In my last post, I talked about chucking out the old and bringing in the new, and obviously part of my recleansing day was going to Superdrug and buying a load more stuff to replace it all! It did help that there were some great offers on and I currently get 10% student discount (I'm still a student, honest!) It felt like I bought loads of things for just under £50. One of the STUDIO nail files, the hand cream and the two unbagged nail varnishes were gifts so I won't go into detail about those. Please enjoy the products and my cat's photobombs below!

Today's post is going to be split into two. I've had a really busy day which started with shopping and ended with half of my wardrobe going out of the window! So lets start with the old and finish off with the new. Here's a little guide of how to cleanse your life... well kinda.

I've been meaning to do this for a long time - about a year or so to be exact! We moved house nearly two years ago now and the last time I really had a clear out was then. I managed to fill 9 bin bags full of things to go to the charity and more for eBay. To be honest, the eBay pile never really budged as it took so long to list things, they've ended up back in my wardrobe. My wardrobe was really bursting with stuff - or should I say wardobes... I have a double walk-in wardrobe in my room and a single one in the spare room! So much so, I was too embarrassed to take a picture. Today I have spent around 2 and a half hours taking everything out and putting them into piles. There were jeans, tops, skirts, shorts and all sorts of things mushed up together. Each side of my wardrobe has a shelf and two poles so here are some rules first:

Side 1: Jeans, skirts and jumpers.
Side 2: Dresses and tops.

Pile 1: Keep and hang
Pile 2: Vacuum bag for summer
Pile 3: eBay/charity shop

After I'd sorted one side into piles, I'd then sort things out into jumpers, jeans etc. I folded my jeans onto the shelf, hung jumpers on the bottom pole and skirts on the top pole. It looks so much better and I can actually see my clothes! There were so many things that I had not worn for ages or even at all. It really helped for me to think of my ideal wardrobe/outfit and imagine if that item would fit in there - if not, let someone else have it who would love it. There were so many things, such as skirts, that don't suit me anymore. Once you start to see the space improve it's so much easier to be ruthless!

Do the same with your make-up, lotions, nail varnishes etc. Get some good quality items that you use all the time. There were so many items that were completely rubbish that I'd only bought cause they were cheap. Getting good quality cosmetics is so much cheaper in the long run. (I do keep telling myself this... honest).


Happy (early) spring cleaning!

I'm going to base this post about something that I'm really passionate about - books. I absolutely love reading and books and always have. When I look back at my childhood, I always remember having a little shelf next to my bunkbed with a pile of books and a torch on it. My Mum would come in at 10pm on a school night telling me to stop hiding under the covers with a book and get some sleep. She tells me stories about how the health visitor was amazed when she came to see me as a baby and I was sat inspecting a book, gently turning each page. There are so many different worlds out there to escape to and I desire to stumble into every one of them - the impossible task!

As a primary teacher, this is something that I try to instil in my students and I love seeing them get excited over a story - at the moment we are reading The Midnight Gang by David Walliams and everytime the chapter comes to an end they go "NOOOO!!!" As much as I love my job, I still would love to work in a library or a bookshop - there is something so relaxing about being surrounded by books and I love to visit them and browse from biographies and non-fiction to stories. But enough about how great books are! Here are my top-tips for book lovers.

1. I have a Kindle Paperwhite full to the brim with books and I'm constantly adding more, which can also be said about my bookshelves. If I read a book that I enjoy on my Kindle, I have to have the paperback on my shelf so I can look back at it and remember the stories that I have been inspired by. It's sometimes really nice to reread the stories, a bit like a comfort blanket.

2. Don't just stick to fiction! I have been really guilty of this in the past. There are so many fascinating and inspiring real-life stories out there and it's really cool to learn about something new with non-fictional books. I love nature books and the kids at school do too, especially when I can tell them a cool fact about our topic. I've also got really into poetry at the moment - it's so beautiful, can take you some place new and think of things from a new perspective.

3. eBay and Amazon is your best friend. I'm sure you already know this but save the second hand books!! I also love searching charity shops for hidden gems and libraries usually have a 'for sale' section where you can occasionally find a great book for about 30p - especially children's books.

4. Goodreads. I think I visit this website more than social media. I love setting myself reading challenges, see what other people are reading and finding my new favourite book. It gives you so many lists of good books and recommendations based on what you've read! I'm also kind obsessed with updating where I am with the books I'm reading. It makes reading more of a productive activity, like 'hey, I've read 4 books already this year, I'm so intelligent'.

5. Book blogs. I love following book blogs and seeing such pretty pictures of books - even if it makes me regret having un-pretty eBooks on my Kindle. Damn yooou!

6. My New Years Resolution - don't finish a book you aren't enjoying. Pass it on to someone else or a charity shop. Life is too short to force yourself to read something that your heart isn't into and there are so many books out there for you to read and love. Also, you'll probably be put off reading for a while and it's so hard to get out of that rut.

Happy reading!

Why do I seem to return to blogging every January? I read last year's post and it seemed a million years ago. It's been a really busy year - I got my first teaching job and time has flew since I started in June - I can't believe I've been here 7 months already. I'm finding it so rewarding, although tiring, and there is so much less paperwork than uni. The only downside is that I am contracted a year, so here I am scouring job sites again!

Looking back, last year I was full of hopes and goals, however finding a job wasn't as easy as I hoped. I attended endless visits to schools to hear nothing back. I applied to around 20 jobs and only heard back from two. I went to two tiring all-day interviews with a smile plastered on my face through endless tasks for one of them to rip me to bits in the actual one-on-one interview stage. It was an X-Factor style audition where you waited nervously to see if you had got through to the next stage - only a day for the strong-hearted. Part of me is dreading going through it all again, but I know I have more experience and confidence behind me this time.

But after the excitement from last year's first job and graduation, I'm not really sure what this year will hold. There's been a lot of personal things that has happened in the last year that means my family isn't around to be there anymore. It's something that really hit me at New Years Eve where I realised that the most important people in my life were now gone. It's still something that leaves me curious as to why things happened but grateful for the ones I still have.

So here's to 2017. Let's hope its a good one :)
(with maybe a blog or two... you never know)

So here's my first proper post of 2016, as promised, which is going to be about what my life revolves around at the moment. Preparing to adult - aka, getting ready to do my last teaching placement, looking for jobs and finishing university.

Looking back, college and university has been a bit of a comfort blanket for me. I did three years at college to get the grades that I wanted and now I'm entering the final stage of my 4 years at university - I spent a year away from home doing BA Education Studies before I realised that I needed to push myself and go start afresh studying BEd Primary Education. Ever since I was 16, I've had the long holidays and days off in the week but now it's time to grow up and do whatever adults do.

Last year, my university gave me the option to study for three or four years - if I studied for four years, I could get specialism in a subject and some credits towards masters. Up until second year, I thought, "why not? If I'm at university I might as well get as qualified as I can." But after being placed by the university to do work placements in schools up to 30 miles away and travelling the 2 hour slog home after a long day teaching, I decided I didn't want another year of it, and now I'm so happy I ended up choosing three years. But why would I want to give up on the long holidays and mid-week days off? I could relax in the university bubble for another year!

It's strange, because - not going to lie - I've always been lazy. Leaving things until the last minute, picking the easy route, but this year I've been feeling an increasing pull towards growing up. I've been looking at houses with For Sale signs with longing eyes, I've been walking around TK Maxx homeware and I've been checking TES Jobs daily. The girl who my friends used to call 'Peter Pan' is turning Power-Rangers-style (well ok, maybe in a more clumsy fashion) into something that could resemble an adult.

Yesterday, I visited the most friendliest, perfect school with amazing staff and beautiful setting - which is coincidentally the place where I will begin my final teaching placement before becoming a qualified teacher (if all goes well... *touch wood*). Although I only spent two hours there, it's given me a high. Without going into detail, last year I was placed in a lovely school although the rigorous scrutinising and extremely high standards left me occasionally struggling to jump the hurdles, or should I say high jump? The school that I visited yesterday, although having a better Ofsted rating, had a much more laid-back atmosphere where all the staff seemed to be happy rather than pulling their hair out. Thinking about it, the schools I have visited with higher Ofsted ratings were the ones who didn't have to write a paragraph of marking in every child's book or create all-singing-and-dancing lessons.

So I'm hoping that there is actually a point behind all of this - that sometimes, you can take the easy route out. I don't need to faff around doing four years instead of three - because at the end of the day, I'm still going to get the same job with the same pay. I don't need to spend hours marking or planning lessons trying to impress my markers. Sometimes you just need to accept that you can't do everything and realise that the most important things don't revolve around work but your happiness and positivity. I don't want to jinx it, but I've got a weird feeling that everything this year is going to turn out ok. :)

So I've been lusting after a 'velvet' lip lacquer since I spotted Lime Crime's Velvetines, and MUA have done it again. I love their Urban Decay NAKED palette dupes and they've released a brilliant match to Lime Crime's Red Velvet shade in the colour Reckless. It's a deep red, a bit similar to my previously reviewed Rimmel's 100 Kisses Lip Tint in Perpetual Plum.

First of all, I love the packaging. These retail at a bargain £3 each in Superdrug but they look more like a high-end product. They come in a cardboard box with a list of ingredients/directions etc. leaving the actual lacquer tube expensively simple looking - the lid is a matt black with a gold signature.

It's been a while!

I'm sorry for not posting for a while, I've had so much work to do at university that I've completely neglected reviewing!

Today's post will be based around my current favourite product - L'Oreal's Extra-Volume Collagen Mascara. I got this (as I usually end up with most of my make-up!) in one of those clearance boxes in my local Tesco, which is why I ended up with a brown shade instead of my usual black. I have to say though, the only difference is how it looks on the brush - it looks just like a black mascara on my lashes.
I've been using L'Oreal's Voluminous Mascara in Carbon Black for years because of how lovely and thick it made my lashes. The only problem being is that it seemed to dry up quickly and the brush would get easily clumped. The Collagen mascara has an AMAZING brush! I love thick brushes with lots of bristles, which was exactly what was missing from Voluminous. The texture at first was a little runny for my liking, but after about a month it seemed to settle down into a nice consistency to allow you to build up layers more easily.
The only downside to this product is that it always tends to get into my eye towards the end of the day and it stings like crazy and makes my eye run - a never ending circle!