November Favourites ’22

Holy shit guys, we are overdue a blog post, let alone another favourites! I’m wary now that I’ve been M.I.A. for almost a month and I do have my reasons why. I thought I’d write my favourites from November, whilst I also share where I went.

November was a mad month, especially towards the end of it, with some highs and lows to finish it off. First of all, I had Covid. Right at the end of November I tested positive and it sucked. I’m negative now, but I still have a cough (and sometimes head cold symptoms) that I’m just waiting to clear out of my system. Hopefully in time for Christmas…

It was my first time with Covid and I hope the last realistically. Self-isolating was the worst for me as it meant I was trapped in one room (two if you include occasional bathroom trips) relying on Dane to look after me and a crappy airbed for comfort of an evening. I didn’t enjoy it and it really did start to give me really bad mental health issues towards the end. The sickness itself was meh. I had a really bad temperature and all around just didn’t feel great, I just wanted to lie on the sofa or in bed all day, which I mostly did the weekend I found out I had it.

As I’ve been sick both at the end of October and the end of November, I really hope December doesn’t decide to join in too. In 2021 I was really sick at the end of December/start of January and that was vile, a lot worse than Covid, so I’m praying not to be sick like that again ever. 😛

Anyhoo, enough of the bad and onto the highs! As we all know, Pokemon came out mid November and since it released I’ve been playing it on and off, and thoroughly enjoying it, may I add! I’ll speak more about this later in the post. I also went to see Electric Callboy in Nottingham, which was amazing! Again, I’ll speak more about this later on in the post!

With no time like the present, let me get onto all my favourite from November, even with sodding Covid towards the end. 😛

Beauty – Lime Crime Wet Cherry Lip Gloss in Black Cherry.

With my lipstick journey I’ve gone from wearing lipsticks, liquid lipsticks, tints, and of late glosses. This has gone around full circle ever since I was old enough to be gifted make up as a young teenager, and lip gloss has made a come back for me! I find if I just want a bit of colour, lip glosses are great for that, alongside lip tints! I watched a beauty account on Instagram showing off some gorgeous black cherry glosses, so I decided to get myself one! I own one of the Lime Crime wet cherry lip glosses, which I love, so I thought I’d get the black cherry one. Prior to getting sick with Covid I was wearing this on a daily basis, as I just loved how light you could wear the colour, as well as how buildable it can be. I highly recommend the Lime Crime lip glosses if you want a gloss with some good colour, smells yummy and isn’t sticky!

Movie – Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl.

Technically this film classes as December, but I thought I’d mention it for November, because why not! We have been waiting YEARS to watch this movie, and finally we were able to yesterday. We’re big fans of the anime Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, so back in 2019/2020 when we heard about there being a film made of a sequel to the anime, we wanted to watch it. However, it’s only seemingly become available to us in the UK more so recently, and even then it’s only through someone uploading the movie onto YouTube. We watched it and it was such a beautiful film. If you’ve watched the anime and would love to know what happens next, make sure to go and watch the movie too. If you search for it on YouTube, you should find it straight away. I don’t want to link on my blog as realistically it being on YouTube isn’t the best.

Music – Electric Callboy.

So, as I mentioned at the start of the post, towards the end of November me and Dane went to see Electric Callboy in Nottingham. It was by far one of the best gigs I’ve been to in my life to date. I originally said it was in my top 5, but now it’s in my top 3!!! The whole vibe of the show was incredible, everyone was clearly there for a good time and everyone did just that. Each track they played from old and newer stuff got everyone going mad, including us of course! We both had a sore throats after attending the gig as we were both screaming the lyrics, and our bodies ached from dashing and moshing as much as we could. We got decent places to stand too as we started queuing quite early, so we were on the balcony, right at the front, which we loved! We’ve already said we want to go and see them again, as we had such a blast! I’d love to book to go and see them in Europe somewhere, or even London at some point next year, but we’ll see! Another cool thing is you can kind of see us on the photo that they took at the end of the gig! We’re on the left of the photo and I’m holding my bright yellow rain coat… 😛

Game – Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

As I mentioned at the start of the post, we got our copies of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and whilst we haven’t been binge playing them, I have really been enjoying playing Violet! Sword and Shield are both games I’ve enjoyed, but found you could complete the story in a day. However, Scarlet and Violet is, to me, a little overwhelming in the sense there is so much more to do! You have the gyms, titans and star challenges, as well as the usual filling up the Pokedex from catching and breeding, as well as battling with people. There’s A LOT to do in Scarlet and Violet and due to that, I really love it! I’m enjoying playing it as and when I want as well, instead of feeling like I need to pick it up to play most evenings. I wanted to show off the cute pictures I got of me and Fidough on my first day of playing. Fidough is for sure my favourite Pokemon to come out of Scarlet and Violet and I can’t wait to get some Fidough merch from the Pokemon Center due to this!

Just a few of my favourite things…

Lumichee 100% Cotton Batbat Hoodie

Lumichee “Monochrome” Mini Batbat Plush Series 4

Adorabubblesshop Ditto Cookie Candy Wrapper Loop Strap Charm

Adorabubblesshop Ice-Cream Pom Candy Wrapper Loop Strap Charm

Tomodachi Monster Cereal Vol.4 Pins

Black Friday

Did I go spend happy over Black Friday? Yep, I certainly did! If I’m honest I didn’t just shop for me either, I did save quite a lot of money on Dane’s Christmas presents, which was incredibly handy as it meant I could spoil him (and me) more. 😛 Black Friday happened when I was really sick with Covid, and not only did I go spend happy for Dane, but I definitely did for me too as I was feeling sorry for myself. As you can see, I bought quite a few bits and pieces from various places! I decided to get some more goods from Lumichee, Adorabubbleshop, as well as Tomodachi! They all had vouchers for Black Friday, which I just couldn’t pass up! I’ll be looking to write a blog post all about Lumichee in January, as well as showing you guys the volume 4 pins from Tomodachi, as I spoke about them at the start of the year!

Wales trip

I’ve been so excited to talk about our trip to Wales, but due to being so quiet on here this is the first chance I’ve had to really talk about it! At the start of November we went to Wales for a weekend to a shepherds hut on a farm in North Wales. The hut itself was absolutely gorgeous and everything we wanted! We made sure to book it in the autumnal months too so we could make the most of some of the features of the hut, which included underfloor heating, a log fire indoor, a firepit outside, as well as a hot tub! We definitely made the most out of all these features of the hut, even though the weather was raining and vile! We managed to dodge the rain every time we wanted to use the hot tub! Whilst we were in North Wales, we ventured to have a go at clay throwing, where we made a pot and a mug each! We are yet to receive these in the post, but as soon as we do, I’ll make sure to show them you guys!

I really can’t wait to venture on a holiday or short trip with Dane again, I really loved our weekend in Wales.

We made a Christmas advent calendar!

Finally I wanted to quickly show you guys the advent calendar we made this year! This project was ongoing for about a month, and even came with us on our trip to Wales, as we had planned to carry on with it there, but never got around to it. We finally finished it on Saturday and we both love what we have done with it! We kinda wanted it to be like a gingerbread house, but it’s not really become that. It’s definitely become our own unique thing and we love it to death! We’ve hidden some of the images of the doors as these are inspired by rooms in our home, so we’d like to try and keep this private. I also added some stickers from Pikarar as they just look so cute and it seemed the right time to use them! We picked our calendar up from Hobbycraft to decorate and it was so much fun for us to do together. If anything, we’ve said how we want to do more crafting together!

So there we have it! A long overdue blog post from me after almost a month and I think it falling around favourites time has worked out quite nicely.

I’d say sorry for being absent but, I’m not going to. This isn’t my job at the end of the day, it’s my hobby and one that just had to take a break whilst I was busy and sick. I do wonder if in the New Year how often I’ll write, in the sense of if I’m too busy, I’m not going to force anything, a choice I’m sure you guys won’t mind. 🙂

So, with that being said – how have you guys been the past month? Have you started your Christmas shopping? Bought any goodies during Black Friday sales? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time all, take care and I hope you’ve all been keeping well. 🙂

September Favourites ’22

I can’t quite believe how quickly September flew by. Literally it felt like yesterday it was the first full week of September, so the fact it’s now the second day of October… It’s just mad!

I’m rather excited for October due to Halloween, as well as Bonfire Night looming. It’s also at the end of the month when me and Dane have some time off together to celebrate the colder celebrations of the year and more. Not to mention the excitement of Pokemon Scarlett and Violet coming out next month too! November is an exciting month, but I’ll save chatter about that for next months favourites post. 😉 So yeah, October is a bit of a calm before the storm kind of month for us.

A lot happened in September with (what felt like) events left, right, and centre! I do just want the world to slow down a little to be honest… I’m wary we’re less than 100 days until Christmas and God knows how many until my 33rd birthday… I looked… 96 days…

One thing I’m especially excited for for the rest of the year is how many people I’m meeting who I’ve befriended thanks to the internet and similar interests. This time next week I’ll be meeting up with someone I befriended through a Discord, which I know we’re both excited for! 😀

I’m going to jump straight into the September favourites, as I’m wary I’m going to waffle on! 😛

Beauty – Dove Body Scrub Pomegranate Seeds & Shea Butter and Dove Body Scrub Crushed Macadamia & Rice Milk.

This was a more recent purchase that I got towards the end of September, and in a short space of time it has fast become a favourite! I love a good body scrub, especially foaming ones as I feel like they’re sort of cleaning as they scrub. Anyone else feel like that? Anyway, to be honest I mostly use body scrubs on my underarms and legs before shaving. However, I will use all over too if I feel it’s needed. I picked up two types of the Dove body scrub, Pomegranate Seeds & Shea Butter and Crushed Macadamia & Rice Milk, as at the time of purchasing (and publishing this post) they were buy one get one free from Superdrug. I have wanted to try the Dove body scrubs for a while now, so didn’t see the harm in taking up the offer! These have fast become a staple for sure as they smell really good and leave my skin feeling soft and moisturised after use. They’re not rough in terms of scrubbiness, which is ideal if you have sensitive skin. I had a horrible allergic reaction on my legs to a body scrub recently (name here) so my legs are grateful for the Dove body scrubs, that’s for sure. My only problem with the Dove body scrubs is that we don’t have as much choice as America do. For example, they have the Brown Sugar & Coconut Butter, which I would LOVE to get one day!

Movie – Kalifornia.

I’ll pre-warn you now, the trailer for this film is so cringe and typical of the early 90’s. I remember watching this film with my parents when I was a teenager, and although it’s classed as a horror/thriller, we found so many parts hilarious due to some of the stuff Early would come out with. Kalifornia is about a writer and his photographer girlfriend, who are planning to drive from Kentucky to California, writing and taking photos for his book as they go. Due to the costs of such a trip, they advertise for people to travel with them, with the advertisement being filled by Early and his girlfriend. Prior to leaving and during their trip, things go from weird, to bad. On my dad’s birthday we spoke about the film again, one Dane had never heard of before, so I decided to buy it for us to watch one evening. I think due to the trailer (and the way we sold it to him) Dane didn’t expect much from it, but by the end of the film, he commented how much he enjoyed! I highly recommend if you fancy giving it a watch! It has a big cast with Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny, and Michelle Forbes.

TV Show – Bee & PuppyCat.

I’ve been so excited to talk about Bee & PuppyCat this month! As regular readers may have seen, I did talk about the show prior to it’s launch on Netflix at the start of September (which you can read here). I really loved the updated version of season one, however there were some hilarious and memorable moments from the original that I was sad not to see. I can only imagine they were so good previously that recreating them again wasn’t doable… But I don’t know. I won’t spoiler by mentioning what they are, but in the future I might write a blog post of what I thought of the Netflix version. To conclude here, I’m so excited for another season (there better be one!) as well the hype that is now around the show. I’ve always followed the hashtag on Instagram for the show so I always saw people’s posts about it. Since the show came out last month, I’m always seeing and discovering new people through Bee & PuppyCat, which in turn just makes me so happy!

Music – Electric Callboy Tekkno.

Electric Callboy’s new album Tekkno released towards the end of September, which both me and Dane were excited for! We were also meant to go and see the guys play last week but due to one of the singers falling ill, the gig has been postponed, which is a shame, but at the same time it’ll still be an amazing show! 😀 Tekkno is such a fun album and one I’ve been finding myself listening to lots since it came out, with putting it on in the morning on my way to work, whilst I’m working, as well as on my drive home! Electric Callboy are a band everyone should check out at some point, with their sound being a mixture of metal and electronic. We discovered them in 2020 when “Hypa Hypa” came out. Our friend told us about it and since then we’ve both been hooked!

Game – Bear & Breakfast.

I’ll be honest, as the days loomed for this game coming out, I did contemplate whether or not to buy. A review I watched mentioned how repetitive the game is, which wasn’t such an issue for me, but it did kind of put me off. Alongside that, I already have plenty of games to play so I was a bit torn. In the end, I bought it and have played it on and off the past couple of weeks! Bear & Breakfast is a game where you’re a bear and start a chain of bed and breakfasts in your woodland to try and encourage humans back to the forest. It’s a very basic game, but fun nonetheless if you want a game you don’t want to have to think too much about! Sadly the past week I haven’t touched it, as I’ve been working on some last minute cross stitch projects… More about that under other. 😛

Just a few of my favourite things…

Nature Centre, Birmingham.

I went out yesterday with my bestie and our best boys to see some cute animals at the Nature Centre in Birmingham, then lunch at our favourite independent coffee place. It was so lovely and I’m so glad the weather held up for us, as prior to that it has been fucking miserable! I started to really get into the autumnal feels and I honestly can’t wait for more of that. My bestie loves red pandas, so I told her it was time for us to go and see some in Birmingham! We picked the perfect day and time to go as there were hardly any people there, and with some coffees in hand, we walked around the park, in awe of the cute animals in front of us. I think the red panda knew it was the main reason for us going, as it really did do some poses for us. 😛

THIS IS HALLOWEEN, THIS IS HALLOWEEN!

Back in the summer my dad asked me if I could get him some vegetable seed packets. They didn’t have one he was after, so as I joke I decided to pick up some pumpkin seeds for him to try growing. They weren’t cheap, so I paid for them and we had a laugh about it. The above photo is from yesterday. I cannot believe just how well his pumpkins have grown! They look incredible and I’m so proud of him for giving it a go! He did give one to me to grow too, but we didn’t have the luck he did. This photo just gives me so many autumn and Halloween vibes, both of which I’m excited and beyond ready for now!

“Kiki, look it’s me!”

FYI I will be posting a blog post up all about this glass, and shirayukinikki, the store/artist behind it so keep eyes peeled for that this month! Back a couple of months ago me and one of my newer friends decided to go halves on shipping some glasses by shirayukinikki to us. Since this arrived last month, I’ve been using it for iced drinks, alcohol and even just glasses of squash. I really love the Jiji and Lily bakery design behind it and couldn’t resist. Of course if you aren’t aware, the design is inspired by Studio Ghibli film Kiki’s Delivery Service, which you should go and watch if you haven’t before!

Kawaii goods.

Finally, I want to show off some cute items that arrive the past few weeks, because why not!

The first image is of my honey bear gacha by shigematsu_kun that my friend Emily was kind enough to add to her From Japan order for me! I’d seen someone buy the four honey bear gacha and showcase them on an Instagram reel, I knew I needed them! Once Emily sent them to me, I decided to stick them on my desk monitor as I thought it was the perfect home for them! I love when I’m working from home, or sitting at my desk that I can look up and see the four little cuties sat there! My desk is growing more adorable and I love it!

The second image is of my Toast the raccoon plushie by Yencat! I backed it on Kickstarter earlier this year in February, alongside with a plush pouch too. This guy is a CHONK and I love it! It’s a lovely plush for cuddling due to this, but as I already have one mochi plush I use for cuddling, I’m going to purely keep Toast for display purposes. As I may have mentioned before on my blog, raccoons feel like my spirit animal and due to that I do adore them, but this is actually my first raccoon plush! I don’t think I could have chosen a better one, do you? 😛

So, there we have it guys, my favourites from September! It flew by, didn’t it? 😛 I am excited for October though due to more autumnal vibes and Halloween. 😛

What were your favourite things about September? Are you excited for October too? Make sure to let me know in the comments!

Until next time, take care all and enjoy the rest of your weekends. 🙂

June Favourites ’22

I can’t believe we are already on day three of July! June really did fly by due to how much fun me and Dane were clearly having with our week off, Manchester, seeing friends and other stuff. But, at the same time it sort of dragged towards the end of June. I remember mid June having a phone call with my dad and saying, “It’s July next week!” and it was due to me thinking about payday… Oh dear! July wasn’t due for another two weeks at that point.

Speaking of payday, I was SKINT after Manchester in June and I’m already “skint” this month too. I made some big purchases I probably shouldn’t have, as well as recouping all the monies I’ve put on bills and such as well. Due to that, after my payday treats this month, I’m going to be really good with money from now on, especially as me and Dane are hoping to make a big purchase for our home in the near future…

That aside I’m not sure how I’m feeling about July yet. At the time of writing this post I’m miserable as fuck in general. A lot of crap news has come up in the news, as well as personal so right now I’m just going with it. I don’t really have a lot planned for July, aside from meeting up with friends I’ve not seen for years due to Covid, as well as lots of D&D game nights! I’m hopeful my mood will lift as the month goes on however, I don’t want a sad one. :’)

Anyhoo, enough of my woes, on with the favourites!

Beauty – The Body Shop Banana Body Yogurt.

Back in 2018 The Body Shop brought out their banana range and I fell in love with it! They brought out a shower gel, body butter and body yogurt and I bought all three of them of course. I managed to get through a lot of them, but I still have some of the products left brand new, including the body butter and body yogurt. As regular readers will know, I started to use body lotion as my skin was honestly screaming out for it and I feel so much better for it since. It’s come to the time where I need to start using the body yogurt as my stash is growing quite low. I’m sad to because I know I won’t be able to pick it up again anytime soon, but at the same time, it means I can get some new goodies in. Hey, maybe I’ll find another banana body lotion soon? The Body Shop body yogurts are amazing, especially during the warmer months as they’re thin, cooling and still very moisturising. Plus, a little bit of this stuff goes a long way! As strawberry is my favourite scent from The Body Shop, I’m planning to pick up the strawberry one in the near future!

Movie – Everything Everywhere All at Once.

First things first, this film is amazing and it isn’t what I was expecting at all. The trailer didn’t really do the film justice for me, but at the same time that wasn’t a bad thing either. I knew this was a film Dane wanted to watch and I was happy to give it a go, because why not. The film is about Evelyn, owner of a laundromat with her husband. Her father lives with them and their daughter appears to have moved out. Evelyn has a lot going on, along with accepting her daughters sexuality and girlfriend, her father needing her care, as well as her business being in trouble money wise. Everything Everywhere All at Once is broken up into chapters, like a play, and whilst the film is a little bat shit crazy, it’s done really, really well! I highly recommend checking this out, no matter what genre of movies you prefer, it’s amazing and I get the hype of it being titled film of the year.

Image taken from Giphy

TV Show – The Boys Season Three.

As regular readers of my blog will know, I love The Boys. It’s a hilarious show with a unique concept, with the show being created off of a comic book series. We’re not on series three of The Boys and it’s getting darker and more intense with each episode. I don’t want to say too much as I may end up spoiling it for some but lets just say there some hilarious adult humour, some fucked up deaths and stuff I didn’t expect Butcher to do. It’s also now been given the green light for a fourth season, which in turn makes me really happy! The original comic book series is by Garth Ennis who also wrote the comic book series Preacher, another TV Show both me and Dane loved. Both are on Amazon Prime Video, so make sure to go and check them out if you haven’t already!

Music – PVRIS – Use Me.

This is an album I’ve found myself listening to a lot towards the end of June and I honestly can’t stop. I’ve been listening to it when working from home, driving to work, and even in the office when I need to get my earphones in and head down to concentrate. I love all of the songs PVRIS work on and release and whilst Use Me isn’t my favourite album (All We Know of Heaven, All We Need of Hell is my favourite) but it’s a close second to be honest with you. I keep meaning to book tickets to see PVRIS in January 2023, but I feel like each payday, the right time isn’t appearing. 😦

Game – Sniper Elite 5.

This is a game me and Dane randomly started playing together after he started to play it on his own. It’s on Xbox Games Pass, so was “free” for us both to pick up and play together. Sniper Elite 5 is set during World War II and your goal is to try and defeat the Nazi’s taking over parts of Europe. It was such a fun game to play with Dane and the more levels we got through, the better we got! We’ve completed the game now, but we’re planning on buying the DLC very soon so we can play some more of the game together. It didn’t take us long to complete the game, I’d like to say a week but that being said, it was a lot of fun! I’ve been asking Dane if he can find something similar for us to play next.

Just a few of my favourite things…

Image from greetings.nerds

For my other favourites this month, I wanted to talk about some small businesses I feel deserve to get some new shoppers, or at least some new followers on their social media pages. I read the above post on Instagram by greetings.nerds earlier this week and wanted to take a moment to share some people who I feel deserve to be mentioned. With the changes to the world from Covid and now the current conflict happening in Eastern Europe, the changes are affecting some people drastically, where others just slightly. Small businesses all over are being affected sales wise, and with social media platforms making it harder than ever to reach new customers, they could do with as much support and help as possible. Which is what I have strived to do since 2019 on my blog, and Instagram page. Even if you can’t afford to make a purchase from any of the mentioned small businesses today, please drop them a follow on their social media accounts. They’re all down to Earth, amazing and friendly people. They’re also my friends and I wouldn’t be friends with them if they weren’t any of the points mentioned. 🙂

Happy Place Cosmetics

Store, Instagram, TikTok.

Cruelty free and SLS free handmade cosmetics, based in Scotland. I’ve been a massive fan of Happy Place Cosmetics since before 2020, but it was only during Covid and lockdowns that I finally bit the bullet and placed my first order! Since then I won’t got anywhere else for my body scrubs AND I’ve become such good friends with the owner too. HPC don’t constantly have stock in, but instead release themed beauty and wax melts boxes for us to buy, with themes including 90’s, horror, pop culture and more! Alongside that HPC will of course release certain stock every now and then. I like the way they release their goods, because it means I can really treat myself to goods! I recently had some new wax melts arrived, with some smelling of Lush Tramp shower gel, an old favourite of mine and the owners! I burnt one yesterday and it smells AMAZING and to boot the scent lasted ages in our office, even after my tea light had gone out. She also included some Calpol scented wax tarts too, which I’m so excited to burn.

Claire Likes To Doodle

Website, Shop, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

Claire is one of my oldest friends and for years I encouraged her to turn her art from a hobbie to a job, which she did a couple of years ago! I’m so proud of where she has come, her work is unique and beautiful and every time she posts something new on Instagram, it really does make me smile. Recently alongside selling art, she’s started to play with clay to create pieces of her original character Bernard. In the near future I am hoping to commission her for a piece myself… 😛 Please make sure to go and check her out and maybe even give her some support over on Ko-fi and maybe buy some goodies from her too!

Quirkory

Shop, Pin Club, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Quirkory are by far my favourite enamel pin creators. Their work always makes me happy to see and really does brighten my day. I discovered them in 2019 and since then I’ve been supporting their work, as well as befriending them over the years. Currently I’m loving what Quirkory are doing with their Patreon/pin club and Discord communities, their new designs and ideas for the future are kawaii AF and I cannot wait to see more in the future! Plus don’t forget I have a discount code for Quirkory where you can save 10% on purchases with code TMBQUIRKORY.

Worlds Apart, Birmingham

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Worlds Apart is the oldest comic book shop in England and for that fact alone I’m proud to call them my local and favourite comic book shop! I can’t speak for Worlds Apart or other comic book shops but with places like Amazon selling comics and manga online, as well as bigger businesses such as Waterstones too, smaller comic book shops can struggle at times to get custom, especially during Covid! One thing that Worlds Apart did during Covid was open up orders through their Discord, as well as through Instagram, which I used often during lockdowns to get hold of merchandise and manga. I’m a part of the Worlds Apart Discord, which is full of amazing people! I highly recommend if you’re from Birmingham to support Worlds Apart if you can, even if it’s just promoting them online.

So, there we have it guys, my favourites from June! June did really fly by and I’m just wary the rest of the year is going to follow suit, which I don’t want. I mean, I’d love for cooler months to come by so I can start layering my clothes and feeling cosy!

What did you guys love throughout June, and what are you looking forward to in July? Make sure to let me know in the comments!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you have a lovely weekend and great start to July.

March Favourites ’22

I don’t want to be a broken record, but honestly 2022 is flying by! I can’t believe it’s April, but I’m definitely excited for this month! Not only is it Dane’s birthday, but it’d also Easter, which is one of my favourite events of the year. Alongside those two factors, me and Dane have some holiday today… Aka a long weekend for his birthday and Easter, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Currently the only thing I don’t like about April is how skint I’m going to be from spoiling Dane for his birthday, but it could be worse. 😛

March was okay for me, I had some rocky moments but nothing to write home about. I did good with money again, which is always good, but with Dane’s birthday coming I might be a little skint this month. 😛

Not going to lie, March felt like my blog was boring and didn’t have much content. I just had brain fog and couldn’t think of anything decent to write, unfortunately. However, April is going to be full of amazing content and I’m so excited for it! I won’t mention anything, let it be a surprise! 😉

Anyhoo, enough of me waffling, down to the favourites!

Favourite Beauty Product – Sol De Janeiro Coco Cabana Gift Set.

If there is something I have really been loving this month it’s been the two Sol De Janeiro gift sets I picked up! I bought both Bum Bum and Coco Cabana, with the latter being the one I started to use first. Both gift sets contain the body cream, body cream-cleanser and hair and body fragrance mist, as well as a reusable pouch. I snagged these gift sets with my mom from Look Fantastic, as they had an amazing deal at the time to snag these gift sets really cheap, so we bought one each! However, I ended up with two Coco Cabana gift sets as my mom wasn’t keen on the scent, which definitely isn’t the case for me. The Coco Cabana scent reminds me of my teenage years where I constantly used The Body Shop’s coconut body milk, as well as coconut scented beauty products in Fuerteventura too. The body cream-cleanser is really thick and moisturising, but one gripe I have is that I don’t feel like a little goes a long way. I put this down to the moisturising factors behind it. The body cream is for dry skin, but that being said it isn’t heavy and thick, but sort of like a thicker gel texture. It definitely leaves my skin feeling soft and moisturised after use, even my hands!. Finally the fragrance spray, this is GORGEOUS and I have to remind myself not to go mad on it when using, as my little gift set bottles are only 30ml! I’m already planning on buying all of the products in their full sizes when I’ve used the gift set sizes up! My skin has really thanked me for taking care of it a little more the past month. My arms were starting to become really tight feeling due to how dry and tight they were, and the backs of my knees were suffering with eczema/dermatitis too. Thankfully I’ve fast turned that around and I’m so much happier for it. 🙂

Would you guys like to see a review of both the gift sets/ranges? Let me know in the comments! I’m toying with it, as they are really lovely products that deserve shouting out about!

Favourite Film – Turning Red.

I HAVE BEEN SO EXCITED FOR THIS FILM! Literally the Friday evening it came out (11th March) I cooked me and Dane one of our favourite meals (macaroni cheese) and we sat down to watch the film. I’d tried to guess from the trailers and clips what was going to happen somewhat in the movie and I never guessed it to be fair. For those who are yet to watch it, Turning Red is about Mei Lee, a thirteen year old who loves boy bands (4-Town), doing her bit for the planet, and especially her best friends! Unfortunately for Mei, she’s also trying to be a good daughter, which conflicts with her loves at the best of times. One morning Mei finds herself waking up and she’s turned into a red panda! I said it on last weeks blog post about My Dress-Up Darling (which you can read here) but I LOVE slice of life and coming of age shows, films, etc. They tend to bring me so many nostalgic memories and feels which overall just make me feel so happy. This is exactly what Turning Red did for me. It’s based in 2002, when I was twelve years old and just about to become a teenager! I listened to all sorts of music, but definitely loved Daft Punk and Avril Lavigne. It was also an age I’d really started to discover the things I would love now, including Hello Kitty , Cinnamoroll, Pompompurin, Mashimaro and more! The one thing I especially love about Turning Red is how it’s the first Pixar film to be led by women, this is big and I cannot wait to see more female led films in the future. I’m just so sad for everyone who worked on this film, who never got the chance to see their film make it to the cinema, especially with how much love and praise it has received.

Favourite TV Show – Euphoria.

I have been wanting to watch this TV show since it came out in 2019, but due to where it was being shown and the fact I don’t have it, I’ve just never been able to… Until now. With season two recently coming to a close, I was desperate to watch and thankfully for me, I knew someone who was able to let me watch it! I’ve so far watched season one and I’m almost at the end of season two. I’ve really fallen in love with it, as I’m a sucker for slice of life (as I’ve seemingly spoken about a lot lately on my blog!), as well as teen drama. I fell in love with it from a very young age (want to say when I was ten?) so it’s something I’ve always enjoyed ever since, even writing my own teen novel(s) and scripts from time to time. Euphoria is about Rue and some of her classmates/friends at her high school. Rue is the narrator of the show and therefore the main character, and tells us as the viewer about herself and the people around her. The topics in the show range from love, drugs, alcohol, sex and general “issues” teenagers tend to deal with at one point or another. Someone once said to me, “If you like Skins, you’ll love this!”. Now, I fucking hate Skins. The show has always felt very trashy to me, so I’ve never enjoyed it. I watched the first episode in college and was immediately put off, however, Euphoria ticks all the boxes for me! If you’re able to watch it and are okay with all the topics mentioned, definitely give it a go as and when you can.

Favourite Song – Architects – Dead Butterflies.

This is a song that started playing in Dane’s car the one day we were on a trip somewhere and I made sure to add to my playlist, as I enjoyed it so much! Since then I haven’t stopped listening to it, nor the album (“For Those That Wish to Exist”) that it’s off of. Architects isn’t really a band I’ve listened to before, although I do know of them. I really do like this song though and just had to share!

Gif taken from Tenor.

Favourite Book – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Elma’s Office Lady Diary.

I recently picked up volume four of Elma’s Office Lady Diary (as I was missing it), so over lunches and the odd weekend I’ve been catching up on manga. I really miss reading it and have really decided lately to get back on it and catch up on series I need to finish reading, as well as series Dane owns that I want to read as well! Elma’s Office Lady Diary is a spin off of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, which is one of my favourite anime series, and quite possibly the longest manga series I own! Elma in turn is my favourite dragon character as I feel like I can really relate to her. She’s sweet, always wanting to do the right thing, but most of all wanting to eat all the yummy food! Plus, as an office lady myself, this manga spin off for Elma just makes me smile from ear to ear. I’m glad I finally started to read this series! I’m so excited for volume five to come out in the next month or so!

Image taken from Eurogamer.

Favourite Game – Pokemon Shining Pearl.

This is a game I’ve been coming back and forth to since its release towards the end of 2021 and it’s one I absolutely love! I think it’s because it’s really simple, yet nostalgic at the same time. Since I completed the story, I’ve been going back on every now and then to try and 100% complete the Pokedex! I’ve been exploring the underground mostly to try and accomplish this by catching lots of new Pokemon, as well as lots of breeding and egg hatching, and even digging the walls in the underground for plenty of rare items! It’s just been really relaxing and nice! I’m yet to complete the story for Pokemon: Legends Arceus, but I’m still not 100% in love with that game… I’ll finish it one day. Me and Dane were only on about it last weekend how we need to pick it back up, but he’s been obsessed with Elden Ring and now we’re both obsessed with Tiny Tina’s Wonderland… Spoiler for next months favourites. 😉

Just a few of my favourite things…

Pokemon Nendoroid figures.

As many of you know, me and Dane collect Nendoroid figures from Good Smile Company and have done since late 2014. I decided during Covid to start collecting series that I needed, with Star Wars being successfully completed. I then moved onto Pokemon, which has been bloody hard and heart breaking to boot. A lot of the figures are harder to find due to them coming out a long time ago and due to this, the prices are really high. I managed to snag quite a few in 2021 for good prices, which I was really happy about, but finding Cynthia, N and Champion Red has proven to be a challenge due to fakes and prices. I did however recently snag Cynthia and N from a UK seller on eBay for a great price! Now all I need is Champion Red… Which unfortunately won’t be as simple, especially as there’s currently one on eBay for over £300! I’m keeping my eyes peeled, but yeah. 😛

Dr. Martens x Lazy Oaf Buckle Boot.

I’d be fibbing if I said I’d been after these Docs for a long time, but I feel like on and off over the past year I’ve definitely liked the look of them! Someone I follow on Instagram has a pair of the Lazy Oaf Heart Buckle Docs and due to her, I decided that I’d really like a pair to wear with my Black Milk Clothing dresses and more! After scouring the internet for a few months, I finally found a pair for sale for £150, which I didn’t think was too bad for an almost new (tried on and maybe worn once from memory) pair of Docs, especially as these are also limited edition. They came out originally in 2019, but I missed out on snagging a pair at the time as I was saving up for my Japan trip. Now I finally have them though and I adore them… But I’m yet to actually wear them out and about. I haven’t yet as I just haven’t had the chance to, even though I’ve owned them a month. I’m anxious of my feet getting destroyed, but at the same time I do want to wear them! I think I’ll go for a walk in them around the local area with my ankle protectors on (Amazon link) to break them in more! I was toying about reviewing these on my blog, as well as some handy Docs tips that I know of, would you guys like to see that in the future?

Turning Red, Mei Lee Red Panda plushie.

I briefly wanted to show off this massive fluffy cutie that arrived at the start of March, my huge Disney Store Mei Lee red panda form plushie! I couldn’t resist ordering this as I’m a massive sucker for red pandas and plus I’ve been super excited for Turning Red to come out, as I mentioned earlier. This plushie has been living on my office chair and has proven to be an amazing cuddle buddy whilst I’m working (both work and personal stuff), as well as whilst I play games. This plushie wasn’t cheap at £40, but totally worth it!

My Dress-Up Darling… Annnnnd future content to look forward to!

Finally I want to give you all a reminder how much I’ve really fallen in love with My Dress-Up Darling! The first season of the anime finished at the end of March and since then I’ve been taking my time to read the manga, so I can make Marin and Gojo last as long as I can! If you really loved this manga/anime, or would like to discover a new series to read/watch, make sure to go and check out last weeks blog post all about My Dress-Up Darling. Since writing it I have since been inspired to write more posts about manga/anime series I love, including Nana, Elfen Lied and Bee & PuppyCat.

So there we have it, my favourites from March! March really did fly by and I don’t feel like I did a fat lot to be honest with you… I think my favourite thing we did in March was visit my best friend and her boyfriend in Nottingham! Nottingham is a city I’ve wanted to visit for a while and with my bestie living near the city centre, it was so much fun to finally visit it with her!

In March I really did reflect on what content I would like to bring to my blog in the future and I’ve come away with so many ideas, that I cannot wait to write and share with you all in the coming months!

What were you favourite things in March? Also, is there any specific you would like to see, or at least see more of on my blog? Make sure to let me know in the comments!

Until next time, take care all and have a lovely weekend!

January Favourites ’22

Can you believe it’s almost the end of January already?! 2022 is already flying by and I don’t like it. 😛 I know I always say this every month, but I know I’m not the only one!

January for me was crap to say the least as both me and Dane were really sick for the first week of it with chest infections (thankfully not Covid!) and without going into too much detail, my mental health has been really bad. I’m hoping it’ll improve moving forward…

I think another thing that sucked was due to us being sick on my birthday, I didn’t exactly have the best day. Memorable, yes, but crap. 😛 I know we’ll be making up for that at some point soon, which I’m really excited about. What though, I don’t know.

That being said January wasn’t all bad! Money wise I did pretty good considering how long people wait for payday in office jobs (six whole weeks!). I came into 2022 with the attitude of, “Spend less and sell more!” after doing really well with selling old stuff I no longer want on Vinted. If you’re interested in what I’m selling please ask for my store link, I won’t post it publicly on my blog. I’m finally going to clear out a lot of my old clothes from my old room, which is WELL overdue seeing as I moved out almost six years ago. xD

I’m hoping for February to be a better month, mainly health wise but also money wise too. Me and Dane have set a lot of home improvement goals for 2022 and I hope to get started on a lot of them this month, including a LOT of spring cleaning!

I don’t know why but I’m incredibly excited for spring this year. Maybe because of nicer weather and baby animals? 😛

Are you looking forward to anything in February? Make sure to let me know.

Anyhoo, on with the monthly favourites!!!

Favourite Beauty Product – Happy Place Cosmetics Bougie Body Scrub.

If there is one product I cannot live without in my bath/shower it’s the Happy Place Cosmetics body scrubs. They are the best I have ever used and smell amazing to boot! Black Friday they brought out some amazing deals, including body scrubs being on offer, so I bought a bunch of them to keep me going for a while, including Bougie. Bougie is a dupe of Lush Yog Nog, which is one of my favourite scents, from both brands! The HPC body scrubs foam up when you add a little bit of water, so not only do you feel nice and scrubbed after use, but clean too! I especially love to give my whole body a good scrub once to twice a week, depending. Mostly however I love using my body scrub on my legs before shaving. My legs were getting really dry at one point and even with a good moisture, they just seemed dry and itchy. Since using the scrub on them before shaving that dry and itchy feeling has gone and I’m so relieved. I need to do a review of HPC in the future, as not only do they create amazing things for your bath and shower, but for your home too with the wax tarts!

Favourite Film – Ron’s Gone Wrong.

Unfortunately I don’t have any “massive” films to shout about watching. Me and Dane are too anxious to go to the cinema so we’ve not been able to watch anything new lately. However, over Christmas we did binge watch a lot of films on Disney+ and Ron’s Gone Wrong was one of them. I’d been itching to watch this film for a while as not only had I seen it spoken about online, but I’d watched the trailer with Dane and found it adorable, which is exactly what it was. Ron’s Gone Wrong is about a new robot (B-bot) that children are using to find friends they’ll have in common and more. It’s basically a phone but disguised as a toy robot for kids. Barney is the only kid in school without a B-bot and it shows how much it affects him and even when Barney does get one, there’s something wrong with it. I won’t talk too much about the plot in case of spoilers, but I highly recommend checking it out, it’s got a really good message to it for younger and even older people about how much technology can affect us forget about what’s actually around us. I had a little cry at the end too. :’)

Favourite TV Show/Anime – Attack on Titan Final Season.

I’ve really been itching to talk about this this month and before I do, do not worry! There won’t be any spoilers shared here. A massive one came up on the latest episode (23/01) and DAMN I’m so glad we watched it. I’d have hated to see spoilers the next day. Anyhoo… Attack on Titan means a lot to me for various reasons and due to that I’m really sad to see it coming to an end to be honest. It’s one of the first (if not the first) anime me and Dane really got into together. We discovered Attack on Titan back in June 2014 when we went to Bristol for our first anniversary. Dane had heard loads about it and decided to buy some of the manga volumes in Forbidden Planet, as well as find the first episode online for us to watch. Dane fell in love with it, as did I and before we knew it, he’d bought all the manga there was on offer at the time and we found the first season to watch online too. I still remember getting to the last episode of season one and saying to Dane, “Next episode!” with him replying, “That’s it, we need to wit for the next season now.” This was almost ten years ago… How crazy is that? It’s amazing and sad at the same time that we’re now on the final season! It’s kind of the end of an era for a lot of people, including me and Dane. So far though, the final season is amazing! I’m still leaving each episode screaming at the screen saying, “WHAT? What’s happening?”. xD

Favourite Music – PVRIS Shuffle and Bring Me The Horizon – Kingslayer (feat. BABYMETAL).

I don’t know why (well I do, because I love them) but lately I’ve been listening to PVRIS so much. I think it’s because when I’ve been in the office for work, or been working on my own stuff at home, I’ve found that they’re my go to choice when I just need to concentrate and get on with things. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before on my blog, but PVRIS are actually doing a tour in the UK in May which I REALLY want to go to, but I don’t know if I can justify it with Covid and such? Purely because I’m seeing My Chemical Romance a week or two after and I’d be gutted if I came out of the PVRIS gig with Covid and couldn’t then see MCR… So yeah. That sucks at the moment! I’m still not writing it out because you never know, but yeah…

I also wanted to share with you a song I discovered around Christmas/New Year that Dane showed me. It’s by Bring Me The Horizon but features BABYMETAL, it’s amazing and I fucking love it! It’s really catchy, can be danced to as well as sang along to as well as it has a mixture of screaming and singing. I’m not a massive Bring Me The Horizon fan (not so much the music…) but I do love BABYMETAL. It’s just a perfect song to me and you should give it a listen.

Image taken from Amazon

Favourite Book – The Sad Ghost Club Volume Two.

Guys I actually did some reading in January! Can you believe it? 😛 I LOVE The Sad Ghost Club and as soon as I heard that the second book was coming out, I knew I had to get it. I pre-ordered as soon as it could be and it arrived on my birthday. As I mentioned at the start of the post, both me and Dane were really sick at the start of January, which sucked. This also meant I didn’t get to do anything for my birthday, apart from cuddle up on the sofa and cuddle with Dane. This being said, I did also read The Sad Ghost Club Volume 2 and I really loved it. I won’t say too much so it doesn’t ruin it for other people, but it really did touch upon people’s anxieties even more, which I loved. I could relate to Socks and it really tore on my heart strings. If you love The Sad Ghost Club on Instagram or any other social media, then you need to pick up the books to read. They’re so wholesome and make me smile when I feel down. I can’t wait for the next instalment!

Image taken from PokeCommunity Daily

Favourite Game – Pokemon Shining Pearl.

I was actually going to mention Pokemon: Legend Arceus today BUT it only came out yesterday so seems a bit premature to mention it so quickly. I’ve found myself picking up Shining Pearl quite a bit over January. Mainly because I REALLY wanted to try and get the main bulk of the story completed before Legend Arceus came out. I did in fact do this, but now I’ve opened the national dex and need to bloody complete that! 😛 This being said, Shining Pearl has been so nice and relaxing to play, especially when I wasn’t feeling very well and had the energy to do something more than binge watch Netflix and TV shows on Channel 4. I forgot how long the gen four games are, but I’m not complaining as it’s much better when you compare to Sword and Shield. I did mention it in November when the gen four remakes came out, BUT I did in fact buy Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond, as I expected Dane to play with me. As he isn’t doing such a thing and I’d like to 100% complete Shining Pearl, I will eventually play Brilliant Diamond on his switch so I can swap exclusives and such. Is that sad? Yeah, but whatever. 😛

Another thing I wanted to mention here that’s game related is, I’ve decided to create a games completion thread over on my Twitter, which you can find here! My friend Connor did this in 2021 and he really inspired me to do it myself. At the moment I only really have one game on there, but I’m sure that list will grow! I really want to work my way through some of my games this year. I’m sick of buying new when I have half completed ones gathering dust.

Just a few of my favourite things…

Pingki Buddy plush.

I don’t want to talk tooooo much about this plush as in April I’ll be talking in depth about all of the penguin friends that Pingki has created. However, I couldn’t not talk about my Buddy plush today as it’s so bloody cute! If you haven’t already recognised Buddy, he’s heavily inspired by a certain jock penguin from Animal Crossing… 😛 I pre-ordered this cutie from Pingki back in September 2021 and eagerly waited almost four months for him to arrive! It’s such an adorable plush, a nice size for cuddling and especially perfect for taking lots of photos of, as you can see above. 😛 Just an FYI, Buddy is currently sold out and I’m unsure when he’ll be back up for pre-order since the April pre-orders are all booked up!

In the December pre-orders I also pre-ordered the rest of the penguin gang and I’m already counting down the months until April when they’re due to start being shipped to their new homes! We have Baby, Bestie, Slushie and Brainfreeze. I wasn’t planning on getting them all due to lack of space, but I’ve decided to keep them on the back of our sofa as they’ll look really cute and like they’re watching TV with us… Which any Animal Crossing fan wants, right?

Loungefly Sanrio kawaii wallet.

At the start of January I snagged one of my Loungefly grails and for a fucking bargain too! If you don’t know what I mean when I say a grail, it means an item that you’re after that’s hard to find and rare, expensive or both. I feel like this wallet came out between 2020 and 2021, but don’t quote me on that. I just remember it coming out and really wanting the wallet, as well as the matching backpack too (which is also on my grail list!). I found this wallet on Vinted for a steal and decided to treat myself to it straight away. A couple of days later it arrived and I adore it! It was brand new with tags and under £25. I feel like the person who sold it to me knew the value and didn’t want to be a twat about selling it for a stupidly high price? I do have one flaw with this wallet though and that’s it made me feel a little anxious about keeping my bank card and ID in the usual places, so they’re elsewhere. I thought I’d mention this as I know this wallet style is a popular one that Loungefly make, so if you’re looking to buy this style of wallet from them, please bear this in mind! In the future I’m semi hoping to snag the backpack for a bargain too! 😛

Baking – Salted caramel and salted caramel shortbread.

As me and Dane had some stuff to use up in the house, as well as friends to see I decided to not only make salted caramel, but also to make salted caramel shortbread too! Both were a success and it’s made me realise just how much I do love baking! I mean, I know I love baking but you know what I mean. 😛

I’ve made the caramel shortbread before and don’t recall it being a bit hit with everyone, but this time when I made it, Dane and our friends loved it! It made me so happy to hear everyone’s praise and it’s just made me want to bake more and more! Maybe 2022 will be the year I do lots of baking? Watch this space. I absolutely adore baking, it’s a big passion of mine but at the same time I hate it because then I have to find people to eat it all, or me and Dane scoff all the yummy goods. 😛

I’m going to pop the videos about of the recipes I used as they’re really simple, easy to follow and highly recommended!

Fluffy cardigan.

One of my birthday presents from my mom this year was a fluffy cardigan and I fucking love it. So much so I wore it everyday for a week before washing… Grim yes but true. For Christmas my mom bought me and Dane loads of winter warmers such as a fluffy hot water bottle, teddy bear bedding and a gorgeous cream fluffy throw. Her gifts have really been appreciated to say the least, especially when we were poorly. Due to all these warm goodies and the gas prices going up, I suggested to Dane that we make the most of her gifts and turn the heating off in the day, which he agreed. Since then those winter warmers have been getting some use!

My mom had seen this fluffy cardigan on QVC and decided to order us both one and she gave it to me a couple of weeks ago. It’s so soft and fluffy, baggy, has a MASSIVE hood and is just perfect to throw on when you’re feeling chilly or want something comforting. I’ve practically lived in it! Dane jokily wore it the once whilst I was cooking dinner so I snapped a photo on my phone and sent it to my mom. To my surprise she ordered another one, so me and Dane could have one each! That’s my mom all over, bless her.

I am rather excited for us to get another so I can rotate wear them and always have one to live in when it’s chilly!

Image take from GIPHY

Being sick, boo.

Finally I’m going to talk a bit more about what a shit start to the year I had, and Dane for that matter! Right at the end of 2021 me and Dane started to feel under the weather and we put it down to being a cold, but that soon turned out to be a chest infection, which was evidently worse for me than it was for Dane. I came into 2022 with conjunctivitis in both eyes, a horrible cough and sore throat and no to mention no fucking sleep due to the previous two illnesses. It was vile and no matter what me and Dane did to try and shift it, nothing would. It seemed at one point like it was getting worse! Most of our days in the first week of January were spent on our sofa binge watching anything and everything we could on Netflix and All 4.

Of course I can hear you asking, “It wasn’t Covid then?” Nope, thankfully, but trying to find out if it was or not was a fucking pain in the arse! We’d both booked PCR tests on the Monday to find out if we had it, only for them to arrive on the Thursday. Post was very delayed due to the weird bank holidays we’d had at the start of the year, as well as both the Royal Mail and NHS struggling due to rising Covid rates. We’d tried to book to go to a test centre but had no luck, however, one sleepless night we were awake around 3am and managed to book drive thru tests in on the Wednesday. Thursday morning, we found out we were Covid free, as well as see our PCR tests arrive. They’ve been kept somewhere safe for potential future use.

Alongside all that with us being sick, not only did I not get to do fuck all for my own birthday, but I didn’t get to do anything for mom’s either and it really broke my heart. We didn’t get to do anything last year due to Covid and this year I was sick. My mom’s birthday is the day after mine so we do always try and go for a meal, whether it be her day or mine. We’ll go and do something in February no doubt, but it just felt really shit this year and it’s definitely not put me in the best of moods this month due to that.

During me being sick I lost my voice, which was incredibly uncomfortable and annoying. My voice still breaks every now and then and I’m worried whatever was wrong with me is still present in my system. I’m definitely hopeful that February will not contain any sicknesses of any kind. 😛

So, there we have it guys my January favourites! I really missed not writing this style of post since December when I wrote about my November favourites, but it’s definitely good to be back!

What were some of your favourites from January? Make sure to let me know in the comments.

Until next time guys, take care and have a lovely and safe weekend!

October Favourites ’21

In the blink of an eye, October has flown by and I don’t know how I feel about that! xD October wasn’t the best month for me in regards to my mental health but the end of October, start of November has been really nice so far. Albeit with cute games coming out this week and some time off work with Dane… 😛

Of course I won’t go too much into my personal issues but instead I’m excited to share how exciting the first week of November has been for me! Not only did the Animal Crossing: New Horizons update and DLC (Happy Home Paradise) come out, BUT so did indie games Unpacking and To The Rescue! came out too, with the latter being a game I backed on Kickstarter. So, my week off mainly consisted of playing games with Dane, doing things around the house and catching up with people. It was great and very much needed. I’ll be talking about the games on a separate blog post at some point this month, so keep eyes peeled for that!

For now however, I want to share my monthly favourites with you guys! I hope you enjoy this months favourites.

Favourite Beauty Product – Badedas 3 in 1 Original Indulgent Bath Gel.

This is something my mom bought for me and Dane Christmas 2020. I’ve always loved the smell of Badedas as it was always something we had on the side of the bath when I lived at home. It smells really fresh, masculine and gorgeous, plus it always reminds me of my dad so it has a nice comforting/familiar feeling to it. I used some of this throughout the winter period at the start of 2021 and stopped when spring and summer hit. Now the weather is colder again, I’ve brought it out to use not only as a bath gel, but as a shower gel too! When I was poorly with flu later on in October, this helped clear my sinuses somewhat, as well as comfort me with the scent. I know it’s a bath gel both me and Dane used too with the flu (I passed it onto Dane…), so it’s definitely good it being in our cupboard! It’s a bloody huge bottle and it feels like it’s lasting forever! This isn’t something I’d buy for myself to be honest, but I did enjoy receiving it as a gift last year.

Favourite Film – Violet Evergarden: The Movie.

For any regular readers of my blog, you’ll know I LOVE Violet Evergarden and have done since it first came to Netflix in 2018. Violet is about a young girl/woman who has fought in the war as a child and comes out to be “adopted” by a post office owner. She begins training to become a ghost-writer and the feelings and emotions she lost during the end of the war slowly start to come back through helping people by writing their letters. Violet is also pained by the meaning of some words spoken to her during the war. I don’t want to say too much for fear of spoilers, but the movie basically ends a lot of questions that long time viewers will have been asking/wondering. It definitely answered these for me and Dane and my emotions were all over the place! We’re still asking questions after the movie, but we hope this won’t be the end of Violet Evergarden’s story and only the beginning of a new one!

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite TV Show – Squid Game.

Okay, now I know you’re either thinking… “YAY someone else who loves Squid Game!” or, “Urgh, someone else who loves Squid Game?” and of course I loved it. I heard all the hype around it on Instagram and Twitter and wanted to watch it before spoilers started to show, which I thankfully missed. Damn, Squid Game is a journey and it was one me and Dane completed over two evenings of watching nonstop. I don’t want to share spoilers, even if the majority of people HAVE seen it. It’s basically a Battle Royale style show about people competing in life or death situations to win a lot of money. It’s really good to be honest and much better watched in subbed (subtitles), not dubbed (voice over in your language), which I know a lot of people have watched it in.

Favourite Game – Dorfromantik.

This is a game that Dane introduced me to fairly recently and since then when I need a moment to relax and not think about stuff for a while, I pop this on. Dorfromantik is a game where you need to build a town/village with puzzle style pieces. Pieces will differ, whether they be pieces of river, railway track, farm, trees and homes. You need to pop pieces in certain places to make up targets, such as fifty trees altogether, or ten homes, etc. It’s such a relaxing game and I really do love to play it!

Just a few of my favourite things…

Black Milk Clothing Ghouls Night In photoshoot with Dane.

I want to say a massive thank you to Dane for doing the mini photoshoot on Halloween for my last blog post, which was all about Black Milk Clothing and their Ghouls Night In collection for Halloween. I was sick the week of Halloween with flu, as was Dane so we both felt a little sorry for ourselves. My original plans for the photoshoot I wanted to do was to venture out into the area(s) nearby and take photos in autumnal weather… Because why not! Alas, due to how we were feeling, those plans didn’t go ahead. Instead Dane suggested we grab some Halloween themed props and take photos in our office. We were able to change our smart bulb to various different colours to make the photos look better and personally, I feel like they came out amazing! I’ve received so many lovely compliments and comments in regards to the photos, which has made me so happy! I can’t wait to do more fun photoshoots in the future! You can read all about the Halloween collection here.

Rae Dunn boo ghost candle.

I fell in love with some of the Halloween merchandise offerings that TK Maxx brought out this year, including the massive DW Home ghost candle I bought in September (you can see it in my September favourites here). I’ve been on the hunt for the Rae Dunn boo ghost candle for the same amount of time and in October I found one at a decent price on eBay, so I ended up snagging one. I started burning it on Halloween and it has a lovely toasted marshmallow scent to it, but it isn’t very strong… Which is a shame. I mostly wanted it for the jar though, which I’m probably going to use for fake flowers. 😛

Halloween nails!

Guys you know me by now (well, I hope anyway!), I bloody love Halloween! Last yeah my Halloween nails were ON POINT and gave Beetlejuice vibes. This year I decided to go for orange and black and white stripes instead after getting some major inspiration from Pinterest. I wasn’t going to bother getting the stripes as I hadn’t booked in the extra time with my nail technician and instead I was going to get white with black glitter. However, my nail tech being the amazing person she is did it anyway and at no extra charge! She is such a star and I honestly always look forward to my nail appointments. I’m currently rocking glittery purple and green nails… Halloween isn’t done for me yet. 😛

BarleyBlossom Glow In The Dark Animal Crossing Halloween Timmy & Tommy T-Shirt.

Finally, I wanted to show you guys the Halloween Animal Crossing t-shirt I bought by BarleyBlossom. I wore this t-shirt on Halloween, as well as earlier in the week and it’s SO BLOODY COMFY! As you can see, Timmy and Tommy are dressed up as ghosts for Halloween. The white fabric glows in the dark, so when in a dark room the Nook brothers look spooky as fuck! I was planning to write a blog post all about my purchase, but when I was due to, BarelyBlossom was taking the Halloween goods down from the store, so unfortunately I didn’t see the point in sharing the item at the time if no one could buy. 😦 This being said, at the time of writing this (4th November) BarelyBlossom has listed two Molly pieces (t-shirt and sweater) where she is dressed up as a bat, so make sure to go and check it out!

So, there we have it guys! All my favourites from October! Honestly it really did go by quickly and I partially hope November doesn’t go as quickly. I’m not ready for Christmas yet… xD

How was October for you guys? What were your favourites from the month? PLUS are you all playing Animal Crossing now? 😛 Make sure to let me know in the comments below.

Until next time guys, take care and see you soon!

August Favourites ’21

I cannot believe it’s September now, my favourite month of the year. September is a month I’m really excited for, but also very anxious and a little sad about too.

August is a month I couldn’t wait to see the back of as it wasn’t exactly great, especially for my mental health, but at the same time I had a really lovey time running up to the end of it. Me and my best friend went out for one of the days over bank holiday and it was so lovely. I’ll be talking about it more later on in the favourites.

September though… It’s always been my favourite month of the year due to feeling of a fresh start (due to education), as well as my favourite season of autumn starting. However, since last year September also carries some sadness I don’t want to discuss on my blog, as well as some big anxieties in the weeks leading up.

This all being said, me and Dane will be off holiday from work together and we’re planning to just chill out together and have lots of cuddles and chilled days. I honestly cannot wait for some time off of work to just do nothing and relax.

I’m sorry to start off this months favourites with a bit of a miserable topic, but I just wanted to be honest here. I’m incredibly worn out, even after bank holiday. xD

Favourite Beauty Product  – Boots Extracts Marshmallow & Peppermint Body Butter.

Not going to lie, this is actually an old product from many years ago that I only recently opened. I’d bought it as part of a gift set I bought back in 2016 and decided to finally crack open the body butter to use as a hand and foot butter. On my hands this just did not agree with my dermatitis due to the scent and ingredients, however, used as a foot butter it’s been a dream to use. I put a very generous amount on before socks in the morning which results in my feet looking and feeling lovely and smooth by the end of the day. It also has a gorgeous creamy peppermint scent too, which I adore. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if you’re supposed to use products past their sell by date… I think with beauty products it’s from when they’re opened you have the use by date. Of course, if you aren’t sure it might always be best to throw the product away.

Favourite Film – Us.

This is a film I’ve been wanting to watch since it came out in 2019, but we just never managed to. We planned to go to the cinema to watch it but never did and I’m really glad we didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the film but without saying too much, I guessed the twist of the film around thirty minutes in, which was a little disappointing. That being said, the overall plot of the film is really good and you’re definitely on the edge of your seat wondering what’s going to happen next.

Favourite TV Show – Centaurworld.

This is a new Netflix series that came out to the UK at the end of July. Dane thought it looked batshit crazy so he decided to pop it on for us to watch. We LOVED it and binge watched it in a few days. We follow Horse as she finds herself transported to Centaurworld during a battle with her owner. Horse discovers a group of centaur friends, who soon help Horse to try and find her way home. There’s singing involved too, as this is a musical show. It reminds me of Adventure Time crossed with Disney films. Give it a watch if you haven’t done so already!

Favourite Music – Unprocessed – “Candyland”

Unprocessed are a progressive metal band that Dane introduced me to recently with “Deadrose”. As I really love this song, Dane played me one of their newer songs to see what I thought of it. “Candyland” has fast turned into one of my favourite songs to listen to lately. Their music style seems to have changed a little when you hear “Deadrose” before or after “Candyland”. I really love them and I’m going to be checking out more of their stuff in September!

Image taken from Waterstones.

Favourite Book – The Sad Ghost Club.

Yes guys, I read a book this month! Don’t act too shocked, please. 😛 I bought The Sad Ghost Club back in January this year and I thought I’d read it, instead I placed it in our office and… Never touched it. As I found out a second book is due to come out in January 2022 (I’ve already pre ordered it too…) I decided it was time to finally dig the book out and give it a read! It’s actually a comic more so than a book, where we follow Sad Ghost and their struggles with their mental health, including social anxiety, worries about education and even going to a party. The comic itself is really sad at times, but at the same time makes you feel less alone. My mental health hasn’t been very good the past couple of months and reading The Sad Ghost Club really did help me feel less lonely.

Image taken from Tenor.

Favourite Game – State of Decay 2.

Recently Dane has really gotten back into State of Decay 2 again and as some of friends have also wanted to play it, I thought I’d jump on and play it too. State of Decay 2 is a zombie game where you need to build up your base, all whilst gathering resources, getting people to come and join your base, as well as killing zombies. It’s a really simple game to play and really nice and chilled to play with friends! I highly recommend it, I really do love it and the zombies don’t come across as too scary either, which is always good! 🙂

Just a few of my favourite things…

Loungefly bags, old and new!

I didn’t quite realise I received two new Loungefly bags in August, as well as decided to finally cut the tags off of one I bought at the start of 2021! The Pikachu wallet chain bag and the Baymax backpack are my new bags, whilst Meeko is one I bought via a Facebook group (and now one of my Instagram friends!) in January.

I was after a new shoulder bag so decided to pick up the Pikachu bag, however the images that Loungefly have out there are so fucking misleading and make the bag look bigger than it actually is. This being said, it’s the perfect bag for quickly going out to run errands as well as nights out. I’ve used it quite a few times throughout August and it’s a really good bag for if you don’t need to carry much, but still do need a bag.

Alongside that I also decided to purchase the Baymax backpack very last minute. The day the Baymax cosplay backpack and wallet went on sale on the Funko Europe website, I just fell in love with it and had to buy it. I didn’t need it, but I have ZERO REGRETS. I used it over the bank holiday and it’s such an adorable bag! I felt so cute using it around town during mine and my best friends mini bar/pub crawl and I honestly cannot wait to start using it more. I regret not getting the matching wallet for it, so I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled on trying to get it at a decent price in the future.

Finally my Meeko backpack. This is a bag I was after for MONTHS before I finally snagged it via a Loungefly Facebook group. I also got the matching purse, but this is something I’m yet to use. Little story behind how I “missed out” on this bag. I was told by a Forbidden Planet store when the bag was due to come out that they would take my details and pop a bag to one side for me. They didn’t want any money for the bag to be put down as a pre order just in case they never got the bag in stock. This being said, they assured me they WERE going to get the bag in stock. Alas they never and they didn’t even bother to reach out to me to let me know. It was kind of obvious I wouldn’t be getting it and I was gutted. This being said, I have it now and I do really love it! I used it for the first time whilst out for my best friends 30th birthday and it is so comfortable and cute! It feels soft and isn’t a sturdy bag due to this, but this being said, I really love this aspect of the backpack.

I’m hoping to write a post all about my Loungefly collection in the future. If this is something you’re interested in, please let me know! I’d also love to do a YouTube video showing off my collection too, but I’m so anxious about doing YouTube… :’)

Some of my favourite gel nails.

As many of my readers will know, I do love getting my nails done and it’s actually been a really positive change in my life in regards to my anxiety. Before I started getting my nails done I would cute them so short they would bleed. They’re not incredibly healthy, grow quickly, don’t break and it’s stopped me from cutting them short, as well as chewing them when nervous.

My reason for especially posting my nails this month as this set has been one of my favourites to date. The colour shares its name with my gran and is such a beautiful colour to boot. I’m actually getting my gels redone tomorrow and I’m a little sad as I honestly love this set. They’ve lasted so well and they just make me happy to look at. I don’t have a bloody clue what new set I’m going to get yet. xD

Dog sitting again.

Me and Dane dog sat Eddie again for a couple of days and we loved it. If you read my favourites from July, you will have seen that me and Dane had Eddie at ours for a week and we loved every moment of it! We didn’t have him for as long but it was nice to have him around for cuddles, fuss, playtime and walks were lovely to do with him too. I wanted to share this adorable photo of him that I took during my lunch break. He was having a lovely snooze and I felt so guilty when I had to return back to my desk and wake him up.

Claire Likes To Doodle‘s Bernard takes over Birmingham Cass Art!

First of all I want to say how fucking proud I am of Claire, she has come so far in such a short period of time with her art and it’s just growing more and more as the years go by. Over the bank holiday (Saturday) Claire posted on her Instagram page how she was doing something exciting in the Cass Art in Birmingham city centre. I kept my eye on her Instagram stories and she revealed she was actually drawing one of her Bernard’s on the window of Cass Art! I watched the process of it throughout the morning and as me and my best friend would be in town that day, we made sure to take a diversion over to Cass Art to go and take a look, as well as take some photos!

I wanted to show this off and share with you guys, as well as say if you’re in Birmingham and see Claire’s Bernard in the window of Cass Art, make sure to take a photo, post on your Instagram stories and tag Claire’s Instagram page (linked above under the photo) as I know for a fact she would love that! 😀

There we have it then guys, those are my favourites from August! August was a very strange month for me and I feel like September is going to be a nice month, but a very anxious one too.

What were your favourites from August? Also, what are you looking forward to about September? Make sure to let me know in the comments below.

Until next time guys, I hope you’ve had a great start to September and here’s to spooky season finally beginning! 😛

July Favourites ’21

I feel like I always say stuff like this when it comes to my monthly posts, but seriously… How is it August already?! This year has really flown by, so much so I didn’t realise my boiler was due a service because it only felt like yesterday that it had had one! xD

This month feels like it’s been… Strange? My mental health hasn’t been very good to be perfectly honest but at the same time it actually improved due to dog sitting my best friends dog Eddie. I’ll be talking more about him later… 😉

I’m hopeful for August being a better month. I have lots of fun things planned with friends and I can’t wait to go on some mini adventures with some of them too.

Beauty.

• Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile Soap in Peppermint.

This is an all purpose soap that my mom recently gave to me in lavender form. She’d treated herself to some of the scents but had found she had too many. As I wasn’t using it due to having a lot of my on stuff to use, I gave it back to my mom. When I did however, she offered me another scent that she hardly had any of, the peppermint one. This came at a good time with the heat wave we experienced in the UK. This is a multi purpose soap that can be used as a body wash, shaving and even for cleaning around the home! I’m yet to try it for shaving, but so far both me and Dane have used it on the body. As this is peppermint it leaves a lovely cool feeling behind after rinsing off of the skin, which felt amazing during the heat wave! I don’t know if I would go out of my way to buy this soap as I feel for less money I could pick up the Original Source mint shower gel for a lot less money.

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite Film – All the Jackass movies!

As some of you may know I am a MASSIVE Jackass fan and earlier last week the trailer for Jackass Forever came out, so I was kind of an excited fan girl… 😛 I was so excited that I decided to binge watch ALL five Jackass films, including Jackass 2.5 and Jackass 3.5. I forgot about some of the scenes from the films so it’s always a delight to be reminded of some of them. I can’t tell you guys how many times I’ve watched the Jackass series as well as the films now. Whilst studying my undergraduate degree I remember watching everything over and over again as it helped me whilst I worked on my dissertation. To add here, whilst I’m really excited for Jackass Forever I’m not excited about a few things. 1. The fact Bam Margera and Ryan Dunn won’t be there (who are both my favourite Jackass guys) and 2. This is actually going to be Johnny Knoxville’s last Jackass film… Gutted! It’s obviously the end of an era in a way and the young 11/12 year old Nat probably didn’t even realise how much this show would change her life. I’ll be writing a post all about Jackass towards the fourth film, which comes to cinemas on 22nd October!

Image taken from Tenor

Favourite TV Show – Beastars season two.

Me and Dane literally binge watched season 2 of Beastars as soon as it came out on Netflix. We watched the first season last year and really enjoyed it! As I haven’t read the manga, I didn’t expect there to be another season coming out, so when it was announced a while ago I was surprised! This being said, I was intrigued as to what would happen in season two and other questions about Legoshi (wolf) and Haru (rabbit). For those of you who may not know, Beastars is about anthropomorphic animals where carnivores and herbivores are divided. We follow Legoshi during his time as a student where we see how this divide is affecting students, as well as adults outside of the school/college/university. I definitely recommend watching! You can watch it on Netflix, subbed and dubbed.

Favourite Music – Girl Talk – All Day.

All Day is an album my ex actually told me about over 10 years ago and I still listen to it to this day. It’s a mash up album with all sorts of genres mashed up to make one amazing piece of work. I love listening to this when I have stuff to do, whether it be doing paperwork, blog work or cleaning around the house, it’s the perfect album to put on and listen to. I especially love listening to it whilst driving. There are 372 songs used on this album. Honestly go and give it a listen if you’ve never heard of it before… I don’t think you’ll regret it. 😉

Favourite Game – The Greatest Penguin Heist of All Time.

This is a game that Dane introduced me to about three weeks ago now! It’s an early access game on Steam and it is fucking hilarious! If you can’t gather what it’s about from the title then… 😛 Obviously you play as a penguin and you’re off on a heist, the greatest of all time! This game can be played alone or in a group of four through private parties and it’s one that me and Dane have been really loving playing together, especially on streams. You play various different levels and each time you are set tasks to complete. You complete the tasks successfully, you make big penguin bucks which can be used to buy new areas to play, as well as weapons, clothing and more! As this is an early access game there are bugs and items still in development but this doesn’t bother us too much as it’s still crazy and fun to play. 🙂 If you fancy watching us play it on stream make sure to drop us a follow so you can watch us play games! We stream this game every Wednesday between 7pm-9pm. Dane’s Twitch and my Twitch.

Just a few of my favourite things…

New Black Milk Clothing pieces.

Okay so I found some Black Milk Clothing bargains online in July, but I also picked up the Snorlax Snoozing Snuggle Suit when it was re-released! It originally came out in the second Pokemon collection. I’d been nagging BMC via Twitter for ages to bring it back and it would seem myself and others would get their wishes (and nagging!) come true. I’ve owned it for a month now and I’ve worn it loads when the weather was cool enough to. It’s really comfortable and I feel adorable as fuck in it too! If there’s one thing I realised this year, it’s just how much I love BMC’s snuggle suits and how I need more. 😛

As I mentioned, I did pick up some bargains, two in fact! The Snorlax Apples Apron Dress originally came out in the second Pokemon collection and I snagged for £10 less than what BMC are selling it for! Although I’m yet to wear it out and about, I have zero regrets about buying it! It’s a gorgeous apron piece that I’ve teamed up with a strawberry t-shirt from TU Sainsburys. Apron pieces are some I’ve always been unsure of due to the length, but with leggings or a pair of tights with shorts on top, I’m sure it’ll be fine! I’m planning to wear this outfit soon, maybe on a day trip with a friend or for a picnic date with Dane! It’s the perfect outfit for spring and summer!

The second bargain I picked up is the Mew Sheer Midaxi Dress which came out in the first Pokemon collection. This is a piece I’d always lusted after but… Couldn’t justify the monies. I’d bought the Gastly Evolution Handkerchief Dress and felt that was enough for me. However, months later BMC put the Mew dress into the sale and I started to think more about ordering it. I put it off and just as I went to, it had sold out… I was gutted and it was clearly never meant to be. However, one morning whilst scrolling through the internet I found someone was selling the Mew dress on Vinted for a decent price! It was a size M, so a size down from what I usually buy and after some chat with the seller I placed an order. It arrived a few days later and fits perfectly! I’m so happy I bought it and I’m waiting for the right time to wear it… But with the way the weather is now in the UK I may need to wait a while. xD

Lucky art commission from Claire Likes To Doodle.

About a year ago now my amazing friend Claire/Claire Likes To Doodle would stream whilst doing art over on Twitch channel and as she would stream during the day I would join to watch during work for company. I saved enough channel points so I could ask Claire to draw something quick for me! I asked for Lucky from Animal Crossing and she smashed it! Recently I asked her if she still had that initial quick sketch she did for me and she did! I paid for her to finish it for me and paint him. I met Claire for coffee last weekend and was presented with this gorgeous piece. I love how Lucky has a cute little butterfly on his nose, as well as the bees around the flowers too! I’m currently catching loads of bees on Animal Crossing so I can make lots of bee models for my hive!

If you’re interested in getting a commission from Claire yourself make sure to check out her Instagram page and drop her a DM. 🙂

New clothing in general… 😛

I seem to have acquired some new clothing pieces over the last week of July and I have my reasons for this! xD I’d seen the Disturbia Strange Oversized Skater Dress making it’s way around social media for a while and after a lot of thought, I decided to pick one up! I’d seen and heard in a lot of posts and reviews of this dress that the sizing of it was incredibly generous and as my size(s) had sold out, I had to go for a size I haven’t been able to fit into for a VERY long time. Alas a few days passed and the dress arrived. I was so anxious to try it on in case it didn’t fit, but alas it did and it was still very oversized. This being said I don’t mind it, it feels really comfortable and with a belt around (as shown in the image above) you wouldn’t even know how oversized it is! I’m planning to wear this over the weekend.

This sweater literally arrived a few days ago and as you can see it’s a Space Jam Lola Bunny sweater from George Asda. To be able to order an item I’d wanted for AGES I had to order something else, so I decided to get this sweater. It claimed to be oversized and it had Lola Bunny on it so… Win win really! 😛 I used to love Lola Bunny growing up, so much so my dad bought me a keyring/chain with her on. I loved it! I remember being so hyped for a female bunny character and Space Jam but when it came down to watching the film, I was left feeling disappointed and a bit freaked out by the aliens. xD I plan on watching it again soon.

Dog sitting a cutie pie! ***WARNING IMAGE HEAVY***

Finally I’m here to show off this little cutie pie, Eddie, my best friend and her husbands dog! He’s a Shih Tzu Yorkshire Terrier cross, or a Shorkie for short. Me and Dane love him to death so when our friends were talking about where they could put him (aka a kennel/dog boarding) whilst they go on holiday we offered to look after him! We had him for a week and we loved every minute of it. I wanted to share with you guys some of the memorable and funny moments we had with Eddie during his week holiday at ours! We’ll be looking after him again in August and hopefully September which we’re really looking forward to!

This is our living room and for some reason a couple of days into his stay with us he got obsessed by our living room light. As you can see it’s mirrored and he kept staring at it one day after Dane had come home from visiting his family. Eddie was going crazy after a while, in the sense he was trying to get up to the light, whether it was via my airer or the dining table! We don’t 100% know why but we can only assume he saw himself in the mirror and thought it was another dog. We ended up wrapping the light with kitchen roll in the hopes he would forget about it, he didn’t. 😛

On his way home one day from work Dane brought Eddie a puppuccino from Starbucks. It’s basically just a cup of cream but damn did Starbucks give Dane a big cup! Eddie really enjoyed it but he kept wandering off thinking he was finished, when he wasn’t! We might treat him to one in August/September if we get time to. 🙂

Most of the time Eddie would nap, especially during the work day when I was busy and in the evening when me and Dane were chilling or streaming on Twitch. This was taken the day he went back home after his mini holiday with me and Dane. This was typical of Eddie to have a nap next to me on the sofa, or underneath my desk. Look at his cute little face!

The weather was mostly lovely whilst Eddie was staying with us and one afternoon whenever I let him out for a wee or was sorting my washing, he would sit on our decking (I know it’s seen better days…) and look out at the garden and take in all the smells! It was really nice to sit with him and relax, especially if I wasn’t having a very good mental health day. Taking this photo of Eddie has really added to me want to get a dog to sit and have chill moments with… As well as other reasons of course!

Finally my favourite part of having Eddie stay with us for the week was all the doggy cuddles we got to have… More so me than Dane as Eddie really did get attached to me. Every morning Eddie would come and sit on my lap during my morning meetings and then later on come for snuggles and cuddles on the sofa during lunchtime and then on the bed before me and Dane would sleep. These two photos of him are my favourites as he’s given me those perfect puppy dog eyes for fuss. I mean, who can say no to that face?

I know I said finally before, but the day after Eddie went home, I went to my besties for a hot tub party! Typical Eddie came for snuggles with me… 😛 I didn’t mind of course. 😛

So there we have it guys, those are my favourites from July, with Eddie being number one of course!

What were your favourites from July guys? Make sure to let me know in the comments.

Until next time all, I hope you’re having a great weekend and I hope August is a good and sunny month for us all. 🙂

April Favourites ‘21

How is it May already? I can’t believe how quick 2021 is going and it’s making me feel old in a way! At the same time, as much as I’ve enjoyed April it’s been bloody cold this week. We are meant to be in spring, I need me some sunshine and warmer weather now.

I think the most I’m excited about for May is some pre-ordered goodies I have arriving, making my new desk look cute as fuck and playing lots of New Pokemon Snap.

April has been such a strange month. It’s the month I really started to get into Twitch and I even bought a brand new Animal Crossing edition Switch, which I LOVE. You can read more about that here. I’m excited for the future of my Twitch channel and by the end of May I hope to have made affiliate.

For the time being however, I’m going to get cracking with my favourites and what I loved in April.

Beauty.

• Bodyform Intimawear Period Underwear – (link).

I know this isn’t a typical beauty product to talk about but I REALLY wanted to share these period underwear this month after trying them in April. Three words – They are amazing and I’ll never look back. I’d been thinking about buying reusable pads for a while now, but was feeling a bit lost of where to look, start, etc. Whilst doing my monthly shop at the end of March I found these in Tesco on offer and decided to pick up a pack. I gave them a go on day two of my period and they were amazing. I could tell I had them on at first, but the longer I wore them the more I got used to and comfortable with wearing them. I felt anxious throughout the day but at the same time I felt confident of no leaks. I wore them to bed and woke up with no issues… If you know what I mean. 😉

From memory they last 50 washes and are as easy to wash as they are to wear. You rinse them with cold water until the water runs clear and then throw into the washing machine. Simple! I clean them with cold water when I jump into the shower in the morning, run under the cold tap and when I’m out of the shower I throw them into the machine.

There are loads of brands you can buy and try, my reason for picking the Bodyform underwear up is the price I snagged them for and more. Again, I highly recommend these, they’re amazing!

So… Now it’s time to talk about the miscellaneous favourites of the month! If there isn’t anything I’ve done I’m not going to mention.

Favourite Movie – Midsommar.

This is a film I’ve seen a few times now and recently I had the urge to watch it again. It’s a horror film by Ari Aster (also directed Hereditary) who has seemingly come out of nowhere. Aster’s horror films are eerie and will leave you with questions and an unfamiliar feeling, which is exactly what Midsommar did to me. Midsommar is a film about a group of friends who travel to Sweden to visit their friends home. A festival is taking place during their stay and they end up finding themselves in part of a cult that they aren’t 100% sure about. Amongst the group of friends there is also a couple whose relationship is being held together by a tragedy that occurred years prior. The film is overall just eerie and the things that happen are strange and odd to say the least. I’ve watched so many videos analysing the film, which is what fuelled me to watch it again. Watching it for a second time has really opened my eyes to the film and if you don’t get upset easily (there are a lot of sensitive subjects such as suicide and gore) I highly recommend watching it!

Favourite TV Show – Invincible.

This is a new TV show I’ve literally finished just before writing my favourites and I LOVED it! It was a recommendation from my colleagues and when I mentioned it to Dane we decided to start watching it that evening. It’s based off of a comic book of the same name and is about Mark, son of superhero Omni-Man, who eventually becomes superhero Invincible. We see Mark juggling being a superhero and trying to finish high school. There’s more to the story, but I don’t want to worry whatever I share may spoil. I highly recommend watching! This is an Amazon Prime Video exclusive show by the way.

Favourite Song – Lil Nas X – “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”.

This song. I don’t feel like I need to write anything about it because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like this song at the moment. I kept hearing this song on a Logitech advert on Twitch and I started to really like it, so Googled. This song came up on YouTube and it has literally JUST come out. I fell in love with it and I’ve not been able to stop listening to it since. I play it at least once a day in the week whilst working and maybe once or twice throughout the weekend. It’s blowing up the internet though and before hearing this song I’d never heard of Lil Nas X before. Now I’m quite excited for his new album to drop this year. I don’t know if it’ll be my sort of music, but I’ll definitely check it out.

Image taken from Twitter

Favourite Game – Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX.

I’ve owned the remake of the original Pokemon mystery dungeon games since it came out at the start of March 2020, but I’d only played it for a short amount of time before Animal Crossing came out. Why? Because I got bloody stuck and gave up on it. At the start of April I decided to start streaming me playing it on Twitch and it’s been really fun. I decided to restart the game as I hadn’t played a lot anyway when I got stuck. So far it’s going okay, but I’m yet to get to the point I was stuck at before… I just forgot how much I like this game and it’s one I can see me playing outside of stream in the future. I highly recommend picking it up to play if you’ve never played the mystery dungeon games before, or if you want the nostalgia from the games back in the day!

Just a few of my favourite things.

Gel Nails.

As the salons were able to open back up in April I was booked in to get my nails done and it was WELL overdue! I decided to go for a duck egg blue colour with glitter. They’re still lasting now and I do love them. If there’s one thing I have really missed during the second and third lockdowns it’s getting my nails done. I feel like every three weeks it’s my time to get pampered, not have to do or think about much for an hour and I can just have a good natter with my nail technician. I’ve been going to her for over a year now, but due to COVID I’ve only had my nails done by her sixteen times, which isn’t as many as it should have been by now. I’m already excited to get a new set of gels done next week, but I do not have a clue what I’m going to get yet! maybe something pastel for spring? 😛

New Desk.

Me and Dane decided in April that it was time for me to get my own desk in our office. I’ve wanted my own space for a while to work at for both work and personal. I’ve had a few of my items dotted on Dane’s desk but I have to always move them at the end of the working day and put them back at the start and the same happened with my work laptop too. I’d put it away at the end of the day and set it up at the start. The desk Dane bought me wasn’t the one I’d thought he was ordering, so I was worried at first that it would be too small. However, this being said we’ve made it work and I’ve had it and been working at it for a week now. It’s amazing! I got my office chair from work so I didn’t need to buy a new one (although I may eventually) and we already had an old monitor that I could use. All that was left to do was decorate the desk and the area really!

As you can see from the above photo I have started to make it my own with my Danbo Nendoroid, Smoko ramen cup lamp, a Tokidoki plush and fox coaster that my friend Sarah (Raiin Monkey) sent to me, my raccoon planter from Tesco and finally my Razer quartz headset and headset stand. I have a lot more work to do to my desk including making use of the white space above the desk and more. I’ll be showing it off more in my monthly favourites I’m sure!

Pokemon and Disney purchases.

I made some cute purchases during April and they’re all featuring towards the end of my monthly favourites. The first group I want to talk about are Pokemon and Disney themed.

I picked up this Loungefly bag second hand from someone via a Loungefly Facebook group (who I’ve since befriended) and I’ve been using it since. After I discovered this bag existed at the start of the year it fast became one of my holy grain and sought after bags. One weekend around February I searched all over for this and could only find it for around $200-$400 which I was NOT willing to pay. I gave up on the search eventually and had the frame of mind, “If it turns up at a decent price… So be it…” so when I saw it for a decent price, I snatched it up! I love it so much. The first shopping trip I wore it out I heard people commenting on it which was awesome. It’s my go to bag at the moment and one I’ll definitely use when I return back to working in the office. I have taken it into a work a few times now, which is good. Would you guys like to see a blog post about my Loungefly bags? I have one coming soon and I’ve bought a couple of new ones in 2021 so yes, let me know!

I picked up some Disney goodies from Fox Leap and alongside the two items I bought, Sophie sent me LOADS of extra goodies too which made me smile! She’s such an amazing seller and lovely person to talk to. I decided to finally pick up the Angel enamel pin and Lady and the Tramp print that I’ve had saved in my favourites on Etsy for the longest time. As regular readers will know, Lady and the Tramp is my favourite Disney film and I have fond memories of the sequel when it came out too. Alongside my purchases I also received a Scar print (which I’d been eyeing up for a while), Fennekin enamel pin, Bambi and Faline enamel pin, an Angel sticker and some Disney horse stickers. I don’t feel like I can thank Sophie enough for sending me so many lovely extras.

I’m giving Sophie a bit of a plug here (because she bloody deserves it!) but if you like watching streamers, make sure to check out her Twitch channel. Sophie’s streams are great to relax to and she’s even come to mine before, which is always lovely and supportive. I’m also part of her Discord which is so friendly. 🙂 I’m looking to join her Patreon in the near future.

Finally I ordered the Nickit plush from the Pokemon Center via YY Kawaii and it arrived in April. Nickit was my favourite Pokemon in Sword and Shield and as soon as I could catch one in the game, it stayed in my party for as long as possible! This plush is bigger than I thought it was going to be, which was great! It now lives on my plushie cabinet alongside my Dragonite, Eevee, Morgana and more. It’s just a nice plush to add to my collection. Don’t forget by the way that if you would like to save 10% off of the YY Kawaii website, make sure to use the code YYCOFFEE10 – which is my brand affiliate code with YY Kawaii!

Animal Crossing Cookie.

April appears to have been a month where I have been slightly obsessed with Cookie from Animal Crossing. Why? I don’t know but I’ve either bought items, received items or found and finished things with her featured.

As you may have seen from my last blog post, my Quirkory pre-order arrived for some Animal Crossing enamel pins, one of the pins was Cookie. It’s such an adorable enamel pin and it’s by far one of my favourites in my collection now! If you want to read a bit more about this enamel pin AND the latest Animal Crossing collection from Quirkory please make sure to check out the latest post all about it. 🙂 If you like the look of the Cookie enamel pin and would like to save 10% off of Quirkory’s store then make sure to use the code TMBQUIRKORY!

Alongside the enamel pin arriving, I decided to finally order myself something from Nooks Needles Co as I’d wanted to for a while. I noticed the store had started to stock Cookie designs, so I decided to reach out to potentially buy a custom order. I wanted Cookie on a light purple sweater, but I wanted the image of Cookie to be larger and in the middle of the chest area of the sweater, instead of smaller and on the left hand side of the chest. Laur the person behind Nooks Needles Co was happy to oblige and ordered a sweater in shade orchid for me. It arrived over a week later and I’ve worn it loads so far, as you’ll see from the image above, as well as my new picture on my blog too. I’m looking to review this store and sweater in the future, so please keep eyes peeled for this in May/June. 😉

Finally I want to share this Cookie cross stitch I FINALLY finished after owning it since March 2020. I don’t know why it took so long as it was practically finished when I picked it up again towards the end of this month. This cross stitch kit is from diyCrossing and although I bought this last year, they still have plenty of cross stitch kits available to buy! They’re really easy to follow, whether you’re new to cross stitch or not. I’ve been cross stitching since I was about ten why my mom first got me into it, so to be able to do this kit of a villager I adore, it’s been lovely. I’ve since ordered two more, Lucky and Bones, two more of my favourite villagers. I plan to buy and work on all the dog cross stitch kits from diyCrossing in the future and display them.

There we have it guys, those are my favourites from April! As I said at the start of the post, I can’t quite believe it’s May already! I don’t know what May brings, but I feel like it’s going to be good. I have some time off work in June so I feel May is going to be a month of planning what me and Dane are going to do.

What were your favourites from April? What do you think of my favourites? Make sure to let me know in the comments below!

Until next time guys, take care and have a lovely bank holiday weekend!

January Favourites ’21

Guys it’s the first favourites post of 2021 and as I mentioned in the last favourites post of 2020, I’m going to make some changes.

The first change you will have noticed is my favourites post hasn’t been posted on 1st of the next month (aka February). Instead I have decided to post on the last Sunday of the month as it made more sense. I prefer to have my posts go up on once a week and on a weekend, with the occasionally post going up in the week.

Alongside that my favourites will not contain less beauty and more general/lifestyle items, which I started in the previous favourites post back in December (you can read my November Favourites ’20 here)I have decreased my five beauty items to just two now. I thought two was enough to talk about as sometimes I do discover new and older items that I always like to share with you all.

As well as that I will be trying to talk about more random favourites too, whether they be clothing, food, items I’ve purchased and more!

I hope you enjoy the changes I’ve started to bring to my blog. I just want to try and make it more geeky these days. 🙂

Beauty

• Aveeno Skin Relief Moisturising Lotion.

I’ve been using this moisturising lotion on my hands throughout the days to help the dermatitis on my hand. My new steroid ointment from the doctor has actually helped my hand the most, but when I first started to use the Aveeno lotion it really did help. My hands would feel so soft in the morning when I woke up and it was almost as if they weren’t mine! This stuff is amazing though and is specifically for people with very dry skin like myself. This one I bought in particular is actually for all over the body, but I use on my hands mainly. I recommend so much if you have skin complaints like myself.

• Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme Cinnamon Bear.

This is something I picked up in the sales just before Christmas and I’ve been wearing it on and off between Christmas Eve and now. I’ve never tried the Too Faced lip plumpers before and whilst I’m not arsed about my lips being huge it can be a bit different. Granted, this doesn’t plump my lips loads, but the colour itself is what I love the most. It’s a light red colour and really does give you a nice pop if you don’t want to wear lipstick but want SOME colour. Plus this will be great to apply over a lip tint for some gloss and that bit of plump. One thing I don’t like about this is the smell. It smells of cinnamon and quite frankly that doesn’t belong in ANY lip product.

So… Now it’s time to talk about the miscellaneous favourites of the month! If there isn’t anything I’ve done I’m not going to mention. Aka reading – so favourite book won’t be mentioned and the same for music too. I haven’t listened to much different than usual this month.

Favourite TV Show – It’s a Sin.

If there is something I have been DYING to share with you this month it’s definitely It’s a Sin, Russell T Davies’ new drama on Channel 4/All 4. I am a massive fan of Davies work and whenever he has brought something new to Channel 4 I’ve watched it as soon as it’s live, this includes Cucumber and Banana. “It’s A Sin follows the story of the 1980s, the story of AIDS, and charts the joy and heartbreak of a group of friends across a decade in which everything changed.” Davies does a great job at writing realistic drama and It’s a Sin to me is his best work yet. This drama will make you smile, cry and feel heartbroken by the end of it. I watched it over a week ago and binge watched it in a whole day. I went to bed really early that evening as I was so mentally drained. We follow a group of friends who have all moved to London for similar reasons, whether it be to study, get away from family or for work. They all live together and all experience the same things, included AIDS. I don’t want to talk too much about this show because I don’t want to worry I spoil it for anyone. If anything it opens your eyes to how the gay community had to deal with AIDS as it came to UK. It reminded me of COVID a little. Give this show a watch, please and make sure to have a box of tissues handy because you’re going to need them. It’s free to watch on All 4 but be wary there will be adverts, but they’re worth it.

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite Movie – Saving Private Ryan.

I don’t know if this seems like a strange movie choice this month but I’ve chosen it because… It’s been out 23 years and I’ve never seen it… Everyone I’ve spoken to about it was very much surprised. 😛 Dane recently watched this one day whilst working from home and I only saw snippets due to working myself. However, towards the end of January we had an evening to cuddle and watch a movie. Dane decided to stick this on as I’d never watched it and it was amazing! The story is great (it also reminded me a little of 1917 with the plot) and the acting is AMAZING! To be honest, I find any film with Tom Hanks in is good and always worth a watch. The start of this film is brutal, but true. Throughout the film everything is just told and done really well. I know many will have seen this film, but I’m still going to refrain from sharing any spoilers in case. Since watching this film we’ve gone on a little bit of a war film binge. We’re not watching Band of Brothers, a TV series I’ve never watched. 😛

Favourite Game – Earth Defence Force 5.

Guys this is something else I was really excited to share with you all this month… Even though I’ve hardly played it since I started back at work after Christmas and New Year. This is a game Dane had heard about and thought about playing due to how bad but good it is! He showed me the trailer and said, “I think you’ll hate it…” but as bad as it looked, it looked and sounded comical and I was down for Dane buying it for us to play. This game is LONGGGG to play and from what I’ve seen on YouTube there are 11 hours of footage of people playing, that along is impressive. Me and Dane have spent all day playing this before and not even got through a big chunk of the game. Basically the aim of the game is to kill alien bugs that are attacking Earth. There are some weird frog looking things too, as well as a creatures that looks like Godzilla’s long lost cousins. This game isn’t amazing graphics wise but bloody hell it’s good fun with a group of people. The NPC’s random dialogue alone will have you laughing and telling them to shut the fuck up and stop being dramatic. 😛 I recommend it for sure!

Just a few of my favourite things

• Razer Kraken Quartz Gaming Headset.

This is by far one of my favourite purchases of January. I bought a Turtle Beach headset back in July but it broke on me last week which I was pissed off about. As I took off the headset after a phone call at work the left earphone literally snapped off! I reported the issue to Turtle Beach and they advised me to reach out to Amazon for a replacement. Amazon don’t stock the headset I bought anymore, so they gave me a refund, which was good! 😀 I bought my Kraken headset the day my Turtle Beach ones broke. In all honesty, I’d wanted to buy the pink Kraken’s back in July but couldn’t justify the price at the time as I didn’t quite know when I was going back to the office at work. These are AMAZING! Both for calls for work, as well as music and calls for D&D games and general games evenings via Discord. They’re not cheap, but I highly recommend them to be honest if you need or want to use a headset like this often!

• Ray-Ban Glasses.

I went to the opticians at the end of January and found out I need some new glasses due to a prescription change. I actually found out not only do I have an astigmatism but also that the prescription in my right lens is too high for me… I don’t know if this an issue on Boots part back in 2017 or Glasses Direct who I bought them from. Either way I don’t think I’ll go to Glasses Direct again just in case it was on their part. So, I decided to get myself some new Ray-Ban’s and I’ve gone for this opal brown pair and they’re gorgeous! They’re similar to what I have now but are a pinky brown colour. I’m really excited to go and pick them up next week! 😀 I’ll show them off to you when I get them over on my Instagram page (theremightbecoffeeblog).

• Black Milk Clothing x Animal Crossing K.K. Long Sleeve Oversized BFT (review here).

This is a t-shirt I have really enjoyed wearing in January. It’s such a comfortable and baggy t-shirt and it’s one I’ve worn often during working from home. I often wear it with leggings or joggers for super comfort! A lot of people have asked me what design is on the front, as well as on the sleeves. You can never go wrong with K.K. Slider!

• McDonalds Katsu Curry Chicken McNuggets.

In 2021 I have decided to only have a takeaway once a month. For January I was firm that our takeaway for the month would be McDonalds so that I could try the new katsu curry nuggets! I love katsu curry and I’m not going to lie, I have a soft spot for McNuggets too! These are REALLY good and the only way I can describe them is McNuggets but better! They’re crispier/crunchier and have a slight curry flavour to them. I have to say, I wish these were permanent. They’ll be gone next month around Valentine’s Day.

• Danboard Nendoroid.

This is the final item I’ll be talking about this month and it was one of my Christmas presents from Dane, a new Nendoroid and one I’ve been after for aggges! Danbo is from the manga Yotsuba&! – which I haven’t read but always heard things about. It’s by the same author as Azumanga Daioh – which is one of my favourite manga/anime series. I almost bought this Nendoroid whilst I was in Japan but left it. I finally got some batteries into Danbo as his eyes light up! We’re really “funny” with our Nendoroid figures and like to keep them in cabinets so they don’t get damaged or covered in dust, however so far Danbo has sat on our desk so that I have a “buddy” during the days in the week whilst I work and Dane has him during the evenings and weekends. I do really love him and he makes me smile to look at whilst working.

So there you have it guys, my favourites from January! This month really flew by and I’m kind of excited for February now. I have my new glasses to pick up soon, we’re making some changes around the house, new hobbies to play with and more. I’m also excited it’s a shorter month as with my new glasses AND an MOT tomorrow (keep fingers crossed for me that nothing is wrong!) I’m already skint. 😛

What have been some of your favourite things from January? Make sure to let me know in the comments below!

Until next time guys, take care and see you soon!. 🙂