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26 May 2019

Personal touches to our Home | Lifestyle

Skull Picture




Let me first start by saying that I bloody love our home, it's perfect for us right now and we are so lucky that it's a new build and doesn't need anything done with it! By new build I literally mean it's a newly built house but they are the homes that are super energy efficient and have a lot of stud walls, if you have ever visited or bought one you will know they are a wonderful blank canvas.

I was so excited when we got the keys I just wanted everything in ASAP and some of my decor choices were "that'll do" as opposed to "I love it, let's buy it". Having been here for nearly a year now, I am starting to look around and just feel a bit meh about some of our house bits and it all started with a trip to Homesense because we saw a lovely lamp and I though that style would be perfect in our house and it would replace a lamp which at the time I liked but now I feel nothing about it. The lamp we picked is the Tintin Floor Lamp from Homebase and was only £50, it's very sleek but the thing I love most about it is the pattern it creates on the wall when it's switched on, this adds another dimension other than just being for light, it almost creates a textured look.

I was targeted online by Ink and Drop via Instagram and absolutely fell head over heals in love with this skull print I thought the contrast of the black marble and golden skull would look very dramatic against a white wall.I hark back to my greebo (colloquialism?) / Goth days where I really loved skulls but the truth is I always have, for example Alexander McQueen is my absolute favourite designer and,of course, skulls played a massive part in his designs so I feel like they have always resonated with me on some level.


Duomo Florence


I recently fell in love with a little Florentine picture of the Duomo and thought it would fill up a little space that I wouldn't normally have hung anything there. However the original place I wanted to put it I discovered we couldn't because there were wires basically everywhere so we had to place it somewhere else. I think the reason I like this picture so much, aside from the fact I lived in Florence it's more the combination of the Duomo with the normal flats surrounding it, it's the simplicity and beauty of Florence that was always on your doorstep. Plus the little green shutters reminded me of my flat while I was there.


I really like white walls and I think going for things that are black or contrasting works really well. I would much rather go for items that create a conversation or are a little unusual, I could go and create a gallery wall of inspirational quotes but these little touches are more us! 
19 May 2019

5 Things about getting a puppy | Lifestyle



I haven't mentioned it on my blog, mainly because I haven't blogged, but I got a puppy in July last year!! As you can see, he is a gorgeous French Bulldog called Freddie and since getting him my life has changed quite a lot, for obvious reasons. I wanted to write a post just highlighting some of the ways having a dog/puppy had really changed our lives and habits. It's worth just pointing out that this is just my experience and there are so many factors to consider such as breed, age of dog, house environment etc! 

For as long as me and Chris have been together we have always talked about French bulldogs, we absolutely love them but we also done a lot of research before getting them to understand the numerous health problems Frenchies could have. Originally we did want to adopt a rescue dog but we had concerns because we didn't have a garden (we live in a coach house) and we would have to adapt ourselves to the dogs needs which could have been quite difficult, so we decided that getting a puppy would be a better option because we could influence the dog's schedule in a better way to suit our lifestyles. Frenchies are known for being dogs that like apartment living, the require less exercise so a garden isn't essential and they like company (Chris works from home) so this breed seemed to tick a lot of boxes for us. I have grown up with dogs so knew a lot about them but it's very different when you get your own and I think it was a bit of a shock to the system for me but I wouldn't have it any other way!  

Moving onto the main things that I noticed starting with...


You can no longer be spontaneous  - This seems like an obvious one but I found it quite hard when we first got Freddie because all of a sudden we had this nugget to think about when we wanted to go out by ourselves. It has gotten a lot easier now he is 10 month old but when he was a tiny puppy they can't be left alone for very long at all. Now we understand his routines and know that he sleeps from pretty much 6pm onwards we know we could go out for dinner in the evening and he would be completely fine for a couple of hours. This is something I bring up a lot when people say "oh I want to get a dog" I let people know it does change your life and you have to have enough time for them otherwise it isn't fair. 

They bring you unconditional love - My god, this dog loves a cuddle and a snuggle! He loves a little snoozy cuddle in the morning after he has had his first morning walk and he will literally grumble until you sit down so he can sit on you! The way he runs down the stairs when you come in, sniffing all my clothes and bags to see where I have been. Sometimes Chris will go out and it'll just be me and Fred and it's really lovely because it isn't lonely at all, especially when you have him snoring next to you on the sofa! 

You worry about them all the time - This is a major one for me that I am trying to get over but honestly, I worry about what he eats, how much he exercises, whether he is getting too hot, whether he needs to pee, whether he is warm enough, have I played with him enough, how long he has been in his crate for? I didn't realise how much my thoughts would be consumed by Freddie but it's all a learning curve. You start to realise that dogs needs are actually quite basic and they are very resilient animals, I would even go as far to say as this pooch is spoiled. 




Training takes time - Toilet training and teething are by far the hardest things to deal with when you have a puppy. We have been quite lucky in the sense that Freddie picked up on toilet training quite quickly but there were SO many accidents, sometimes they were our fault because we didn't notice him giving us the signs to go out and other times it was him being a little sod and doing it for attention. Now he lets us know if he wants to go out by walking down the stairs and sitting by the front door or by trying to get our attention to leading us to the front door, he is quite a clever little thing. 
Teething is another thing which I personally find very hard, don't get me wrong I have seen the damage other puppies have done and Freddie is nowhere near as bad as that but he has ruined  a few things, more specifically our bed. We have a wooden IKEA bed which I loved, it was brand new when we moved in and Freddie for some reason took a liking to crawling underneath it and chewing the inside bed legs! This really, really drove me insane, I do like nice things and I am fussy so when I see something I love being destroyed it almost pains me (dramatic much?) We tried a lot of different things to get him to stop but it almost became a habit to get attention, so fortunately we found a bitter apple spray and it stopped him immediately. People assume that a puppy should be fully trained at 7 months and it's just unrealistic, it takes a lot of time and there will be numerous little slip ups, they are animals after all. 

Crate training was the best decision for us - This is a slightly controversial one as many people still have mixed views on crate training but honestly it was the best decision for us. We decided to get a crate when he was small but we decided we would only use it at night, as I never wanted a dog on my bed not only for comfort reasons but I can have a slight reaction to dog fur on my skin, and then when we were not in the house. We never used it as a punishment tool and only wanted it to be a comfort for him when we weren't around. I know people who crate train and then get rid of the crate when the puppy is old enough but we are still using it. We really struggled to work out how to move from the crate to the dog bed and most people say after the crate they just let the dog sleep on the bed which isn't something I am willing to do, so we have found ourselves keeping the crate as he seems perfectly happy to go in there at night! 

Having puppies is so frickin' hard but they are so worth it, the more time you invest in them the more you get from them! 

5 May 2019

4 Product Skincare Routine | Beauty

Cruelty Free Skincare



What is this you see? A beauty post on my blog after I said I wasn't going to do beauty stuff anymore? Escandalo! The thing is, I do still love beauty but I have found in the 11 months I haven't been blogging and buying unnecessary products for my blog I have stripped my skincare regime right back and have only been buying 4 products, yes you read that correctly only 4 products I use to keep my skin happy! There are lots of skincare specialists out there that will tell us we need more and we need different things for morning and night and that we need different steps for different skin types which I am sure is true but I know my skin and I know that for me less is more. 

A bit of short background, I used to have horrific acne for years went on a high dose of roaccutane and it change my life! Skin cleared up, I was left with a few scars but it was so much better, however I did realise that all the products that tell you they are good for clearing skin etc is all a load of marketing bullsh*t and can do more damage than good! Ever since then, I have been paranoid with what goes on my face and use very little products, then I started to blog again which lead to me buying loads of new products and then I decided to go cruelty free which meant I needed even more products then I stopped blogging and it all calmed down. I made a conscious decision  to use all the stuff I had and then only buy things I absolutely needed which started with cleanser, I had so many different types which were all fine but I wasn't in love with any of them. I tried The Body Shop Camomile Cleansing Oil which I liked the idea of but it was a bit of a faff, you had to put it on your face then wet your face then wipe it off and I just wanted something easy but equally as gentle which is when I picked up from the same range the Camomile Cleansing Butter which was a game changer, take a little bit, warm it up on your face to it melts into an oil and boom wipe off! So simple, so gentle, so easy! With this cleanser I have no desire to find another and without beauty blogging I didn't find the need to try something new at all! 


The Ordinary Skincare

Moving onto a brand I have dabble in for a while now which is The Ordinary, I have tried both of their foundations and they were both awful on my skin so never went back to their make up, their skincare on the otherhand is amazing! It started with The Peeling Solution which has been written about by loads of people but I picked it up because it was a great price and I wanted something that would reduce some of my scarring. It's a little 10 minute mask that I use once a week sometimes once every 2 weeks, It makes my skin look and feel so much smoother. It is quite strong stuff so be mindful when using it. The next product is one that I definitely bought on a whim, I was reading a commuter magazine (either the Stylist or ES mag) and someone (I didn't even know them) in the mag recommended Plant Derived Squalane which is a plant base product which is great at keeping skin and even hair hydrated. Think of this product as an oil, that doesn't leave a greasy residue on your skin, it just absorbs and leaves your skin feeling fresh and it's gentle enough to use every day and I tend to use this after I have cleansed in the evening! 

The next and final product left in my entire collection (for the face, I do still have body products) is the delightful Drops of Youth, Youth Cream this is actually a product I bought a while ago but then I tried something else and just didn't love it! This cream is fantastic because its so fresh and cooling, I use it in the morning under my make up and it creates such a lovely base. I doubt it is making me look youthful, much to my disappointment, but it is a really fantastic product! 

I think whether you are in the "less is more camp" or the "more is more camp", it feel so good when you find products that just work for you because when you feel like you skin looks good you immediately feel much better about everything else!