L's Christmas Photos 2017

Hi all!

It's been a little while since sharing a post with you, between the two of us we've been moving, attending weddings, working and prepping for the Christmas season so took an unintentional break from blogging. It has been lovely to spend time with family and friends and tuck into the expected stash of Christmas food, so I thought today was the perfect opportunity to share some of these photos with you.

Quench Mojito Master*

Hey All

I can't believe it's only 11 days until Christmas! When the email came through to see if we wanted to try the Mojito Master I was interested straight away. Mojitos are something that are made regularly in my house as it's what me and my other half drank on our first date and one of our favourite drinks. I don't have the proper tools though and tend to just use a rolling pin and stuff to make them.

The mojito master is the Swiss knife of cocktail making, it has everything you need and the bits pop out. It contains a muddle, drinks measure, knife, spoon and mint cutter.

The knife was impressively sharp. I had assumed with something like this it wouldn't be that good but it is. All the bits pop out easily and there our measures inside the cup for the perfect mojito.

It's comfortable in the hand when all assembled again to be able to perfectly muddle the ingredients! Apologies for my lack of pretty glasses. We opt for big mojitos!!

I make mine by squeezing the juice of half a lime into the glass, add 2 large teaspoons of sugar and muddle all of that together. I then add around 8 mint leaves to the glass (apparently if they give them a clap between your hands it released flavour. I then fill the glass with crushed ice. The smaller the better. Here the rolling pin is still used to smash it. I then add to large shots of rum and use the spoon to get right the bottom of the glass and kind of pull the liquid up so all the ice, rum and lime, mint, sugar mix is all combined. I then add a quarter of a lime wedge and mint sprig to garnish. I don't opt of soda in mine as the crushed ice melts and waters it down a little. We also prefer a spiced rum to a white rum or an aged rum!

The result some very tasty mojitos! If you're looking for a last minute gift this is a great idea! I would have definitely grabbed on for my other half. The only thing I would say could be improved it the spoon folds out but then doesn't look in so bends halfway down. If I wanted making pints of Mojito though it probably wouldn't be an issue!

Are you a mojito fan? The mojito master is currently on offer for £9 at Handpicked Collection.

Love M

xxx

Christmas 2014

Hello there!

I know a lot of people have already posted about their Christmas but I've loved seeing what other people get up to, their decorations and their traditions so I thought I'd share mine too.

One of my favourite things about Christmas is my dog; he absolutely LOVES wrapping paper! He waits patiently for you to unwrap your present and then runs away with the paper to shred it up. By the end of the opening session he's surrounded and normally has a load stuck to his tail! What a beauty!

I've dyed my hair back dark now and have been loving curling it and having it all back to my usual colour again. Blonde highlights were fun for the summer but I do prefer it this colour.

Wasn't long before Christmas dinner was served, we have ours about 1ish so I hadn't had many snacks beforehand and piled my plate up high! We had a massive turkey joint from our local butchers that we are still eating now.....even after the turkey curry!

My job was to make a cheesecake for the big day so I made a ferrero rocher hazelnut cheesecake in the tin above. It took a good few hours to set but when we removed it it looked really good and didn't last long at all!

My dog seemed pretty happy with his new blanket and teddies that he had, what a spoilt pooch!

We spent the afternoon playing games including a beetle drive, boy girl fruit flower and a few others. They were so much fun with everyone joining in especially making mistakes and coming up with wrong answers!

I had some lovely things for Christmas. My main present was a Hudl2 which is a tablet, I've wanted a tablet for ages but haven't been able to afford them and had no idea my parents had got me one! It was a lovely surprise and I'm hoping it will make blogging a lot easier too as I can do it on the go.

I also had a jar of nutella with my name on which was a personal highlight:

I also had some amazing Alice in Wonderland items, my mum went on a bit of a theme! There was a mug and loose leaf tea from Whittards, a vintage Alice in Wonderland book and a diary for the year. I also have an owl diary so will have to decide which is going to be my work diary and which is going to be for blogging and fitness related things!

In my Secret Santa gift I had a lovely bauble from Molton Brown filled with hand wash; how beautiful is this! I've never seen them before so it was a lovely surprise (though i think was well over our £5 budget!)

Since Christmas Day we've been making our way through the leftovers by making Bubble and Squeak which is a Boxing Day tradition for us and also our annual winter beach walk. I've been shopping in the sales and spent a ridiculous amount of money on a black wool coat from Linea and a black Ralph Lauren dress that I'd seen full price and loved; I never thought it would be in the sale so I had to get it!

I have been shopping for a dress for New Year's Eve too, this little black dress cost me £20 in the sale so I'm really pleased with such a bargain! I'm going to a friend's house for the night so needed something nice but also comfortable; this doesn't come with a belt and has a nice elasticated waistband and can be worn with tights so its perfect. I will be keeping warm and comfortable as well as hopefully looking nice too!

I love the gold details on the bottom of the dress; black and gold is definitely a favourite of mine. I also did my nails nude and sparkly; this is Essie's Sand Tropez with Barry M's Rose Quartz glitter on top. It's a simple but pretty combo and I've added as many layers as possible for the ultimate New Year's bling!

What have you been up to? Did you all have a good Christmas?

What will you be wearing tonight, do you have big plans or a quiet night in?

I'm hoping mines a bit of both!

L xxx

Last Minute Crafty Christmas Ideas

Hey All

I cant't belive it's Christmas in three days! I wanted to share a quick and easy present idea I gave to the other half and his parents. I always find buying for someone else's parents one of the hardest presents to buy, especially as I've only met them a handful of times.

Back in July we went out to celebreate his parents birthday's and induldge in a few cocktails. They both kept to drinking the same cocktail all evening so I decided to make them personailised cocktail kits of these drinks.

This is an easy present to make for someone but it can get pricey dependingo the drink you make and can be better to do it for a group like I did as some items then fell into the communal kit. Items I included in the communal bag were:

• cocktail shaker
• sugar syrup
• lemons
• lemon juice
• soda water

I decided I wanted to go for a rustic look and not like I had just bought the stuff and shoved it in a bag so I decided to get plain glass bottles, luggage labels and as many little jars as was reasonable to put things in. I also opted for 500ml glass bottles as it worked out cheaper for the main alcohol. A litre bottle would have significantly raised the cost per kit. TK maxx is great for cheap kilner bottles but I found a great alternative in Clas Olshen. The500ml bottles were £2.99 and on 3 for 2 as they had Merry Christmas on. Ikea and asda do ver reasonabley priced litre bottles.

Sugar syrup was someting I made as it worked out cheaper. I bought a litre glass bottle for bout £2 then used a 500g bag of sugar. To make it I measured out the sugr in cups then added half the amount of water, melted over the stove then reduced down for 5 mins.

The last part was assembley. I washed and sterilised the bottles then filled them added the luggage tags wit what the cocktails were and how to make them.

I always think a personalised gift goes down well. With the alcohol make sure you shop around. It makes such a difference. Plus by making 500ml cocktails you start a little bar for yourself with leftovers.

Do you make presents?

Love M

xxx

Urban Decay Black Magic 24/7 Eye Pencil Set

It's pretty obvious that Urban Decay has claimed a good few hundred of my pretty pounds this year. Their palettes are pretty amazing and good value for quality products and their gift sets are always worth picking up.

The Black Magic 24/7 Glide on Double Ended Eye Pencil Set is one of those!

If the packaging hasn't already drawn you in with its really cool neon coloured watercolour effect in the background then the 4 double ended pencils in wearable colours will.

With 4 black ends and 4 coloured ends you are sure to find ones that will suit you. I always find these sets are the best for finding colours that you might not have tried but are actually your favourites. Having tried Smoke previously in another travel set I know now how much wear I'll get from it, and won't need to worry about it disappearing now that I've got another....

Let's be honest, if you ever wear an eyeliner it is likely to be a black one isn't it?

That was my thinking for picking up this set and knowing how much usage I'd get from it. If I'm likely to use colours in my eye make up it's green and purples, which was how i knew this set was for me.

Granted I still want the other Christmas set with Ten of the pencils with their infamous Perversion liner and Grindhouse sharpener, but this one was definitely the one for value for money for me.

So how do the colours match up?

Zero is paired with Demolition. Zero is classed as a zealous cream black and Demolition is a deep brown matte.

I have Zero from a palette I've bought previously and it's a pretty good black liner, though not the same as Perversion. Demolition is a colour I wouldn't have picked up but actually it's a really good alternative to black for those days when you're wearing nudes. It gives a much softer look and I know I'll be wearing it for work days. There are swatches at the end of the post for each pencil if you'd like to skip to them.

Perversion needs no introduction but in case you haven't used it it's the blackest of matte black liners that you will ever use. LSD is a navy shimmer with a bright turquoise micro sparkle. I wear a lot of this colour on my eyes so I'm already looking forward to getting this out during the party season.

Black Market is described as a charcoal black satin. If I'm honest I didn't realise so many liners could be created for one colour but now I've used these I can see differences in every one. Tornado is a dark eggplant pearl colour, I love wearing purples as they bring out the green in my hazel eyes and liners like this make it an easy addition. This colour is so pretty and subtle that I would consider wearing it to work with grey nudes.

Black Velvet is a rich smoky black matte and it is paired with Smoke is a deep grey matte. I've already written about it previously in a post here.
I've been wearing it to work a lot of days since I bought the mini set and will probably wear it more now I know i have a spare as back up!

The four pencils are a really good addition to anyone's make up bag but particularly if you like black liners and creating smoky eyes. I think these would also be great for adding a bit more definition to a nude eye design that you would wear to work every day. I'd take these in my handbag if I was going from work out for food or drinks as it would be an easy way to change your look along with a swipe of lipstick too.

You can see the blacks all on the left of the pairings and the colours on the right. Demolition is a lovely brown and the micro sparkle in LSD is clear to see in the centre. Tornado is the purple at the bottom which is hard to see but definitely catches in the light and Smoke is on the furthest right hand side.

This set would be great as a gift and costs £27 for the four pencils meaning they cost £6.75 each or £3.40 per colour. Seeing as a full size pencil retails at £15 each you really are getting quite a bargain if you know you won't use the full size pencils, and can always upgrade to the full size if you know it's a favourite.

I've got my eye on the TEN Christmas set now too as it has Perversion in full size plus 9 other never seen before shades with a Grindhouse sharpener that i also need as I've not found another sharpener that has the ability to sharpen the 24/7 pencil concealer.

What do you think of the double ended 24/7 pencils? Do you think it's necessary to have so many different types of black eye pencils?
Which is your favourite from the Black Magic set?

L xxx

Getting Crafty

Hey All

Hope you've had a great weekend. I've spent it entering my first competition for kickboxing and was so pleased I won my category!

Back in July I saw an awesome picture of a map and decided it was something I wanted to create. I wouldn't say I was the artiest of people but I thought with Christmas around the corner I'd share some of the crafty bits I've been doing. I think these type of things make great gifts and people appreciate the effort. I recently made my brother one for his birthday!

The first thing I did was google and print out a tone of pictures of maps I liked! The next task was to draw a grid on it. As I'm not the best drawer is I do it by a grid I find it easier as you only have to focus on getting the detail in one square at a time and I find it easier to scale it up accurately.

After drawing the grid on the printout I drew a grid on the piece of paper. I'd suggest making sure you paper is standard frame size and fitting the scaling and grid to that size or it can make framing difficult.

After drawing the grid I started to draw the map. By only having on square to focus on at a time it made it much easier to recreate the map accurately. I drew it lightly in pencil then rubbed out all the grid lines to prepare to paint.

I opted for water colours for this project. I love the way you can fade the colours and think it works better for this style.

For mine I chose to do pastel colours with more intensity at the edges. When I did a version of it for my brother birthday I went with brighter colours. I love doing this and losing myself concentrating on it project. It's so easy to do and leaves amazing results. It can be totally personalised for the person! 

For mine I opted for a personalised quote but chose to leave my brothers plain.

Do you get crafty with gifts? Would you try this?

Love M

xxx

Christmas Gift Guide II

Two weeks ago I wrote a Christmas Gift Guide based solely on Boots, Debenhams and Space NK - product heaven if you ask me!

Not only is Christmas a time for pampering though, it's a time for personalised and fun gifts that mean something to the recipient. Here's my round up of some fun, indulgent and unique gifts.

Not on the High Street

I've been browsing the gift site for a while for a range of gifts for various occasions including weddings and new babies; it certainly doesn't disappoint in that!

This Cocktail Garden kit is a great way for a friend to get more involved with their cocktails whilst getting mildly green fingers. I for one would love to try it out and make a mojito with my own mint that I'd grown. For £13.50 its a lot of fun! Find it here.

I always love this gift too. not only does it show where you've been but it's also a check list for new places you can discover in future. I'd love one for my future property (in my dreams!) and it will only set you back £15.95. Find it here.

The Personalised Gift section is one of my favourites; there's nothing like a unique gift for making it into your friend or relative's top present for all time!

You can browse the art prints that can be personalised here, I couldn't choose a picture as there so many lovely ones to look at!

Amelia Rope

I've written about Amelia Rope before (post here). She makes a wonderful range of chocolate with a twist and creates amazing flavours with sea salt, honeycomb, nuts, rose and so much more. A bar will set you back around £5.60 but the bundles can be great value ranging from £16 to £28 for the chocolate lover in your life.

These bars really are special and I cannot recommend them enough, me and my family have shared bars and had a right giggle over the flavours and surprised ourselves with how much we loved the combinations. She uses fruits, nuts, seeds, plants and everything edible to create amazing new flavours and I believe many people would love such a treat.

You can find her site here - don't blame me if you end up buying them all!

Barnes and Noble Books

Most people love a good read, and there's nothing like a classic. I absolutely love old books and like a lot of people my aim when I buy my own place is to get a seriously big book case and fill it.

Barnes and Noble's Leatherbound Classics are the most perfect collectible books I've ever seen. Any book lover would appreciate them on their own but as the start of a collection it's a lovely present.

Image from Barnes and Noble

Each cover is different and with 113 different classics to collect you are sure to find one to suit. I can't stop staring that them and how beautiful they are!

Find the full list here

Liberty Scarves

I don't know about you but I loved watching the Liberty of London tv program, it's a lovely shop to go in but seeing all of the staff and how quirky and creative they are is fascinating to me. As a scientist most of my day is so far from the artistic creations that I used to be part of when doing art at school and working in retail so I love watching when other people do it!

When thinking of Liberty it's obvious that you will think of their scarves so when browsing and making my own wishlist of silk scarves I couldn't resist but share these lovely ones for a real Christmas treat.

CashCa Black Cashmere Scarf £105

You cannot go wrong with a simple black cashmere scarf and this one is all about luxury! 

Vivienne Westwood Blue Dyed Flag Viscose Scarf £120

I love a bit of VW for her love of the Union Jack and typical British colours, a scarf like this would look gorgeous with any outfit but I'd love it to throw on at work and brighten up my black and grey work outfits! 

Navy Liberty London Star Paisley Silk Scarf £110

The Liberty scarves are second to none when it comes to the timeless wild scarf. There are people who flock from all over the world to get them and their prints are infamous. I particularly like this one as it looks so much like peacock feathers and the colours are gorgeous. I don't think anyone would be angry for receiving a timeless classic like this. 

Frame Again*

We were contacted by Frame Again after writing the previous Gift Guide and it was lovely of them to allow us to create our own to see how the process works. Frame Again have featured on Dragon's Den but after turning down Peter Jones have built up their company on funds from the public. Their business specialises in printing and framing photos of your choice with multiple colour choices.

The best part of these frames? Not only are they able to be fixed to a wall but they are also magnetic, meaning you can fix them together back to back or side by side for a really cool effect. I've seen many images where others have tiled them on walls for a wall of photos which looks really cool, as well as sticking them together on a desk in series.

I chose to send them a picture of me and M at Glastonbury to test out the service and it was so much fun choosing the colour combinations. The delivery service was also super speedy and I received it just over a day after ordering.



The frame feels really sturdy and good quality and I look forward to getting more in future. I'd love to have a wall of them in multiple colours; they'd look great in a study, kitchen or hallway as a feature wall.

You can personalise your own Frames here for £9.99 at the moment instead of £19.99.

What do you think of these gifts? Would you love to receive them on Christmas Day? 

Let me know!

L xxx

Christmas Gift Guide

Happy Sunday morning!

I expect by now most of you have started to turn to the brochures and internet adverts that have suddenly been making its way into our inboxes and shopping baskets.

I have had loads of fun making wishlists and my own Christmas list from the Debenhams, Boots and Space NK Gift guides. So without further ado here are my picks of products that you might want to add to your wishlists or buy for fellow friends or loved ones.

Starting off with Boots, full of amazing product goodness that it would take a rather strong individual to ignore.

Smashbox always have some cracking products out for Christmas and I've always got my eye on the miniature primers. I've heard they're amazing and for £25 for the trio it's a good way to try them out.
The On The Rocks palette is also an extensive range of eye shadows for a bargainous £49 and would make a great gift.

Benefit gifts are extremely popular and it's not hard to see why, they're beautifully packaged and usually contain a great variety of their products as the perfect trial of something that may be new to you or as a travel kit. The above is the perfect pick me up for on the go make up or a cohesive travel kit, all you're missing is your base products and you're good to go! For £29.50 the Sexy and Scrumptious gift set is amazing.

Liz Earle have never sold their gift sets anywhere other than John Lewis. I think it's great they've gone more mainstream by selling at Boots and this gift set contains their infamous Cleanse and Polish followed by a skin tonic and eye cream. All have very good reviews and contain natural products so would be an ideal gift for someone new to the brand for £19.75

These pages are my favourite! It's like a perfect mix and match section; Nails Inc polishes ranging from £15/16, Benefit's Hoola bronzer, Lancome mascara and YSL Touche Eclat. All of which have rave reviews and anyone would be happy to receive. 

Ted Baker produce some amazing gift sets also and i particularly like their designs this year. I'm a fan of coral anyway but the bottles lined up in different colours as above remind me of being on holiday in Southern Italy on the Amalfi Coast as the houses are similar colours and this makes me happy.
The UpTed Abbey set above looks like a lovely gift and I would imagine it will be on offer as a star gift at Boots sometime soon.

Origins also have some great gift sets where the value can be worth around £30 more than the price it is on sale for. The set below costs £40 though is worth somewhere near £68. Ginzing is one of their most popular ranges and this gift set is the perfect range of products for someone who deserves a pamper via a skincare set packed with vitamins and minerals.

So what do Debenhams have to offer?

You can never go wrong with a bit of sparkle in the form of a piece of jewellery. Watches are a classic item and rose gold is a popular choice at the moment, although silver and gold are still the classics.

The Clarins palette contains a gorgeous selection of eyeshadows that anyone can wear, especially over the Christmas season and would be perfect in time for New Year's Eve. The ten shades are a great basic palette for £35, meaning it's only £3.50 per eyeshadow which is pretty good value for Clarins!

Lancome sets are also really good value for money and the larger set has a massive variety of trial sized products and an eyeshadow palette:

It is hard to even think about Debenhams without considering Urban Decay. They have plenty of products available year round but this year their Christmas sets are awesome. The limited edition Vice 3 palette is sure to sell out and the eyeliner and lipstick sets are musts in every beauty addicts collection. I've got Vice 3 and the Black Magic eyeliner set already, the others are sure to find their way into my life too! These products range from £27 to £42.

Lastly L'Occitane are another brand where you just cannot go wrong with gift sets, especially with scents such as Shea Butter as they're so soft and light that anyone would be happy to receive it and you just cannot go wrong, especially for £20 or £35.

I couldn't complete these Gift Guides without a mention from Space NK, my latest favourite store. Having never bought from them before until a few weeks ago I'm now a constant browser of their site and some gift sets have particularly caught my eye:

Nars Virtual Domination cheek palette; £45 but worth £117. I really need it but cannot afford it; I need to find someone who can afford to buy it for me! A lovely present for any female who loves good quality blushes.

This is nicely followed up with the Digital World Lip Coffret also from Nars featuring 5 lip pencils, 3 of which are limited edition all of £32. They also allegedly come in an acrylic style box for future storage which I always thing is a good idea.

GlamGlow have a gorgeous skincare set out containing three different mud treatments for £50. With a huge following for its tingling and cleansing muds this one is sure to make a skincare obsessive extremely happy!

In fact i imagine at this rate I will be producing another Gift Guide in a week or so with other new products that I've found!

Do you find it easy or hard to buy for fellow females are Christmas time?
I think I could quite easily do it but may come into problems when a budget is required and also stopping myself from buying one for me too!

What are on your Gift Guides?

I've got another 'product free' gift guide coming next week!

L xxx