PRETTY YOUNG THING

It was my baby shower yesterday so I thought i'd share a few pictures from the day. I thought it would be nice to document the day on my blog so I can look back at it but also so people who are planning a baby shower can get a few tips and ideas.

We did it on a Sunday afternoon as I felt this would be a good day for most people who work Monday to Friday,  on the invite I said from 3pm onwards so there was no pressure for everyone to arrive at 3 but most people came between 3-4 which was good. We had a few people who came abit later due to work commitments but as I work in retail I was expecting this to happen.

The day was pretty casual, I just wanted people to have a good time, eat some food and have a drink and mingle. We organised a few games but there was no obligation to play them and they were just dotted around for people to have a go. We did stick the dummy on the baby which went down well!
We also did Guess what's in the Nappy and Guess the baby food, These were good because people could play if they wanted to and they could do so at their own pace.

We also had some areas for people to leave messages for us, my mom had seen an idea on pinterest where people write on nappies so you have some fun messages to read when your changing the babies bum. We also had a little station with prediction cards and some note paper for people to leave messages, I think I'm going to make a little scrapbook of my baby shower and include these in here.

We had lots of amazing buffet food and my mom made my amazing cake and she also made the cupcakes. We had sandwiches, pizza, sausage rolls, and your usual party food, snacks, sweets etc. We wasn't sure if people would be drinking alcohol or not, apparently people don't usually drink at baby showers because the mom can't drink but it didn't bother me so we bought some wine, we did Prosecco with elderflower cordial which went down well and lots of soft drinks like juice, coke and more. I wanted to make a mocktail but we didn't have time in the end.

As you can see we had lots of decorations balloons, bunting, pom poms so everywhere was very pink. Everyone was really impressed with the decorations and it looked fab. My mom also made a nappy cake which was a really lovely gift idea as well as a gorgeous decoration.


We were very spoilt and my lovely friends and family went crazy with the presents, cards, balloons and vouchers and we are all very lucky and blessed to have such amazing people in our lives and bubba is one lucky and very well loved baby already. We had lots of amazing gifts and I have no idea where everything is going to go, little bubba has lots of clothes, toys and I don't think we will ever need to buy bubble bath, baby lotion or shampoo.

I need to get some Thank You cards for people to thank them all for their generosity. I also need to thank my amazing momma for pretty much organizing everything and making the amazing cake. Clint was amazing too, he was around in the morning to help us with food and last minute decorations and ended up staying all day he took photos and made sure everyone's drinks were topped up and he made sure I was eating and drinking. The day was quite overwhelming and we had alot of people in the house and I did struggle a little with being stood up and mingle-ing but I think we managed and i'm sure everyone had a lovely day.

Today I thought i'd share some gift ideas for her! In my family we have alot of birthdays throughout August and September and most of us are women so it gets abit crazy and I have lots of gifts to buy. My birthday was on Monday so I thought it would be fun to put together a few gift ideas for her and include a few bits I actually got for my birthday aswell as some gifts that I would gift to my friends and family.

First up is flowers! I love getting flowers and love having flowers around the apartment. I always buy flowers for my mom and sometimes for my friends and family. If my mom is working I will usually order flowers to get delivered to her work, You can find some really beautiful flowers online at Flying Flowers they have a huge selection of bouquets for any occasion. They offer free standard delivery or you can upgrade to guarantee delivery. I just search for 'lilies' as they are my moms favourite and it brings up lots of amazing bouquets full of gorgeous lilies.

I really want the Naked Heat Palette and think it's such a good gift idea for any beauty lover. You get 12 really decent size shades and they are colour's that would suit most people as there's some gorgeous brown/natural shades. I already own a few of the Urban Decay palettes and they are my favourite eyeshadows. The quality is amazing and worth every penny.

You can't go wrong with a candle. Whether you opt for a cheap supermarket brand one or go for something more luxurious like the Winter candle from The White Company. I love the candles from TkMaxx and would recommend checking them out if your on a budget but want to get a gorgeous designer candle.

I have a charm bracelet from Thomas Sabo which i've had for a few years. They are such a good gift idea as you can buy so many different charms for them. The bracelet wasn't very expensive and the charms vary in price but start at around £20. Clint got me a gorgeous heart charm for my birthday and had it engraved which was so thoughtful and it was my favorite gift. My mom also got me a little pink baby-grow charm which is super cute!

Perfume is also a good gift idea, again whatever budget you have you can find something for everyone. Next do some really good fragrances and you can usually get a good deal if you go to places like Bodycare or Savers. If your after something more expensive then check out YSL Black Opium, it's my all time favourite perfume. I've had a few bottles now and it's just such a gorgeous smell.

I was so excited when I opened up my new stylPro brush cleaner. It's an electric brush cleaner that dramatically speeds up cleaning and drying your brushes. If you've not seen one before then check it out. I've used my sisters before and it's amazing, I can't wait to clean my brushes.

Finally I love getting sweets and chocolate for my birthday and I spotted this retro sweet hamper on Flying Flowers and it's such a cool idea. You might be struggling what to get someone, maybe you have a friend or family member that lives across the country and you don't know what to get them, you can have this sent straight out to them so you don't have to worry about paying extra for delivery and they get to eat lots of yummy retro sweets, they also have lots of other hampers to choose from.


Have you got any birthday's coming up? Is your family like mine and all the birthdays are bunched together or do you have birthdays all through the year? What gifts would you like to recieve for your birthday this year?







*collaborative post

We haven't had a holiday this year so i've been looking back through my photos of our previous holidays. I've been to lots of amazing places over the last few years, Florida, Ibiza and the Canaries. Destination2.co.uk are running a campaign all about Catching and Creating Memories While Travelling so I thought i'd share some of my favourite holiday memories and what I do with my holiday photos.

You can check out one of my recent blog posts all about my favourite holiday moments, we recently went to Ibiza and Florida and had the most amazing time.

I love taking photos on holiday, of places and people. I like to look back at photos and remember the amazing times we've had and I always seem to remember the good times better when i'm looking back through photos.

Most of my photos just end up on my laptop in folders and on memory cards, I sometimes upload them to Facebook so that my family and friends can see them( yes i'm one of those annoying friends that uploads their holiday snaps)

I also have a few photo albums and keep some of my favourite snaps in these to look back on. These are handy to show photos to family that don't really like computers or don't have Facebook.  I also like to just sit and look through them every now and again, I've always liked having actual photos printed out and it's so easy to do now as there's so many app's you can use to print photos and it's really affordable to get them printed now.

As well as my photo albums I have lots of frames dotted around my apartment these are just a few of my favourite frames but we have them in every room, even the hallway. We have had some really amazing times together over the last 4 years and I love having photos around to remind us of all the special times we've spent together.

We are about to have a baby and i'm so excited to go on our first family holiday, i'm going to take photos of absolutely everything and I will be filling up photo albums with our family snaps to keep them safe forever and ever. What do you do with your holiday photos, do they just end up on your laptop or do you get them printed out? Do you have any amazing holidays coming up? If you need some inspiration then check out lots of amazing destinations here on Destination2.co.uk






*Collaboration with Destination2.co.uk, they did not pay for this post however they did gift me a voucher to buy some new albums/ frames for my photos

Today's post is all about my top tips for renting. I've been renting for about a year and a half now and have had a few ups and downs along the way. I found blog posts such as this really helpful when we were looking at renting as if was all new to us and we had only ever lived at home with parents. Below are a few of my top tips for renting, if you have any questions and I haven't covered it below then just send me a comment or email and i'm happy to help or check out the HomeLet website for lots of information about renting for tenants and landlords.

ORGANISATION - You need to be organised when renting, from looking at properties to moving in. When looking at properties you need to know how much you are willing to spend and how much you can afford, you need to know what you want, how many bedrooms?  a garden? bath or shower?

Write a list of properties you want to enquire about with estate agent information and numbers and make sure you have all your documents ready to go! We found renting was very speedy you need to get your applications in quickly, they usually need to see your financial documents and get you to fill out forms with your passport details so have everything to hand.

When you actually move in it's good to go into the empty house/ flat etc and take photos of everything. That way you have proof of what was in the house when you moved in and what kind of state it was in. This makes it easier when your trying to get your deposit back when moving out. Also write a list of these things too just incase you loose the photos as a backup. We have a folder where we keep all of the bills, documents and I have kept this list safe in here.


PAYING THE BILLS - As well as your rent, you have other bills to pay like council tax, utility bills like water, gas, electric and internet. I set up a joint account with Clint and we use this to pay all of these bills. We each put money in on payday and this covers all of these bills so we don't have to worry. Try and set up your bills so they come out at around the same time, all of our bills come out on the first of the month which makes it easy to remember. Use comparison websites to get the best deals on your utility bills, don't just stick with what the previous tenant had.

INSURANCE - You should get some kind of content insurance should you have any kind of accident, this covers your stuff as most landlords insurance doesn't cover your things. Also appliances should be checked regularly. Our boiler and gas appliances are checked every year to make sure it's safe.

TENANCY AGREEMENT- Make sure you have an up to date tenancy agreement. If you have been living at the same place for a while or you decided to have a short term tenancy agreement then have a look over this and make sure it's up to date. You may have originally agreed on a 6 month tenancy but now a 12 month tenancy would suit you better, get in touch with your landlord or estate agent about updating the agreement if you feel it's now out of date.














* This post is in collaboration with HomeLet

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