Monday 29 February 2016

A Little Update...


Hello everyone,
so I just want to start off by saying sorry for not uploading this past week; I have just been super busy I had exams, parents evening and then my whole art project is due in on Tuesday so I've had a lot to do. As well as that I've been a bit behind on writing my posts and taking photos as I usually have some stored in drafts so then if I do have a busy week all I need to do is upload them which is a good life hack; if you're a blogger or a youtuber, try and have blogposts or videos stored on you're laptop so you can still upload and post if you have a busy week. Also let me know in the comments if you have a blog or YouTube channel and I'll be sure to check it out. As well as that I would also love to see any suggestions you have for blogposts.
Okay so I've also decided to change my posting schedule; so I will still be posting on Saturday but instead of posting every week on Monday I'll be posting on Wednesday and then just occasionally on Monday too if I've got a lot of things I want to post and share with you guys.
And I'm going to Florida for two weeks at Easter so look forward to lots of fun and exciting travel posts and of course a haul when I get back!

Right so that is all for today but I will be back posting on Wednesday so I'll see you then,
Charlotte x

Saturday 20 February 2016

Sweet Potato Fries

Hey Guys,
so I mentioned in my last post that I would write up the recipe I use to make sweet potato fries well I'm calling them fries but you don't actually fry them and you don't really do that much other than chop, season and bake the sweet potato so it's not really much of a recipe but I thought I would still share it with you anyway so you guys can know what to do if you haven't made them before and aren't sure how too. Also I've called them sweet potato fries but you don't actually fry them you bake them so they are a lot healthier for you than regular fries or chips.

What you need:
Sweet Potatoes
A Baking Tray
Baking Paper
Black Pepper
Olive Oil
A Knife
A Bowl
Salt

What to do:

You want to start off by lining a baking tray with grease proof paper and preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Depending on how many people you are making the fries for and how hungry you are as to how many baking trays you will need; I would say for 1-2 people you'll need only one tray and for 3-5 people you'll need two trays.
Then you want to chop up your sweet potato now you can either peel it or leave the skin on I personally like to leave it on but I slice off any bits that look bad and obviously wash it under cold water too. It depends on how hungry you are and how many of you are eating as too how many chips you need to cut up but I would say go with your instinct and you want to chop them quite think like pub chips/potato wedges size. I used two sweet potatoes this time because they were quite small but usually if they're just for me I'll only use one. Also can we just take a second to look at how orange these sweet potatoes were!

Once you've got all of your chips chopped up it's time to season them; this is where you can personalize them to your taste. So you want to place your chips in a bowl so it makes seasoning them easier. For mine I drizzled in a little bit of olive oil and then mixed all of the chips up so that all of the chips have olive oil on, you don't want them to be completely covered they just want to have got some oil on. Then you want to put on the classic seasoning ingredients of salt and pepper so I sprinkled some of both of then in then mixed it up and put a little bit more in. You could also add in any herbs and spices that you like for example you could add in paprika or rosemary.
After you've done with the seasoning you want to spread the fries out over the baking trays you lined earlier and place them in the oven. The fries should take between 20 and 30 minutes depending on how powerful your oven is and how chunky your chips are but I just keep and eye on it and take them out when I think they look done. I also recommend you turn the tray around after they've been in for about 15 minutes.
I just had the fries with some ketchup as I wasn't that hungry but usually I'll have some chicken with it, you can have it with whatever you fancy though just as a side dish or just have them on their own. I really like them because I am a really fussy eater so most of the time I'm not really keen on healthy alternatives of things but these I really like and they are a lot better for you as they aren't actually fried even though I keep calling them fries!

Let me know if you guys try them out and what you think of them and I'll see you on Monday,
Charlotte x

Monday 15 February 2016

A Few of My Favourite Things | February 2016

Hello Everyone,
I hope you all had a good valentines day yesterday weather you spent it with your partner or friends or if you just stayed at home and binge watch a show! Today I thought that I would go on the theme of love and share with you some of the things that I'm loving at the moment. 


The first things I want to talk about are nail polishes; so for my birthday my friends got me some Ciate nail polishes which I absolutely love. I have pillow fight which is a really pretty lilac which is my favourite, mistress which is a nice bright red and ditch the heels which is a really nice teal colour. I also got three glitter polishes; I got a gold glitter called carousel, a dark midnight blue glitter called london baby and finally a nice snow white one called snow globe which I'm pretty sure will become one of my favourite winter polishes. I really love all of the different colours and the application of the nail polish is really nice as well as the brushes spread out when on the nail but not too much so you lose control over the brush.

I've been really liking listening to music this past month and my favourite songs have been PILLOWTALK by ZAYN, All My Friends by Snakehips ft. Tinashe and Chance the Rapper but my absolute favourite has to be Seven Years by Lukas Graham, it also has a really nice lyric video which is full of picture of him in the past (click here to see it)

One of my favourite TV programmes at the moment has been EastEnders I have been super hooked to it since I've been off the past week for half term. I also watched a couple of movies over half term which I would definitely recommend; I watched First Daughter which is about a presidents daughter who wants to live a normal life at college. The other film I watched was Notting Hill which was all about a celebrity who falls in love with a normal man and has the press following her everywhere so if you're feeling a bot down after valentines day and feeling like all you want to do is eat ice cream and watch a movie these films are really good and I definitely recommend them.

A little random favourite I want to throw in is washi tape. I got a rainbow set of washi tape as part of my birthday present from my parents and I've been really loving using it to personalise and decorate things like my folders and stuff for school.
My favourite social media lately has got to be Instagram; I've done two posts on my Instagram and you can click here to see them if you've not already.

The final thing I've been loving is sweet potato fries which is a bit of a random favourite but I have really been enjoying them. They are also super easy to make and I will be posting the quick and easy recipe on Saturday so luck forward to that,
see you then,
Charlotte x

Saturday 13 February 2016

Review-Benefit's Triple Performing Facial Emulsion

Hey Guys,
so I thought that today I would do a review of a product that you've probably seen me mention to you quite a few times but I wanted to do a full review so I can properly rave about it to you so here we go...

The Triple Performing Facial Emulsion from benefit does as it say three things it helps to protect, comfort and hydrate your skin all in one and it also has SPF 15 PA ++ which is good too as no matter where you live the sun is always out even when it's raining or snowing and your skin needs protecting from it. I feel like putting on sun cream can be a chore and often we forget it because you think of it's winter and it's not that warm out so you don't need it but the sun's rays are always there and they can be very harmful to your skin; now I'm not saying coat yourself in  strong sun cream everyday but having products that you use regularly anyway with SPF in them doesn't hurt and helps you out a lot, so the moral of that long winded story is try and use moisturisers with SPF in them.
The moisturiser is also oil free which is perfect for my skin as I have combination skin that  normally fall under the normal/dry category in cosmetics and with it being oil free it doesn't feel greasy but it still really hydrates my skin. I really like how thin the consistency of the moisturiser is as well because it doesn't feel like you are smothering your face with moisturiser, it's  light and refreshing but you can still feel it working on your face and hydrating it.
Now the less serious stuff can we all just take a minute to look at and appreciate the packaging of the product because I think it is really nice I've had this for a while now but I still haven't chucked out the box it came in because I really like it.
The bottle that the actual moisturiser is in I'm pretty sure is glass and then there is a plastic pump on top where you can dispense the moisturiser; I usually use 3-4 pumps everyday depending on how dry my skin is feeling but you don't actually need that much of the moisturiser because I find that a little bit goes a long way. The bottle has a really nice lid as well which has a cork effect like covering to the plastic of it which just adds another cute little touch. The whole packaging together reminds me of the sea it kind of has quite a nautical theme to it with the greens and the beige.
The cost of the moisturiser if you buy it direct from Benefit is £23.50 but I have seen it for £18.00 before but if you want it but don't want to spend that much then keep your eye out for price reductions and offers like 20% off on beauty websites like look fantastic and feel unique place like that are really good if you are wanting beauty items for less so I definitely recommend checking them out.

I can't count the amount of times I wrote the word moisturiser in that but I hope you liked todays post let me know any posts you would like me to write in the comments and I'll see you on Monday,
Charlotte x

Monday 8 February 2016

3 Ingredient Microwave Fudge

 
Hey Guys,
so my mum told me about this recipe she heard about for microwave fudge that only needs 3 ingredients and only takes 90 seconds to make and I thought that I would share the recipe with you today.

You will need:
500g of Chocolate
397g Can of Condensed Milk
30g of Butter

What you need to do:


First of all you need to put all of the ingredients in a plastic microwave safe bowl; then you can set that to one side for a minute and get a baking tray and line it with parchment paper to put the fudge in.
After you have done that you can properly start on the fudge; what you want to do is place the bowl containing the ingredients in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time stirring the mixture in between each 30 seconds but you don't want you're fudge to be in the microwave for more than 90 seconds in total. I put mine in for two lots of 30 seconds and then for just 15 seconds more.
Once all the ingredients are melted and combined together you need to pour all of the mixture onto the baking tray you lined earlier; depending on how big your baking tray is you may need another tray to fit it all on. You want to spread all of your mixture out across the tray so that it's smooth as you can and then place it in the fridge to set.
After about 2 hours it should be set enough for you to cut into pieces and enjoy. Just a little tip the fudge I spread thinner was a lot easier to cut and take the fudge off the parchment paper.

I just used milk chocolate for my fudge but you can use any type of chocolate you like or a mix of different types of chocolate! You could also add in things like nuts or smarties all you'd need to do is once your mixture has been in the microwave mix whatever you like in and then just spread it on a baking tray and put it in the fridge. I f you didn't want it all mixed in then you could put pieces of nuts or sweets on top once you've spread the fudge out.

I hope you liked today's post and let me know if you try out the recipe, I have also updated my pinterest page so all of my blogposts are now pinned to my page including this one so you can click here to got to my board, I'll see you on Saturday,
Charlotte x

Saturday 6 February 2016

My Favourite Apps

Hey everyone,
I thought that since we all spend so much of our day on our phones that today I would share with you some of my favourite apps that I use on my phone. (also please ignore the air bubbles on my phone screen)


The first app I'm loving is Instagram; I go through phases with social media but one I tend to love most of the time is Instagram. I just like how it is mainly picture based as I absolutely love taking photos. Also I've done a couple posts sharing my Instagram photos with you so if you haven't seen my latest one of them then click here to see it now.
The second app I want to mention was recommended to me by one of my friends Pippa and I have been using it quite regularly and it is the app SWORKIT. It's a workout app that you can create custom workouts on for you to do and pick the area you want to workout, the exercises you want to be in it and how long the workout is. All of the workouts also don't require any equipment so you can literally do it anywhere and everywhere which I really like.
I've currently been really into TV programmes and have been watching a lot on the BBC iPlayer App and one of my favourite programmes The Great Interior Design Challenge has just started again this week which I definitely recommend you guys give it a watch and I feel like it's an enjoyable programme even if you're not super interested in interior design. I also really like watching Dragons' Den and The Great Sport Relief.
An app that I use for school is The HW App which I think has to be the most useful app on my phone. You can put your timetable on it and then you can see what lessons you've got in the day when you swipe down to check your notifications. You also can obviously put your homework on the app and set reminders to do your assignments; I also put down the dates of my tests on it too so I don't forget to revise.
Now Bloglovin' is an app that I have been using loving for ages as it's so useful and handy as it allows you to see all your favourite bloggers posts in one space. You can quickly see them and can also save blogposts you like so you can read them again later. you can also follow me on there if you're not doing already by just clicking on the bloglovin' icon on the side of this post above my popular posts. Then you can see my posts even quicker and easier.
The final app I want to mention is Color, It's an app that I've been very addicted too since the beginning of the year I play it all the time on my way to school or when I'm waiting for the bus. It's really fun and if you haven't played it then I definitely recommend you download it and give it a play. 
I also really like the app VSCO Cam but I'm thinking of doing a post on how I edit my Instagram photos so I'll talk about it in that.

I hope you liked today's post and why don't you let me know in the comments what you're favourite app is on your phone, see you on Monday,
Charlotte x

Monday 1 February 2016

What's in My Bag | Winter 2016





Hello everyone,
so as you can tell by the title I am going to be doing a what's in my bag post today because I actually haven't done one before and I thought since I like being nosy and seeing what people keep in their bags so here is what I keep in mine.
So let's start off with my bag it is actually from surprise surprise PRIMARK! I can't actually remember how much it was because I got it a while ago but I'm sure it wasn't more than £10. I really like this bag because it's the perfect size; it's not massive so I cram loads of stuff in to fill the space but it's not too small either so you can fit all of you're actual essentials in.
Inside my bag I have another little one thats from Ted Baker, it was actually part of my secret Santa present from one of my best friends. I like having this in my bag to put all of my small essentials in because then I can also transfer it quickly into a different bag.

So in the bag I have a few beauty things, I've got a deodorant, hand sanitizer and lip balm which are all just super handy and useful to have in your bag. Then I have a few hair bobbles and grips because you never know when you or a friend are going to need them and I have a pack of gum as well. I also have a couple of plasters because otherwise you never have one when you want one. The last thing I have in my little bag is my headphones which are held neatly in two butterfly clips that have like a bobble connecting them I don't know where I got it from but using just one butterfly clip works just as well. 

In my bag I also have my purse, phone and an umbrella because lets face it if you live in England you need an umbrella all year round! My purse was actually a Christmas present from my friend's mum who kindly bought me a Jack Wills purse. (also little side note please excuse the ridiculous amount of air bubbles on my phone screen I need to get a new protector) I also usually have a pack of tissues and a pen in my bag but for some reason they weren't in my bag when I was taking photos of everything in my bag!

Okay so that is everything that is in my bag let me know the one thing you always have to have in your bag in the comments and I'll see you on Saturday,
Charlotte x