What I've Been Buying: November

First, I'm going to start with the bag of things from Lush that I bought last week. I went in to buy gift boxes for two people but of course I ended up buying things for myself too because it's pretty much impossible not to when you're in there!

The two gift sets are really cute and I had to get them as I know the girls on the receiving end are gonna love them. And yes I admit the fact that they're already wrapped up nicely makes me happy too as it's one less job! The orange one is called Festive Cheer and it's £8.95. It contains a santa shaped sugar scrub and a shower gel which actually contains a little tequila. As soon as I knew that, I knew that was the right gift! The purple one on the right though is my favourite and really I wish I was getting it, it's called Out of this World and the wrapping paper is glow in the dark. I can't find the exact price for it but I think it was about the same price as the other gift. This contains a pink star rock star soap and the space girl bath ballistic.

Onto the other products, I actually bought three bath bombs but we were too excited to try the third one out before I managed to photograph it haha. The orange one is called The Enchanter and it has a really citrusy scent which I like. I haven't actually used this one yet so I will do a seperate review for it. The one on the right is called The Golden Wonder Bath Bomb and it actually turned the water dark blue (eventually) after fizzling into lots of other different colours first. This has really good reviews on the Lush website and I agree that it's one of my favourites now. The one that wasn't pictured was the Butterball, recommended to me by the lady who was serving me after I told her what kind of things are going on with me and my body/skin right now - she even gave me it for free as a gift, how nice is that! This was lovely to use, although it's not one to use if you use the bath bombs to look at how it fizzes and turns into all these different colours, it was very plain with just a little bit of shimmer, but I love anything that smells like vanilla so it was good enough for me.

So I don't know why my fiance is doing this so close to my birthday and Christmas when he already has enough to fork out for but this week I've been receiving quite a few random presents from him for no particular reason. First of all he came home with a big box of Thorntons chocolates to make me happy because I'm really into chocolate right now! And today he came home with these goodies..

James Brown Protect & Nourish Set: £10 - Boots

Soap & Glory Tricks of the Shade Palette

Ted Baker A Star is Born Gift Set: £40 - Boots

I'm going to a friends birthday party tomorrow night, it's the first time I've been out in ages (and I mean just out in general, I'm too scared to venture too far nowadays because I've been so ill and I'm scared of having a bad turn in public!) and I'm not feeling too hot in general so he said he wanted to buy me lots of new make-up and hair things to play with so I feel a little better about myself before I go. How lovely of him to do that for me!

VO5 Smoothly Does It - freebie in Cosmo, get it quick!

Original Source Shower Gels - currently £1 each in Boots

I haven't actually used it yet but I am obsessed with the smell of the Vanilla Milk & Raspberry shower gel, it smells soooo good, like pick n mix :)

The Ten Day You Challenge: Ten Secrets

I first spotted this on Kerys' blog quite a while ago now, and I've seen it pop up on other blog's recently, so thought I would finally give it a go.

Today is ten secrets! I don't think I have that many secrets to be honest, so it's more of a things you might not know about me kind of list. So here we go..

10. I'm not very trusting of people apart from the people closest to me. I don't really think this is a bad thing and it doesn't mean I don't talk to or not nice to people, I just don't let them into my life properly until I'm sure of them.

9. On the same kind of subject, I'm very much a forgive-but-never-forget kind of person, I just don't think it's healthy to hold grudges but the walls would definitely be up from then on!

8. Despite hating the sight of blood and needles, I love medical and health type programmes. Supersize vs Superskinny, 24 Hours in A&E, Embarrassing Bodies, Embarrassing Fat Bodies and Unsafe Sex in the City (my new personal favourite), yes they're grim but for some reason I can't stop watching?

7. I've dabbled with the idea of having a tattoo in the past, but the reality is that I'll be too much of a baby and I'll probably get bored of it after a while and want something else!

6. I hardly ever drink. I never drink in the house or in restaurants, only when I'm going on a night out in town.

5. Ghosts and supernatural things really fascinate me - not that I ever want to actually have an encounter though!

4. The only things I ever drink are water, smoothies, fruit juice and tea. If I do have the odd craving for something fizzy, I always go for Fanta. I very rarely have energy drinks, they're way too sweet for my liking.

3. I don't eat meat. I don't like the taste or texture of any of them. I like certain types of fish but that's it really. Saying that, I'm fussy with food in general!

2. I've never actually gotten this checked out but I do believe I must have broken one of my toes when I used to do ballet on pointe as it looks slightly bent and not normal! I'm sure it didn't always look like that!

1. I'm not doing so good at this recently because of a sensitive stomach but normally I'm a very healthy eater. I really try to eat good as I feel so much better for it.

Wedding Blog #2: Trying on Wedding Dresses

Going to try wedding dresses on for the first time can be a daunting but very exciting experience. I've been pre-occupied with other things the last few weeks (last year of university taking up a huge chunk of my time at the moment), so I went there without much thought about bridesmaid colours or what kind of dress I wanted. Seeing so many dresses on the rack without a clear idea of what I wanted in my mind was a little bit overwhelming!

I had a chat with a lovely lady called Donna who owns a bridal shop not too far from me, who does girls nights at her bridal shop every Friday night. We went around there after the shop had shut to the public for the day and she encouraged us to bring food and drink to make it more of a fun, relaxed atmosphere. I wanted to make sure the other girls had a good time as well! It's really helpful to have one-on-one advice and having someone who has years of experience helping brides find their perfect dress, pulling out dresses for you to try on. I'm sure this isn't the only place who does that kind of thing, if you ring around bridal shops I'm sure some of them must do similar kinds of things!

Before trying on dresses, make sure you have a few things with you. If you have your wedding shoes already, bring them. If not, just bring along some heels. Wear a strapless bra, as it's very likely you'll be trying on strapless dresses. And finally, wear big knickers if you're shy, because the dress lady is going to see you without your clothes on when she's helping you in your dress!

What I learnt very quickly, is that big dresses do not suit me! I always thought I would want a big dress, but when I got them on, they drowned me. I should have seen it coming as I'm a petite size 6, and the dress lady put a couple on me to show me just what few favours they do for my shape. What actually did suit me, were the strapless tight dresses, which actually gave me a lovely figure. You just don't know what's going to look good and what's going to look bad on you until you get them on. Keep an open mind, and be willing to try something you wouldn't ordinarily try on. The ones that looked best on me, I didn't look twice at them on the rail.

Make sure you have people with you who are going to give honest opinions. Needless to say, you'll want your mam there. I'm really close to my mam and I know she'll always be (sometimes brutally!) honest, but really supportive. Invite your other half's mam and sisters too, as it's nice for them to get involved as well. Bring close friends too, if you like. You don't have to bring all these people along with you to every fitting, but when you're first trying dresses on, it's good to get excited and chip in ideas altogether.

Remember to take pictures of yourself in each dress so you can look back at them later on, and enjoy yourself, trying the dresses on is fun and you're never going to do it again!

My Favourite Date

I've got a little bit of insomnia right now and seen this question flying about on other blogs, so thought I would make a quick post. The question is: what is the best date you've been on?

Honestly, we have a good time everytime we go out, but I think the one that stands out most to me is the time he took me camping. I'm not sure if we were actually officially together when we did this, but he decided he wanted to take me camping one night and I decided to keep an open mind and agree to it even though I'm not really an outdoorsy camping type of girl. My parents were really surprised I even went! I drove to the middle of nowhere and he pitched the tent while I handed him random tools and stood there shivering. He then pointed out the stars to me, with some help from an app on his phone to tell me what was what! Then we just lay in the tent, had some nibbles and went to sleep. Being the over-dramatic person I am, I made sure we had suitable weapons in case there were murderers or vicious wild animals (ie. a hammer which slept between us), and I didn't know until morning that there was a big brown spider in the tent keeping us company too. I don't think I would do it again but looking back it was a nice way for us to get to know each other a bit better!

LOTN: Cinema Date Night

The other night I found myself in the rare situation where I was actually ready before Craig, so I decided to snap a picture so I could use it in a LOTN post. We'd decided to have a date night at the cinema to see the new James Bond film. It was really good, although I think I did fall asleep for five minutes of it haha! I'm so tired all the time now and really struggle to concentrate on something for more than an hour, never mind for over two hours! I still really enjoyed it though despite my little nap halfway through!

So the dress is from Miss Sixty, I like to wear long sleeves in the cinema as it always seems to be freezing. The boots are from Dorothy Perkins. I didn't wear any accessories, I don't really wear a lot of jewellery, so all I have on is my engagement ring. That's it, very simple LOTN :)