Date Day & Something A Little More Serious...

This past week we recreated one of our very first dates as a couple that first happened four years ago. Time has flown by, it really has. It was perfect then and it was even more perfect this time around. The Derbyshire Dales are so gorgeous and I will never tire of going for a country drive. These drives are even better if they result in picking up pudding from Bakewell. We were just getting to know each other four years ago, the 200 mile distance felt like such a hindrance at first, but after hours spent on Skype, we were instantly inseperable. Four years later I still get those butterflies when he reaches out to clasp my hand with his. ♥

I am so happy.

xoxo

P.S. Okay, so this is something I will address once and only once, it has simply reached the point where, unfortunately, it needs to be said. Over the past two years that I have been blogging here I have been very lucky not to receive a large amount of nasty comments. Now when I say nasty comments I am not talking about comments which contain differing opinions to my own, that's something different altogether, that's normal & a healthy thing to have happen because not everyone is the same and that's what makes society, culture and life in general so wonderfully diverse and colourful. I'm simply talking about nasty hate filled comments that serve no purpose at all other than to waste the time of the writer who sadly doesn't appear to have anything more constructive to do with their time. 

These sorts of comments have increased a little recently and so far as I can tell they're all written by the same person, they all have a similar tone, use of punctuation and the words chosen are very consistent. I also know exactly who this person is and all that I can say about that is, I'm very disappointed. I thought better of you. If you dislike me that much; you think my life is boring, my paragraphs are too long, you even hate the little hearts I put on my instagram pictures, then I strongly suggest you don't follow my twitter account, my instagram or my blog anymore. It's not healthy! I'm completely aware that not everyone is going to like me, that's just part of life & I don't expect every comment to shower me with compliments, but this is going too far the other way. 

Every hate filled comment simply gets deleted and I will not give it a second thought. I'm very lucky that I'm that little bit older now and I'm lucky that over the last couple of years I've grown into generally quite a secure person with a life filled with smiles, happiness and wonderful things to look forward to. I can only hope that the person who is leaving me such nasty comments isn't doing it to other girls too, perhaps younger girls or girls that aren't quite as content and confident with every aspect of their lives just yet. Nasty words can cut deeper than you could ever imagine when you're not in the best of places in life. You have no idea about everything going on in someone's life, they could be having a completely terrible time of it and are trying their very best to put a brave face on and concentrate on the positives until some twonk comes along and ruins everything. I know because I've been there and it was the worst time of my life. Don't be that twonk. 

So before leaving a hurtful, nasty and venomous comment perhaps just take a moment to consider the consequences of your actions, consider clicking that X in the corner of the screen and concentrating on making yourself happy that day instead of trying to ruin someone elses.

If you have received any horrible comments, please please please don't take the words to heart. Delete it, shake it off & don't ever give it a second thought. You're better than that.

Five Things & Five Blogs I Love Friday #36.

One. Blue Skies & Fluffy White Clouds. 

Summer has finally arrived and who doesn't love looking up and seeing a bright blue sky dotted with fluffy white cotton wool clouds?! I get a lot of inspiration from the sky, I think its incredible how you can look up one minute & then again five minutes later and it can be totally different yet equally as beautiful.

Two. I Love You To The Moon & Back print from Yellow Button Studio.  

(C) Yellow Button Studio.

I adore Etsy and I have been looking for super cute artwork to make our home extra special. I've been wanting to create a bit of an artwork collage in the hall way and I think this print from Yellow Button Studio would look beautiful as part of that.

Three. Starbucks Refresha. 

I have seen so many people instagramming these yummy looking drinks from Starbucks recently and I instantly wanted to try one. They didn't disappoint - the berry one is gorgeous and the lime tastes just like a mojito minus the alochol. Super yummy! 

Four. This Feather Bracelet from Cheap Frills. 

Cheap Frills is such a gorgeous jewellery shop and I have completely fallen in love with the Freedom Feather bracelet. It's such a simple piece that looks really elegant and adorable while making a statement all at the same time. Beautiful!

Five. Summer!

Everything seems so much brighter and happier when the sun is shining. This week has been so lovely, I've been wearing pretty summer dresses, minimal make up with a bright lip & I've even been wearing my hair up which is something I almost never do! I think I look super odd with my hair up but it's been so nice to feel the breeze on my neck.

1. The Beauty Shelf. 2. Parisian Orchid. 3. Cupcakes & Cosmetics.

4. titles are scary. 5. The Katt's Pyjamas.

What have you been loving this week? 

Please leave a link to your current favourite blog! 

xoxo

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July 2012 GlossyBox: Festival Glam.

I must admit that when I first opened my July GlossyBox (♦) I was a little underwhelmed, but once I had a chance to have a little look at each product individually I'm super happy with my box. The star products of this month seem to be the HD Brow kit (which I received last year & didn't overly love) and a pretty peachy Kryolan powder (which I would have loved to have tried!) & I didn't receive either of those but that doesn't mean that this is a bad box at all. GlossyBox is all about providing products that I wouldn't ordinarily have tried, that is the case for each product this month so I'm excited to give them all a try!

Starting with my least favourite item, another perfume sample, Bex London Londoner Urban Fragrance in N6. I don't hate receiving perfume samples but this one is not my cup of tea at all. To me it smells quite masculine, which isn't a bad thing, but I tend to favour more feminine scents like Stella and Daisy Eau So Fresh. I do really like the idea behind these scents, each one seems to be designed around an area of London, this particular one, N6 is said to 'capture the elegant character of Highgate Village and the splendid wilderness of adjoining Hampstead Heath'. A full size 100ml bottle is £81.

The Awapuhi Wild Ginger Texturizing Sea Spray is the product that intrigues me the most this month. I've never had the best luck with sea sprays, I find they usually just make my hair look crispy rather than give me beautiful beachy waves and body, so I'm looking forward to trying this out. The scent is gorgeous, I don't think I have ever come across a hair product with a beautiful ginger scent to it before, so this is pretty unique to me. The scent isn't too overpowering either which I was a little apprehensive of at first. The full size 150ml bottle is £18.95, so it has a fairly high price tag & will be interesting to see if this is any better than the affordable options I have tried previously. This 50ml version retails for £6.50.

Monu is a brand I've been hearing a lot about recently but I haven't had the opportunity to try anything from them until now. The Monu Calming Cream has a green tint to it to counteract redness and I must admit the tint isn't overly appealing to me. I have tried many green tinted creams in the past after suffering with acne rosacea and I never really found they helped all that much. But I'm willing to give this a try and I'm excited to see if the formula is soothing to the skin at all. It seems to have a lot of lovely ingredients so I'm quite hopeful. The full size 15ml tube costs £14.95 which seems a lot but this is something designed to only be applied on the affected areas of skin. This tube also seems to be a 20ml sample which is a bit confusing if the full size is only 15ml.

A little extra item included in all boxes this month are three sachets from the Elizabeth Arden Gentle Hydrating line, a cleanser, a serum and a moisturiser with spf 15 & I got the products suitable for dry skin, which I have. I'm really looking forward to trying these out and I've discovered that if you squeeze out the sachet contents into little tubs with lids (the kind you decant products into to take on holiday) then you get way more uses out of them than just using directly from the sachets.

I do love receiving make up products in beauty boxes (I still think someone should put together an entirely make up dedicated beauty box!) and I was pretty excited to see a Jelly Pong Pong product this month. Jelly Pong Pong is a brand that intrigues me because it just seems so cutesy and adorable, but their prices have always been a little on the expensive side so I was never willing to purchase without seeing the products in person before. This is the Lip Frosting in Irish Cream Pavlova which you can use on your lips or cheeks for a tint of colour. For me this is a little too sticky to use on my cheeks but the colour is lovely; it blends out into a really lovely rosy, almost slightly corally glow. The scent of this reminds me of something but I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is. It gives me a happy feeling inside though, so it's definitely a lovely scent. The packaging for me is a little impractical. You only need a tiny amount but it's so difficult not to squeeze too much product out of the tube so I feel like I've wasted quite a lot. This seems to be a full sized product and 15ml retails for £10, so definitely not cheap, but I'm loving that Jelly Pong Pong are a cruelty free brand. 

Lastly, the Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse dry oil is the product I'm most excited about from this box. I remember lots of people talking about this a little while ago, I believe it has been in a beauty box before and everyone seemed to really like it. This is a multipurpose oil that can be used on the face, body & hair. On first impressions it seems really luxurious, it has a nice delicate scent and I'm looking forward to trying this out on my face and hair especially. A full size 50ml bottle is £17.50 which I think is actually surprisingly affordable.

Overall, after having a good look at each product and a little search online I'm really happy with the selection of products I received this month. There seems to be a good mix of things to try and apart from the perfume sample, I think everything will get used up! 

Are you subscribed to GlossyBox? 

What did you think of this months contents? 

xoxo

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What I Wore: I believe the world, It spins for you.

Dress: Glamorous. (♦) Fox Bag: Matalan. (♦) Belt: Matalan. Shoes: ASOS. 

Bracelet: Pandora. Heart Ring: Scape Jewellery. Sunglasses: ASOS.

You know that when you wake up just in time to see the most beautiful sunrise, it’s probably going to be a good day. After a morning of running some not so fun errands I spent a few hours in the garden with Bailey pup before escaping into the countryside for the afternoon with my boy, swinging by the supermarket on the way back and picking up some yummy snacks for a mini picnic back at home. I definitely indulged in one too many scones with jam and cream but that’s okay because they were so good! The sunshine really does make everything seem so much happier, even if I did find myself complaining that it was too hot a couple of times. Don’t hate me! But I have been spending my sunshiney days taking far too many photographs of fluffy white clouds and craving ice lollies.

I’m calling this little Glamorous Marry Me dress my Kate Middleton dress because it makes me feel super sophisticated and lovely. It's one of those pieces that is easy to dress up or down and I adore how versatile that makes it, making it possible to wear in so many different ways. It's from Glamorous which is a new online store on my fashion radar and I'm totally in love with it. Every item I have from them is completely perfect in every way. I wish it were a couple of inches longer but that’s just my fault for being so darn tall I suppose. Either that or I need to go to the gym to tone my legs. Probably the latter. But never mind, I’m currently enjoying scones too much. I opted to go up a size because in the warm weather I like my dresses to feel a little loose and flowy & I knew a little waist belt would suit the style perfectly. My usual size would have fitted absolutely perfectly so if this darling little Glamorous dress catches your eye then you have an idea of which size to go for. I couldn’t resist dressing it down a little today with this adorable little fox bag from Matalan. It’s actually quite a bit smaller that I thought it would be, usually I opt for larger bags but it’s been refreshing not carrying so many things around with me that I don’t need. It fits all my cards, my (broken) phone & a few make up bits with room to spare so it’s perfect.

The warmth has been waking me up super early so I’m not sure what I have planned for the rest of the day but it will definitely include making the most of the beautiful weather and hopefully I can convince my boyfriend to adventure into the countryside once again in search of some yummy ice cream! I hope you’re having a lovely week!

Do you love Glamorous as much as I do? What's your favourite piece from them? 

xoxo

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Refresh.

Sometimes when inspiration has all but disappeared, a step back and a little refresh is all it takes for it to come flooding back. Sticking to my typical stubborn ways I decided to begin a little make over of my layout this morning instead of doing the sensible thing, which would have been to pay someone who actually knows what they're doing. Thankfully I opted not to do anything too drastic so when I got a little stuck, a quick google search pointed me in the right direction. My background is a lot lighter now & everything is a little wider which I think makes everything seem much more airy and fresh, particularly the sidebars. There's still some tweaking left to be done, some new pages to be added & I think my header could do with a couple of changes but for now I'm happy.

A new layout calls for a little refresh of my content as well. Lately I've fallen into a rut of wish-lists & instagram posts with not a lot in between and while there's nothing wrong with those posts, I adore writing them and definitely won't stop, there's so much more that I'd like to share. Although I have been posting, I've been notably absent from the blogging world & twitter for a little while now. I'm ready to get back into commenting on blogs much more and hopefully rekindling those friendships I have stupidly neglected, if you'll have me back that is. I have a terrible habit that when things get a little overwhelming & a little too much I retreat back into my shell. It's a comfortable place to be, but at times it's definitely a lonely one and that's entirely my own fault.

The sunshine has finally arrived in the little part of England I call home and I'm so excited. There are summer dresses to be worn, beautiful places to visit and many photographs to be taken. I'm hoping for a little day trip to the seaside & picnics in the countryside. Would you like to come along? I've dug out my trusty old Olympus Trip camera that never lets me down & I'm excited to see what will come from my first film with the Lomography La Sardina. Here's to a happy summer (or winter if you're in the Southern Hemisphere!) with lots of smiles & the making of a million happy memories.

xoxo

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P.S. I have simplified my sponsorship/advert terms & am now accepting sponsors for the month of August. I have up to 10 200px x 200px spots available for a flat rate of £4 each. If you'd like to know a little more you can click here or send me over an email with any questions/enquiries! (sailorjennie@googlemail.com)

Mid Week Wishlist #7.

Dior Creme de Rose. Lavish Alice Floral Satchel. Glamorous dress. Lavish Alice Tropical Leaf Jacket. Bed Head Dumb Blonde reconstructor. Topshop Glow Highlighter. Matalan Mint Quilted Bag.

01. I feel that splurging £18.50 on a lip balm may be a little silly when I adore my Blistex lip balms that don't cost more than £3 a pot but the Creme de Rose from Dior just looks so indulgent and lovely. I'm a huge sucker for anything rose & Dior is a brand that I find myself coveting all the time. I have heard lots of good things about it though, see I'm trying to justify it to myself in my head already!

02. Lavish Alice is a fairly new brand on my fashion radar but I have fallen in love with this little vintage black and nude floral satchel. The neutral colours mean that this would go with so many different outfits and I love that the floral pattern isn't over the top, it's a kind of sophisticated floral rather than an in your face garish one. I think it's beautiful!

03. Glamorous is another brand I have recently discovered and this Chloe Black Dress with Gold Tip Collar has especially caught my eye after having a little browse around. It has such a lovely shape and I'm really loving the polka dot shirt top. The little gold collar tips are the perfect little addition and for £30 I think it's a wonderful dress all round!

04. This Tropical Leaf Print tailored jacket from Lavish Alice isn't something I would usually gravitate towards but I just think it's absolutely gorgeous! I'd wear it in a very safe way, with a simple black dress, tights and flats but I think that it would add the perfect pop of colour and it looks like it has a really flattering shape to it. At under £25 I think it's a total bargain and I would love to have this hanging in my wardrobe. I think I would wear it all the time!

05. For the longest time I thought that not conditioning my super oily hair would make it not so oily, but I was so wrong. I think my hair was just producing more oils to replace the ones I was stripping out of my hair. After a few months of not conditioning my hair properly it's not in the best condition so I would love to try out the Bed Head Dumb Blonde Reconstructor. The lightening sprays I have been using have slightly taken their toll on my ends especially and I'm hopeful that this would make a lovely little hair treatment once a week.

06. Another Topshop make up product has caught my eye and it's the Glow Highlighter in Polish which comes in a super cute little pot! I'm a huge fan of highlights, especially now it's summer because I love the healthy glow it gives the complexion making you look extra radiant.

07. Lastly, another bag from Matalan has caught my eye. Matalan are really on a roll this season, especially with their accessories and home wares! I'm a huge sucker for any bags that have a chain handle, I just love the way they look and this minty green colour is just so perfect for the summer - it's a colour that makes me happy to look at!

What are you currently coveting? 

xoxo

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What I Wore: A sunny afternoon & a Bambi dress!

Dress: Lavish Alice♦ Cardigan: New Look♦ Bag: Disaster Designs via Yumi.

Shoes: ASOS. Bracelet: Pandora.

I have completely fallen head over heels in love with this sweet little deer print dress from Lavish Alice. Everything from the bright coral colour and the heart shaped cut out on the back, to the cute little minty blue bows on the deer is absolutely perfect. Today it is grey and miserable outside once again but this afternoon full of sunshine last week was such a welcome relief from all the rain that I couldn't resist embracing the bright colours and pairing the dress with a bright minty cardigan. My Disaster Designs Dandy bag & simple ASOS Leigh flats were the perfect little additions and of course, I couldn't leave the house without my Pandora bracelet. I'm so in love with my charm bracelet, I barely want to take it off and I make sure I'm super careful with it because I would hate for my clumsy self to damage it! It's like my little baby!

It was so wonderful to be able to venture outside without an umbrella and explore the countryside a little. I met a super sweet Labrador pup on this little trip who was having the time of his life chasing all the dragonflies fluttering around. It's amazing how a little touch of sunshine can really lift the spirit & I sure do hope that we get to see a little more this summer. All of this rain is getting a bit much now. I wish I had a little holiday planned, I would love to visit Italy or perhaps the south of France and indulge on yummy foods and lounge by the beach all day long. I have been daydreaming about that a lot recently!

Are you lucky enough to be going to a super sunny location on holiday this year? 

Have you had a look at Lavish Alice? I bet you'll fall in love with everything like I did!

xoxo