Bacon and Blossom

The title for today's post is somewhat ambiguous. Bacon and blossom are not usually included in the same sentence, so why would I use them together? I am not going senile, trust me, I'm only 21!

At some point during the day, some time before four but after twelve, I met up with my boyfriend in town, and was instantly struck with creative post ideas, picture ideas, basically ideas. If you know me, which I am hoping that you will stay around long enough to do, you will know that this hardly ever happens to me. Honestly, It took all of my artistic expertise to make this blog look half decent, and I have a difficult time making stick men look like actual proper stick men.

I also like to ramble, and honestly, I am using far too many words to describe what would to all intents and purposes be a rather unremarkable day. We did have a bacon sandwich though, which is probably why I am getting a little bit too excited.

It was super yummy, even more so than it looks in the picture. I'm genuinely stumped as to whether that's meant to be a bit tongue in cheek or not. To be honest, I think I may be a little bit hyper, as I did have a toffee flavoured ice drink with it. And a coke afterwards. And I've almost devoured an entire packet of softmints (In my defence, my boyfriend had one!) I am the pinnacle of healthy eating.

On a more sombre note, has anyone noticed the distinct lack of blossom? All when I wanted to actually take a picture of it. I think it's hiding from me, it'll find its way back next spring. I searched the entire city,  well ok, not the entire city, I'm lazy. But I did search for some on my way into town, and I saw none, except for on one lone tree standing at the bottom of the garden.

It was so beautiful and I had to take a photo of it. I may not see some until next spring, so understandably I was disappointed that my camera was slightly out of focus. On the subject of pretty things though, I did manage to capture an (in focus) picture of a pretty yellow rose. At least, I think it's a rose. I'm not sure though,as I spend next to no time in the garden.

I also took a look around some shops. There are so many pretty ones with beautiful window displays, which I have noticed more since owning a camera and taking photographs. Unfortunately we spent more time admiring the window displays than actually going into shops, but they were so pretty.

 

The top is of a shop called 'Scorpio'. I love the arrangement of the Doc Martens there. They are featured in such pretty colours. I also really like the colour they have painted the front of the shop. The second picture is the window display of a shop called 'La Cookshop'. It sells, erm cookery things I think. I didn't actually go in there though. In fact, I've never been in either of the shops, but La Cookshop has such a pretty collection of teapots and mugs, and I thought that the shopping bags that you can see in the window display are adorable. 

What did you get up to today? Are you hyper like me, or are you tired after perhaps enjoying the bank holiday weekend a bit too much? 

Books I'm reading

I'm wanting to spend more time reading than what I have recently, as I have been neglecting my books for far too long. Here are some pictures of the books I am hoping to read in the next few weeks:

 

They are: Daphne Du Maurier - Rebecca. Markus Zusak - The Book Thief, and Philippa Gregory - The White Queen. Have you read any of these? If not, I'll let you know how I get on with them. 

The bookmark sitting on top of the pile of books is a valentines present I made my boyfriend this February, as he likes reading and I guess it is more personal.  It is about as far as my artistic skills go!

Do you have a favourite book, or books that you need to get around to reading? Post a link here, I want to see what you have on your reading list!

Ps, for blog of the moment, I was thinking about just including several blogs into one post. Reason being is that I've had more requests to be featured than I expected, and if I were to feature them on seperate posts, I'd either have to post every day, or blog authors would be waiting for weeks to be featured, so I think this is the best way to go about it. I hope that all that have contacted me will understand. To conpensate I'll leave the post up for longer than I have done previously.

+ Blog of the moment

This is the second installment of blog of the moment. The second one I am going to feature is called Style Independent. This is a personal style blog, written and published by Lydia. Lydia comes across as being very passionate in what she does, and this is definitely reflected in her blog.

Again, I love the design of the blog. The header is gorgeous, personal and reflects the blogs content well. The site is easy to navigate, and whatever you click, you are guaranteed an interesting read.

My most favourite feature of this blog, is definitely 'One dress, Three outfits'. The blogger takes one dress, and shows us how to wear it three different ways. Each way being as cute as the other.

There is also another thing that you cannot deny. Lydia wears clothes to perfection, which is essential for a blog of her genre. Her elegance radiates the photographs, and she is styled to perfection.

So what are you waiting for? Go check out her blog. I assure you that you wont be disappointed. You can find it here: http://www.styleindependent.com.

Bits 'n' Bobs

I have these two tins hanging around my house, and I have absolutely no idea what I am to do with them. They're too cute to throw out, but I'm not entirely sure what I'd put in them.

Any suggestions?

The first was just 60p,  but I can't remember where I got it from. It's slightly smaller than the second. The second was an Easter gift from my boyfriend's mother, to my boyfriend and I. It contained yummy cookies shaped as easter eggs and easter bunnies. They were really cute and yummy; I would have taken a photo of them but we have eaten them all, hehe. 

You can see them all together here, with my usual cup of tea. Do you think I should use the boxes to store jewellery; such as the piece sitting on the box? I'd need someone to remind me that they store jewellery though, otherwise I will start thinking I've mislaid all of my pieces.

Mmm, it's the morning, my favourite time of day. I got up extra early today to make my boyfriend breakfast before he goes to an exam, so this cup of tea is much needed!

Let me hear your thoughts.

Isn't this the cutest?

This has to be one of the cutest little dresses I have ever seen. I love the sailor(?) ish theme to it.

When I was younger I had a sailor type dress and absolutely hatd it. Shows how much I knew back then! I would give my right arm to have one now, if it doesn't affect how I look in the dress, of course! Did you have any clothes you hated as a child, but would love to wear now?

My blog of the moment feature seems to be doing quite well. I've been contacted quite a few times already, more than what I could have hoped for, so thank you to everyone who has got in touch.  I will include all the blogs that people have e-mailed me requesting to be featured, but seeing as more people have contacted me than I expected, it may take a while to publish them all. I'm currently writing a feature on  the blog of the first person who messaged me. I'll publish it on Sunday, then another on wednesday and so on and so forth.

I hope everyone had/has/is going to have a brilliant friday evening.*Yawn*, bed time for me now.

+ Blog Of The Moment

This is my brand spanking new blog feature. It's where I feature the hidden gems of blogs that I've found. These blogs are relatively new and I just want to show them the appreciation that they deserve. 

The first blog I would like to feature is Sammy and the city, which you can find here: http://www.sammy-city.blogspot.com/. The author of this blog is Sammy, and she describes herself as being a happy outgoing person who is always smiling. You can definitely sense this in the blog design, and the posts are always full of enthusiasm. This blog would be quite difficult to catergorise, I think I would say it was a personal blog, because although it has some fashion and beauty tips and reviews; recent travel expeditions and concert attendances are also mentioned. What I love most is that she uses her own pictures.

  

The blog design is super cute, so if you're feeling intrigued, go check it out!  

(Picture of Sammy: Author of Sammy and the city)

If you are a new blogger (blog must be two months or newer) and are interested in being featured then please don't hesitate in contacting me. Details can be found on the 'contact me' page.

Revlon Fire and Ice Lipstick Review

 Revlon Super Lustrous lipstick in Fire and Ice - £7.49

I'm trying not to make my blog too much about fashion and beauty, well I mean, I want that to be a feature, but I also want it to be more personal too. I guess a better way to say it would be that I don't want my blog to be purely fashion and beauty. Wouldn't it be so cool if in the future someone discovered this and learnt of my existence? Perhaps my hopes are too high.

Anyway, one feature of my blog is 'what's in my make up bag', which is simply reviews of some products I own, although I've not done one in ages. As I said, it's not like I'll be posting a review every day, but I'm hoping I'll be reviewing products more often than once every three months.

If you're anthing like me, you'll really like red lipstick, but really dislike choosing one. I mean, why do they have to overcomplicate things? I don't know If I have a cool or warm skin tone. I have reddy brown hair, and freckles, which apparently means I'm warm, yet greyish eyes, which means I'm cool? The vein test doesn't help either, because mine look, err, bluey green?

I was reading Cosmopolitan because I like the problem pages, and skipped a few pages to the make up recommendations. They recommended Revlon Fire and Ice lipstick, because apparently it was made for both warm and cool skin tones, (hence the name, probably). I bought it almost straight away, because you know, it should be fool proof.

The colour was very very red and vibrant, it was more of a bright red than a dark red, and I felt as though it had blueish undertones. It was very moisturising too, I didn't feel the need to apply lipbalm under or over the lipstick, and I didn't feel like my lips were drying out, it had a matte finish. I would recommend this lipstick to anyone who's looking for a bright red.

Ps: Stay tuned for later today, when I showcase my new blog feature - Blog Of the Moment. You'll find out what it is later.

# Food frolics - chocolate chip cookies

Today my boyfriend and I made some chocolate chip cookies. Luckily I managed to take some pictures and save the recipe, (it's my boyfriend's mum's recipe, so credit to her as they turned out super yummy). In this post I'm going to publish the recipe, and the pictures of how they turned out.

Ingredients (these measurements make 12, in the pictures I doubled the recipe):

• 75g butter, softened. 
• 75g caster sugar.
• 1/2 egg (medium) beaten. 
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, as it is better than vanilla essence. 
• 100g plain flour. 
• 1/2 tsp baking powder. 
• 75g milk chocolate chips. 
• 75g white chocolate chips. 

How we made them:

Firstly, we preheated the oven to 190^oC, although for fan assisted ovens, you should preheat your oven to 175^oC. We also lined a baking tray with baking parchment.

Then we creamed together the butter and sugar until it was light and fluffy.

Then we beat the egg and vanilla extract into the mixture. So it looked like this:

We then sifted in the flour, baking powder and added the chocolate chips. We mixed in the ingredients well, so that the mixture looked like this:

The mixture tasted lovely, although of course - they're not quite cookies yet. We chilled the mixture in the fridge for ten minutes. You can just put the bowl in the fridge, but my boyfriend insisted on rolling the mixture out into a sausage like shape (because that's how his mum does it), wrapping it in cling film and then putting it in the fridge. He claimed it was easier to cut the mixture this way. So that's what we did, and before it went in the fridge, it looked like this:

After we left the mixture to chill, we took it out of the fridge and we cut it into eight pieces. Although we made double of the original mix, we froze half of it to eat another time. The original mixture was meant to make twelve, but we just had extra big cookies.

Then we used our hands to shape them into eight balls. We flattened them onto the baking tray, making sure that they were well spaced so that they wont run into each other whilst baking.

Ok, maybe  not so neat, but certainly well spaced! We baked them for 6-8 minutes in the oven which had already been preheated to 190^oC (175^oC for fan assisted ovens).

We allowed them to set for a while on the baking tray, before transferring them to the cooling wire. We had one after we had allowed them to set for a few minutes, and they were super yummy. They were so soft and the chocolate chips inside were yummy and gooey. I really recommend this recipe; go try it out! I'd like to say a huge thank you to my boyfriend's mum for supplying us with the ingredients and the recipe.

What's your favourite sweet treat?

Fashion Want

Oh please oh please oh please. It's gorgeous. Lovely cut and colour. You can find it for yourself here.

What do you think?  Sorry for the rather short post, I promise I'll write another longer and much better one tomorrow. I was just browsing the topshop website and found this gem. I simply had to share!

Audrey Hepburn

I'm getting rather carried away with posting pictures of classically beautiful women. From Jean Seberg to Audrey Hepburn. Maybe I should watch Breakfast At Tiffany's later?

She is just radiating. Fabulously styled too, do you think?

Jean Seberg

Probably because I've not watched the films she's starred in, but this actress is relatively unknown to me. Then in a magazine I was reading I saw her sitting happily in the middle of the page. She was dressed in stripes, and her pixie hair cut and feminine features instantly struck a chord with me. She was the perfect beauty icon, and her fashion sense was simple perfection.

She just wears clothes extremely well, and I am so envious of her that she can pull off the pixie hair cut perfectly. What do you think?

Something that made me smile

I hope that it makes you smile too. I'm just about to go to bed, I have my chocolate milk to hand and a good programme on the laptop (boyfriend's, as the screen on mine is still busted). Before I wind down for the evening though, I thought I would share this quote with you. I don't know if it will mean a lot to you, or if you will take anything particularly profound from it, I hope you do, but I know that a few years ago I wouldn't have really appreciated its meaning. There used to be a time; last summer in fact, where every day was a blur. Everything seemed to be going wrong, and I was completely broke, emotionally and financially, as most students may relate to. I never appreciated the beauty of spending time with people that matter, I never appreciated good health and most importantly, I didn't appreciate anything that the days had to offer, which made me a lot more miserable than I could have been.

So this quote is quite bittersweet, I suppose. It reminds me of last summer, and I feel a twinge of regret that I didn't appreciate my days more, but it also makes me smile because it reminds me to appreciate the little things in life.

Brogues

My brogues broke the other day! They were only cheapies from Primark which cost the grand total of £8, but I loved them dearly and now they are gone! I could still wear them, but the sole had come apart so they look like they could engage in conversation. Not good! But it has had me lusting over these beauties.

 

Also, you may or may not have realised, but I've made a facebook page for this blog. I'm aiming to make it more interactive than most facebook pages. I'm hoping people will share their thoughts on my blog, post discussions on fashion/general life, as well as sharing their own blog on the site. I'm hoping that not only will people discover new posts I've published, but also newer and relatively unknown blogs which are absolutely fabulous and deserve a bit more recognition. Anyway, if you do decide to follow, the link is at the side.