My 30th Birthday Week

Well guys it finally happened. I reached the ripe old age of 30 and there was nothing I could do to stop it!

To celebrate I went away with my family to Snowdon and we visited Zip World for the Titan zip line, stayed in a cottage and went on a quick hike most of the way up Snowdon (we didn't have enough time to go all the way up but it was so icy we would have needed extra kit to get there anyway!)

!CLOSED! Happy 5th Birthday Giveaway!

Hello everyone!!

We have made it to our FIFTH BIRTHDAY!! We can't quite believe it but we have now been writing this blog for five years and looking back at some of the posts we have written.....some are so cringe but we wouldn't be where we are today without them, including the bad photography and cliche product reviews, ha!

This blog has given us so many opportunities and we've made some great friends over the last 5 years, if you've stuck with us from the beginning then this is a HUGE thank you! If you're new then thank you for joining us, I hope you like what you see! We're so grateful for everyhting and it has given us a place to share our thoughts on the latest lipstick, holiday snaps and generally everything we have been up to. It has been so much fun and we hope to continue getting better and embracing more!

Obviously we are very excited to celebrate and share with you some of our favourite products as a thank you for sticking with us over these crazy few years, so take a look and enter the giveaway below!

Image from Pinterest!

Birthday Time!

Hi all!

It was my birthday last weekend so posts the last week have been a little thin on the ground...it was lovely to have a long weekend for it and I had something planned every day which was really nice.

It was overall quite a quiet weekend but to be honest I'm getting to the age where using a long weekend to see friends and catch up on sleep and good food is the best kind of weekend!

First me and M had an afternoon tea session at Celtic Manor which was amazing as you would expect. It was the Chocolate Afternoon Tea which is available until the 19th of June - we will definitely be writing a full post on this as it is beautiful! Here's a few snaps to show you how amazing:

After that we just about made it through the front door, and had a girly evening in with face masks, tan and some prosecco to celebrate! It was a lovely evening, and M even made some Captain America cookies for me, how cute and clever are these??

After this we had a very civilised night out with yummy cocktails and a cheeky McDonalds which was really nice as we haven't been out for a while.

I also had a lovely meal with my family at Wahaca, me and my dad shared the Wahaca Selection which was lush to try so many different things and I washed it down with a Mexican hot chocolate which is dairy free. It was an interesting taste and I'd order it again but it's quite bitter so hard to finish the whole thing.

I had some amazing gifts from friends and family. My brother bought me a sushi making kit which I can't wait to try out and also a selection box from T2 tea who have some crazy loose leaf tea flavours such as Caramel Brownie and Choc Chip Chai.

M got me a lush Origins set with my favourite products in and a pre order of the Harry Potter and the Cursed child - who isn't excited for that!!
I also had another Barnes and Noble classic book to add to my book shelf. I'm getting quite a collection together now and can't wait to get as many as I can!

I also had some vouchers so I went shopping on the weekend and bought the Naked 2 palette which I have wanted for ages and also some stuff from Lush too!

It was a really nice weekend and it was a shock to go back to work last week!

I've been struggling ever since and now I'm away with work so am feeling all over the place, looking forward to getting back to normality and joining my new gym permanently when I get back.

What have you been up to lately? I have so many posts to catch up on and so much to share with you!

L xxx

New Boux Avenue

Hey all!

I've been on a bit of a spending spree thanks to the money I got for my birthday. Now that I've bought a house (post coming soon!) I wanted to spend my last lot of birthday money on myself and a few treats, so underwear was clearly top of my list!

I went straight to Boux Avenue, my favourite underwear store for basics and treats.

I wasn't disappointed when I got there. The first item I saw was this beautiful oriental print bra and knicker set in a balconette style.

I love prints from other countries especially oriental ones and this one with a black base and the pink and gold coloured flowers is beautiful!

This Amber Oriental set comes in at a pricey £28 for the bra and £16 for the matching knickers - which by the way are HUGE. I mean I've never owned knickers this big and this pretty, it kind of goes against everything I've ever been taught. The knickers are in the style of a 50s bikini bottom, they are high waisted and I didn't realise this at the time of purchase, it was only when I got them home that I realised they were as long as they are!
They are also a bit pricier than a usual pair at £16 but they are a treat after all!

There is a thong also available which I might have bought had I seen it on display and this costs £14.

Next I bought the Lauren Balconette bra which is brand new in and is currently on offer. You can purchase the bra and matching bottoms for £30. Unfortunately (again!) the only bottoms available at the time was the thong which wouldn't be my first choice but nevertheless I have a rule on buying underwear without matching knickers so it was the thong this time!

I do love the Cardiff store but it seems it wasn't as well stocked as it normally is.

The thong is still really pretty and a change for me, but the knickers would have been my first choice. Maybe it's a good excuse to go back....?

I also couldn't resist another deal they had on, 3 for £12 knickers!

These are normally £6 each so a really good deal and I always pick up a few when I can. They seem to last so much longer than other brands and they're so pretty!

I absolutely love Boux Avenue and I always find that their products are the prettiest, at reasonable prices (apart from maybe those big knickers....) and they're really good quality. The basic tshirt bras I bought a few years ago are STILL going strong even though normally I would have had to replace them by now.


Do you like Boux Avenue? What are your favourite products? Do you like the choices I made?

L xxx

Birthday!

Hello!

Last week it was my birthday, and it's been a bit of a different one this year. I turned 27 and although that doesn't sound particularly old this year I definitely feel it. Suddenly it was the week of my birthday and I hadn't even thought about what I wanted for it from my parents, and I spent some of the week away with work so it flew by even faster!

I started the day with a favourite breakfast of mine - chia seeds, almond milk, greek yogurt, fruit and a good dollop of peanut butter. It was lush!

I went into work and was met with this monstrous cake - who on earth can turn down what is essentially a giant triple chocolate cupcake. It got me through my 11am slump and my 3pm slump - normally I'm a fan of the 'sugar is the devil' saying but birthdays mean anything goes!



As I mentioned before there has been so much going on this week, one major thing that has happened is that I have finally bought my own house! I am massively scared but also excited, I can't wait to own my own home, decorate it and essentially grow up!

As far as presents go, I had a gorgeous Champneys set from my aunty which was a lovely surprise, I've been working my way through my stash for quite a while and haven't bought any bath products so this will be a lovely treat now that all of my budget will be going on house bills and items!

My mum has also been buying me a few things for the house, we are both fans of the citrus scent so she has got me a citrus candle to put in my kitchen, they're great for getting rid of cooking smells and i can't wait to get more of these to put everywhere all over the house!

She also picked these up from Home Sense, 3 beautiful silver bottles that will be going in my new bathroom! It's a very plain white bathroom with a black tiled floor so it needs a bit of sparkle!

I went out to watch the rugby with a few friends (M included in the middle!)

There were a lot of shots to celebrate me buying a house, in fact the next day I did begin to question if it was even real!

As a birthday celebration I took a day off work and went for afternoon tea with my mum, it was absolutely amazing and I can't rave about it enough. There will be a full post on this soon!

So there was my 27th birthday!

It was short and sweet and I definitely feel like this year is much more grown up. I'm super excited about having a house and although it is pretty small it will be all my own, so any blogs or website you read with interior design ideas please send them my way - I will be writing a wishlist post in future for the design ideas I would love to incorporate into my house.

L xxx

Happy 3rd Birthday to Us!

Hi all!

Just a quick post to say it was our third blog birthday on the 14th of January - we have both been so busy in our new jobs after Christmas that we completely forgot about it!

It's been a great three years and we've had lots of fun writing posts and sharing our lives with you. It seems like 2015 will see some changes in our blog as our lives have changed drastically since we started writing as students in 2012 but fingers crossed you will still find posts and reviews enjoyable to read. I'm sure it won't be changing too much!

Picture from Pinterest - Outsidevoice.net

So thank you so much to all of our readers for coming back again and again, raving about the same products, sharing our frustrations with life and generally working harder to get where we all want to be in life.

Hopefully this next year will be better than ever!

Lots of love

L and M xxx

Life Update

Hi all!

Apologies for the serious lack of posts from myself recently; not only have I been living it up at Glastonbury and hen partying it in Edinburgh I have also had a lot going on at home as my mum is ill and my job isn't working for me so I'm having to look for another .

It's extremely frustrating and heartbreaking to admit defeat and give up on everything you worked so hard for but I cannot continue to work for a company who promised me so much and yet have given me so little. It takes up a lot of my time, energy and finances to even get there and my lack of training combined with minimal financial gain, no chance of this changing in the near future and no real career development I'm absolutely gutted to think I might have to call it a day. 

I'm still trying to make my decision as after telling them I was going to leave a month ago they promised me that things would change if I gave them a few weeks to prove it but unfortunately not enough has changed.

I'm trying to stay positive and tell myself that it's giving me a new start and that everything happens for a reason but it's extremely hard to think like that sometimes. I feel like my job was all I really had going for me and without that I'm not really left with much.

That aside I've been so busy with social events that I've barely had time to breathe! My friend had her hen weekend in Edinburgh and it was amazing, I've always wanted to go there having never been to Scotland and it didn't disappoint. 

We managed to fit in a trip to the dungeons, karaoke, food, dancing and the zoo, though we missed a time slot for the pandas so we couldn't see them! I definitely want to revisit and wander the cobbled streets for hours and hours, its so beautiful.

This weekend I have had another hen party to attend for the same group of friends but for a different bride to be, this one involved GoApe, Ann Summers party and lots of games so was a lot of fun but unfortunately not many photos were taken! Next weekend is her wedding so she's keeping everything really close together which is a nice change from those that are planned so far in advance; though I can't say I wasn't worried when she was swinging in the trees! We had to dress up as animals so a few of us clubbed together to buy face paint to make us into zebras:

Me and M have also been out a few times recently. We went out a few weeks ago for food to catch up after Glastonbury and just have a quiet evening after the madness of the festival. We went to a place in Cardiff called Got Beef which was amazing, mostly selling different types of burgers but they also have beef brisket and loads of other things. My brother is a big fan and told me to go just so that I could have the Heisenburger: any Breaking Bad fan would be crazy NOT to order it, so of course i did!

I mean blue onions?! how amazing. Definitely a fun kind of place and I'll be going back again to try more!

We also went out for drinks for her birthday and managed an impressive 6 cocktails in 3 hours before getting the last bus home, we know how to live...!

Hopefully this week will be a little quieter and I will have some time to catch up with myself and write some posts. A lot are overdue but unfortunately there's only so much that one person can do at one time!
I could do with Hermione's time turner right now...

L xxx

Birthday Fun!

Hi lovelies!

This is a bit of a photo diary post for you. I had my birthday on Wednesday (26 on the 26th ooh er!) so I thought I'd share my day with you.

Here are two of my favourite cards from some family members...they know me well!

I borrowed M's Lauren's Way rollers for the night so that I could give them a go. It was an interesting experience putting rollers in my own hair. I've never done it before as M is definitely a lot faster and its easier to do someone else's hair but wooooo, it took me over an hour to get them in mine! It was a big struggle as I'm blessed with a considerable mop on my head and needed so many rollers, plus it's so long at the back I couldn't actually reach the ends of my own hair! But I got there in the end and managed to put up with sleeping in them too which surprised me.

It wasn't exactly comfortable but the rollers squashed enough that I could sleep if only a bit restlessly.
It didn't curl my hair which was disappointing but I had lovely bounce and volume for the whole day and it was nice to have that 'just blow dried' look all day.

I treated myself to protein pancakes for breakfast, there were two of them so I smothered them together with Nutella and put a banana on the side for good measure and an extra energy boost for a busy day of shopping.

I met a friend who I'm planning to go to Thailand with later on in the year so we could make a few more travel plans, catch up over lunch and a cheeky birthday cocktail and go shopping.

This is a Jamboree Daquiri....lots of rum and berries and it was TASTY. We teamed it with a gorgeous home made fish finger sandwich and super crunchy fries and it was yummmm.

It was a lush day and although I didn't buy much I did have my brows done and wander around Debenhams browsing all the make up (specifically Benefit, Mac and Urban Decay). It wasn't long before we needed a pit stop and a frappuccino was the best idea ever, cold and sugary for a boost of energy!

I was an extremely lucky girl and was spoilt by my family.

I knew I was having the nude Dune handbag and Levi jeans as I'd already chosen them myself but the others I didn't. My mum had sneakily chosen me a Michael Kors black satchel handbag which was an amazing surprise and I can see it becoming a firm fave!

I also got a full size bottle of my perfume, a Ted Baker pencil case, Naked 3 palette (eek!) and some gold Havaianas which I cannot wait to wear.

Every year we get a Colin the Caterpillar cake for our birthdays and this year was no exception so I have been tucking into pieces of that over the last few days.

We went out to a Pan-Asian restaurant for my birthday meal and it had such tasty food, the table set up was lovely too. Are you good at using chopsticks? I'm normally fine but was far too hungry!

Last weekend me and M went out with another friend for my birthday. There was lots of dressing up and getting ready before we went to a bar for cocktails.

M definitely enjoyed herself on the dancefloor! We were pulling some 'shapes' as I'm sure you can imagine!

It's been a great week and I've got so much more planned. I went to Cabot circus with my mum on Monday, had a training session with my personal trainer, and to finish the week off, today me and M checking out a new eaterie in Cardiff and watching the new Captain America film. Cannot wait to see more of these films; I'm such a sucker for a superhero film!

What have you been up to? Do you have similar activities and rituals for your birthdays too?
Do you like my presents?


L xxx