T'was the night before Christmas...

Christmas Eve has always been my favourite day of the Christmas period. I find Christmas day always a slight anti climax after the big build up! Whilst Christmas Eve is filled with excitement and cheer, everyone is in good spirits!

My typical Christmas Eve is spent last minute present shopping (I am terrible for this!), delivery said presents to friends and watching Santa Clause the Movie (the old version with Dudley Moore) which has became a bit of a tradition!

In the evening all our family all gather together for a Chinese and then I head out for a few festive drinks with friends!

It’s my favourite day of the year!

What’s everyone else up to today?

Merry Christmas Lovelies!

xxx

 

Christmas Tree Nails

 

First up, apologies for the dodgy photos, I used my phone instead of my usual camera which doesn’t have a flash!

Ok so if you’ve been reading my postings over the past month you may have gathered by now that I am a huge fan of Christmas! My love of it, this year, has even extended to my nails! I was lucky enough to receive some pretty cool Christmas Tree Nail stickers from my #bloggersecretsanta and was so excited to give them a try!

For a base colour I used Barry M Textured Nail Effect Nail Paint in Majesty. It’s a fab glittery gold that has a cool texture to it making it look a bit edgy, I adore this polish on its own but thought it would be a great back ground for the Christmas Trees!

The trees themselves were so easy to apply, all you need to do is peel off the stickers and stick them on to your nails. EASY! I love the final look! I’ve used nail wraps before but not nail stickers. I think these are fab for a night out, and are just so simple to use!

Christmas Cocktails: The Mistletoe Kiss

Christmas is the season of fun filled festivities and merriment, a time for family, friends, food and some fabulous drinks. As the song goes ‘Tis the season to be jolly’ and after a few cocktails you will be well on your jolly way! Therefore each Saturday on the lead up to Christmas I will be sharing with you my favourite festive cocktail recipes. I hope you enjoy and let me know if you try one out!

A Mistletoe Kiss

 

 

What you'll need...

50ml Gin

50ml Grenadine

1tbsp Lemon Juice

Crushed Ice

Pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker and shake well. Fill champagne flute with crushed ice, and pour in mixture. You can decorate the glass by coating a layer of sugar around the rim.

#bloggersecretsanta

As I explained yesterday, I’ve participated in two bloggers Secret Santa’s this year. The second one I joined in with was set up by the gorgeous Hayley from ‘Tea Party Beauty’. One of the funniest blog posts I’ve read for a while was written by this lovely lady ‘24 Hours to Live - The End is Nigh’, if you have not read it, go now!

So to say I was a little excited when I received a giant red parcel box is an understatement! My excitement then escalated when I opened up the beautiful gold gift box inside to find all these fabulous treats!

I feel so spoilt with all these gorgeous pieces! I especially love the Lush shower gel and the cute little bath bomb. So i would like to say a massive THANK YOU to my Santa, the beautiful Jessica from ‘Beauty, Bits and Bobs by Jess B’, I feel really spoilt!

 

#secretsanta13

 

I’ve been a little naughty this year and got involved in two separate bloggers secret Santa’s! I loved the whole process, stalking someone via social media (not in a creepy way, obvs!) and finding new fab blogs to read and follow. Trying to establish what you think they would like and making it personal to them. I had so much fun playing Santa and hope my giftee’s likes their goodies!

So the first Secret Santa I got involved in was set up by Hannah Bailey who blogs over at ‘hannah bee’. I love her blog, so go check it out if you haven’t already!

I was so excited when this box of goodies arrived and my Secret Santa was revealed as Georgia from ‘What I Adore More’, a very cute blog which I can’t believe I hadn’t come across prior to this Secret Santa!  

Georgia was so thoughtful and I received a beautiful Cath Kidston notebook and this gorgeous mug along with some yummy chocolates (which may have lasted all of five minutes, oops!). It was such a lovely present to receive, so I would like to say a massive thank you to Georgia!

Christmas Cocktails: Sloe Gin Fizz

Christmas is the season of fun filled festivities and merriment, a time for family, friends, food and some fabulous drinks. As the song goes ‘Tis the season to be jolly’ and after a few cocktails you will be well on your jolly way! Therefore each Saturday on the lead up to Christmas I will be sharing with you my favourite festive cocktail recipes. I hope you enjoy and let me know if you try one out!

Sloe Gin Fizz

You Will Need...

            Crushed Ice

            50ml Sloe Gin

            Dash of Lemon Juice

            Cream Soda

            Blackberries

Fill a tall glass with ice, Pour in the Gin and lemon juice, then stir. Top up with Cream Soda and add a handful of Blackberries to garnish.

BOOK CLUB TAKEOVER: Loretta from 'The University Project'

Here are my thoughts… I LOVE hearing other people’s views and reviews on pretty much anything especially books! Some of my favourite reads are ones that have been suggested by other people. So thinking along those lines,’ The Book Club Takeover’ was born! Hopefully each week I will bring to you a post from one of my lovely and amazing fellow bloggers who will in turn share with you what their favourite book is, why they love it and a review. I hope you enjoy this feature as much as I do!

 

Hi I am Loretta, I’m a second year Zoology student at Bangor University and I blog over at The University Project about my day to day university life, stationery, books and everything in between! I’ve recently been planning some beauty and fashion posts and I would really love suggestions on the kind of posts you would like to see! I only started my blog this summer but it is quickly becoming my pride and joy, I love having my own little space on the internet!

I’m one of those girls who attempts to follow fashion but I never manage to pull it off quite the way I intended to and therefore I think my favourite book is The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, in fact I completely love the whole series! As much as I enjoy a good meaty book, sometimes a girl just needs a bit of light hearted reading! The long awaited instalment came out this summer I immediately marked it for my holiday reading!

 

I’m sure most of you have either read the book or seen the very popular movie adaptation but just in case you have been living under a rock for the best of this century I will sum up the book for you. A young recent graduate from Brown is struggling to make her way in the New York writing scene and so takes the job of an assistant at a fashion magazine but it turns out she has the boss from hell but everyone in the industry knows that if you survive a year, you can get any writing job you want. Andrea does her best to stick it out and understand the world of high fashion that she has found herself thrown into whilst attempting in vain to convince her loved ones that she hasn’t changed or lost her values.

Lauren Weisberger is such a talented writer and every time I open one of the books I completely believe the situation she is writing about. I loved her books as a teenager and I still love them now in my early twenties and I think that says a lot about how relatable her writing is. I’ve always enjoyed the escapism aspect of reading a good book and I have yet to find a Weisberger book that doesn’t achieve this.

Lastly I want to thank Gemma for allowing me to take part in her book club, I have been keeping my eye out for a bloggers book club for a while so  I was thrilled when she asked me to take part!