Christmas Part 2 - What I GAVE as presents

Hi All,

This is part 2 of my Christmas Haul post for all you hanging onto Christmas. This post may inspire you next year, so I hope you enjoy seeing what I gave for Christmas. I bought most of the presents from Westfield in London before I came home for Christmas.

I don't know about anyone else but I prefer giving presents to receiving them, in fact it may be my favourite part about Christmas. Last year at uni, I had so much time to look for presents, but this year with my job I got most of them all in one weekend. Next year I'd love to do more shopping!

If you would like to know any more about any of them, please let me know.



Mum
My mum's present was actually the first one I bought. She is a huge fan of Jo Malone as am I, but our hometown doesn't have a Jo Malone shop so she only has one of the perfumes. Her favourite is the pomegranate scent, which I recommend if you haven't smelt it.

I spotted this pomegranate gift set, complete with perfume, body lotion and bath oil which would be perfect for her. Jo Malone is quite expensive and I had to venture into the designer part of Westfield to pick this up but it is so lovely. She was delighted with this and loved her present as she doesn't always get to browse Jo Malone to buy new products from there.

Have any of you ever used Jo Malone, if so what do you think?

Sister

The first present I bought my sister was a Pandora bracelet and charm. Neither of us has had anything from Pandora before, but I know a lot of people who have to trust it was worth it. My sister has a lot of friendship bracelets and I wanted to get her something like that she could wear everyday so decided to go with the leather style. I personally prefer this as it's not too over the top and I chose a grey colour to match any outfit.

I decided on only 1 charm because firstly I wasn't sure if she would even wear it, and secondly I don't like the one's with loads of charms as they can get a bit too busy. She LOVED this which I was so pleased about, and wants to stick to one charm as the one I got her is meaningful, very happy!

Now, if you've seen my last blog post you'll know that we both bought each other Harry Potter tickets, which was my second present to my sister, but as we were told we both got the same thing I had to return these and get her some other little things which she loved. We are both very excited for Harry Potter!




Dad
Originally I had planned to get my Dad his favourite Creed aftershave, and left it till last minute because there was a shop at home that stocked it. However, when I went to the shop a few days before christmas, I was told they stopped suppling it and you could only get in it in London. Where I'd just come from!! TYPICAL So, I went on the hunt for more presents. He's a massive sweet tooth so the sweet shop from an American shop went down a treat.

The Waitrose Food Guide was also bought from him by me. My mum and dad love travelling around going to pubs for food so this will be perfect for them! He also used the Molton Brown range everyday so this is always needed. He was very happy indeed!

So these are my main presents I handed out to my family on the day. I framed my graduation photo's for my grandparents which they absolutely loved as well! I love shopping for people, and I love to make sure I've got them something which is relevant or personal as it makes it that bit more special. 

What did you give for christmas and would anyone you know like any of these presents?

Cya x

What I Got For Christmas

Hi All,

Firstly I hope you had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed your day whatever it was you were doing!

In today's post I will be sharing with you some of the lovely things I received for Christmas. I will be doing this post in 2 parts and will shortly be posting a 'What I Gave' blog post for you all. So on with the presents! Now I am not going to share with you EVERY present I got, so I am just going to share with you a selection of my favourites.

BaByliss Curl Secret

If you follow me, or know me at all, you will know I have been banging on about this for AGES. I asked for this for christmas and yes I finally got it. I am so excited to use this! A lot of you have asked me to do a review of this because I know it is highly sort after, but the price puts a lot of people off so I will be doing a review for you to let you know exactly what I think of it.


I have actually used this already as I was far too excited to try it and did a photo shoot with the after effects to show you. I am currently editing all the photos and videos now which is taking a lot of time so will be posting this in a few weeks for you.

Here's a sneak preview from the shoot <<


Now onto more presents..

Harry Potter

Now.. this was a funny one. Without knowing me and my sister bought each other one of the same presents. We are both HUGE Harry Potter fans and have been to Harry Potter land in America but haven't been to the studio tour in London yet. So.. for christmas we both accidentally got exactly that. Luckily before we both opened the same present for each other on christmas day my dad told us the situation once he found out and I was able to return them due to having already purchased tickets. 

So.. after all that palaver, me and my sister will be going to the Harry Potter studios in February, so we just catch it whilst it's still in the snow. I'm SO excited eeek.

Little Mermaid
I'm a huge huge huge Disney fan and my favourite Disney film, although a hard choice is The Little Mermaid. Now for the past few years, this has been a nightmare to get hold of, but as it was released recently my sister managed to snap me up a copy and get me the boxset. Can't wait to watch this!

As well as the first film, this contains the second one which I equally love and a third one I didn't even know about!

Have you seen or heard of the 3rd Little Mermaid film?



Oribe Texturising Spray
This spray is something I have wanted to try for a while now after seeing many other bloggers talk about it. The spray is quite expensive at £38 a bottle but I'm excited to try it. Having long hair, I really hope this is worth the price! This is also something I may do a review on.

Understandably it is not an everyday purchase at that price as many other dry shampoo's and volumisers are cheaper. However, if it's worth it is may be an investment.

Let me know if you'd like me to do a review on it?

So, like those are the main presents I wanted to share with you. Find below a nice little photo of all my presents. Some include a flashing Paris canvas, many cupcake books and a lot of nail varnish and jewellery. I hope you all had a wonderful day, I certainly did. I just can't believe how quick it goes by!

I will be posting part 2 of this next week where I share with you what I gave for christmas and make sure to stay tuned for the curl secret review in the next few weeks.

Cya x

Christmas Singalong - Royal Albert Hall

Hi All,

As some of you may know, this weekend I went to 'A Christmas Carol Singalong' at the Royal Albert Hall. This was my first time here and seeing the show so I was very excited indeed. All my family came down to London for this which was lovely and a great way to get in the Christmas spirit.

What happens?

So, as I have never been to this before, I wasn't sure what to expect, a musical, an event? In fact, it was everyone gathered together singing christmas carols with a choir and orchestra. Now I am by no means a good singer, but I love a good sing song so this was right up my street. I love the sound of an orchestra and this along with the choir was just beautiful.

Which songs?

Luckily there was a song sheet incase anyone didn't know the lyrics. I am more a christmas song person rather than a christmas carol person and the show did a great job at mixing up a bit of both songs so that there was a bit of variety for all ages. My favourite christmas song is 'I wish it could be Christmas everyday' and this was one of the last to be played which was fantastic.

The Royal Albert Hall                        Like I said, this was my first time here and it was absolutely beautiful. As you will see from the photo's later it was beautifully lit and the staging was wonderful. I was lucky enough to be in a box with my family and some of the other boxes had decorated there's with lights which was lovely.

The show

The conductor was a wonderfully charismatic man who really got the crowd going but the person who stole the show for me was the female lead vocalist. I believe she was actually the understudy as the lady who normally does it couldn't be there, but she was fantastic, she absolutely made the songs and her voice was superb.

All in all it was a brilliant show, it lasted about 3/4 hours and I was so happy and was dancing around by the end of it. There was such a great atmosphere in the hall, everyone was dancing and singing together and it was a really great experience to be a part of. 

If you would like to know more about this, click HERE

Below are some photo's and videos I took during the show. Enjoy!

I have SO many videos of this night, but I thought I would share with you my favourite song as well as a quick Instagram mash up I did of around 5 songs. if you would like to see any more of the videos just let me know!

 Videos

Cya! x

Winter Wonderland

Hello,

It's Christmas very soon and I don't know why but this year I wasn't feeling Christmassy. That is until I went to WINTER WONDERLAND.

If you don't know what Winter Wonderland is it is a huge event in London held in Hyde park. I had heard of this before I lived in London and always wanted to go and now I have moved to London, I couldn't not see what it was all about. 

It is MUCH better than I expected it to be and it made me feel so chistmassy. I love stalls and little markets during Christmas and Winter Wonderland is full of them!! Full of food and gifts! As well as the section, there is also an ice skating rink, lots of bars, many game stalls where you can win cuddly toys and what not. However, my favorutire part of this was the rides.

I was expecting fair ground rides, but they are not little fairground rides.. These rides are suitablable for theme parks, hugeeee scary rides and there are so many it's brilliant. I am a huge fan of rides and this did not dissapoint! 

Winter Wonderland was amazing, the atmosphere was great, everyone was so happy and they were even blowing out fake snow! There was Christmas music being blasted out and a lot of mulled wine to go round.

The event itself is free to get into, however you have to pay to go on the rides, which can be very expensive. The average per ride is £6 so I only went on 3, but there are MANY rides I would've loved to go on! Winter Wonderland was a lot better than I was expecting, I can't get over the scale of it, it's split up into sections; the stalls, the food, the games, the ice kingdom, the ice rink, the rides and santa land. I would definitely go back, in fact I want to go back before christmas this year!

I would love to know if you've been and what you thought of it, or you haven't been and would like to go?

If you would like to find more out about Winter Wonderland, check out their website HERE where you can buy tickets and see what attractions they have.

Find some photos I snapped of the event below:

Check out the moose head on this pub

One of the very colourful rides

Mid spin during a very very fast ride

Now this is not the London Eye, it's their giant wheel

The carousel ride

I went on this drop ride and you could see the whole of London!

One of the roller coasters, this was amazing

Cya x

Graduation

Hi Lovelies,

The week before last I Graduated University, I got to have the big ceremony and yes that included me throwing my hat up in the air! It was such a lovely day. I wasn't really sure what to expect as I was only visualising what I had seen in movies, and I guess it was quite similar to that.

The ceremony was held in Guild Hall in Southampton. This hall was decorated beautifully and full of students in matching gowns and hats, as well as family & friends and we had to go onto stage to collect our award. This was a lot more nerve racking than you'd think as I was paranoid I was going to fall flat on my face. It was such a blur, I barely even remember going on stage! I DIDN'T TRIP!

Southampton

I had my graduation in Southampton as this is where I went to University. I miss southampton so much as always knew it was going to emotional going back as it is where I've spent the best 3 years of my life. I was so excited to see everyone again and I couldn't wait to go back, but it was always in the back of my mind, graduation was final. It was the final goodbye to uni and the closing of that chapter of my life.  However, I am so happy I was able to go to graduation knowing I was in a job and could start that new part of my life. It's still very upsetting not being a student anymore though! That was always a great excuse to have a nap, go out every night or get a discount from shops!

Gown

As soon as I arrived in Southampton I had to collect my gown, which was very excited but I had no idea how to put it on. I was so grateful that there were people allocated to dress you as I would have been lost. Soon after I was dressed in my gown I was swiftly moved onto the photos which I had done with my family and a single one of myself. I was pretty much put into position by the photographer & have the standard graduation photo of me holding the scroll, eeek I'm very excited to see it. 

Streaker

It was then photo time for me and my family and you can see some of the photos I captured dotted around this post. I am VERY grateful it didn't rain as it did on some other days. I am also grateful I was not graduating the day before as there was a STREAKER during that ceremony. Find a news article regarding that HERE. My reaction tweet is actually featured in the article, so check it out!

Ceremony

Anyway, it was then onto the ceremony and all I remember of this was waiting for the row to go in front of me as I knew I was next. As everyone worries about, all I was thinking was DO NOT FALL! And luckily I didn't. I can barely remember what the chancellor said to me but I remember being so relieved when I sat down and I hadn't made a fool of myself.

Overall

After the ceremony there were many more photos and of course the famous hat throwing. Overall Graduation was wonderful, the ceremony and the day went so swiftly and I had such a lovely time seeing and celebrating with everyone. 

I am very proud of myself and a few years ago I would never have seen myself where I am today and graduating with a 2:1 in Advertising. 

I absolutely loved my uni experience and would recommend it anyone thinking of going to University. You can read my post on University HERE. I am so thankful to all the people I have met over the past 3 years, they have made my time at uni the best it could have possibly been. 

If any of you have graduated recently I would love to know how your ceremony was and it anything funny or embarrassing happened during it! 

Cya x