Deborah Lippmann - Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

I know it's a bit late but this is the polish I wore for Christmas. 

This is Deborah Lippmann - Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree. Quite an appropriate name too!
It is a gorgeous mix of small and large metallic green and red hex glitters suspended in a black jelly base.

This is three coat with a thick coat of Seche Vite. The black jelly base was opaque after only two coats! The only reason I added one more was to make it even more glittery!
There was no glitter placement required either, bonus!

Apologies for the state of my nails. I have to keep them short to stop them continuously breaking at work, but my job totally dries my hands out too! :(
Anyways, I'm sure you'll agree that this is a totally gorgeous polish!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have all had a great day!

I spent my day with my family and younger cousins. Even though I don't celebrate Christmas, they are still young so it's a nice thing for them.

To be completely honest, until I arrived at my cousins house, today just felt like any other day. We had to drive from one end of London to the other but it was raining, grey and just generally miserable. Apart from numerous police cars and ambulances, there were no lights, no music and no festiveness. I think it's because I'm getting older too, and being ill has just taken its toll a little :(

I suppose since I was working yesterday as well, I didn't have time to get all that festive. I did try though! I tied a piece of Christmas tree decoration into my hair and some of the customers started calling me Angel haha.

In other news, I made some cupcakes to take with me today:

They were quickly devoured which I'm happy about!

Tomorrow I'm attempting to go to the boxing day sales, wish me luck!

Whatever you did today, I hope you had a lovely day :)

Easy Funfetti Cupcakes

Funfetti!

Who doesn't love a bit of rainbow scattered cupcake eh?

Okay I admit, I'm not a huge cake lover myself. Infact I really *really* do not like eating cake. At all. But I sure do love baking and decorating them though! Weird I know.
So since it was my birthday on Wednesday, I thought I'd make something pretty for everyone else to enjoy.
And here they are! These are my Easy Homemade Funfetti Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting. They are based on my mums Basic Vanilla Cupcake recipe.
It's really simple and I use it all the time as a base for creating all sorts of variations of cupcakes.
All you need is: - 125g Self Raising Flour - 125g Butter (softened) - 125g Caster Sugar - 30ml Milk - 2 Eggs I then added 30g of brightly coloured sprinkles to make them into Funfetti Cupcakes.
The method is so simple and quick to do.
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5. Begin by placing the dry ingredients into a bowl.

Then one by one, add in the wet ingredients.

Finally add the sprinkles.

Mix until smooth but still a little runny.

Using an ice cream scoop as a guide, fill the cup cake cases to about 1/3 full. Place into the oven and bake for 10-16 minutes or until golden brown.

Leave to cool for an hour and make up your frosting of choice. Put it into the piping bag (use a large star nozzle for a swirly finish). Pipe onto the cupcakes starting from the outside.

Finally, throw on some more sprinkles on top of the frosting and enjoy! Ta dah!

17 Today!

Guess what? It's my birthday!! (I'm kind of hoping you figured that out already for the title haha)
I am officially 17! 
Wow, it feels so weird to say that.. I feel like I should suddenly be more "grown-up" and mature because i'm not a child anymore yet I feel no different.

I made Funfetti Cupcakes for everyone :)

So what did I do for my birthday? Go out with my friends? Have a party? Go out for a meal?
Nope. I spent my birthday alone and at the hospital. Fun times, right?! My doctor was even kind enough to gave me a "present"!

Oh well... I suppose I should be used to this by now.
One really nice thing about today though was visiting my old school. I had to go there to collect my exam certificates but I also went to say hello to some of my old teachers and it only really just hit me today how much I miss them. Despite everything, I did actually like it there but I suppose you only realise things like that once they are over.
Anyway, I'm off to work now. At least I'm not stuck at home by myself eh?

But seriously though, thank you SO much to everyone who has wished me a happy birthday - I really do appreciate all your kind words!

I'm Back!

Ah yes you read correctly, I really am back! And for good this time too! I've been away from properly blogging for more than two months now and as much as I really needed the break and although it was slightly forced upon me too (see my last post), I was beginning to miss it a lot. So, as a fresh start I've completely re-designed my blog all by myself! Haha sorry I'm just super proud of myself for doing it all with no help!
Here's a before and after shot:

You may have noticed the tabs under the heading (and yes, you can click on them!) are of six different categories, some of which you haven't seen on the blog before. So why are they there? Well I've mentioned it before, but basically I want this blog to be more of a Lifestyle Blog rather than just a nails one.

Those who know me in real life will know that l LOVE all things creative, including baking, crafting and playing around with clothes and make up. So l thought, why not put that too the blog too! As well as that, I just want to bring a bit more of myself to the blog. More posts about general everyday things (not in a boring diary style, don't worry!) and things that are happening in my life. Most of all though, I just want it to be something I would actually want to read. 
Well one things for sure, I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to blogging!

I'm still here, I promise!

So where have I been? Well, interesting story... Almost a month ago, after an 8-hour stint in A&E, I was admitted to hospital for a week. I then had surgery later that week, was allowed home a few days later and began my recovery, but after being away from school and work and everything else for such a long time I'm gradually getting back to my 'normal' life. (My life if far from normal, hence the inverted commas ahha). Anyways, here are a few pictures:

But I promise I will be back to regular blogging (with an all new look too!) very soon!