Happy with the Skin You're In

If somebody told you that you had to freedom to do whatever you wanted to make yourself happy being you, would you? As a girl growing up in a convicting society, I never felt all that comfortable in my own skin and from listening to friends, other bloggers, campaigns, girls (and guys, I'm not ruling you out!) I know that this isn't uncommon. Lately that's started to change for me and on a selfish whim I'd like to write about it, maybe inspiring others who still don't feel comfortable in themselves to realise that it's okay, and start to feel at ease. 

I could elaborate on how I didn't accept myself a lot more but I'll keep that on the down low, and tell you how I've noticed and spurred a slow change in this cocoon of a mind and body I've been living in. It noticeably clicked with me when I chopped a bunch of my hair off the other day. Now that all sounds very dramatic! It was cut professionally but I've had a 'fear' of having my hair cut shorter for as long as I can remember. It may have just been the breeze on my face but I felt lifted and a little more free, sort of like the feeling of bumping into someone after a year or two, being wowed by how much of a different person they are- I felt like that!

Yeah yeah, it's only hair, but combatting this fear and realising that I was almost hiding behind my hair, making it a larger part of my persona than it needed to be, whether people saw it as that or not. I had long hair through school, through bad and good times so cutting it felt like cutting a lot of the 'old me' away, shedding a skin, in the best way possible.

                                                                  

Essentially, you can create yourself. Like a Sim! There are an infinite number of possibilities on how you can choose to live your life, who you hang around with and what you let influence you as a person. If you'd feel happiest having bright pink hair and a stick on moustache then do it! If you want to get fit and tone up then do it! If you want that tattoo, then do it. Dismiss the unhealthy standards of society and do you. 

Imagine if all of the time you spent ranking others above you was spent bettering yourself, putting effort into living a life that would let you prosper! Shed the skin that you don't feel comfortable in and treat yourself to a slow recuperation and creation of the person you want to be (but please stay healthy) and enjoy the ride.

Growth is needed for you to become someone based on what makes you happy. If you do this only for yourself, that's when you'll feel comfortable and proud of being yourself, as long as you're not hurting anyone. Then you can start to accept yourself for the forever freckled, short, tall, metal loving, pop loving, gay, straight, hair dye craving, tomato ketchup in the fridge-or-cupboard-putting person that you are. Embrace and create yourself to change and love yourself. See my other post on changes in society and state of mind here. 

Have you taken a step in yourself or your life recently? How have you come to accept who you are? 

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I appreciate all other opinions and experiences with this topic but the views 

expressed in this post are from my own personal experience. *

Happy with the Skin You're In

If somebody told you that you had to freedom to do whatever you wanted to make yourself happy being you, would you? As a girl growing up in a convicting society, I never felt all that comfortable in my own skin and from listening to friends, other bloggers, campaigns, girls (and guys, I'm not ruling you out!) I know that this isn't uncommon. Lately that's started to change for me and on a selfish whim I'd like to write about it, maybe inspiring others who still don't feel comfortable in themselves to realise that it's okay, and start to feel at ease. 

I could elaborate on how I didn't accept myself a lot more but I'll keep that on the down low, and tell you how I've noticed and spurred a slow change in this cocoon of a mind and body I've been living in. It noticeably clicked with me when I chopped a bunch of my hair off the other day. Now that all sounds very dramatic! It was cut professionally but I've had a 'fear' of having my hair cut shorter for as long as I can remember. It may have just been the breeze on my face but I felt lifted and a little more free, sort of like the feeling of bumping into someone after a year or two, being wowed by how much of a different person they are- I felt like that!

Yeah yeah, it's only hair, but combatting this fear and realising that I was almost hiding behind my hair, making it a larger part of my persona than it needed to be, whether people saw it as that or not. I had long hair through school, through bad and good times so cutting it felt like cutting a lot of the 'old me' away, shedding a skin, in the best way possible.

                                                                  

Essentially, you can create yourself. Like a Sim! There are an infinite number of possibilities on how you can choose to live your life, who you hang around with and what you let influence you as a person. If you'd feel happiest having bright pink hair and a stick on moustache then do it! If you want to get fit and tone up then do it! If you want that tattoo, then do it. Dismiss the unhealthy standards of society and do you. 

Imagine if all of the time you spent ranking others above you was spent bettering yourself, putting effort into living a life that would let you prosper! Shed the skin that you don't feel comfortable in and treat yourself to a slow recuperation and creation of the person you want to be (but please stay healthy) and enjoy the ride.

Growth is needed for you to become someone based on what makes you happy. If you do this only for yourself, that's when you'll feel comfortable and proud of being yourself, as long as you're not hurting anyone. Then you can start to accept yourself for the forever freckled, short, tall, metal loving, pop loving, gay, straight, hair dye craving, tomato ketchup in the fridge-or-cupboard-putting person that you are. Embrace and create yourself to change and love yourself. See my other post on changes in society and state of mind here. 

Have you taken a step in yourself or your life recently? How have you come to accept who you are? 

Follow me on Bloglovin! Follow

I appreciate all other opinions and experiences with this topic but the views 

expressed in this post are from my own personal experience. *

Robbing a bank with the Joker/MCM Comic Con

Stick a stamp on me, I'm officially a comic con approved nerd. If you didn't already know, my boyfriend (also writer) and I have been working on a comic for a good year or more now and were funded by Ideas Tap to print it and take it to conventions. On Saturday we took ourselves to Manchester to make connections and fangirl over real life superhero's.

The queue was like a parade and I'm pretty sure that the only costume I didn't see was a Nintendog. I'm gutted that I didn't dress up as I love any excuse to look a acceptably, explicably crazy for a day but I've been too busy to make a costume lately! Next year *shakes fist*. The irony of talking about Transformers in my last post and seeing real life Bumblebee from Transformers at Comic Con made me giggle more than it should have, and fangirl even more. We saw so many Harley Quinn's, old and new, a good few Jokers and I even got to rob a bank with the Joker's friends. Not really, but they were pretty cool.

We caught up with our favourite graphic-novelly friends, Twisted Dark, and Neil let us into an awesome secret which I won't disclose here (but you should definitely follow them to find out in due time) and met a load of cool artists and writers, so many that I actually can't remember the names of them all. All I know is that my macbook is now speckled with cool stickers and that I have more zines and comics to add to my collection! My favourite zine of the day and new discovery being from Childish Butt-Vomit who you can check out here.  We queued for a while to be drawn as a sloth by them but then were drawn in by the hilarious, crude comics, unforgettable!

With a tummy full of hotdog (I don't actually really like hotdogs) we touched swords (lol, samurai swords) and I fangirled over the mountains of Totoro merch that I couldn't afford. However I did purchase a few Kick-Ass comics, glossing over the crazy items that I might get for Josh for his birthday- watch this space sir. 

It was such a great day and I'm so glad we got the chance to attend! When we got home, I got dressed up and went to a friends 21st where we all shouted to Tenacious D songs and got acceptably, explicably drunk. What a day, eh? :)

Have you done anything or been anywhere awesome in the last week? Let me know if you're going to any of the comic con's this year or next and I'll meet up with you!
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Robbing a bank with the Joker/MCM Comic Con

Stick a stamp on me, I'm officially a comic con approved nerd. If you didn't already know, my boyfriend (also writer) and I have been working on a comic for a good year or more now and were funded by Ideas Tap to print it and take it to conventions. On Saturday we took ourselves to Manchester to make connections and fangirl over real life superhero's.

The queue was like a parade and I'm pretty sure that the only costume I didn't see was a Nintendog. I'm gutted that I didn't dress up as I love any excuse to look a acceptably, explicably crazy for a day but I've been too busy to make a costume lately! Next year *shakes fist*. The irony of talking about Transformers in my last post and seeing real life Bumblebee from Transformers at Comic Con made me giggle more than it should have, and fangirl even more. We saw so many Harley Quinn's, old and new, a good few Jokers and I even got to rob a bank with the Joker's friends. Not really, but they were pretty cool.

We caught up with our favourite graphic-novelly friends, Twisted Dark, and Neil let us into an awesome secret which I won't disclose here (but you should definitely follow them to find out in due time) and met a load of cool artists and writers, so many that I actually can't remember the names of them all. All I know is that my macbook is now speckled with cool stickers and that I have more zines and comics to add to my collection! My favourite zine of the day and new discovery being from Childish Butt-Vomit who you can check out here.  We queued for a while to be drawn as a sloth by them but then were drawn in by the hilarious, crude comics, unforgettable!

With a tummy full of hotdog (I don't actually really like hotdogs) we touched swords (lol, samurai swords) and I fangirled over the mountains of Totoro merch that I couldn't afford. However I did purchase a few Kick-Ass comics, glossing over the crazy items that I might get for Josh for his birthday- watch this space sir. 

It was such a great day and I'm so glad we got the chance to attend! When we got home, I got dressed up and went to a friends 21st where we all shouted to Tenacious D songs and got acceptably, explicably drunk. What a day, eh? :)

Have you done anything or been anywhere awesome in the last week? Let me know if you're going to any of the comic con's this year or next and I'll meet up with you!
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Easy Lemonade Scones with 3 ingredients

Until this recipe, I was never a huge fan of scones. They were always too dry, too crumbly and never sweet enough for my never satisfied sweet-tooth. Then mum gave me this recipe made from only three ingredients.

All you need is some self raising flour, some lemonade (none of that diet lemonade stuff) and double cream. Don't worry, they don't taste lemony at all though it could be quite nice if they did! It takes about 10 minutes, if that, to throw all of the ingredients together and 10-15 for them to bake in the oven. I'm pretty convinced that our oven is a Transformer because of the horrific noises it makes when it's asked to do something but we'll let that one slide; if it was a Transformer, I'm sure it would've eaten these scones by now.

Makes 9-10 scones, 25 mins max
Ingredients:
3  cups self raising flour
1 cup 'full-fat' lemonade (You need the sugar in it, so don't get diet)
1 cup double cream

Method:

1. First, preheat your oven to 200C then cut a sheet of greaseproof paper to the size of your baking tray. If you don't have greaseproof paper then greasing the tray with butter or putting down flat muffin cases should be fine. 
2. Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and make a small well in the centre of the pile. This is where the lemonade and cream will go!
   
3. Pour the cup of lemonade in (slowly) then add the cup of double cream to the well too. Stir gently with a knife until the mixture comes together, then use your hands to kneed it gently, keeping all of the air in. This is important as they won't rise if you punch the air out! 
4. Pat the dough out into a 1" thick base, then use a circle cutter of your choice to cut out the scones. 
   
5. Place the cut out dough onto the greaseproof paper or greased baking tray. Make sure you spread them out evenly as they will rise and expand a little in the oven. Place them in your preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until risen and golden brown!
6. While the scones are baking or cooling, you can use the rest of the double cream to make whipped cream as a topping. Who doesn't like cream and jam? Simply whisk on a low speed (a lot quicker with an electric whisk) until thick and fluffy then place in the fridge to cool while your scones do the same.
7. Finally, cut your scones in half and top with whatever you like and tuck in! Enjoy.

Did you make this recipe? Let me know if you did and what you thought of them! What's your favourite baked treat? See my breakfast bagel recipe here.  

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New York, New York

I'm sitting here on my bed in the morning writing this, giving myself 45 minutes before I start work for the day. At the moment, 'work for the day' is drawing up mandala's and vectors for one of those adult colouring books- and getting paid for it! My 9 year old self might say I'm living the dream. Which I am, minus the New York apartment and hefty bank account.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy right now and it's crazy that I'm doing this at the age of nineteen having not even finished my degree yet but, it's always been an almost equal dream of mine to be living it up in the big apple. Whether I could actually cope with that, I don't know!

I'm from the Lake District,  which I absolutely adore. Sometimes (and I know that this isn't true) it feels like I've grasped at every opportunity that it's offered me and I've ran out of places to go here, places to push myself. But I'm still a country kind of girl at heart, I learned that after moving to Preston city, instantly missing the fresh air and rolling hills that make me oh-so happy. You can see more about this here.

So why New York? Perhaps it was watching too many american Disney shows as a kid, perhaps it's from watching Breakfast at Tiffany's a million times or the incredible fantasy of the New York apartments that roll down my Pinterest feed over and over again.

How about the blogs I have been religiously reading lately? From LoveTaza to LeHappy. I tend to think of the little things that I could do, often no matter what city I'm in, decorate an apartment, go for coffee in a wooden coffeehouse, meet new friends on the subway (after being on the tube I realise this can rarely happen) but with NYC being the set of so many incredible movies, anything seems possible, right? Who knows. I might bump into Spiderman if I'm nifty enough.

Or it could be just the need for something different, big movie makers, art curators, dollar bills and towering skylines instead of the beautiful, amazing yet so familiar craggs, fells and rivers. The idea of the 'American Dream' is so enticing; right now I'll settle for the possibility of travelling in the next couple of years.

After all, I should probably visit it first ;)

Do you have a dream location or living space? Or have you ever been to New York? Tell me about it all, take me with you! 

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New York, New York

I'm sitting here on my bed in the morning writing this, giving myself 45 minutes before I start work for the day. At the moment, 'work for the day' is drawing up mandala's and vectors for one of those adult colouring books- and getting paid for it! My 9 year old self might say I'm living the dream. Which I am, minus the New York apartment and hefty bank account.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy right now and it's crazy that I'm doing this at the age of nineteen having not even finished my degree yet but, it's always been an almost equal dream of mine to be living it up in the big apple. Whether I could actually cope with that, I don't know!

I'm from the Lake District,  which I absolutely adore. Sometimes (and I know that this isn't true) it feels like I've grasped at every opportunity that it's offered me and I've ran out of places to go here, places to push myself. But I'm still a country kind of girl at heart, I learned that after moving to Preston city, instantly missing the fresh air and rolling hills that make me oh-so happy. You can see more about this here.

So why New York? Perhaps it was watching too many american Disney shows as a kid, perhaps it's from watching Breakfast at Tiffany's a million times or the incredible fantasy of the New York apartments that roll down my Pinterest feed over and over again.

How about the blogs I have been religiously reading lately? From LoveTaza to LeHappy. I tend to think of the little things that I could do, often no matter what city I'm in, decorate an apartment, go for coffee in a wooden coffeehouse, meet new friends on the subway (after being on the tube I realise this can rarely happen) but with NYC being the set of so many incredible movies, anything seems possible, right? Who knows. I might bump into Spiderman if I'm nifty enough.

Or it could be just the need for something different, big movie makers, art curators, dollar bills and towering skylines instead of the beautiful, amazing yet so familiar craggs, fells and rivers. The idea of the 'American Dream' is so enticing; right now I'll settle for the possibility of travelling in the next couple of years.

After all, I should probably visit it first ;)

Do you have a dream location or living space? Or have you ever been to New York? Tell me about it all, take me with you! 

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8 Photos of Happiness

My first tag! I was tagged by Helena's Teabreak a week or two ago in her 8 Photos of Happiness. It's taken me this long to choose just eight of them! I even got out the old hard drive and rooted through the photos on there but came to the conclusion that these more recent photos make me happiest, maybe just because the memories are still pretty solid in my mind.

The rules:

• Thank your nominator/s and link them in your post.
• Link the creator (Ariel’s little corner of the internet)
• Post your 8 photos of happiness;
• The photos can be anything that represents a moment, object, place or feeling that makes you happy.
•  Pop in a brief description of the photo, why you chose it or let the photos do the talking!
• Spread the happiness and tag up to ten other bloggers!

1. Walking Langdale. This was taken at the top of a hill (I can't remember which!) that my mum, auntie, cousins, sisters and dogs hiked in May this year. I hiked it in heeled boots because I didn't know we we going on a walk, pretty proud of that feat! We visited a little lodge by a river that my auntie had rented out for a week and caught up with the whole family. Theres little more I love than feeling free and standing on top of a windy fell with the world below me is something that will always make me smile.
   
2. 2002, I believe. Sledging in the street. From the 'lego jackets' to the slope that doesn't look half as big now as it did then, this picture makes me happy. My sister is the one in the from and  I'm the one in the back. More than anything, the helmets make me laugh! Some of the best wintery memories of mine are sliding down ''the hill' (not a hill at all) with my little sis.
   
3. Ah, peaceful. I guess I associate happiness with being free because that's the main reason that this photo makes me happy! It's actually of my friend Sophie, taken last summer on a super hot day when we spent a day in the lakes (literally). Swimming in Fell Foot then heading to Coniston with a load of friends before we all left for uni a month later. It was one of the most memorable days of last summer! See a couple more photos of this day on this post.  
   
4. CAMDEEEEEN! In January a bunch of my best, best buds and I went to London for a few nights and stopped in Hammersmith. I got to take my boyfriend to Camden for the first time where we ate street food and had beers on a roof. This is all of us before we lost half of us on the tube. We found our way back home eventually!
   
5. November 2014, after saving up for weeks in summer I treated Josh to seeing his idol SLASH in the flesh for the first time! Not going to lie, I enjoyed the experience pretty much the same as he did. We got to the very front and had picks and confetti thrown over us at the end. Josh described it as "Like seeing Batman in real life. Not Bruce Wayne or Adam West but real life Batman. You know it's real but it shouldn't be."
   
6. Centreparcs, in March this year. This photo was taken when Josh and I strayed from the path and went exploring in the woods. I always feel so at home in the wild haha. We spent the weekend with him, his family and a huge group of friends at a lodge in Whinfell forest. I got to shoot arrows at archery for the first time, have a huge stack of pancakes for breakfast and copious amounts of Bucks Fizz by the pool. Every year I look forward to going again. Seriously hoping Josh doesn't fob me off so I can go next year too ;)
   
7. Of course there was going to be one of my dog! Duh. He's my furry best bro and we do everything together when I'm at home. He even busts down the bathroom door in the mornings when I'm on the loo. This is him having a nap in my arms.
   
8. Download Festival 2014! By this point in the festival we were very drunk and very stinky. This is another group of the best people I know and one of the best times with them! While we were doing beer bongs, a guy with a cool cowboy hat came up to us and we made him down a pint- he then took this photo of us all on his phone and walked off. Somehow he managed to find one of our friends on Facebook a few weeks after the festival and sent us this photo! Happy times.
   

I'm tagging Essays and Wine, Izzy, Marie's Window, Emilymarieloves, Sugarpea and Desirée. 

If you do this post then let me know! I'd love to see your photos of happiness. Are there any memories you wish you'd got a photo of but didn't?

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8 Photos of Happiness

My first tag! I was tagged by Helena's Teabreak  a week or two ago in her 8 Photos of Happiness. It's taken me this long to choose just eight of them! I even got out the old hard drive and rooted through the photos on there but came to the conclusion that these more recent photos make me happiest, maybe just because the memories are still pretty solid in my mind.

The rules:

• Thank your nominator/s and link them in your post.
• Link the creator (Ariel’s little corner of the internet)
• Post your 8 photos of happiness;
• The photos can be anything that represents a moment, object, place or feeling that makes you happy.
•  Pop in a brief description of the photo, why you chose it or let the photos do the talking!
• Spread the happiness and tag up to ten other bloggers!

1. Walking Langdale. This was taken at the top of a hill (I can't remember which!) that my mum, auntie, cousins, sisters and dogs hiked in May this year. I hiked it in heeled boots because I didn't know we we going on a walk, pretty proud of that feat! We visited a little lodge by a river that my auntie had rented out for a week and caught up with the whole family. Theres little more I love than feeling free and standing on top of a windy fell with the world below me is something that will always make me smile.
   
   
   
2. 2002, I believe. Sledging in the street. From the 'lego jackets' to the slope that doesn't look half as big now as it did then, this picture makes me happy. My sister is the one in the from and  I'm the one in the back. More than anything, the helmets make me laugh! Some of the best wintery memories of mine are sliding down ''the hill' (not a hill at all) with my little sis.
   
3. Ah, peaceful. I guess I associate happiness with being free because that's the main reason that this photo makes me happy! It's actually of my friend Sophie, taken last summer on a super hot day when we spent a day in the lakes (literally). Swimming in Fell Foot then heading to Coniston with a load of friends before we all left for uni a month later. It was one of the most memorable days of last summer! See a couple more photos of this day on this post.  
   
4. CAMDEEEEEN! In January a bunch of my best, best buds and I went to London for a few nights and stopped in Hammersmith. I got to take my boyfriend to Camden for the first time where we ate street food and had beers on a roof. This is all of us before we lost half of us on the tube. We found our way back home eventually!
   
5. November 2014, after saving up for weeks in summer I treated Josh to seeing his idol SLASH in the flesh for the first time! Not going to lie, I enjoyed the experience pretty much the same as he did. We got to the very front and had picks and confetti thrown over us at the end. Josh described it as "Like seeing Batman in real life. Not Bruce Wayne or Adam West but real life Batman. You know it's real but it shouldn't be."
   
6. Centreparcs, in March this year. This photo was taken when Josh and I strayed from the path and went exploring in the woods. I always feel so at home in the wild haha. We spent the weekend with him, his family and a huge group of friends at a lodge in Whinfell forest. I got to shoot arrows at archery for the first time, have a huge stack of pancakes for breakfast and copious amounts of Bucks Fizz by the pool. Every year I look forward to going again. Seriously hoping Josh doesn't fob me off so I can go next year too ;)
   
7. Of course there was going to be one of my dog! Duh. He's my furry best bro and we do everything together when I'm at home. He even busts down the bathroom door in the mornings when I'm on the loo. This is him having a nap in my arms.
   
8. Download Festival 2014! By this point in the festival we were very drunk and very stinky. This is another group of the best people I know and one of the best times with them! While we were doing beer bongs, a guy with a cool cowboy hat came up to us and we made him down a pint- he then took this photo of us all on his phone and walked off. Somehow he managed to find one of our friends on Facebook a few weeks after the festival and sent us this photo! Happy times.
   

I'm tagging Essays and Wine, Izzy, Marie's Window, Emilymarieloves, Sugarpea and Desirée. 

If you do this post then let me know! I'd love to see your photos of happiness. Are there any memories you wish you'd got a photo of but didn't?

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How to Survive First Year of University

If you're reading this then chances are you've been through the grueling task of applying for uni through UCAS, been through the nerve-wracking interviews and in anyone going for an art courses case, weeks of portfolio arranging and rearranging. 

Don't even talk to me about painting right now. It's hard to believe that this time last year I was getting places confirmed and buying countless items for my to-be bedroom, bathroom and kitchen!

For me, the interviews, travelling and waiting to hear back were the most stressful parts of uni so far and I hadn't even got there! At one point I turned down a chance to be interviewed at one of my choices because I'd changed my mind and it wasn't what I expected. At another point during the student finance application I wanted to throw my computer across the room (damn you SLC) because it was so stupidly difficult to figure out.

BUUUT... a year on and after a lot of partying and hand-shaking, I've finished my first year and am completely rilled up and ready for my second! 

Wherever you've chosen to study, on whatever course, here are some tips taken from my personal experience.

Don't get a job in the first few months of being there. If you're super skint (which is usually the case after freshers) then get yourself a Saturday job or a couple of hours a week instead of a part time. Let yourself settle in and make a good impression on your tutors and friends-ultimately, they're the ones who you'll need to lean on during uni, not your boss (maybe your wage a little). 

I got a job in my second term and as much as I enjoyed it, it stressed me out as I'm bad with time management and made me miss a deadline, bringing my final grade for the year down.

Try and get along with your neighbours. It's standard in first year to pull a few pranks in halls so expect some cups of water in your corridor etc etc. This is all fun and games, until someone puts washing up liquid at the top of a staircase and someone gets hurt. That happened haha.

We pretty much sparked a full on war with our first year neighbours and looking back probably shouldn't have taken it so far that we were scared to hang out with each other anymore!

Don't skip classes. Sometimes the most funny thing about a class is that you're all hungover, but once you skip one class (to play Injustice with your flatmate haha), theres nobody at home to tell you to go back and it becomes a more frequent occurrence. 

Set yourself a budget for each week. If you get easily stressed out by budgeting, make it easy for yourself. Open an e-savings account (ask your bank how to do this, it's free) and put ALL of the money you don't need for the week into that, leaving only what you allow yourself to spend until the next week so you don't go overdrawn.

Shop for some food before you move in. Usually, everyone in halls will move in at different times in the same day. This means that the supermarkets are going to be super busy that day and the stock runs out pretty fast! Get yourself some easy meals and lunches from home until you can do a proper shop, you're not going to want to cook much in freshers week anyway!

Make yourself feel at home. Subtle things such as using the same washing powder as home, taking the same bedding and streaming your favourite day-time TV (if your flat doesn't have a license) can all help to make you feel more at home. 

I didn't think I'd get homesick but I missed having my fluffy friend Mylo in bed with me in the mornings, especially on my days off. I totally didn't get a fluffy replacement cushion to tuck next to my pillow, don't know what you're on about. 

Comfort food is great sometimes too. Chilli was always my go-to comfort meal and a big tray of flapjack was my flatmate's when he felt homesick.

Get to know the area. Now you know your neighbours, get to know where you live. Go exploring with your new flatmates! On bonfire night we went down to the docks together, though it took a while to find, we grabbed a load of sparklers and threw them like firecrackers into the water. Somehow we ended up in a shisha café/steakhouse for a coffee afterwards before we headed home.

Befriend your tutors. If you want to enjoy your time at uni become friends with your tutors. We went through a hard time when one of our classmates passed away and we all ended up in the pub together. One of our tutors put braids in our hair and the other managed to make us laugh, taking our mind off it. They don't just grade your work, they're also there if you need any help, uni related or not!

Try to enjoy it! Like I said in a previous post, the past three years that I've been with my boyfriend while he studied have gone so fast and now he's graduated! I can barely believe I'm going to be moving up a year in September! Enjoy it while you can. Make lifelong friends, get drunk, go exploring, rent a house, study and celebrate.  Go get 'em.

Have you thought about or been to uni? What was your experience like or what are you most looking forward to? I'd love to hear about it!

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Rose petals & Relaxation

As you might have read in my previous post, it's been a busy few weeks! There's nothing like a bit of R&R to make you feel yourself again which in this case this was Roses and Relaxation. While at the Retro Rendezvous festival last week (see what I got up to here) I picked up some goodies from the Little Lakeland Soap Co. including this sweet tube of bath salts and rose petals. 

It only cost me around £2 and I only used half the tube before I was bathing in bliss! I've never been a big user of bath salts, except the sparkly little ones you used to get in gift packages at Christmas, but these have changed my mind and have slowly crept onto par with bath bombs! 

My favourite product will always be a great Lush bomb (like the Dragon's Egg, which I wrote about here) but it's been a small dream of mine to have a deep bath with petals all over the surface and I sort of got that with this, in a smaller quantity. Did I mention they sell large packets too? 

Soothing nostalgia swept over me as I sprinkled the crystals under running water. The smell reminded me of the rose water or 'perfume' as I called it when I made it from borrowed roses and leaves at the ages of 7 and 8. Stepping out of the bath I felt so clean and fresh.

I'd love to see the same mixture with lavender in too. Definitely a great remedy for stress relief at the end of the day or if you just want to pamper yourself. 

Have you tried bath salts before? What do you do to unwind?

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Life Lately: End of an Era?

The past few weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster, a literal ride between my home town and the city where I study, between graduation parties and helping my boyfriend to move out from his house I've felt a little stretched- as much as I enjoy doing it.

Quite a few huge events have happened the past two weeks; shortly after the Retro Rendezvous festival last week, my boyfriend and I finished the comic book that we've been working on for the past year (or more, at intervals). It's been quite the journey from an idea we had before I entered the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in 2013 with a piece of comic art I'd made illustrating his writing, to the full 28 pages of art, poetry, flash fiction and short stories that it is now!


We were funded £500 by Ideas Tap and honestly we couldn't have afforded to get it off the screen never mind the ground (see what I did there, uhuh) if it weren't for them!

Last week we drew up and edited the final pages. It was so surreal to hold the proof in my hands. It's been so insaaaanely long coming that I felt a mixture of relief and happiness when I knew it was finished. All being well, the PDF will be off to the printers next week! We just started a twitter page which you can check out here.

One exciting thing after the other, Josh graduated the other day! Josh and I have been together since he was in his second term of 1st year- I've seen him go through every year of his degree so it was an awesome experience seeing him in a cap and gown. Made me excited to graduate myself even though its another two years off! We went out for a meal with his family and got to dress up all posh. I had to put tape over my boobs (SELLOTAPE *facepalm*) as I left it too last minute to get a stick on bra.

A dangerous game after a bottle of bubbly. The whole thing made me want to wear an evening gown more often but for now I'll stick to my skinny jeans.

On the Monday night I got to celebrate my friend Charlie's graduation too (the one pulling a face in the polaroid below!). The past two weeks of celebrations are coming to an end and it's starting to sink in that we won't all be in the same house again. 

I'll still be living in Preston though and I'm sure there'll be more than enough chances for us to meet up again soon! It'll be weird coming back in September and have everything be different but seeing my friends earn their degrees has made me so motivated to finish mine and do it well.

Mostly I'm just excited to move into my new house by the river in a couple of months! Watching so many homeware hauls, finding so many house inspirations etc just makes me want to throw cute cushions and coffee machines everywhere haha. Which reminds me that I'll definitely be doing some homeware posts in the future! So it's sort of the end of an era but really it's the start of a new one, at least for these guys. Can't wait to see where the next few years take us all!

What have you been up to lately? Have you or anybody that you know graduated?

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