of because you know, sand and sea do not mix well with our lovely little telephones or cameras! We even managed to squeeze in one more walk on the beach before we left for the 3+ hour journey home! These pictures really show the beauty of the Irish coasts! 

                      

                     

                      

                      

                      

Another beautiful part of this little camping site is that both the journey to and the site itself are surrounded by the most breathtaking mountains and from the camp site you can see the largest mountain in Connacht (which is a province of Ireland, kinda like a State in America)

                                       

And there's a really cute donkey called Ned who lives right beside the site!! (We found that he really likes when you feed him carrots!!) The only downfall to having Ned so close? He loves to have a little sing-song at 4 in the morning! 

Thanks for reading guys and we hoped you liked this post, we certainly enjoyed going on this adventure and we would love to hear if you guys have ever been to the west coast of Ireland, or any part of Ireland! Tell us in the comments!! 

Until Next Time, 
 

Gem and Jo (and Róisin) take on IKEA

So this past week we headed to IKEA to help our friend Róisín get stuff for her 21st birthday party. Róisin is turning 21 at the end of January, so you might think that getting stuff for a party that's not for six months is a bit premature, however Róisín's a nursing student and starts placement next week which then runs up until her party, so she enlisted our help to get some stuff ready before she's run off her feet doing nurse(y) stuff! Plus we love any excuse to go shopping, so with that we all headed off to Ikea!

Róisín with some pots!

Róisín's colour theme is purple and gold so we scoured IKEA for all things gold and purple (which we found a lot of!). We started off looking for things for center pieces and decoration. We found purple candle holders, purple candles, gold and purple fake flowers and these lanterns which  we decided would look good spray painted gold.

                        

Róisín is also planning on having a sweet table at the party so we went looking for glass jars in all different sizes and shapes to put the sweets into! We found loads of them and they were all super inexpensive. None of the jars were over 3 euro which was awesome!

Along with the jars of sweets thought that sweet trees would be a good idea to make so for them we picked up a few of these purple flower pots. 

Over all our trip to Ikea was a success and Róisín got everything she needed to get started with the party preparations!

Thanks for reading! Let us know what you think in the comments below, we love to hear from you guys. Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Outfits of the Day.

So we got dressed this morning (as we do most mornings, that is unless our PJs are unusually comfortable), and we decided to show you guys what we are wearing on a lovely day like today!

Gem's Outfit:

Top:  New Look €14.99 

Jeans: Vila Clothing €34.50 

Shoes: Dunnes Stores €20.00

Jo's Outfit:

Dress: Forever 21 €16.45

Jacket: Dorethy Perkins €40.00

Sandals: Spanish boutique €45.00

   Belt: Primark €3.00 

Necklace: It was a birthday present 

                      so I don't know the price but you can find a similar one here

Hope you enjoyed this post, and as always thanks for reading. Let us know in the comments what you think, we love to hear from you. 

Until next time, 

Gem and Jo's Beauty Haul Video

Here's our beauty haul video! Just a bit of a round up of the beauty items we've bought over he last while. Also there's some bloopers at the end if you guys want a bit of a laugh at our social ineptitude!

Let us know what you think and as always thanks for watching .
Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Fashion Haul Video

So here's our latest Youtube video: Gem and Jo's Fashion Haul. Hope you guys enjoy.

 Let us know what you think in the comments below. We love to hear from you.
Until next time,

Gem and Jo's polish picks

So here's what we've been wearing on our nails recently!

Jo's Pick:

I recently bought a few nail polishes for Topshop, and this lovely was amongst them. This is Topshop's Nail Varnish in the colour Moondance. This is a gorgeous blue(y) silver holographic colour.

This nail polish dries super quickly, but the best thing about it is definitely the colour. The polish gives off rainbow hues in the light and it looks like the reflective strip on a high visibility jacket. It seriously looks super cool. Unfortunately this nail polish chips quite easily without a top coat, but slap a good quality top coat on and that problem is solved.

I found this polish on sale in Topshop for €4. I don't believe that you can get it online but if you see this in store I highly suggest picking it up. This would be perfect if you wanted to take part in the holographic trend (without dressing head to toe in it and looking like a space man). This would also cool over a blue nail polish to give it an extra sparkle.
Check out Topshop's other nail colours here .

Gem's Pick:

So after trying Primark's matte pink colour in our last polish picks post I've become a little be hooked on matte nail polishes. So I decided to give Sinful Colors nail polish in the colour Savage a go. This is a beautiful matte teal colour.

This nail polish dries really fast and a truly opaque colour can be achieve from only one coat! The polish gives the nails an almost rubber texture which looks really great. I would however recommend wearing a base coat underneath the polish as it can leave blueish stains on the nails once taken off. However as long as a base coat is used this won't happen. 

I purchased my bottle from my local boots store for €2.49, But if you live in the US you can find Sinful Colors in a lot of different drugstores and supermarkets such as target (it's a little bit harder to find in Ireland and the UK). For €2.49, this polish is great quality and I would definitely recommend it to any matte polish lovers out there. 

Check out their website here

Thanks for reading. Let us know if you like these nail polishes in the comments below (we love to hear your opinions!).
Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Mini Fashion Haul

Okay so on the 1st of September Gem is turning 20 and is having a little party in a local place to celebrate. Turning 20 may not seem like such a big deal to everyone but to Gem it really signifies the end of childhood and she has even taken to calling it 'twenteen' instead to hide from the fact that people will expect her to act like an adult.

To make Gem feel better about becoming old, we went shopping for the perfect dress and shoes for the party, however after going to literally every shopping centre we had barely found anything! We went to Liffey Valley, Dundrum, Blanchardstown and Dublin City Centre all in one day and we had looked in nearly every shop! It was more of a workout than a shopping trip!  

Luckily we found a really cute dark teal dress in Forever 21 for Gem and it was an absolute bargain at only €20.00!!!

While Jo was helping Gem search through forever 21, she got a little caught up in the shopping as well and found a gorgeous little burgundy dress. It was just calling out to her, but we were a little on the fence about it as it is a kinda short (Jo is 5'7 so things tend to look a bit shorter on her). But she decided to buy it anyway and boy is she glad she did (It didn't turn out to be as short as we thought). Although Jo doesn't plan to wear this to the party, the dress would look cute with tights in winter or with little sandals too! Plus it was only €12.49, how could she pass that up!

Jo is planning to pair her new dress with this apple pendant from H&M and this black cross body bag from Next,  for an easy day time, late summer look.
                                

But then came the struggle to find shoes that would go with Gem's dress and that had a chunky heel. Last summer Gem tore the ligaments in her ankle so really high heels or skinny little stilettos are a no-go! (She looks like a new born deer if she tries to walk!) Incase you guys didn't know Gemma is an absolute klutz and takes every opportunity to break some sort of bone...
Trying to find chunky heeled cute shoes was a struggle and we totally didn't realise how few shoe shops there are in the shopping centres in Dublin! 

We tried New Look, Clark's, Next and Debenhams until we finally tried Primark and hallelujah! We found a really cute pair of black heels with a platform and chunky heel which will be prefect for Gem to party the night away in!

Primark €18.00

And to make it even better, there was a black clutch bag hanging right beside the shoes that matches perfectly and is big enough to hold a little pair of flats just in case!

Primark €7.00

Gem reckons she's gonna pair the dress and shoes with a statement necklace and subtle earrings, we'll let you guys know when we find the perfect jewellery!

So that's what we picked up on our manic shopping day. It's mad how when you aren't specifically looking for something in particular you see loads of things that you think are super cute, but when you're actually searching for an outfit for a particular occasion, it can be so hard to find something. But as your teacher always told you, "if you prevail hard work will pay off" (they might not have been talking about shopping though!!!).
Hope you enjoyed today's post and as always thanks for reading.
Until next time,
XO Gem and Jo.