cupcake anyone?

I don't know if many people know this about me, but i adore baking. There is nothing i love more than baking on a Sunday. Cakes, cookies, scones, pies, if its a dessert, i make it :)

Seen as though I'm getting really into Halloween this year- partially due to the party we're having tomorrow, i just had to make Halloween themed cupcakes, because I'm a geek like that.
Firstly i made the basic cupcakes using 4oz of butter/margarine, 4oz sugar, 4oz self raising flour and 2 medium sized free range eggs. I just spelt flour like flower.... I'm so ditsy. These were then put into 12 Halloween cake cases and into the oven for 15 minutes at 180 degrees. But we all know how to make basic cakes don't we?

Once cooled i began to make my icing! I decided butter icing was the one, and as the name suggested, all you have to mix is butter/margarine and icing sugar. I don't use any specific measurements for this, because it just ends up different every time. Once mixed together, i then added food colouring- I didn't use anything fancy, just ASDA's own brand. I then went in with a plastic icer, i do not get on with the bag icers, i wish i did, but i don't. This specific plastic one was from 'Lakeland' and comes with a range of nozzles for different things. I scooped the icing into the tube, and applied around the cakes... 

 

As the finishing touch, also from Lakeland, we bought a Halloween cake stand make from card. It comes flat pack, which you then have to build up to 3D. For saying its only a cake stand, it was pretty confusing, but i mastered it in the end, cos I'm ace. After i decided they needed chocolate sprinkles.. just because everything in life needs abit of chocolate.

just a few bits and pieces.

I don't know if other bloggers and youtubers get this, but sometimes i am just in the mood to film and blog. I haven't been at it for every long, but sometimes, i am just in the mood to do nothing all day other than blogging, making videos, and watching videos. Today is one of those days. And i dunno about anyone else, but when I'm blogging, i love blasting out my itunes on shuffle. The Midnight Beast - Tik Tok just came on, i forgot how bloody much i love this song. "wake up in the morning feeling like winehouse, grab my breezer out the door I'm gonna be really loud. cos i don't care who i piss of yeah I'm a real big sinner, sometimes i eat my dessert before my dinner. talking odd socks on my toes, taking off my clothes, feeling over exposed so i put back on my clothes that i took of...." cannot beat it. Stuff itunes on shuffle, i think I'm gonna rock out to midnight beast for this post. Yes, lets.

Since my little trip to Birmingham, i haven't brought that many clothes. But I've picked up a few random bits and pieces that i thought I'd throw together into a mini haul. I actually showed these in my last blog post, i couldn't justify doing a haul over one pair of boots, so i just whacked them into a random post. But now I'm doing a haul, they just have to have a cheeky mention.

I just adore them so much. They're from newlook and i only payed £19.99 for them, which I'm pretty chuffed about. I'm yet to wear them out because I've been at school all week, apart from today because i had a cheeky day off, and tomorrow I'm off to Alton Towers... And its abit risky wearing new shoes to Alton Towers, you walk miles in that place, blisters.com.

I have never understood how people can have the same school shoes from September through to July. I don't want to sound like a freak but after one half term, my shoes have got holes in the bottom :S i think its just the way i walk /: So 7 weeks into the school year, i needed new shoes LOL.

I'm personally a huge fan of loafers, so why not have them as school shoes? I got these from Diechmann for £14.99 which is pretty darn reasonable don't you think?!

The next thing i bought was a re purchase that i absolutely love.. well obv if i re purchased it...

I get mine from asda, i can't tell you how much exactly it is because my mum buys it whenever I'm low :') but one thing i will say is, if you've got oily skin, don't go anywhere near it.

It is also my bestfriends birthday coming up, and i never have any idea on what to get friends for birthdays. So i just buy what i like, and hope for the best.

This is possibly the cutest necklace i have seen in my entire life, and there is a high chance I'm gonna go back and buy one for myself. This is from Accessorize and it was pretty steep at £16, but I'm almost certain she'll love it. So i suppose its justified.

My phone case was completely on its last legs, half the sides had broken off and i wanted a change if I'm honest! I searched high and low for a really pretty floral print phone case. I just assumed it would be one of those really easy things to find.. apparently not. I finally found the perfect one on amazon for a fiver including packaging, i usually head straight down to eBay for things like that, but i could find one this time... click HERE for a direct link to the seller or something! It was delieverd pretty quickly, and the minute it got here, it put it on my phone. Soon to realise its incredibly hard to take it off. I chipped my nail varnish over it and it still wouldn't come off. So the only way to show you is the cringy 'in the mirror' facebook pose....

And on that note, speak to you all soon xxxxx

its beginning to look a lot like christmas

It seems like only last week was I doing a post about how I was enjoying the last of the summer sun, and now Christmas is in thoughts again. Crazy? well that's just Britain isn't it. I think it is safe to say we have now officially hit autumn, and there will not be any heatwaves for the foreseeable future. 

I don't know if any other 'villages' (hate that word sounds so British) have a fair that come round in the October time? Well anyway, my 'village' does, and it comes the third week in October, same month, same week, every year, for as long as i can remember. And for me, that signifies winter is here. It is the first time that its properly dark around 7, and i can actually feel the cold. So this year i went, it was the same as every other year- everyone gets wasted, a few people get arrested for unorderly behaviour, waste £20 odd on rides i must have been on at least 101 times before and feel like an ice cube by the time i come home. But its winter, its what happens every year, and I'm pretty sure I'll do the same next year.

After my feet almost turning to ice after the fair, i decided it was time to invest in this years winter boots. I had my eye on some from primark, but I'd only seen them in a primark that's not my local one, and I'd never seen them since. I was wandering around newlook (as you do) and came across this beauty's.

They are almost identical to the ones in primark, but i prefer the colour of the 'leather' of these ones. These were reasonably priced at £19.99 and a size 6 fits like a glove. Whereas the the primark ones were £25. I'm sorry?!?!?!?! When did this happen?! I know prices have gone up in primark, but my gosh. It breaks my heart to say this it really does, but there is nothing special about primark anymore. Newlook is equally priced, and i genuinely believe the clothing is better made. Primark is taking the piss now, either the prices come down, or the quality goes dramatically up to the point i think the prices are worth it.

Buying the new winter coat and boots is always a dreaded task, well for me and my mother it is anyway. But this year, I didn't go out looking for them, they just came to me..... ahah! But honestly, I think that's the secret. When i went to Birmingham, i didn't go into newlook with the frame of mind that "i will buy a coat in here" i was just having a look around, with nothing in mind. The rest is history and i adore my burgundy quilted jacket an awful lot. The same thing happened with my boots, well actually i was looking for school shoes.. funnily enough i didn't find school shoes, i just found boots.

The weather has finally moved on from that stuffy, cloudy, 'not hot but not cold either' stage, to now it just being cold. I'm sad to see summer go, but I'm so excited for all the winter clothes this year, which is a change for me. I'm usually a summer clothes girl, but this year i just love all the colours, well not all the colours, just burgundy. I will miss the comfort of summer, because unless you wish to freeze, winter clothes are quite restricted and uncomfy as they are so thick and layered.

What really scares me, is a whole school half term has flown by in what seems over night. I'm going to the Alton Towers Scarefest on Friday for god sake. This year really has flown... So much has actually happened. And today we got our January exam timetable.. And that to me sounds soooo far away, but realistically, it'll come around in a flash. And if January is going to come round in a flash, then I'm gonna have left school and then be left with myself, nervously waiting for results in a jiffy. And then I'll fail and wont get into sixth form or college, and then I'll go no where in life. AND now I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm sure I'll enjoy the autumnal weather a lot more when I'm not in my hideous school uniform.

shopping time

I live in a shit hole, also known as Derby. It has a pathetic excuse for a westfield, and I would prefer to live and shop anywhere else in the entire country. So me and my mother opted to jump on the train to the bullring centre in Birmingham. We hadn't been there in a long time, so it was a pleasant change from where I live. 

Some of you will understandably be thinking "what the hell, I'd love to live near a westfield" -oh no, not this westfield. It was built a few years back and was expected to be TOP DAWG. Its a let down to say the least. There is pretty limited beauty supplies, its either drugstores Boots and Superdrug (which aren't impressive), or Dior and Chanel at Debemhams. Theres no middle ground like Mac. And for some unknown reason, the shops stock the most hideous clothes from the collection, you go to any other branch of the same shop, say River Island for prime example, its almost guaranteed to be a nicer clothes range than in Derby.

Rant out of the way, I was giddy at just the thought of Selfridges and Birmingham in general this morning.

Cropped swing top, Forever 21, £12.

Bird cage necklace, Forever 21, £4.90

Burgundy quilted jacket, NewLook, £22.99

Burgundy/Red skater dress, Internacionale, £14.99 (WHATTA BARGIN!)

MAC MINERALISED SKINFINISH NATURAL LIGHT, Selfridges, £18.50

I got a few others bits and bobs which are featured in my YouTube haul from this trip, but were too awkward to take decent blog worthy pictures of. Care to watch the video?:')

 

halloween is looming

I have gone from blogging about summer sunshine, to the prospect of Halloween. Haha, isn't Britain wonderful? I'm having a Halloween house party this year, I've always been to them, but never actually held a Halloween party. I'm sure I'll blog like crazy about how we decorate the house, and exciting things like that.

I didn't want to just dress up as something that is classed as the Halloween normal, because well, I'm not normal. I thought the queen of hearts from the classic Alice in wonderland was outside of the Halloween norm, so i hunted high and low for a suitable costume... and this is what i settled with, happily must i add.

Admittedly, this isn't the scariest of all costumes. But doing my hair and makeup will work wonders.. see what i did there?! aha cringe at myself.

Who agrees those socks are hideous? I am never going to touch them again with a barge pole. There isn't a cat in hells chance I'm going to wear those things on Halloween. I'm so short, they basically are tights and reach my bum :|

As i said, i searched high and low for a suitable queen of hearts costume. It took me about a week of searching to find the right one, if they wern't too slaggy, they were too long, and if they wern't either of them, they didn't have my size or they only did one size, and if non of them, they were ridiculously priced. Ebay was the way forward. Mine came to around £20 in the end, including delivery. And I'll tell you now, that's a fraction of the price that some of these rip of sellers were charging. Let me know what you're going to be this year, i'd be ever so excited to find out.

last of the summer sun...

I don't think I am the first to admit that the English summer really did let us down this year, well- it lets us down every year. But we all hype ourselves up for blue sky days and long summer nights, but it just well, never happens. 

So when the weather report came out last week, I quickly dismissed the idea of a heat wave starting last Tuesday. We never get a heat wave at the best of times, never mind in October. So i continued to go to school in woolly tights and jumpers... soon to find out, there was a heat wave, and i was going to boil to death in these tights. 

I was no way shape or form ready for a heat wave, all my summer clothes had been bundled away for next year, and the woolly leggins and chunky knit cardigans had been brought out. Not to even mention the pale skin and bodily hair front. It was out with the coats and scarfs for a week, and in with the fake tan and shorts. 

Just for proof to myself, that i lived in a heat wave, in England, in October, i thought I'd do a blog post of a few snaps of what I've been up to during this rather extraordinary heatwave.

We thought we'd be oh so English, and go on a family trip to a farm... That's my little sister and I, pretending we love each other, and then there is a rather pleasant llamas rear end. How photogenic of him. My sisters shorts are actually from river island. she thinks shes too cool for kids shops.

Spending a sunny Saturday with my nearest and dearest, you can't go wrong with that. Can you believe that's her natural colour hair, and natural length. God only knows how much I've spent trying to get my hair her colour, but i think I'm finally lighter than her. We had a good old chuckle ha ha to the he he. That's also her natural length... one day I'm going to cut it off in her sleep and sew it into extensions for myself... I've been debating doing it for a while, at least now it would be my colour ;) I hope you all enjoyed the last of the summer sun, i know we did:-)

OXOX