London London London

Just after Christmas, me and my mum went on a little trip to London, which was cold and busy but still an amazing trip. I love London so much and honestly wish I could have stayed longer than the three days we did! The city is amazing, busy, but amazing! It's got some of the nicest architecture I've ever seen, possibly THE best shopping in the world and some pretty awesome places to eat.

I could write absolute tonnes about my trip(and I quite possibly might) but I want to try and keep writing to a minimum, as not to bore anyone, and share some of my pictures which I took whilst in London. Some I'm very happy with, and some I'm not happy with, but of course to save your eyes from my extremely poor photography I'll only share half decent pictures with you all(I feel all I do recently is share photos, rather than really blogging, is that a major cop out or?)

But yeah London was an amazing trip, with me getting to spend time with my mum, do mega amounts of shopping, sightseeing and of course eating. All my favourite things rolled into one, without the warm weather of a foreign country(but you can't have everything, right?)

I love London

bit artsy...

The London Eye's pretty impressive from below

Being a proper tourist

and I will forever know what time it was when I took this picture

The underground system really amazes me

This just made me laugh because it basically sums up the world today; always needing wifi

The trees looked lovely; all bare and wintery

Of course you can't go to London without seeing one of these!

So very prettttty

As I've started to upload images into this post I've realised how many I have! I'm ever so sorry but I want to share some of these with everyone! Ill try and keep them to a minimum!

Canary Warf at night is lovely and pretty 

Winter Wonderland was so festive and lovely, I defiantly recommend it and will without a doubt be going again myself!

Oh and they have FANTASTIC food

Evening sky and winter wonderland wheel

London has some very pretty trees in Hyde Park

Canary Warf and its mini shopping district are very pretty at night

What a big reindeer you have Covent Garden

Merry Christmas!

THE best place in London

Sparklllllllly

So there are my favourite, what feels like a million pictures, of my London trip! I hope you enjoyed and liked these snaps. Sorry for how long this post was though, hahah didn't mean for it to be this long! Thanks for reading or looking or whatever you want to call it, thanks :-)

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou

Christmas beauty presents

I hope everyone had a wonderful wonderful Christmas! I know I had a pretty good Christmas surrounded by family and lots of food. I am extremely excited for new year though; lots of exciting things to look forward to in 2014!

I did notice this year that I got several beauty/bath related presents and I thought, HEY why not write a little blog post about it, because after all that's what this blog is for!

Funnily enough my gifts had sort of a common theme either Soap and Glory or Ted Baker or Lush! All three of my favorites; I suppose I can no longer say I'm difficult to buy for; with anything of those three instantly being my favorite things!

These two lovely Ted Baker sets were given to me by my cousin(top picture) and my Health and Social Care class secret Santa(bottom picture- although I'm sure you'd probably have worked out that was the picture I meant...). The top one is an au de toilette which smells devine! It also came with a body lotion which smells just as nice. The second set is brilliant as its made up of minis, which are perfect for travelling, and who doesn't love minis? It contains the Body spray, Body wash, Bath foam and Body soufelle, which I cannot wait to start using(even though I already have used the body spray and body wash which are amazing!)

 

Whilst on the topic of minis I also got this lovely Soap and Glory minis set, which I do not doubt will be travelling with me through out the year(the shower gel already has!) It has all my favourite soap and glory products in but in miniature, which if this year was anything to go by I will need these for travelling in 2014. 

And then as if miniature soap and glory wasn't enough, I was also lucky enough to be given this AMAZING gift set by a close family friend! Safe to say I shall be happy for pretty much the whole year with this collection of my favourite products and of course my favourite smell! I remember receiving this gift set last year as well and I'm still using some of the products now 1 year later, so I'm incredibly happy and excited about this gift!

And last but by no means least is this cute little guy. He's a Baby Frosty from lush which I'm incredibly excited about! He smells absolutely amazing and has been sat in my room, making my whole room smell lovely. I can't wait to use the bath ballistics that are wrapped up inside him; 1- because they smell amazing and 2- I've never used them before, which is always exciting! 

There you go! I do not doubt that in the next few weeks/months I'll be blogging about some of the products in this post, as I'm incredibly excited about them and I am for sure going to put more effort into my blogging in the new year(I've got posts ready to go and ideas ready aswell, wahoo!)

:-)

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou

Christmas time favourites

I haven't really used many different things since my last favourites post. But since it's been Christmas I've had a couple of new favourite items, mainly beauty items, that I've been using a lot more and loving!

I'm not normally a candle person, but after a recent visit to a local garden centre I fell in love with the Christmas Yankee Candles. I am loving the Christmas cookie and Christmas eve ones especially! Even as I sit and write this I have the Christmas cookie one flickering away on the corner of my desk. They really do smell like Christmas and I will not hesitate to buy them or use them again next year! I'll probably leave them out all year because they're delightful, and I don't care if my room smells like Christmas in the middle of June. 

This month has been filled with gatherings and Christmas nights out. For the majority of this month, when the event has allowed, I've been using the MUA lipstick in shade 4. Although its not that long lasting I love the colour and for £1 I really wasn't expecting much from it, which is another reason why I like it so much, its cheap but cheerful. 

Whilst we're on lip care, I've also been loving the EOS lip balm in strawberry sorbet which I got as a present for my birthday. It smells so good, is small enough to pop in a bag and its a pretty good lip balm as its moisturising and doesn't leave your lips too greasy after its soaked in or rubbed off.

Last but not least in my current favourite hair product; the Schwarzkopf leave in Gliss, liquid silk express repair conditioner. In fact this product used to be a favourite of mine when I was younger and had very long and knotty hair. Since I've been growing my hair and its getting longer its started getting a lot knottier and because I'm head sore and hate trying to get a brush through my mangled hair I thought I'd give this another go. And I'm so glad I did! I honestly love this product so much; It makes my hair feel super super soft and makes it shiny and manageable. I can also brush my hair now without making myself cry or giving myself a massive headache. This is reasonably cheap as well, I think I paid about £2.99 for it and it lasts a long time. So I highly recommend this to anyone with knotty or unmanageable hair!

There are my current Christmas time favourites! Thanks for reading and I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and New Year!

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou

Christmas decorating

So its been a long long time since I blogged at all, and for that I'm sorry but I've had a few stressful weeks with family issues, college deadlines and Christmas organising. But when I did get chance to sit down and blog my laptop decided that it wasn't going to work which meant I couldn't upload pictures for my posts(which I had pictures for, ahhh!). But HEY its Christmas Eve, I've got my working laptop back and I've got some posts I want to share with you all. Some of them are going to be chrsitmassy themed but I will, hopefully, post them all before all the Christmas spirit has left 2013.

Lets gooo!

Being an only child, and now being 18 Christmas has lost some of its magic(that's not just me being boring, its not really the same anymore, even though it is still VERY exciting) but one of my favourite things is the Christmas decorations. We don't really decorate as much as we used to in our house now because I'm older and our dog just loves knocking things over and trying to eat all the decorations.
I'm still trying to learn how to use my new camera properly and get decent pictures, I thought I'd get a little practise with it over the Christmas period and shot some pictures of the Christmas decorations in our house. Here's just a few pictures of our Christmas decorations; Enjoy!

(and yes that is a cowboy hat on top of the Christmas tree...I had nothing else and have a great imagination...)

Of course the handmade decorations HAVE to be part of the Christmas tree...even if they are about 13 years old...thanks mum!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou

Christmas...HELP

I'm one of those people who LOVE's Christmas shopping but refuses to do it really early. This year my group of friends have decided to do secret Santa as there's 7 of us (Plus I need a few little bits for my mum!)! But this does mean I'm limited on my spending...which for someone who loves Christmas present shopping and going overboard is very difficult. 

I have a few ideas but I'm struggling to make them happen because of prices and things(Everything seems SO expensive when you're on budgets!) So, if anyone knows of anywhere with little gift ideas, either blog posts about them or websites or shops etc. with them on PLEASE let me know!! I'd appreciate it a lot, I just need a little inspiration!

Hope everyone is well!

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou

Just a little life update

As far as life goes the past few weeks have been ridiculously busy! I've had so much going on, so much to do, a hell of a lot of stress and a lot of nerves. I've had a quite a bit of disappointment as well.

I started learning to drive in May and just under 4 weeks ago I took my driving test for the first time. I felt quite nervous going into it but soon relaxed. Then for my examiner to fail me on a roundabout for no apparent reason. So I was pretty gutted about that! However, I've re-booked and am retaking it next week, so fingers crossed! Especially now that I've finally bought a car!! YAAY! After my 18th birthday I had enough money to buy a car, I then came to an agreement about the insurance with my mum so I've been lucky enough to get a car, its the first big big purchase I've ever made and I'm so excited to start driving now!

If any of you have been through the university application you'll know how damn stressful it is! I sent of my UCAS application and received a couple of interviews. The first of which was my second choice university. Safe to say that was a nerve racking day and then a nerve racking wait until I heard back from them. To then find out that I hadn't got a place. Honestly nothing compares to how devastating that is, not a personal rejection from someone, not even being rejected from a job is that devastating. Unless you've been through it you honestly don't understand how bad it makes you feel. But picking yourself up from it, moving on and hoping for the best at another interview is the best thing to do!

If I got the chance to tell 12 year old me something without a doubt the first thing I would tell myself is to always be careful about who you get close to, who you trust and how attached you get to someone. I've recently come to learn that a lot of people just mess you around, drop you when they want and don't put the effort in that you do. Move on and be careful, people can be harsh.

I always feel a lot better after I've blogged.

@HanMcFly
smilingwontkillyou

Name change

I just thought I'd write a little post to apologise for my recent lack of blogging and things. October was super super busy and I'm still low on ideas for posts. I also haven't sat down to do a 'my week in pictures post' for a few weeks which is rubbish of me.

Anyway, I've just changed the name of my blog, not my url or anything just the main name/title. I just fancied a change and though it fit my blog a bit better, seen as I don't really have a general direction or theme, like my last name sort of suggested; that it was all lifestyle and 'diary' type things. I don't know, I like it. It's a little less cheesy than my last one.

Hope everyone is well!

@HanMcFly
smilingwontkillyou

Turning 18

Just over a week ago I turned 18. I spent the day with my family eating, visiting and being a little emotional. I'd spent the Friday night with my closest friends at lazer quest, and then pigging out and drinking a little too much, which was fab!  

I treated my self to a new camera so took a few shots on my birthday and I just wanted to share them with you(I'm still trying to work out how to use its settings and things).

Please excuse the cards...but that is my friends for you :-)

So's here to being another year older!

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou

Current favourites

I enjoyed doing my last favourites post (which is here; My Summer Favourites) so much that I thought HEY, lets do another! This time isn't quite as exciting really and a few of these things I've already spoken about in other posts (oops for always raving about the same things!) But...

My current clothing favourites include my sparkly new Converse All Stars, in Grey with baby pink trims (Which actually look neon in the picture!) from none other than Office (They're Office exclusives) for £40 with student discount. Although they were ridiculously painful the first few times I wore them, they're starting to get easier to wear and I LOVE them; They're so versatile and pretty!

My second clothing favourite is my autumn/winter coat from New Look, which was around £35...I think; I'm rubbish at remembering and finding it on the website! But yeah I really like the colour and the design, I don't think my poor photography really did it any justice. It's practical but is still a lovely coat; I did find that I had to get a size bigger than I normally wear because the sleeves are a little short, but other than that its my new favourite coat!

This past month or so I've actually spent money on make up and girly things like that, which is quite unlike me. I've also been wearing more make up to. I recently re-purchased the Rimmel London Stay Matte powder, which is my current favourite (I tend to alternate between that and my Clinique stay matte powder) as it gives a natural cover and stops me from being too shiny. I also bought MUA's pro-base fixing mist which has become my best friend! It's pretty good to say it was only a fiver! I've also tried the MUA lipsticks recently to, which are also quite good! The nail varnish is an Avon one and other than that I don't know anything else about it, other than its really girly and subtle which is brilliant when you can't really wear bright nail varnish(at least not whilst I'm trying to grow my nails!) like me! 

Finally my last favourite is rather random! I bought a Nintendo GameCube about a year ago and it came with a couple of games. As of a few weeks ago I started playing Finding Nemo and it's become my favourite game ever to play! I'm such a big kid, haha and I thought I'd share my love for this game with you just in case any one reading was a GameCube playing like myself! 

So there we go! My current favourites! I really enjoy doing these type of posts and doing mini reviews! I think I might start doing more reviews and things; what about I do not know! Anyway, thanks for reading!

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou

My week #6

As expected this last week was awful. Nothing seemed to want to go right, there was so much going on and a ridiculous amount of stress! I managed to go a full week without taking a picture of anything interesting (just of coursework and sheets for college, zzzz)

But this week honestly did make me think about who I can turn to and trust the most. For me I would always say family but this week has proved the power very close friends can have on my mood and how I feel about something. I know everyone thinks it but I'm pretty sure my close circle of friends, plus a few other friends are the absolute best in the world! I can genuinely say they always have my back, and I'd honestly always have theirs.

There's something special about the relationship you have with your friends and I don't even think the relationships you have with family even come close to those with friends. I don't know where I'm going with this but I suppose I'm trying to say we take our friends for granted and should just appreciate them a little more, especially during difficult times.

Well that got very sentimental all at once, didn't it? Anyway I hope everyone had a better week than I did and enjoy the fresh new week!

Thanks for reading!

@HanMcFly
smilingwontkillyou

Birthday Celebrations 3

So a few months back, when I'd first started blogging really, I did a little 'Get ready with me' sort of post for a friends birthday(which is here; Birthday Celebrations 2). Since I enjoyed doing that one I thought I'd do another one, and after a close friends recent 18th birthday party I thought this would be the perfect event to blog about! So here goes!

The top picture is basically everything I used for the party! I wear very little make up really and don't tend to venture into the world of eye shadow unless its a special occasion. As it goes this was a pretty special occasion so I thought hey why not?! I didn't fancy using liquid foundation, as I often don't, I chose to where my recent re-discovered favourite Rimmel London, Stay Matte pressed powder, in 003 Peach Glow. I find it just gives the skin a natural look which I always find I prefer.

I used the H&M Kabuki brush, which is defiantly worth the £4.99 I payed for it! I also recently purchased the MUA Pro-base fixing mist, which is actually really good! and at £5, you can't really go wrong!

I used my favourite mascara as usual! I'm not keen on eye lash curlers but I find this mascara does the job pretty well without using them! I can't keep up with how much I've raved about the Maybelline New York mascaras! I love them!

Finally, I used this gold-ish type colour for my eyes. I'm not ever sure about eye shadow or how to wear them, like should I be mixing or wearing just the one colour or what?! But hey I though this colour was quite nice and matched the colour of my outfit quite well. I have no idea what shade this is, all I know is its off a little pallet from Boots sometime last year! I did forget to take pictures of the lipstick I wore, but as usual I wore my collection 2000 favourite! 

So yeah this is basically how I ended up looking. As normal, because I'm awful at hair styling, I straightened my hair but ended up just pushing my fringe back every few minutes. 

I wore a gold sequined tshirt from New look, which I bought last year but have only worn once before! Its got a sort of see through chiffon type back to. I wore it tucked into a long black skirt which is defiantly my best purchase for a long time; only costing me £5! Yay! I then just put my old favourite heels on, which I bought from Peacocks, when that was still a shop haha!

Thanks for reading, I enjoy these types of posts! Hope you enjoyed! Heres a few pictures from the night;

@HanMcFly

smilingwontkillyou