Getting to Know You Tag

So I decide to do this tag after seeing it on Joelle's page, hope you like it!

Stress Be Gone!

So today we're going to talk about stress. I've seen a few posts lately, including my own a month or so ago, saying how stressed everyone is and I can completely understand. Up until recently I was incredibly stressed about uni and deadlines and quite frankly just everything was getting to be too much. It truly happens to the best of us, the main thing though, is to make sure stress doesn't get the best of you!

'Tis the Season to be Jolly

It's that time of year again! So thought I better start getting in the Christmas spirit so I pinched this tag from Ellie. I tag everyone and if you do it please leave a comment with the link so I can check yours out too!

All I Want For Christmas is... EVERYTHING!

Dear Santa,

This year I passed (and survived!) my first year at uni, successfully completed a three month internship and have been almost consistently employed since February so I would be grateful for a little reward. I'm not asking for much,  and an iPad with retina display would come in really hand for uni even though I have a great laptop - it's just a bit too heavy to carry around all the time. Especially when I go down south to see my boyfriend too.

Five Stocking Fillers For Under £5

1. Barry M, Glitter nail polish (£2.99)// 2. NYX, Round lipstick (£3.50)// 3. NYX, Jumbo eye pencil (£4.50)// 4. Eylure, Evening eyelashes (£5.00)// 5. Soap and Glory, Travel size hand food (£2.50)

So it's that time again... Christmas! Well... almost so i've decided I'm going to do a couple of Christmas gift posts ranging from affordable to luxury items. These are a few of my picks for affordable Christmas stocking fillers!

Best of Pinterest - Textured Nails

The past few days I've been a Pinterest maniac, it is just so addictive! There's no good keeping all this excitement to myself so I thought I'd share one of my favourite trends with you guys. This season nails have gone to the next level and it's all about playing with different textures to get that bang on trend look. So put your shiny topcoats down and keep reading to get the lowdown on these new looks...

Autumn Beauty Trends: #2 Face

Now this next trend is one that most of us struggle with - the bare face. If we wear too much make-up we look like we're trying too hard but on the other end of the spectrum if we don't wear enough people have a tendency to think (especially for the pale ones amongst us) we're ill. Because being unwell is the only possible reason there could be for a naked face? No it's not! Real people have uneven skin the odd blemish and God forbid sometimes even a spot or two.

New Job #2

So remember how a few weeks ago I posted saying I got my dream job? Well... turned out to be not so dreamy! Everything was going great - I got my first pay check, invested in some lovely (albeit Primark) heels, you get the picture, living the dream. But then... I received a letter (and Facebook message) saying due to unforeseen circumstances the Aberdeen team (it was a national company) would cease to exist until next year.

Review: The Living Room Restaurant and Bar

For the past week I've been down in Manchester visiting my boyfriend. I had some time off uni for consolidation week so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to go down! On my last night in Manchester we decided to eat out (a regular occurrence) and since we always eat Asian food I wanted to try something different. We'd been shopping all afternoon and when we finally got outside it was raining quite a bit so we speed walked over to Deansgate (which if you don't know Manchester is a busy road which bounds the west side of the city centre) in the hopes of finding that something different. 

I think initially we were thinking La Tasca, but I thought if I'm going to be spending a fair amount of money on food I want it to be a full meal not loads of mini ones! A couple of restaurants down from La Tasca sat The Living Room and after a peek at the outdoor menu we decided to take the plunge and go inside.

So as you can see when you walk in there is a bar and then towards the back of the room is the restaurant part, both of which were beautifully decorated although had no resemblance to the living rooms of anyone I know! When faced with the task of choosing our meals I have to say both of us took our time - there was just so much to choose from! 

In the end we both settled for their soup of the day, which was a smoked haddock chowder, for our starter and Taba chose the Pappardelle pasta with a slow cooked shin of beef and pancetta ragu for his main whilst I went for a total wildcard (and I say wild card because I'm going through a chicken hating stage!) of Rosemary and lemon baked chicken with roasted garlic and mash.

The starters took about ten minutes to arrive, which is pretty reasonable in my opinion, and they certainly did not disappoint. The chowder was a nice creamy consistency with small flakes of haddock, peas, cubed potatoes and a strange white lump in the middle which took about a minute identify which in the end turned out to be a poached egg! 

The soup itself was SO tasty, and incredibly moreish although I did end up giving Taba half my poached egg as I didn't want to get too full before the main event. If I had one criticism it would probably be that I was expecting larger haddock flakes but that's about all I could fault!

When we first ordered we worried there wouldn't be enough food as we're both quite big eaters, but by the time we'd finished our soup those worries were long gone. Shortly after we finished our starters and I'd had enough time to worry about whether I'd made the right choice by picking a chicken dish - The main courses arrived.

Taba's looked a little like a posh spaghetti Bolognese, but he claims it tasted completely different. The sauce was rich and had almost shredded pieces of tender slow cooked beef and was served on what looked like a wider version of tagliatelle. While mine was a chicken breast (curiously on the bone) served on a bed of mash and savoy cabbage which was accompanied by a dash of red wine jus.


I was SO glad I ordered the chicken it was moist, the flavour was just incredible and what they had done with lemon flavouring was something I had never experience before. Interestingly there were pieces of rosemary actually IN the chicken and I spent quite some time trying to figure out how they got it in there to no avail.

Although arguably one of the best meals I've had recently I would have liked a bit more of the red wine jus. I know the small serving is supposed to look visually appealing but a jus moat would have done me just fine.

For dessert we were both quite full so just ordered some hot drinks, a latte with a shot of maple spice syrup for me and an Earl Grey tea for Taba. I have to admit I completely ruined my coffee by adding sugar to it before I tasted it. The maple syrup was a lot sweeter than I anticipated and it was just so sweet to the point of undrinkable, but kindly Taba offered to swap drinks with me and I leapt at the opportunity!

Overall I'd rate my experience 4.5 out of 5 only losing half a point due to the atmosphere being slightly disturbed by the bar, which wasn't too big a deal but it did slightly effect the intimacy of the meal. Nonetheless our waitress was lovely and the food exceeded both our expectations. As we were leaving I noticed someone playing a piano in the middle of the room so maybe next time we will time our visit so we get to hear the music.

I apologise for the lack of my own photos but it was such an impromptu trip that I didn't have my camera on me, sorry - next time!

What about you guys? What's the best place you've eaten recently and what did you have? Let me know!

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Autumn Beauty Trends: #1 Lips

Now that the leaves are falling from the trees and our breath becomes ever more apparent as we step outside we can definitely be sure of one thing - autumn is here. But this my friends is not a reason to dispair, for with this season comes a whole shiny new set of trends for us to cling to until winter!

So it seems this year for autumn the dark lip is where it's at. Think shades of brown, think red wine, think plum, deep reds and purples. Twilight fans everywhere will be leaping with joy because vamp has never been more attractive.

Of course to pull off the perfect dark lip there is some preparation involved:

Scrub  - Exfoliate your lips with a lip scrub or failing this apply a thick layer of lip balm and brush lips with an old toothbrush.

Moisturise - Apply a thick layer of your favourite lip balm and leave to sink in. Do the rest of your make up while you wait! This is an essential step as unnourished lips leads to lip stick bleeding, which is not an attractive look!

Prime - Wipe off any remaining lip balm and apply a lip primer, I use Mac Prep + Prime which moisturises AND primes your lips.

Line - Allow the primer to sink in before lining your lips in a shade similar to your lipstick or for a really vampy looking lip use a dark pencil such as your regular eyeliner!

Now that you're all prepared and ready to go there's only one thing left to do and that's to pick the perfect dark shade for you so check out my dark lip Pinterest board for some inspiration! For maximum impact pair with a nude face and an LBD, alternately for a dramatic effect add a sexy smoky eye and you're set to party all night long.

What about you guys? Which dark lip are you rocking this autumn? Do you prefer shiny or matte? Let me know!

Psst - get a cheats dark lip by lining your lips with black eye liner and applying a dark gloss over the top OR pat lips with a dark purple or black eye shadow and apply gloss

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Pre-Christmas Dilemma

As we get closer and closer towards Christmas I cannot help but wonder - when is the right time to be Christmas-y?

It's certainly not appropriate before Halloween and then there's bonfire night too. But now that both of them have passed does this mean we should throw on the tinsel and prance around outside singing stories of Jesus' birth whilst snacking on mince pies? Is it okay to play The Pogues on repeat? I mean I've already started buying presents so does this mean it's started already? Not that Christmas is my favourite season but I like to know these things y'know, what if I'm sitting here like scrooge whilst everyone else is basking in Christmas spirit?!

What do you guys think? Should we start celebrating now or wait? And if we should wait when do we wait until? Let me know!

How to Combat Flat Tension

Hey guys! I’m Kerys from Little Bo Blab, Efia has not only chosen me as her blog of the month but also asked me to do a little guest post too. I feel like such a special sausage!

So I was having a little think about what kind of post I wanted to share with you guys, & I think considering Efia’s blog is mainly lifestyle themed, I’d tell you guys a little story.