Tuesday 27 March 2012

I've bought a house!!!

Still can't quite believe it... I now own a property, with walls and windows and a door and everything!!! Little old me, all grown up. Granted, it's about 10 feet away from my parents house (this might be a slight exaggeration) but it is still a place I can call my own.

It's been a while since I last posted... But you see, I fainted after finding out how much the solicitors fees were going to cost, and I've only just regained consciousness.

Here's some pics...



Excited is not the word!! Ikea is going to be my new best friend. It's a rather scary time of my life though, I've got a mortgage waaaaa! Good thing I paid for my chemical peels in advance as I sense there won't be any more luxuries such as that for quite a while. I might not even have luxuries such as heating and electricity once my mortgage is paid every month. Good thing it's approaching summer time. Warmer weather and lighter mornings and evenings will mean I can save on my bills. BILLS??!?!?!! Aaarrgghhh!!

Sunday 18 March 2012

Birthday Haul :-D

The birthday festivities are over for another year, and now the dust has settled I thought I would share with you what I had for my birthday. Sorry for the photo overload you are about to see. I had quite a few gifts... Most of them being from my better half Rohit, but also from my aunt and uncle, cousin, brother, sister-in-law and nephews, other brother, sister-in-law, nieces and nephew and a close friend.



      
 

  







  
   

I was sooo excited to recieve these gifts. My boyfriend, friends and family know me sooo well! I love anything with cupcakes or hello kitty on, and I also have a candle obsession. I LOVE perfume and jewellery and the notepad and pen is PERFECT for my lists. Have I mentioned I make lists? LOTS of lists. I think it's called OCD.

You might have noticed I didn't get any makeup for my birthday :-( One day I'll do a makeup collection blog and then you'll see why no one bought me any more makeup. Even if I live a thousand years it's not enough time to use up all my makeup.

If you'd like to know which shops any of these items came from then leave a comment. I don't know the prices as they were gifts but I have a pretty good idea where they were all bought lol. I hope you enjoyed my birthday haul. Another birthday haul coming up... Next year!!

Ciao for now :-)

Friday 16 March 2012

Today is my BIRTHDAY!!

What better excuse is there to post cupcake pictures than my birthday??? They look so cute and yummy too! I had some cupakes given to me for my birthday at work, as well as numerous cupcake cards. I'm wondering now "Do I REALLY go on about cupcakes so much that everyone knows I love them and chooses their birthday purchases accordingly?" Oh well, I'm not complaining, the more cupcakes the merrier!!

Stay tuned for a birthday haul coming up in the next couple of days. It will contain lots of cupcake and hello kitty goodies :-D

Tonight I am going out for a meal to an Indian restaurant with the love of my life. I'm lucky this year as my birthday has fallen on a Friday. Tomorrow the celebrations start all over again woop woop! I'll be going to the cinema and to a different Asian restaurant for another meal tomorrow. I LOVE food, and Asian food has to be the best food in the world! I think I will take pictures of my meals and share with you what I had to eat. Well... Not literally 'share' but you know what I mean ;-)

Well since it's about an hour and a half until I go out, I think I'd better start getting ready!!!

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Meet my Compassion Sponsored Children Kajol and Akhiljith

Sorry it's been a few days... I've been selling on Ebay like mad. The hope was that it would become a multi-million pound empire and I'd never have to worry about money again. In reality it made me about £60. Still, that was £60 I didn't have before. Plus, I've now shifted a load of stuff I didn't want.

Anyway, here are two beautiful children Kajol (8) and Akhiljith (6). They are both from India and I sponsor them through a Christian charity called Compassion. You can find a link to this charity in the side bar. They regularly send me cute little letters and pictures and I am regularly updated on their progress in school etc. Thought I would just share the cuteness with you :-)


Thursday 8 March 2012

Rebecca Needs...


This is another post that I was sorry to lose from my old blog, so I thought I would repost it here. By the way, the picture above was taken from a website called Bubbles and Butterflies. It contains some lovely name wall hangings. I really like the Rebecca one, I might just see if it is still available to buy. If you want to check out the site you can click here. I didn't ask for permission to use the picture, but I'm sure if I am directing people to the site then I don't think they would have a problem with it. Hope not anyway!

Anyway, this post comes from a tag I was tagged to do quite a few years back. The requirements were to put your name into Google followed by the word 'needs' and then post the top ten results. It was a bit of fun and my name came up with some really silly sentences, as can be seen below.

1) Rebecca needs... to take her contacts out. (Yes, that would be exactly right!)
2) Rebecca needs... a UK address and phone number. (Umm, pretty sure I have both of those already).
3) Rebecca needs... her Icelandic student visa! (Really? When did I get accepted to study there?)
4) Rebecca needs... to speak to her neighbour. (Yes, her wall ivy that's now covering my windows is getting rather annoying).
5) Rebecca needs... friends. (HAHA! I'm such a difficult person to get along with you see).
6) Rebecca needs... anger management. (Yes, probably true also).
7) Rebecca needs... help!!! (Agreed. Psychological more than anything else I think).
8) Rebecca needs... Facebook. (Like a fish needs water!)
9) Rebecca needs... a walking stick. (Nooo that's called a swagger not a limp...)
10) Rebecca needs... to go to bed. (Absolutely! Couldn't agree more!)

Nighty night, sleep tight!

:-) x

Wednesday 7 March 2012

MUA Eyeshadow Haul - Makeup Academy from Superdrug £1 per item!

Here is my collection of MUA (Makeup Academy) eyeshadows from Superdrug. These were all purchased within the last two months. Most of the MUA range costs £1 per item. Yes. ONE POUND!! I first saw reviews for these eyeshadows on youtube whilst watching some of my favourite makeup gurus. In keeping with the traditional behaviour of a shopaholic and beauty addict I went out the very next morning and purchased some of these items. The colours in the picture are as close to real life as I could get them with my camera. I vow to buy a new camera as soon as I get a payment from Google for my ads (which will probably be in about 15 years time haha).


The shades of these products are not named but they all have a number. You can choose from Matte or Pearl (which is a shimmer). I chose all pearl as I'm a big fan of shimmery products. The colour range is beautiful and there are some gorgeous deep blues and purples and bright turquoise and greens. I will get them eventually but for now I only purchased the more neutral colours as I am likely to use these most.

Top Middle: Shade 24 Pearl - Mid brown with a hint of pink undertones.
Top Left: Shade 3 Pearl - Gunmetal grey colour. It's darker than in the picture.
Middle Left: Shade 12 Pearl - Dark brown with gorgeous green shimmer when the light hits it.
Bottom Left: Shade 2 Pearl - Ivory, beautful shimmery colour for a highlight.
Top Right: Shade 14 Pearl - Very dark green, almost looks black.
Middle Right: Shade 7 Pearl - Mid green, stunning shimmer.
Bottom Right: Shade 1 Pearl - Light beige with a subtle gold shimmer. Also great for a highlight colour.

The pigmentation and colour payoff is absolutely amazing. I've swatched them on my hand but I can't wait to try them on my lids. The dark brown with green shimmer (shade 12) has been described as a dupe for Club by MAC. I don't own MAC Club but I googled it and yes, sure enough, there's the brown with green shimmer exactly like I have right infront of me now. Oh and did I mention that I paid a single POUND for mine haha. Go get them!!

I have more products from the MUA range but I wanted to keep the eyeshadows seperate. Another haul will follow so you can see the other items.

Arrivederci :-)

Monday 5 March 2012

Valentine's Day Gift Idea - Personalised Cupcakes!

I know Valentine's Day is long gone, but I wanted to share with you what I did for my other half this year. I thought it was a bit of fun, something different and I think he loved them!


It's really very simple. Plain sponge fairy cakes and pink butter icing to decorate. The toppers were ordered from a cake topper company I discovered on ebay. I emailed them a picture and 24 of these toppers arrived in the post in a few days. Fun. Creative. Unique. Perfectly describes me really ;-)

Sunday 4 March 2012

Avon Goodies and Aldi Skincare Haul

Among my many other obsessions, I have a slight addiction to ordering out of the Avon catalogue. I thought I would share with you what I have most recently purchased from Avon. This is a haul rather than reviews of the products because I have not tried out all of the products yet. The second part of this blog is an Aldi Skincare haul, but I will say more about that later.

The first Avon product is a cute Hello Kitty Cupcake holdall bag.


This yellow polka dot Hello Kitty Cupcake bag was on special offer for £15. I recently posted on my facebook status about being over my Hello Kitty obsession now, and that the way forward for me was cupcakes. So you can imagine my delight when I saw the two combined in Avon! There was no doubt about it, I had to have this bag! I'm sort of glad that I had it on sale price and not full price though or I think I would have been a little disappointed. The quality is not brilliant, the plastic is quite thin... But it looks good so I'm still happy I got it.


This Ultra Colour Rich Mega Impact Lipstick was also on offer for £5. I'm sorry I couldn't open the packaging to do a swatch as it is one of my mam's gifts for Mother's Day. The colour is Pink Pop and I took a colour sample picture from the Avon website. See below:
The final two items of my Avon haul are both foundations from the 24K Gold Radiant collection. The write-up says "luxurious foundation enriched with real gold to help give skin a natural luminosity." It's suitable for sensitive skin but only has SPF12 which is lower than my current foundations I am using. Again these were on offer. They are supposed to be £14 each but I bought the two of them for £10, so only £5 each. I thought that was a great buy and so I hope I like them. So far I've only swatched them on my hand so I will do a review when I've used them a bit more.

The bottle on the left is shade Nude and the bottle on the right is shade Creamy Natural. The Nude looks very light here but it's not in reality. I bought two different shades as I hadn't purchased this particular foundation before so I wasn't really sure of the colouring, plus I tend to change colour over the seasons anyway. I've swatched both just on my hand and they both seem to work for me. I'm excited to use them to see the coverage they give.

The next few haul items were purchased on a bit of a whim after reading some reviews so I hope they live up to their reputation. I came across some reviews for an Aldi anti-ageing cream whilst looking on the internet one day last week. According to various sites, research had shown that the ingredients in the Aldi's products were exactly the same as much higher end products that cost a whole lot more! In a blind survey Aldi came out with the best results based out outcomes after using the products, and beat much more expensive creams. You can find these reviews if you Google "Aldi face cream" or something like that. Hence a quick trip to Aldi the very next day to purchase 5 of the products from their skincare range.

Here are all 5 products. Check back to read the reviews after I've had a chance to use them all :) Below are some close up pictures and a description and the price for each product.

 Lacura Aqua-Complete Multi-Intensive Serum: £3.49
 Lacura Wrinkle Filler with Collagen: £3.49
 Lacura Revitalising Double Lift Facial Cream: £4.99
 Lacura Moisturising Eye Cream: £1.49
Lacura Wrinkle Stop: £4.99 
I'm excited to try these products. It's certainly going to save me a lot of money in the long run if they really are as good as higher end products. Ok, so I haven't got any wrinkles yet, but my motto has always been "prevention is better than cure", so I'm going to give these a go and let you know how I get on in a later post.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus - Happy Saint David's Day

For those of you who read my old blog, you may be thinking that this post is similar to a previous post. You would be right! Out of all of the old posts that were 'automagically' removed by the delete button, this was the post that I was most sad to see go. In hindsight I should have saved the post as it was, and reposted here. But my rational thought was overridden by my deletion adrenaline and before I knew what was really happening I had wiped the slate clean.

I can't really remember what it said, but I know it was about St. David's Day... Which, as it happens, is today. March 1st 2012... and March 1st every other year also.

St. David's Day is the celebration of the patron saint of Wales. He was a monk who lived in the 6th Century. A few stories surround the life of St. David. Probably the most well known being the miraculous event that happened whilst he was once preaching to a crowd. Such a large group of people had gathered that people were finding it difficult to see and hear the man. It is said that at this point the ground beneath him raised up so that all could see and hear the Word of God.

Another story linked to Welsh history and St. David concerns our national symbol - the leek. It is said that when the Welsh were fighting the Saxons, St. David told the Welsh to place a leek in their hats so that they could distinguish each other from the enemy. From then on the leek has been linked to Wales, with people sometimes wearing a leek symbol as well as a daffodil on St. David's Day, or carrying a blow up leek to a rugby match!

Finally, the third thing that I associate with St. David was a phrase which has become very well known since his death. Just before he died on March 1st at around 100 years old, he uttered the phrase "Gwnewch y pethau bychain", which means "Do the little things". A reminder to us that we don't have to be famous or do outrageous things to get satisfaction in life, but it's the kind words and little acts of generosity that will make other peoples' day and in turn, make us truly happy.



Above is a picture of me dressed in traditional Welsh costume, sitting on my brother's lap. We had to wear this costume to school on St. David's Day for photographs which would appear in the local paper a week later. Fun times!
 
So, in true celebration of all things Welsh, here is my WELSH WORD WALL (see my amazing use of alliteration there?). A selection of words that I associate with my beloved country:

Welsh cakes (Google them!)
Daffodils
Mountains
Male Voice Choirs
Coal Mines
Leeks
Sheep
Cawl (Google! Yummy)
Bara Brith (Google)
Yr Iaith Cymraeg (The Welsh Language)
RUGBY
Valleys

If you can think of any more good ones, let me know and I will add them to the list! So once again, Happy Saint David's Day to all you Welshies out there, whether you live in Wales or elswhere. Have a great day celebrating your Welshness! :)

Da bo ti!