Bakerdays - Delicious Personalised Cakes

As you probably know, I love baking and chocolate! Giving someone a beautifully decorated cake for their special occasion is a very rewarding feeling and personal. But like most people, work and time means that I can't always spend hours baking a moist sponge, then lovingly decorate the cake and finally hand deliver my homemade creation to their front door! If you ever feel like this then you need to know about Bakerdays! It's a company that personalises delicious cakes that fit through your letterbox! Taking away the worry of whether you'll be in to receive the cake or not, it doesn't matter as they neatly fit through your letterbox. The range of personalised cakes is vast on the Bakerday website, including designs for birthday's, christening's, Christmas, driving test, thank you, good luck, get well soon and design your own cake. There really is something for everyone!

Bakerdays kindly sent me one of their cakes designed for Valentine's Day, what a perfect present to give or receive! They had a wide range of design choices for the icing topping, which you could either personalise or not. I chose the '522' design and couldn't believe the quality of the print when I received it! The 'letterbox' cake comes in a cute tin to keep it secure and safe from damage. It's a nice addition to the cake, as you can keep the tin and use it again!

You may be concerned as to whether the cakes are delivered without being knocked around and ruined in the post. Once again Bakerdays have fully thought this through and securely package their cakes on a cake board, in a tin and then within a tightly fitting box, so there is hardly any risk of the cake being damaged during transit!

The quality of the appearance of the cake was amazing, I couldn't believe how clear the image was on the icing that covered the whole cake. Icing is seriously hard to print onto, without getting bulges, smudges or a 'pixelated' image. But Bakerdays have mastered this tough skill, the icing was immaculate, which helped to make the cake look very impressive! I chose a Chocolate Chip Sponge and it was divine, so moist with white and milk chocolate chips in and a light layer of chocolate buttercream covering the cake! Luxurious!

There are other types of sponge available, including vanilla sponge, carrot cake, fruit cake, gluten and wheat free. The cakes start from £14.99 with free delivery on the Bakerdays website.

Have you ordered from Bakerdays before?

Feel free to comment below, I'd love to hear what you think :)

A Couple of Liquid Highlighters....

I don't know about you but I find using liquid highlighters makes my skin look flawless, glowing and defines my features. I usually apply a liquid highlighter to the apples of my cheeks, bridge of my nose and just under my eyebrows. So I decided to compare two liquid highlighters, one cheap and one more expensive.

The more expensive highlighter I chose was Benefit High Beam at £18.50, here's what Benefit have to say about it:

'Our satiny pink liquid highlighter accents cheek & brow bones for a radiant glow. Use as a spot highlighter or delicately blend all over your complexion. Looks perfectly radiant on all skintones. It's the "supermodel in a bottle"!'

The cheaper highlighter I chose was the Chit Chat Highlighter from Poundland, at only £1! So considerably cheaper than the Benefit High Beam.

I'm not sure if it's clear in this photo but the applicator part of the Chit Chat Highlighter is very rough and generally poor quality. This isn't a massive issue, as I put it on the desired areas and then use a different brush to blend it but could be worth considering whether it would bother you.

As you can see the Chit Chat Highlighter doesn't have such a smooth consistency, it is also much lighter than the High Beam. The High Beam has a peach tone to it, which personally I prefer as it compliments my skin tone better.



There isn't actually that much of a difference between the end results of the two highlighters, which is surprising as the Benefit High Beam is 18 times more expensive! However, personally I prefer the Benefit High Beam! It creates a warmer glow, has nicer packaging, better quality applicator and I just think the finished look is more flattering.

I think I will use the Chit Chat highlighter on a day to day basis and save the High Beam for special ocassions. They both create a subtle glow and the Chit Chat for £1, you can't really go wrong at that price!

Have you tried either of these highlighters before?

Which one do you prefer?

A road trip to Stamford....

Last weekend my boyfriend and I went to Stamford for the day, it's such a beautiful place with loads of old buildings, cute shops and nice places to eat. We went to The George Hotel for lunch, in their 'Garden Room Restaurant', it's such a stunning hotel in an lovely old building. There's a roaring fire in the 'snug' part of the hotel, perfect for this time of the year! When we were there a wedding was taking place at the hotel, how exciting! Lunch was so delicious, they serve warm bread and butter on your table when you sit down, so that was a perfect start to the meal! I had chestnut fettuccine in a wild mushroom sauce for the main, the sauce was so creamy, heaven! My boyfriend had a HUGE burger with smoked bacon, chilli relish and chips, we both ate so much we had no space for pudding!

After lunch we wandered around Stamford, looked in the lovely, cute shops and tried to dodge all the slush that was left from the snow! Stamford isn't a very big place but if you like vintage style, cute shops then there are plenty of those.

Have you ever visited Stamford?

Feel free to leave me a comment below :)

Twisted Twee - Baby Grows with Humour :)

After writing a blog post on unique baby gifts (which you can read here) the lovely Suzi from Twisted Twee kindly sent me one of her unique and funny baby grows. I chose one of the many baby grows that incorporates humour and one that is unisex, not everything for a baby has to be pink or blue!

Twisted Twee is an eccentric company run by Suzi Warren, the website is full of witty comments, interesting items for both children and adults, as well as loads of unique gifts. Once I found Twisted Twee I spent ages exploring the website, it's refreshing to see a website that doesn't follow the conventional layout! You can order directly off the Twisted Twee website or through one of their many stockists (check for your local area here).

The 'Film Buff Stuff' baby grow I chose is one of a range of baby grows with witty quotes from films on. These quotes include: 'I'm Spartacus', 'Nobody puts baby in the corner', 'Be afraid. Be very afraid', 'I fart in your general direction' and 'The force is strong in this one'. I instantly was attracted to this baby grow:

A classic quote from the Jungle Book song 'I wanna be like you' - how brilliant?! It's such an apt saying for a baby to wear too. The baby grow comes in a lovely blue canvas bag, which makes it perfect for giving as a gift. You can order this baby grow in either white, pink or blue, I chose white so that it was unisex. The quality of the 100% organic cotton baby grow is outstanding, so soft to touch.

This baby grow is available in the following sizes: 6 months, 12 months and 18 months. It retails for £16 on the Twisted Twee website, which for a unique item with 100% organic cotton is the the type of price you would expect. A range of Twisted Twee products are available on notonthehighstreet.com too.

I would highly recommend Twisted Twee if you want a gift for a baby to be unique, outstanding quality and 100% organic cotton!

Check out their whole range here!

Do you like the baby grows that incorporate humour?

Feel free to leave me a comment below :)

What do Cupcake, Blackberry and Rose have in common?

I am such a huge fan of LUSH but only a relatively new one, for a long time I was one of these people who smelt the LUSH shop before I saw it and was never enticed to go in.

This all changed about a year ago when LUSH were offering free workshops when you bought promotional packs of Clipper Green Tea, I bought two packs from Morrisons for £1 each and took my friend, Hannah, to the Birmingham LUSH shop for one of these 'workshops'. We were both unsure about what to expect, neither of us had really been in a LUSH shop before, but we both enjoyed it so much and have been converted LUSH fans ever since! During the one hour workshop we made our own Fresh Face Mask (Catastrophe Cosmetic), using real blueberries, we got a mug of Green Tea and were taught how to give a hand, face and head massage!

It was the most relaxing workshop and I learnt so much about how important it is to have natural ingredients in our toiletries. So now I shop at LUSH quite a lot, ok so it's a bit more expensive and normally I'm such a bargain hunter but I was given a gift card for my birthday, which I am still using and I think you can't put a price on the quality of products. I am a vegetarian and the fact that NONE of the LUSH products are tested on animals appeals to me massively, not only because I'm a vegetarian but because I'm against it too!

Anyway, on to my LUSH Haul.....

Twilight Bath Bomb £3.20 (Purple)- Lavender

Blackberry Bath Bomb £2.95 (Blue) - Fruity

Avobath Bath Bomb £3.20 (Green) - Citrus

Rose Queen Bath Bomb £2.65 (Pink) - Floral

Butterball Bath Bomb £2.45 (White) - Creamy

Cupcake Fresh Face Mask £5.95 - Chocolatey

Yuzu and Cocoa Bubble Bar £2.95 (Orange) - Luxurious

Sweet Lips Lip Scrub £5.25 - Exfoliate

Check out the full range of LUSH products on their website here.

Are you a LUSH fan?

Feel free to comment below :)

Strawberry Sleep-In Rollers for £1.99!

There seems to be a more and more sleep-in foam rollers around, all promising slightly different things and as the customer I find it so hard to know what the actual results are of these foam rollers. So I decided to try some out for myself, after looking around the general price seemed to be about £12, which for me is quite expensive for what is essentially a bit of foam.

BUT then I stumbled across a Hong Kong seller on eBay called 'dtwell7', they were selling the strawberry shaped foam rollers for £1.99 with FREE delivery! I couldn't believe it and I thought 'if a deal is too good to be true, it usually is', but this one proved me wrong! I was precautious about ordering them, as I have never trusted international sellers on eBay before after a bad experience, but as they were only £1.99 I risked it. They say delivery to the UK will take up to 2 weeks, my order in exactly 10 days, which from Hong Kong isn't bad at all! To find this product on eBay search '12pcs Strawberry Hair Care Foam Soft Round Sponge Balls Curlers Rollers Bun Tool' and the seller is 'dtwell7'.

On to trying them out, are they as good as they are reported to be?

I washed my hair and then it dry until it about 80% dry, this means that when you put the rollers in your hair will completely dry creating a more defined curl. I put in all 12 rollers but really could have done with ordering another 12, therefore giving me 24 rollers to work with. I had to split my hair into quite big 'chunks' before twisting them around each roller, this meant they easily unrolled themselves. This wasn't a problem with the roller that had less hair in, so if I had more it wouldn't have been an issue.

Firstly, I put up half of my hair and then split the bottom section in half (one on either side of my head, as shown in the picture below). Split each half into 3 sections, took a strawberry roller placed it underneath 1 section of hair, pushed it up, so that the hair was 'in' the roller. Then rolled it up to as near to my roots as it would go. It was a very easy process!

I repeated this across the rest of my hair and this is what they looked like all in:

As they are foam you can sleep in them, I tried lying down with them in and it wasn't the most comfortable thing, but if your more dedicated to having curls than me, then it is manageable. I left in the rollers for around 4 hours and this is the result...

Before combing through the curls.

After combing out the curls and clipping up one side.

What do you think?

Are you going to get some Strawberry Rollers?

Unique Baby Gifts - What's out there?

I am so excited because I'm going to be a Auntie for the first time in May! My partners sister is pregnant (with a HUGE bump already!) and is due at the end of May. This weekend her and her partner are holding a party to announce the sex of the baby, how exciting! I have always loved anything to do with babies, defiantly one of those people who gets distracted if I pass a cute baby when I'm out! As soon as I found out that she was pregnant I have been searching for loads of bargains and gifts all to do with babies :)

As we are going to find out the sex of the baby this weekend I predict my spending will go mad! While I've been searching for baby products I have noticed how a lot of companies only really do a selection of pink products for girls and blue products for boys, what about everyone who doesn't want to find out the sex of their baby or doesn't want to dress their child in pink/blue?! It is also evident that a lot of companies do exactly the same 'typical' baby gifts, which made me determined to find some more unique baby gifts. What is out there for people to give prospective parents and then for when their baby is born?

Here are some of the unique companies I found....

Flowertots Baby Gifts - 'Unique floral arrangements including Bibs, Bodysuits, Muslin Squares and Socks for that alternative baby gift.' Flowertots Baby Gifts offers stunning 'floral' bouquets, the 'flowers' are cleverly made with socks, bibs, bodysuits and muslin squares. They are presented beautifully and would make a real 'stand out' unique baby gift. They have three main collections - pink, blue and white, making them a perfect gift for either a Mum-to-be who doesn't know the sex of her baby or a Mum-to-be that does. They do four options within each collection: The Single Stem, The Blossom Bouquet, The Daisy Bouquet and The Deluxe Box, with prices starting from £8.95 including post and packaging. Check out their website here.

Photographs from http://www.flowertotsbabygifts.com/

Adra Home -  'Adra, Welsh for ‘home’, is a company dedicated to sourcing and selling gorgeous Welsh products for you and your home. They’re made by artists, craftspeople and small, independent producers from across Wales to a high standard as we believe it’s important to support small, local suppliers.' Adra Home has a stunning range of baby products, including bibs, baby grows, toys and keepsakes. These ceramic hearts with the personalised name and date of birth make a truly unique baby gift and at only £9.95 they are very reasonable too! Check out the Adra Home website here. Some of Adra Home products are also available at notonthehighstreet.com too.

                                    Photographs from http://www.adrahome.com/

 
Twisted Twee - Twisted Twee is an eccentric website with a range of funny, unique baby related products, including baby grows, pantlets and t-shirts with witty comments on. I really like the 'Half Pint and Pint' T-Shirts (£32 for the set), how cute are they?! Check out the other witty, fun baby gifts on their website here. Some Twisted Twee products are also available on notonthehighstreet.com.

Photographs from http://www.twistedtwee.co.uk/

Creative Baby Gifts - 'I make Nappy Cakes, Baby Clothing Bouquets, Baby Hampers, Sock Cupcakes and Gifts for Mum, which are all perfect for the 'Mum-to-be' for baby shower presents, maternity leave presentations or to congratulate and welcome their new arrival. Each gift has been created by myself with luxury and quality in mind that mum and baby deserve. Great time and care has been put into developing each gift ensuring that what has been included is both essential and useful for mum and baby during those early months.' Creative Baby Gifts is a small business based in Birmingham and I am a big supporter of smaller companies! The range of unique baby gifts is excellent and the presentation of all of the gifts is exquisite. This is one of the many advantages of purchasing from a smaller company. The price of the items available are very competitive, Baby Sock Cupcakes Box of 6 (12 pairs of socks) £14.99, Mini Baby Hamper starting from £12.99 and Single Tier Nappy Cake starting from £14.99. Check out their website here.

Photographs from http://www.creativebabygifts.co.uk/index.html

There are so many more companies out there offering unique baby gifts, so why not take the time to search from them and see what is out there :)

What do you think of these unique baby gifts?

Do you have a baby you want to buy a gift for soon?

Feel free to leave a comment below!

Elemis from £5!

I have just found an amazing website, full of Elemis bargains - timetospa.co.uk! Elemis starting from £5, can you believe it?! Timetospa is a website offering 'Experts In Spa and Beauty at Home. A lifestyle destination for the spa lover and the official spa shop for the British brands Elemis and La Therapie'. There is an extensive range of high end anti-ageing, nailcare, skincare and haircare, so really is a one stop shop for all your beauty regime needs! Even better, there is a 20% code 'HFRESH20' (not valid on duos, collections, travel-sizes, gift vouchers, other timetospa brands or in conjunction with any other offer).

Also, if you spend over £45 this January then enter 'BODYGIFT' into the promotional code box and receive 'Best of British Bodycare Collection', which includes Tranquil Touch Indulgent Bath Elixir 50ml, Tranquil Touch Creamy Body Wash 50ml, FULL SIZE Treat Your Foot Cream 75ml and a Navy Make-Up Bag.

Furthermore, if you spend over £85 this January you can choose an Elemis Luxury Anti-Ageing Night-Time Regime worth up to £104! Enter 'PCNGIFT' to receive the Pro-Collagen Regime  OR end 'TENGIFT' to receive the Tri-Enzyme Regime.

Below are a collection of some of the best deals I have found on timetospa.co.uk:

Elemis Revitalise-Me Scent Diffuser - RRP £25 reduced to £12.50



Travel Elemis Soothing Chamomile Cleanser 50ml - RRP £6.60 reduced to £5

Elemis Balance And Purity Cleansing Duo - RRP £42 reduced to £21



 Elemis Lime and Ginger Body Wash 300ml - RRP £19.50 reduced to £10

 Elemis Total Glow Self Tanning Cream 125ml - RRP £24 reduced to £12

Travel Elemis Skin Nourishing Milk Bath 125ml - RRP £14.50 reduced to £5

(All photographs from timetospa.co.uk)

Are you an Elemis fan?

Feel free to leave a comment below :)

The Pure Joy of Bobbi Brown Foundation and Creamy Concealer Kit :)

After making a visit to a Bobbi Brown counter in Selfridges I couldn't believe how amazing their Creamy Concealer Kit was! I have really dark circles under my eyes, I've tried roll on serums, countless creams but nothing improves them (If anyone knows a really good eye cream for dark circles, I'd love to know about it?) So I decided to try and find a concealer that would cover the dark circles up! This is what prompted my visit to the Bobbi Brown counter. Firstly they applied a moisturiser that is designed for around the eye area, then applied the creamy concealer and patted over the powder within the kit. When the lady showed me the results I couldn't believe it, where had my dark circles gone?! My skin actually looked flawless and I promise you, it NEVER does! My amazement and joy came crashing down when I saw the price, £24! The Creamy Concealer Kit was only relatively small and at that price, however amazing it made my skin look, I just couldn't justify it. 

I went home and explained how flawless it made my skin look to my partner, not thinking he would actually be paying attention, but he was! On Valentine's Day last year I opened a black, shiny, small package...the Creamy Concealer Kit! I was so excited :)

On the left is the creamy concealer and on the right is the setting powder.

Here's what Bobbi Brown has to say about their Creamy Concealer Kit:

'Conceal and set in one portable kit. Bobbi's Creamy Concealer blends easily to instantly cover, lift and brighten dark circles. It also helps maintain skin's moisture levels for a smooth, virtually line-less look. Fuss-free pressed powder sets concealer for long-lasting wear.'

It does come in a small container but it lasted me 10 months! I couldn't believe it and it was perfect timing for Christmas. I put the Creamy Concealer Kit on my Christmas Wishlist and was very lucky as my partner not only got me it again but also the Bobbi Brown Foundation SPF 15, a sample size mascara, lipgloss and their foundation brush (which the lady at the counter gave him free, not quite sure how he managed it!)

I have the 'Sand' shade in the concealer so he got me the 'Sand 2' shade in foundation, which is perfect! This foundation retails at £30 for 30ml. This is what Bobbi Brown say about their foundation:

'A truly modern foundation that offers invisible, weightless coverage that looks like skin, not makeup. This long-wearing formula evens tone, minimises the appearance of pores, conceals imperfections, and offers broad spectrum UV protection. Its hydrating technology leaves skin feeling cushioned, comfortable, and clean. Ideal for combination, normal and normal to dry skins.Award Winner! Winner of a Beauty Bible Anti-Ageing Award 2012. Best Base Range, In Style Best Beauty Buys 2011.'

I had never used the foundation before and am still pretty new to it but so far I'm impressed. The consistency is very runny compared to most other foundation's I've used. This makes it a bit challenging to manage, I usually put my foundation onto my hand first and it always starts to dribble off! It is absorbed nice and quickly once I have applied it to my face, which is a positive attribute of the foundation.

Foundation blended in.

As you can see the foundation does give good coverage, which isn't too heavy. Personally I don't like foundations that have a heavy coverage so this level is perfect for me.

This is what the concealer and foundation look like together:

As you can see barely any dark circles under my eyes (they are there, trust me, just well hidden!) and the foundation gives a nice even tone and coverage.

Have you tried either of these products before?

Did you like them?

Feel free to leave me a comment below :)

OOTD: Snowy Walk

Today I went on a walk through the countryside in the snow! I live in a little village, so we can walk straight out of our house and we're in the countryside, so lucky! I wore the new coat I got for Christmas and the H&M Skirt I mentioned in the 'More January Sale Buys' blog post, which you can find here.



Duffle Coat - Next (£60), Lace Skirt - H&M (Sale £7), Bobble Hat - Primark (£5), Black Tights - Primark (£3.50)

Here are some more pictures from the walk:

 Please feel free to leave me a message below :)