Fresh start for the new year!

I decided that in 2016 I am really going to focus on my blog. I finally got my new laptop today and have spent most of the afternoon changing everything around, when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! I am pretty happy with it now though and I'll probably tweak a few more bits but this is a good start for now! let me know what you think?

I'm looking forward to developing my blog over the next year and to see where I get. I really enjoy blogging and I seem to have stuck at it over the last couple of months. which is a real surprise considering my track record at sticking to things I start! I have a billion projects and ideas that are still yet to be finished, some haven't even been started! 

I think I'm all blogged out for today, there's only so long you can stare a one blog for! I'm going to go and enjoy the rest of New Years Eve. I'm just staying in this year and have already demolished a pizza hut takeaway. I'll probably sit and watch a bit of Jools Holland then stick the London fireworks on at midnight! I would really love to go there one NYE. I have been meaning to do it for the last couple of years but being my usual un-organised self I haven't gotten around to sorting it. I love London and it would be great to make a weekend of it. But for now I'll sit and watch it on the telly, at least I'm warm and cosy! 

Have a lovely night and a happy new year! 

xxx

Lush Snowfairy Shower gel!

In one of the lovely lush gift boxes I received this year for Christmas was the Lush Snowfairy shower gel. It's sparkly and pink...need I say more! It's from the Lush Christmas range and as far as I know it's not available to buy any other time of the year, which makes sense as its a Christmas shower gel! 

This one contains Carrageenan Extract, which after a look on the lush site I discovered is used as a moisturiser. Sounds good to me! 

The best thing by far about this though, is the smell! It's candy floss scented but the smell kind of reminds me of something else, I just can't quite pin it down! I've been sat for a good few minutes before writing this post trying to figure out just what it is but I can't get it! 

Although I find the smell doesn't really linger around on your skin for long after you've been in the shower it is still amazing and fills my bathroom with a sweet scent. If someone put it in a candle, I would buy it.

I will definitely be purchasing this come Christmas time next year! What's your favourite Lush shower gel? 

Xxx

Chocolate orange cupcakes!

If there's one thing I can garuntee I will receive at Christmas its a Terry's chocolate orange. Don't get me wrong, I love them but with all the other goodies that are around on Christmas, my poor old chocolate oranges seem to get left till last. 

This year I got 2 oranges, one was demolished pretty much in one go (oops!) and the other I decided to make into chocolate orange cupcakes! This one was dark chocolate and I do like dark chocolate but I can't eat a lot of it and especially not on its own. But let me tell you, it tastes gorgeous in a cupcake!

To make these scrummy cupcakes you will need: 

2 eggs 

200g caster sugar

130g plain flower 

50g Cocoa powder 

2 teaspoons baking powder

160ml Milk

Vanilla extract

160g unsalted butter 

1 chocate orange (minus a couple of segments, which you'll probably end up eating) 

Preheat your oven to 170oc before you start and line a cupcake tray with paper cases ready for the batter! 

Mix the eggs and sugar together until well combined in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and a pinch of salt. 

Using another bowl also combine the milk and 1/4 tea spoon of vanilla extract. 

Gradually beat these two mixtures into the egg and sugar mixture. Keep stirring until all the ingredients are well incorporated. It may seem like there's way to much milk at first but keep going! 

Now you need to melt the butter. Melt it on a low heat and stir continuously to avoid burning. If you chop the butter up into smaller chunks, it will melt a bit quicker. I just chucked a whole chunk in mine though! 

Stir the melted butter into your cake mixture. Don't worry if it seems like the butter will never mix, keep going and you'll get there!

Now roughly chop up the chocolate orange and add to the mixture. Stir until the chocolate is evenly dispersed. 

Now spoon the batter into the cupcake cases, only fill the cares about 2/3 full so they will have room to rise. 

Put into the oven for about 30 minutes and relax! These smell absolutely gorgeous when baking! 

To check the cupcakes are done insert a skewer or blunt butter knife into a cake, the skewer/knife should come out clean. If there is mixture left then just pop them back in for a couple more minutes.

And voilà you have some yummy cupcakes! You can expect to make about 12, possibly a couple more. The original recipie I used was for muffins so the mixture goes a little further when you use cupcake cases rather than muffin cases. 

Enjoy! 

Xxx

Merry Christmas!

Today has been super hectic so far so I'm now taking some time to chill out and watch the Grinch! I went to Meadowhall today to buy everyone's Christmas presents (and a few for myself!). Meadow hall is just a really big shopping centre, I've probably walked miles today, I feel like I have anyway! I didn't get many photos of the decor as id planned, it was just so busy! Clearly I was not the only one leaving all my shopping till the last minute...I did manage to get this one while we were sat having some lunch. 

I'm spending Christmas Day this year at my other half of house with his family, their Christmas decorations are beautiful! I love the retro style fairy lights on the tree. There is a huge pile of Christmas presents around the tree, of course I've inspected mine to try and figure out what they are ...I've sniffed out a couple of lush bath bombs so far ;) is it sad that I know what one it is just by smelling them!? 

I'm really looking forward to spending Christmas with my family and of course I am very excited! You'd think by now I would be less excited but I still can not sleep on Christmas Eve! I might not struggle with sleeping now though with the amount of walking I've done today, hauling shopping bags around is hard work you know! 

Have a lovely Christmas everyone! 

Xxx

Dealing with greasy hair!

My hair used to be alright but over the years it seems to have gotten greasier, oh the joys of growing up! I've tried my best to keep my hair as grease free as possible as we all know how much hassle washing and drying your hair can be, theres plenty of other things I would rather be doing! 

Dry shampoo is your best friend! There are days when my hair is literally 90% dry shampoo. If it wasn't for this god send I would be washing my hair literally twice a day (maybe not twice a day but you can see what I mean). I always have a can of batiste ready to go, I usually try and buy the bigger cans as I go through the stuff pretty quickly. I'm using the floral and flirty one at the minute, it smells gorgeous and I love that the scent lasts through the day.

Don't condition your roots! I've always had and issue with the volume in my hair, or lack of volume. I stopped co do rooming the roots of my hair because I heard this can weigh hair down, I have been doing this for a couple of years and I can notice a difference, in that my hair is no longer stuck to my head. It also means my hair lasts a little bit longer between washes. 

Go easy on the products you use, my hair doesn't seem to take to well to anything I use in it. The extra prouduct usually just weighs my hair down even more and the grease seems to build up even quicker. I'll run an bit of mouse through my hair (emphasis on 'a bit') to give it a bit of extra bounce, but other than that I try and keep it as prouduct free as possible. Apart from the mass amounts of dry shampoo of course! 

Try not to touch your hair to much, I'm not one to talk on this one really because I  am always running my fingers through my hair. Hands can be oily and pick up all kinds of icky stuff that you don't want in your hair. I usually do my makeup before doing anything with my hair in the morning and have started getting into the habit of going to wash my hands before starting to tackle my hair. This just gets rid of any leftover prouduct I have on my hands. 

It's also a good idea to clean out your hairbrush for the same reason, it might just be me but I find cleaning my hairbrush so satisfying! 

I hope this will help and if anyone has any more tips please let me know! 

(This post was written on my phone as my laptops broken so if the layout looks a bit weird, that's why!)

It's nearly Christmas!

Earlier this week my laptop decided to give up on me, I knew it was on its way out but I was hoping it would hold on for a bit longer! So that means I'm having to blog on my phone until I can sort out getting a new one, ugh! So apologies if this post looks awful...there's only so much you can do from and iPhone! 

On the bright side it's Christmas next week! (Hopefully I'll be able to get a deal on a new laptop in the new year sales ;)) I know it's such a cliche thing to say but it has come around so fast! As expected I haven't done all my Christmas shopping yet and I don't actually plan to do any now until Christmas Eve. I understand that sentence might make the more organised Christmas shopper start to panick but I love to just get it all done in one go and shopping on Christmas Eve when all the decorations are up is great!

 Not going to lie, one of the things I'm looking forward to most, is the week and a half off I'm having from work. It's been so busy the past couple of weeks and I really cannot wait to kick back and enjoy Christmas! I've only got another 3 days left to work, not that I'm counting or anything...then I'm off till the 4th January!

I was also hoping to get some blogging done then and maybe have a look at my blogs layout and tweak a thing or two. Thanks to my lack of laptop it looks like I won't be able to get much of that done now! 

Has anyone else left their Christmas shopping to the last minute like me? I can't be the only one who's this unorganised! I'll leave you with a few snaps of my Christmas tree :) 

Sparkly Christmas nails!

Just in case you haven't noticed, Christmas is now less than 2 weeks away! EEEEEK! I haven't bought all my presents yet but I've decided to leave the rest until I go shopping Christmas Eve, risky I know. I might not be prepared on the presents front but at least my nails will be looking fabulous! 

 

I was in Superdrug shopping for hair dye (more on that another time!) and I had a little browse around because was never going to go into Superdrug and come out with just what I went in for, that would be madness.

 

I didn't go mad but I did spot a gorgeous sparkly red! I thought it looked perfect for this time of year so I picked one up. This ones from Rimmel, I did spot a similar Barry M one, which I would usually go for, but its nice to have a change!

 

The polish is called Ruby Crush from the Rimmel Precious Stones range. It has red and larger pieces of silver glitter, it looks so beautiful on! I did find that on its own it wasn't that great, but I find that with most glittery polishes I've tried. I used my Barry M polish in Red Wine as a base and then just used a coat of Ruby Crush over the top. Both of the polishes look really great together, I really like Red Wine for this time of year because it isn't a bright red, to me it looks like a Christmassy kind of shade. As a top coat I used the Barry M Plumpy top coa, this gives your nails a bit of a gel effect, especially when its used with a polish from their Gelly range.

 

This polish is really gorgeous though and you should definitely grab one if you see it. No doubt I'll be wearing this tons, I might as well make the most of this beautiful polish while I can!

 

 

Cosy December!

I am always one for cosy nights in and they're even better in the colder months. Especially with all this wind and I've been having over here lately! Saying that though it does seem unusually warm for December...not sure if warm is the right word but by now its usually freezing! Not that I'm complaining!

One of my favourite things about this time of year (besides the food) are the Christmas films. My favourite at the minute is the Polar Express, but I haven't actually had a chance to watch it yet this year. I am definitely in need of a Christmas film night! I've recently re watched The Santa Clause, this was my absolute favourite Christmas film when I was younger!
I also love Christmas specials of my favourite TV series, one I watch every single year is the Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special. I'm watching it right now actually! I watch it every year and I still love it.

Of course you need the right attire for a cosy Christmas night in! I got these reindeer slipper socks from Matalan. They are lush! The inside is line with fur (faux of course) and it is so so warm and cosy. One of my Rudolph's has lost his nose though and the other is only just hanging on so it looks like I'll have to get the sewing kit out!

I started drinking green tea a while ago and apart from all the other benefits its also great at warming you up! I love to try new flavours as well, I recently got a strawberry and vanilla tea and its lovely! I've got about 6 different flavours on the go at the minute, another of my favourites is salted caramel. What's your favourite? I'd love to try some more suggestions!

Burts Bees!

 

Just the other week I did a little (only a little) shop on Feel Unique. I haven't really bought regularly from this site before but I actually really love it. I have usually shopped at Superdrug but I find feel unique have more of a selection, while Superdrug do only stock the drug store brands. Its also just so easy to just have everything in one place...good news for me but not so much for my bank balance!

 

One thing I did get was the Burt's Bees lip balm. We all know that winter can be harsh and my lips are usually pretty prone to drying out at the best of times, so I have really started to notice it in the last few weeks. I had heard a bit about this brand but I had never given them a go so I thought I'd try it out. I had a little browse around and found a little set for just £5.99. There are 3 products in the set and me being me I didn't actually look at the description and assumed they were all lip balms. They weren't and I am now the owner of Burts Bees cuticle cream and hand salve. I'm not going to complain though as I imagine both of these will come in handy, the hand salve is already proving to be a winner!

 

The set did come with the vitamin E and Peppermint lip balm stick. Let me tell you they aren't lying when they say its peppermint, its pretty strong. It kind of gives your lips what I can only describe as a minty sensation (you know what I mean right?!) it doesn't last long and after all the 'minty sensation' is over you can walk around enjoying the lovely peppermint scent.

 

I have only been using this now for about 3 days and it has made a huge improvement already. I tend to have dry skin on my lips which is not that pretty. It also kind of prevents me from wearing anything on my lips because it just doesn't sit right! but this seems to be sorting the problem out. They also have a Tinted Lip Balm in a variety of shades and I am looking forward to giving these a try!

Did I also mention the cute little tin this set came in? I love products that come in packaging that can be reused, I'd happily keep this to store other lip balms. Maybe then I'd be able to keep one longer than a week without losing it! It also makes it a nice little gift or stocking filler :) I'm very glad to have tried this, now I'll just have to remember to use it!