Lush Christmas Sale

On boxing day I went onto Lush website to try and get my hands on some bits and pieces in the sale - mainly another slice of the snowcake soap. I took a trip into Lush after work yesterday to see if they had anything left in the sale and came out with three little things.

Golden Wonder bath bomb: £3.95 - Now: £1.98

Golden wonder is a bath bomb I always look at getting at christmas but never end up getting it, so as it was in the sale I thought about finally picking one up. 

'Bathe in liquid gold with this uplifting, sweet citrus bomb. Launch into your bath water and watch it wonder as it unwraps itself.'

This has a dusting of glitter all over and if you couldn't tell already its also shaped like a little present. As the description of this bath bomb already tells us this has such a sweet citrus scent - Lime and orange. I am yet to use this so im not really sure what to expect...but I am guessing something blue as there is a lot of blue on the edges.

Candy Mountain bubble bar:  £2.95 - Now £1.48

'Make bath time an even sweeter treat with this bubble bar. Crumble under running water for mountains of glistening candy-scented bubbles.'

The first time I picked up candy mountain was in the original pink and green colours and for someones stocking, so I have never had it for myself. I have used other bath products with a similar scent, the creamy candy bubble bar and think pink bath bomb - If you have a nose for sweet scents then these are for  you. This has a light coating of glitter and a sweet vanilla scent - I honestly cant stop smelling this I love it so much (same with the golden wonder). 

Snowcake soap:

Last year me and my mum discovered the snowcake soap from lush and absolutely love it, we picked it up again this year as soon as the christmas products made an appearance in store. We literally just ran out of the soap on christmas day so I decided to pick this up regardless of the stupid price it was going to be (there was no one around to cut it down to a small amount).

'This shimmering sweet marzipan-scented soap makes for a creamy and comforting christmas treat. Made with a palm free soap base, benzoin, soothing rose and uplifting cassie absolutes, this soap created a rich and luxurious lather.'

I dont know how to describe a soap but the scent is heavenly and lasts quite a while on you as well.

I love lush and have never experienced a Lush sale before - I always miss them.

Anyone pick up any good bargains from lush?

Frosted Fairground at Dreamland!

On Sunday I FINALLY got around to visiting Dreamland in Margate! The park re opened its doors this year on June 19th (my birthday). Through out December the park has been free to visit but you have to pay for the rides - I unfortunately didnt get to go on any of the rides but I just enjoyed going around looking at everything going on and snapping away with my camera. 

Everyone kept saying to me before I went; 'Dremland was rubbish' and  'Waste of time' - I loved it, I love how they have kept it so traditional with the rides, layouts and the arcade games inside. My perfect place - I hate all these fast and over the top rides.

Can not wait to visit again! I'm tempted to go back again this week as its free but I would happily pay the normal price for dreamland.

Gingerbread men

Baking gingerbread men is a typical christmas tradition everyone does, I make gingerbread biscuits every year but in your classic christmas shapes...and a teddy bear as the gingerbread man. This year I finally decided to pick up a gingerbread man cutter and made some actual gingerbread men and thought I would share with you how I made them. 

What you will need:

350g Flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tsp ground ginger
1tsp ground cinnamon
125g butter
175g light brown sugar
1 egg
4tbsp golden syrup

Method:

1. Like normal...lets get the boring things out of the way first by pre heating your oven to 180 degrees.

2. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon once combined add in your butter and rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs - mix in the sugar
3. Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together and add to the mixture, mix all together until formed into a dough.
4. Leave the dough to cool in the fridge for 15min.
5. Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, using your cutter, cut out the gingerbread men and place onto the baking tray - Leaving gaps in between.
6. Bake for 10-15mins until lightly golden brown - leave to completely cool on a cooling rack before icing and decorating.

I decorated mine with little red bow ties, some with waist coats, edible glitter and some little snow flakes.

enjoy baking!

Lush || Stardust Bathbomb

The other day I popped into lush to get a birthday present for my mum and decided to pick myself up another bath bomb from Lush new christmas range. 

Out of all the pretty things there I picked the ever so simple stardust bath bomb, I didnt know what to expect from this bath bomb - I didnt expect any colour really.

'A sweet-scented festive bomb to bring Santa's christmas presence into your bath. Launch into your bath and watch it fizz away'

As you can see from the image this is nothing but just a white star which is covered in a very light shimmer. Once placed into the bath this unlike other bath bombs fizzes away so fast, releasing a light vanilla scent with lots of little stars which will later dissolve away. When I originally saw this bath bomb - I didnt go and look up what they all do, It ruins the surprise but I was expecting some colour to suddenly pour out of it along with the little stars. I wouldnt say that I am disappointed by this bath bomb - Its nothing special but I loved it regardless - I would definitely say it would be perfect for a child's bath.

This only costs £2.95 - There is so much more Christmas Lush products I want to try!
Anyone got any recommendations?

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Salted Caramel Cupcakes has been at the top of my list of things to bake for such a long long time...and I finally got around to baking them.
I did in-fact bake these a while ago but I just stumbled upon the image recently and had to do a blog post on how to make them...so lets get into it:

The cakes:
120g butter
100g sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
170g self raising flour
11/2 tablespoon milk

Filling:
Dr Oetker Salted Caramel filling
Icing:
110g Icing Sugar
70g butter
caramel flavoring
1/2 teaspoon salted caramel filling
1 broken up curlywurly

Like usual lets start by getting the boring stuff out the way first - Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees and line the cupcake tin with cases.

1. In a bowl begin by creaming together the butter and sugar until smooth using a trusty wooden spoon (or mixer), next add in your eggs one by one, followed by the vanilla.

2. Once the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla are mixed together sift in the flour and fold everything together followed by the milk and mix.

3. Once everything is mixed together add the mixture evenly into the cases and pop into the oven for 10-15 minutes.

4. When the cupcakes are done in the oven leave them to cool down for around 10 mins, whilst still remotely warm cut a small circle into the cake and fill with the salted caramel.

Icing:
To begin with you want to add the butter into the bowl and beat it on its own for a while before slowly adding in the icing sugar. When all the icing has been added add in a couple of drops of the caramel flavouring along with the salted caramel and mix until all combined.
Once the cakes are completely cool pipe on the icing (over the top of the salted caramel hole), place on a chunk of the curlywurly and (optional) a drizzel of salted caramel.

These are so nice...I could literally eat one right now.
Let me know if you try and make them!

Lush Christmas || Yog Nog

Its that time of year again and Lush have brought out the limited edition christmas rage! 

I along with a lot of people love lush a lot more at this time of year with all the warm christmas and autumn/ winter scents. 

I visited Lush briefly a couple of weekends ago and because I visited at the weekend meant the shop was so busy and I could only pick up as well as look at pretty much one thing. There is so much online that I have looked at and want to try and get my hands on. 

On this trip I picked up the Yog Nog bath bomb to try, Last year they just had they yog nog soap which smelt amazing, so I am pretty damn happy that this year they put it into a bath bomb form.

To me this has two different scents - Its more spicy and a typical christmas scent once placed into the bath compared to the scent when you are holding it. 

'Sweeter than dipping into the biscuit tin, this luxurious bomb is sure to warm you up on cold, frosty evenings. Spicy clove bud oil stimulates the senses whilst soya milk powder and organi shea butter creates creamy, comforting waters. Luxuriate in cinder toffee soaks with clouds of gold and a touch of lustre.'

When popped into the bath this will turn your water a bright yellow colour and will also release a spicy typical christmas scent which was heavenly. In the centre of the bath bomb was something like a bath melt - which was the organic shea butter which turned the water so soft on your skin.

I couldn't recommend this bath bomb enough and cant wait to get my hands on another and some other pieces from the christmas collection...so more lush posts to come.

This is Halloween...

As I finally got around to sorting out the cabin this year I said to my brother I wanted to go all out on Halloween and use it on the day - Which we did! Yesterday morning I went up there and finished decorating it, I added some more pumpkin themed things (If it isn't obvious already I love Pumpkins!), Spider webs around the table (because I couldn't find a black/ Halloween table cloth), some children's Halloween DVDs and snacks which we picked up later in the afternoon at Sainsburys. A couple of weeks ago I picked up Hocus Pocus for us to watch on Halloween as I had never seen it before - I know! Its THE Halloween film everyone has watched!

Happy Halloween!

(for Yesterday!)

I plan on doing something similar for Christmas which will be fun! 

I love little posts like this as its something to look back on, I hope you enjoyed this post.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

After making a Pumpkin Loaf I had half a tin of Pumpkin left and chose to make some pumpkin cupcakes, which proved to be a hit in this house. As they looked pretty and tasted pretty damn good I thought I would share how I made them.

What you will need:

Cake:

220g Plain Flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

135g light brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 can pumpkin

120g Vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Cream cheese icing:

75g butter

100g cream cheese

Vanilla essence 

175g icing sugar.

To begin with you want to get the boring things out the way: Line the cupcake tin (I used these Orange cases I found in Wilko...to go with the pumpkin was the idea) and pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees.

1. You will need two bowls for this. In one bowl place the flour, bicarb of soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon - mix together and place to one side for now.

2. In another bowl mix together brown sugar, eggs, pumpkin, oil and vanilla until the mixture is remotely smooth.

3. Once everything is mixed, slowly add in the dry ingredients to the wet and mix all together.

Once everything is done place the mixture into the cases and pop into the oven for 15-20 mins.

Icing:

I have never made cream cheese icing before so this was exciting to try.

1. Add the butter into the bowl and mix on its own for a while until its quite smooth.

2. Next add in your cream cheese add in your vanilla and mix - I used a hand mixer (non electric) fast

3. slowly add in the icing sugar to the butter and cream cheese and like before mix everything fast. (You dont have to thats what I did and found it worked better than your usual mixing with a wooden spoon).

3.Place the cream cheese icing into a pipping bag and decorate your cakes, for decorations I found some 'Chocolate beans' by Dr. Oetker and picked out the yellow and orange ones. If you want Halloween decorations for the top of your cakes you get some great Halloween cake decoration in ASDA.

I love these cakes so much, let me know if you try them and what you think.

Chocolate Chip Scone

Oh my goodness! Its another baking post!

This wont be the last, I hope to do some Halloween themed baking posts!

Something my family love to eat are scones, I like cheese compared to plain scones and I recently decided to try something different....Chocolate chip scones! These are my favourite scones and I just had to share them on the blog....lets get into it!

What you will need:

225g Self raising flour

50g cold butter

Pinch of salt

120ml Milk

100g Chocolate Chips

Round tin

1. To begin with get the boring stuff out of the way, pre heat your oven to 220 degrees and line or grease your tin.

2. Measure out the flour and salt and place into the mixing bowl followed by the butter.

3. Now this is where things start to get messy, Rub together the butter and flour using your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

4. Add the milk to the mixture and stir everything together. Once everything is mixed add in the chocolate chips and knead the dough in the bowl folding in the chocolate chips.

(It will look like a lot of Chocolate chips for scones but believe me its worth it they are yum!)

5. Place the dough straight into the round tin, spread it out slightly and pop it into the oven for 12-15mins and then done!!

Enjoy baking!! 

Leave a comment if you try these, I would love to know!

High Street Vintage

Do you love Vintage clothes, but hate some of the prices?

Well visit your local Sainsburys and then your in luck, for some inspired vintage pieces.

(I tried to write that like an old advert)

I love 40/50/60s - Everything from the Music to the homeware, but something I love the most is the clothes. Whilst with my mum shopping in Sainsburys a while back I noticed a lot of dresses and skirts all inspired by the 40's and 50's- The style, cut and prints. Now Sainsburys isn't somewhere everyone would look for clothes and especially someone my age, but Sainsburys have some great pieces- Especially if you, like me like vintage.

These are two of my favourite things I have picked up from Sainsburys. The white skirt is a perfect summer piece with the light fabrics and lovely floral pattern - I picked this up in one of there half price sales fro £9. Another favourite is this black dress covered in yellow and orange parrots, again light fabric perfect for summer but also transitional into autumn and winter - This again was picked  up in one of there half price sales but I cant remember the price. Both skirts on these come just above the knee and perfect for creating a circle when you spin around - key....
Neither of these two things are still available as far as I am aware but Sainsburys do some nice dresses with a 40's and 50's feel - I have my eye on a navy spotty tea dress.

1940 and 50's are two of my favourite eras for clothes and hair, and I love looking at original vintage pieces of clothes until I see some of the prices. I think really, with vintage clothes shopping you have to go to the right places to get the bargains, some places throw any old price on things just because of the era its from.

I like to scroll through Pinterest as well as Instagram all the time to gain vintage outfit inspiration. To then create something which is inspired by the images I have found. Both outfits above are inspired by 50's and the other call the midwife (so still 50's), Yellow floral dress I picked up in Next a while ago, I dressed this up with vintage inspired accessories as well as some vintage hair. Whilst I posed with the Tardis at Chatham Dockyards I wore some dark black and purple tartan trousers (Primark) and a white knit jumper (charity shop), Inspired by an outfit Jenny Lee wore in Call the Midwife.

I am always looking out for some vintage inspired pieces in high street shops as well as charity shops that are inexpensive - Sainsburys is the best in my opinion for inspired pieces.

Know anywhere to get some affordable vintage pieces?
Leave places in the comments.

Gingerbread Cupcakes

Decided to make some more cupcakes didnt I!
Yes, Yes I did! I think they are some of the yummiest and some of my favourite cupcakes I have made. Now gingerbread anything usually appears on YouTube and blogs in late November and throughout December not mid September. I was a typical British rainy day when I made these and it felt very autumnal, I felt gingerbread cupcakes would be fitting in some way.

What you will need:

The Cakes:
120g butter (room temperature)
100g light or dark brown sugar
1 egg
120ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
165g self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tea spoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Butter Icing:
110g Icing sugar
70g butter
Vanilla essence
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tea spoon ground ginger
mini gingerbread men

To begin with you want to line the cupcake tin and pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees.

1. In a bowl you want to add all of the dry ingredients; Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Mix all together and put aside for now.

2. In a separate bowl add the brown sugar and butter and mix together until smooth and creamy, using either a wooden spoon or a fancy mixer.

3. Next crack in the eggs and add the vanilla essence to the butter and sugar and mix away.

4. Grab the bowl of dry ingredients and start to add slowly to the ingredients and fold everything together. Once everything is mixed add the mixture evenly to the cases and pop into the oven for 10-15mins.

Icing:

Flavoured icing like this is something I have never done before so it was going to be all trial and error using spice. Even though the cakes contain some spice, having spice in the icing doesn't make it to spicey so dont worry about that.
To begin with you want to add the butter into the bow and mix it on its own for a bit before slowly adding the icing sugar. Along with the vanilla essence add in the cinnamon and ginger, I found when I was making these I couldn't taste the cinnamon at first, so dont over add it.
Once the cakes are completely cool pipe on the icing, Leave the cakes a while so the icing can set, once the icing is completely set you can taste spice in the icing.
Don't forget to add your little gingerbread men on top and if you want add some edible glitter.

These are some of my favourite cupcakes I have made, so enjoy making them!

Vintage Hair || Mini Victory Roll

 A vintage hair post is something I have wanted to do for a long time, I just never manage to get the photos to work how I want. My camera decided to cooperate with me the other day to do this post.

I'm always watching videos on Vintage Hair and how to do it on YouTube by watching 'Cherry dollface' videos. How to do Victory Rolls is one video I have watched a fair amount and my hair just wont cooperate with this style so I have given up now trying to get them to work. 

Instead I have managed a mini victory roll and I wanted to share how to do it in today's post.

(sorry about the background..)

What you will need:

- Straightener or curling iron

- Styling clips

- Hair grips/ bobby pins

-comb

- back combing brush

-Hairspray

I'm going to begin with saying, I am not the greatest when it comes to explaining things but I'm going to try.

1. To start with you want to section a part of your hair, I go from the top of my ear and straight up. Once you have sectioned this part of your hair, tie or clip back other parts of your hair out the way.

2. Start to curl, I curl up and away from the face. When you are doing this you want to try and part the hair into 3/4 sections. After you have curled a piece roll it back upon its self to create a pin curl and clip it down by using a styling clip.

3. Leave the hair until it is completely cool before you take it out and try and style it.

4. Once the hair is cooled using the comb back comb the hair at the roots, after you have done this lightly brush all three sections together (You dont want to put it up and the hair separates back to sections and try not to brush the back combing out).

5. Use a bit of hair spray on the front of the hair, using the backcombing brush very lightly smooth over the hair so there is no fly away's.

6. Take all the hair up and using the curl of the hair roll it back down and secure onto your head using bobby pins. This does involve alot of trial and error, and points when you want to give up completely, I do this almost every other day and I sill mess up at times.
When securing the roll make sure you try and hide the clips, sometimes it can be hard (especially when the hair your using can be different lengths or its thick) The more backcombing the more it holds.

Finally the hairspray again.

If you want to know how to produce proper victory rolls I recommend looking on YouTube.
I hope you enjoyed this slightly different post, If I can achieve anything else I may do more like this.

Lush || Frozen bath bomb

I had another little pop into Lush didnt I! 

Well my local Lush got some new products in and I had to go and have a look at what they had. I have noticed recently at Lush that everywhere seems to be getting select things in from the original 'Oxford Street exclusive' collection. 

So I finally got my hands on the 'Frozen' bath bomb, this was something I had read about online and wanted to get when I visited the oxford street lush, but left without it.

'Do you want to have a bath bomb? Do you want to splash and play?

Enjoy the most magical soak in the kingdom with this shimmering blue bath bomb, which spills out rolling snow drifts of silver luster. Uplifting neroli from Tunisia and precious rose oil from Turkey are sure to spread a little sunshine and melt the iciest of moods. If your day's felt like a series of doors in your face, this shiny, sky blue bomb filled with sparkle provides the perfect fairy tale ending. Step in, take a deep breath and let it go.'

( LOVE all the frozen puns in the description of this)

Even though I had read a fair amount on the Oxford Street exclusive products and this bath bomb, I still didnt know exactly what to expect. I was expecting quite a light minty scent for the theme of Frozen.  It is a two toned blue bath bomb with a lovely floral scent, which is full of glitter and turns the blue bright blue. It is a new lush favorite of mine and will definitely be repurchasing the bath bomb.

Lush || MMMelting Marshmallow Moment

'Run yourself the perfect temperature bath, get in and gently launch this soft marshmallow pillow across the water and watch it bob and foam away.'

When going to the Lush in Manchester this was right at the top of my list to get (even though you can get it in my local Lush). When I visited the Oxford Street Lush I noticed they sold bath oils so I picked up the 'Melting marshmallow moment' (Which was heavenly), I had no idea they had a bath melt with the exact same scent.

This is nothing special- Design wise, Just a light pink dome smelling of sweets. When I used the bath oil this turned the water pink and made the water super soft, same goes with this. It makes the bath water creamy and pink and a sweet scent that lasts the whole bath, which also leaves your skin feeling soft and smelling sweet. If you love the sweet scents from Lush like Snow Fairy for example this is a perfect scent for you- Highly Recommend.

Lush || Rose Jam Bubbleroon

 While in Manchester I couldn’t resist popping into Lush (you can’t walk past and not go inside). I had one thing on the top of my list to get which will be in a following post, but I wasn’t expecting to find this.

I have noticed a lot of Lush shops seem to be stocking some of the Oxford Street exclusive products (for example my local Lush is getting in the Intergalactic bath bomb and more). Whilst looking around I came across the ‘Rose Jam Bubbleroon’ - an Oxford Street exclusive, which I had to try.

‘Crumble under a running hot tap, to create lots of bubbles and soft creamy water’.

The bath bomb its self is bright pink with flecks of glitter on top, with a light pink ‘Jam’ in the centre- Which must be the thing that makes the bath water so soft. When I used this I found it impossibly hard to crumble under the water and impossible to even break, so I had to stand with it under the water for ages. Once it started to crumble it began to turn the bath water bright pink with LOTS of bubbles!  

I hope this is something my local lush will get in because I love it.

Lush- Rose Jam Bubbleroon- £3.75

Call the Midwife Location Tours

It wasnt long before my 20th Birthday last year I mentioned to my mum about going to the Call the Midwife Location tour for my birthday. On Friday (19th June) I turned 21, I was given an envelope my dad had quite clearly made with a picture of Miranda Hart (as Chummy) on the front. Inside was an email saying there was 2 tickets booked for me and my mum to go on the CTM tour.

Call the Midwife is one of my favourite shows, which is why I really wanted to come to this and see where they shoot the show and how they dress it up to look like 1950's Poplar. When you arrive and collected your tickets you are greeted by your own 'Midwife', which I loved the idea of- Keeping it in with the show. Each of the tour guides/ Midwifes has there own different style of showing you around and telling you different things, Our guide was so nice and friendly but...she got two or three things wrong which did annoy me a little...but then again we all make mistakes.

This isn't real! This building is featured alot in Call the Midwife, the doorway and the sign is completely fake. Talking about fake doorways, On the image below to make it look more like homes/flats they add in a lot of fake doors (the side with the light on).

During the filming of the last episode of series 3, Children are seen drawing on the wall just as Jenny leaves a mother's home after a difficult birth. The workers in the Ropery over in the next building come and draw over the drawings every time they get washed away by the rain.

Fan of Call the Midwife? Recognise the building in the image below? Yeah they dont show you this on the tour! They take you up to a tunnel and then this is right at the other end, as well as another building which is featured a heck of a lot.

The most recognisable street from Call the Midwife! 

If you are a fan of Call the Midwife I recommend going on the tour of Dock yard, you learn so much about how they dress the buildings up and how they use different parts of the dockyard for the show. I really want to go back!