Christmas Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

End of Blogmas

I did it!!!! I did 25 days of continuous posts and it has to be said I NEVER thought this was going to happen! I think that doing blogmas has taught me the importance of planning (I now religious use my laptop calendar which is colour coded within an inch of it's life) and that getting on top of things will really make life easier. Although towards the end I got a little bit behind and was sometimes cutting it a bit fine for most of the time I was organised well in advance. Hopefully this will transfer into my uni work and I can be on top of that as I was with this (for the most part!). Tomorrow will be the final instalment and will just be a little Merry Christmas message so I hope that you've enjoyed reading these posts as much as I've enjoyed writing them and I will see you whenever (not decided when my next post will be, I'm still not that organised).

Year Review!

It's getting to that time of year where we are saying a loving goodbye to 2014 and a nervous hello to the year ahead. It's been a really great year and I thought it might be nice to look back over some of my favourite memories the last 12 months (a bit like a best bits), here we go!

First night out of 2014!

Birthday fun!

More birthday fun!

Getting into the swing of dressing up

Making the most of halls

Goodbye first year!

Tour de France comes closer to home

Cruising!

New place!

Miley and a wolf, winning combo

So much food!

Festive spirit!

Pre Christmas Purchases

I know, I know, it's less than a week before christmas you shouldn't be buying things, but I swear these are essentials!!!! I was desperately in need of more Garnier Micellor water and it's my favourite thing to take off my face at the end of the day. Also how could I say no to a third off. The same with the powder, mine broke about a month ago so I've been dealing with powder shards. Unfortunately they didn't have nay in transparent to I'm testing it in the shade 002 pink blossom so fingers crossed it looks ok. I've had my eye on the Revlon colour stay concealer ever since I heard it's a bit of a dupe for the mac pro longwear concealer, which I'm going through a bit too quickly at the minute, so this will be my everyday version. As for the Maybelline colour drama in minimalist...oopsie?!?

Kind Of Christmas Biscuits

I'm a big lover of festive biscuits like gingerbread and things full of spice but sometimes it can all get a bit too much. Me and my family love these biscuits, so much so I went to get one of these out of the tin today and they were all gone. Upsetting. They are super delicious and pretty much impossible to get wrong. You've got to love Mary Berry, she's the best!

Ingredients:

• 75g semolina or ground rice
• 140g plain flour
• 75g light muscovado sugar 
• 75g cocoa powder
• 175g butter
• 100g chocolate chips

Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and rub in the cubes of butter with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Work the dough together, it takes a lot of working, by warming it up and compacting it together.

Roll it out on a floured surface to 5mm thick and use a cutter (I went with christmas trees for the festive season) to cut them out, pretty obvious.

Put the biscuits on greaseproof paper on a tray and put into the oven on a 160c (fan) heat for 20-25 minutes.

Take out and leave to cool for a few minutes then transfer to a cool rack, wait a little bit and then enjoy! I am in love with these biscuits!

Wintery Browns

At this cold and wintery time I'm taking full advantage of wearing dark colours on my eyes and not being looked at as some depressing saddo! In this look I used one eyes shadow stick, one! I'm the kind of person that normally uses 103 eyes shadows all different shades of the same colour for no reason other than the fact that I enjoy blending. I used the Rimmel scandal eyes eye shadow stick in bootleg brown and just applied it with the stick and then blended like mad with my mac 217. It took me FOREVER to blend it out but I think it's because I wasn't quick enough, silly me. I think that it turned out well and with my new Maybelline colour elixir in caramel infused it was a very warm and wintery face.

Favourite Friday: Christmas

For my final favourite Friday before christmas it only seems fair to make it my favourite. I love everything about christmas, the food, the films, the lights.....it's all too much! Winter is my favourite time of year and this is probably why. Christmas brings everybody together and it's such a nice time, if you don't like christmas you're just weird! Not long to go now until the big day and I'm so excited!

My Wish List

I never normally have much of a christmas list but this year to make it easier for my mum I went through the catalogues and jotted them down. Here's my list!

• Urban Decay Vice 3 palette
• Mac gold and beige pigments
• A baby Sven (from Frozen)
• Pointless Quiz Book

It's not a very extensive list but it's a start! Merry christmas!

Glittery Nails

Ever year at christmas time I get my finger and toe nails done so that they're super sparkly and really festive. I have Minx on my toes and Shellac on my fingers. This year on my toes I had an aztec pattern which is more summery than wintery but they look really good. On my fingernails I had a light gold glitter which looks silver in some lights on all of my nails and then a sprinkling of brown on my ring fingers. They look really good and have got me into the festive spirit!

Wintery Flavours

I love winter and I especially love winter food! I think it's the fact that its warming and comforting and the 'heavy' flavours come out that have been locked away for the past few months. Soups also come back into play which is great because sometimes there's nothing better than snuggling up with a tasty soup and crusty bread when it's freezing outside. My favourite flavour of soup in the winter time is butternut squash, especially when it's creamy. Last week I went for a meal at a Chef and brewer and I had what I think is a typical wintery meal. For main I had duck with a black cherry sauce, dauphinoise potatoes and savoy cabbage. The sauce made the meal taste really nice and warming and i'm a big fan of cabbage as a little accompaniment as I like the crunch. For dessert I had hazelnut profiteroles and they were delicious. Not too sickly and not too sweet, hazelnut is one of those flavours that is warming and a definite contrast to fruity summer flavours.

Festive Films

It would be a crime to go throughout the christmas period without sitting down and laughing along to a festive film or seven. So far I've watched just one, Love Actually, but it's getting to the point where I'm craving a christmas sing song. Last year I watched Arthur Christmas for the first time and I'm getting a definite craving to watch it again. There was just too much cuteness factor! It has to be said that I am a fan of Elf but it will never be up there as one of my faves (soz) but Nativity is a whole different story. This is my favourite christmas film ever, always will be. I know all the words to all the songs and I think it's really underrated in the world of christmas films so this is my campaign to get it on the map. Not just the first one but the second one as well they are both amazing! So if you've got nothing to do today, watch it, for me. Sparkle and shine!

Christmas Jumpers

I am in love with christmas jumpers! As soon as it gets a little bit chilly (and around mid November) I'm wearing them in full force for all the world to see. I have a few different kinds, the 'it's too early to go all out so I'll wear this one with wintery animals on', the 'this is a reindeer but you can't really tell' and the 'grab your hats and antlers it's time to party!'. For me christmas jumpers make the festive season and take it back to being cheesy and silly instead of being serious, like a good christmas film!

My favourite jumpers are the most festive ones that I own. Two years ago I had no kind of festive jumpers so I went on a hunt to get the cutest one I could find. The problem was I couldn't find any, not one, gutted. But (sound trumpet fanfare) my mum had managed to find one in Primark, I obviously wasn't looking well enough, and my collection of jumpers began! This jumper is the red reindeer one you can see at the top. It's so snuggly and I wear it all the time. It's not overly warm but will still keep you cosy when the snow closes in. The latest edition to my jumper family, also from Primark is this pink squirrel one. It. Is. So. Cute. I am in love with this jumper. It's thicker than the other one so it's for super cold days but I love how random it is with a squirrel instead of the conventional festive creatures. I doubt that this will be the end of my festive jumper purchases, hehehe.

Festive Fragrances

There's nothing better at Christmas time to cuddle up with a blanket next to the twinkling tree lights and have festive scents fill the air. Whether it's a candle, perfume or just the smell of cooking from the kitchen, christmas is all around. Recently my mum and dad went on a Yankee Candle spree and one of the ones that they bought was called icicles. When lit it fills the whole room with the scent of christmas trees. I love it it's a beautiful smell. At uni I have an air wick reed diffuser that smells like mulled wine and it is one of the most beautiful scents ever. It lasts for 4 weeks and gives a constant flow of festive fragrance, love it. One of the best smells ever at christmas time is the scent of festive baking. Gingerbread and mince pie smells that fill the whole house are just amazing and I think are my favourite smells at christmas time. I can't wait to make them both so I can fill my nose full of festive goodness!

Favourite Friday: Silver Eyes

To get into the wintery mood I've been experimenting with cooler tones on my eyes, and you can't get much cooler than silver. I like the way that it's festive without completely overdoing the reds and golds. I still need to find the perfect lip colour to go with it and I apologise for my nails in these photos (oopsie should have pre planned) but I really like the eyes so we're just going to have to deal with it.

After I'd done my usual foundation/face thang, I used the Maybelline colour tattoo in Immortal Charcoal as a base by putting it on lightly with my fingers and did a lot of blending with my Mac 217 brush. I then used the silver in shade in my Virgin Vie palette (bottom row, second from the left) on the inner corners up to the centre of the lid. I packed it on so that it was really light and shimmery. I then used the light silver shade in my MUA Dawn til Dusk palette on the rest of the lid and blended it slightly into the crease. Softly I then put the darker matte grey shade from the Virgin Vie palette (one above the lighter grey shade) and really blended it out so that instead of making a defined crease it faded out. To finish it off I put a very thin eyeliner line using the L'Oreal Super Liner, lined my waterline and tightline with the Rimmel Kohl eyeliner in black and piled on the Clinique High Volume mascara onto my lashes. On my lips I dabbed on Mac Shy Girl but I think that a cool toned deep purple would look better and more festive.

Festive Furries

As you'll have seen if you saw yesterday's christmas tree post, I like teddies and furry creatures... a lot. During the festive period this 'like' gets heightened by about 10,000 with all of the santa and reindeers and snowmen and ahhhhh! It all gets a bit too much! I thought that I'd share some more photos from those bears who may only come out for one month of the year but who are still super cute!

The Big Christmas Tree Reveal!

It's finally, for me, the official start of the festive season, time to put up the tree! Or if you live in my house, trees. We have two trees, one for the lounge and one for the kitchen and they are both completely different, seriously different. The lounge tree is the more serious of the two with a strict blue, silver and white theme. I'd say that this was your standard christmas tree with the glittery baubles and the odd snowflake. I like the lights on this tree as when we're watching telly it makes it all cosy and wintery and cute! Then there's the my favourite tree, the teddy tree. Every year we buy a real tree and cover it with bears. It's so cute but we need to stop buying bears because we're running out of space! Now that they're up it's really starting to feel like Christmas, hooray!

Bills! (Take two)

Bills take two and it was just as good as the first. It was a very impromptu visit which meant I chose something on the menu that I wouldn't normally go for. For my main I chose the starter of crispy duck salad. I NEVER go for salads, but the apple sold it to me because I really fancied something fresh. It was really tasty and duck was full of flavour. The mixture of lettuce, rocket and apple went really nicely together and it didn't taste like a normal boring salad. I also had a sneaky side of sweet potato fries which were delicious! They were crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and full of a sweet sticky flavour.

For dessert I had the pecan pie with malted banana ice cream and it was beautiful! The pie was sweet with a soft inside and thin pastry. Perfect combo! The pecans were nice and sweet and the ice cream was out of this world. The mixture of the pie and the ice cream were perfect and it's definitely one that I will have again.