LLandudno beach with the doggies

I can't believe how much I've missed walking the dogs these past three months at uni! I know how lame this must sound, but it's something I've always done and it's actually a really relaxing time to think about life and also a good way to keep healthy (I'm so unhealthy at the moment and need to sort myself out!). As soon as I got back home i've immediately gone for a walk with the doggies and Scott to the beach and it was lovely.

I found this rock that has these amazing marks on them that look like footprints! Being on a footwear design course has made my life basically revolve around shoes... I'm even seing them in rocks now?!

Talking about being unhealthy... Scott and I went for a rather enjoyable Big Mac meal at McDonalds. Being a student you get a free cheeseburger with a meal so I always get one and give half each to the dogs so they too can have a special little treat. This is probably why my dogs are so fat, but it really is very occasionally...

I'm not sure why my hairs looking so blonde here?! I haven't dyed it for agers! Which is very unlike me!

You probably know by now how much I like taking shoe pictures of my feet so here's another one....

The dogs adore water, wether it's the sea, a lake or even a mangey dirty wet puddle! So it's always top priority when we go for a walk to find somewhere wet. Molly (Seabear) is getting very old and hobble-y nowadays but she always gets a spring in her step near the sea :)

i'm not sure what's going on here....

Ella always gets excited and runs along the beach ahead of the rest of us , leaving just her sandy footprints for us to follow!

Seabear looking quite inquisitivie here ..

I found some neon fishing wire on the beach, I loved the colour so much I had to take a photo next to the natural stoney coloured pebbles.

More shoes and feet, as the obsession grows....

I like taking pictures of moss. And mould. And rust...

Ella kept her head on the backseats the whole way to the beach (30 mins drive), and spent the journey home collapsed in the boot as she was so tired from all the running. She and Molly also steamed up the car with a rather fowl wet dog smell which is never pleasant, but we still take them to the beach regardless!

Scott skimming stones :)

The only dowside to walking the dogs. The hideous task of collecting their .. erm ..droppings... Scott fortunately is very good with this sort of thing :) And I had some nappy bags especially for this occasison :/ So we were safe from being fined this time.....

I'm also due a trip here with my best friend Georgie, as it's almost a tradition we have to come here on boxing day, dressed in some strange attire and listenning to the Disney soundtrack.. Small pleasures..

 :)

Christmas Decorations

It's Christmas time!

I'm home from uni for three weeks of Christmas and i'm so happy!

We've already got our family christmas tree up downstairs, but Scott and I started a new tradition last year where we get a small (well actually not that small this year) tree for my room too! We have lots of vintage baubels from charity shops and some new colourful one from paper chase!

We also started another tradition last year - Each year we are together we will buy a new special bauble for the tree. So the theory is when were older we will have a tree full of wonderful and interesting baubles that remind us of our time together :)

Last years was the first, and it was a glittery pink bird from Paperchase...

This year we bought a glittery dinosaur bauble, again from Paperchase! I know they're both not at all festive but they were so pretty and make us both happy looking at them.

 This is our tree :) It hasn't got any lights on in this picture! But it shows the gist of what it looks like :)
Also Scott being really creepy with the bauble :P

 And lastly my beautiful little man Alfred who was snoozing while we were decorating, so we had a little giggle covering him in baubles on my bed!

It's so lovely to be home with my family and friends and Scott! I'm loving uni, but it really does make you appreciate how special everything back home is, and it's also really wonderful to be back with the animals too! It's surprising how much you miss them ....

A weekend in Ireland

I've just got back from a lovely weekend away with Scott and his family to Northern Ireland! I'd never been to Ireland before and it's always interesting to visit a new place/country :) For those of you who haven't been, it's a lot like Wales !! E.g landscape, weather, sheep etc, but has it's own special edge too....

We went as part of Scott's Nana's 75th birthday and there were about 15 of us in total!We stayed in a nice hotel in Cooks-town (about an hour from Belfast) and explored lots of attractions, and ate a lot of food, as per for us really :)

I've finally got Scott to buy some desent trainers/shoes, so here are his new navy blue converse (FINALLY) and my Topshop burgandy thick Mary Janes , for those of you who know me I rarely wear shoes that are not red, so this is a step forward at least...

The blob in the middle of the photo is a rain droplet on the camera, the weather was pretty bad the whole weekend, but we still had a fab time.

We liked the freeebies from the hotel (who dosn't?!) So we had sparlking water in a glass bottle and some chocolate chip cookies as a snack.

We visited the Giant's Casueway which is a landscape on the northern coast of ireland that has been weatherd by conditions such as ice age's and general poor weather conditions to create these fabulous effect in the rocks. 

The rocks look hand carved or even part of an art installation, but all is done naturally by the erosion of the bastille rock by the weather conditions.

Tourists always find a way of cramming coins into tourist attractions, and here was no different. I liked how many of the crevasses in the rocks were crammed full with coins, some badly weathered and some new. The rust was pretty too (I'm sad with things like that), I tried picking some coins out but they were too tightly packed in!

More of the corseway! 

We drove along the coast and stopped to take some snaps of the coastiline. The waves were ridiculously high in some places. I always like the chalky rocks that surround a lot of the Brisish coastline. They looks so pretty with the grassy hilltops!

 It was very windy so we both had eyes and mouths full of my hair flying around for a lot of the weekend!

Scott and I are both hige fans of the Titanic. We love the film, and like nerding up on our facts about the real thing. This meant we were very excited to Visit the museum in Belfast dedicated to the Titanic (as most of the hull, and ship were made in Belfast). The building is shaped like the stern of the ship on each fours sides. It was full of interesting facts and reconstructions of parts of the ship. I particualy liked the room where they showed artifascts and videos of what people have recovered from the wreckage e.g shoes, glasses, bottles etc. It reayly was fascinating :)

But embarrassingly enough, I was mostly impressed by THE DRESS !!

This was the original dress from the film Titanic with Kate Winslet who is one of my favourite actresses. It was even tinged brown and grey from when it had been worn in the water for filming, which was pretty cool!

 We visited the Bushmills Whisky factory and went on a tour. I'm not a big drinker and usually don't like whiskey, but they had a type blended with honey which was delicious! ( I had mine watered down, as I am a big pansy with alcohol) but that helped the honey flavour and sweetness come through :)
It was very informative and interesting to see, and makes you really appreciate why it is so expensive, as the most basic variety has to be held for at least 3 years and be 40% to be considered a whiskey

 Scott in the causeway museum/fact place. (Inside a shark mouth....)

Lastly a bauble I wish i'd bought in the factory shop of the whiskey factory. :(But I was being stingy and didn't want to pay £6.50!

I'd really recommend going to Ireland as it was very pretty and the attractions were really interesting to see ! but if you go in Winter wrap up warm as it's very VERY nippy !!! 

Halloween Skeleton Make up

I love Halloween, Always have always will. I'll admit I love christmas and that is my favourite time of year, but autumn and Halloween are a definite close second. Dressing up has always been something I enjoy doing, that topped with treacle toffee, pumpkin carving and scary movies is just on for a winner really. This year i went as a skeleton,... as you can see below :) I cut bones out of an old T-shirt for my top - Martha Stewart's DIY and painted my face and spinal cord.

there are lots of videos on youtube you can look at (and I sure did) to create this look, but this is how I did mine :)

It took about half an hour - 45 mins to do, but the time went quickly :)

 I admittedly used acrylic paint, and probably shouldn't have as I imagine it's not very good for your skin, but I'm a student and we make do with what we have and I didn't have any face paint... on the plus side the acrylic left a much more opaque colouring which worked well. It also peeled/washed off easier than i'd anticipated.

I started with a base layer of all white except round my eyes.

I then filled the eye area in with black felt tip eye liner (I don't like taking risks with my eyes) . I painted the majority with the eye liner, but filled the outline of the socket in with black acrylic, and the same along my eyebrows. I then painted my nose with black acrylic to create an almost hollow nose like skeletons have!

The I painted a little black around the top of my skull to define the shape a little better, but thats optional. I would advise doing it along the cheek area though as this is necessary for a realistic skull. I followed the lines of my cheeks and shaded the outsides with more black acrylic.

I also added a spinal cored (which I rushed a little) but you can see from the picture it gives the rough idea... Just before leaving the house I also painted my lips white and painted rough teeth on (below), this was so

it would last as long as possible as the moisture from lips make the paint peel easier.

 Admittedly by the end of the night the paint had started to peel, but it did add to the scary halloween effect.

 I had a great night and hope you all did too! I don't think i'll ever grow out of enjoying Halloween, so hopefully their will be many more years of costumes, candy and spooky goings on :D

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A few snaps from my first few weeks at uni!

Scott has visited me two weekends already which has made me very happy. We've been to Yo Sushi twice as 02 are currently giving 1/3 off your bill which is obviously brilliant for us foodies that are a Little strapped for cash :) so thank you 02!

I like the Pumpkin Karroke (fried pumpkin) and the chicken terriaki, YUM!

We also went to Tinseltown which is an American Style diner where they do THE best milkshakes (apart from the sugarplum obviously;)) We had Reece's peanut butter cups and kinder beuno milkshakes. So yummy, but very filling!

 Another weekend my parents visited, and mum and I went to one of my favourite restaurant's, Carluccios. They have this wonderful cloudy cherry drink which is too die for and i would highly recommend you try some !!!

I had braised venison tortellini, which is by far the best pasta I've ever had. And I've eaten some pasta in my time!!! It's creamy, buttery and smooth which delicious meat parcelled away inside, delicious.

 Their meringues look so pretty too! But we were both too full to sample them after our pasta, salads and too many cloudy cherry drinks...

 I've been doing some window shopping as I can't actually afford clothes that aren't either charity shopped or eBay based any more :P But we can all dream.. I love this topshop dress, anything sequined I have a embarrassing love for ;) 

This week we've been making casts of our feet in foam blocks and filling them with plaster of Paris. Pretty cool really :) 

 I thought the threads were pretty in the machine room so took a quick snap.... Were going on a trip to Northampton this week to see a factory where they make shoes and to a footwear museum which should be interesting:)

 I've been going to the market for my vegetables and visiting Asian supermarkets to see lots of variety of foods. It's been so exciting for me to see all kinds of produce and food that I can't get where I'm from.

I have also been learning how to make bread, this was my second attempt whilst in Uni, and it actually rose! (this is good progress for me, the most terrible person with bread, EVER) but i am learning... slowly at least and aim to be a pro before I finish.

 Lastly I've joined the women's rugby team which I love so so much! I took this picture to show mum and Scott how caked in mud I was after training :)

Eggs for breakfast

I've been craving the lovely free range eggs from the egg farm just round the corner from my house back home. And so last weekend my parents came to visit me and brought me a big tray full of eggs which I've been devouring this week. I tried dippy eggs and soldiers today, and it is by far one of my favourite and quite a nostalgic breakfast as my mum used to make it for me when I was younger.

I have to have the white part cooked as it really is pretty gross when it's all slimy, but the yolk is so much better when it is runny and golden. I'm an impatient cook and always pour boiled water over my eggs which can sometimes lead to them cracking, but it's a 50-50 chance, which I feel is worth taking :).....

I love these retro egg cups I was given from Homewood Bound Collections (one of my little going away presents from mum). But as you can see I was quite greedy and wanted three eggs when I only had two egg cups, which ruins the photographs a little ;)

Anyway, I will be back posting some more meals that I've been making on my new student budget soon !!