Accidental Haul!

Hey guys!

I nipped into town today just to run a few errands and when I got home I realised I actually had quite a few bags with me so I thought I'd do a post to show you all my purchases. The ironic thing is, the errands I needed to run were returning things, and I definitely bought way more stuff than I took back, whoops!

I do love a good haul picture!

My first stop was New Look. I bought a pair of trainers in the sale online last week, as a present for my cousins 13th birthday, but annoyingly with New Look you have to either pay, I think it's £5 for delivery, or spend £20 to get click and collect, and since my nearest store is only a few miles away I really didn't fancy paying for delivery! So I bought a couple of jackets to bump the price up for click and collect. In fairness I did take them home and try them on to see if I liked them! But I didn't, so I was taking those back and whilst in the store I picked up a new pair of their white 'plimsolls' as they call them.
What I love about these is they look sort of like Converse, and they're SO comfortable. I have another pair of these but I wore them to Parklife festival back in June and they got really muddy, most of the dirt did come off in the wash and they're perfectly acceptable to wear, but I decided it would be nice to have a pair that I didn't mind getting dirty and could take the dogs for a walk in, and then a nice pair that I would wear for shopping and other casual outings, they're only £9.99 and New Look do student discount so they're a bargain really!
Also in New Look, I picked up a pair of elasticated ballet pumps, they look brown in the picture but they're actually a dark red, like maroon I suppose. I find this style of shoe so comfortable because they almost mould and move with your feet, rather than just staying in one shape. This was definitely an impulse purchase, but I have forced myself to throw a few pairs of flats away this summer as I've had them for way too long and they looked pretty shabby, so I needed to replace them! These pumps are only £8.99 (less with student discount), so they're not going to break the bank, that's my excuse anyway!

A girl can never have too many shoes!

The second place I went into was a shop called Jojo Maman Bebe. I haven't seen many of these around but I know it's a chain, and it basically sells maternity and baby stuff, and clothes and toys for young children too. My mum asked me to get a few presents for some relatives that have just had a baby girl, and if you ask any of my family and friends they'll tell you I LOVE buying presents. Basically my goal in life is to make loads of money so that one day I can be that relative that always gets the most awesome gifts that people actually like receiving, haha!
So yeah, in this shop I bought this little set of bibs, and what I loved about them is that they're pointed, so when they're on they look like neckerchiefs, so cute! I just realised I actually always get these for people when they have a baby, whoops! They're such good presents though, you can never have too many bibs, babies are messy little things!

I then popped into clintons to get a card and some wrapping paper to go with this gift. I love Clintons, they're always my first stop for cards and wrapping paper for literally every occasion. Although I feel like Paperchase deserve a mention too because their stuff is also beautiful!
So yeah, I found a really cute card that said 'Bundle of Joy' on the front, as well as the most adorable wrapping paper!

Next I nipped into a place called Rutherfords, which is basically a department store, I'm not sure if they have them anywhere other than Morpeth, but they sell all sorts of wonderful things! Home accessories, clothes, make up (even Benefit!), shoes, kitchen accessories, everything!
Whilst in here I picked up another present for the baby, which was this adorable little soft rattle with an elephant on top, see below...

Adorable baby gifts!

Also in Rutherfords I bought this 'receipt tin'. I'd been looking for one of these for a while as I like to keep track of things I buy, but especially since finishing uni I've been working on a couple of interior design projects and my mum has advised me I need to keep track of what I'm spending on fuel and stationery supplies, for future tax reasons apparently, it's all French to me! But that's what the tin is for, and I love the 'Bright Side' products, they're always so fun, this tin in particular says 'Denial Tin' on the top, and 'for money I used to have' on the front!

I don't think it will take me long to fill this!

My last purchase of the day was a lovely little lavender plant. One of the great things about Morpeth is the amount of markets there are (apart from the nightmare of trying to find a parking space on market days) I love supporting local businesses, and will always try to buy something from a market trader rather than a store if I can help it.
I had been thinking about getting a plant in my room, even though I'm AWFUL at looking after them, so I'm not really expecting it to last long! My room is a mixture of purples, so I thought a lavender plant would be a really nice addition to my windowsill since they smell so nice! At the moment it doesn't have any flowers on it, and I deliberately picked that one because I feel like you get the longest life out of them, providing you look after them well enough haha!

My room already smells so good from this!

I mentioned earlier that I had some parcels waiting for me when I got home. Well the first of these was the film 'The Book Thief'. I didn't really buy this for any particular reason, other than I think it's a brilliant film, but I bought something else and and this film popped up at a really good price, so I popped it in the basket, so yes I fell prey to Amazon's advertising skills...

For those of you who haven't seen it, The Book Thief is set in Germany during the Second World War and follows the story of a little girl who has been evacuated, and shows her building relationships with her new family and neighbours. I don't want to ruin the plot, as it's such a lovely story, so I'll just say that it's a great film, and that if you like movies set during wartime, and don't mind it potentially making you cry, then definitely give it a go! But yeah, it's definitely a tearjerker...

Last but certainly not least is another package I received today, which was some neon face paint!
Don't worry, it's not some crazy new make up idea, I bought it for Leeds Festival!! Which I'm going to at the end of the month, so so SO excited!
I was watching T in the Park on the telly and saw a lot of people wearing it, and it looked so cool at night with all the UV lights, so I thought I would try it out myself! Although I'm in a bit of a dilemma now, because I wore glitter on my face at Parklife, and it looked really cute, so I may have to alternate between days!

Anyway, that's it for my accidental haul, I've got a few product posts coming up soon, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading! xxx

Finishing University and Starting Life as a Proper Grown Up!

Hey guys! I've FINALLY finished university, almost two months after the rest of my course, and am feeling so freeeeee!

Don't get me wrong I'm already missing uni so much, I actually cried when it came to moving out of my lovely little flat in halls and saying goodbye to all my amazing friends, but I'm certainly not going to miss the constant pressure and stress of work and deadlines, I'm amazed I've come out of my final year without having a complete mental breakdown!

Standard Dissertation Selfie!

It has now been two weeks since I handed my last pieces of work in (my dissertation and portfolio, the two most stressful things ever!) and I've already had my results back. I ended up finishing with a 2:1, which is great! If I'm honest I was really really hoping for a First, but considering I missed the last part of the second year coping with my beloved grandmother being diagnosed with terminal cancer and the breakdown of a long term relationship, and then also missed the first half of my final year when my poor Grandma eventually lost her battle after a really horrible fight, I'd say I've done pretty well, since a year ago I was seriously considering not returning to uni and giving it up altogether!

So the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of deciding what to do with myself. I've had so many ideas for things I've wanted to do after uni and things I haven't let myself do because I knew it would distract me from work, that I have just sort of thrown myself into doing all these things.
Aside from copious trips to the beach with the dogs, and shopping days in Newcastle with my mum, I started off by sticking my long dead kindle on charge and getting stuck into a good old book, something I've really missed being able to do, as I know once I get into a story I won't put it down! I've been reading 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett, as I loved the film back in 2011 and wanted to see if there were any parts that had been missed out! I then realised that there was going to be a new book out by Harper Lee, author of the classic 'To Kill a Mockingbird', so got stuck into that in preparation for the sequel, which I now have and am waiting to read. As well as these two, I've also spent most of today reading Louise Pentland, or as she is better known Sprinkle of Glitter's new book, 'Life with a  Sprinkle of Glitter', which I absolutely LOVE. I'll do a few book review posts once I've finished them all too!

This actually brings me on to the next project I have thrown self into, which is my bedroom! Back in March me, my mum and our two cats moved out of our cosy little home down in Lechlade, in the Cotswolds and lugged all our stuff up to Morpeth in Northumberland (not far from Newcastle) to move in with her partner, his two sons and three dogs - it's quite manic to say the least! But we love it. So I now have a lovely blank canvas of a bedroom to work with which is perfect for my new life as a post-graduate-proper-grown-up-adult type! I've already had my mum's poor partner putting up a new light, shelves and a mirror for me, as well as helping me move furniture around many times until I was happy with it! I also spent last week tidying and sorting, since moving up the country and out of uni at the same time left me with a LOT of stuff that didn't have a place, safe to say it was a mess haha! One wall has now been painted and decorated and I'm trying to decide what to do with the rest of them, a new duvet cover and cushions have been bought for my bed, as well as a load of trinkets and picture frames that I'm going to paint various different colours and put photos of my favourite people in. I also have some artwork by the amazing Babe and Butter that I need to frame and get put up, as well as put together a few cute ideas that I picked up from Louise's book that I mentioned earlier, it's all very exciting! I'll put up a blog post and possibly a room tour if I'm brave enough to video myself when it's all finished!

Another thing I have loved since finishing uni is having nails again! For those of you who have been following my blog since the start you may remember I used to post a lot of nail related stuff, and was constantly obsessing over new nail polishes etc...
When I started university I annoyingly started participating in the habit of biting my nails - gross I know! I don't know how this started, I've never bit my nails in my life, not even as a kid, but for some reason the stress of having work made me do it, so there was no point posting pictures of my disgusting nails and to be honest I stopped buying nail polish because it ended up chipped and looking awful.
Well, in the last two weeks they've come back! I'm so happy, it's amazing how quickly they grow when you aren't constantly attacking them! So watch this space for some nail related posts very soon!
My make up is another thing that's suffered over the last three years, I used to take some much time and effort over doing my make up every day, but that sort of stopped when I went to uni. Don't get me wrong I couldn't leave the house without some make up on, no one at uni has seen me bare faced I can safely say that! But I certainly didn't bother with anything fancy, just a bit of foundation, eyeliner and mascara, shudder. So I'm back to my old ways of watching youtube tutorials and experimenting with this wonderful stuff again!

As much as this is all very exciting and sounds fairly productive, I should probably mention that I have also delved right back into the wonderful world that is netflix, and haven't even started job-hunting, naughty Rachael! (monkey covering his eyes emoji!) so I'm hoping to do that this week, and I've got so many exciting ideas for this blog now that I have time to do it again, so please keep checking back, hopefully it won't be too long! I'm hoping to get a few more written this week.
Please let me know if there is anything you'd like me to write about, maybe you need advice because you're just starting uni yourself, or you're also undertaking an interiors project and can offer me some advice! Anything at all, get in touch, I don't bite!

Thanks for reading! xxx

London and the Poppies

Last weekend we decided to take a trip to London to see the poppies that have been placed there for the 100 year anniversary of the First World War, in memory of all the soldiers who lost their lives.

Unfortunately, they had started taking the poppies down the day before, so when we got there a lot of them were already gone, but it still looked amazing and gave us a good idea of what it looked like when they were all still up.
It was also amazing seeing the Tower Bridge, as I haven't seen it for about 10 years I think, and it's such an iconic landmark it's just beautiful, so safe to say I took ALOT of photos!

                           

                                        

                           

                           

                           

I actually really enjoyed just being a tourist in London for once, as whenever I'm there it's usually for a specific reason and I don't get to do any sightseeing, so I decided to take advantage of it and take a trip to Harrods! I was actually planning on going to the big pets department to get some christmas pressies for my gorgeous pup, so I was really disappointed to find they've actually gotten rid of the pets department completely! Apparently there was a big uproar about them having live animals in there, which I totally understand, but I don't see why they had to get rid of all the accessories too! :(
Anyway, it was still a great trip, lusting over the designer bags, the gorgeous shoes and the huge make up and perfume section, and of course they had all their christmas stuff out, so that was like a winter wonderland, I was in heaven! We also went for tea in their cute little teashop, which was lovely with the china teacups and delicious desserts.

                                       

                                       

                                       

After shopping we hopped back on the tube and went to a little Mexican place in Covent Garden called Cafe Pacifico on Langley Street, we had to wait a little while for a table, but since it was a Saturday night that was hardly surprising, and they had a bar serving amazing cocktails to keep us occupied so we weren't bored! The menu was pretty pricey but the portion sizes were HUGE, you could easily share a plate between two people, unless you have a particularly large appetite of course!

We originally planned to go there and back in one day, but decided against it and booked a hotel so we could just relax instead. We stayed in a staycity apart hotel next to Deptford Bridge DLR station and it was lovely. It was clean and modern, not a particularly big room but big enough, and had self catering facilities should you want them, plus the shower gel and shampoo they provided smelt amazing, it was literally like a bottle of honey! The only downfall was that they don't do breakfast on site, you have to go to Cafe Rouge in Greenwich with a voucher from them, so we decided to just go to this little place in Canary Wharf that my mum knew about instead, which was lovely so it didn't really matter, but if you booked it expecting breakfast, you would've been disappointed!

                                       

Anyway, I could go on and on but that's the main stuff I did in London, I even bought my very first oyster card as a vow that I will go back more regularly as a tourist instead of just when I need to! Hope you enjoyed this post, please leave me a comment if you've been to London recently or letting me know what you think, thanks for reading! xxx

Birmingham's German Christmas Market

If you've ever lived in the West Midlands, chances are you'll have heard of the German market that's on every year in Birmingham, in the lead up to Christmas. For those of you who have never been, it's basically a load of wooden chalet type stalls, some selling gifts and christmas decorations, but mostly there are a lot of stalls selling all kinds of delicious things, sweets, baked goods, german sausages (which are huuuge!) and burgers, and lots of tasty drinks such as german beer, mulled wine, winter pimms and hot chocolate.

We decided to take an impromptu trip last night since I only live a 15 minute train journey away from Birmingham, and I wanted to nip to selfridges to get some personalised nutella, seriously everyone I know is getting a jar of nutella for Christmas this year! Hehe!
Whilst walking round at first I must admit I was slightly disappointed, all the stalls were exactly the same as last year, so I'd seen it all before, and there's not a huge amount of items for sale, so you aren't likely to get your christmas shopping done. However, we realised after ordering hot dogs and working our way through a pint each of yummy German beer (see pictures below) that people obviously go for the amazing food and drink! So it's certainly worth a visit, especially if you've never been before.

it looks huge as it is, but notice the sausage is broken in half, it was even bigger than that before!

some proper German beer!

christmas lights selfie!

christmas in Birmingham :)

Thanks for reading! xxx

Film Review: The Judge

Last night I went along to our local Odeon to see Robert Downey Jrs new film The Judge. 

I will start off by saying that I'm a huuuuge RDJ fan (come on, he is Iron Man, how could you not love him?!), so yes, that was the main reason I chose this film as we also wanted to see Gone Girl, which I've heard is good, but I always feel guilty watching a film adaptation of a book before reading the actual book. Leighton Meester is also in this film, although she doesn't play a huge part in the script, we only really see her twice, so Gossip Girl fans shouldn't get too excited! 

Without giving too much of the plot away, RDJ plays a lawyer, who gets a phonecall to say his mother has died. He then goes back to his hometown for the funeral, where we're introduced to his family and an old flame/childhood sweetheart. He makes a few startling discoveries about his father (the judge) who he doesn't really get on with, and he's told a few home truths. I'm not going to say any more than that because it's no fun if you know what's going to happen! 

So anyway, I really enjoyed this film! When it first started I must admit I thought it was going to be a low budget flop, but as the story progressed it got deeper and the plot actually got really good, it wasn't just some basic, predictable storyline (or at least I didn't think it was!). It's probably not really the sort of film I'll rush out to buy when it comes out on DVD, but I'm glad that I've seen it and I would probably watch it again if it was on the telly. 

I feel like I should also mention that this film is produced by Susan Downey, who is RDJ's wife. I didn't realise until earlier this week when I read an article about the couple that she actually produces most of his non-marvel films, such as Due Date (hilarious), and the amazing Sherlock Holmes films. So naturally I'm her new biggest fan. 

My rating for this film is 8/10, it's definitely worth a watch but it's unlikely it'll end up being your favourite film ever! 

Thanks for reading! Xxx

Book Review: The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike)

Last week I finished reading The Silkworm, the second book in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith. For those who don't know, Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym J.K Rowling decided to use for these books to see if they would sell without her name attached (which obviously didn't work as some idiot rumbled her and revealed the secret!). 

This book is the second in the series about a private detective called Cormoran Strike. In the first book, (The Cuckoo's Calling) we were introduced to Cormoran and his new assistant Robin, as they investigate the suspicious suicide of a famous supermodel, Lula Landry. I would definitely suggest reading this book first, as not only is it a good read that keeps you guessing, but it gives you much more of a background to the characters, which is useful for reading the second book. 

In The Silkworm, Cormoran and Robin are on the hunt for a missing author who they soon found out has been murdered (don't worry, that's not a spoiler it's in the blurb), so naturally, they then try to track down the killer. Problem is, the guy wrote a book which pissed a lot of people off, so there's a lot of suspects! 

I really enjoyed this book, I think maybe I liked The Cuckoo's Calling a bit more, but The Silkworm is definitely worth a read too. I finished this book pretty quickly because I really wanted to find out whodunit so kept picking it up whenever I had a free moment (yes I may have had a sneaky read at work once or twice, shhh!)

Rowling/Galbraith's writing is excellent, as you would expect, and these books will make you want to become a private detective after you've read them so be warned! I've read that Galbraith has at least six more Cormoran Strike books planned, so I would definitely suggest getting in on this, who knows, they could end up being as big as Harry Potter! I would imagine there will be lots of underlying storylines that will come to fruition later on in the series as Rowling certainly doesn't keep things simple! 

My rating for this book is 7/10, it's definitely worth a read! 

Thanks for reading :) xxx

Grand Designs Live 2014

For those of you who don't know, I'm studying interior design at university, and I love anything related to architecture, home renovation and of course interiors. 

Last Sunday I visited Grand Designs live at the NEC in Birmingham, for the third year running, since it's only a 15 minute train journey from my university. 

Unfortunately I was limited on time this year so had to choose between getting round all the exhibits or listening to the talks. I decided I'd rather go round the exhibits to see if there was anything new I hadn't seen before, and of course for the freebies! However, I absolutely loooove George Clarke (Amazing Spaces and Restoration Man) so I couldn't resist listening to a bit of his talk as he's always so inspiring! Every year I come away from the show wishing I had the money to start my own dream project, I even seriously considered buying an old 1950s bus earlier in the year to do up! His guest had actually built himself a home office from a shipping container, and had made chairs out of old shopping trolleys! 

For anyone who's interested in this sort of thing, check out some of his episodes on YouTube, particularly Amazing Spaces. It's really inspiring! His new series also starts this Thursday, so if you're in the UK, be sure to check it out! 

Thanks for reading! Xxx