Boots special advantage card Christmas shopping event

The other night I went to my local Boots for their advantage card Christmas shopping event. Spend £50 and receive £12 worth of advantage card points. Mum and I went to the same event last year and went again this year. 

Our plan was to go shopping after work, around 6pm ish, then go for supper at Prezzo. I am glad we went to Boots when we did, it was empty! So I loved wondering around the shop and not being pushed and barged out the way. I hate shopping when it is busy. Anyways, on to the goodies!

First up I got three presents for my other half's sisters and mum for Christmas, these gifts were part of the three for two offers Boots tend to have every year for Christmas gifts which is great. So each of these gifts cost £10, so I paid £20 instead of £30. A pair of slipper ballet pumps which have a fleecy lining and look really comfortable. Then Soap & Glory's youcube which contains four minis of their popular bath products (Hand food, Clean on Me, The Rightrous Butter and Flake Away) Also I picked up the Ted Baker bath time gift set which again contains mini products (Body Spray, Body Wash, scrub, lotion) I love the packaging of these two sets. 

Some more Soap & Glory products, two of these are for me, I love love love their Some Like It Hot body scrub which is a thermal scrub. I find this is the only scrub which does anything for me, it is quite rough, so avoid this if you prefer a gentle scrub. It is quite expensive £7.92, but this was on another three for two offer so I picked up two of these and a Scent-sationalism gift set (£8.43) which I will be giving a to a friend for Christmas.

I stumbled across the bargain shelf, so I picked up this Venus Embrace five blade razor, I think they are normally at least £8, so to pick it up for £4.25 was a good find. Mum treated me to a pair of my fav false lashes as they were on offer, buy one get a second pair half price. Mum got the other pair as she has never tried false lashes before and wanted to give them a go.

Finally I got some Aussie shampoo, these were on offer two for £6, I love this brand and tend to stock up when they are on offer. I love the smell!

I also picked up some other little bits like ear plugs (the other half snores and so I need ear plugs) tampax (not that you needed to know that!) and some shampoo for the other half.

So I spent a total of £62.82 but with all the offers and half price things I save £20.76 and since i spent over £50 I got well over £12 worth of points. So I am very pleased with the shopping trip. 

Afterwards we did go to Prezzo, that experience wasn't so great, we were waiting for ages and the food came out cold. 

Glitter tips

Using two of the new bargains that were my OPI nail polishes for under £4 I created this glittery manicure.

Two coats of OPI's Yodel Me On My Cell on all my nails apart from the middle nail where I applied two coats of Diva Of Geneva.

After these coats had dried I applied one coat of Fairy Dust by China Glaze from base to tip and then I painted one coat of Models Own in Juicy Jules about half way down my nails to the tips. Fairy Dust is a very fine smooth glitter, Juicy Jules is a dense gritty glitter which needs a good top coat to smooth it over.

Halloween treats and autumn images

Halloween is fast approaching, this is the first year my other half and I have lived in our house, it is a Cul-de-sac and so we are wondering how many people we will get trick or treating around the 31st. Where mum and dad live it is quite secluded and we never had any bother, so this year will be interesting, we shall see.

I have been chomping on a couple of nice treats:

Cadbury Screme egg

Instead of the usual yellow and white creme egg filling we have a gooey green filling, it tastes exactly the same though.

Next up is Mr Kingling Fiendish Fancies, yummy French Fancies, these are so good and didn't taste as sweet as the usual French (or fondant Fancies) which I loved as they weren't as sickly. They had a touch of orange flavor to them.

A fish bowl on a night out drinking with the girls, I am sorry but I have no idea what this is called , I didn't order it, and it tasted disgusting! I think there was definitely some melon liquor in there, yuck!

This time last year my other half and I were on Holiday in Florida, I loved this pumpkin display of fizzy drinks in a supermarket.

As autumn and winter close in I took some pictures of the River Torridge near where mum and dad live.

A neon shatter

Using my fav scotch tape half n half method I added a BM stamping pattern over the top:

I used Barry M in Lemon I/C, two coats and you can still see the nail line

After waiting for the yellow base to dry I applied scotch tape at diagonals, then I used two coats of my fav neon pink, Punki Pink by Nina Ultra Pro. Once the pink is semi dry I carefully peeled the scotch tape off.

Then I used a shatter pattern from Bundle Monster plate  BM-208, stamped with Konad Black special polish and China Glaze non chip top coat.

There are a couple of imperfections with my stamping but I hope they aren't too obvious! 

A smudged half 'n' half

Having rediscovered my love for the half 'n' half scotch tape manicure the other night I have another offering.

One coat of Barry M in Cyan Blue, waited for it to dry, and taping off my nails at a diagonal, I painted three coats of Models Own in 25 Carat Gold. After this had semi dried I peeled the tape off and using a dotting tool dotted Zoya's Edyta where the blue and gold meet.

I then applied China Glaze non chin top coat, but in my rush I smudged a couple of the dots which hadn't dried. In real like it doesn't seem as obvious.

Fab, Friendly Fridays

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Hi everyone, tis Friday, tis nearly the weekend thank god! Work has been so hectic this week, we have had a few people off on holiday and I have been given the lovely task of covering as well as doing my own usual work. I am looking forward to having a couple of days off!

Right, on to another Fab, Friendly Friday.

First up is a lovely purple sponge gradient manicure from Leslie over at Nail Polish Art Addiction. The three shades of purple she chose compliment each other so well.


Leanne at Do Not Refreeze has done a post about two Deborah Lippmann polishes, red ruby slippers and Pretty Young Thing. Basically she wasn't thrilled with these higher end polishes. As many of us know, Deborah Lippmann polishes are expensive and Leanne was trying them out to see if they lived up to the hype. It was interesting to see a post with an alternative point of view of these pricy polishes as most posts I see are people raving about them. I have never tried them, so I can't say what my thoughts are.


Claire of clairebelle0309 did a post showing what she is currently using in her daily skin routine. Claire has a few Liz Earle products, I haven't tried this brand before but lots of people seem to love this brand. I am keen to try it out though.


Nicola at Welcome to my world has done a post about some Soap and Glory products which she has been using recently. I am a big fan of S&G, I sent some products to Nicole at Noir Lacquer in our recent swap. My fav product from them is 'Some like it hot' self heating body scrub. 


Finally for this week, Louise at Affordable Treats shows us what she has picked up from a  shopping trip. Loving the look of the over the knee winter socks with the snowmen on.


Hope you have a great weekend

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Autumn feeling

I have never used or even owned a brown nail polish before, I stumbled across a Ruby and Millie sale in a Boots near Birmingham a while back, I think I snapped this one up for around £3 ish (I think it was a 75% off sale) This highly imaginative name for this polish is 'Brown'. This is two coats with Gosh Rainbow.

I love the way this combination looks, the flakies remind me of Autumn leaves on a woodland floor....

Over the pond swap

I recently did another swap with my friend Nicole over at Noir Lacquer, my parcel came really fast, just over a week. My package to her hasn't arrived yet, but am hoping it will be with her soon, I can't wait to see what she thinks of what I have picked up. 

This is what she sent me this time:

I asked for some goodies from Bath and Body Works, I have heard some great things about this American company and even Nicole was surprised we don't have a B&BW in the UK. Well, they have brought over Forever 21, so perhaps they might open a store or two here. I hope so. 

First up two body lotions, one is called Cozy Autumn Vanilla and the other is called Twilight Woods. These two lotions smell very similar, Cozy Autumn Vanilla is a lighter sweeter scent, Twilight Woods has a deeper, more sultry scent. Both lotions are very light and absorbed into my skin quickly. I found the scent lasts a couple of hours before fading away. 

Next up are a few antibacterial hand sanitizers, or pocketbacs as B&BW call them. Over in the UK I have only ever found strong alcohol smelling hand sanitizers, like the ones in hospitals. Even the Carex lavender ones have that clinical scent. B&BW has so many amazing sounded scents. Here Nicole picked up some scents from the Halloween line. Phantom Pumpkin, Bat Bite and Vampire Blood. Phantom Pumpkin doesn't really smell like pumpkin to me, it has a kind of sweetness though, but above anything else it smells like the drink Baileys to me.

Bat Bite smells just like Apple Sourz (I promise I am not an alcoholic!) and is one of my favs from the bunch. Vampire Blood is a plum scent, but for me it has a perfume-y smell which seems to overpower the fruity plum note. 

These two are Candy Corn and Zombie Tonic pocketbacs.

I have never tried Candy Corn, but it seems to be an American sweet favourite, can anyone tell me what they taste like? Are they crunchy or chewy sweets? I am so intrigued! I couldn't smell any caramel in this one, to me it had the most clinical/alcohol scent out of all of them. Next up is my fav! Zombie Tonic, it does smell like marshmallow with a hint of vanilla. Just nice n sweet. I shall enjoy using these!

Now on to the nail polishes!

Two Kleancolor polishes in City Never Sleeps and Melon Green, Melon Green is an amazing eye squinting bright acid green shade, whilst City Never Sleeps in a fab glittery polish with tiny blue particles and gold and pink bigger sparkles.

Next up a mini Bon Bons bottle of polish with tiny glitter particles in a clear base, mostly pink but with some blue. Pure Ice in Mint Green is a very sheer almost milky polish which seems mainly green but in the right light it has flashes of subtle purple and blues. NYX in Emerald Forest, a light green base with different sized glitter particles. 

I have always wanted to try Zoya polishes ever since I got into blogging, Nicole sent me Jem and Edyta. Jem is a fantastic purple but as you can see from the image their are threads of gold running through. Same with Edyta, mainly a bronzey brown polish with threads of gold running through. Gorgeous, can't wait to try these two out.

Finally for the polishes in this classic red from essie, another brand I am keen to try out. This shade is called geranium. I don't have many reds in my collection, so this is a welcomed edition.

Lastly a couple of Burt's Bees milk and honey body lotions, I love honey scented products so I these will be great.


On a final note, Moses kitten 'nom nom, this box tastes good'

'Who me'?

Thank you so much Nicole for picking out such great things! Looking forward to trying everything out.