Xmas Day Outfit & Presents

Hi, it feels like I haven't looked at my blog in absolutely ages, I've been out every day of the holidays so far and am glad to stay in and relax today! Above is some of my lovely presents, my mum knitted the little pug for me - she can make anything - it was such a surprise when I opened it. I love pugs and wish I had one of my own. I also got the pink mini straighteners from ASOS, they are tiny handbag sized and I have been doing my fringe with them. They are really good and a get a lot hotter than I thought they might. For some reason I decided I wanted a collection of mini items for Xmas, I also requested the YSL Babydoll mini perfumes and a Too Faced mini palette. This is why I am selling the Elf mini palette i mentioned in the post below, I had had my eye on this Too Faced one. The colours are perfect, I used it to touch up my make-up before I went out last night. I also got my boyfriend to get me a huge bottle of Marc Jacobs Lola - I first smelt it in Harvey Nichols in the summer and have been waiting for it ever since - and my sister got me a few lovely Lush bits - she knows I love a bit of Snow Fairy.

On the day I wore this pastel pink Miss Selfridge jumper dress, I love the crochet detail at the neckline...

My Vivienne Westwood pearl bas necklace which I got for my birthday last year...

Barry M nail paint in Baby Blue, I got a couple of lovely sets of Accessorize rings last week which I have been wearing aswell.

Another pretty ring, this one came in a set of 3, the other two were a gold heart with a pearl in the centre, and a tiny rose cameo.

As I wasn't going to be walking far, I dared to wear my New Look black suede OTKs..

And for the journey from the doorstep to the car, I wrapped up in this gorgeous mushroom pink cropped fur jacket from Zara.

This is the jacket laid out - it has a blue rose print lining, could it be any prettier??

I had a nice Xmas dinner cooked by my lovely boyfriend, then we went to visit my parents later on in the day for nibbles, everyone has been very generous to us, we got 3 food hampers! Obviously I had to hit the sales on Boxing Day, I will do a post on my bargains later on. Hope everyone had a great Xmas Day.

Babyliss Straighteners & Elf haul

As per my last post, I recently bought some new straighteners and here they are - the Babyliss Pro 230 Radiance. Their original price was about a hundred pounds but they are half price in Boots at the moment and even better at forty pounds in Argos, where I picked up mine. I have had previous bad experience with Argos but I couldn't believe how fast I was in and out of there. I reserved them for instore pick up and it literally took two minutes. The straighteners are in the bottom half of the picture, I photographed them with the curling tong I already have because it all matches :) They came with a matching storage bag and heat-proof mat. Personally I have very thick hair and 90% of straighteners seem to be the pencil thin kind, great for my fringe but way too time consuming to do all of my hair. These Babyliss ones have quite wide plates, not quite as wide as my old Remington ones which don't seem to be available now, but satisfactory. The straighteners themselves were pretty good, superfast heat up time, and they did the job. I wouldn't rave about them and declare them to be the "miracle straightener" most people on the Argos website did, but they were fine, my hair came out very straight. I have yet to find a straightener that does work miracles, GHD would be the obvious answer but I have read quite a few reviews about them blowing up and a lot of people claimed these Babyliss ones were more effective than GHD anyway.

I have to guiltily admit that I treated myself to this huge make-up set this week. Well, I did have a tough interview on friday, that I did a lot of work for, and although I had been planning to buy it after Xmas I was browsing on the net and found that Elf (Eyes Lips Face) had a really good offer on. i have read some things about Elf on other blogs, and the consensus seems to be that they do really good quality products really cheaply, especially brushes. I bought a generous-sized blusher brush for three pounds fifty, and their Master Make-up set for thirty five pounds. There is a huge amount of make-up for that price, loads of gorgeous eyeshadows, not just every colour of the rainbow that you wouldn't even use, but all really soft colours. There are six lovely blushers in there as well, and even a face powder that matches my skintone.

My camera is rubbish as you can't even see the make-up in these picture but the colours are really strong, you don't have to put loads on just to be able to see it, I only put one stroke of eyeshadow on and then blended the colour as it was so highly pigmented.

This was my free gift for spending over twenty five pounds, i won't keep this as there is no pale face powder and I dont really use bronzer. There are some lovely smoky eye colours in there though and a nice blusher. Plus an eyeliner pencil and all the brushes you need. If you buy this on its own on the website it costs fifteen pounds, I am going to ebay it unless anyone reading this wants to buy it for ten pounds plus one fifty postage. This was advertised on handbag.com as the best travel make-up kit you can buy, it would be a nice present for someone. The actual Elf website was a bit annoying as it seemed to be crashing all the time. I tried several times to pay for my things and it came up saying there was an error, then after I finally managed to pay I checked my paypal balance and I'd ended up paying three times. I emailed Elf and when they didnt reply within a couple of hours i phoned their customer helpline. It connected a couple of times but there was no one there, then I spoke to a woman who was not apologetic in the least, and took ages to find my order. She said she would cancel the two duplicate orders. Then I got an email reply from the company director apologising for what had happened and when I checked my paypal again he had refunded the two payments. So it turned out ok in the end, they do have a lot of positive feedback on their site so it must have just been a one-off. Not that I would need to buy from them again now I have their ultimate collection...

Outfit of the day & my Xmas tree

Today i am wearing this lovely rose print tunic from New Look, with black jeggings and a River Island waist belt. I love purple, black, pink and grey, and I think it goes with my freshly dyed black hair.

Close-up of River Island flower ring...

On my nails I am wearing Barry M Once Upon a Time, which is silver and bright pink flecks and is pretty sparkly and festive, speaking of which...

My Xmas tree is now up. It is the black artificial one from Paperchase, my boyfriend put it on a chair as its only 3ft, not sure it goes too well with the chair but my tree and decorations are magical.

My mum bought me this bird ages ago, its jewelled with a beaded tail and goes perfectly with my other decorations.

The hanging jewels and snowflakes are from Paperchase. There are loads of different colours but they are all pink, turquoise, purple pretty kind of shades. The piece of silver tinsel was only 50p from Wilkinsons, I also got 20 baubles for two pounds, a set of fairy lights for 1.98 and the silver butterfly topper. They didnt have any angels or stars apart from the ones for huge trees, I don't normally go in Wilkinsons but its one of those places where you can find bargains if you are discerning. I think the tree looks beautiful considering we only moved out of home six months ago and had to buy everything new on a budget.

I also bought some new hair straightners this week, didnt really want to splash out but my old ones broke :( I will do a review at some point next week. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Rock & Rose and Fake Marc Jacobs

This was my casual Sunday look last week - plain grey top styled up with layered necklaces.

The top is Topshop and is a bit assymetric, its longer on the right of the photo and I have an ASOS lace trimmed vest underneath in the same shade of grey, worn with faded boyfriend jeans. The knotted seed pearl necklace is Accessorize and the pink rose necklace is from the Rock and Rose jewellery website.

Close-up of the rose necklace - so pretty!

Also I wanted to stick on a picture of my new bag, I know its fake Marc Jacobs and they have been around forever but I still like the style. I had one a few years ago and the clasp broke, they were so popular at the time I even managed to sell it on on ebay for a good price, despite me stating that it didnt actually shut properly. Anyway its a great copy, looks like real leather and is just the right size. I have been used to carrying bigger bags around and eveything gets lost in there, its so much better now I have cut down my clutter and have everything to hand.

On the Christmas front, I did order the black faux tree from Paperchase, unfortunately they tried to deliver it yesterday when I wasn't in so I will probably be picking it up on saturday. I braved the crowds in the Leeds Borders at the weekend - there was a closing down sale on and it was heaving! - and I picked up a couple of pretty tree decorations from the Paperchase in there. I also got some carefully chosen cheap bits from Wilkinsons to pad it out. I can't wait to put it all together and get a photo up :)

Pretty Pearly Things

I got a mini Topshop haul this week, my last for a while as I am concentrating on Xmas shopping now. I got this gorgeous Chanel-esque purse with pearl embellishment. I added a tiny Vivienne Westwood brooch that I have been waiting to to pin on something, I think it makes it look at bit more expensive. They also do the purse in blue, I prefer red though and it's more Xmassey.

I also got these gloves, they are very soft angora wool and keep my hands toasty. Plus I had to have them because of the super cute pearl detail.

They go really well with my new scarf, I love the soft pink and blue colour blocks against the neutral black.

I am really getting into the Xmas spirit this week and I can't wait to get my tree as everyone at work already has theirs up. I have finally convinced the boyfriend that a fake tree is a cheaper and chicer option, plus we can keep it up for much longer. I am considering a black one from Paperchase as I think they look quite stylish.