Favourite Friday: Festive Eyes

Just after Christmas last year I gave myself a little treat in the form of the Naked 3 palette. I was so excited when it came and for the first few months I got a lot of wear out of it. Then as the summer came and the oranges and browns were calling my name, the once loved rosy palette was left at the back of a drawer. But, after a half year break it's coming back out to play! The cranberry tones of winter are perfectly suited to these colours and paired with some other products, the perfect festive eye is super simple!

As a base for the shadows I like to use the Maybelline colour tattoos in the shades metallic pomegranate and rose gold. When I want a darker eye look I use metallic pomegranate and then the second half of the Naked 3 palette all over the lid, but when I want something a little lighter I use rose gold and the first half of the palette on the lid and then one of the darker colours through the crease. To make it more cranberry in colour I use a little bit of the L'Oreal infallible eye shadow in the shade escape to Bordeaux through the crease. 

In this look I went for something a little bit lighter so I started with the colour tattoo in rose gold and then put strange on the inner part of the lid and then dust on top. I then used trick on the outer part of the lid and nooner through the crease. To darken up the crease a little more I put factory into the outer part of the crease. Finishing off with some brown eyeliner in the waterline and mascara and you're good to go!

Blogmas!

To get me into the Christmas spirit, and to challenge my organisation skills, I've decided to do Blogmas. If you don't know what that is it's where you write a post about a festive topic every day in December during the run up to Christmas. It can be anything from your personal crimbo wish list to festive food! Although I will be blogging everyday up until Christmas, there'll be a mixture of festive posts and just ones of the kind of posts I normally do, that way I won't overdo it on the festive side. Things that you'll be expecting in the next week will vary from my letter to santa, a gift guide and the start of the festive food season so it's very exciting!

The Market is in Town

Holiday's are coming and it's time for the market to come to town. I never realised before university that nearly every city had a Christmas market because unfortunately, Halifax hasn't clocked on to their existence yet! Apparently the Nottingham Christmas market is modelled after the original market square where it's held, bit of historical knowledge there! There are so many cute little stalls selling everything from furry headbands to goose fat roast potatoes (which I'm definitely getting because they were so yummy last year!). There's also a helter-skelter, a carousel and an ice rink so there's plenty to do! Every time I walk through it when I'm in town I really get into the festive mood! Not long now til the big day!

Fat Cats! (take two)

Change in the schedule!

I just couldn't stay away for longer than a couple of weeks before going back to the restaurant where dreams are made, well that's slightly over dramatic. I thought that although I really liked what I had last time I went, to have more to talk about in this post it would make sense to try something new!

For my main I had the Fat Cat Burger with curly fries. The burger was a standard beef burger with a cheese, bacon, onion and mushroom sauce on the top. I really liked this dish but I don't think it was as good as the pork I had last time. The burger itself was tasty but it was a touch on the dry side, however paired with the sauce and the sweet bun moistened it up. I felt that the burger need more sauce on it though because there was only a little bit on top of the burger inside the bun. Overall it's not my favourite dish in the world but it was quite nice and the flavours were very good.

As you can see from the picture I couldn't part with my amazing friend mr cheesecake. This time the flavour was the same but the berries that were on top last time were actually inside the cheesecake. It made a nice change but I preferred the plain cheesecake because I'm not the biggest fan of berries like that inside things (I know, bit weird). It was still as good as ever!

Favourite Friday: Bed

This week has been a week of early nights, well my version of an early night anyway! After my late Sunday night antics (watching multiple episodes of Sherlock until the early hours probably isn't the best idea) I thought it would be a good idea to go to sleep at a normal hour, which for me is 11ish so not that early. I'm trying to get into the habit of going up to my bedroom at around 10 so then I'll be actually in my cosy den of a bed at a reasonable time. Then I'll put on a TV programme that I watched so much that I could probably recite it, recently that's been Last Tango in Halifax. I have to listen to something when I'm falling to sleep, probably because it takes my mind off my weird night time thoughts.

It's not just sleeping that I like about my bed. You know on a weekend when you have a nice lie in and then when you wake up you don't leave your bed for ages because you decide to watch a random film. I love that I just think it's so cosy! I'm writing this now thinking that tomorrow morning when I wake up I'm going to do that but I have no idea what I'm going to watch, maybe Peter pan...hmm.

Bit of a random thing to be really enjoying but the amount of times this week I've thought "I just want to get in bed, give it to me" is ridiculous so I thought I might as well share. Who doesn't love sleeping (other than productive people)?!?!

The Christmas Tag

What, something that's not a list?!? No! I thought that I'd do something a little bit different today and as it's coming (kind of) up to Christmas what's better than answering festive questions?!? Let's get to it:

What is your favourite Christmas movie(s)?
Nativity, without a doubt. At the minute I'm waiting for it to be socially acceptable to crack it out and sing along, yes I do know all the words. I think that this film is so underrated and people don't normally think of it when saying their go to christmas film, going for Elf or the miracle one that I've never seen. So, I'm here to spread the Nativity word, sparkle and shine!

Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning?
Definitely the morning, I've never even thought about opening them the night before. We all wake up, go downstairs and take it in turns to open a present each, it prolongs the festiveness! Anyway how do you open presents the night before Santa brings them to your house!

Do you have a favourite Christmas memory?
One that stands out to me was when we were putting up the tree one year, it must have been about ten years ago, and two of our friends had come round to help. In our family me, my brother and my cousins all have baubles from disney with our names on, three of us have wooden ones and my brother, who is the youngest, had a nice glass one. My mum came in, gave my brother his bauble to put on the tree for the first time ever and said "Make sure you don't drop it". Out of the room she goes and as if on cue he drops the bauble on our laminated floor. Safe to say it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. Merry Christmas!

Favourite festive food?
Hands down mince pies. Me and my dad have perfected the perfect pastry, it's so flaky and delicious that they are definitely my favourites to eat at this time of the year.

Favourite Christmas Gift?
There's so many to choose from. I've cried on many separate occasions when opening the paper. Two stand out to me, a fluffy stuffed dog and X factor tour tickets. The dog, who was called Kylie, made it in because I remember opening the present seeing the furry little thing and sobbing. Sad child. The X factor tour tickets were from the year Joe McElderry won but the reason I was so excited was because  I would practically be in the same room as Lloyd Daniels, my future husband, *face palm*.

Favourite Christmas Scent?
In my uni bedroom at the minute I have an air wick reed diffuser which is in the scent mulled wine and crackling fire. Every time I walk into my room the smell just sums up Christmas for me. Nice and warm and spicy.

Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions?
Every Christmas Eve me, my brother, mum and dad read Kipper's Christmas Eve, taking it in turns to read a page. A bit of a weird tradition but it always happens and it's something to look forward to before the next day.

What tops your tree?
A little bear with a halo on. It's too cute and i like that it's a little bit different.

As a kid what was the one gift that you always asked for but never received?
Sylvanian families springs to mind, you know the little furry animal figures that lived the life of luxury in hotels and canal boats. I always wanted them but I never got them, no idea why but I think that my mum secretly wishes now that she had bought them for me.  

What's the best part about Christmas for you?
The Christmas meal preparations are my favourite part because we start so far in advance. Every year we have nine courses so the prep starts now, and I mean now. This year we've already made the soup and the starter and the menu has been finalised so we're well on our way to a great Christmas!

La Cachette!

As a welcome home celebration, and because my dad and brother had gone out for a curry, me and my mum decided to go out for a nice tea. As I work in a restaurant down the road, and the food is always amazing we went there! 

For starter I had the salmon fishcake mashed potato and a mint pea veloute and there was only one word to describe this; amazing! It was the perfect size and was packed with flavour it was so tasty. The inside of the fishcake had salmon and I think it had a mixture of a few different fishes in and was really creamy but crispy on the outside. I think my favourite part of the dish was the mint pea veloute as it was different to anything I've had before. It had a pea like taste at the start but there was a hint of mint that gave the dish a fresh flavour. I really enjoyed it.

For my main meal I had haddock with spinach, sliced potatoes, mushroom duxelle and celeriac veloute with truffle oil. This. Was. Insane. The haddock was perfectly cooked and I cannot describe how good the potatoes were, the were amazing. Although it sounds like a strange combination the mushrooms and celeriac went really well together and there was the perfect amount of sauce. I think I'm in love.

And for the finale it was time for the STP (sticky toffee pudding). I go to this restaurant a lot, clearly because it's where I work and it's ridiculously close to my house, but I never have this as a dessert so iI thought that it was about time to give it a go. It was gorgeous. It came with butterscotch sauce which was insanely creamy and the ice cream was creamy too, ahhhhh. The actual pudding was full of toffee flavours and I enjoyed every bite.

John Lewis Tears

We're back at this time of year again where the buzz of Christmas is in the air and everything in the shops are either red, silver or gold. Hooray! But there is also one thing that happens at this time of the year that I don't look forward to...the John Lewis advert. It's not that I don't like them, once I get into it I could be one of the people to watch it at least once a day, it's just the initial watch. I don't think that I'm that much of an emotional person except when it comes to animals or anything remotely cute looking. It's a huge weakness and you can probably tell where I'm going with this.

The first time that I remember thinking 'so this is the famous John Lewis advert' was the year before last when it was the one with the snowmen. So cute but I never properly saw the whole version, I only ever saw the cut down version that they show between programmes on the telly. However when I did watch it I thought that it was a bit sad for a Christmas advert and the snow drama was just a bit much, but no tears were shed.

It was 2013 that got to me. I was sat in the kitchen with my flatmates doing work (I don't know why we were doing work so intensely on a Saturday in November but just roll with it) and one of my other flatmates and her mum came in. I don't know how it came up but we started talking about the new John Lewis advert and we decided to watch it there and then on my laptop because none of us had seen it. From the get go I thought 'oh no, it's all too much'. The sad slow music and the animated woodland creatures were a recipe for disaster. As we got further into the advert when, SPOILER ALERT, the bear leaves the party to go and hibernate and his rabbit friend looked sad I could feel the tears building up in my eyes. As soon as that bear came over the hill and it showed the joy in the rabbits face I couldn't take it anymore. I wept. Not just a few tears, it was a full on sob. In front of everyone, including an actual adult. Even now though, running the advert in my mind gets me a little bit emotional.

This year wasn't as bad but I didn't make the fatal mistake of watching it with company. As I sat on my bed watching trying not to cry I was actually enjoying the penguins antics. Cute! It was when I reached the end that I cracked. The cuteness of penguin love mixed with imaginary toy penguin reality was too much. I was gone.

If you haven't watched this years advert yet I would definitely recommend it and if you have a bit of an emotional breakdown don't worry, I won't judge.

Favourite Friday: Travelling Light

When I say travelling light I mean weight not an actual flashing light thing (I just read back the title and realised that it could get misunderstood). This time last week I'd just come home for a little weekend away which was super cute and really nice. Anyway. I thought that this would be a good chance to see how much I can condense my makeup bag. Challenge!

Let's start with face. I know that it looks like a lot of products but for me these are the essentials, I think I have a problem. I start with the mini benefit porefessional primer, which I'm still unsure how i feel about it, the use the Sephora 47 brush to blend over my beautiful face. If my bags are particularly bad I'll use the Seventeen phwoarr paint then go in with the Mac pro long wear concealer to cover up pretty much all of my face! Then I powder it up using the Rimmel Stay Matte powder and a brush I once got free in a kit. After I've done my eyes I bronze my face with the Boujouis chocolate bronzer and add a bit of colour with the Benefit Dandelion blush.

Eyes eyes eyes! I took my Sleek eyebrow pencil back with me as I could choose if I wanted light brows or heavier ones. Setting these with the Maybelline Brow drama I 'prime' my eyes with the Maybelline colour tattoo in Rose Gold and go straight in with probably the best palette ever (Too Faced natural eyes). In the pictures I used the colours in the top row, heaven on the lid, cashmere bunny through the crease and sexpresso on the outer corners. I quickly lined my eyes with the L'oreal super liner, put some Rimmel brown eyeliner on my waterline and applied the Seventeen backlash and Clinique high impact mascara on my lashes. I should also mention that to highlight my face on the tops of my cheekbones I use the Maybelline eyeshadow in naked beige.

For lips I took three options; Mac shy girl, Kiko 902 and Rimmel Heather Shimmer. In the photos below I'm wearing Heather shimmer lightly patted on and the blended out. I think that I took a pretty successful makeup pack. Just the right amount that I used everything and I never thought "I forgot to bring such and such". Challenge won! The sense of achievement is unreal.

Forgotten Happenings List

As last week was Bonfire night it got me thinking about how we celebrate historical events by doing certain things but most of the time we forget about what the event was in the first place. There I am, merrily enjoying the well crafted firework display, without a care in the world not thinking at all what happened hundreds of years ago to cause it. Here's a list of some of the events that I celebrate but that I had completely forgotten existed until I really thought about it.

Guy Faulkes- Let's start with the most recent to have passed us by, Bonfire night. I can understand the link between the bangs of the fireworks and the near explosions of the Houses of Parliament but it never crosses my mind when I'm there, sparkler in hand, watching the sky light up in a rainbow of colours.

Christmas- It doesn't matter if you're religious or not, Christmas began after someone said that 'the son of God' (AKA Jesus) was born. Yet this seems to get lost more and more, year on year, and always seems to revolve around presents. Not to sound like a bore but it would be nice if we could celebrate the whole point of CHRISTmas every once in a while...as well as the food and presents.

Easter- Another religious one but the point of this has been totally lost, totally. It wouldn't surprise me if someone told me that they don't even teach the Easter story in primary schools anymore. I'm not a big fan of Easter anyway as I never get through the chocolate eggs and end up wanting to vomit for two weeks due to sweet overload!

Fat Cat Cafe!

Source

                                                                                 This. Was. Insane. 

After walking past this place nearly everyday on our walk into town it was time to give it a try! We went at around half 6 on a Tuesday and it was quite busy, but not so much that it was overwhelming. We had to sit ourselves down and get our own menus, which I don't know if it is meant to be like that, but it was fine and we were seen pretty much straight away.

We didn't have starters so we'll go straight onto mains. I had the smokey 3 hour pork and it was amazing! It took a little bit of time for the meal to come but it was a nice leisurely wait. It was two pieces of tender pork belly with a crispy top, a piece of crackling, cubes of black pudding and an array of small roasted vegetables. Everything went really nice together and the portion size was perfect. The flavour of the slightly salty pork and the sweetness of the vegetables was beautiful and spinach added a little extra. If I had one complaint then it would be that it made me quite thirsty but other than that it was absolutely delicious.

For dessert I went for the cheesecake as I thought it wouldn't be too filling and stodgy after the big main meal. I had the option to have it with cream or ice cream and of course I went for cream, it's the best. It was so creamy and soft with a tasty biscuit base and it was just all kinds of good. The portion size was great for the price although I didn't manage to finish it all as I was stuffed! The berries that came on top were nice and sweet and added nicely to the dish. So good! 

The whole meal came to...wait for it...£8.20. I know, insane! I did just drink water so I only paid for food but it's still a stupidly good price! It was only this much because everyday for students it's 50% off food and 20% off drinks. I think this is a sign that I will definitely be returning. 

Center Parcs

Last weekend I visited my family in the Sherwood Forest Center Parcs where they had gone for a little away break. It was super cute with little woodland creatures everywhere and thousands and thousands of trees. The only thing I wasn't so keen on was the bike riding and it has to be said that at the time of writing this I am extremely saddle sore, slight TMI. I thought I'd share a few pictures of the cute little animals as well as the fireworks display that we went to. Enjoy!

Favourite Friday: Mac Pigments

As we are coming into the colder months I'm really getting into wearing purple colours on my eyes to spread the festivities and recently I've been cracking out some old products that I got as gifts years and years ago. At the minute my favourite purple eye look has been with these crushed metallic pigments by Mac. I got these for Christmas a few years ago now and I love the fact that when they are on the eyes they sparkle and shimmer like it's nobodies business! Love the wet kind of look that they give.

This is 'Dusty Desire' as it's a really deep purple it can look a little matt in some lights but knows when to bring out the sparkle. I like to use this one in the crease when I'm wanting a really dark look but mostly on the outer corners. However I would say that I use this one the least as it can sometimes be a little daunting and dark when I'm not really feeling that adventurous.

This is probably my favourite of all the pigments and it's called 'Prettified'. I like this one the most as it still has the little hints of purple sparkle but it is such a gorgeous copper colour and looks so good when on the lids. I use this both on the lid and in the crease depending on how intense I want to be with my eyes.

This unusual eyeshadow colour is called 'Femininity' and is the little surprise of the four pigments. In the pot it looks like a hot pink/purple, and it is, but in some light something magic happens...it turns blue. I just love the way it looks and the fact that it makes your eyes pop and stand out with the fact that IT'S A COLOUR CHANGING EYESHADOW! Insane.

And last but not least this is 'Maribu'. Depending on the different lights this can look like a very light lilac or a bright white with a pinky hue. I like to use this one in the inner corners as it really brightens the eye and when I put it all over my lid it can sometimes look a bit too bright and reflective.

From right to left: Dusty Desire, Prettified, Maribu, Femininity