WE'RE BACK

Uh oh, we had a mini unintentional break, due to the lack of internet *sobs*

We have so much to catch up on so here it goes...

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First of all, we've moved houses! We are moving on from our first year of uni and leaving student accommodation. Which sucks as we are no longer in the centre of Leeds anymore so we've either spent a lot of time walking or spent a lot on taxi fares to and from town. On the upside, Charlotte doesn't live with minging girls in a disgusting, unhygienic flat anymore, woo!
We were very lucky getting our houses, we have a FAB landlord, who is literally amazing, she took Charlotte and Lucy (one of her housemates and bestfriend from home) to Dunelm Mill to get new wall art for their house and spent £90 on stuff for us. Both our houses are literally across the road from each other, so we're basically in the same house, sort of...pretty much.
Because we have just moved in, we didn't have any internet until yesterday which is why we've had a bit of a break. We will do a blog post soon showing you around our new rooms, give you all a sneak peek! Lets just say it will be like a episode of MTV cribs without the swimming pools and excessive amount of cars and rooms!

Charlotte had to resit a module (major boo). So spent a lot of the sunny days revising and burning outside, and then decided it was best to spend the last few days revising inside instead... Her tan lines on her boobs were hilarious :') emphasis on the 'were', where has Mr. Sunshine gone? Leeds has just been muggy and overcast AND WE'RE NOT DEALING WITH IT VERY WELL, everyone is constantly sweaty and it is not very nice.

Anyway, no news yet if Charlotte has passed her resit but we have high hopes that it went well. Fingers and toes are crossed. 

We've got jobs!! That's right, we've both got jobs! We are now officially working girls again. 

Charlotte managed to get 3 jobs in the space of a week... 3! And tori has got a job and an interview for 2 of the places where Charlotte works. We've got a couple shifts in August but they don't really properly start until September when Leeds' student life is mad again, so we're still going to be poor this summer! And we have already found out a perk of the job...drum role please... we will be working The Script gig! So we don't really mind getting payed to "watch" them, helllllloooooo Danny O'Donoghue.

We also have pen pals!
Well so far we've just been setup with pen pals by the lovely Ashley from Private School Prepster. When she posted back in June about wanting to arrange some girls together to be pen pals, we couldn't ignore it and emailed her straight away because we all love sending and receiving cute stationery!
Tori is paired with Sockwun from ExtraExtravagant and Charlotte is paired with Hannah from Raspberry Kitsch, definitely worth checking these girls out as they both have brilliant and very different blogs.

Charlotte had a date with her housemate, Charlotte (we'll call her Charlotte McQ to stop the confusion), as Charlotte McQ got free cinema tickets to see The Heat on Monday.

The film was absolutely hilarious, I've never actually laughed so much in the cinema before, like genuine laughing. It's definitely worth seeing when it comes out 31st July, you can totally tell that it's the same director of 'Bridesmaids', and if you thought that was good you'll definitely love this! Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy make such a good duo, I am 100% buying this when it gets released on DVD and may even go see it again on the opening night. How photoshopped does Melissa McCarthy's face look on the main promotion poster!?

Can't wait to show you around our new rooms! What have you got upto this past month?

p.s. Urban Outfitters has upto 70% sale on at the moment and with the code 'LASTCHANCE' you can get an extra 25% off! 95% say whaat? GO GO GO Offer ends 31st July.

REVIEW // Maybelline Colorshow Polka Dots in Rainforest Canopy

I'm a little slow on this bandwagon. I have heard only great things about the Limited Edition Maybelline Colorshow Polka Dot collection, which is available in four colours (Shooting Stars, Rainforest Canopy, Chalk Dust and Speckled Pink) and so far I'm not enjoying them as much as everyone else seems to be...

I was really excited to try these glitter/confetti nail varnishes. I only bought one shade, Rainforest Canopy, in this collection to try it out, admittedly I do wish I'd got the Shooting Stars shade however when I popped in to Superdrug there was literally none left so Rainforest Canopy it was.

I've tried this a couple of times now, and still having doubts about it but I'm going to try layering it on top of another nail varnish next.
First of all, I really like this colour, even though I wish I bought the Shooting Stars shade, I still really like this colour. If you have me on Instagram then you would have seen the post of my nails and my matching gym trousers, I have a couple of dresses the same colour too definitely a favourite of mine.
I found the nail varnish easy to apply, a little difficult around the sides of the nail but that's not much of a problem, and I love how quick it takes to dry, literally seconds.
I advise about 2-3 coats depending on the look you want to go for, I have been applying 3 coats as I like the green base to be fully covered, however I think that this is where the problem is. Every time I've painted my nails, they chip and peel off SO easily, it literally doesn't last over a day or two, which is what really annoys me. You are also best of peeling the nail varnish off (yes, I know its bad for the nail but it literally peels off) than using remover as it just takes the colour away and leaves the speckles on the nail, and then the cotton wool rips which is just a lot more effort!

I have been applying a topcoat onto my nails after they have dried to make sure they stay down and to give a more smoother texture, to stop the hex glitter catching on anything and everything.
I'm still a bit unsure about this nail varnish, I have just applied 2 coats and that seemed to last a bit longer. I've also found after painting my nails only a couple of times, I seem to have used just under half of the 7ml bottle already but for £2.99 I suppose it's not that bad!

Have you had the same troubles with Colorshow Polka Dots or are you loving it?

Link me your reviews!

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Introducing...

We both know that bloggers love Pinterest, and online shopping, right? So what happens when you put both them concepts together? We introduce you to Shopcade. Charlotte is absolutely loving it at the moment, we thank EtailPR's competition for helping us find this and we wanted to share it with you all!
Check out this quick video to get the overall concept of the site.

You get to 'Want' the product you like/want into custom folders that you create, making it easy for you to organise all of your wildest online purchasing dreams. Charlotte has a Chanel bag in one of her lists. Can you see what we mean by involving the Pinterest concept?
Also, you get notification when something on your list(s) goes on a deal or sale! Which is fab especially when you're like us and forget something you like, it goes on sale and then it's sold out by the time you realise, this way you won't miss out.

You can discover new products which have been picked out just for you.

Shopcade is available on a range of devices.

You get a personal trend score. This gives you rewards, discounts and even free products (if you're fast)! You can boost your trend score by getting points on your daily log in (50pts), when you list an item, when people follow you, buy or add products which you have added to your lists, when you follow people and you can get a whopping 500pts for complete the onboarding!

You get to see what everyone else is loving with the trending page and get to discover new brands. You also have your own feed full of products/brands/people you follow, and if you can't find the item you want, you can add it in yourself, so you will always have something new to shop.

We totally recommend you check out Shopcade, if you do get as hooked as Charlotte has, make sure that you check out her lists and follow her! We also have the Shopcade widget at the side of our blog, so whenever you pop by you will get to see what new items she has posted. So far it's been great to put all of our wants for the new houses, we are moving in less than a week now, eeek!

Have you joined Shopcade?

PS.
EtailPR are also holding another competition to win a goodie bag of prizes worth over £250 so make sure you check that out here for a chance to win!

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着物 = KIMONO CRAZE

Kimonos are a traditional Japanese garment and which are a must have item this Spring/Summer and an essential piece of your 2013 festival wardrobe!

Here are some of my favourite I've picked out for you, tell us what you think...

1. ASOS // 2. Topshop // 3. ZARA  // 4. Les Pommettes // 5. RIVER ISLAND 

I love the mix of colours, embroidery and detail that goes into these pieces and especially the tassels on some of them! They can brighten up any outfit and the soft light material feels great!

They are perfect over a bikini or swimsuit, or try one with a pair of denim shorts with the boots and bag as shown above too pull off the perfect festival look!
They also look great with wellies for all you festival goers or even carry it off all year round with a pair of jeans and flats!

Are you attending a festival this year?

Will you be purchasing a Kimono?

What do you think of the ones I have picked out?

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We had a tea party and it was fabulous

Well, this is a very overdue post! This actually happened 22nd May, Danielle's birthday, if you follow Charlotte on instagram or either of us on twitter you would have seen a couple of preview snaps, however if not, we'll explain about our fabulous/stressful day here!

After weeks of planning and preparing it all paid off in the end! Charlotte had an exam in the morning until 11.30, so the food preparation didn't start till 12pm and it was meant to be starting at 3pm, so we were about 45 minutes late.
As soon as Charlotte was back at the flat, the baking and sandwich making began! Charlotte was in control of baking, Tori was in control of overall food preparation and sandwich making, when David (Charlotte's boyfriend) finally got to Leeds he was roped into sandwich making and Hayley was in charge of decorating the table! So we had a couple more pairs of hands to help us, otherwise we would have been hours late and Danielle would have been locked in her room, tearing her hair out (she wasn't allowed in the kitchen until it was done, hehe)

David's station

Tori's station

Hayley's station, the flower decoration (real and fake flowers)

The chocolate cake Charlotte made

The table looked amazing, there was everything from crisps, jelly, chocolate strawberries, teacup cupcakes, battenburg, scones, the very English triangle cut sandwiches and one of Danielle's friends even brought some champagne.
We filled a cupcake stand with scones and Charlotte's baking scales filled with minstrels and we had the birthday cake! Cherry and toffee bakewells, bottles of bubbles, sweet and our Twinings Afternoon Tea Bags were dotted all over the table.

Twinings Afternoon Tea*

Twinings Afternoon Tea Collection; the collection includes Orginal English Breakfast, The Earl Grey, and Peppermint, all English favourites. After offering out the range of tea bags, it was clear to say that Orginigal English Breakfast was the most popular, because who doesn't love a good old brew? Earl Grey was also popular, however personally we don't like it as it's quite an acquired taste, you either love it or hate the distinctive bergamot flavour! Peppermint on the other hand was sort of passed along the table, Charlotte liked it and had a couple of cups, it tastes like chewing gum which was really strange but refreshing and aids digestions, definitely worth trying.

Each of these flavours comes in a separate caddy which has 20 individually wrapped teabags. We love the beautifully designed caddys, they totally sell the product to us. We do think that for £5 a pop just for 20 tea bags and a caddy is a bit steep, however the packaging, wrapping and taste make it totally worth it. We've decided that after we've drank all of the tea we are going to buy either a pack of 50 or 100 of English Breakfast and probably Peppermint and then fill up our orginal caddys as that works out cheaper (around £2-£4) and you get more tea bags, and more tea is always better. We really like having the tea bags wrapped up individually as it makes it seem posher, neater, the tea bag string is kept separate to other teabags and it makes them easy to store in the caddy, however on the other hand it just seems like too much packaging and unnecessary waste for the environment, so we're a bit undecided on them being indivually wrapped.

The overall tea party was amazing, everyone felt so sick after so many sandwiches and tea, Danielle loved all of it and the chocolate cake was delicious! At the end we gave everyone party bags with a slice of cake and some sweets in. This was such a great way to end the year at uni, it's a shame not all the girls could make it!

This is something we definitely want to do again and maybe try some other flavours of Twinings tea. We think birthdays are a perfect opportunity instead of the traditional party buffet this is something you can do in the afternoon enabling you to socialise and have some food before maybe going out at night. For this particular tea party we went very traditional with the decor and food which we think worked extremely well. And of course it is always nice to dress up nice without the pain of heels...

With the recent release of F. Scott Fitzgeralds 'The Great Gatsby' set in the roaring 20's and one of my favourite books! (one im going to get Charl to read hopefully!)

We thought this would be the perfect opportunity to incorporate this into our student lives by having a themed tea party. We're talking men in suits and girls in flapper dresses, red lipstick, white dresses, fur and lots of embellishment!. Still sticking to the traditional afternoon tea menu but adding a twist to the decor and dress. This is defiantly on the cards for our birthdays! Any excuse for fancy dress and getting all dressed up and because we love the styles and trends of the 20's!


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Have you tried Twinings fabulous tea?

Will you be having your own tea party?

Have you watched The Great Gatsby yet?