1. What’s your favourite Christmas movie?

I don’t have just one favourite Christmas movie but the two that I always reach for first are The Grinch and The Polar Express. Both should be watched at least a handful of times each year.

2. What is your favourite Christmas smell?

Cinnamon. There is nothing quite like the smell of cinnamon over the festive period. It is such a warm, cozy smell.

3. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?

Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Vixen, Comet, Rudolph, Pluto…how many more are there?

4. Favourite Christmas food?

Now that’s not a fair question! There are too many good foods at Chrismas but piggies in blankets are awesome.

5. Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

Always Christmas morning, although there was one year where my gran and I had been to midnight mass so when we got home we got to open one present each.

6. What tops your tree?

Now that I’m in control of the Christmas decorations it is always a star, a little silver glittery star but when I was really little my mum used to top the tree with a creepy looking gold angel.

7. Do you prefer giving or receiving presents?

Giving. I love shopping for presents, well shopping in general but that’s a post for another day, I love looking around and thinking about what people like and what will get them excited. Does enjoying wrapping presents count as a reason to prefer giving? I love sitting one night on the run up to Christmas, wrapping everyones presents while watching Christmas movies.

8. Handmade Christmas cards or bought?

In all honestly I don’t send Christmas cards, my mum sends cards and puts all of our names on them :) However if I did send cards then I would like to think I’d attempt handmade cards.

9. Real tree or fake?

Real. There is nothing like the smell of a real tree. You can’t beat the look of a real tree either. No matter how good, a fake tree doesn’t look as full.

10. What do you wear on Christmas Day?

We have always had a tradition for dressing up on Christmas, not over the top, I'm going to a party look but a nice dress or skirt is a must.

If you’ve posted a Christmas tag on your blog make sure you leave me the link in the comments so I can check it out or copy this one and paste in the comments.

Luisa

xo

It’s the first weekend of December which means it’s time to snuggle up on the couch with some hot chocolate or tea and indulge in all the Christmas movies that the T.V has to offer. I have a few favourite movies that I have to watch first every year. With that being said, my favourites in no particular order are:

• The Grinch
• The Polar Express
• Jack Frost
• The Holiday
• The Muppets Christmas Carol
• The Santa Clause 1,2 and 3
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Miracle on 34^th Street

These are all films I have loved since I was little and have grew up with so every year come December first, I play these on repeat throughout the month, getting a little more excited with each one.

Do you have any favourite films to get you in the Christmas spirit that I haven’t mentioned? Let me know in the comments to I can give them a watch.

Luisa

xo

There’s nothing quite like a festive bake, with a deliciously flavoured cake topped with bright Christmas themed icing. This year I thought I’d make a Christmas tree inspired giant cupcake. This cake is the result of my over excitement in Lakeland at all of the themed Christmas cake decorations, lots of green, red and glitter. What else could you ask for in a cake? If I’ve peaked your interest and you want to know how to make my Christmas tree giant cupcake then check out the recipe below.

Ingredients:

340g Plain Flour

375g Caster Sugar

100g Good Quality Cocoa Powder (don’t use drinking chocolate)

3 Large Eggs

1 Cup Buttermilk

450ml Oil (I use vegetable oil)

½ Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

½ Tsp Salt

For The Icing:

500g Unsalted butter

1kg Icing Sugar or Confectioners Sugar

1-2 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

To decorate: 

Round Sweets (to use as baubles)

Green Food Colouring

Silver Modelling Paste

Optional edible lustre

Method:

This recipe is very much like the basics of a muffin mix, you will need two mixing bowls, one that can hold all of your dry ingredients and a larger bowl for both wet and dry. 

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 and line your giant cupcake case with butter and flour.

Start by sifting all of your dry ingredients into the smaller of the two bowls then taking a whisk, mix through your ingredients to ensure they are evenly combined. Your mix should be a pale chocolate colour. 

In your other bowl add all of your wet ingredients and using your whisk, mix until combined. Don’t worry about the lumpy yellow mix, the end result is delicious. Once you separately mixed your wet and dry ingredients, you want to combine them in the larger of the bowls where you mixed your wet ingredients. Taking your whisk, stir mix until well combined.

Pour mix into your cupcake mould and bake in the oven for about an hour and 10 minutes or until cake is springy to the touch. Take out the oven and leave to cool in the mould for 30 minutes to allow the sponge to firm. If you try to take it out of the mould at this point, the soft sponge will crumble. Once firm, turn out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool through.

In the meantime make your buttercream. Start by beating the butter until fluffy and pale. Once fluffy, gradually add in your icing sugar to get beautiful butter cream. I like to wait until I add my last batch of icing sugar to add in my vanilla but this can be added at any point. If your icing becomes too stiff to work with add 2-3 tbsp whole milk so you have perfectly pipeable buttercream. As this is the icing for our Christmas tree, I also added in a little green icing gel and beat the icing until evenly covered.

Now for the fun part, decorating. You can decorate any way you like but I like to keep it simple. I left the bottom half of my cupcake bear as the chocolate cake resembled the tree trunk with the cupcake grooves acting like the markings on bark. I then piped rosettes all over the top half of the cake and filled the cake using the same buttercream ( I filled the cake with buttercream prior to colouring green). To turn our tree cake into a Christmas tree I cut a silver star using a little silver modelling paste and pierced with a small piece of florists wire which I then stuck into the top of the cake, every Christmas tree needs a star. I then got red crispy m&m’s and scattered these among the piped swirls to act as baubles. I also made little striped candy canes using some coloured fondant I had left from a previous bake. This is where I stopped decorating my tree but you could go into full on Christmas mode with different coloured baubles, ribbon and tinsel. To finish and give my cake some Christmas sparkle I sprayed the cake with edible lustre.

Happy Baking.

Luisa

xo

How many people can put their hand up and say they struggle buying gifts for people at Christmas? Who can say that Secret Santa’s are the hardest to buy for, being on a restricted budget and usually with a limited knowledge of the recipients likes and dislikes. Not to worry though, I have put together a guide to what I think makes a good Secret Santa gift.

The office Secret Santa recipient is one of the trickiest people to buy , they are the one you don’t talk to often enough or have personal conversations to know what they personally like. For this person I like to stick to the basics, a bottle of wine or chocolates, maybe a nice candle or a scarf. If you want to be a little more personal take a look at what your colleague keeps on their desk. Do they have hand moisturiser? Do they wear gloves or a hat to work? Looking to see what they bring to work is a good indicator as to something you know they will get use out of. 

Below is a list of some of my favourite Secret Santa gifts I have found: 

The Chocolate Company Milk Chocolate Stirrer-John Lewis £3

Cowshed Wreath Cracker Skincare Set-John Lewis £10

Alphabet Filled Scented Candle-Next £4

It’s Skin Macaron Lip Balm-£6

Happy Plugs Earbud Headphones-Urban Outfitters £15

Winter Luxury Collection Diffuser-Next £20

Moose Sock in a Box- Next £6

Happy Jackson Vodka Water Bottle- John Lewis £6

Moonstone Glow on the Go by Becca- Cult Beauty £20

Charlotte Tilbury Legendary Party Eyes- House of Fraser £20

Desktop Ping Pong- Asos £6

Sardonyx Fire Hand Git Set- & Other Stories £15

Boot Socks in Gift Box- Asos £10

Marvel Heat Change Mug- Asos £8

Luisa xo

I thought I’d kick of Blogmas with a review of Lush’s Santasaurus bubble bar. Isn’t this little guy just the cutest? Move over santa, here comes a Christmas dinosaur. 

Santasaurus is a new product to lush this year for the holiday season and is part of the bubble bar family. It smells like the soap, Honey, I Washed The Kids which is one of my favourite scents. Thanks to the bergamot oil infused in this product it has a lovely toffee smell, perfect for a winters evening bath. Also found in this little Christmas T-Rex is Brazilian orange oil and cream of tartar which is what makes it bubble and froth and gives it the light, bubbly texture. This bubble bar comes on a lolly stick making for an easy dunking. I like to dunk it in the tub and swirl it for a few seconds to build up the bubbles. Doing this, I usually get three to four uses out of my bar (I like a lot of bubbles).

For me this is the ultimate Christmas bath product with its cute design and homely, comforting scent. It is the perfect product for a pre Christmas pampering or to relax after a stressful day of work. Santasaurus does give my bathwater a slight green tinge but thankfully it doesn’t transfer onto the bath or my skin.  

As Santasaurus is a limited edition Christmas product, I will definitely be stocking up over the coming weeks. Have any of you tried a Santasaurus yet? Do you have any favourite Lush Christmas products?

Luisa

xo

Just A Quick Life Update...

Hey guys, like the title says I thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you. My blog has been void of any new content for months and i’m so sorry! I’ve wrote loads of posts which are all saved as drafts but I haven’t found the motivation to post them, I read them through then decide they need work and it has become a bit of an endless cycle. Until now.  I’m back, with lot’s of new posts and a few tweaks in my content/writing. Months ago I asked you guys what you thought I could do to keep you coming back to have another read and have tried to incorporate this into my blog. Please let me know if you think there is anything else I can do to improve, I’m always looking to update so that you enjoy what you see.

Like I said I’m back with new content, starting with Blogmas. I’ve been thinking it over for weeks and reading other blogs posts from Blogmas’ past and thought why not so please watch out for new posts daily in December starting with a review of some of the Lush Christmas range.  Enjoy.

Luisa

xo

A Scottish Girl In New York: I came, I saw, I Contoured.

I'm currently in NYC for the September weekend and over the four days I'm here, I plan on visiting a lot of places: from the theatre on broadway to restaurants and of course the shops that line 5th Avenue and beyond. My memory's of the trip will get hazy over time as memories do so I thought doing a mini blog series: A Scottish Girl In New York would help keep those memories alive. If you haven't read the 1st instalment, click here  or the second.

Since we don’t have one in the U.K, Sephora is like the holy grail of makeup shops for many, myself included meaning that a trip to New York is not without a little (or a whole lot) or Sephora indulgence. 

I make a point of getting a few products from brands we don’t have in the U.K, mainly things like foundations, powders and concealers as I can turn myself into a walking canvas of swatches. This trip I purchased Tarte’s maracuja creaseless concealer in the shade fairly light neutral. This is something I have been eyeing up for months and on many occasion have almost purchased online, taking a gamble on the shade. The concealer is a really thick consistency making perfect for under the eye and after purchasing a shade lighter than my skin tone, is great for brightening as well.

I also picked up Too Faced’s natural eye palette. I have seen so many photos and videos of people using this palette and the looks screamed perfect everyday eye makeup so of course I had to have it. It has a mix of matte and shimmers meaning I can get a look ranging from au natural to a little bit jazzy.

Being a little bit of a lipstick enthusiast (okay, a complete fanatic) I had to pickup a lipstick. I picked up a YSL Rouge Volupte Shine lipstick in the shade Beige Blouse. It’s an incredibly, hydrating, glossy lipstick that has a your lips but better colour. It is fast becoming my everyday lipstick as it can be paired with any look.

The next thing I picked up is one that I’ve been buying for years, Laura Mercier Invisible Pressed setting powder. I love using this to set my makeup in place. I use the loose powder version of this product to bake under my eyes and the hollows of my cheek but this is the product I apply everywhere else.It leaves my face feeling so soft and my makeup doesn’t budge all day.

I’m the person who gets distracted by all the minis and travel sized products in pots at the checkout so it’s no surprise that I picked up a few while waiting to pay. The first I picked up was Benefit’s Porefessional primer. This was one of my very first primers and one I used to love. It minimises pores and leaves your skin looking even and so smooth, the perfect base for your makeup. It’s definitely a product that I’ll be repurchasing in full size.

The last was another at the counter mini and another by Benefit. I purchased Hoola bronzer, a matte bronzer that makes for the perfect contouring product. It’s a fairly dark powder but no so dark that it looks out of place on my pale skin. The little travel pot is perfect for on the go as it doesn’t take up too much space in my makeup bag.

It’s safe to say I had a successful shopping trip in Sephora and had I had more dollars and time I definitely could have spend more time in there. Would you like me to do a full review on some of my purchases? Let me know in the comments box.

Luisa

xo