Shopping in the Sales

Currently reading: Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes

Good morning dear readers!

Although I was unlucky when I went to the sales the other day, I went to a couple of other shops the day after and was slightly more successful. Here are my bargains:

Bag, Matalan, £6 down to £3

Work skirt, M&S, £19.50 down to £9

Tartan wool skirt, M&S, £35 down to £17, suitable for work and play

3/4 length jacket (£59 down to £25) and matching skirt (£29.50 down to £15), M&S
They haven't photographed well but the material is lovely in reality and the colour is charcoal. I'm not keen on the 3/4 length sleeves but...

Dress which matches the above jacket, M&S, £45 down to £19

Grey suit jacket, M&S, £49.50 down to £19
I couldn't find the matching trousers to complete this suit but thought I'd pick up the jacket in case I manage to find the trousers in another branch. Fingers crossed!

Did you manage to find any bargains?

Bye for now,
Laura

Festive NOTD

Currently watching: Mary Poppins

Good afternoon girls :-)

One of the things I was looking forward to seeing when I came home for the holidays was my nail polish collection. There were only so many bottles I could justify taking with me when I moved in August so unfortunately I had to leave quite a few behind, over 40 in fact!

For today's manicure I was tempted to use No7 in Pink Grapefruit as my base with Collection 2000 in Green With Envy as my stamping colour and the star image from Bundle Monster image plate no21.

I'm sure the star image is the one I use the most as you can never go wrong with it, no matter what length of nails you have or where on the nail you position the stamp.

I rarely use dark reds or greens because I find they're difficult to remove, stain my nails and get into all the chips I have in my nails, which just isn't nice at all. However, a couple of my nails are quite short at the moment and I think subconsciously I'd already decided to go for the big cut so I suspect after this weekend (I need "long" nails for New Year's Day) I'll be sporting ten very short nails. Aw.

Bye for now,
Laura

Gifts Galore

Currently listening to: Illuminations by Josh Groban

Good evening ladies,

A quick picture post from me today. I've enjoyed seeing and reading about the gifts you received for Christmas so now here's your turn to discover what I was given :-)

2 photo albums, a personalised calendar, Hello Kitty notepad, pens

Dawson's Creek series 5 and 6, Josh Groban's Illuminations album


black handbag (you may recall I bought the same style in white for myself during the summer), Accessorize hat and capped gloves, eyeshadow, Tuca Tuca solid perfume (thank you Amy)

beaded necklace, amethyst necklace, star earrings, bow earrings

and my favourite item of jewllery, silver three twist ring

Thanks for looking

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD (Pink and Yellow Floral)

Currently watching: The Blind Side

Good evening folks :-)

I went into town this morning to look for some bargains in the sales and although I didn't come home with any treats, I did have quite a few chips in my nails so this afternoon obviously called for a new manicure :-)

I chose a floral pattern from my Bundle Monster image plates, Spitalfields by Nails Inc for my stamping colour and a pale pink shade by the Polish brand Lovely as my base. This pink is lovely. It takes aaaaaaaages to dry but is very pretty and also work appropriate. The yellow shade is pastel in the bottle but it looks almost white on top of the pink so it's actually quite a nice combination and looks like satin.

I got one new nail polish yesterday, a pink shade by No7. Did Santa bring you any polish?

Bye for now,
Laura

Merry Christmas (Plus E.L.F NOTD)

Currently listening to: Illuminations by Josh Groban

Merry Christmas everyone! If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you have had a lovely day with family and loved ones and Santa was good to you :-)

Here is my Christmas manicure, using a white frost nail polish in Pearl from E.L.F and the usual Essence Glitter Topper. That glitter topcoat really does go with everything.

The original plan was to put a rose sticker from Viva La Nails on each nail but that plan went out the window when I discovered how difficult the stickers were to apply. In fact, most of the stickers broke as I was removing them from the backing sheet so I was very disappointed with them and only managed to put two on my thumb nails before giving up and falling back on my glitter topcoat.

As for the polish itself, I find frosted whites tend to be quite thick and this one fell into that category too. I have some tip wear and a few little chips after a day and a half but that's easily fixed with this kind of polish and I can't complain too much since it was only £1.50. Regardless, I enjoyed looking at my nails today :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

E.L.F Order

Currently watching: Never Mind The Buzzcocks

Good morning!

Yesterday was my last working day of 2010; now I am on holiday :-) I'm taking the train back home to Scotland later this morning but before I start packing I thought I'd show you my recent E.L.F order which I received on Saturday:

I never wear eyeshadow but lately I've been wanting to give it a go so I thought about getting the Sleek Original palette. Then E.L.F had an offer on their site, where if you spent over a certain amount they would include their 32 colour eyeshadow palette in your order. I was tempted by this as I did want some other items from E.L.F but unfortunately they weren't in stock so I didn't place an order. I was still hesitating over the Sleek palette (because I couldn't decided which other two products to get in Superdrug's 3 for 2 offer) when E.L.F came up with a new offer: spend over a certain amount and get their 100 colour eyeshadow included. This time, I did order although I haven't yet had time to try anything out. I'm looking forward to experimenting though :-)

Does anyone else have this product? Do you often order from E.L.F?

Bye for now,
Laura

Bingo

Currently watching: The Apprentice

Good evening!

On Friday morning I sat my final ACA Professional Stage Knowledge Level exam, Management Information. I was supposed to receive my result on Saturday morning but the ICAEW website was down until earlier today so it was only a few hours ago that I discovered I had passed. Phew, what a relief. So that's me with a full house now, all six Knowledge Level exams successfully completed :-) The next stage of exams begins in September so I have some breathing space now. Yay!

Thanks to all of my readers who left me messages of good luck and congratulations during these four months of exams. I hope you will continue to support me along my journey to become a Chartered Accountant and I wish all of you who have had exams recently, or have them coming up, the best of luck too.

Bye for now,
Laura

Christmas Gifts

Good morning folks!

I haven't been around for a while (more in that in my next post) but that hasn't stopped me from compiling a Christmas wishlist ;-) While I tend to get a few small gifts on Christmas Day, my Santa sack usually consists of more money than actual presents. With that in mind, here's what I intend to treat myself to courtesy of Santa:

Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish

I've read lots of good reviews about this and I'm curious to try it, especially as it will be my first Liz Earle purchase and my first *high end* beauty buy.
(photo from google)
Capped gloves!

Hats. Not one, but several, because I'm not sure what style will suit me. This heart design hat is from Accessorize and matching capped gloves are available so fingers crossed they both go in the sale!

Can I get away with a trapper hat? We shall see.

And if the trapper hat doesn't suit me, maybe this one will. This caught my eye on the Accessorize website too.

Are you a fan of winter hats, ladies? I've been wearing ear muffs up until now but with colder weather undoubtedly on its way, a hat is becoming a must.

Bye for now,
Laura

Purple Glitter NOTD

Currently listening to: Firebomb by Rihanna

Hello,

Glitter Greetings to you all :-) Here's my weekend manicure; three coats of a lilac shade by the Polish brand Editt and a topcoat of Essence Glitter Topper. Glitter is such a pain to remove but when I go to the supermarket later today I'm going to buy some tinfoil so I can finally try the foil removal method. Fingers crossed it works as well for me as it does for everyone else.

Bye for now,
Laura

PS I passed my Law exam on Monday :-) One more to go this coming Friday and then, if I pass, I will be exam-free until the summer!

NOTD (Essence Aloha Sun with GOSH Holographic)

Currently watching: The Apprentice (UK)

Hello folks,

Hope you have a fun-filled weekend ahead of you. I have my Law exam on Monday so my weekend is reserved solely for revision. I'm sure I'll be able to find some distractions though ;-) (Oh look, I've started already)

Here's another manicure from during the week, this time using Essence Aloha Sun in Hibiscus and GOSH holographic. The idea was to stamp a holographic floral design on each nail but unfortunately the pattern didn't always turn out well so the flowers are only clearly defined on my thumb nail. We live and learn. Although I liked this manicure, all it really made me think was that I want a shimmery navy blue polish so my holographic stamps will show up better :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD (Purple Floral)

Currently watching: Strictly: It Takes Two

Hello :-)

Clearly I haven't been posting as much as I thought I was going to be this week, oops. College is taking its toll, as usual, and I've come down with a heavy cold too now. Fabulous.

Anyway, let's move on to my nails, which were a bit of a disaster to be honest.

This was from earlier in the week when I chose Eyeko's Lilac Polish and a Primark purple. I used them on alternate nails then, when browsing through my image plates, I settled for this "flower in bloom" type of image and thought it would look lovely placed at the bottom of my nail, in the middle. Well of course it would look lovely but I'm not the best at placing my stamper so this is what I ended up with:

The image blurred and smudged, the placing was off, and then the Primark purple polish decided to join in the smudging action too. It was all too much for me so five minutes after taking these photos, I removed it all. Nobody has seen this manicure in reality so I hope you feel lucky to have seen these photos ;-)

Bye for now,
Laura