two-tiered rose cake (attempt 2!)

My second attempt at a two-tiered cake was more successful than the first, but unfortunately i didn't have time to make enough roses to cascade down the cake this time. I guess that's a good enough reason to make a third attempt though!

ii

The paper doily was from Lakeland and came in a pack of 3 pretty designs featuring roses, swans and pearls, and with the largest doily covered in yellow roses it looked like it had been made to sit on my cake stand :)

Afternoon Tea

Last week I mentioned that I was going for my first Afternoon Tea experience. I was really looking forward to it, but unfortunately it wasn't very impressive, with a poor and limited selection of sandwiches, cakes which looked like they were straight out of a Tesco packet and being seated at a coffee table which was really uncomfortable for eating. A few days later we went to M&S for a quick lunch and discovered their Afternoon Tea for 2 package - sandwiches, scones, tea and tartlets - for just £10. You choose your sandwiches and scones, and although it was a little plainer with no choice of cakes I think it was good value for money. The only thing I missed was having it arranged nicely on a cake stand like the advertisement, which was a little disappointing, but having read other reviews online it seems that most M&S cafes do serve afternoon tea on a pretty stand.

My first Afternoon Tea Experience

P.s. I've also discovered a love of instagram - better late than never!

George @ Asda Summer Sale!

George @ Asda has just launched its end of summer sale and there are some great bargains to be had! (Don't forget you can also get cashback on your purchases from Top Cashback).

Clockwise: Grey Skater dress £6 - Floral Playsuit £9 - Pink T-shirt £3 - Gladiatory Heels £10  -  Blue Crochet Vest £5

Make £100 in a week challenge - update

About a week ago I blogged about my self-imposed savings challenge to make £100 in a week. Here's how I got on:

Ebay - £7 (I'd intended to list a lot of items but reeeally couldn't be bothered with ebay, it's such hassle!)
Mystery Shopping - £8
Pinecone Survey - £3
Carboot Sale - £60 (after £5 pitch fee and £5 petrol money)

Total - £78

So not quite the £100 I'd set out to make, but equally it's not bad for a few hours of effort! It really does make you think twice about spending £30 on a new dress or top when you know it's resell value when you're bored of it is as little as 50p.

Anyway I'm off to bed for an early-ish night as I'm going for Afternoon Tea tomorrow, I've never been to a proper afternoon tea before so I'm looking forward to it and going to pick out what to wear tonight :)

Red sky at night...

Just a quick post tonight to upload a pic of the pretty pink and purple sky just after the sun had set.

Lush Christmas Preview 2013!

It might be the middle of summer, but I can't be the only one excited about the flurry of Christmas previews popping up online can I?!...

Anyway, yesterday I spotted a picture from the Lush Christmas Preview event posted by the asian beauty blog. The products on offer look better than last year's, when I think I only bought a couple of Christmas Eve Bubble Bars as the novelty of glittery bath bombs which take forever to clean out of your bath has worn off.

However this year sees the introduction of a number of new bath bombs, bubble bars and melts, and rumour has it that a special limited edition Rose Jam shower gel is set to make an appearance too!

I'm glad that the Christmas Eve Bubble Bar is back again, it has a lovely soft jasmine scent and i'm intrigued by the blue shooting star and purple bath bombs. The snowman has been remodeled from previous years and now looks adorable! It's good to see the addition of so many new products, I can't wait to pop into the store when they launch in October and see what smells as good as it looks!

Does anyone else have a Lush Christmas wishlist already or is it just me?!

Another attempt at something creative...the reupholstery edition

Yesterday I decided to reupholster an old dining room chair for my bedroom. I've been looking for a nice bedroom chair for a while, and found one from Next shown below that I like a lot, but at £199 it's a bit out of my price range at the moment, so for now it's been stuck on my computer "bookmarks" and I'm trying my hand at another crafty project.

Mayfair chair @ Next, £199

 If you've read any of my previous posts (including but not limited to the recent two-tiered leaning tower of cake) then you may be sceptical at my chances of success. I am too. But I'm not the sort of person who'd let something like having no upholstery experience or a history of craft-related failures get in my way. (I wish it would). So anyway I've removed the old fabric - which required taking out about 200 staples (my hands still hurt), and made a start on sanding down the wood with an electric sander (at least my aching hands are super smooth now). I keep asking family members to "show me how to sand" as "I don't think I'm doing it right", but unfortunately no one has fallen for it yet, so no doubt it'll be another day or two of sanding before I can prime it. I'll write a proper post up on my upholstery adventure when (and if...) I finish it! In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the wildlife I snapped in the garden whilst I was sanding...

Sanctuary Dreamtime Sleep-in-a-box Kit Review

Just before I went on holiday I mentioned my bargain Boots haul, which included the Sanctuary Dreamtime Sleep-in-a-box kit. I've used it a few times now so thought I'd post a quick review about the set.

The set contains 4 travel sized products; soothing bath float, smoothing silk scrub, 4in1 restoring body elixir and comforting night butter. I haven't used the body elixir yet as you can only use it once, so I'm keeping it for when I have time for a long soak, but the other products have been tested a few times now.

The first thing you notice about the Sleep range is the lovely, calming scent; it manages to be subtle whilst still having a relaxing effect. I would describe the fragrance as a creamy almond and lightly floral scent. The soothing bath float has a slight shimmer and produces a fair amount of bubbles, leaving the water soft and scented.
The smoothing silk scrub is a very lightweight scrub, it doesn't have much "scrub" in it so isn't suitable for proper exfoliating, but that makes sense for a kit which is meant to help you unwind and make you sleepy. It does however leave you skin silky soft, and the gentle scrub is relaxing.
The comforting body butter is the final step to dreamtime, and complements the other products perfectly. It's  luxuriously thick, absorbs quickly, and leaves the lovely scent on your skin.

I really like this kit and it did help send me off to a relaxed slumber, so I would purchase it again, although probably the kit (which retails for £12.50), rather than the full sized products which are about £10 each. I think this will be one for my Christmas wish list this year!

(Another) Primark Haul ♥

Primark is finally getting it's new season stuff in and I had a quick look on Friday to see what I could spot. It might seem a little ironic that yesterdays post was about my self-imposed savings challenge, but the important thing to remember is that these purchases were made before the start of my challenge...

Anyway, here's what I picked up:

This cute skater dress is my favourite purchase and was a bargain at just £8! I think it's really versatile too, the short sleeves and lightweight fabric mean that this dress will be perfect for sunny days (if we get any more of those), but the rich plum and deep navy colours will take it through to autumn. The print also features black in the pattern so I think it could even be worn with black tights in winter and a cardi for a casual shopping trip or lunch out.

 

This jumper was also £8 and has sheer sleeves and pretty pearl detailing around the neck line. The jumper is really soft too which is a plus, as I often find them too itchy to wear. I think this could easily be dressed up or down, and would be good for evenings or layered up in winter. 

I picked up these cute teacup pyjamas for just £4 reduced from £8. There were lots of reductions on pyjamas, jewellery,scarves and home ware, and the assistants were still marking the new sale prices when I was there so it might be worth a look if you're passing.

These Ice Cream pyjamas were another sale bargain at just £2 down from £5! The print reminded me of our holiday and I thought they'd be great for the next one so snapped them up.

The tea-towels were on sale too, reduced from £3 to £1. They're the really soft type, so I think they might be better as hand towels instead. They also had a red floral pattern set on sale too.

And finally, this pack of hair bands was £1. I can't seem to find good quality hairbands often these days. I bought a pretty pack of 6 from Accessorize last month and 2 broke within a day of wearing them, and the third is already wearing out after 3 wears. So I thought I'd get a couple of thicker bands to try instead, hopefully these will be stronger than the thin ones, and the bows add a nice detail too.

Make £100 in a week challenge...

So I seem to have firmly fallen off the frugal track since I came back from holiday...comfort shopping perhaps? Well something has to cheer you up from the rainy (and typical) British summer we're having...but on the plus side I've finally found a little motivation to get back on ebay and had a couple of paid surveys this month. I even sorted out a load of old stuff for a car boot sale, but the heavy rain today meant it was cancelled.
Anyway, I took advantage of the rainy day to have a sort out and I've realised that I still have too much stuff! So initially I was going to do a No Spend Day challenge (the idea being quite simply that you don't spend any money for a week/month/however long). But on reflection I remembered that I have lunch and dinner plans for next week...and I'd hate to fail so soon and become disheartened, so instead I've decided to try something else, make £100 in a week! I'm planning to use ebay, survey websites valued opinions and pinecone, and hopefully a car boot sale to reach my goal in 7 days. I'll update my blog with my progress!

AW 13 High Street Picks

The shops on my high-street have just started getting in their AW collections and I've already picked up a couple of new things from Primark and H&M for my wardrobe. I've had a little look online at what a few of my favourite shops have to offer, and here are some of my favourite outfits...

Nails of The Day...Technic Polishes

I finally got a little bored of my floral nails today, so they've been replaced by a new look made up of two Technic Nail polishes.

The pink polish is a lovely bright shade titled "lychee". I'll be wearing this on my toes for the rest of summer I think, it's so low maintenance - it's quick to apply, it goes on evenly with no streaks and best of all it leaves the nail super smooth and shiny, they almost look like false nails! I still can not believe how fast drying they are, I can be a bit clumsy and usually smudge my nail polish at least once without fail shortly after painting my nails, but this polish manages to dry before even I have time to ruin it : D
The purple colour is actually a translucent purple shade containing lots of multi-coloured glitter, called "Mad Alice". Although the glitter doesn't show very well in the pic, it actually catches the light really nicely, and builds up an opaque background colour in 3 coats. I think this might be an advantage over the clear glitter polish too as it saves you the time of having to apply a base coat!

In other news, and unsurprisingly no doubt, my "reduced spending plan" isn't going so well...(self-explanatory blog posts to follow soon!). Hm.Maybe time for Plan B and a huge ebay clearout?

Two-Tier Rose Cake (Attempt 1...)

Last week I came across a beautiful 3-tiered cake decorated with cascading roses in my newest cake decorating book (£1 from the M&S sale, very much worth looking out for!) and thought it would be lovely to make for guests we're expecting at the end of the month. I wanted to practice it first, as I had grand ideas of a two tiered cake, with different flavour sponges and buttercreams, with a beautiful display of fondant roses. It was just as well I did because I'm a baking novice and as such encountered several hitches along the way, all of which lead to a less-than-perfect looking cake :( But at least I know what to improve for the real thing I guess! Namely;

- Do NOT forget the Marzipan. (I said I was a novice!) I completely missed this out from both the ingredient list and method, and it was only when I came to add the royal icing that it  seemed like icing the cake was a lot harder than it should be. I was right. As a result the icing didn't quite stick to the cake as well as it should have, and you can see where the sponge cakes are sandwiched together. It doesn't look good.

- Remember that baking a small cake means adjusting the cooking time. I forgot to do this and as a result my "strawberry" tier tasted predominately of overcooked cake.

- Make sure the cakes are level before applying the icing. Yet another rookie mistake and this caused a fondant rose to roll off the top of the cake, land in the middle of the previously smooth icing leaving a big dent and then proceeding to fall (and smash) on the floor.

I'm disappointed with the overall look of the cake (and didn't really want to upload the photo to my blog, but It's a learning curve right?) but not to get too disheartened by it, I was pleased with how the roses turned out - it took me an entire evening to make them all and it took a while to get a technique going, but I don't think they look too bad for my first attempt at making roses, and I do like the colour of them too. I also made a strawberry buttercream for the top tier cake and luckily that turned out very nicely and added some flavour back to the cake!

So, here it is...hopefully the second attempt will look a lot better!

(And yes the picture is small in a vain attempt to minimize the obviousness of the awful icing...I know it doesn't succeed however!)

Latest Poundland Haul ♥

I was in London last week and managed to find my way to Poundland for a quick look as I'd seen a few things on their website which had caught my eye. I didn't have long to spare but I still managed to fill a basket! The first thing I picked up are these cute Cath Kidston style floral coasters. I thought these would be lovely on our garden table, and I couldn't resist taking a picture with my newly polished nails as they matched so well!

The next thing I spotted was a cupcake carry case which holds 12 cupcakes. I was really pleased to find this as I've been on the look-out for one since I saw them on the Poundland website a few months ago. I already have the cake carry cases and they are great for keeping cakes fresh and transporting them. Similar cupcake carry cases are sold in Asda for £6, and Lakeland for £15.99, so i think this is great for £1!

I also finally remembered to pick up a couple of packs of food covers. These are so handy in the summer to keep flies off your food, especially for picnics and barbeques outside. These food covers fold flat for storage and pop up when you start to open them, which I think is a better design than the old ones I used to have which would have a little string that you'd pull to clip a plastic clip in place, as they would wear quite quickly and wouldn't stay up. Each pack contains two covers too so even more of a bargain!

And last but not least I found this amazing little gadget, which is a 4 way USB charger, and can be plugged in to the USB port on a laptop or computer, or a usb car adaptor (which I also bought from Poundland but I put it in my car before I remembered to take a photo, so I've found a stock photo). This is so useful as I can charge my mobile, ipod, tablet and camera from this at the same time, so makes it a great space-saver for travelling as I can take just one little charger for all of my electricals, or with the help of my car adaptor I can now charge them all in the car. If I spot another of these I will definitely be snapping it up for a spare!
 

I couldn't find the 9 piece fondant stamp kit I've seen on the website though, so I'm still searching for this, but it looks ideal for decorating cakes, and much cheaper than fondant cutters usually are!

Dior Addict Eau Sensuelle Perfume Review

A couple of months ago I received a 5ml sample of Dior's new fragrance "Addict Eau Sensuelle" which I took on holiday. The little sample card holder didn't have any description as to the fragrance so I wasn't sure what to expect, but the delicate fragrance surpassed my expectations, with strong notes of jasmine and slightly lighter rose tones, it's like a burst of a freshly cut bouquet. I'm fond of floral scents so this appeals to me, but if you're not keen on floral perfumes you might want to try one of the original scents.

I'm looking forward to trying the other perfumes in the Dior Addict range, especially Dior Addict Eau Fraiche, which is described as sparkling and sharp, fresh and woody with a radiant and subtle freesia combined with white lotus flower and delightful pomegrantate.

Technic Nail Polish Review

I thought I'd do a quick review of the technic nail polish which I used to create my Cath Kidston nails. I bought 3 shades from Bodycare, a pastel blue, pastel green and dark pink, and at just 99p each I didn't really have high expectations for them. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they are actually durable, long-lasting polishes, and even the pale blue was opaque in colour in just two coats and left no streaks. Since painting my nails I've washed my hair, done some gardening, cooked, been grocery shopping and carried out other chores and yet my polish has still not sustained a single chip! I can't wait to call in to Bodycare again soon and see what other pretty shades they have, I've already seen a pretty multi-colour glitter which looks like a very close OPI dupe, and at 99p they're a bargain!

Technic nail varnishes can also be purchased online at love thy makeup for £1.25 if you don't have a Bodycare near you.

Cath Kidston inspired Vintage Rose Nail Art

I've wanted to try a floral pattern on my nails for ages now, so when I was in town today I picked up a couple of new nail varnishes to create my own rose nails.

Edit - I've added green leaves now and it think they look a lot better; very vintage and Cath-Kidston-esque!

 For the pastel green I used shade "picnic" by technic (reviewed here) and the darker green is "Envy - 960" by Sinful Colours (a new nail polish range available in Boots, it has a vast range of colours and they retail for only £1.99). I didn't use any special nail art pens, although I've been wanting to get some for a while I was actually quite pleased with the quality of both brands which I used, the brushes were easy to hold steady and use precisely without the need for nail art pens or tools.

No 7 BB Cream Review

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about my Boots Haul,which included a No7 BB Cream. I'm an extreme latecomer to the BB cream party, it didn't particularly appeal to me as I have a reliable foundation which gives good even coverage, so what else could a BB cream offer? Having now tried No7's BB cream I realise that the two are pretty much completely different products. The BB cream has a light moisturising formula, yet provides a noticeable even coverage.The best thing about it is how easy and quick it is to apply, there's no need for a brush or sponge, simply blend in with your fingertips and in seconds you have a more even skin tone; it's great for days when you're in a rush or don't want to overload your skin with products. The other benefit is that it is long lasting so with its light-weight formula it's great for summer (and it has SPF 15 to protect your skin in the sun). Unfortunately I often need a medium-full coverage foundation to fully disguise imperfections, so the No 7 BB cream won't be replacing my foundation, but it has become a firm fixture in my make-up bag for the summer months.

Holiday ♥

I have the post-holiday blues already! So I thought I'd upload a few pictures from my holiday as I'm sorting out which ones to get printed. In the collage above I've included pictures of some of the amazing food we had for dinner one evening at a Lebanese restaurant (the falafel in particular was delicious!) an ice cream shaped like a rose (I bought it purely because of this, despite not actually being hungry as we'd just had a huge dinner!), the beach we had all to ourselves when we got up early one morning to sunbathe, and views over the city.

In other news, I'm on a bid to reduce my spending! Despite normally being relatively frugal, the array of summer sales have been not so good for my purse (or my already full-to-bursting wardrobe - and yet still, every morning I find "I have nothing to wear". I can't figure it out!). We'll see how it goes!

Chocolate Baskets filled with Ice cream / Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop Book Review

I have just finished reading Abby Clement's latest book "Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop," which is the perfect light holiday read. I won't give too much away but the book follows two sisters as they try to take over their grandmother's ice cream shop in Brighton, and as one heads to Italy to learn how to make gelato, the other is left to start running the shop, and both encounter setbacks along the way! I took it with me on holiday and luckily enough I spent some time in Italy so I could try out real Italian Gelato to see what the fuss was all about in the book, and it really was delicious so I want to try making gelato too!

Whilst looking for a recipe in one of my dessert books I came across one for chocolate ice cream in a chocolate shell, so as I didn't have the ingredients at hand to make the ice cream I decided to try making chocolate baskets and filling them with some from the freezer for my first attempt.

The method is simple, cover a small bowl with clingfilm and pipe melted chocolate around the edge and across it and leave to set. I didn't have any clingfilm only foil, and this proved quite difficult to remove resulting in a couple of broken baskets, so next time i'll be trying it out with clingfilm and hopefully will have better results.

Boots No 7, Sanctuary and Champneys Bargain Beauty Haul!

I called in to Boots yesterday and as I was passing through I noticed lots of big reductions on their luxury brands including Sanctuary, Soap & Glory, Champneys, Burts Bees and National Trust, some with 75% off. I am quite keen on Sanctuary (their products are paraben free too which is a plus) so I was pleased to spot a few items on sale (two of which I had already had my eye on, but didn't buy as my beauty box is already quite full following a successful visit to the Boots Christmas sale in January!) And it is the perfect chance to try new Sanctuary products that I otherwise wouldn't have; whilst I don't mind paying a premium for products that I know work and are reliable, with limited money in my account for non-essential purchases I'm not keen to spend over £10 on one product without knowing it won't be tried once and then stuck in the back of the cupboard.
So, on to the small haul I picked up!

The first thing I picked up was the Sanctuary "Dream time sleep in-a-box" which contains everything you need to send you off to a relaxing sleep. I can't wait to try this out later, it has a soothing bath float, 4 in 1 body elixir, smoothing silk scrub and comforting night butter. This had 1/3 off and was reduced to £8.38. I also spotted a box of skin conditioning oils, (which I'd also wanted to try before), and you can either use these as an intensive moisturiser on your skin or add to a bath to leave your skin soft and smooth. I'm a big fan of hair oil treatments so I'm hoping that these will work just as well! These were down to £2.30-ish from about £10. The third product I bought was a micro-dermabrasion body renewal scrub. I hadn't actually seen this before but I'm really keen to give it a go as I have an uneven skin tone and according to the scrub 9 out of 10 women noticed a visible difference to the appearance of their skin...so this has high expectations to live up to! This was also about £2.40-ish from about £10. Boots is also running a promotion where if you spend £10 on sanctuary you get a free creme souffle worth £11, so obviously I added this to my basket too! I've tried this out already and I really wasn't expecting much as I have quite a lot of moisturiser that I need to use up and didn't think it would be particularly different, but I soon changed my opinion. It is so rich it absorbs very well and quickly unlike some body lotions which seem to take ages to absorb, and it leaves skin feeling soft, supple and smooth and with a lovely fragrance.

Just when I thought I was done with my sanctuary haul I spotted the Champneys hand scrubs (far left in the picture) which were down to £1.50 and buy-one-get-one half price. I picked up two as I used to have a Sanctuary hand scrub which was lovely so I thought I'd give this a go. And even better I had enough points on my Boots card to pay, so effectively my bag full of goodies didn't cost me anything! There were also plenty of bargains to be had on the Soap & Glory shelves, Burt's Bees and National Trust aisles (including gift sets which would be good for birthdays or Christmas if you want to prepare early!), so if you're passing by it might be worth calling in and seeing what bargains you can spot!

As you can see in the picture I also picked up a couple of bargain No7 products. I'll keep it brief but currently boots are giving out vouchers at their self-service tills for £8 off a purchase of both No7 skin care and make up, and I already had a £5 off skin-care and £3 off make-up voucher from a till from my last trip to Boots, so I purchased a No7 BB cream (which is £13) and No7 eye illuminator pen (also £13) and was able to use all of my vouchers which gave £16 off, and as make up is on buy one get one half price this just left a few pounds to pay. I also used my mums vouchers to get her a BB cream and top coat nail varnish. I think that the reason all of the vouchers work and you still get the buy one get one half price promotion at the till is because BB cream is classed as both skincare and make-up, so if you want to purchase a few items yourself you'd need something in both categories like the BB cream or Bronzing pearls/palettes.

Now I just have to fit it all in my beauty box....!

Primark Bargain as seen in Dorothy Perkins!

Earlier this week I posted about my new purchases from primark, including the £5 pretty floral cami below.

So I was quite surprised to spot this blouse made from the exact same fabric when I was shopping in Dorothy Perkins at a more extravagant £22. I actually prefer the Primark top too as I think the simpler style is more versatile.

Primark Summer Haul ♥

My local Primark has finally started getting some new summer clothes in, and having popped in for what was meant to be a quick look around, I ended up leaving with a full carrier bag!

My favourite purchase is this gorgeous floral print string top, which was just £5! It has such a pretty floral print and a silky feel, and I have a pale blue cardi which I bought from Primark last year that matches perfectly.

(The pictures are rubbish and not only do they not show the print of the top very well but the colour of the cardi doesn't look right either, but until I find my camera I'm stuck with taking photos on my blackberry!)

I also bought a pair of navy linen trousers, which are on offer at £6.90 down from £10. These are much better fitting than their previous designs and consequently more flattering too. They're quite casual but I thought they'd be good for when it's too hot for jeans but I am just doing chores/calling in to town quickly and just want something easy to wear.

These caught my eye over in the pyjama section and were £7 i think. The top has 3/4 sleeves and is a nice soft cotton material, but the trousers have quite a high waist, so i'm not sure if I'll keep them yet.

These pretty flannels were an impulse buy, but they were only £1.50 and are very soft, so now I'm tempted to get the rest of the set to match!

And finally these men's socks were on sale for just £1!

Seventeen Off the Wall Graffiti nail effects in "bluetone" Review

My nail varnish collection has suddenly doubled in size in recent weeks, and the latest additions to my collection are two blue varnishes from Boots (where all make-up is currently on a buy-one-get-one-half price offer, and they're giving out £3 off No7 make-up with purchases of £5 or more). The first is a deep french blue with a hint of metallic shine called "Betty Blues" by No7, and is the base coat in the picture below. The second is the nail varnish I'll be reviewing, a translucent blue polish by Seventeen densely packed with silver and black glitter pieces. It's part of their new "Off the Wall Graffiti Nail Effects" range and available in two shades, "bluetone", which is shown below, and "monochrome", which has black and white glitter.

I applied two coats of the No7 stay perfect varnish for the base, then a layer of Seventeen's glitter polish. If you shake the bottle well then one coat is enough to give an even coverage of glitter across the nails, but for the one or two that were left a little sparse I just let them dry and then added a second coat to make it more even. I really liked the overall look of the varnishes together, and although it is not very clear in the picture, the glitter reflected light to give a really pretty sparkle to my nails and it would be ideal for evenings out.