Meeting Nay and Phil...Jam cafe gig ..

After getting through the Open Mic Uk regionals i started going to some other open mic nights in leeds ... I bobbed into the Skyrack open mic and ended up doing some impromtu backing vocals with these two guys - Joe and Phil ...i never met them before , but we sounded really good together .. Phil then booked me for a gig at this new rather trendy and utterly cool private members club called The Jam Cafe in Headingley ..If you have never been - you should go ... great atmosphere there !

I thought it would be great too to do a bit of promotion for my next heat of Open Mic Uk ..
Ansley and i did the gig and Nay the promotor and Phil booked us in for the Acoustic Couch Live lounge stream a week later ! , and i also got booked for the Acoustic Couch tour in Leeds in March - great stuff eh ? We went down really well at the Jam Cafe - all unplugged !
Heres some piccys ... sorry about some of the quality - some where taken from video stills.

Think we were performing "Valerie " cover here - Nay joined in on the bongos ! It sounded really good with them !
This is the Cafe part of the Jam Cafe - How cool is that place !


Top level at Jam Cafe - i had to take my shoes off as i was
having a dodgy knee day !


Ansley had to shoot off , and i stayed for a coke and some cake Yum Yum !

Since i was staying i did an impromtu acoustic at one of the tables ,
just soft and quietly to my mums friends husband who had popped
in for the first time but missed the gig so played him alittle of
"why " one of my originals - now remember im not as good as guitarist as
Ansley and i've only been playing for 4 months , its the end of a long night
so just forgive any mistakes ! ha ha !

Whoop Whoop Open Mic UK !

Well folks after joining the cloth Cat guitar course i started writing songs again ... I asked Ansley my wicked guitar teacher if he would help me on a couple of chords i was struggling with for some of my songs .When he came round to help me and heard some of my songs , he asked if i had anymore ... so i sang about 10 songs - mum said i was like a human jukebox ! Ansley recorded them on his phone and took them home to work on some .... One in particually he said he could not get out of his head was the song " Why " . When Ansley came back a week later my song had change from me playing awkward chords to a beautiful finger picked style ... gorgeous and he taught me how to play it .

Mum saw a Competition on the internet "OPEN MIC UK " and asked me if i fancied doing it ...
why not i thought ... So i asked Ansley to play my song "why " for me at the auditions.

We went to Dewsbury Town Hall - did the audition , 200 apparently auditioned and we got to the judges 25 to go to through to the Regional finals ...
and guess what we got through that one too !!!! down to the Judges top 8 ....We are now at the Area finals on Dec 11th 2011 - message me on Facebook if you would like tickets to support me !

Now this Open Mic Uk isnt just any old singing competition - they are looking for a recording artist ..
the winner wins £30,000 investment and a record deal - the Judges are industry Judges from BBC radio 1 and many A n R Judges etc ... a previous winner was the gorgeous " Birdy " who hit the charts with a cover of Bon Ivers " skinny Love" ... so this comp is pretty good stuff !!
Winning Performance at the Regionals !




We had 3 minutes to do a cover and an original - I did my own version of " Nothin Compares 2 U" .. regae / folk style and the judges loved it ... i also sang "Fall for you " my own original .. both shortened versions to fit in with the time needed.

Area Finals here we come !!! One step away from performing at the 02 in London ( indigo arena) and competing with the rest of the UK for that Record Deal - as they say ....
In it to win it !!!

Ok so im not overly keen on the pics and after seeing them went on a diet !!!

Image is really important i wanted to stand out .. so spent the
evening before putting rollers in my hair !!!
You should have seen the state of it on the morning of the regionals
... i had an afro !!!

Now if theres one thing we really want to do - its perform at the 02 in London !

Ansley has a wicked beard - the compare even mentioned it in the show - tut stealing
my thunder it was !!! Ha ha !
Next Heat .
Area Finals 11th December 2011 - 4.30 (sunday )
at Dewsbury Town Hall

If you would like to support me and come to the show ,
you can leave a comment onmy FaceBook Band page - click here to go .
and i can arrange the tickets for you xx

Oh and if you can click the LIKE button on there and pass the link around that
would be WICKED! x

Cloth Cat !

Well guys from 16 to 22 i had'nt done any music - spent life going to collage and working and living away from home - at 20 i came back to leeds and at 22 started doing a music project in leeds ..

While doing this i met Mike Jolly from Cloth Cat who invited me down to thier Open Mic Night and to have a look at some of the courses they run . Cloth Cat is a fantastic scheme run in leeds that helps anyone who wants to get involved in music and provides the facilities for this - Mike is really enthusastic and really supportive .

Well i got up a few times at thier Open Mic night and got a real buzz from the listeners clapping . Evenually i asked Mike if he could find someone to play guitar for me on a few songs .. and he did
Graham Young - a jazz guitarist helped me out on a few numbers and i could feel my confidence lifting !!!

Well , Graham could only do a few numbers so i decided that if i really wanted to carry on with this i really can't rely on other people i needed to learn guitar !!

So i ended up on the Cloth Cat guitar course - you can find out about all thier courses HERE .
Well i did the beginners course and the group performed at The Chemic Tavern cloth cat open Mic Night !

I made some great friends on the course and i also met
Ansley ( the guy in red with beard ) who was our fantastic
guitar teacher and has had a major part in my songwriting and singing
as you will find out in a later post !

I eventually bought a better guitar , my other one someone very kindly
gave from church .This picture is of my mum and me at cloth cat open mic .

My face makeup routine

When I go to do my makeup everyday, the most important thing for me is to start off with a flawless looking canvas. I know a lot of girls just slap on some foundation and call it a day. A lot of people might watch me do my makeup and be like "what in the H is she doing?". I take a lot of steps in my face makeup routine but it is well worth it. I notice a lot of girls makeup looking cakey or not the right clour for their skin. It is important to know how to achieve great looking skin using makeup.



So, here is my routine,



step one: I always start off with a fresh clean face. I can't stress this enough to people, you need to clean off ALL of your makeup from the night before!! It's so important!



step two: I use a moisterizer or a primer to prep my skin. I almost always reach for a moisterizer to prep my skin, but you can always use primer if thats what you like. I like to use St. Ives Moisterizer with vitamin E. Vitamin E is really great for your skin because it helps with acne scars and healing any acne on your face. I have really dry skin so moisterizer works really well for me. I would normally give the moisterizer a few minutes to really soak into my skin before i continue with the rest of my routine.



step 3: Next, I use a bb cream and I apply it evenly over my entire face and neck. I make sure there are no harsh edges and that it is blended really well into my hairline and around my ears. If you don't know what bb cream is then you can go check out my other blog on bb creams. I am a huge supporter of bb creams and I think everyone should use it. It is basically a tinted moisterizer that has a bit more coverage than most tinted moisterizers.



step 4: This step I skip on a day to day basis, I only do this step if I'm going out at night or I just want the extra coverage. I take my favourite MAC foundation and apply some to the back of my hand and use my stippling brush to stipple it all over my face. I like using a stippling brush because it really gets into every angle and crease to give you great, airbrushed looking coverage.



step 5: I use concealer at this point. I know a lot of people do it before foundation but I like to do it after foundation but before powder. Now I always use one of my high end concealers at this point so it usually blends really well into my skin tone. This could be different for other people. The places on my face I usually conceal is, under my eyes, around my nose (because it tends to be red) my eyelids to help conceal any veins and to create a base for eyeshadow, and then of course any blemishes I may have on my face.



step 6: I take a highlighter and put it on all the HIGH parts of my face. I put it down the centre of my nose, across my cheek bones, my brow bones, right about my upper lip, and just a bit on my chin. This gives a great dewy look to your skin. It helps everything look natural and not like you put a lot of effort into your makeup.



step 7: I take a face powder and apply it over my entire face and jawline to set myy foundation, concealer and highlighter.



step 8: Then I take my clinique bronzer (which is amazing!) and I LIGHTLY dust it over my entire face. I have very fair skin, and I am very picky about bronzer because it always ends up being very dark on me. I chose this clinique bronzer because it is close to my skin tone. My face is a bit lighter than the skin on the rest of my body so this is why I apply it over my entire face, to help it match. This bronzer also doesnt have much glitter in it so it doesnt look silly over your entire face. I use a kabuki brush for this.



step 9: Then I take the same bronzer and use a thinner, fluffy face brush. I suck in my cheeks and I use the bronzer as a contour for my cheeks. I make sure to blend this out really well. You dont want any harsh lines on your face. Keep it natural! This helps your face look slimmer and more contoured.



step 10: The final step in my routine is blush. Again, I have fair skin, so I always go for a light pink blush. I like to use elf blush products, they are very easy to blend and don't overpower my skin.



So this completes my routine, I didn't plan for it to work out to be ten steps. HAHA! I hope this helps someone out there. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask me.



Thanks so much for reading everyone! :)

Where it began .......

Hi Guys , this is me Georgette , ive just turned 23 . My passion is singing and songwriting .
Although i had done a couple of music bits and bobs when i was in my teens , i had'nt really started taking it seriously until recently...... i've always had a love for singing but life and the universe as they say got in the way !

Singing is in my genes ... my Grandad was Ronnie Hilton , a famous and successful singer /songwriter ..
apart from his many chart hits and a number 1 ... and his Leeds United Athems he is well loved with children .... remember the song a "mouse lived in a windmill in old Amersterdam " ? Well thats my Grandad ! He had a beautiful crooning voice .
I know my singing has come from him because when my Mum sings she sounds like a strangled cat .... and i dont think my singing is that bad !!!


Songwriting - the start ... how strange it begins !

I started writing songs after a fight with my sister Sophia , when i was about 13 !!! It was called Sophia ,Sophia .. (come back ) The song was about fighting with my sister and writting to an Agony Aunt for advice ( oh how naive i was !!! ) , but never getting a reply to my letter
..
The song got a grant from Leeds Breeze for it to be developed with other young musicians ( all of whom had never met ) and funding was granted for it to be recorded in a studio - by then i was about 14 - it was a pretty cool thing to do at that age ! 9 years ago recording in studio wasnt as accessible as it is now .

We rehearsed in a magistrates living room ! A magistrates had befriended my sister one day when she got lost on the way back from high school - apparently the magistrate was very impressed with her polite manner ( WHAT !!!!!!!!!)

We called the band Endorsed.The violinist was a proffesional musician and had to fill in at the last minute as our young violinist moved down south during the project ... the Roland piano was played by a 16 year old boy and the bass was played by Jenny (15 ) i am still friends with Jenny today ....

The music score was arranged by Colin Nicholson - Remember the Pop Idol finalist Garath Gates .?.. well Colin was his piano teacher ... he made me feel very at ease going through the music and getting down scored . Garath Gates was all the rage then .so i felt pretty cool .lol

Heres a photo of the song being mixed in the studio ..

My sister was her usual annoying self that day and managed to get hold of what she thought were just ornament handcuffs on the wall of the studio and decided to put them on my Mums wrist .. my mum was gabbing so wasnt paying attention to what Sophia was doing ....... when she realised what had happened she tried to get them off .... the owner of the studio made the revelation that there were no keys for the handcuffs !!..... and he spent hours trying every screwdriver he had to wrench them off my mums wrist.
UNLIKELY TALE YOU MAY THINK ? HERES THE PROOF !!

Just one more wrist to go !

Sophia - once again touching the studio ornaments she should'nt be touching ! lol

Heres the orignal version i wrote .. recorded on the computor with a music programme
( i think it came as a free sample music programme cd in a breakfast cereal )
and
keyboard ... dont laugh !



oh yes i heard that sniggering !
When the song was taken to the project another verse was added - Sophia sang her reply ..
my sister is a pretty good singer with a very strong voice ....(did i really say that ? ) she was about 12 years old ..
she also did some harmonies and the last note is Sophs !
we have very different voices as you will hear..
heres the song after the studio ..

-----------------------------------

The Dimming of the Day ...
At 14 I entered "Young Musician of the Year " ofcourse i didn't stand a cat in hells chance of getting passed the first round - hey but its all experince right ???? I did though then get offered to do a drama and singing project for a few days - which i did enjoy ...

This was the song i sang for the audition of Young Musician of the year - i was about 14 years old when this was recorded ..... if you listen carefully you will notice a rather bunged up lass - i didnt know then but every time i had dairy it made my nose bung up !! i have since combatted that with cutting the dairy out and using Vocalzone ... and viola no more nasal !

The song is called Dimming of the Day - its a beautiful song .. and it was quite difficult to sing .
the guitarist is a good friend of the family - Julie Strothers who also coached me with song.
Year - 2002 - Georgette Hill (14 years)



My Mum loves listening to this on headphones - she says she finds it really soothing and relaxing. She still listens to it now !!
...
An Afternoon with Lucie Silvas.
At 16 and now doing my A levels - one of which was music which i just couldnt get to grips with , my songwriting though was in full swing ...


Mum heard a competition on Radio Aire for a songwriter ... The winner would have their song critique by the very succesful singer and songwriter Lucie Slivas - she wrote masses of hit songs for pop stars .. and was a singer herself ....... mum knew i loved her music and unbeknown to me .. enter me in it !!! .................. and Yep i won ! It was a real shock , mum phoned my school and they brought me home to go to the Radio Station ! I tell ya ... i was a popular lass that day ! haha ..

Did i panic though ... i tell ya guys i had masses of songs - but they were either in my head or scribbled on crunched up pieces of paper sprawled all over a messy bedroom !!! and in less then an hour i had to produce one of them ......... well folks that seemed impossible !

However i am not a girl to fail at the first hurdle and when i jumped in a taxi with mum to Radio Aire , i actually wrote a song in the back in less then 10 minutes ! Yep i was presenting a song to THE LUCIE SILVAS that had taken less than 10 minutes to write and written in the back of a taxi ..... how i got away with that i dont know ! lol ..

I could'nt believe it when Lucie loved the song ( her guitarist that was there played while i sang it to her on air ) and said that it was very mature songwriting for my age and that it was so good that she really couldn't say anything was wrong with it .... Lucie did give me some terrific advice -- and i still remember it .- Always start your verses lower than the chorus - if you don't your song cannot build up to the chorus and it ends up getting higher and higher and harder to sing ...

Lucie sang my song " i might have lost you "
on the radio , and wow ...... what a voice ! she was a tiny little thing with a huge voice that turned my song ( id written in the taxi there lol ) into something that sounded like a chart hit on the radio ...... i was mesmerised by her skill and the beauty of her voice ........ totally awesome and a moment i shall never forget ........ thanks Lucie !

You can hear some of Lucies amazing music - just click HERE
I still play Lucie's Cds that she gave me and she was so kind and approachable ..

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This is the second part of the Green Makeup Looks post, to see more information about those who created these looks click here: Part 1 - Green Makeup Looks. Green makeup is amazing and can really make your eyes pop but if you want to wear green onto your eyes you must take in consideration that this can emphasize the dark circles underneath and your veins, so be careful to conceal these

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