Claire's rainbow speckle nail polish

Whenever I fancy a new nail polish, I must admit, Claire's isn't somewhere that usually springs to mind. When I think of Claire's I think of jewellery and things perhaps aimed at a younger audience. How wrong was I?! Think about it. Claire's Accessories. Accessories is a broad term - it can extend to bags, hair accessories and so on. But never once did I think it would extend to beauty and nail care.

I was talking about this with a friend who exclaimed: "but Claire's does brilliant nail varnishes!". Apparently ones she purchased at school are still going strong to this very day with none of them drying up or becoming 'gloopy' like you experience with other brands.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I went to investigate the Claire's Accessories branch near my office. Whilst there were some corners with One Direction fan memorabilia, tutus, and pink fluffy boas for miniature sized people, I was delighted to find that Claire's caters to a far wider age range than I originally thought.

What I'm sharing with you today is a couple of nail polishes I picked up that I'm pretty excited by. Firstly because of my friend's sparkling recommendation of how durable they are. But secondly because of the price - a mere £2.50 per bottle. Considering these are comparable in size to the Models Own nail polishes, these are an absolute bargain of a price.

The colour I was drawn to is a speckle / confetti kind of nail polish. It was so unusual and unlike anything I'd ever seen before:

They have another colour variety too but I went out of my comfort zone and went for the neon coloured one, which is great for summer and for giving your outfit a pop of colour. I also purchased a white nail polish to use as an undercoat. And here's the final result:

Other hands will flock to admire... *poke*

The nail polish spreads like a dream. Time will tell how long they last before chipping, but so far I'm impressed!

7 Easter craft ideas for kids (and big kids!)

Easter and chocolate. A partnership that has been going strong since the 19th century. They go hand-in-hand together, like salt and pepper or bread and butter. As appreciative as I am to still receive Easter eggs, the excitement of receiving an Easter egg - and chocolate in general - is kind of lost on me now. Maybe I've just hit that age. Earlier this week I found lots of inspiring Easter gift and craft ideas on Pinterest - perfect if you have children and want ideas for the up-and-coming bank holiday weekend. But equally inspiring if, like me, you don't have children yet. Has Easter become monotonous? It doesn't have to be...

How cute are these jam jar vases?
Fill them with Easter treats, bright cereals and sweets

Candy carrots are easy to make - just place orange sweets into an icing bag 

Rabbit food! Fill with dried snacks like cereal, pretzels and mini biscuits

Carrot play dough! I'm in my 20's and I'm still excited by Play Dough!

Egg shell candles in egg cups

A packet of Forget-Me-Not seeds is a cute gift idea

As is home made carrot cake in a jar with a home made gift tag and twine:

All the above pinned from Pinterest

There is now even a market for pets. With safe Easter treats for dogs that aren't chocolate:

Pets at Home - £1.75                                                    Pets at home - £5

In recent years advent calendars have evolved to variations without chocolate as discussed here and here. So maybe it will only be time until Easter eggs follow suit. Because if faced with a choice between an Easter egg filled with sweets or an Easter egg filled with beauty treats, I know which one I would choose. Especially if there was a speckled egg effect nail polish inside. Because nothing says Easter like having your nails resemble Cadbury's mini eggs!

What would be hiding inside your ideal Easter egg?

Front Row, models, and tiny speedos at Clothes Show Live

The above title pretty much sums up my visit to Clothes Show Live last week. I went on the Monday so it was nearing the end of the overall event. It was the perfect time to go as prices were starting to be slashed. In particular, goody bags filled with the likes of Company, Cosmopolitan, x2 editions of Elle and some lovely little freebies were going for £2 a bag. Yes you read that correctly. £2 per bag. Considering Elle retails at £4 an issue, this was an amazing saving.

The beauty hall in particular is well worth a visit if you go. Brands such as Barry M, Models Own and Mint were offering the most incredible deals. Models Own for example offered a bag of treats worth a staggering 60 odd quid for just a tenner. This contained a nail care kit, lip balm, make-up, nail art pen, mirror, their official Clothes Show Live nail polish - an absolute dream of a shade - choice of two magazines and three additional nail polishes of your choice. Bearing in mind how much Models Own nail polishes retail for EACH, unsurprisingly most people jumped on this offer.

For me, the highlight of the show was the main catwalk show. Hosted by Henry Holland, it was a 45 minute spectacle of fashion, dance and amazing music. I very luckily managed to reserve front row seats in advance so had a very nice view of the male models ;) See if you can spot Jade, former winner of BNTM and face of Clothes Show Live this year:

There were also various other catwalk shows that day. Although I'm not really into reality TV, I do love America's Next Top Model and Britain's Next Top Model. So I was very excited to learn that the BNTM girls from the latest cycle were doing their own catwork show:

All in all it was an amazing day. A long day, but worth it. My shoulders still ache from carrying everything back to London:

It's a great place to pick up presents so next year I plan to do some of my Christmas shopping there!

Have you ever been to Clothes Show Live?

7 alternatives to chocolate advent calendars

We're mere days away from December. Then the count down begins. Oh my.

Have you got to that age where although chocolate is still awesome, you feel like chocolate advent calendars are a little done? There was a time where eating chocolate first thing in the morning was exciting. It felt naughty. Now it seems to have lost its novelty. Each year more and more brands are jumping on the advent calendar band wagon. Admittedly mostly beauty brands / products. But as you will see below, there are some lovely other little surprises to be found behind each door:

Body Shop advent calendar: I've seen this featured on some blogs lately and the selection looks amazing. I haven't managed to locate any online or in my local store though. Not sure if it sold out, or if it was just a blogger promo / sample type dealio.

Yankee Candle advent calendar: Fill your house with the smell of Christmas on the days leading up to the holiday - to me, this feels like the most festive of all the advent calendars I've seen. But then I have major candle bias. Love 'em.

Benefit advent calendar: A great way of trying out new beauty products

Boots advent calendar: A more affordable version of the Selfridges one (below)

Whisky advent calendar: If you like whisky and you've got more money to spare, this would be a very merry count down!

Ciaté nail polish advent calendar: A nail polish a day. Genius.

Selfridges beauty advent calendar: Always sells out in record time. But with daily delights from Lancome, Yves Saint Laurent, etc, this is hardly surprising. Each year I um and ah over the price - trust me, it's a LOT. I decide to give it a try and what... it's sold out? Well I guess that answers that then.

What would your ideal advent calendar contain?

The prettiest nails you ever did see // Revlon x Marchesa

Some of you eager fashionistas may have already spotted images of Revlon's wonderful new collaboration with red carpet favourite Marchesa:

Image credit for all above: Marcio Madeira - found via Brazilian Vogue here

Image credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images; Revlon - image found here 

All nail designs are based on gowns from Marchesa's AW collection

They look like they cost the earth but in actual fact they will retail at....... £8.99. With nail polishes increasing in price these days - what's the deal with that? - £8.99 isn't all that bad, comparatively. And this is Marchesa we're talking about. With gowns retailing in the thousands, I think I can deal with £8.99.

Each nail design is truly beautiful - a work of art. With an increasing demand for nail art - we've seen diversity from the likes of Ciaté's latest feather nail manicure, shatter effects, nail cavier and Illamasqua's speckle nails - any form of new nail product that wants to stand a chance in the current market needs to stand out. These ones from Revlon + Marchesa sure do and I predict that we'll be seeing a lot of them on blogs, Instagram and the alike once they go on sale.

I'm very excited to see if Revlon and Marchesa continue to work together in the future. There is potentially a cosmetic line in the works - with a focus on eyes and lips - but everything is still very hush hush. If it's anything like the sneak peak of their nail art range [above], then it's very promising indeed!

#7 Life as we know it

Making the most of the last few summery evenings with cava and strawberries:

Pizza Hut's new chorizo pizza makes me happy

More cider - or should I say cidre - filled evenings

... and days too, come to mention it...

Wasps that interfere with quality cider drinking time get taught a lesson:

Trying new tea (peach and blackcurrant)

Making olive and sun dried tomato bread from scratch

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Work charity cake sale where I fell in love with Oreo speckled cupcakes

Cooked breakfasts... what dreams are made of

I've come down with the flu so my life right about now consists of hot drinks - Lemsip, green tea and hot chocolate - and my bed. It's always important to keep your fluid levels up so I've been eyeing up these lovely sounding hot chocolates from Whittards. Ever tried any of these?

What have you been up to lately?