Pay Day Haul!

Dayum have I really been M.I.A. the past week? I’ve been so busy this past week with being off work, as well as Dane being off work too. Everyday I kept saying to myself, “Nat you REALLY need to get some blog work done!” to then reply back, “Yeah… After this level on Lego Star Wars.” That level ended up turning out to be THE WHOLE GAME! Seriously fuck my life, and fuck you Lego! 😛

BUT me and Dane finally moved our arses after I got paid on Wednesday and took ourselves out for some very much needed retail therapy on Friday. We were like big kids that day too… I’m sure you can already see why!

We decided to go to one of our local shopping centers and this is actually a good little hail for me considering I am meant to be being good, and I’m after a new casual dress and some skirts/denim shorts so I have been on the warpath! Not a successful one mind. Onto the haul (by the way I apologise that the pictures aren’t super duper crisp and magical! I wanted to get the pictures taken quickly so we could play with the Nerf guns! :P)!

There’s a Yankee Candle store in the place we usually go shopping and it is amazing! They have all the exclusives in there, as well as some great two for offers. We always go for a mooch every time we visit as it doesn’t hurt to have a sniff on what candles you may buy next. We weren’t going to go in this time, but I’m glad I did as I picked up Candy Cane Lane, one of my favourites! It’s from the Christmas line, but the Christmas scents are by far the best in my eyes. This one came out a couple of years ago now and Dane was good enough to buy it me when it first launched. I’m coming to the end of that jar now and I refused to burn it anymore until I picked up a new one. This was in the sale for £10.99! A bargain for a large Yankee Candle. I won’t lie, I wish I had bought two of these. 😛

Now I have a bit of a complaint/back story about The Body Shop! I saw that they were doing 30% off of everything on the website so I thought sod it I’ll order those tea tree goodies I want! I ordered, paid with PayPal and at first I got two emails saying the payment had gone though and everything was fine. Then the website told me it hadn’t gone through and there was a problem… I got an email stating the same as well. BUT The Body Shop STILL took my money! I think it has been put back after me complaining etc. But what if I had assumed anything? I would be £16 down! This isn’t this first time this has happened with The Body Shop online and due to it happening again I refuse to use their website now… I’m sorry but The Body Shop is a big company and they should have this stuff sorted by now. It’s  been going on for years, very disappointed guys!

Phew rant over, onto what I bought. I picked up their tea tree ranges three step cleanse, tone, and moisturise kit. A girl I work with (hey Rhi!) has told me that she loves the tea tree range and said how good it is, so I thought I’d try it. So far it’s pretty good, but it has caused my skin to break out a bit… Think this is meant to happen but I don’t think I like it. The foaming cleanser is lovely and cleansing and is fun to use! It reminds me of when I was a teenager and use to use the Simple foaming cleanser. The toner is the real “wow” factor of these steps. If you have sensitive skin then this probably isn’t for you. It’s very strong due to the tea tree and due to that it does sting the skin when applied. I was stupid enough to go over my eyes with it. The burn, oh the burn! Now the moisturiser is great but it’s probably my least favourite part of the kit. Purely because it states that it will matt the skin… Bollocks it does no such thing! Wasn’t surprise to be honest. Other than that it is an amazing light weight gel based lotion that really does wonders for my skin… Just doesn’t matt it like it says it will. The set cost £14 BUT as I had a £5 voucher on my Body Shop card it only cost me £9. What a bargain eh!? Even at £14 I think this set was a bargain as the cleanser and toner are both £5.50 each, and the moisturiser is a shocking £9! I’ll definitely pick up this set again for the money though.

Random but this is something I picked up with Dane when we popped into The Range for some home ware goodies. I’ve spotted it in loads of shops but never been bothered to buy it. Dane pointed it out to me due to the fox on the cover, and at £6.99 I thought meh why not pick it up! Give me something to do when the weather is nice and I want to sit out in the garden. I haven’t yet given this a go but bloody hell it’s going to be fun to do once I get started!

This little guy has been on my wish list since before Christmas when I spotted him in Forbidden Planet. Since then I have asked and pestered Dane to let me buy him, or him to buy it for me but each time he has said no. I get why as this wasn’t cheap at £39.99! You know what though? Totally worth it! We visited two Toys R Us stores to get our Nerf guns and in the first store we picked this Lego Wall-E up. That evening we put on some Kevin Smith and Clerks and built this little guy up. We only got half way and went to bed as it was getting late, but when I woke up the next morning Dane had finished him and popped him on our fireplace. He’s absolutely gorgeous and really is a nice piece to add to our living room.

The one thing that Dane was after when we went shopping was a Nerf gun… Well guns, one each. We had said about a year ago how when we finally bought our first home and were settled we would buy ourselves Nerf guns to play with in the house. Well now we finally have some, as well as some extra ammo! Dane always wanted the Stormtrooper blaster and after finding one in a second store he decided to get it. It cost a mean £39.99 but it’ll be great for cosplaying a Stormtrooper in the future (something we both want to do). I couldn’t settled on something however, and I constantly ummed and ahhed at the bow and arrows, as well as various different guns. I eventually said, “Meh I may as well match you and get a Star Wars one.” and as I reached for the Han Solo gun, I saw that they had made one for Rey! Perfect! So low and behold I picked up a Star Wars gun too. Mine cost £24.99. The extra bullets were under £10 which was pretty reasonable if you ask me.

Finally we have my favourite item on this haul (apart from the Wall-E and the Nerf guns because come on! Nothing better than being a big kid! :P) which is my new Killstar jumper. I didn’t get this from the official website, but instead I bought it from someone on eBay. It was brand new with the tags on as she had only tried it on to see how it would fit on her. So for £25.00 (inc P&P) I thought I would snatch it up before someone else could! This is of course still available to buy from the Killstar website, which I have linked here for you! I haven’t worn it yet but I’ve tried it on and it is so damn soft and comfortable! I want to team it up with some denim shorts or thick black leggings and Dr Martens boots or brothel creepers. It’ll probably end up being one of my staple pieces for autumn and winter this year. CAN’T WAIT!

But yes that was my short pay day haul for August! I’m meant to be being good so yes there are a couple of treats in here but I am trying to be good and watch my money at the moment.

What have you been buying yourself this pay day? Make sure to let me know in the comments!

Until next time take care all and I hope yo had a lovely weekend.

My Yankee Candle Collection… So far!

Since last January my Yankee Candle collection has grown quite rapidly. I love Yankee Candles as regular readers of my blog will know and I felt it was the right time to talk about the candles I own.

I did write a post all about my Yankee Candles back in March 2013, but since then my collection has changed dramatically! So I wanted to show you all the new additions.

In the next week or so I hope to create another post similar to this one BUT about how to take care of your Yankee Candles.

If you are interested in reading the previous posts I wrote, then please check those out here:

Yankee Candle small jars, samples and wax tarts.

Small Jars

The first and only new small jar to my collection is Sweet Apple, and I didn’t even have to pay for it! I was given this free at Christmas for purchasing two large Christmas jars, which I thought was a good deal really. I’ve wanted this for ages and it smells of fresh apples, which I’ve always been a fan of. It smells like a crisp red apple, which of course is what the picture on the jar shows. I didn’t find this was a light or an overpowering scent, which I liked. I can do with a happy medium. This is classed as a fruit fragrance, which makes perfect sense and this is ideally perfect for spring due to the light scent of fresh apples. I will definitely be picking up the large jar of this in the future.

Medium Jars

This is Ghostly Treats and is a limited edition Yankee Candle that first came out for Halloween last year. I first of all fell in love with the jar and that was the main reason I wanted it, but when I heard that it shared the same scent as Fireside Treats I saved a couple of quid and picked up a large jar of that instead. So when Yankee Candle’s Halloween sale loomed, I kept my eyes peeled for this to be in the sale. So, instead of £16.99, I picked this up for £8.00! Bargain, huh? This is a lovely warm scent that smells like a mixture of smoke and sweet marshmallows, which I really like. I find that this is a stronger scent than Fireside Treats. I’ve hardly burnt this since buying it… I guess because I’m trying to save it for “special occasions”.

This is one of the candles I received for Christmas from my boyfriend and I won’t lie, I hated it at first. This is Sugared Apple, which is classed as a food and spice candle. It came out one or two Christmases ago and I used to sniff it every now and again but never bought it. It’s a sugary sweet apple smell ans isn’t as fresh smelling as Sweet Apple. When I first lit this it gave me a headache as the throw seemed way too strong for me and was way too sickly too. However since then I’ve not had any issues when burning this. The only issues I’ve been having is it welling, which is proving annoying. Otherwise this is a nice candle and works well in the autumn and winter weather due to the warming smell the sugary apple leaves behind. This is a strong candle and if you burn it in one room it will travel as far as it can in the house.

Candy Cane Lane is by far one of my favourite candles out there. I LOVE mint smells and this nails it perfectly. This first came out for Christmas 2014 and came in a gift set alongside Sugared Apple. It’s classed as a festive scent, so is clearly only meant to be burnt at Christmas, but sod it I’ll be burning this all year around! It just carries that beautiful buttery type peppermint scent and it just reminds me of peppermint hot chocolates, my favourite! I would love a large jar of this to see me through the year, but as soon as I burn this medium jar up I know I’ll be picking up a larger one. The throw on this is great and it leaves a good scent in the room it’s in. I imagined this was going to be pretty strong, but alas it’s actually perfect.

Large Jars

This is probably one of my favourite candles out of them all, purely because this was the first large jar I owned and also because my boyfriend picked it up for me for my birthday last year. It’s Sweet Strawberry and I remember wanting this candle for years, and he remembered from me telling him. I haven’t burnt it all that much because I want to make it last, but at the same time I love burning it because it reminds me of him. This weld the first time I burnt it and I was gutted, so I luckily fixed it, which I’m pleased about. This is of course a fruit scent and it’s probably the best one out there! It smells just like the Strawberry Shortcake dolls you can buy (I know because I smell them, okay?!) and when I was five or six years old my Gran bought me one and that is exactly what this candle smells of. If you aren’t a huge fan of strawberries, then I highly recommend this as I’m certainly not, but I adore this candle. FYI this candle is currently one of Yankee Candle’s Fragrance of the Month so you can pick it up with 25% off!

This is one of the last large jars I bought and I got it for 25% off as it was the Fragrance of the Month at the time. This is Fireside Treats and I mentioned it a little before when talking about Ghostly Treats, which shares the same scent… Sort of! This is classed as a food and spice scent and it really is yummy! When you smell it you just wanna eat it and it really does remind me of a bonfire but one that involves like doughnuts and marshmallows. This came out for spring if I remember right, but I feel this candle would work better for summer and autumn due to the warming scent. The best thing about this candle is that the scent isn’t strong at all and out of all of the candles I’ll be talking about, this one is the lightest of them all and I love that. I can burn this in the evenings and it’ll be so nice and relaxing. I can’t wait for summer to arrive so I can burn this until it turns dark. I’d love to one day have my own back garden to have little fires in with my friends and toast marshmallows as the scent this candle gives off is so relaxing and because of that, this is a definite favourite for me.

If my memory serves me right, this is a limited edition candle that came out for autumn last year and it appears that it isn’t really available anymore… Which is why this is my least used candle out of them all! It is of course Berrylicious and it really is true to its name. I bought this back in August when I went to visit my friend Gabriella for her birthday. We popped into the Yankee Candle shop in Trentham Gardens and as soon as I eyed this up, I knew I was buying it. It wasn’t cheap at £19.99 but it was so worth it! I hadn’t seen it anywhere else and I was too paranoid to leave it behind and then wonder if I would ever get my hands on it. This is once again a food and spice scent, I have quite a lot of food related candles if you hadn’t already noticed! This one really does smell like a blueberry cake with some sort of icing, basically what the picture on the jar shows. It’s just so tarte and yummy and it makes me want dessert whenever I smell it! The throw was really good and whilst it wasn’t strong, it may be if you have a sensitive nose. I may try and stock up on some other jars of this whilst they’re cheap in the Yankee Candle sale. Sadly the large have all gone and so have the medium. If you want to give this a try I suggest you hurry and do so as this is selling out fast online!

So those were my Yankee Candles! If I had it my way my collection would be a hell of a lot bigger, but due to money and I won’t lie space I just have a little (ha!) collection.

Soon I might create a Yankee Candle wish list as there are so many I want.

Which Yankee Candles do you own? Do you have any that I have? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time, take care all and have a great weekend.

Christmas Wish List!

Woohoo it’s December and you know what that means… Christmas will soon be upon us! That also means shops will be packed full of crazy shoppers, the German Market in town will be overflowing with hungry people and every shop you go into will be playing Christmas music loudly… The joys of this month!

I’m actually REALLY excited for Christmas this year, I haven’t been this excited for quite a long time, too long for me to remember.

I’ve already bought all my boyfriends presents and I’m still needing to buy some more but that won’t be a problem. He’s been spoilt rotten this year!

But now onto what I would like for Christmas… I made up a list for my boyfriend and it was pretty hard to make up, as I really don’t/didn’t know what I wanted this year. It was pretty much my wish list of things that I either haven’t yet gotten round to buying OR haven’t had the money to buy.

SO! Without further ado, here is my wish list for Christmas.

• MAC Cosmetics Prep + Prime Transparent Finished Powder/Pressed.

A silky, colourless finishing powder suitable for all skin tones. Reduces shine while optically minimizing the look of lines & imperfections. Wear over makeup or on its own. Now in a pressed compact for ease & portability.

I love MAC Cosmetics but bar one product I’ve only ever owned lipsticks by them. This is set to change in the New Year though as I really want to try this finishing powder out. Although I don’t wear make up (apart from lip products of course!) I do like a finishing powder to keep my face looking matte and this looks like a good call. I currently use one by Bare Minerals and whilst I really like it, I would like to try something else to broaden my horizons. This comes in both a powder and a pressed form, but I think I would want the pressed version so that I could use it on the go. I get terrible shine on my nose and whilst the powder I put on my skin in the morning does the trick, it doesn’t last all day. This would also be ideal for taking with me when I go on holiday and to my boyfriends. I’ll probably ask my Mom for this, if not I’ll just pick it up myself with my Christmas money (if I get any!). I think this is at a decent price for £20.50 too!

• Guardians Of The Galaxy Rocky Raccoon Pop Vinyl Figure.

I don’t as of yet own any Pop Vinyl figures but I have wanted to. I have my eye on quite a few of them that I want and this is one of them. I LOVED Guardians Of The Galaxy when I went to the cinema to watch it and Rocket was definitely my favourite character out of the team. When I went to Comic Con a few Saturday’s ago there were hundreds of Pop Vinyl figures and whilst I didn’t pick one up… My boyfriend did and I have a feeling it’s one of my Christmas presents as he didn’t want to show me which one he picked up. This Pop Vinyl is a bobble head so this would be awesome to keep at a desk to play with when procrastinating. I don’t have a desk, but I’ve already decided that whenever I get any Pop Vinyl figures in the future I’m going to wait until I move out to take them out of the boxes, so they’re nice and fresh for my new home. I’d love a little collection of Pop Vinyl figures and soon enough in the future I will make a post of which figures I want, and why.

• Paperchase Dreamscape Woodland Leather Personal Organiser.

I spotted this in Paperchase back in September before I started university and was really tempted to buy it, but I stopped myself as I wouldn’t be able to use it until the New Year anyway! I’ve decided that instead of having my standard diary I keep at home, I wanted an organiser to have on the go. It’ll be handy with university, as well as work and social life too. This one has a beautiful grey and blue woodland design on it that includes various woodland animals such as foxes, owls, deers, rabbits and badgers. This will be perfect and you can add new years, as well as different sections to the organiser, which means I can use it year after year!

• Yankee Candle in Candy Cane Lane.

A favourite Christmas place where delicious dreams are made with tingly peppermint, sweet cookies and creamy vanilla icing.

Like most out there, I love Yankee Candles and whenever Yankee announce new scents I get super excited and this winter they have come out with a really yummy scent. Candy Cane Lane. Each time I go into a Yankee Candle stockist and they have Candy Cane Lane out for people to smell and buy, I give it a sniff. It’s a gorgeous creamy mint scent, which reminds me of peppermint hot chocolate and peppermint chocolate. I love mint themed foods (don’t even get me started on After Eights!) so this is really up my street. Although I don’t need anymore Yankee Candles (as a post in the next few weeks will reveal) I would burn this throughout the winter season and beyond as it would just remind me of Christmas, so it would be worth having it for sure. I have a feeling I’ve already been bought this for Christmas, but I’m not 100% sure… We shall soon find out.

• Clinique 3-Step in Dry Combination: Type 2.

I’ve been using Clinique on and off for over ten years now and it is always a product I end up going back to because I just love it that much. The only reasons I stop using it is usually due to lack of money. When I was out of work for a couple of months last year I couldn’t afford to re-purchase the moisturiser for the 3-Step so it resulted in me discontinuing use of the 3-Step once again. However my Mom has already suggested that she pick up the 3-Step again for me for Christmas, which would be lovely! As I’m going away on holiday in January and Clinique also sell a handy travel set, I can see me picking this up myself in preparation for said holiday. Although I have always been Type 2, which is dry combination I can see me going through the tests again when I visit the Clinique counter just to make sure I haven’t changed. It’ll be good to have my 3-Step routine back in the New Year.

• Wonderland Bunny Cotton Tail Cotton Wool Dispenser.

I spotted this on Truffle Shuffle’s Facebook page months ago and since then I have been lusting after it. I’m unsure if anyone has bought it for me for Christmas, but if not I intend to pick it up with my Christmas money, or my birthday money. I recently got a new set of drawers in my room and I would like something nice like this to bring a little life to my room. It’d just brighten up each day taking out one of the little cotton wool balls to use.

• Lush Rudolph Christmas Gift.

I love Lush and I know that I want from there this Christmas and some of the bits and pieces are actually in this cute little gift. It comes with Yog Nog Soap, Snowman Jelly Shower Jelly, Dashing Santa Bath Bomb and Golden Wonder Bath Bomb. I do have a bar of Yog Nog soap, but I’ve never tried the other products and would love them to use as a treat when I go on holiday. Plus look at the packaging for this gift! You can’t go wrong with a knot Rudolph cloth. Super cute and it isn’t exactly super expensive.

• Pandora Night Sky Openwork Charm.

I thought I would save the best until last, a Pandora charm. Last Christmas and birthday I received Pandora and once again my family and boyfriend have offered to buy me it again this year. I have made a short list of some charms I like and that I’m after, but I’ve recently spotted this charm and now I am in love. It would work beautifully with the blue theme I want to create on my university charm bracelet (I need to write a post about this someday…) which I often wear these days. The charm is just so beautiful isn’t it? It’s just loads of blue stars and a silver/clear gem in the middle. It looks like a night sky and I love those quite frankly. If I’m not bought this charm this year, I will for sure be buying it for myself as a treat!

So that’s my Christmas wish list this year! I don’t really have anything in particular I want for Christmas, probably just a few lovely little things from close family, friends and my boyfriend.

What’s on your wish list for Christmas? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Until next time take care all and see you soon!