Getting Festive

It's time to start welcoming the Christmas spirit into our lives rather than shying away and pretending you're the new Scrooge! To me, Christmas is the best time of the year, where it's acceptable to stuff your face and watch hundreds of childish films with no judgement - my favorite is The Grinch! 

I can't think of anything more exciting than the over the top Christmas lights hanging in the streets whilst people shower their homes in colorful epileptic flashing lights! I feel like every year you HAVE to buy more baubles for the tree - even if you know your tree may topple over from the mass weight of them all. My tree still has decorations on it that I made back when I was 5 years old, which always makes me laugh whenever I get out the pasta made bauble! 

But the food is the most important part of the day and there is always room for a gingerbread house... Even if it just sits in the room for decoration. :)

Christmas Wrapping Ideas

The time has come, where I always struggle every year to think of a better way to wrap presents and make them look like I actually put in some creative effort! This year I finally decided to actually TRY and do something different compared to my usual wrap it quickly last minute and pray that the paper doesn't unstick itself.

My attempt at making it look Christmassy was better than usual. I decided to use simple brown paper as it makes the red stand out more from the ribbon and bells! The paper you can pretty much get at any stores, but the bells I purchased from here. I simply just cut each individual bell off the garland and tied it with the ribbon I used for the presents!

This was a present given to me by my friend, but I thought the wrapping was so well thought out that I had to use it as an example of another effective way of wrapping a present! It was so simple and cute with tissue paper wrapped around each individual present. Sadly I have no idea where she had purchased the tissue paper or bag, but WHSmith does a similar tissue paper.

There are probably so many other neater or more creative ways of wrapping, which I may eventually get round to trying out myself, but these are quite fun and creative ways of doing presents this year with minimal effort and it doesn't cost much to do! So for anyone, who is either running out of time or money (similar to me), then here is your answer! :)

10 Things #1

I feel like I want to do a regular '10 Things' post so that I can show what is going on in my life and what has caught my eye in the past week that I think is worthy of sharing with everyone! So regularly every week I hope to be doing a post similar to this!

Found this quote the other day and it made me giggle!

1. I love this song right now! It makes me feel so happy when I am walking to my lectures or seminars and keeps me in an upbeat mood.

2. Cannot live without my old trusty pair of Converse that really are beginning to show that they are worn daily, (oops).

3. As it is winter and Christmas is just around the corner, I think we are all in need of a snuggly fur, (fake of course), blanket to drink wrap around us while we drink hot chocolate? 

4. I am seeing soo many pictures of people skiing right now and I am feeling jealous! I wish I was back on the slopes at this incredible place on the Alps!

5. I found a book that took my fancy. It is from Urban Outfitters - I swear they have the best books selling at that store! 

6. My skin is slowly suffering the the university diet of absolute rubbish, so thankfully this product is slowly fixing that - and it smells of fresh oranges!

7. Being further North for uni made me realise how thankful I am that my mum bought me a new coat for the winter. It's managed to keep out most of the cold wind! 

8. A creative video, because why not? 

9. Definitely needing this breakfast next week I think!

10. I was running a lot last week trying to get out of the rain and realised Spotify kept changing my song... did anyone else know about the 'running' feature? It is pretty cool! 

Jamie Oliver's Italian Restaurant

This place can never do wrong on its meals at the Bluewater branch!

The Italian nachos - basically fried ravioli with mozzarella stuffed inside it, (delicious)! Considering I didn't think you could really fry pasta with a tasty outcome, I was pretty impressed! 

The main reason I chose this dish is purely because the pasta looked like tentacles! I don't think you can ever really leave this restaurant feeling hungry after the massive portions handed to you of such amazing food. 

And to top of my meal, I ended it with raspberry frozen yoghurt!

Would highly recommend visiting this restaurant if you ever are near to one! The one I always go to is at Bluewater and it's always so welcoming and friendly and the food comes quickly so you're never left starving on the side! :) 

Health Kick

My attempt at being healthy after the shocking uni diet is going well so far! After living off daily meals consisting purely of pasta, cheese or chicken, I'm officially needing some fruit and vegetables!

I absolutely love smoothie bowls lately, and top it with berries and seeds! This one contains frozen mixed berries with passionfruit and mango yoghurt and some blackberry frozen yoghurt!

For lunch I've been mainly eating Covent Garden soups. This one is a lentil and smoked bacon soup with toasted pitta break on the side! 

I'm hoping it'll make me feel more awakened and healthy after living off the basics for the past 3 months - here's hoping! 

Study, Study, Study.

I am becoming more and more exhausted from education these days; spending copious amounts of time on just re-writing out essay after essay. So I decided to just take pictures of random moments within the past week or so that just relax me or make me happy, (and obviously food is going to be one image.)

Just relaxing in a bath can just relax me and allow me to take an hour just to forget about work and revision and focus on just me. I didn't realise that the troubles I would pay for relaxation was scrubbing a bath tub of a glitter afterwards for about 30 minutes. 

What would life be without Nandos. Extra Hot - I show no fear! 

Last image of the 3, a small town called Rye. It's so beautiful in areas and as there's hardly ever any service in some areas, it can be the most relaxing place to take a break. 

LUSH

With it being the season for warm baths and relaxation, I decided to invest heavily in LUSH products as so many people were raving about them! Of course I was only aiming to buy a maximum of 3 bath products… but that didn't end well as you can see above.

LUSH Melting Marshmallow

It turned the bath this beautiful rose colour and the smell was not too overpowering at all! It was amazing for my skin as it felt so soft afterwards and the smell of marshmallows stayed on my skin for a day!

LUSH Northern Lights

This was a Bonfire Night special LUSH product! It is a simple purple stick yet inside there were so many colours of blue and green with some glitter to represent the fireworks. My favourite out my massive bundle of festive treats and the originals so far would have to be the Northern Lights purely for how it looks when it has dissolved in the bath! BEAUTIFUL.