DIY | 'Pamper Evening' Treats - Chocolate Strawberries & Hot Chocolates

Hello everyone!

Its getting very cold in the UK right now and everyone is feeling a bit stressed out especially with exams and coursework deadlines approaching. So I know on a Friday night when you get home, the one thing you want to do is chill out and eat rubbish! So I thought I would share some of my favourite things I like to make when I am having a 'chill out' night!

Chocolate Strawberries

My favourite chocolate to dip strawberries in is Cadbury's Wispa. It is so creamy, chocolaty and thick which is exactly what I want the strawberries to be like.



You then need to split the chocolate bar in half and place it in a heatproof container. You then need to place it on a heated area. I placed my chocolate on the Aga. You don't want to put it in a microwave because the chocolate will burn and won't taste as nice as slow melted chocolate.

After about 20 minutes the chocolate should be fully melted.

You then need to pick a punnet of fresh and juicy strawberries but are big enough to have a large amount of chocolate around the strawberry.

You then need to dip the first strawberry into the melted chocolate. You should do this quickly because the chocolate will melt again.

Get a thick coating of chocolate on each strawberry as it will taste even better. Repeat this for all of the strawberries until you run out of chocolate or the chocolate solidifies again. Put the strawberries on a plate and into the fridge so that the chocolate solidifies. This makes it so much nicer to eat and more refreshing if making it in the summer months.

After around 10 minutes in the fridge, the strawberries should be ready to eat and are very delicious!


My Hot Chocolate with Double Cream and Marshmallows



First of all, find yourself a large hot chocolate mug so that there is lots to drink!

 

 

Next, fill your mug up with milk leaving a 1.5cm gap at the top of the mug.

 

Pour the milk from the mug into a pan and wait for the milk to heat up to the preferred temperature.

 

Whilst the milk is heating up, pour around 200ml of double cream into a measuring jug. Using a whisk, whip up the cream to a thick consistency. I prefer to use this cream instead of whipped cream because it tastes much nicer and the hot chocolate tastes creamier. (It makes me feel a lot 'cosier' too!)

 

The cream should look like this when whipped.

 

Next, you need to find the drinking chocolate that you like to  use. My favourite is the Cadbury's Drinking chocolate as it is the creamiest and tastes not too rich which is what I like. But use the hot chocolate powder that you prefer. I took 3 heaped teaspoons of this and put it into the heating milk and stirred well!

 

I took the hot chocolate off the heat once it had reached the temperature that I wanted.

I then poured the hot chocolate back into the original mug.

 

I then popped 6 large marshmallows into the hot chocolate. They add such a lovely taste that I cannot describe but it makes it a lot sweeter and I love that in a hot chocolate. I prefer to have the marshmallows underneath the cream because the flavour of the marshmallows is more powerful than if it were on top of the cream.

 

 

I then whacked the cream I prepared earlier on top roughly because it looks a lot more appetising I think.

 

And Bob's your uncle! The most amazing hot chocolate EVER! I could drink these all day. I don't know what it is about them but I'm pretty sure its the homemade cream and the marshmallows underneath the cream and waiting for them to melt! So definitely recreate this when you next fancy a good old hot choc!

 

So there you have it. A couple of my favourite things to make on a Friday night to have when watching a movie or your latest favourite TV series, or catching up on social media!

 

Send me pictures if you make anything!

See you soon!

 

<3

 

 

Mini Beauty, Fashion and Home Haul | Forever 21, Boots, M.A.C and More!

Hello everyone!

Today I thought I would do a post on something that I haven't done on my blog yet - A Haul! Recently I have been buying a few things and I thought I would share it with you! Most of the items are bought from a trip to Westfield and the other bits are from when we went for a week away to Birmingham! So let's get started! 

Fashion

I have bought some things from boohoo.com however I am going to wait till March to show you this because that is what I am wearing to my birthday party and am planning to do a full birthday look, with the makeup and outfit, for a post in the future!

All of the clothes that I bought were from Westfield and I was very impressed with Primark and especially Forever21!

This is an oversized cream coloured top. This is something that I really wanted too have, especially to wear on lazy days with a pair of jeans or leggings. It is such a soft material which makes it even more cosier to wear. Not only is it something to wear casually, but this is something that you could dress up with something like a statement necklace which I have been loving this year! This was from Primark at an amazing price of £6!

This is a deep orange-brown coloured jumper which I am loving right now. It is very autumnal but could be worn during any time of the year. It's a weird material - it feels quite rugged and beachy but I love it as I don't have anything like this in my wardrobe! This was from Forever21 and was £10! 

Next, I bought this black and creme polka dot turtle neck top which is supposed to be a tight crop top, however I got this in a large size and it wasn't as tight and I really liked it like that! I am loving turtle neck everything right now as well as polka dots so I fell in love with itas soon as I saw it. It is such a nice material too and so this has to be my favourite purchase from the whole haul! It is from Forever21 and cost me £8.50 which I think is a bargain!

I also bought some plain black leggings which were such good quality and very soft, so I had to pick those up! You can never go wrong with another pair of leggings! These were also from Forever21. (I thought everyone would know what leggings looked like so I didn't bother inserting a picture!)

Beauty

So I went a bit mad with the makeup but these are all things that I have really wanted and only just been able to buy because I have been busy or the shop that it was from wasn't nearby. So I will start off with what I bought at Westfield;

Because there isn't a KIKO near to wear I live, and it is one of my favourite makeup brands, so I thought I would pick up a few pieces which I had really been wanted. The first thing was the Long Lasting Stick Eye shadow in the shade 05 which is a gorgeous deep golden brown colour with a lovely sheen. This is seriously pigmented and long lasting. When I swatched it in the store, it hadn't budged for a good couple of hours so I  was really impressed. It looks gorgeous on the eyes too. I love this product and would really recommend it! This was £6.90.
 Also from KIKO, I picked up one of their Smart Lip Pencils in the shade 702 which I hadn't heard anyone talk about before, but wanted to try them out as I was in need of a new lip pencil as they are one of my favourite lip products to use! These were £2.50 each so I was a bit worried about the quality, however I was pleasantly surprised with them - it has a very creamy long lasting formula. However because it is a very orangey coral colour, I don't think I will be wearing this much until the spring summer months as it is quite bright but a beautiful colour!

The last beauty item I bought from Westfield was the new Maybelline Lash Sensational mascara. I have seen a lot of people rave about this mascara and since I wanted another mascara for my collection, I was dying to give this one a go! So I picked this up from Boots and I have loved it. I have worn it every time I have worn makeup, as I don't wear it everyday, and I can see a huge difference in my eyes when wearing it. It volumises and slightly lengthens your lashes and makes your eyes looks so much bigger, especially when you wear a thin line of eyeliner across your lash line. Would highly recommend this especially as this £7.99 which I think is a great price for a mascara of this quality!

Moving on to things bought in Birmingham;

Because i couldn't get hold of it when I was at Westfield, I picked up the Soap and Glory Lid Stuff Palette in the colour 'What's Nude'. This eye shadow quad is beautiful. The colours are super pigmented and are the staple colours for any look and can be used for both day and night. This was £10 which is such a good price for such great quality products. This is definitely a keeper for the makeup bag!

Now onto the last beauty item but however by far my favourite piece. My mum very kindly bought me a M.A.C lipstick which was my first thing from M.A.C which I was so excited about as I had wanted it for a long time! The lipstick is a matte lipstick and is in the shade Pink Plaid. It is a gorgeous pink nude colour and I love wearing it as it smells of chocolate for some reason! It is so long lasting and I can't wait to hopefully start collecting some more products from M.A.C as they are heavily raved about!

 Here are some swatches of some of the beauty products;



 

Top swatch - M.A.C Pink Plaid Lipstick

Middle swatch - KIKO Long Lasting Stick Eye shadow in 05

Bottom swatch - KIKO Smart Lip Pencil in 702

Home

 

For my room, I wanted to get some tea light holders that weren't festive. I had recently bought some nice ones from the Next home section and so I went back to the store in Westfield and I came across these tea light holders which I loved. They are made from recycled glass which meant they were good for the environment and go really well with my room and so I picked up 2 of these at £3 each!

 

I hope you enjoyed this mini haul. I really enjoying writing about it so I may do a few of these in the future. I have a few wintery posts coming up as it is so cold in the UK right now which should be quite fun to read and maybe even recreate. Be sure to check out anything if you liked anything I wrote about it this post!

 

See you next time, Bye!

 

<3

Happiness and Positivity | My Aims for 2015

Hello everyone! This post is a bit different to something that I would usually post but I just thought that something I have been thinking about recently would benefit some of you. 

(Warning: This will be cheesetastic but is also very important!)

Recently, I have seen a few things on TV and social media sites that has made me realise how lucky we really are. From things such as being able to go on holiday to having a jar of jam in the fridge, as well as being able to go to such a wonderful school - we really are blessed. Some people don't have any of this, and I know it is said a lot, but we do and should be very fourtunate, as I know for one that at times, I take things for granted! Children and adults in some parts of the world are very unhappy because of this.

So I have decided to make a change in my life and be a lot happier about myself and everything that I have. This means being more thoughtful about others who are less fortunate than me and making sure that when someone isn't as high spirited as you are, to bring them back up, as well as realising how lucky I am to have such wonderful friends and to spread more of a positive energy, as it really is needed! Being positive is really an important value and is one of my goals this year to being a better person. Recently, we got handed these random acts of kindness that we had to perform, and at first we took it as a joke, but now I have realised that it would be so lovely and make everyone feel so much better about themselves, if we did these acts of kindness a lot more.

 Something that is always said is, "Treat others how you would want to be treated", and I think its a really important message.