Christmas Home Decorations Inspiration

Hello everyone,

I  have a cute little Christmassy post for you all today. It is a Christmas Home Decoration Inspiration, I took these pictures this weekend but unfortunately didn't have time to write the post and get it up. But we have it now so let's have a look.

This first little piece of decor is a variety of swirled faux tree branches. These are here all year round but get decorated for Christmas. I like it because it is quite a simple idea, just to get standard Christmas tree decorations and some baubles and dress it up.

This is a view of the windows/door. This pattern of decorations is somewhat symmetrical, however, the pieces on the centre of the windows are different. On the right we have a trio of silver glittery stars, each with a bell in the centre and over on the left, there is two silver mirrored hearts. Down the centre of the wooden frame, there is two wooden spoons which have been decorated by a family member and given as a gift.

Additionally, in the centre of the wooden frame, there is this bronze bell bauble which reads 'Noel' and has patterned snowflakes and stars around it.

On each far side of the window, there are these bell baubles, similar to the previous mentioned one, however these are half green, half red glitter with star-shaped holes in them.

Moving onto plain walls in the hall, there is a string of brown felt gingerbread men and ladies. These are really cute and make the walls look less bare and more festive.

These bird ornaments are there all year round but have been decorated just by adding one little red bow to one corner.

The completed wall looks like this.

On this huge, chunky-frame mirror, a red bell bauble has been added to the centre at the top. This is similar also to the previous ones but has holly and berries with some red ribbon at the top of it.

This statue of the girl is an all year round ornament, but I'm not entirely sure about the silver deers as they look like reindeers so might just be a seasonal decoration. The statue has had it's festivity fix by adding a small red bow to her neck and what looks like a piece of mistletoe or holly and berries to her head.

The Christmas Tree. So beautifully decorated and full of lights, beads and happy decorations. It is however a shame to see no star or angel at the top.

I recently learned that in Spain, they tend to have more nativity scenes around their homes rather than a tree as they symbolises the meaning of Christmas but the tree has no real meaning.

This piece is hard to describe as I'm not fully certain on what it is. It seems to be tree-like pieces draped across the front of the mirror. Lights and decorations have been added and hang down which give a icicle effect. I have no idea how this is staying up or how it has been done, nevertheless, I still like it. It is unusual, pretty and festive.

This is one of my favourites. It is a cute little table arrangement of decorations. There is a decorated plate on a stand which had been made and given as a gift by a family member. Two different types of angels, a small little gnome-like Santa figure, and three trees which are all year rounders but fairy lights have been added into the back one and it makes it look extremely cute and homely.

Finally, the fireplace arrangement. A glass angel at the back in the centre, two reindeer statues to the right, penguins and polar bear statues on the left and a glass decoration with spells 'Noel' in the centre at the front.

Wow, okay! That's that done. Sorry if that seemed to drag on, but I hope you enjoyed looking at these decorations and they have inspired you to do up some little bits around your home or they may have given you some ideas how you could change things up a bit if you do the same things every year.

Christmas is getting closer and closer and the faster it's coming, the more unprepared I feel!

Christmas Countdown:

7 DAYS TO GO!

Speak to you very soon!

Aoife 

Christmas Video & Exciting News

Hello everyone,

If your a regular visitor to my blog, you may have realised that you didn't get a post last weekend. I apologise for that but I have an explanation. The reason why you had no post to read was because I was working on something special. I decided to give it a go but at the same time was aware that I wouldn't have time to put up a post as well.

I have uploaded my first YouTube video onto my channel and I want to share it with you all. Instead of a Christmassy house decorations post, I thought this would be something a bit different. 

Here's the link, please go and check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4rhk-gqD7U

Aside from that, I have officially finished school for Christmas which means I have more free time to write some posts. I have a post that will be up tomorrow from this weekend but I also have some exciting news that I've been planning. I've wanted to write about this for so long but I've kept it a secret until now.

Depending on how much you enjoy reading my blog, this will have different affects on you. During the time I have off, you will be seeing a lot more of me.

I have planned a Christmas Blog Week. It will be from December 20 - December 24 for 5 days and each day I am going to do a post on something I have cooked/baked/made...etc.

I hope you look forward to it and you enjoy it.

Let's begin our countdown to Christmas:

8 DAYS TO GO 

Christmas is coming to Town

HAPPY 1st of DECEMBER!

Wow! It's going to be Christmas before we know it. I recently took a trip to town with some friends and the Coca Cola Van from the 'Holidays are coming' advert was there. 

You all must know by now how unreliable my phone seems to be when I want some blog pictures, any other time when I don't use the pictures for nothing, its fantastic but we just have to overcome this dilemma. 

I love how Christmassy everything looks this year and I'm feeling festive early than I used to, and I love it. All the shops seem to have made an effort and I hope you are all feeling Christmassy!

This month, I am doing the December Photo-a-day challenge so go and follow my instagram @connellaoife and you can do it too. Start as soon as you can you can catch up and tag your photos with the hashtag #FMSphotoaday (http://fatmumslim.com.au/). 

Aoife

Festivities

Hello everyone,

It seems we have had to say a bitter-sweet goodbye to Autumn and a Festive welcome to Winter. The temperature makes it feel like Winter but I've yet to see snowfall. 

Anyways, I want so share some of my exciting festivities that I have this year. I was going to do just a Christmas socks post but then I wanted to add a new nail varnish and Lush Bubble Bar.
So lets not waste any more time and get on with it.

First of all, I have these big chunky slipper socks and they are so cosy and warm. They are from the men's department in Primark so they're absolutely huge but that's what makes they so snuggy. They have little rubber grips on the bottom, if you're a clumsy person, you wont fall over. I don't like these little things because I like sliding on wooden floor in my socks but they're are worth owning. I think these were £3.00 or £3.50.

How excited do these pictures make you feel? These are 1 of 5 that I'm going to show you. These are grey with holly and berry print and the occasional white polka dot. They have red toes and red heels and a red band across the top. 

Oooh, these ones are exciting. They have white toes, heels and band on the top. They are red and white striped like a candy cane and they have Christmas puddings and little red stockings on them.

Oh I just love these ones too. These have navy toes, heels and band. They are plain white and they have candy canes all over them. I love how simplistic these are and the colours go well together.

I think these just say "CHRISTMAS" - if any of them do, it's these. These are very Christmassy. Plain red with white toes and heels and a thin red and white striped band. They have white polka dots on them and a snowman on each side of the ankle. I don't know how well you can see it in the picture but the snowman's body is textured and fluffy. They are so adorable and the things you expect most at Christmas are on these socks - Snowmen, snow flakes (kinda) and red and white. 

These don't seem as Christmassy after experiencing the previous ones, BUT, these say I heart Santa, and the heart is 2 candy canes! I don't if this is just me getting over excited but I love this pair too. These are all navy with red toes, heels and band. They have white polka dots which look like snow and say I heart Santa. 

Well isn't this just magical. Sparkly, shiny, glittery bronze nail varnish. So Christmassy and festive and I love that there is actual glitter and colour in this, I haven't been very lucky with glitter nail varnish in the past as it doesn't seem to go on very well and they lack glitter but I am highly impressed with this one. It looks gold in the picture and I think it seems to be more of a gold tone than bronze but apparently not. This is 'Blazing Bronze' from Miss Sporty's Oh My Gem! collection. 

Finally, this little guy. Look how sad he looks, yet he's still so cute. This is Lush's 'The Christmas Penguin' - very creative name...

But he smells great! And I mean, great! He is a bubble bar so I'm going to save him for Christmas Eve when I have my bath. I don't want to crumple him up but he'll make me smell nice.

That is all of my festivities for this post. I hope you have enjoyed them and it is making you get into the Christmas spirit. I know that more of my readers are American rather than British and Thanksgiving is a bigger celebration for you, but Christmas is great so I hope you enjoyed this.

For now this is goodbye.

Aoife

Day In The Life: Painting

Hello everyone, 

So I hope you enjoyed last weeks Day In The Life, I do have another one this week from last weekend. Kayleigh was painting her room so I offered help and she decided she wanted me to go and help. So I did. This this is what happened.

Okay, so first of all, I was up at 8:55 and I picked out some very old clothes that I don't wear to paint in. 

Showered, dressed and bag packed, I headed out and walked to Kayleigh's house, earphones in and wrapped in my scarf.

Another blurry picture like last weeks reoccurring ones. It was a lovely morning and this was quite an autumnal road (I do hate the word autumnal but there was no other way to put it). 

Then, when I arrived after 35 minutes, we began peeling off the wall sticker so we could paint. Little to my knowledge, her grandad hadn't yet been with the paint so we had a lot of time to waste before we even had any paint.

Therefore, this resulted in a walk to the local Tesco supermarket. I didn't pick up a basket so I walked around with many items in my hand.

We spent more time than we probably should have by these cute innocent smoothies with wooly hats on. Our favourite one was the green one in the middle. It's hat is just so cute and autumn themed, which I love.

Then we had a fangirl moment over how cute these bottles of cloudy lemon were. Look how nice they are. But we were unsure why everything in the particular section were in packs of 2. I'm not sure if you can see it but around the middle of these bottles, there is some cellophane that's keeping them together. 

Time to pay and finally get out of the shop. Despite previously looking very healthy with my smoothies and packets of fruit, I am scanning a chocolate doughnut here (above).

There's that smoothie which if I remember correctly was Tropical Fruit and if you have a Tesco supermarket near by where you live and you like most fruits, I recommend this to you and I think it's 2 of your 5-a-day.

So when we'd arrived back at Kayleigh's house. We had paint! So it was into scrubs and get going.

Of course, it didn't go as smoothly as intended and we ended up with very dirty hands covered in paint.

This was a result of our messing about which is quite cute to be fair but not productive. 

We were painting a dark purple wall white so it took a good few coats and because of how late we got the paint, we didn't have enough hours to finish the job so we left a patchy room and my mum came and picked us up to take us back to my house as Kayleigh couldn't sleep in her room.

So that's pretty much how my day ended, I had sweet and sour chicken for dinner if you care at all and then we watched Mamma Mia, went to bed, scrolled through tumblr and laughed until 3:00am. 

So thats a wrap. See you soon.

Aoife 

Day In The Life: London

Hey everybody, 

So after a very very stressful and looong week, I finished it by going to London, but I'm not explaining in too much detail because I decided to do a Day In The Life which explains everything.
So, here is my, at times, very blurry Day In The Life: London.

I began my morning at 5:25 - got up, washed, dressed and tried to be as quiet as possible.

I went downstairs, packed my bag ready for the journey and got my drink ready for the train. If your interested in what was in my bag for the journey, it was: my book "The Difference A Day Makes" by Carole Matthews; My doodle/mini sketchbook (which I may show you one day in a post), my camera, my earphones and some biscuits and my drink.

The taxi came at 6am and I headed for the train station.

This was my early, sunrise train journey which took about 2 hours. I took only this picture on the way there, I spent most of my time listening to music and doing other things.

I then went to Oxford Street and done some shopping and then went to a food court for lunch and had a Pizza Hut pizza and KFC chips. It tasted as good as it looks.

Obviously, nothing goes as smoothly as you hope so after lunch, I slid my rubbish off the tray into the bin, walked out of the food court, into some more shops and realised that my brace wasn't in my mouth. 

I ran back to the food court with my Mum and she asked the cleaner if he would take the bin out, kindly, he did and my Mum expected him to find my brace wrapped in tissue in the bin but instead he brought her a fresh pair of rubber gloves and she had to do it herself. I found my brace and did NOT put it back in my mouth. 

It was once of my most embarrassing moments, I felt as though the whole world was watching as my Mum searched through the bin. True Story.

This is a delightful picture of some Christmas decorations on Oxford Street outside Primark and Tottenham Court Road Station.

Next and final stop was Harrods. If you don't know Harrods, it is a huge department store which sells everything but can be quite expensive depending on what you're looking for.

I found these really cute 'Beanie Ballz' in the toy department and felt as though they had to be a part of this post.

Fun Fact: I saw the creator of Moshi Monsters too who was there signing his books.

Harrods clearly made an effort with the Christmas lights and I am a fan of the trees with lights on that you can see in this picture.

Now for some super-blurry "I'm running through London undergrounds" pictures.

I can't remember what station this one was at, I visited quite a few during the day. This is getting from one station onto an underground to another station.

Underground Map check to see which line we take to Euston.

Please stand on the right as we go down the escalators to catch the tube.

No seat, as per usual, but a surprising amount of breathing space around me, I was not squished against an unamused stranger. Hanging onto this pole for my dear life.

Fast pace walking, carrying bags which I am surprised got a decent photograph (to be honest, it did take a few go's but this isn't bad) as I run into Euston station to get home.

More escalators.

More of this nonsense. 

Wow, very blurry picture. If you live in London or you have visited there before, you'll know how regular this process is. Insert you ticket, catch it at the top, run through before the barriers close and run to catch your train.

I then came up the escalators out of the underground into Euston station...

...and went into 'Ritazza' got a Mocha Iced Frappe and carrot cake and waited for my train home at around 7ish.

Woah. That was long. Believe me, the day went much quicker than this post seems to have gone. I had a great day except for having stomach cramps for the first 2 hours and almost going home. I'm glad I didn't because it was well worth staying.

I thought you might have enjoyed this because I think I have wrote 2/3 London posts already and there's eventually only so many things you can take pictures of before I start repeating myself so I thought this would be a bit different and a more enjoyable idea.

I really enjoy doing Day In The Life posts personally so I might do it each weekend when I have something interesting to share. Hope to see you again this weekend and you can see what I've been up to if there's anything in particular.

Aoife