My post-Christmas sale bargains

I very rarely buy anything at full price. I've always got lots of website links for potential purchases saved on my phone, and I either wait for them to go down in price or for a discount code to swoop into my inbox. This means that the post-Christmas sales are a highly exciting event for me!

I always save a certain amount of money throughout December to make sure I've got enough to spend in the sales after Christmas, and I also had some Quidco cashback and eBay funds to spend.

It's safe to say that I've picked up some amazing bargains over the last few weeks. I use the post-Christmas sales to stock up on new dresses for work, holiday clothes, and anything else I need/want which I didn't get for Christmas.

I've included links for the items below wherever possible, just in case you fancy grabbing a bargain before they all disappear.

Hunter wellies from Schuh - I've wanted Hunter wellies for ages

and got a children's pair in the sale with a discount of £16 (and a huge £61 discount on the pink pair I saw on ASOS). Hooray for having small feet! 

A floral dress for work, a lacy pink dress and a black midi dress from Debenhams. These three dresses combined cost £39, and I saved £96 on them in total! 

A black and white dress for work, a playsuit ready for Florida, and a pink summer dress.

I saved £32 in total on these items which were all from New Look.

A blue summer dress from ASOS ready for Florida.

At £7.50 with a saving of £17.50, I couldn't go wrong!

Rose gold sequin shoes from New Look - a saving of £11. 

Cosy jumper dress from the Fat Face outlet in McArthur Glen - £25 off! 

Winnie the Pooh pyjamas from Asda - a saving of £7. 

A floral openwork charm from Pandora for my

grey leather bracelet - half price and £10 off.

Bath bomb and gift box from Lush - both items

were half price which resulted in a saving of £10.75. The gift card I had from my brother for Christmas paid for these purchases!

Soap & Glory Sugar Crush tin from Boots, half price with a saving of £5. 

And last but not least, the photo doesn't do this beautiful Ted Baker bag justice...

half price in John Lewis with a saving of £40.

I happily worked out that I've saved a whopping £270.25 in total, which is a lot more than what I actually spent. This makes my bargain hunting heart very happy. 

Have you blogged about your post-Christmas sale purchases? Please send me your links if so! 

Face favourites

If you're a regular visitor to my blog, you'll know that I don't blog about beauty products very often. However, I thought it was about time I blogged about my favourite products for my face as these are the only beauty products I use every day without fail.

I never wear much make up, particularly during the week, but I always make sure I fully cleanse my face every night before going to bed.  I hate the thought of going to sleep without completing this nightly ritual! I've currently got five favourite products on rotation - read on to find out more about each one.

1. Soap & Glory Peaches and Clean

Peaches and Clean has been one of my favourite face products for years and it's always one I re-purchase when it runs out. It smells good enough to eat and it's lovely and soothing at the end of a long day. I've nearly come to the end of my current bottle but, thankfully, I've got a brand new one stored in my toiletry stash ready to be used as soon as this one finishes! 

2. Soap & Glory Face Soap and Clarity 

This face wash was one of the first Soap & Glory products I ever tried and it's another firm favourite. I like to use this particular product when I've worn more make up than usual; it gives a much deeper clean than Peaches and Clean due to its little pink scrub particles. I use this product once a week or so and you don't need to use a huge amount each time, so each bottle can easily last a year or more.

3. No7 Soft & Soothed Gentle Toner 

Soft & Soothed is the first product I tried from the No7 skincare range, and I now stock up on a bottle every time I have one of those £5 No7 skincare vouchers from Boots! This toner does exactly what it says on the tin. It glides onto my skin and makes my face feel really soft and refreshed after every use. On the rare occasions where I've worn a full face of make up, I use this product immediately after using one of my Soap & Glory face washes, just to mop up the last few remnants of foundation.

4. No7 Beautiful Skin Micellar Cleansing Water 

This is my first bottle of Beautiful Skin Micellar Cleansing Water and I'll definitely be re-purchasing. It has quite a similar effect to the Soft & Soothed Gentle Toner and leaves my face feeling bright and hydrated. However, I find that this product's scent is more striking and long-lasting. Also, it's worth noting that I love combining these No7 products with the Beautiful Skin Eye Make-up Remover which I blogged about here a few years ago.

5. Lush Cosmetics Ocean Salt Face and Body Scrub 

This is the first product I've tried from Lush's skincare range and I love love love it! It's packed with sea salt which does an excellent job of buffing my skin, and it also contains avocado butter and limes steeped in vodka which make it smell unique and rather spectacular. It smells as if I'm rubbing a salty cocktail all over my face and it has absolutely amazing results. I feel as if I've been given a brand new face every time I use it! Read about the other Lush products I've tried here.

What are your favourite face products? Do you have any recommendations for me? 

Birthday haul #3 - gifts I can use

An advanced warning - this will be my longest birthday haul post by far! After writing my 'gifts I can gaze at' and 'gifts I can wear' posts, I realised I still had loads of presents left to blog about which could all fit in under the 'gifts I can use' category. I'm so fortunate to have had so many lovely gifts, and it's definitely been a 30th birthday to remember for many reasons.

To kick off this post, I had an exciting present from Nicola which I'll be able to blog about at a later date once we've made use of it - afternoon tea for two at Cardiff's Angel Hotel! As you should know by now, I'm a huge fan of afternoon tea and I can't wait to visit this venue.

Next up, I'm going to give you a little tour of my bumper gift crate from Sarah - think pink! Sarah thoughtfully bought loads of pink gifts for my birthday (I assume you know by now that it's my favourite colour!) and packed them all neatly into this pretty pink basket.

When I excitedly took a closer look, I had to split the contents into two photographs because there were so many.

My favourites in this first pile are the Forever Friends socks, the heart-shaped cookie cutters

and the Powder Love shower gel. And the wine, of course! 

As for this pile, I absolutely love the frame and the message inside it,

the tealight holder and the patterned cards.

I always love receiving toiletries for my birthday and I had quite a few toiletry-based gifts this year. I never have to buy myself any new toiletries as my friends and family kindly replenish my supplies every birthday and Christmas! 

Toiletry bag from Sarah (different Sarah to the one above!), Soap & Glory goodies

from Neil, Guess Girl perfume set from my sister-in-law, and a bottle of
Guess perfume from my sister.

Soap & Glory miniature set from Amy with a beautiful accompanying bag.

My hot chocolate obsession was also satisfied on my birthday with some delicious Whittard hot chocolate and marshmallows from Neil's pets (I know, they're very clever), and Twinings hot chocolate from Sarah. I'm especially excited about trying the Salted Caramel flavour... I love a decadent hot chocolate! 

I also received a couple of mugs to drink my copious supply of hot chocolate from - you'll already know plenty about my love of mugs if you read my recent 'Disney mugs' blog post. 

Tigger mug from Neil, shaped like a honey pot! 

Pretty personalised mug from Nicola and Osian. 

Nicola also bought me the cute presents below which are already on display in my bedroom and kitchen. I'm a big fan of cushions, particularly cushions with teddies on them, and the wine glass is such a lovely keepsake to remember my 30th birthday. I'm looking forward to using it next time I crack open the Prosecco! 

I also had a few edible treats for my birthday from Sarah, Chris and Neil... as you can see, the Tangfastics didn't last long enough to be photographed properly. Standard. 

This really was the birthday that kept on giving, and I had two sets of birthday presents a few weeks after the big event from friends I hadn't managed to catch up with earlier in the month. 

Disney-themed Lindt chocolates and a Tinkerbell photo frame from Claire.

Yankee candles and a diary from Catrin.

I'd obviously like to say a huge thank you again to all my friends and family for these amazing gifts, and the ones in the previous two posts. I couldn't be more grateful and it's lovely to feel so appreciated. 

I also received lots of pretty cards for my birthday so I've decided to blog about those next for two reasons - I love receiving cards as they're a nice personal touch, and continuously blogging about my birthday is one way of making sure it doesn't come to an end! 

Have you written a 'birthday haul' blog post lately? Send me your links if so, I'd love to read them! 

Fake Christmas 2016

I recently celebrated 'Fake Christmas' with my university friends - you can read more about this joyous annual tradition in last year's blog post.

We travelled to Kirsty and Vernon's new house in Minehead for the 2016 edition. There's nothing quite like packing up the car with Christmas presents and Christmas food in the middle of January!

We all arrived from our different corners of the UK on the Saturday morning, and I was welcomed with an Options hot chocolate and marshmallows as I don't drink tea or coffee. An excellent start!

January's obligatory diet quite rightly gets ignored for the weekend of Fake Christmas, so I was delighted when Liz turned up with some rather amazing (and massive) white and milk chocolate chip cookies. Although we all had loads of catching up to do, the room immediately fell silent as we tucked in to these beauties. 

It was so lovely to have one more Christmas in the middle of January... let's face it, January is never a fun month between the weather, post-festive slump and aforementioned diets. There were even Christmas serviettes ready for the occasion!

Kirsty had been preparing the spectacular Christmas dinner and all the trimmings for quite some time and, as always, it was well worth the wait. The cauliflower cheese was a particular highlight for me, as well as the roast potatoes. I think you'll all agree that nothing beats a hefty roast dinner (if you don't agree, we can't be friends). I've pictured the meal with and without gravy... feast your eyes on this!

After a lot of mutual appreciation and a universal need for a post-food nap around the table, we decided to open our presents. We now operate a Secret Santa arrangement rather than buying a present for everyone, and I had two lovely presents from Fee... a travel mug chock-full of Friends quotes and a Soap & Glory Hand Food gift set. The Sugar Crush bottle smells divine! 

After opening our presents, the motion to play Cards Against Humanity was almost unanimously approved. I didn't want to play at first and thought it would be best if I just watched , but it was actually hilarious even for an inoffensive creature like myself. Playing it with eleven people was definitely very interesting!

Although we were all still really full even after playing Cards Against Humanity for hours, there's always room for cake. Liz had made her traditional Fake Christmas cake and it was REALLY good. Between the cookies and the cake, Liz should definitely be crowned the Fake Christmas queen of desserts.

It won't surprise you to hear that I'm already looking forward to Fake Christmas 2017!

Twelve posts of Christmas #10 - Christmas presents: gifts I can use

Welcome to the final instalment of my mini 'What I got for Christmas' series. I know 'gifts I can use' is a very generic heading, and I'm aware that I can use all the presents featured in my 'gifts I can wear' and 'gifts I can eat/drink' posts, but it's the only title I could think of to encompass all my remaining presents under one heading. I'm not entirely sure why I feel the need to justify my title... let's move on.

The aforementioned generic title means this is the biggest post of the lot, and it contains some humdingers!

A beautiful new jewellery box from my parents. It goes perfectly with
the colour scheme in our bedroom and holds a surprising amount. 

Neil bought me this pretty frame for our bedroom - blog post to follow on the

pretty photos we've chosen for it! Again, perfect for our bedroom colour scheme.

Two Disney Traditions figurines from Neil - Stitch and Thumper. 

Colouring books, colouring pencils and

a lovely notebook from my colleagues.

We had lots of joint presents for the kitchen from my parents in law, including this

Morphy Richards soup maker. I've heard lots of good things about this! 

A fajita warmer for the next time we have a Mexican feast!

My parents in law also bought us some amazing gifts from Denby.

I can't wait to use these!

And I definitely can't wait for our next fish and chip supper...

it'll be extremely instagrammable. 

I had some lovely Body Shop toiletries from Sian and

Neil - Mango, Papaya and Vineyard Peach.

I also had lots of Soap & Glory goodies from my parents in law and from Nicola.

They all smell so good! 

A cute Jack Russell cushion from Neil's auntie. 

An umbrella from my parents in law, cleverly disguised as a stylish wine bottle!

We had loads of DVDs between us from Neil's family and my

family - here are my favourites!

Afternoon tea voucher for Pettigrew Tea Rooms from Sarah and a New Look gift card

from my brother... the New Look gift card has (obviously) already been spent.

I hope you enjoyed my 'What I got for Christmas' posts - please leave your links in the comment box if you've written something similar!