My first Instagram post!

This is a monumental day. I am now officially a "proper" blogger. I have Instagram on my new phone and (with a little help) I'm about to upload my photos in a swanky little grid. Hopefully.

Suh-weet! From left to right, top to bottom:
1) Collecting brooches for my wedding brooch bouquet 2) Engagement cards 3) Self portrait
4) Self portrait with leggings 5) Jake! 6) Tall tea and muffins in Starbucks (my happy place)
5) Lunch of champions 6) Martin on his phone 7) Starting a photo album.

In case you suck at technology like me, check out Picmonkey - it's a free photo editing suite (sweet!) that allows you to create collages and do fun things like this:

This was my lunch today. I have PMT. When I have PMT (in shouty letters) I make bad decisions. The Pot Noodle was one of those bad decisions! But it was tasty.

That's about all I've been up to. I started cleaning my decking today....but it rained. Again.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, the rain in England is less selective.

Guilty pleasures and hair envy

From schoee.blogspot.com via google images

Hello! I'll just quickly let you know that that wasn't my only bad day this week....the day after my whinging, I bent my engagement ring!!! Major sad face. I will have to take it to the jewellers on Sunday and maybe not wear it to work (although that's where I spend 90% of my time - boo hiss.)

Anywayz, my house mate is out and I'm enjoying the peace and quiet with a little You Tube time. I have some major hair envy going on at the moment - Instagram, Pinterest and You Tube are all fuelling my jealousys (is that a word?) Jealousies?

I've been growing my hair for a while now (last cut - 3 months ago ) but it seems to be stuck at a certain length. Only these "hairspirations" are making me persevere!

This is where the guilty pleasure comes in......I think teenagers have the best hair. I LOVE  those huge, side swept fringes (bangs!) that they have going on! Their hair is glossy and big and messy. I may be 30 but I feel a definite need for huge hair. That's where You Tube provides the inspiration. Just type in "easy back to school hairstyles" and there is a plethora of skinny (mostly American) girls with massive hair and cute, little faces. And they know how to do make up too!

I was NOT glamorous at school. My school was strict about everything so I doubt I would have been allowed big hair and tons of slap. And now I'm just a bit too old to pull it off. Bad times.

Check out this girls video - her braces are so cute!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XZvCHOov7mg

Do you have hair envy? Or do you get bored, cut it all off and then cry? That's never happened to me.....

Why did I get up?

I think I should have stayed in bed today.....it wasn't a truly awful day but it was irritating enough!

A stupid ebayer is trying to claim that the Muubaa jacket I sold them is fake - which it's NOT. Idiot. Then I found out some people from work went out and didn't invite me. Sad face. Cue feeling like I'm back at school and haven't been invited to the sleepover. After that, I had to squash a huge spider sitting at the bottom of my stairs. I was very brave....

Luckily, I had an ok time in town buying my besties birthday present and treating myself to a wedding planner notebook and coloured pens! I also found out that we are getting a Cafe Rouge, Wagamamas and Pizza Express in our shopping centre......this could be seen as good or bad news! I love Wagamamas with a passion so that might be costly :)

I bought some cute, heart shaped earrings in the Topshop sale but when I came to take out my old earrings at home I found that they're stuck! (I put the little plastic bit on after the backs and it won't come off...) So, I broke one of my earrings trying to get them out and still haven't actually managed to get them off. Super irritating. Grrr.

All a bit crappy really! Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow life will be less out to get me....

Anouncing my engagement!

Hello! I know I've been quiet this week - that's because I went to Alton Towers with the boyfriend! We got free tickets through The Sun newspaper and booked a cheap hotel online for a couple of nights. Whilst we were there, my lovely boyfriend proposed! Here is my beautiful ring:

So, I was able to go out and buy my first wedding magazine....which I have already spent hours perusing!

Brides magazine with free CD-Rom

We were really lucky with the weather for the day we spent at Alton Towers and had a fabulous time. I took some photos using Instagram on my new phone - but I don't get how to upload them to Blogger in a nice little grid? Can someone help me out there? Please?!

Here are a few of those photos, uploaded in the regular way!

Looking a bit deranged....

Well, this probably isn't a very interesting post for most of you, but tough. I'm tired! I worked today and spent all day yesterday driving across the country in the rain....so cut me some slack! I'm off to hunt the web for wedding venues......

Photo booth fun! (a tutorial)

Hello, and how are you today? Oh well. You'll get over it!

My bestie came round today and I had prepared a little bit of fun for the afternoon. I've seen a lot of photo booth action going on (mainly wedding related) and thought it looked pretty amusing - and easy.

I found an awesome website called Oh Happy Day where you can easily print your own photo booth style masks and moustaches etc. So I whipped out the printer but soon discovered we were low on black ink. No problem, I have a Sharpie!

You will need scissors, glue stick, card, wooden skewers and printed masks.

So, as I was saying, my blacks came out grey so I coloured them in with black Sharpie.

Then you need to cut roughly round the edge and stick it to some stiff card.

Then all you need to do is stick a wooden skewer or dowel on the back to hold it by!

Not sure you can really call that a tutorial but anywayz.....here they are in action!

My bestie Hannah - wearing a pearl collar inspired by me!

When I finally get married, I have so many diy plans! And this will be one of them!

Shopping haul!

Hello!I've been a little bit carried away on the buying front recently but I hasten to add that as always, it was on a budget!

The other day, I bought some red skinny jeans from Primark for the bargain price of £11 but I bought the size 12 and after wearing them for about half an hour, they went a bit baggy. So I took them back today and bought 2 other colours. (I was being indecisive as always!)

Here's the red ones:

Red skinny jeans - Primark, £11.

I personally think this outfit makes me look a bit short and dumpy but the boyfriend said I looked ok. Make up your own mind!

Here are the newer colours I bought:

One pair is a sort of teal blue colour, the other are a baby blue - not white as they look in the photo! They also had some lovely dusty purple ones but not in my size :(
I also bought the butterfly top that I'm wearing above - it was only £8 and has a pink zip down the back...

It doesn't end there...my lovely boyfriend also bought me a cute bag and also a stick on fisheye lens for my mobile phone - both Primark! The bag was £3 on the sale and the lens was £2. Bargain...

I picked up my new, free glasses from Specsavers:

Awful photo but you get the idea! Speaking of photos, I went to Gunwharf Quays yesterday to meet a friend and found a beautiful, leather photo album in the Paperchase outlet. It was only £15 down from £30 and it will hopefully give me the inspiration to put all my old photos somewhere a bit more accessible.

And last but not least, I ordered a new phone from a Groupon offer that was on last week! It's the brand new Samsung Galaxy S3 and it arrived today. I am only charging it so far as I'm a bit scared to turn the thing on tbh! It's huge. HUGE. My old phone (Motorola Defy) fits in to the screen size of my new phone. I'll give it a go in a minute...

I spent a good hour looking at phone cases on Amazon, but as usual, I couldn't decide. Ideally I need a phone case company to send me a freebie! Who can hook me up??

I think that's plenty of spending for now....although I saw some lovely black and white brogues on the Dune website in the sale....BUT I'm still undecided as to whether brogues are amazing or ugly. Answers on a postcard please...... x

My day of free stuff!

I had a really "lucky" vibe going on today. Doesn't happen often.... it all started in my local Sainsbury's!!

I was only in there to buy some rolls for my lunch but the self service machine printed me a coupon for a free razor..... so off I went to investigate and managed to leave with a free razor worth £8.99! It was in conjunction with my Nectar card but other than that I'm not sure what I did to deserve it! (There was a little bit of hassle when the coupon wouldn't scan but the shop lady sorted it for me...)

Free razor from Sainsbury's

I think it's probably a men's razor but who cares? Although I'll probably chop my legs to bits with it later....
So that got me in the more for more freebies and I had remembered seeing on my contact lens packet from Specsavers that I could get free glasses form the £45 range as I get my contacts monthly and by direct debit.

Of we went to town to investigate. I thought they might not do it for me as I recently got new glasses on the buy one get one free deal.......I picked some from the £25 range and sat with my fingers crossed whilst they typed in my details. Et voila! New glasses FREE to pick up next Wednesday!

Lyra glasses £25 from Specsavers or free with contact lens scheme!

There wasn't as much to chose from as there is online but these were different enough to my other two pairs. You can also go for more expensive ones but pay a much cheaper price ie pay £10 for ones from the £69 range. Such a good deal!!!!

My freebies didn't stop there..... in West Quay they had a stand giving away free loo roll!

Not the most exciting thing, but it's FREE and that's all that counts today!

I also dropped in to Rush (a hairdressers in Southampton) and got my fringe trimmed for FREE! It didn't really need it to be honest but I was in the "free" mindset!

That's almost where the free ends although I did park for free at Leisure World and I could have had a free cup of tea in Ikea as my boyfriend has one of their "family cards" - it gets you a free cuppa between Monday and Friday I think. But we didn't. We went to Starbucks and had tall teas and muffins (skinny muffin for me of course.)

I spent a little bit of money in Primark, on some burgundy skinny jeans (£11) and a black duck print top (£8) but we won't talk about that....

Duck print top and skinny jeans from Primark

I'll do an outfit post soon so you can see them in action. You won't be seeing that polka dot playsuit (that I blogged the other day) anytime soon as I wore it and the zip broke. Sad times. However, after seeing the pics I took of me wearing it, I decided it made me look wide!

Let me know how you get your freebies - I'm always looking for new tips!