80's Nails

This nail design is part of my New Years Eve costume. The theme was 1980's so I thought I would pick out some bold and clashing 80's colours and see what happened! The results were surprisingly good!

Supplies:

• Barry M - Black
• Maxfactor Infinity 704
• Rimmel London Lycra Pro - 600 Peppermint
• Nail Stickers
• Seche Clear
• Seche Vite

Rimmel's Peppermint is definitely one of my favourite colours, but I am running out so I had better buy some more quick!  The pink Maxfactor varnish was given to me as part of a Christmas present, and I really like it! It seems to cover really well, the other day I wore it with just one coat!

Laura xXx

Read More

Goals for 2013

I like writing myself lists of things to do, but I often forget about them. So i have decided to write them on the blog so that if I fail at any of them it will be glaringly obvious, hopefully it will motivate me to get them all done!

Here we go...

Buy a house - Why not start with a biggie!?  To get this done my aim is to set aside at least an hour a week solely to look for houses. Have spoken to an estate agents by February, and plan to go and look at a house at least once a month.

Finish Pip - Poor Pip has been a bit neglected since all the wedding planning started. I'd like to have him finished by the summer so we can go away for another lovely holiday.

Plan a holiday abroad - Pip is fantastic, but I think we might need a holiday to a warmer climate this year too.

Get good at cooking again - I have really been slacking on the cooking front recently and would love to get stuck in again. I want to make 1 new meal every week. Chris gave me Jamies 15 minute meals for christmas, so that is a good starting point! This week we are doing a special Chicken salad.

Read more books - My plan is to buy a kindle with my Christmas money, so that should help with this one. I want to aim to read at least 1 book a fortnight. Please feel free to suggest books for me to read to help kick things off!

Plan the wedding - It feels like the wedding is so far in the future that it is quite easy to forget about it, but I want to be well on top of everything, so i'm going to set aside at least an hour a week for wedding planning with Chris. I'd also like to do 1 post a week on my wedding blog.

Have a wardrobe i feel comfortable in - This makes it sound like I want to hang out in a wardrobe ... I don't. What I mean is  I seriously need to get some new clothes and I think I need to spend some time choosing things that look good, are comfortable, and will wear well. It seems so tricky to get all three!

What are your goals for this year?

Laura xXx

Read More

December Review

In Life

What a wonderful morning to start the new year on, it is lovely and sunny here! Just a shame I am too tired from last night to really do anything!

I've had quite a relaxing month as I had a 2 week holiday, and to kick it off I had all my lovely bridesmaids over for a party. You can see what happened here.  We did a little more wedding planning over the month and have even decided to start looking for a house!

What We Watched

Seven Psychopaths - This was great, not really what I had expected but I enjoyed it all the same. Brilliant cast too.

Bridesmaids - Very funny, hopefully I won't get into any of these sorts of situations with my bridesmaids!

The Jerk - My parents told us that we would like this, and we did! It was very funny in an absolutely ridiculous way. A Steve Martin Classic.

Predator - This is one of Chris' favourite films, so I thought it was about time I watched it.

Paul - I loved this! I love all things Simon Pegg and Nick frost, but I didn't manage to catch this when it came out at the cinema.

The Hobbit - This was absolutely awesome. I used to be a real LOTR geek, and this definitely made me want to watch them all again! Hence the next two films!

Lord of the rings - Fellowship of the ring - Awesome!

Lord of the rings - Two Towers - Awesome!

What I Read

I have challenged myself to read more next year, so I thought I would get going early. I'm thinking about getting a Kindle with my Christmas money, so hopefully that will make it easier for me to read lots more. If you have any recommendations of good books i'd love to hear them, I'm interested in broadening my horizons!

The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean - This was a pretty girlie book, obviously lots about dresses! But I did enjoy it 

The Gunslinger by Stephen King - I'm still undecided about Stephen King. I love some of his books, The Stand is one of my all time favourites, but there are others that I have found to be quite forgettable. Chris started reading the Dark Tower series, so I thought I would give it a go too. The first book is quite difficult to read but apparently they get easier, so I am going to persevere!

In Blog Land

I was very lucky to be asked by Claire of Claireabellemakes to guest post on her blog while she was away on holiday. You can see the post about DIY Stamps here.

I started a new Wedding Blog so that I can document all of my ideas, I am really looking forward to getting stuck in!

I won a competition over at the cookie button! I was really excited when I received an email from Sammy on Saturday to say that I had won. I was feeling really under the weather with a yucky cold, but this totally brightened my day! Especially since the prizes were all so wonderful, and also included a personalised portrait from Chantal from Pony Chops and some hand drawn prints from Beth at Deer Little Fawn - two of my favourite bloggers plus lots of other goodies from other lovely ladies.

My Favourite Posts

BRIDESMAIDS DAY

A DAY IN THE LIFE...

DIY YOURSELF A FREE CHRISTMAS TREE

EASY CANAPES

ANIMAL PRINT NAILS

DIY STAMPS

Laura xXx

Read More

Chevron Nails

I recently tried out some new stickers and used them to make a cute chevron design. They were a little tricky but I think they just about worked. What do you think?

Supplies:

• Barry M - Mint
• Rimmel Nail Tip Whitener (If you have normal white nail varnish use that instead!)
• Seche Clear
• Seche Vite
• Nail Stickers

Start by painting your nails white, I also always use a coat of Seche Clear to protect my nails from discolouring. Then, once completely dry, I simply stuck 2 of the nail stickers horizontally across each nail and painted the green fairly thickly across the entire nail. I removed the stickers immediately, then once dry, topped with a coat of seche vite.

Laura xXx

Read More

Easy Canapes - Tomato, Basil and Goats Cheese

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas! I thought I would share with you another of my favourite canapes while we are still in the party season.

One of my University friends introduced me to the idea of this canape, and ever since then it has been my most used canape recipe. We were put in charge of the food at our University Degree show one year, and of course we wanted to impress, and these certainly did the trick. Although perhaps I wouldn't suggest making them for quite as many people as we did!

Ingredients:

• Cherry Tomatoes
• Basil
• Goats Cheese

The only troublesome bit about making these is scooping out the middles of the tomatoes. It is more messy than difficult, and it doesn't take much time at all if you are only feeding a small group of people.  Just make sure you are prepared with a bowl to put the middles and tops of the tomatoes in and a little spoon to scoop them out. You will probably want to use a knife to free the middle from the edges before you try scooping it out. Then its just a case of popping in a basil leaf, and on top of that a small piece of the goats cheese, yummy!

Top Tip! - Don't waste the middles and tops of your tomatoes, you can use them in a meal like pasta or chilli con carne.  Waste not want not and all that.

Laura xXx

Read More

DIY Stamps

I am very excited to have been asked by Claire of Claireabellemakes to guest post on her blog while she is having a festive break! So please hop on over to see my full DIY Stamp Tutorial post. Keep your eyes peeled as I hear there are going to be some fantastic guest posts over the next couple of weeks.

Laura xXx

Read More

Animal Print Nails

I have wanted to try this design for a while now. It looked quite easy to do so I thought I would give it a try.

I love the effect of this and it really wasn't hard at all. All I did was paint my first coat and let that dry, then I blobbed little dots of pink randomly over the nail. Once those had dried I used my nail art pen to outline the edges of each dot.  Easy peasy!

Supplies;

• Seche Clear
• Barry M 
• Barry M
• Models own Black Nail art Pen
• Seche Vite

Laura xXx

Read More