Spring Fashion #

I cant wait for spring to finally be here! I love the winter period because of Christmas, but after Christmas has gone I just want the weather to go back to normal. I'm bored of wearing coats and boots and long for the day I can wear a dress and sandals.

In that spirit I have a few items that I cant wait to use/wear in the warmer months.
This long floral blazer I purchased in the Miss Selfridges sale over Christmas and I have been itching to wear it ever since then. I think it will look great with black jeans or leggings and a nice top, I just need the weather to brighten up because I don't think I can pull this off underneath a coat because it is so long!
The photos really don't do the jacket justice so I will be doing a outfit post on it once its warm enough to wear it.


I bought this long line black and white stripe skirt from Newlook in January and it was a bit of a impulse buy as I am very very short (5 foot nothing) and so I did not know whether I could pull of this length of skirt without looking like a grandma. I've dressed it up with a plain cropped black top which I really liked the look off but again it is way too cold to think about wearing it right now.

Ripped jeans are one fashion item that I think can be worn in any weather or season. I wore my black pair during the colder months and I have my light blue pair ready to pop on when the sun is out. I'm planning on wearing these jeans when the weather perks up, these go with everything so they are a staple item for spring/summer.




Look out for a spring edition of my favourite blushes that I will be using this spring. Have you got anything you can't wait to wear this spring? 

Most Loved This Winter

Over the winter period I have had a few items that have been well loved during the cold weather.

The first is a Christmas gift from Cal which I have been throwing on most days as it is so cosy and comfy. It is this baggy oversized cardigan from Primark which is so easy to throw over a dress and jeans . I have also been living in my black off-colour ripped jeans as some days it is just too cold to where tights even if they are thick. I don't do the cold so its nice to wear jeans and a baggy jumper to keep warm, although some times my knees were a little cold! On the really cold days and nights I have been wearing my 'bad hair day' hat from Newlook. It does give me really bad hat hair but it is so handy when its is really cold. Lastly is a pair of black boots which I have been living it. They have come in so handy during the snowy weeks as they are really sturdy and have grips. They did take some getting used to as I am not used to such heavy footwear but now I slip them on with comfort and wear them with everything.


What have you loved over the winter period? 

Bargain Brushes #1

I spoke in my face tools #1 post about some brush sets that I had purchased recently and in this first of three posts, I will be showing you guys the brushes I've bought as I am little bit obsessed with make up brushes, isn't everyone?
This set came first out of the three and it literally took no longer than 3 days to get to me which made me really happy! I also wasn't expecting the packaging they came in, it came in a big box and then inside was this big pink case. How nice is this case?! I love the colour and the fact it has a flap at the top so that the brushes don't fall out. I give the case a 5/5!
Onto the brushes, you get 24 brushes in this pack which considering the price is amazing. In this set you get in total
  • 5 eye tools
  • 4 tiny eye brushes
  • 5 small eye brushes
  • 4 brown eye brushes
  • 2 flanned brushes
  • 1 foundation brush
  • 2 blush/contour brushes
  • 1 powder brush
That is a lot in one pack and I am hoping that the amount of eye brushes it includes will encourage me to start exploring eye makeup a little more as the most I do is eye liner and mascara, eye shadow scares me as I am rubbish at it!
All the brushes have really soft hairs which feel amazing on my face, when I first got them I just kept stoking my face with them, it got a bit excessive after 5 minutes of doing so... I especially love that a mascara wand is included in this kit as you don't really see any around. The fanned brush I have been using to apply highlighter on my cheek bones and foundation brush has been really loved since I got it.
I think the thing I like most about this kit is that the brushes are so much softer than another Real Technique brush set and other sets as well. You just cant go wrong with this kit.
It was only £7.70 on eBay and you can view it here. :)
Look out for my second post on my second set of brushes (I bought three different sets even though I have two many brushes already) and hopefully I'll love them as much as I love this set :)

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My Cute Fail | Valentines Weekend With Cal


Here is a photo of Cal walking along the embankment in Bedford :)


Cal and I agreed to not do anything big for Valentine's since his birthday was a week away and February would be a very expensive month. So we planned to just go out for a meal and then a chilled weekend.

Saturday

The first fail of the night was that we left it too late to book a table at any of our favourite restaurants so I took it upon myself to cook Cal dinner to make it a bit more special then getting a take away. If you know me then you would know that the only things I can cook are pasta, spag bol and lasagne and that is only because they are my favourite dishes, so agreeing to cook something new for the first time is always going to end badly for me. 

I choose to cook chicken parmesan because both me and Cal love chicken, chicken chicken chicken. I thought it wouldn't be to hard and it looked delicious. 

I had to work all day on the Saturday so I only had the Friday night to pick up all the pieces I needed for the following night. I finished work at 6 and came straight home to start preping, long story short, my sauce that I needed to cover my chicken and spaghetti was too runny, it looked nothing like the photos haha. Cal still ate it like a good boyfriend so maybe it wasn't that bad but I didn't enjoy it.

For the rest of the night we watched a girlie film since it was valentines which was Beastly (which is good so go watch it) and then chilled in bed being lazy and watching crappy TV. 

Sunday 

The next morning Cal went out early to go play in a football match and like the good girlfriend I am... I bailed to stay in my big comfy warm bed hehe. By the time the game had finished and we were both washed and dressed we decided to go for a walk round a country park called Summer Leys. We both enjoy going for walks so that was the perfect Sunday for us. 

We went back to mine for a big roast courtesy of my mother and then had another chilled night in bed watching Too Gear which is now become a Sunday hobby of ours. 

We didn't have a very exciting Valentines weekend but it was just the way we liked it. Sometimes you just need a simple plan to enjoy days like these :) 



Current Shower Trio | Soap & Glory, Body Shop and Sanctuary Spa


For the last few weeks there has been three shower products that I have really been loving. These are the Soap & Glory Sugar Crush Body Scrub,  the Body Shop Brazil Nut Shower Cream and the Sanctuary Spa luxurious body butter. The Body Shop shower cream is a recent purchase I bought in the sale for I think £3 which is unbelievably cheap! Just how I like it.


The Soap and Glory scrub I have previously talked about here and I have recently fallen back in love with it after a few months apart. When I wasn't using it or other scrub products I noticed that my skin was becoming drier and rougher after I came out of the shower so that promoted me to bring it back into my routine to refresh my dry skin.


The Body Shop shower cream I think is my favourite shower cream of all time. Firstly, the smell of it is amazing, a mix between coco butter and nuts and makes me kinda hungry for chocolate. I find I only need a little bit of products to cover my whole body and it is better used with a loofer to buff around the body and get the most out of it.
It leaves my skin super soft and it doesn't clog my skin either and make me feel like I am carrying the product with me, my skin feels really clean. I am super lazy when it comes to moisturizing and after using this I find I don't need to use one anyway after my shower. That's one less job for me.


I still do use a body butter on them days when my skin just isn't having any of it. I use the Sanctuary Spa luxurious body butter that came in a set I got for Christmas from Cal. I have always been a fan of this brand but realised that I didn't actually have any of their products anymore so again Cal read my mind some how. It is named luxurious for a good reason, it leaves my skin so soft and pampered. It is a really rich thick consistency that just melts into the skin. I am a devoted Soap and Glory body butter lover but this product has over took them by a mile so I think I may need t stock up in them.

These three products I have been loving because they all work really well together and I leave my showers feeling like a new women, how cliché hey!
I would definitely recommend these products to anyone with any skin types, its great for all!

Love Heart Holders

 



I am always on the hunt for a bargain whether it be clothing, make up or home stuff. There is one shop that I know I will always find something I love in and that is B&M. I have bought loads of bits for my bedroom there and have bought loads of great presents for people.

On my last trip in there I found these love heart tin holders in different colours, all for 99p each! I couldn't quite believe it, they are so cute. I think they can either be using inside the house to hold stuff in or even in the garden to put flowers in. I currently have two of mine as make up brush holders and one as a hair brush holder.

I think they are great value and super cute to keep stuff in. I even bought my sister a set for her birthday because I know like me, she likes to collect make up brushes and these are perfect brush holders.

If you have never visited a B&M store I would definitely recommend that you visit your local store very soon! They are so good for finding cute home bits for such good prices. When I finally move out(turn wood) I am planning on making a dent in that store!

A walk with us



If you follow me on twitter you will know that me and my boyfriend Callum went to Bedford for the day last Friday. I went a bit camera happy at some points of the day so thought I would put them all together in a post for both you and me :)

The first thing we did when we got there was find the local Costa so that we could feel our limbs again, whenever we go on an adventure together we always start the day with a hot chocolate for both of us (of course mine is the cream one)


Then we hit the shops to nick some warmth because it was unbelievable cold that day! I have to say we weren't too impressed with the shops, the Topman was too small for Cal's liking and I didn't like anything in Newlook or River Island. I did find some cute underwear in Primark so I was happy, Primark underwear is the only underwear that I like and that fits me well.

After walking around trying to find our way to all the shops we found a covered lane called The Arcade which housed a shop for both me and Cal. I loved a cute home and gifty shop called Charisma (website) where I picked up two bath bombs for £2.50 and some 'little hotties' which you put on top of a oil burner. It was £6.99 for a full box of any that you wanted so I picked two of each and I cant wait to smell out my room with them. Cal found a little clothing boutique called Boutique Planet where he found some tops that me liked and the guy who was working was really friendly and a laugh to talk.

Next we went for a walk at The River Embankment which is super long and looked like it went on for a million miles. We couldn't walk a lot of it because the weather felt like it was artic conditions but we did enjoy a nice little stroll down it to relax us. Here is where i went camera mad so prepare for a million photos...






Apparently I thought I was some kind of landscape photographer at this point...
While we were walking across the road we found a hut on a hill which you could walk up and see high above the road and river...


We then drove down the road from the town centre to The Interchange Retail Park which was about 10 minutes away. Thank goodness we found this otherwise i would have wrote Bedford off for its shop choices. It has a Toys 'r' Us store which me and Cal loved walking round because we both are like little kids, it also has a Matalan, Boots and Outfit among loads other which we didn't go into. Outfit was a great shop but I just didn't see anything I loved which was a bit gutting.
Lastly before we drove home Cal took me to where his grand parents live just as you enter Bedford and I fell in love with all the houses there. Across the road from his grandparents house is a play park and a county park where you can follow paths all through the forest and fields and which would be a lovely walk (if it was much warmed!)
We are planning on going back again in the summer to make a day of it by the river and go back to the country park since walking them is our little hobby :)

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Face Tools #1





 
 
I am a big make up brush fan, I am like every other beauty blogger and collect brushes like some people collect football tops. It was only recently that I have really got into a routine of using certain brushes for certain jobs. At one time I was using only a few brushes and my hands for all my makeup and now I have a brush, or two in some cases for each product.

Here is a run down of the brushes I use for each product:

*The brushes from my gift set from Asda are no longer sold.

Foundation
  • Real Techniques Essential Foundation brush
  • Stippling brush (eBay) *here*
 

Powder
  • Face Blender brush (gift set from Asda)

Blush
  •  Blusher brush (Newlook) *here*

Bronzer and Contour
I like to use two brushes for contouring, the setting brush to make a line on my cheek bones and the multi task brush to blend it out.
  • Real Techniques Setting brush
  • Real Techniques Multi Task brush

Eyebrows
  • Angled Shadow brush (gift set from Asda)
 
I will be doing an updated version of this post after a few months of using some new brush sets that I have bought which was quite naughty.. so we can see if my new brushes have replaced any of my favourites at the moment. 

Make Up Revolution Protection Palette


Shock I've bought another Make Up Revolution product! I think I do have some sort of obsession, I'm sure Make Up Revolution aren't complaining!

This purchase I have Rachel Coco to blame for, she wrote a great post here on the product and that was enough for me to go on the website and buy it. I have been looking for a nice contour palette that would actually suit my skin tone and that I could use everyday. I previously bought the sleek contour palette in medium and at first I loved it, but then winter came and I never used it because it was way too dark for my pale skin no matter how little I put on and how much I blended it out, that number now lives in my more tanned sisters make up bag.

So I was really excited to try this palette that I purchased in light. I was really excited to have it because it had everything in it that I would need. The only thing I haven't used in the palette yet are the concealers and that Is because I am too stuck in my ways with my beloved concealer palette that I have had for ages now and swear by. Apart from them all the other sections have been tried and tested.

Powder
I really like the powder I think it sets the contour and blush really well. One thing I did find was that when I used it on my concealer and I then went outside in the cold, my eyes started watering and then when I got home I noticed crusty bits under my eyes where the powder had mixed with my tears, which wasn't a nice looking thing. So I have learnt my lesson and since then I haven't used it to set my concealer.

Contour
The contour is the perfect shade for me, I use my Real Techniques setting brush to draw a line of contour powder across my check bones and then use my Real Techniques multi task brush to blend it out and make it look more natural on my check bones. So far I have never put so much on that I haven't been able to blend it out naturally, so there is no chance of me looking like a drag queen using this!

Blush
The blush is a very natural pink shade that looks nice and natural next to the contour. I tend to draw a line of this blush directly above my contour line and then blend really well in together. I find all of Make Up Revolutions blushes are of high quality and this one is no exception.

Highlight
This is possible my favourite out of the whole palette, the dreamy highlight. It is a lovely pale pink glittery shade which looks great on the top of cheek bones and doesn't make me look shiny or like a Disney fairy.

This is a great all round product and for only £6 you get so much in one palette. I used this on my sister and she absolutely loved it so I have bought her one for her birthday so I am spreading the word!

The Body Shop Sale Bargains


The Body Shop is a shop that I love to spend my money in but I hardly ever go in it. I like to shop at my own pace and sometimes I look in the shop and there are 3 people working there and I know if I go in there, all three of them will ask me questions about what I'm looking for and begin to show me around. I don't like that when it comes to beauty products, I just like to mooch around every stand.

Saying that, I walked past the Kettering branch just after Christmas and noticed there was only one person working and she was behind the till so I pulled my boyfriend backwards and took this opportunity.

I'm so glad I did because I got some right bargains in store which I'm going to tell you about today.


The first is this Brazil Nut shower cream which I picked up for just £3. You can always count on The Body Shop products to smell amazing and these three products don't disappoint. This shower cream smells of a mix between chocolate chip cookies, brownies and cake batter. What could be better than washing yourself in cake batter?! It does make me want to eat myself but I do resist because I am not a cannibal...
This has been my go to shower product over January and considering I have used it nearly all through January I still have quite a lot left. The bottle packs a lot of product in, so I have loads to use but it doesn't take up all my room in my product box.

After buying this in the sale I think I have definitely be convinced to repurchase it at full price, if they still sell it because it leaves my skin so soft after my shower that I don't always need to apply a moisturiser after, and anything that means less work for me is a winner!



Next is this Chocomania body butter which I bought for... £1.50!! How amazing Is that price! I couldn't quite believe it and my boyfriend laughed at me because I got really excited when I realised how much it was, I then tried to pick up a few more of it but he gave me evils because I'm meant to be on a spending ban... Party popper!

Anyway I divert... this again smells of all things chocolate and it just makes me want to go downstairs and start baking. As you can see from the perfect point on the product, I haven't used this yet but I am so excited to. From looking at it I think it would be a really rich body butter and leave my skin feeling amazing.




 Lastly I picked up this Blueberry body lotion for just £4, I told you I found some bargains!
This body lotion is very fruity smelling and the blueberry is a nice contrast to other lotions that smell of strawberries or the conventional fruits used in body lotions. It is very luxurious and leaves my skin really hydrated and refreshed. The smell lasts for hours so I always get a hint of blueberry through the day and unlike other lotions it isn't sticky or stiff at all, it is really easy to work into the skin and you feel like your skin just soaks it up.

I am very happy with my three purchases from The Body Shop and I cant quite believe how cheap they were, these have made me think twice about passing a Body Shop without at least having a peak at what they have inside.

Did any of you get any bargains in the sale?

Leather Owls



I am in love with this outfit.
I wore it recently shopping with my boyfriend and his two friends and even my boyfriend said that he liked it so you know when a boy says he likes an outfit, it must be nice.




The shirt I have previously shown you guys in my Recent Orders - Clothing and Make-up post but I haven't shown you it on before. It is a boyfriend styled baggy shirt which I love and I think I bought it in the size 12-14 because it was from china. I love the baggy fit of it and have wore it with black leggings and ripped jeans before. When I tuck shirts into skirts and such I do like to have a kind hang over as you call it so that my waist looks smaller so since it is a bigger fit I can easily tuck it into my tights so that the shirt doesn't move and still have my hang over.


I paired the shirt with my leather (or pleather) skirt from H&M that I purchased early last year. I haven't had to the chance to wear this skirt before because I think it a bit too out there for normal day to day wear, but for this day I just decided I wanted to make a effort with my appearance so brought it out to play. It is a perfect fit for my waist and I haven't seen another pleaded skirt like this in store since but they do have loads of different style of leather skirts so they are definitely worth a look.

I wore my favourite Newlook boots of the moment with the outfit which are currently sold out online so I wont tease you with a proper photo of them (mainly because I forgot to take a photo of them...).

Hope you enjoyed this little extra post :)

The Blogger Made Me Buy It | Rimmel Lasting Finishing Foundation

One blogger that I always keep up to date with is Corrie from Dizzybrunette3. I have been following her for a while now and I love reading her posts. One product that she has raved about on her YouTube channel here and what has been talked about by many other bloggers has been the Rimmel Lasting Finish Foundation.




I am a dedicated Rimmel foundation lover I have three foundations all of different formulas in my collection and I really wanted to try out this new formula as well, but I couldn't justify buying another foundation when I didn't really need one.

Then Corrie uploaded her January Favourites video here and it was enough to make me finally buy it. When it comes to foundation I always trust Corrie because although I don't know her at all, I know that she knows when a foundation is good.

So I finally have it, for £8 which is a bargain and makes me think why didn't I just buy it anyway. I picked it up the shade 103 Ivory, I do want to get a new foundation in a darker shade because most of my foundations are skin colour and quite pale but I played it safe with this foundation to make sure I liked it.


First impressions of it:
Like my other Rimmel foundations, it is a good medium to full coverage which hasn't ended up cakey on my face. The colour is a more tanned ivory shade which is just what I wanted (I recently have a random tan appear on my shoulders and neck so they colour suits it perfectly) It is easy to blend in and cover any redness or pigmentation I have. Plus I do find that this foundation does last all day, I don't need to reapply it or add any powder to it through out the day.

So far so good, i'm interested to see whether I love it just as much as I love my Rimmel Wake Me Up and Match Perfection foundations.

If any of you have tried this foundation let me know whether you think it is worth a purchase :)

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