What I Got for Christmas: 2015

So now that it's been well over a month since Christmas was here (I'm still recovering from all that amazing food), I thought it was probably about time I got around to my annual "What I Got for Christmas" post. 

My big present this year was a brand new HP laptop - my old laptop was reaching the end of its life; the graphic card was dying, which meant random blue-screens and constant crashing. It made it really difficult to do anything because I'd get so frustrated and ragequit. I'm so thrilled with this new laptop - larger screen, super lightweight and best of all - no crashing! A few people put in for this gift, and I'm so grateful for it. 

My bestie also got me this beautiful candle from Dusk; Alpine Escape. This scent is really spicy - ginger, cinnamon, patchouli, cloves with a really woody feel. Even though it's been a seemingly never-ending stream of 30 degree days, and this candle is probably better suited to Winter, I've still been burning it non-stop. 

J's parents got me an adorable cow tea-set! Made up of a sugar bowl, little milk jug and a teapot, it's ridiculously cute. 

From J's brother and his wife, I received a year-long Frankie subscription. I've been reading Frankie for years, so it will be really good to receive one every second month! I love receiving subscriptions as gifts, they literally are the gift that keeps giving (as corny as that sounds). 

My brother got me Assassin's Creed: Syndicate and Fallout 4, both of which have been getting plenty of play-time. 

J's sister and her fiance got me a new gym towel, which has been great with all the hot weather we're having and how sweaty working out makes me generally. 

J's parents also got me a bubble bar and bath bomb from Lush - I've spoken before about how much I love these, and I can't wait until the weather cools down a little more so I can start taking steaming hot baths again.  

Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest | Facebook | Bloglovin

What I Got For Christmas 2014 (and Graduation)

I decided to combine this a little, and do one longer post on Christmas gifts and Graduation gifts, rather than two separate ones. I didn't get as many "tangible" gifts this year for Christmas - J and I decided not to really do gifts, because we need to save money for our trip to New Zealand in March. Dad also gave me some money to put aside for said trip. I still got some great, and really thoughftul gifts though!

So first up - graduation presents!

My graduation was at 7pm on a Wednesday night. This was really annoying because it meant after the ceremony, we drove home and went to bed, and didn't really have time to celebrate or anything. We arranged a dinner for the following night with some close family friends of ours though, and my besties' family very generously gave me this really cute photo frame, and a book titled "Swing High". I've already popped in one of my favourite photos from my graduation, and the frame now takes pride of place on my desk. "Swing High" is a book about life lessons that can be learned from childhood - it's really cute, and there's words of wisdom in there I think I'll take on forever.

Mum very generously paid for my make-up to be done at the Make Up Store - their services are redeemable for product, so I picked up a new highlighter and lipstick (as well as the lashes used on the day), and a beautiful, simple Mimco bracelet.

Mum then surprised me by also giving me this beautiful handmade, leather journal. It also has my initials on it...I'm just so obsessed with it, it's so beautiful

Christmas KK gifts! My Work KK got me a lavender and vanilla scented candle, a pack of mini OPI polishes, and a box of Lindor - these are my favourite chocolates ever. 

I was super spoiled by my Vogue KK, who gifted me this beautiful red Chanel lipstick. It's been worn a few times since I opened it - it is luxurious, balmy beautiful!

Although we said no presents this year, J and I still got each other small, thoughtful gifts. J got me a really cute cow print lunch bag - for that job I'll hopefully get soon. It's insulated, and has a longer strap for travel so it will be perfect for bringing my lunch. 

My sister got me an Instax mini, with a pack of "moo cow" film - really cute story about the film; it's actually called 'Dalmation', but obviously looks more cow print, she printed off a label "Moo Cow" and covered up the part where it says Dalmation. So cute! 

My little brother got me a See by Chloe perfume gift set. I actually love this scent because it's not super feminine, and I think that's because it has base  notes of vanilla and sandalwood. It's still very floral, with notes of bergamont, apple blossom, jasmine and ylang-ylang.

J's friend also got us these cool illustrated coasters - I made an off-hand comment when we had him over for dinner that I wanted coasters because our coffee table is wrecked, so I was really pleasantly surprised to unwrap these! So thoughtful!

New lip scrub flavour to add to my collection, courtesy of my bestie. She also got me this gorgeous cow-print pillow, below.

Pride of place on the lounge!

What did you get for Christmas this year? I love reading these posts so link yours below if you have one!

Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest | Hellocotton | Bloglovin

Life, Lately #61

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, lovely readers!!
Can you believe we're already a whole week into 2015!?
I lost a bit of blogging mojo over the past month. I'm totally blaming it on breaking my arm... typing and editing with one hand is exhausting, and takes twice as long - which left me super frustrated. I also can't handwrite anything, so not being able to properly plan anything has left me very demotivated.

The 17th of December marked one of the biggest achievements of my life - graduating from uni! The past five years have been a bit of a rollercoaster, and I feel I've grown so much in that time. Donning those blue academic robes was such an accomplishment, although the tassel on the hat was slightly annoying.

 

Christmas was spent around at my dad's, and this year J joined us. We didn't have a super fancy table setting, but plenty of good food. It's tradition for the partners at work to gift all the employees a ham for Christmas - so this year J and I (mostly J...okay, all J) had a go at glazing and cooking it. It turned out pretty well, and we have been adding ham to almost every meal since. Good food, good champagne, good company and good presents is pretty much the perfect Christmas in my eyes.

New Years was also quite a low-key affair. After dealing with the crowds at work for Boxing Day, the last thing I wanted to do was endure more crowds in the City. My brother acquired some fireworks, so we tried our hand at pyrotechnics. A lot of them didn't fully go off, and there was one that fell over and shot sparks everywhere (first photo). It was a lot of fun though, and quite safe as long as you use common sense.
We ended 2014 playing Monopoly and watching the city fireworks on TV.
To get to the train station from my dad's house, there's a fair bit of a bush-walk to go through. We ran into a really thick spider-web, which had a giant-ass spider sitting on it (no literally...this spider had a massive butt), which was terrifying ut is funny looking back on.

We visited the race-track for family race day. We ended up being down over the whole day, but I still find the races a lot of fun. It's entertaining picking a horse by name, getting advice from my punter dad about that horse, and then ignoring that advice and picking one to bet on based on the way they strut around before the race, and depending on the outfit the jockey wears. I'm also quite partial to the omen-name bet, and couldn't pass up putting money on "Fiery Redhead" (who subsequently lost).

I went to the beach for the first time in forever with my bestie so had to tackle swimwear shopping. Ended up choosing the combo on the left. Hooray for no-match, and thanks to everyone who gave their advice on Instagram!

How was your NYE and Christmas? Leave links to your posts below!



Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest | Facebook | Bloglovin

Christmas Instagram Photo Challenge!

This December I've teamed up with some great creative minds, and we've come up with the Instagram December Beauty / fashion photo challenge!
We wanted it to be Christmas themed, fashion themed and beauty themed, but vague enough for anyone to take part!!
I'll be posting each day, all month long - you can join in too by using the #beautyfashionplay hashtag. I'm so excited to see what everyone comes up with for our prompts!

Check out the IG's of the other girls: Christel, Jess, Therese, and Sammy! And of course, you can find my instagram here!

Please let me know if you start playing along, I would love to follow you!




Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest | Bloglovin

What I Got For Christmas... 2013

I (like I'm sure most people) love getting presents. I feel like people aren't willing to admit that for fear of coming off as selfish or whatever, but it's true! I also really love giving presents; I love picking out a gift that I know the person will really enjoy and appreciate, and I love seeing their face when they open it. (So much so that I made J film the reaction of his best friend G when he opened his gift from us because I wasn't going to be there to see it)

I love reading these posts, and to be honest I love writing them. I love sharing what I received and showing my appreciation for my friends' and family's generosity. I also love looking back each year at what I received the year before. 

I was well and truly spoilt this year, and received so many thoughtful gifts that I love and will use. 

My mum gave us some money, which we put towards getting theme park tickets for our visit to Queensland in February. I'm so excited for this trip, and now that everything is booked and paid for I'm even more excited! 

My Dad got us a de-humidifier! Which may seem like a really strange gift to get, but I'm honestly so happy and thankful for this. My sister really could not understand why I would want something like this and was convinced I would hate it because it's kind of boring, but I really, really love it. Our house is really old and doesn't have proper ventilation so it can get quite humid. We also have a really big fishtank which doesn't help matters. In winter, we would wake up every morning with condensation on our walls, and our bed sheets slightly damp. It really and truly sucked. So this is an awesome gift. We've already been using it, and it's making such a difference not only in the air but in my asthma as well - bonus! 

J got me a new, thicker yoga mat that came with its own bag which is awesome! There was nothing 'wrong' with the yoga mat I was previously using, but it was really thin which hurt my knees in certain poses. This one is 5mm so isn't super thick, and is still quite sticky. I travel quite a bit to pole with my mat, so the bag is a definite bonus. 

J also picked me up two new Sims expansions and the new Batman ps3 game. Coincidentally my hours at work go back to my normal 22 next week, so I'll have plenty of time to get stuck into these, yay! 

J also got me some coloured pencils, and a really adorable cat scarf (seriously...how cute is that print!!!)

I got a Sandy Santa from Lush from my bestie Meg, and J's mate G got me this awesome book "What I Wore Today". It's a collection of style shots from people's blogs from all over the world. I love books like this, and am excited to add this one to my collection.

Some other bits and pieces from Meg...really cute PJ shorts from Cotton On Body, and a 'corkcicle' - you stick it in the freezer and it keeps your wine cool! I've actually never seen anything like this before, I think it's fantastic 

Gifts from my siblings; my little brother got me an expansion for Settlers of Catan...I now own 2 so that's lots of fun. This one seems really complicated so I can't wait to learn and play it!

My sister got me this fantastic tea set from T2. I freaking love the mug it came with, because it's such a great colour and size. I love both pumping pomegranate and strawberries and cream (they taste really good mixed together as well!). I was actually smelling Luminous Rose in store the other day and thinking how interesting it smelled, so I'm smitten I actually received it! This one is an Earl Grey base, with rose flowers in it as well. I cannot wait to drink these all up! 

J's parents very generously got me an e-reader which is really exciting! I was always kind of hesitant to join the e-reader revolution but me oh my I am now wondering why I didn't do it earlier. I've been using it the past couple of days and cannot get over how much I love it and how excited it gets me to be reading (and considering I'm already always excited for a new book, that is seriously something!) 

And last but not least, a new bag from kikki.K, from J. I absolutely love this! It's premium leather, has space for my laptop and lots of compartments inside to keep everything organised. It also has a key hook which is amazing; I'm always losing my keys in my bag. I'm thinking I will do an updated 'What's in my bag post' early next year. 

I am so, so happy with everything I received this year. I feel like my family and friends know me so well to be able to get me gifts that I really, really love. I hope they equally love the gifts that I got them.

What did you get for Christmas this year? Feel free to leave your link in the comments below if you've written up a post - Like I said, I love reading these!

Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest | Bloglovin

Christmas 2013

Is anyone else a little bit sad that Christmas is over?
I hope you all had a truly wonderful day! I've been loving catching up with all your blog posts over the past couple of days, and thought I'd share what we got up to.

This year, J went back to Canberra to spend Christmas with his family, and I went around to my dad's and spent it with my siblings, my dad and both of his brothers. Christmas morning started at 12am on Christmas Eve with a skype call to J. He brought down a present from me and we opened one gift each over skype, which was nice. I was up most of Christmas Eve cooking and prepping the salads and dessert for Christmas Day, which was really stressful fun.
I woke up around 8am on Christmas day, skyped my mum (seriously, I love skype...especially in the festive season) and finished off some last minute food prep.



No fancy table setting here...but plenty of really good food.

Some of the salads I made...

Waldorf salad

Watermelon salad


Beetroot - stained salmon salad with avocado and horeseradish dressing.

My sister got a juicer and a blender for Christmas, so she was in charge of juice and smoothie making throughout the day - so yum! 

Christmas this year was lots of fun. There were lots of presents given and received (check out my post later today to see what I was very generously given!), crackers pulled, bad jokes told and of course; lots and lots of good food and company. 

What did you get up to for Christmas?

Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest | Bloglovin