20th Birthday Presents

 

 

Hello my little lovely jubblies. I'm coming to you with a biiig smile on my face today after having another absolutely amazing weekend and have been spoilt so, so rotton! As some of you may know, it was my birthday on Friday and my nearest and dearest definitely treated me well, the little gems! I've hit the ripe old age of 20 now and have left those wonderful teenage years behind me *sob*, so as I'm an old prune now and this was no milestone age then I was expecting about 3 cards with a tenner shoved inside them and maybe some flowers from my boyfriend.. I didn't really expect to be showered with so many wonderful gifts and be up to my eyeballs in new and exciting things to try!

I feel like a spoilt little princess.

A very grateful, spoilt little princess.

 

Just a little disclaimer that this is no way intended to be any kind of 'bragging' or 'show off' kind of post at all, as it is basically just a haul.. apart from it wasn't me that picked the items out.. or paid for them. I personally like reading these kind of posts that other people do after their birthdays because more often than not they're full to the brim with beauty bits which excite me and also they're great for gift ideas so this could give you some hints and tips if you've not started Christmas shopping yet!

 

When I first caught wind of these advent calendars from Ciate way back in October I had my heart well and truely set on getting one - what could be better than opening a door to a bottle of nail varnish every single morning leading up to Christmas Day?! I puppy dog eyed my mummy if she could get me one as a birthday present and tryed my best to justify the steep price tag with the fact that it contains exclusive shades and and 4 bottles of the ever so famous caviar pearls. She finally said 'yes'.. but then let on to me that they had all sold out before she had chance to order one, allowing me to moan and sulk that I'd missed the chance and she well and truely threw me off the scent that she had snapped one up for me. Little minx. I was jumping for joy when I realised she'd tricked me and I ripped open that yellow Selfridges box and admired my new Ciate Mini Mani Month and all of it's glory with a great big smile on my face. Yay!
 

The Benefit 'How To Look The Best At Everything' gift set pictured above was from my younger sister and contains minis of everything that you need to create the ideal complexion and base with the Pore-fessional primer, Hello Flawless foundation, 2 shades of Boi-ing concealer, and Me Vain? setting powder and it comes in a super cute old fashioned book style packaging - LOVE. The earrings were from my boyfriend's parents and the elephant Pandora charm was from my Grandma. She also gave me some money with strict instructions that I 'must treat myself to something pretty' with it, and treating myself is of course one of my favourite things to do so I don't think I'll find that too hard!

 

Below is a 'Topshop Hottie', i.e. a hot water bottle, that I got from one of the girls that I live with at uni and she said that she picked this one out because it's a wolf.. but when he has his hood up he's a cosy little sheep - aw! Now, I know that the saying 'wolf in sheep's clothing' means something to do with pretending you're something you're not?.. but lets just pretend it's nothing to do with that and it's nothing but a cute little wolf with a fluffy white jumper on! This is adorable and who wouldn't want to receive this as a present?



The little collage above is all the gifts I got from my two best friends at university; how generous? Rachael decorated our house with 'Happy birthday' banners and even got me a little cupcake from Greggs and put a candle in it for me - aw! As if a gorgeous clutch bag from River Island wasn't enough there was a nice purple box absolutely full of little goodies! They definitely satified my beauty cravings as well as my massive sweet tooth! So many sweets haha. Soap and Glory goodies, earrings and a ring, eyelashes, Rihanna perfume, a Skittles candle (mmm) and more!

 

The collage below is presents from my boyfriend. I asked if there was any particular order that I should open them and his only specification was the one that needed to be last.. and it was the socks which confused me why these had to be last until I realised that inside one of the socks was a little Pandora box! It's the white mother of pearl 'Love Me' charm, and he said he didn't want it to be too obvious what it was straight away so tried to disguise what the box would be by putting it inside pair of socks haha! He also got me a Body Shop gift set with scrubs, body butters, soaps and shower gels and moisturisers in and although I've never known what 'Moringa' is before it turns out to be a scent I really like - it's fresh and floral so I'll be saving these for spring and summer, but the coconut body milk has already been put into regular use.

 

I think the biggest surprise was definitely a camera, there was no hints or clues about this one! I don't actually own a camera - I steal my mum's to take my blog pictures and have to take them in bulk too because she uses her camera all the time, but now I have my very own! It has lots of fancy settings on it that I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with yet but I've had a good play about with it and it has good focus on close up pictures which I really like. That's why this post is so photo heavy - I've been trialling my new camera!

 

Andddd on top of all that he also got me some sweets and one of THE best onesies that I have ever seen.. ever! It's from Next and I'd spotted it before and told him that I'd never buy it myself as it's expensive for a onesie - and I wasn't even hinting! Safe to say I want to live in this now for the next few weeks, it so amazingly cosy and warm, and look how well I match my new hot water bottle!!

 

I like sweets more than I like cosmetics and I think people may have figured this out! My teeth are going to fall out after I've worked my way through this great big pile of sweets - mmmm!

 

♥

 



Payday Treats! | Haul

Hurray for payday!! I feel I've worked very hard this month and deserved my shiny pay cheque. Although I'm saving the vast majority of it for university funds in September, I couldn't go without self-rewarding myself with a few little bits and pieces. So these are some of the things that I have treated myself to through the week, most of them being online orders.

Mac Lipsticks

I did a longer post/review on these two beauties a few days ago which you can check out HERE. I got the shades 'Lustering' and 'Vegas Volt', and I am absolutely loving Vegas Volt right now and wish it was a shade that I could pull off for day-to-day wear, but it is a very bright and bold shade and I'm just not that brave.

Please note: This is a picture I uploaded to Instagram and a filter has been used on it so does not show the true shades. For better pictures and swatches please view the post linked above. :)

ASOS Clothes

I have also done quite a lengthy haul post on the orders that I made from ASOS recently, definitely not helped by their amazing and overly tempting sale that they have on at the moment! I got: 1 necklace, 2 skirts, 2 playsuits, and 4 dresses. If you would like to take a closer look at what I ordered then take a look at my haul post HERE.

Accessory Stand Necklace

This was a purchase that was inspired by an OOTD post done by Steph over at Bonjour Belle (LINK). Steph writes a fabulous fashion and beauty blog and also does reasonably priced web designs. (She designed and installed my new layout so if you like it and fancy your own here is the link to her design shop: link). Her blog is definitely one of my favourites so I would recommend that you check it out. If you would like to see the exact OOTD post that I am referring to then I have linked it HERE and when I saw it I absolutely fell in love with the necklace that she was wearing and just had to have it for myself. The 'Ora Necklace' is available from a site called The Accessory Stand in both silver and gold and is just £7.99 with £1.50 for delivery and you can pay through PayPal. The Accessory Stand is a lovely little site with a range of adorable and reasonably priced jewellery and accessories. My order arrived super quick even came with a complimentary cross ring which I thought was very nice of them! Will definitely be ordering from them again.

 

Pandora Charms

I picked myself up two Pandora charms from the JohnGreed website to add to the collection on my bracelet. I used to think that charms would never be something that I would buy for myself and they are only the sort of thing you would receive as a present to give them some kind of sentimental value. But the alpha 'M' charm that I got does have sentimental value as it is a reminder of my recent holiday to Marbella with my boyfriend. We took a day trip out to Torremolinos to visit the water park and we wandered past a jewellery store that sold Pandora. We just windowed shopped and I noticed the alpha charms and just teased 'Ooo you should get me that 'M' to remind me of this holiday forever' and he said that if we'd brought more money with us out on our day trip then he would've got me it, how sweet. But since then it was completely forgotten about and I just thought 'oh well I'll buy it myself and pretend it was from him' ;). I threw in the heart spacer too because I thought it was pretty and was only £15.00. The 'M' charm was £30.00.

Primark Blazer

I've been wanting a blazer for ages and ages because they can really transform an outfit and are an item that should be in every wardrobe - I can't believe I have gone for so long without one! But I've searched in Topshop, River Island, H&M etc etc and just never fallen in love with one where the style suited and I felt that the price was appropriate. So one day when I visited Preston for the day to hand back in my keys to my university halls we walked past Primark and I spotted various blazers on the mannequins in the window and I felt silly for never checking there in the past! They had various colours, ranging from pastels such as mint green, baby pink and lilac, to the standard black, grey and cream. I opted for the black and it cost me just £15.00. I really like the fit and the style, it has no buttons and no pockets (I would've preferred a pocket or two), and also has a cream lining so that if you choose to turn up the sleeves then there is a colour contract on the cuffs. All in all, a fantastic bargain jacket for just £15!

This is me very awkwardly attempting to take a picture of the cuff to show the colour contrast when it's upturned!

Aaaaand that's it for my treats this week!

Do you love to treat yourself on pay day? Or do you treat yourself all the time? ;) 

xxx.