My poor husband had taken the week off to spend time with the boys and myself and he has spent the whole time looking after me, my extremely boisterous four year old and my also poorly three year old. We havent gone out anywhere, we haven’t done anything and its just been a bit poo really.

What has made it all ten times worse has been the SNOW each morning! I mean seriously, I know we are all saying this but SNOW IN APRIL? Really? And not proper exciting snow, but mushy crappy snow which is good for nothing. I have completely had enough. The world outside has been grey and brown and cold and miserable which has in turn made me feel even more grey and miserable as I have been lying listlessly in bed.

By Friday night I had had enough. I’m not great at sitting/lying around at the best of times (the four year old definitely takes after me) and knowing that all three of my boys were struggling downstairs without me really hadn’t been helping my mood.

In order to cheer myself up I decided I would paint my nails a pretty spring colour. This time last year I filmed a Favourite Spring Nail Polishes video, and this included my favourite spring colour of all – L’Oreal Perle de Jade.

This is one of L’Oreal’s Colour Riche polishes and is my favorite ‘mint’ colour as it is slightly more blue in tone then a lot of them, making it a little more interesting. On a side note I finished the bottle this time and need to get a new one quick, this is polish I like to have in my collection at all times!

As soon as I had finished painting my nails I instantly felt a bit better, and joking said to my exhausted husband as collapsed in bed a bit later that “Spring was sure to be on the way now.”

You can imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning (still ill, alas) to bright sunshine streaming in through the curtains and the temperature a positively balmy 7C outside. I realise that may not sound like much, but its been -1 most mornings, so i’m gonna take the win where I can. So here I am, sitting here on Sunday (i’ve finally progressed to lying on the sofa… woo!) and the sun is still shinning. In fact, we’ve even got sheets drying on the line outside it is that sunny.

Now, whilst logically I know this weather has nothing to do with my nail choice and will probably not last I like to think it may have helped, so either way YAY FOR THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING!

N.B. I’ve spent quite a bit of time online window shopping some gorgeous Spring outfits and accessories and am planning to put these up in a blog post later in the week if anyone would like to see?

Bye for now beauties xxxx

(of course I have to insert obligatory tree shot in here…)

My husband and I put it up together Saturday evening by ourselves once our boys were in bed. Although I look forward to the day we can do it as a family, with the boys being only 4 and 2 it would surely have been a diaster to try it this year. Many of our decorations (bought pre-children) are made of very thin and beautiful glass and I know with the best will in the world that trying to do it all together would have led to raised voices, over excited children, smashing decorations and probably tears from all of us. Plus I really like the big reveal the next morning when the two of them come thundering down the stairs to see that Christmas time has arrived, the look of wonder on both their faces is something I have captured on film every year and I know will be one of those things I watch time and time again when they are grown up.

BUT… having said all that it does upset me a bit that they can’t yet join in with all the festive fun that comes with decorating the house ready for Christmas, so when I came across a felt Christmas tree on Pinterest much earlier in the year (yes I start planning for Christmas early on and also God Bless Pinterest) I immediately pinned it to my board as something I definitely wanted to make for them this year.  Here is my version of a felt Christmas Tree with felt decorations.

This is a super easy, quick and cheap craft that lets your children decorate their very own tree time and time again during the Christmas period so they can really feel a part of the preparations.

All you really need is some felt and velcro and you are away. I bought the large piece of green felt from ebay, (mine cost me £5 and I had more than double what I needed) and the rest I already had (I buy the pack of several different coloured felt sheets from Hobbycraft every time I go there).

To make the different decorations I used my trusty Christmas cookie cutters for the basic shape (other then the reindeer and the candy canes which I simply eye-balled until they looked ok) and then hand-sewed some detail on to each to make them more interesting for the boys. This last bit is totally optional, many versions of this I have seen haven’t bothered to do this, but I wanted mine to look a bit prettier and slightly more interesting. (Note Rudolph in the picture below, this really pleased my eldest who thought the red nose was really funny.

The star at the top was two different star cookie cutters cut out and then sewn together  and makes a great topper for our tree that the boys squabble over who gets to put on.

All in all I made red baubles, blue baubles, sparkly white baubles which the boys think look like snow, candy canes, reindeers, the star topper, mini christmas trees, and some Christmas bells. The bells were the ones I was least pleased with, but have turned out to be an unexpected hit for my youngest. He spends a great deal of his day carrying them around shaking them and making ding-a-ling noises at the moment!

To attach my tree to our door I bought a pack of self adhesive velcro dots (mine were from Dunelm for £1.50) and stuck these to the door and the stuck the tree straight to them… easy! The amazing thing about making it all out of velcro is that the decorations simply stay where you put them, just like fuzzy felt did when I played with it as a child.

I am planning on making some presents to go at the bottom of my tree in the next week or so, so that the boys can start arranging them, and I am considering trying my hand at some angels and Father Christmas faces just to add some variety and renew the children’s interest in this. To be honest the list of things you could make is endless… Stockings, family members initials, Christmas puddings, Gingerbread Houses and Snowmen are all excellent ideas as well. When both the boys were born we bought each of them a special decoration to mark the event and these would be a wonderful thing to recreate in felt for them.

My eldest has already started lining up friends to come round after school so they can all have a turn at ‘decorating their Christmas Tree’, I think it’s going to be a busy few weeks in our household!

I must say I have been really pleased with how much they are enjoying this, so much so that I am considering making another tree shape (with all leftover felt) for them to have in their room to stay up all year round. It would have different things to decorate it with depending on the season, flowers, leaves, fruit and snow would all be good and would be a good teaching tool as well.

If you too want your children to be able to join in with Christmas but fear for your decorations I cannot say enough how much of a good solution this is, the only downside is that I find myself compulsively straightening the decorations every time I go past it…

If you want to see some of the other projects I have lined up to do with the boys this season, have a look at my Xmas Ideas Pinterest board for more ideas, such as a Handprint Christmas Tree Canvas, a card Santa’s Beard Advent Calendar, melting Snowman Cookies, Family Fingerprint Reindeer and quite a bit more…

What are you doing to make Christmas special for your little ones?

N.B. I want to apologise for the amount of cat hair on the pics, my youngest decided our two silver tabby cats had to help him decorate yesterday… needless to say chaos ensued, but at least you can see it is being well used!

Oh my god – Marilyn Monroe + MAC instore in October.

It’s rare I get this excited about a MAC collection – the last one was the Disney Venomous Villains where I loved loved loved the packaging, but when I saw the promo pics for this new one I knew instantly it has the potential to top even that.

The world has of course gone slightly Marilyn crazy since Michelle Williams portrayal in “My Week With Marilyn” and the company who acquired the estate – Authentic Brands Group LLC – have teamed up with MAC to create a nostalgic collection in her honour.

From the promo photos the packaging for this collection looks simply gorgeous. Every item (with the exception of the lip liners, pencils and mascara) has an artistic black and white photo of her on it, and while these are pretty enough to probably con me into buying, the actual products look really really good as well.

Feast your eyes….

Lipstick

Since arriving in Goa he has shaved off all his hair, rented a motorbike with NO helmet (and no previous experience of bike riding), made loads of friends who refused to let him move on at first and painted a mural in the hostel he was saying at. He has just left Goa, heading for Pampi to hopefully see some of the history of India there.

One of the friends he has met out there, Danni, has kindly given me some photos of him painting a mural with her in the hostel and I thought you all might like to see – if only for a the shaved head in the last one!

Starting out measuring…

Starting to take shape…

Finishing touches…

Done!

Basically he is having the time of his life and is very happy out there… what more could I ask for? I am so happy that it is everything he wished for and more, he worked so hard this last year saving for it that he really deserves to have an amazing time.

For my part I am really missing him a lot at the moment, but seeing him looking so happy is helping, big thanks to Danni for updating us as Joe himself is slightly crap at it :)

Keep checking back and I will post again when I hear more… X

I love the fishtail braid, it’s one of my favourites, and I thought the addition of another one to incorporate my fringe/bangs was a stroke of genius; gets the head away from my face whilst looking pretty at the same time. I had to change the style slightly, I started mine closer to my head as I have quite a bit more hair than the girl in the photo, but other than that the basic principal was the same. Once i’d braided my side fringe into a fishtail I then added another fishtail coming round the right side of my head.

I happened to be dressed in a white top and my (my husband’s) raybans anyway so threw my jacket on to take this photo for comparison. This photo was taken about three in the afternoon and I had braided it at seven that morning, while you can see it does look a touch messy at this point I think it held up really well to the rigours of the day that I had put it through up to this point.

I also liked the way this looked from the front too… it looks like just one braid going down the side of my face and neck.

If you want to know how to create your own fishtail braid I did a tutorial on it a little while ago which you can watch here.

How do you jazz up boring hair? x

Whilst he was say playing in the bath tonight I say down opposite him and asked him these questions one by one, writing down his responses as we went along. We bothed loved doing this so much that I’ve actually decided I am going to do this every year just before school starts and see how their answers change from year to year.

So… 21 Things to Ask Your Children, here we go!

1. What does Mummy always say to you?
EBB: NO.

2. What makes Mummy happy?
EBB: Cuddles & Kisses

3. What makes Mummy sad?
EBB: Spitting at my brother
Me: err… YES that would make me VERY sad, don’t ever do that
EBB: Ok.

4. How does Mummy make you laugh?
EBB: Tickling my toes

5. What was Mummy like as a child?
EBB: You went to Nanny’s house & played with Daddy’s toys

6. How old is Mummy?
EBB: 10

7. How tall is Mummy?
EBB: As tall as number 10

8. What is Mummy’s favorite thing to do?
EBB: Make your pretty eyes & faces

9. What does Mummy do when you’re not around?
EBB: Stay at Mummy’s House

10. If Mummy becomes famous, what will it be for?
EBB: For painting your lips pretty

11. What is Mummy really good at?
EBB: Playing with me

12. What is Mummy not very good at?
EBB: Not playing with me
Me: Deep there son!

13. What does Mummy do for her job?
EBB: tell the trains to go the right way
(Me: I have no idea about this one… a real WTF moment)

14. What is Mummy’s favorite food?
EBB: cake & yogurt
(Me: I HATE yogurt with passion)

15. What makes you proud of Mummy?
EBB: when you play with me

16. If Mummy were a cartoon character, who would she be?
EBB: April O’Neal from The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

17. What do you and Mummy do together?
EBB: play cars, cuddle & a kiss

18. How are you and Mummy the same?
EBB: Our hair and our whole faces

19. How are you and Mummy different?
EBB: I have a willy & you don’t
(Me: Succinct and true… can’t fault him really)

20. How do you know Mummy loves you?
EBB: Cause you love me everyday
(Me: serious AWWW factor)

21. Where is Mummy’s favourite place to go?
EBB: To our house

This was really fun to do and I found it really interesting (as well as funny) to hear his responses, a good, fun and extremely cheap bonding activity to do with your little ones!

If you decided to do this with your little ones, please leave your blog links below as I would love to read them too! Ta x

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the eyeshadows and what they are like as this  is a subject that picked over many many times by almost every beauty blogger out there, but I really wanted to talk in general about how the highstreet seems more and more to fighting back against the high end companies and saying “we can do it nearly as well as you for a damn sight less money.”

Suffice it to say these are good; good in general and really really good when you look at value for money.

If you love to wear smokey brown eyes (my go to everyday eye makeup) look no further than the Heaven & Earth Palette, it has every shade you could possibly conceive that you might need.

The Undressed Palette is similar (browny colours), but also contains a really good black and grey in it making it much more verstalie, virtually tripling the amount of looks you can get out of it.

These palettes cost just £4 and £3 respectively. £3! For that £3 you get 12 eyeshadows and 9.6 grams of product and eyeshadows that themselves are good. I personally feel they could be a tiny bit more pigmented, but honesty im splitting hairs here, even if these were priced at between the £10-£15 range these would still be amazing value for money compared to their high end counterparts. The Undressed Palette especially is often compared to Urban Decay’s Naked and Naked 2 which retail for £36 each (still very good value considering the price of the single eyeshadows I think).

It’s not just MUA championing the way to cheaper makeup – Barry M (amazing nail polish colours) Sleek (great blushes) and Me Me Me (exact dupe for Benefit’s Moonbeam at a third of the price) are also really good lines with outstanding prices. Even the slightly more pricey brands are knocking it out of the park at the moment – Revlon have produced some amazing lip products in the recent months, Bourjois of course own Chanel and there is certainly some strong similarities between some of their products and Boots’ no7 range has made the headlines several times over the last few years for a few of what have become their ‘cult’ products.

I don’t know whether this is a response to the economic climate or just simply if these companies are fed up of being seen as second class citizens to their high-end cousins. Whatever the reason I for one am really glad for this upsurge in quality being seen on the high street, and have recently been heading to my local Boots and Superdrug first rather than straight into John Lewis, House of Fraser and Fenwick. My husband and my bank balance have been thanking me!

What are your favourite highstreet products you cant live without?

Btw, anyone found some great, cheaper lip liners recently? I’m on the hunt! x

Here I am with another little video showing what colours I keep in my MAC palette, check below for a list of the names – so without further ado…

These are the colours I have amassed in my first MAC palette, I would recommend all of them and I  have been really happy with my choices.

From left to right going down in rows…

Ist row: Blanc Type, Retrospeck, Omega
2nd row: Naked Lunch, Quarry, Satin Taupe
3rd row: Woodwinked, Tempting, Twinks
4th row: Cranberry, Glamour Checks, Silver Ring
5th row: Carbon, Black Tied, Knight Devine

All of these are in the permanent range other than Glamour Check which was limited edition.

This bomb looks pretty un remarkable compared to the rest of the bombs, for starters its a lot smaller than most, and secondly it’s mostly white with the odd bit of brown in it; It’s certainly not the most aesthetically pleasing of colour choices.  But this small bomb packs a big punch.

It smells of vanilla and cocoa, a gorgeous combination in itself, but that is not what makes this bomb so special. It is packed full of cocoa butter, meaning it is wonderful and moisturising for your skin whilst you are relaxing in the bath.

I took one of these on holiday with me this year, and after a day of serious of climbing the pikes in the lake district I put one of these in the bath and it soothed my aching muscles wonderfully. I used the butter in the water as a massage oil and rubbed up and down my calves and when I got up the next morning I was the only one without aching legs!

This is a wonderful bathbomb if you want to feel like your pampering your skin as well as your senses. If I’ve had a rough day this is the one I reach for and my skin (and my quieter brain) always thank me for it!

These are one of the cheapest bathbombs available at £2.40 which I think is a bit of a bargain. Since my first one these have become a staple in my bathroom, there is always one there waiting for those times when I feel my skin needs a little nourishment.

If you want to see what one looks like going in the bath click on this link to watch - Lush Butterball

Ingredients:
Sodium Bicarbonate, Citric Acid, Cocoa Butter,Synthetic Musk, Ylang Ylang Oil, Perfume

I feel like I am a little late to the party gushing about this, as both Louise (the Sprinkley/Glittery one) and Fleur (of deForce fame) have done posts recently on this very mascara extolling it’s virtue, but its just so good I couldn’t pass up the opportunity!

I had heard some amazing things about the YSL Faux Cils Mascara and it was on the top of my hit list of mascara’s to try, but if someone is going to be kind enough to offer me a sample of the shocking mascara I am g very grateful and more then happy to test it out.

The Sciencey Bit:

Yves Saint Laurent reveals an innovative brush with an ample helix cut that captures an ideal dose of formula, has multi-directional bristles to draw the formula to the brush for an instant release, and has an asymmetric shape to capture all lashes for amazing length and curl. The advanced formula thickens the appearance of lashes for our most shocking false lash effect.  It coats lashes instantly with outrageous volume for a scandalous, seductive look. 

To start with, I love the packaging of this (the real packaging of the full size… although the gold writing on the mini one looks good too),  the gold case looks really high end and expensive. I personally am quite a sucker for the YSL packaging anyway, the Touche Eclat Highlighter and the Touche Eclat Foundation are two with gorgeous pacakging that immediately jump to mind.

The formula itself is lovely and thick without being at all gloopy. It does indeed legthen and thicken my lashes without any clumps at all. I think this is the longest my lashes have ever looked with just mascara on them, and I even think these look better than some of the false lashes I’ve worn.

I have read a few posts saying that this is not a daytime mascara, but I personally have reached for this one over all other every day I have worn mascara, no matter what look I am going for. Yeah.. I’m not really a less is more type of girl.

You get 7.5ml for £23. Unfortunately pricey but understandable given how good this mascara is.