100 Happy Days Challenge: Part 2

Image found on weheartit and edited by me

As I previously mentioned in another post here, a few months ago I set myself the challenge of completing 100 happy days. This doesn't really involve changing much about your life (although I have found that I've made more of an effort to do something fun), it's about recognising the things that do make you happy. It's easy to get caught up in the things that make you stressed or mad or scared and completely forget about the one thing you did/heard/saw that made you feel happy. At the moment I'm on my 64th day (although I've not managed to post for the last few days), and I'm reasonably happy with how it's going. Although there are some days where I really couldn't find anything worth recognising, I'm glad that these are outweighed by days where something really did make me happy, and I'm glad that I now have a record of these things. I thought it was time for a little update, so I'll be sharing some of my 100 happy day pictures below. To see them all, check out my instagram here.

Day 34: ice skating with Alice (middle) and Jess (right)

About a month ago one of my best friends from Uni came to stay. We're all avid skaters (we were all lucky enough to take lessons for a few years), so we decided to dust off our skates and head to the rink. Getting back on the ice after more than a year was the best feeling ever, and I'm so glad that I don't seem to have forgotten much!

Day 35: Totoro amigurumi

About a year ago I became very interested in amigurumi crochet patterns. 'Amigurumi' is basically the style of crocheting 'in the round' (Totoro's body is one long spiral of crocheting). I started Totoro about a year ago with the premise of giving him to Alice (mentioned above) for Christmas. That deadline came and went (and I got her a replacement present). Then I tried finishing him for the Christmas just gone and that didn't happen. Then for Alice's birthday in February... and it didn't happen. But I'm glad to say that I managed to finish him for Alice's visit, just a few weeks later. I think Totoro is one of my favourite amigurumi projects so far, and I'm glad he's gone to a good home! (You can find the pattern for Totoro here.)

Day 38: bright clothing confidence

For a while recently I lost my confidence when it came to wearing bright clothing. Every day I would choose jeans and grey jumpers over anything else. This wasn't great, as half of my clothing comes from Black Milk clothing (website here), and is really colourful. I didn't want to neglect my bright clothing any longer, so I pushed myself to wear some leggings (not shown) and actually received a few compliments. Needless to say, I found my confidence again and went out in my brightest pair the next day (shown above).

Day 42: crocuses on campus

A few weeks ago marked the arrival of Spring on campus. I think Spring is probably my favourite season (apart from the deadlines at Uni), and I was so happy to see so many flowers appearing everywhere!

Day 43: 1,000 pageviews

This picture is pretty self-explanatory. At less than two months old, my blog got its 1000th pageview. Tiny milestone, but a happy one!

Day 45: sun, craft fair and chinese food

This picture pretty much sums up one of the best weekends I've had in a long time (you can read all about it here). The weather was perfect, the craft fair was exciting and the food was delicious.

Day 49: Black Milk Clothing order arrived

A few years ago when I first became obsessed with Black Milk Clothing I'd have orders arriving about every month (oops!). Nowadays it's a lot less frequently, mainly because my wardrobe is quickly becoming saturated with tight, shiny clothing, and also because I'm now in my third year of uni and therefore quite poor. Therefore I was very excited when a parcel arrived with my two latest purchases: a Vamp Jacket (link here), and an Amethyst vs Aurora Skye Inside Out Dress (link here) that I'm sharing with my sister. I love them both and can't wait to wear them out!

Day 53: Birmingham Botanical Gardens in the sun

A few weekends ago the weather in Birmingham was so nice. Jess and I decided that we couldn't stay inside, so we headed out to the Botanical Gardens. We'd been meaning to visit for a long time and I'm so glad we did. There were so many interesting plants, and birds too. And of course it was great to wander around the gardens and soak up some much needed sun!

Day 56: tiny shark amigurumi

I found a really cute crochet shark pattern online (here), and couldn't wait to try it out. I managed to finish this guy in about 30 minutes (just needs a dorsal fin and a tail), and I was really happy with how tiny and cute he turned out!

Day 61: tasty thai food

At the weekend I went to a restaurant called Sabai Sabai that serves the tastiest food ever. The coconut rice is amazing! I couldn't resist having two duck courses. Nom nom.

Day 61: Gatsby ball preparations

Another happy post for day 61! I'm not one to deprive myself of happy things, so I thought I'd allow two.

Tomorrow (!!!) is the physics department's Gatsby Ball. I am so excited! I was getting a bit worried about how I would make my long hair look suitable for the 20s theme. But after some trial and error I decided on a style that I think looks smart enough. And it was one of the easiest things I tried. Hooray!

Have you ever thought about doing a challenge like the 100 happy days challenge?

(P.S. I'm currently holding a giveaway to win three things from Lush's new Easter Collection. To see the giveaway and enter click here.)

Nails Of The Day: Hidden Treasure by Topshop

I've had this nail varnish in my collection for a long time now. For the past six months or so it has been neglected and unloved whilst I chose plainer matte varnishes. I'm not really sure why I lost interest in multi-tonal, metallic varnishes. Probably because I remembered the days when I'd go into Boots aged 12 and head straight for the glittery/metallic collections.

The other day someone made me aware of Barry M's new Aquarium Collection. This consists of beautiful two tone varnishes and glitter top coats and I fell in love instantly. (More pictures and swatches can be found on London Beauty Queen's blog here.)

Image from Barry M's Facebook Page
From L-R: Mermaid, Treasure Chest, Mediterranean, Caspian, Pacific and Arabian

In order to suppress my urge to rush out and buy them all, I remembered my Hidden Treasure (which did in fact feel like a Hidden Treasure when I found it at the bottom of my varnish collection). I feel like it's a good dupe for 'Arabian' in the Aquarium collection, and I've fallen in love again. Hooray for rekindled feelings!

Hidden Treasure changes colour depending on lighting, from a mid-green to olive, to gold and then brown.

I like how this varnish isn't too outlandish as far as metallics go. All the colours that it cycles through are quite muted, which makes it easily wearable. I also really love the formula - it's completely opaque after just one coat.

Hidden Treasure can still be found online, but the link to buy it appears to be broken *sad face*. Topshop do have an equally beautiful nail varnish called Eclipse which can be bought here.

Have you ever tried one of Topshop's metallic varnishes? Have you bought anything from Barry M's collection yet? I know that as soon as I have some spending money I'll be picking up a few (or five).

(P.S. I'm currently holding a giveaway to win three things from Lush's new Easter Collection. To see the giveaway and enter click here.)

GIVEAWAY: Lush Easter Collection

***CLOSED***

To celebrate hitting 50 Bloglovin' followers I've decided to hold my first ever giveaway! I headed into Lush recently to check out the Easter collection and fell in love. With all of it. I couldn't really justify buying any for myself until I've finished my other Lush goodies, but I couldn't resist them. So I thought I'd purchase a few things for one of you guys instead. I'll be giving away: 1 Yellow Immaculate Eggception Ballistic, 1 Bunny Bubble Bar and 1 Bunch of Carrots Reusable Bubble Bar.

These smell amazing. I think their Easter Collection this year is their best smelling collection yet, and I'm half tempted to buy a few things just to leave around my room (which now smells heavenly after having these sat in it for a day).

The Immaculate Eggception has a zingy and fresh fragrance, with lemon and grapefuit oil. It hides a miniature bath bomb inside, which is either a bunny or a chick. And when it dissolves it'll turn your bath pink, yellow and orange!

The Bunny Bubble Bar offers a sweetly smelling bath experience, with coconut oil, vanilla absolute and shea butter. It also contains blue cornflower petals!

The bunch of carrots have a tropical scent, with buchu, lemon and bergamot oils. They can also be used over and over to provide fruity smelling bubbles for plenty of bath times.

All you have to do to enter the giveaway is follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget below. The giveaway will be open until 12pm (GMT) on the 28th of March, at which point a winner will be randomly chosen.

Good luck everyone! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

WIDGET EDITED: to allow those without Bloglovin' to enter by commenting on the post. Sorry if you've already followed me to enter - feel free to unfollow if you'd prefer!

Disclaimer: this post is in no way endorsed or sponsored by Lush. Everything was bought by me.

50 Bloglovin' Followers!

Image found on weheartit and edited by me

(Apologies for the shortest post ever.)

So today my teeny tiny blog gained its 50th follower! Yippee! I understand that it's a minor achievement, but it excites me a lot. And I just wanted to say thank you :) Whether you were my first follower or my 50th I'm so thankful for your support and I'm glad to have you here. I hope you enjoy reading my posts as much as I enjoy writing them.

To say thank you and have a little celebration I will be holding a mini giveaway. The post will be up within the next few days, so keep an eye out for that.

I'm so happy to see my blog growing, and I can't wait to see what the future holds!

A Day Out: Craft Fair and Chinese

Image found on weheartit and edited by me

Warning: photo heavy post!

Last Friday was my boyfriend's birthday, and so I caught the train down to Bristol to celebrate with him. In the evening we had an Indian meal and then went to see a performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It at the Tobacco Factory (which was good but quite confusing for this first ten minutes or so until you familiarise yourself with the Shakespearean language used).

Of course it was nice to be able to do something with Ben on his birthday, but my favourite day of the weekend was Saturday. Ben and I joined his mum and a friend on a trip to The Creative Crafts Show at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern. I'm quite a creative person, and enjoy a variety of crafts, so I was super excited to go! The showground is right next door to the Malvern hills. It was a beautiful day, and so the views were great. Fingers crossed for more weather like this soon!

The Malvern Hills

The craft fair had over 70 stalls, but in our (well, mainly my) excitement to get around Ben and I had visited all of them in about half an hour. We then re-visited the stalls that had interested us (well, me) most. Namely, the giant cakes stall and the MosaiCraft stall.

All of these cakes looked amazing, and were huge for the price! By the time we went to buy one before we left they'd lowered the price to 3 for £5! So good.

Some of the designs on display at the MosaiCraft stall

MosaiCraft is a craft that's completely new to me, so it intrigued me. The basic idea is that a picture is split into its individual pixels, and a pattern produced to show you which colour each pixel is. This pattern looks similar to a cross stitch pattern, with different symbols used to represent different colours. The difference with MosaiCraft is that the picture is made up of thousands of tiny plastic squares, which are placed onto pegs on a plastic 'baseplate'. I was really impressed with the amount of detail that can be achieved using this method, due in part to the tiny size of the coloured 'pixels', and partly to the size of some of the designs. I purchased a design which will end up about 25 cm by 20 cm, and this contains 8000 pixels. I'm planning on dedicating a post to MosaiCraft as it's not very well known, and it's much easier to explain with pictures! I'll also keep you updated on how my kit is coming along - I'm already excited to finish it! In the meantime you can find the full range of designs and some extra information on: http://www.mosaicraft.co.uk/

After buying some super soft wool (I'm planning on knitting a baby jumper after finishing uni as I haven't done any knitting in ages), and returning to the cake stand to buy some of the deliciousness, we headed home to get ready for Ben's birthday meal with his mum and grandparents.

In the evening we headed out to a Chinese restaurant in Bristol City Centre called Dynasty. I'd never been to the restaurant before, and was very impressed from the minute we went in. The decor is very typically Chinese, like most Chinese restaurants. The difference is that this appeared to be a no-expenses-spared interior. They even had fish in the entrance!

Even the outside of the restaurant was fancy!

Fishes!

We decided on the set four course meal for five people, which included prawn crackers followed by the starters, then crispy duck and pancakes, followed by the main course and then hot drinks. Everything was delicious, and the service was fantastic.

The starter selection. Everything was amazing, especially the prawn toast which was the best I've ever tasted.

Crispy duck pancakes are my favourite! The staff prepared the duck at our table, which was interesting to watch.

The feast that they brought us for our main course

By the time we finally got to the main meal we were struggling to eat much more. Even after trying our hardest we ended up with some food leftover, which is a shame as it was really tasty. If only my stomach was bigger! Next time I'll choose a three course meal I think!

Hmmmm. I was hoping for 'A large sum of money will soon come your way' haha

Dynasty is the best Chinese restaurant I've ever been to, and with the help of some great company it was the best way to end an amazing day!

How was your weekend?

My Current Wishlist #2

Image from www.blaze-on.com and edited by me

I get the feeling that blogging is going to become an expensive habit. I find so many lovely things whilst browsing other blogs! Here are a few things I've got my eye on at the moment.

Game of Thrones House Sweater - approximately £28

Image from SoEffingCute on etsy

I must admit, I don't often wear sweaters, but I really like this one! I loved the Game of Thrones series and can't wait for Season 4. I also need to get around to finishing the books because, even though it took me a long time to get through, I enjoyed the first one. I think this would be so easy to style, and would make a difference to plain cardigans/hoodies!

You can find it on etsy here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/121843213/game-of-thrones-house-sweater?ref=shop_home_feat_4


Rhaegal Dragon Egg Skater Skirt - approximately £32

Image from Black Milk Clothing's Pinterest

At 11pm on the 10th of March (British time), Black Milk's Game of Thrones collection will be released! This release has been highly anticipated since it was announced that Black Milk would be collaborating with HBO sometime last year. In all honesty I'm slightly disappointed with the collection, which seems to be mostly House/Sigil pieces as opposed to the artistic prints that they could have thought about. However, this is likely to be due to HBO's influence on the collection so I'm still as big a fan of Black Milk as ever. One of my favourite pieces from the collection is the Rhaegal Dragon Egg Skater Skirt. It's based on one of Daenerys' dragons, and yet I think it's connection with Game of Thrones is subtle enough to not end up having conversations revolve around Game of Thrones every time you wear it.

You can see the whole Game of Thrones collection here: http://www.pinterest.com/blackmilkpins/game-of-thrones/


Baroque Print Dress with Contrast Collar - approximately £31

Image from www.chicwish.com

I can't exactly remember how I stumbled upon chicwish. But I fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it. It attracted my attention straight away as it has a collar (slight collar obsession), but then I started thinking about how I could style it for both day time and evenings out. I think it'd be a very versatile piece to add to my wardrobe.

Molecule 01 by Escentric Molecules - £65.60 (100ml)/£38 (30ml)

Image from www.cultbeauty.co.uk

I first heard about this quite a while ago when Zoella said that it was her favourite perfume. However, what I didn't realise until quite recently (when I read about it on Faye's Fix) is that it smells differently on everyone. I'm intrigued how the fragrance can change and yet still smell pleasing. From the descriptions provided in reviews it sounds like it has a woody, musky and fresh scent, which makes a change from the large amount of floral perfumes available.

Star, Sun and Moon LED lights - £27.50 for 20

Image from www.blaze-on.com

I came across this website after reading one of milk bubble tea's posts on home interiors. My favourite lights are these - I love the effect of the textured paper and these lights exactly match the colour scheme of my room back home. I think I'll definitely purchase some for when I move back in July.

Do you window shop online as much as I do?

ASOS, Primark and Boots Haul

(Apologies for the lighting in these pictures - the sun has been hiding for weeks and then it suddenly emerged during the free half hour I had for picture taking. Typical.)

Time for another haul post! Hopefully these aren't too frequent *thinks of all the money*, but I do love sharing what I've bought with you guys. As usual I popped into town for a few things and left with more than I anticipated. At least my purchases this time are mostly sensible so I know that I'll get use out of them.

Boots

First of all I headed into Boots for a white nail varnish. White/nearly white nail varnish is trending at the moment and, having never owned a white varnish, I decided I wanted to give it a go. I picked up 'Blanc' by Essie. I also picked up another base coat as my Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Topcoat has been completely exhausted. I did intend to repurchase Double Duty, but it was out of stock and I can't be without a base coat so I picked up this one by Barry M for the meantime.

Barry M Clear 3in1 Basecoat, Topcoat and Nail Hardener - £2.99

Essie Blanc - £7.99

Primark

Next I headed into Primark. I'm not exactly sure why I went in, but then I remembered I needed some more tights and couldn't decide between three pairs, so decided I'd get them all. I wear dresses more than trousers nowadays so get through tights pretty quickly. These three pairs are all quite thick so should keep me warm when the British Winter inevitably continues for another few months.

Cotton rich tights - £2 each

I also picked up a pair of velvet plush leggings. I meant to pick these up ages ago but they've always been out of stock so they're obviously very popular. And it's easy to tell why. The lining is one of the softest things I've ever felt, and when you wear them it feels like your legs are being hugged by fluffy goodness. Unfortunately the weather is warming up (slightly) now, but hopefully I'll still get chance to wear these in the next few months.

Velvet plush leggings - £6

I then headed to the home section. I'm always on the lookout for things that'll make my room comfier/more organised/generally nicer. As I wandered past the candles I caught a whiff of something incredible and pinpointed its origin to this Sweet Vanilla and Coconut candle. It smells amazing. It's just the right combination of refreshing and sweet, and I can't wait to fill my room with its scent!

Sweet Vanilla and Coconut tin candle - £3.50

On my way to the checkout I passed these shower gels. I thought these were just the right size for travelling, and are also small enough that you don't have to worry about getting bored of the scent before you finish the bottle. At only £1 each I couldn't resist picking up one of each. After giving them each a smell I can honestly say that they all smell exactly as they say on the bottle. I love fresh and fruity shower gels!

I love... bubble bath/shower gel - £1 each

ASOS

Lastly I picked up this dress that I'd ordered from ASOS during their sale (did anyone else know that you can pick up ASOS orders from thousands of shops nationwide? As someone who's often out when the postman comes I thought this was the best option). I collected the dress from a newsagents in the centre of Birmingham and hurried home to try it on. I bought the dress for a 1920's themed Gatsby Ball that my Uni's physics department is holding in March. It was quite expensive, but I fell in love with it and figured this'll probably be one of the last big nights out I go on before leaving Uni so wanted to enjoy it as much as possible. After trying it on I fell even more in love with it, and am now more excited for an event than I have been in a very long time. Hurry up March 21st!

Frock and Frill Embellished Shift Dress - £59.50

I love the details in this dress!

Apologies again for the rubbish lighting - I was too impatient to wait for proper light!

I'll try to get some more pictures of myself on the night of the Ball. I plan to do my hair and makeup in 1920s style too. Time to get practising I think!

Have you ever been to a themed party before? Is it better than your average night out?