2013 Roundup & 2014 Goals

Well I can't believe that 2013 has passed, I am writing this on the new years eve and I can't wait to make cheeseburger cupcakes and dress up as a 1920s flapper actress later on today/tomorrow! But before then here is my 2013 roundup, photographs, blog resolutions and my goals for 2014.

My highlights of 2013:

- Graduating with a First Class BSc Honours Degree in Psychology

- Turning the big 21

- Holidaying in Scandinavia and Russia

- My first blogging event (T.G.I Fridays)

- Features on Very and London Beauty Hub 

- Blog design changes, winning lots of competitions, seeing my first musical in years (Wicked)

- Having 9 inches of my hair cut off for the charity The Little Princess Trust (they make real hair wigs for children with cancer)

- Working with amazing brands, people and getting fantastic new followers

- Blog/social media milestones = over 900 GFC followers, over 700 Bloglovin followers and over 200 followers on Instagram and Twitter!

Well, it has been a mixed year with a lot of highlights but some disappointing and sad times. While looking for the photographs for this post I am so grateful for having a blog that I can look back through to see what I did and how I have grown. I love sharing important (and crazy, unimportant) moments of my life with my amazing followers and readers - thank you so much!! When I started this blog I never thought I would have 100 followers, never mind over 900! Thank you!

I have quite a lot of ideas for new exciting posts for 2014 including: skincare ingredients 101, 2013 favourites, blog tools/basics, freebies, reviews, share the love posts and of course giveaways. I want to get in the habit of a blog schedule, over the festive period it has been really useful - write a comment below to tell me what blog posts you would like to see in 2014.

My goals for 2014 are: be more confident and get out of my comfort zone, spend more time with friends, drink more water, apply for a Masters degree (late 2014) and get a job!

I hope everyone had an amazing christmas, new year and 2013 - happy new year!! x

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Week in photographs #44

Usually I post my week in photographs post every two weeks but this past week has been quite busy so I had to do a post now, otherwise I will have too many photographs! 

The past week of my life has consisted of: my mums birthday, halloween, bonfire night, my sister coming home from uni, fireworks,  sale shopping, winning amazing competitions, thunder, Primark buys, carving pumpkins/making pumpkin soup and finally the T.G.I Fridays blogger event!

Firstly, I was invited to the T.G.I Fridays blogger event on Thursday evening which was amazing, as were the two popping candy strawberry margaritas I had! I also received a cute polaroid drawing of me from the artist @erinecho. I went with one of my best friends Yasmin and we had a great time. For the event I wore a couple of brand new sale items from Asos which I adore! I bought the petite asos floral dress (£19 - sadly not in the sale anymore) and the asos black mini satchel (£11 - again not in the sale anymore). I also bought a gorgeous vampy dress from the Ark sale for...£5 and a fisherman knitted black jumper again for £5. Gotta love Ark.

There have been a couple of holidays in England recently such as Halloween - I carved two pumpkins and I made some pumpkin soup for the first time and I really like it. There was also bonfire/Guy Fawkes night on the 5th November in England which celebrates the capturing and death of Guy Fawkes who attempted to blow up the houses of parliament in 1604/1605. I found out this night that I am the worst person in the world at photographing fireworks! 

Finally I won two pretty amazing competitions. Firstly, I won a Escentual fragrance competition and I won a bottle of the new Diesel Lover Dose Tattoo perfume which I really like. Then I won a massive competition early this week, I won a Instyle Magazine Twitter competition - I won £300 worth of duty free makeup! How incredible is that! I won a couple of gorgeous Givenchy sets (my fav prizes), a big Clarins skin set, a Clinique skincare set, a YSL touche eclat duo set, the Benefit they're real mascara, an Elizabeth Arden 8 hour trio, a clinique blush, a MAC pressed pigment eyeshadow and a Bvlgari perfume mini set. Phew, I was hyperventilating when I found out, I am so happy with the prizes! 

Although I do want to share some of my prizes with my amazing blog followers so I will be giving away the Elizabeth Arden 8 hour hand treatment, Clarins hydra quench cream, the full size new Benefit They're Real Mascara, the Clinique blusher, the second YSL Touche Eclat and a couple of Royal eyelash curlers - stay tuned as I will be hosting these giveaways over the next month (sadly they will be UK only giveaways)!

I hope everyone had a great week x

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T.G.I Fridays Live Art & Cocktails Blogger Event!

My first blogger event! I was kindly invited by T.G.I Fridays to their live art and cocktails event in the royal exchange restaurant/bar on cross street in Manchester. I was really happy to be invited as it was my first blogger event, although I was nervous about going. Myself and one of my best friends Yasmin went yesterday and we had a great time! 

My outfit - dress: Asos sale £19, Jacket: Promod, Tights: Primark, Heeled boots: Newlook, Bag: Asos sale. 

The event is based on art and cocktails - T.G.I Fridays have created 100 new cocktails and the art at the event was inspired by three cocktails. Click here to check out their cocktails. The three main cocktails at this event included the: lemon Meringue Pie, Passionate Rose and the Poppy Candy Strawberry Margarita cocktails. The popping candy strawberry margarita was freakin' amazing, I had two! 

The staff were so nice, friendly and amazing at remembering so many different cocktails! The food looked great, I didn't have any but Yasmin did and it was really good. We had three cocktails each and we liked all of them. I had two strawberry margaritas and one Turkish delight which wasn't amazing as it was very sweet but overall it was nice. The strawberry margarita was made with tequila, strawberry liciour, strawberry/lime juice and popping candy on the rim of the glass - heaven! Yasmin has the Turkish Delight and the passionate rose which looked amazing. They also mixed up a cocktail that wasn't on the list for her. 

I had never been in any T.G.I Fridays restaurant or bar before and I love the decor and also the staff were great. I would definitely go to T.G.I Fridays again, either to the mixology bar (which is where we went for the event, its upstairs) and the restaurant looks great too. Overall, I had a great time at the event and I am grateful for being invited. I received a little polaroid drawing of me from one of the artists too. The artists at the event were @carolinedowsett and @erinecho. There was another artist making amazing cakes out of felt material. 

Have you been to this event or a T.G.I Fridays before? x

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