Thursday, 22 January 2015

Review/OOTD The Making of Harry Potter

Sometimes you need a little break.

Exam season hit us all pretty hard at the beginning of January, and I was desperate for some time off. Originally I'd planned to just have a meal out with Dan, maybe a little movie evening at his, and then we had a conversation about something we'd planned to do when we first met: do the Warner Brothers Studio Tour.

After a little googling we found a guy on eBay who was selling two tickets for a date that suited us both, and found cheap advance tickets that would get us to Watford and back, so we decided why not. Tickets and travel for us both under £30 can't be bad?!

As a big Harry Potter fan I've been to the studios before but this was Dan's first time so I made sure to drag him round to all my favourite bits. We spent a veeeeery long time in the Great Hall for example, and I was in the queue for butterbeer before he'd even registered we'd got to that part of the tour! Some parts were new though, for example the recently-installed Malfoy Manor set, as featured in The Deathly Hallows Part 1.

 
  
 
 It was also technically still Christmas at the Studios - one helpful staff member informed us that they had received so many complaints last year when their Hogwarts in the Snow feature closed after Christmas they decided to run it this year until 1st February - so we also got to experience the Hogwarts Castle model covered in a dusting of snow, which was just beautiful.
  
 Yes, it was a long day but it was worth it, especially for the price we paid - I really do recommend scouting eBay and Gumtree if the price is a little out of your reach, but it would have been more than worth the actual ticket price. A real must for any Harry Potter fan.

Part of my New Year's Resolution this year was to love my body more and so I also filmed a little OOTD to show you exactly what I wore -  I opted for my lovely green Slytherin scarf and a snake ring for a little house pride, while keeping the rest of my outfit in monotone black to make my accessories stand out that little bit more. As it was cold I opted for my favourite H&M coat which I found over the summer in a popup vintage store in Brighton - while I wanted the green of my scarf to contrast with my mainly monotone outfit while there, you do tend to get a few odd looks when travelling with a bright Harry Potter scarf so I went with my lovely camel coat to just neutralize the green on the way there and back.
Top: New Look
Coat: H&M (vintage)
Ring: New Look (not available online)





Sunday, 18 January 2015

A Little Bit of Green

'This year I'm going to try and be healthier.'

This sentiment is echoed across the country at the start of every year: and to be honest, it normally lasts around a month and a half before we're back to our old ways, eating pot noodles, pizza and popcorn on the sofa while ignoring the year's gym membership we inevitably signed up for the first week of January.

A lot of people just try to tackle too much at once, and changing your diet and fitness habits doesn't happen overnight - taking baby steps is very important. When I first decided that I was going to completely overhaul my diet, it was daunting, but I started small by swapping out some of the things I was eating for healthier alternatives before trying different foods and tackling new recipes. I wanted to eat more fruit and vegetables, rather than crisps and chocolate, so I looked at ways to introduce them into my diet - and the most prominent way of eating more of my 5 a day was smoothies.

2014 was the year of the Green Smoothie: everyone from Miranda Kerr to Elle MacPherson was proclaiming how great they were for detoxifying the body and clearing the skin, and I was naturally intrigued - and then converted.
As a vegetarian with a low iron count it's incredibly important for me to be eating food rich in iron. Spinach is a great source of iron so anything with spinach in it is a winner, and in smoothies you can't even taste it - particularly in banana based smoothies, if it wasn't for the vivid green colour you would have no idea there was anything other than fruit in your glass. There are recipes all over the internet for different green smoothie recipes but I'm today I'm going to share one that is simple, tasty and works for me.

Green Blueberry, Banana and Strawberry Smoothie
Time to make: 5 minutes
Cost per portion: £1.62
Calories per portion: 175
Portions of your 5 a day: 2+
You will need:
  • 125ml milk (I use almond milk, but you can of course use cows milk)
  • 50g strawberries, chopped in half
  • 25g blueberries
  • 1 banana, chopped roughly
  • 35g spinach (approximately a third of a 100g bag)
  • A blender
Blend the spinach and half of the milk - I often do the spinach on its own first as some machines can struggle to finely blend both the spinach and the fruit at the same time. 
 Add the fruit and blend again until smooth. If you're using a hand blender, it may be wise to strain your smoothie before serving as sometimes hand blenders fail to fully blend both the spinach and the fruit if you're blending them together. I used my Russell Hobbs blender because its all-in-one blender and portable bottle means it's brilliant for on the go smoothies. Either pour into a glass or a bottle and you are good to go!
Yes, I'm fully aware that this is not the most aesthetically pleasing drink, but I promise you you can't taste the spinach at all. The antioxidant properties of the blueberries are supposed to help protect against heart disease and boost memory, and the blended spinach is a great way to get more iron into your diet. This smoothie is the perfect pick-me-up on a Monday morning before school, college, university or work!
Have you tried a green smoothie before, or are going to try one now? Any particular recipes you like? Let me know in the comments below!

Thursday, 15 January 2015

Lush Boxing Day Sale

This blog post was supposed to be the first of a two-part sales haul to kick off the New Year, and I wanted it to go live about a week ago.

Unfortunately you can't write a haul post without the actual products.

I won't lie, the Lush Boxing Day sale was a fiasco - the website had a glitch, so not only did it take almost 3 hours and countless refreshes to load the pages and put items in my basket, it meant people were still able to buy products that had sold out hours before. Inevitably this caused nearly 3 weeks' worth of shipping delays and a disappointing lack of communication from Lush themselves but yesterday, after 3 calls and a P&P refund, I finally got what I was after - a dispatch notice, and this afternoon a delivery.
 It was worth the wait.
One of my favourite products from this year's Christmas range was the Golden Wonder ballistic, so when I saw the Golden Wonder gift set on sale I couldn't resist - it comes of course with the Golden Wonder ballistic, which looks like a little golden parcel and turns your bathwater into this frothy, zesty turquoise colour and scent, and the Gold Fun, which is supposedly a malleable soap, shampoo and bubble bar all-in-one and smells caramelly and slightly citrussy (similar to the Honey I Washed The Kids soap). I'm quite picky about what goes on my hair after several bad dying experiences so I won't be using it as shampoo but I'm looking forward to playing around with it as a soap!
Secret Santa was an impulse buy. I'd looked at the Honey I Washed the Kids soap a few times in my local Lush store, as it's a permanent product, but I hadn't really looked at the Father Christmas bath bomb until recently, but I'm glad I purchased the set. Previously the Father Christmas bath bomb was a kind of lemon, citrussy scent, but this year Lush changed the formula to make him smell more like Snow Fairy. In my opinion, he smells exactly like Refresher sweets, but that's not a bad thing - who doesn't want to smell like Refreshers? Someone who doesn't like Refreshers I guess, but that's not the point. The bath bomb is huge - so big you can quite easily cut him in half and use him twice - and turns your bath a festive green colour.
Originally I wasn't going to buy the Christmas Candy Box. I had my eye on the Snow Fairy giftset because it contained not only the Snow Fairy shower gel, but the Magic Wand bubble bar too - but the website was so difficult to navigate I ended up settling on this, and actually it worked out perfectly as I picked up the Magic Wand in store. The Christmas Candy Box of course contains Lush's signature Christmas scent, the Snow Fairy shower gel. Reminiscent of childhood treats like pear drops and with small traces of glitter, it's a product that immediately makes you feel like a child again when you use it, and with the stress of university I could really do without adult responsibilities. The set also contained on my personal favourites, the Butterbear, which was completely sold out both online and in my local store, the Candy Mountain bubble bar that gives your bath these gorgeous vanilla-scented bubbles, and the Rock Star soap. Rock Star is also a permanent Lush product, and it's one I've eyed up a few times in my local store due to it's lovely vanilla scent, and I'm sure using the soap coupled with Candy Mountain will leave me smelling like a McDonald's milkshake after my baths.
I'm almost ashamed to say I bought Santa Claus Is Coming To Town for two products. Almost. I bought the So White bath bomb before Christmas on a whim as it had this gorgeous apple set, and I waited until only a few days before Christmas to use it, and I fell in love. The scent is spot on granny smith apple and turns the water a gorgeous pink, almost reminiscent of the poisonous apple in Disney's Snow White (which is of course where the So White name comes from). But because I'd left it so late both my local store and the online store were sold out, so I sulked until I realized that the Santa Claus Is Coming to Town gift set contained So White in shower gel form. Not only did the box look so cute and christmassy, it also contained my favourite moisturising Butterball bath bomb in Butterbear form, so I knew I had to get it. The giftset also contains another Golden Wonder bath ballistic; the glittery Holly Golightly bubble bar - named after Audrey Hepburn's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's - which turns the bathwater a lustrous green and smells like cinnamon and citus; the Snow Angel bath melt, which is similar to the Butterball in that it's incredibly nourishing for sensitive skin but smells like caramel; the Dashing Santa ballistic that has been a Lush favourite this year and promises to dash around your bath leaving a trail of coral colour and satsuma scent; a Reindeer Rock berry-scented soap; and the citrussy Snowman shower jelly, that shares it scent with Lush's Easter Carrot soap and comes in this cute wobbly snowman shape.
I hadn't anticipated buying so much, but knowing that I could and would be using them well into 2015 it seemed silly not to - the Lush sale comes around but once a year you know! It's such a shame that my first experience was slightly tarnished by the website glitches and that there was very little in the form of communication from Lush, but when I did call the staff were very apologetic and did all they could to find out more information for me, and their products are well worth the wait.

I know most of the products aren't available anymore but I do know that some Lush stores have some Christmas stock left, and where possible I've included links to very similar products.