The joy of Christmas

Tinsel and truffles and turkey 'oh my!'

Now I am totally ex-haaaaaaaaaaausted, my make up is a little worn by this point and my hair is all frazzled, but it sort of doesn't matter at this point.

I know that Christmas can be tricky, you are thrown together with friends and family, even some people that do not like you  and perhaps want to make a point of not liking you, or even enjoy pointing it around other large groups of people, that is always a hoot.

It's just important to realise that your tolerance has new levels that you did not even know existed, and to be as gracious as a person can be, not biting back to rude or snide comments. Just focus on yourself and knowing that you are not hurting or making others feel bad, but are another sparkle in their Christmas Day.

Now onto the more fun and interesting parts-

My outfit of the day looked like this:

Red plaid dungaree shorts from ebay

Black, low back top from Topshop

and a cute little pin of a geisha holding Hello Kitty that I put on my dungarees!
I wore a pair of black leggings and then knitted tights over the top and then my slippers, I get chilly...


My makeup looked like this but a little fresher:

I used half baked from the Naked palette all over the lid, and a matte black in the crease, a little liner and a highlight on the brow bone and inner corner.

I ate a lot of Roses, watched 'The Snowman' and played racing with the wind up toys won from our crackers, and all the other traditional things that people do on Christmas day like napping, eating some more.

I can fall asleep content now, and thumbs up to me for being a dedicated blogger, posting real-life in time snaps from Christmas Day!

A Level Results day & University Freshers advice video!

A terrifying day for hundreds of thousands of 18 year olds today, who find out if they have got into the university that they have been pining over for the past 8 months at least.

I was in the same position myself last year and results day for me was an utterly traumatising experience, to think of it now makes me feel a bit nauseous in my stomach. I wish I could go back in time to hug my past self and reassure them that things would turn out okay in the end.

I won't go into the too grim and technical details, as you will probably fall asleep on the keyboard. However, I will say that I was horrifyingly rejected by my first and second choice universities (If you don't know how the system works... there is no third choice, you get a first and second choice and that is your lot!) So I was then thrust into a process in the UK called 'Clearing' which is sort of how it sounds, but if you're still confused then Google can enlighten you on that. It was a huge rush of urgent and frantic telephone calls, waiting on hold, keeling over the toilet bowl with nerves, loss of appetite, begging universities shamelessly, breaking down in tears at any given moment, refreshing my email every 10 seconds and a general feeling of being an absolute failure. However, 36 hours after everyone else, I was accepted by my second choice university who had decided that it wouldn't be so bad to have me on board after all. After initial apprehension at not being at my favorite university like I had expected, I just begun to get very excited. That is where my story ends and this video will be able to fill in all the gaps from that point onwards...

If things haven't gone the way that you expected today, and you're perhaps feeling like your life plans have fallen off the tracks, I plead you not to get disheartened. Life has a wonderful way of springing us away from what we think we want to a place that is even better than we could have ever imagined. I am so unbelievably thankful that I was steered away slightly from what I thought I wanted a year ago, now I have ended up in the place that I am supposed to be.

'The' Wedding - round up

It's difficult to put into words what yesterday was like, I'll bore you all to tears if we went through chronologically. But to sum up, it was without a doubt one of the most magical, romantic, understatedly gorgeous, and beautiful weddings that I have ever seen, that includes the ones from the millions many bridal magazines that I may have read in the run up to the big day.

My sister wore a Maggie Sottero gown called Desirae
A veil for the ceremony with diamante detailing around the edge
After the ceremony she swapped the veil for a glitzy headband!

We only have the photographs that people took so far, but hopefully this will give you a good idea of the dress shape and some of the detailing. The back was a tie up, and I had the honour of dressing my sister and pulling her in at the back.
Her hair consisted of three fake hair pieces, a million pins for her hair, and a side swept, curled mermaid loose braid and it was completely stunning. This was the beginning of the 2 hour hair crafting process:

We were so fortunate that the weather was on our side and we were able to have an outdoor ceremony, the bridesmaids, including myself, walked down the aisle before the bride to the harpist playing the wedding march, and it was the moment that fairytale dreams are made of.

It is clear to see that I am beyond excited in this photograph, for so many reasons, the moment, to see friends and family and in anticipation of everyone seeing my beautiful sister!

Our bouquets consisted mostly of white roses, and I'm wearing along with the other bridesmaids a Tiffany Blue gown from Forever Yours, we had an additional strap and flower added to match the brides dress.

I was also very excited to be reading a poem called 'The One' courtesy of Google

We then had the wedding breakfast which was absolutely delightful, followed by brilliant speeches, the cake cutting.. oh the cake, I have to show you this

The cake is from Kays Cakes and she is an absolute delight to work with, she also made my sisters 21st birthday cake and was just as amazing then.

I caught the wedding bouquet which was one of my personal highlights! It was so fun, although I felt very greedy as I already had a beautiful bouquet of my own! I also had some war wounds from catching the flowers which I'm still nursing.

In the evening we had a brilliant band come and play for us, they stayed all night and kept us all busy and dancing, and for the first time I felt like I could thoroughly relax and enjoy the night and not worry about running around after the bride! And finally, for the guest book, we had a photo booth which was hilarious and wonderful fun.

Not too long after midnight, I was completely partied out and ready for my first proper nights sleep in days!
I had to be persuaded to get out of my dress as I was in a bit of refusal to remove it, and I have still kept my hair in! I'm clinging onto the day as much as I can!

Valentines day treat: New Video!

As promised...
The majestical before and after video that is here to wipe all your worries about every last blemish away today!


I wish getting ready really did just take 2 minutes and 54 seconds!
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to you! Lots of love and so, so many strawberry cookies!

It's nearly Valentines day!

As preparation for the most loving day of the year some might say.. I stayed in and baked pink strawberry butter cookies!
It was a pre-made kid for children I think so it wasn't really me doing any of the hard work, but I got the kit for christmas and thought that this was the perfect time to put it to use!
It came with the most beautiful heart shaped and hello kitty shaped cutter
but... the cooking instructions were in German which was...interesting to say the least, a little later on we found the English translation and luckily our interpretation skills were correct and we'd followed all the instructions perfectly.

 The strawberry dough tasted pretty delicious raw, and we were all totally amazed at how when you added the egg, the flour went from white to a pretty pastel pink!

 We ended up making about 4 batches out of that little amount of dough, it was crazy! I had to get an army of friends to help stick on the embellishments (sugar paper bows and kitty faces) I think in total there were probably about 60 cookies to go around and they were sooo supoer sweet and delicious, even the icing was strawberry!
I wish I could share them with you because it's going to be a struggle to get through 60 all by myself!

Thighs, tums and WHAT!??

I'd had a long day of learning, including my mandarin listening exam which was not so bad after all, those things never are.

I got home and emptied my shopping into the fridge, I always look like a nutcase because of the amount of milk I get through (about three cartons a week) I drink the sweetened soya milk, it's just the best! But when it's all lined up in my fridge at the moment I have eight cartons in my fridge I look a little bit loopy loo...

Then I decided to go onto legs, bums and tums which is a type of workout class that makes your muscles burn, and your legs shake and your arms ache but it was actually pretty good, although It was an impulse decision so I went with a face of makeup (I always think it's silly when girls go to the gym in makeup, and now I am one of them!) and in a crinkly top that I didn't have time to iron.

But now I'm tucked up in my pjs with my jar of nutella wathcing Ugly Betty.

A video will emerge on Thursday explaining the true extent of my nutella addiction...

 

Japanese Exchange

In the spirit of learning new languages, I've volunteered to take part in a japanese exchange- so even though my japanese language knowledge is limited solely to 'Konichiwa' - I hope that's spelt right haha!
So bascially I've been put in touch with two japanese students who are here until christmas. It's all about helping them to practice their conversational english so perhaps it's better that I can't speak japanese as it would be easier to resort back to that when they don't understand words.

I took the japanese students back to my university room as they were curious to see what the student rooms look like, the first words when they walked into my room were 'whoah so much hello kitty'

I did laugh, but they told me it's for smaller girls normally, not adults!

Ah well

This is the outfit I put together for the meeting, I wanted to look friendly!
From the bottom up:

Black ankle boots from New Look

Faded jeans from Joe Browns

Plaid shirt from Forever 21

Black top underneth from Primark

Leather studded Jacket from Internationale

Feather earring from Etsy

Makeup combination frmo Naked Palette- Urban Decay
 

FALL into AUTUMN

Whatever you call it
Fall.. Autumn..When-the-leaves-go-brown
today is the start of that change in season, I don't really like the term 'fall' I don't think it sounds nearly as nice and as magical as Autumn, it's my favourite season where it's kind of magically chilly rather than 'frostbite all day every day' which it sometimes is in the depths of Winter here. Maybe it's called Fall because the leaves start to fall from the trees? I'm not sure... Anyway the official sciency reason why today is the beginning of Autumn is as follows...

"On the 23rd of September, the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night are nearly equal in all parts of the world"

 

See.. and you probably thought there was nothing that special at all about this day today didn't you??

Well you can count on me to show you why each day is so super important!

 

When you think of Autumn or Fall what do you think of??

I think of the cosy clothes.. I love a wooly knit! And of that delicious 'crisp and clean' smell first thing in the morning where I can wear boots with my chunky ugly grey knit socks, also known as and referred to as my 'porridge socks' as the colour and texture reminds me of the porridge you would get in Oliver Twist times or something, I will share a lovely photo once I've pulled out my Autumn clothes, for now here is a much chic-er sock/legwarmer going into a much chic-er boot than my own, but it reminds me of Autumn nonetheless!

 

 



The Good The Bad & The Ugly

Today was a straight up mixture of all three:
We'll start negative and go to positive

The Ugly:
-I had a long walk in the rain, the one day that I forget my darn umbrella. This also meant that I had to wash my hair again, and I try to keep a day between washes to give my hair a little break but the universe decides nuh-uh wash that hurr again!

The Bad:
-I was wearing a pair of 'last resort' trousers- the kind that give me ugly red marks on my hips as they are just a little too tight, not cute
-Neverending workload!
-The screen protector that I ordered was a total annoyance and bind, it left ugly bubbles all over the screen and totally obscured the viewing so I had to peel it off and try and start over but the little protectant was simply not having any of it!

 The Good:
-The company are sending me a new screen protector for free, hopefully I shall have more luck with that one
-I used a new dove conditioner which has made my hair feel the most luscious that it has felt in a long, long time (Before that I was using BB conditioner which I found to be a complete waste of money!)

The downright crazy:
Okay so I made a whole new catagory because I felt like it needed to be said, the weather it super cray-cray right now, we've gone through all seasons in one day for every day the past week now! I don't get it, I don't remember Aprils being this erratic I don't know what I'm even wearing when I get up as in the mornings I'm all warm in my cosy room then I get outside and it all goes downhill from there.

Sometimes it's good to reflect on the good, bad, ugly, crazy, happy, clappy parts of your day so you can always be glad that no matter how much of a mundane-average day it sempt, their were little gems in it to still be appreciated!
Also... lets look back at my favourite sky pictures! We'll be back to sunny break through clouds and ice cream skies soon!

Happy Monday!

Brighton Baybay!

For my friends birthday we stayed overnight in Brighton,
Here's a little looky at what we got up to:

Along the high street we saw the coolest looking storefront called 'Choccywoccydoodah' a super elaborately gaudy confectionary company- but... I kind of love it!

All the typical touristy things and fulfilling my dream to be a mermaid!

Riding the Waltzer!

And then walking to our room alongside this beautiful view! I think the glowy clouds make it look like it should be on a poster that says 'Jesus Lives' or something

On our way out for the evening!

I hope that you had a great evening too!

Sister, Sister

Today was my sisters birthday, so we drove on down to see my sister!

One & only and favourite sissy! (She had not been awake long when I arrived and as you can tell, less amused by a camera lens in her face)

She got this fanciful picture of shoesies! All in a pretty and modern frame to jazz up her house! We both agreed pictures like this are way more fun than modern art where you can't distinguish anything specific, just fragments of 'what might be'

 

You are never too old for a Colin Catterpillar cake!

Just wanted to show you these lil' chicks in the mail this morning! They made me laugh so much, the one in the middle on the floor looks as though he went through some real trauma in the post! 

I love spending days with my sissy! It's not like when we were younger and would get to see each other every day! We had a fun day of shopping and picking a pretty dress for her to wear to a wedding, and then we ate lunch at one of our favourites 'Cafe Rouge'

I love wonderful and sunny Saturdays, and Birthdays!!

Sunday Sum Up!

Beautiful sunny day:

CHECK!

Fun video this week:



CHECK!

Super duper cute baby bananas that look too adorable to eat (I used the lipstick as a size guide):

CHECK!