A Valentines Beauty Swap

Happy V Day lovelies.
I'll be honest, to me it's just another day but it did give a good excuse to do a beauty box swap with one of the ladies on the Facebook community Beauty Box Swaps!
My swap was actually with the same lovely lady as last Valentines Day. We set our budget at £25 and tried to stick to a pink, white and red theme and I was more than excited when this box full of delights arrived!

My box was full to the brim with pretty, yummy and beautifully scented things and I love it all. Where to begin?

Valentines Day wouldn't be complete without a sprinkle of sugar so it was nice to find lots of sweet treats nestled among the other goodies in my box. I may have eaten a couple of the Maoam sticks before even taking the photos ;)

I'm in love with Yankee candles so felt totally spoilt to find that there were 9 scents in my box that I hadn't tried before and not one that I don't like the smell of. I'm looking forward to trying the sweet strawberry in particular.

As well as 9 new scents, there were also two of my all time favourite scents in there. Fireside treats is definitely in my top three Yankee Candle fragrances so this will be stashed away for when I'm running low.

On to the beauty bits, there were some Sugar Crush products from Soap and Glory; two travel sized tubs of the body scrub and a lovely big tub of the body buttercream. I love the zesty scent of the Sugar Crush range, the mix of brown sugar and lime juice just leaves me feeling so refreshed. There was also a tube of Philosophy Cranberry Medley body lotion which has been popped straight in my hand bag. I'm a big fan of Philosophy so I'm looking forward to having this at my disposal :)

How cute is this L'Occitane set? This pretty pink flowery pouch contained travel sizes of the Rose Aurore body milk, Rose 4 Reines bath and shower gel and Spring Cherry shower gel and is perfect for packing up to take on holiday. As it is, I've actually taken the bottles out and used the pouch to store some of the candles. There was a mini floral hand cream stashed away in the pouch too that smells completely gorgeous. I can slather my hands in floral hand cream and then pop on the Elizabeth Arden moisture gloves that I got and let the skin really draw in the moisturiser. Bliss right?

There were also a few little random beauties in my box including the most amazing pair of slipper socks I have ever owned. Oh goodness they keep my feet warm! I'm not sure where these are from but I own thermal socks that don't work as well at keeping my toes toasty! The cute little button badge says "love is..." ans then lists adjectives to describe the emotion. Last but not least is the adorable writing set from Cath Kidston. I'm a sucker for cute stationery so this will definitely be put to good use very soon.

A huge thanks to Jemma for my lovely Valentines gift, I hope you like yours :)
And I hope everyone has had a great V day!

Annie xx

A Beautiful Birthday Box

As I mentioned yesterday, I recently did a birthday box swap with a lovely lady from the beauty group I am part of on facebook. We set a budget of £40, gave each other a good idea of the sort of things that we liked and set off to put together a big box of goodies for one another. Here's what was in my gift-my goodness I was excited to unwrap all of these lovely things :D

As you can see, Lolly the Grumpy Kitty decided she wanted to get involved with photo taking so please excuse the massive head n the foreground :P There was such a great variety of things in this box, just looking makes me excited.

Nichola put a fab selection of sweet treats into the box. There was also a melody pop and a love hearts dib dab...they got eaten before I took the photo though. I made a best friend very happy by taking the rainbow drops over when we had a girly evening.

Just throwing this out there, but these socks are loved a CRAZY amount. They remind me of what I think a Minecraft owl would look like. And also how thoughtful to pick up something owly because of my little obsession :) The Yankee tarts are gorgeous foodie scents and because they're discontinued scents I'm really going to treasure using them.

Skincare is one of my favourite things, I love trying out new products and if you read my post yesterday then you'll already know that since trying the Nuxe goodies, I have fallen in love with them. I haven't used the La Roche Posay or Melvita yet because I have so much on the go but they both also sound amazing.

Next up was some body products to keep me feeling beautiful all over. The square soap was brought back from Nichola's holiday which I thought was a lovely touch, it has a lovely clean, honey scent and as soon as I've finished up th bar I'm using (which fittingly is a big version of the little Body Shop Chocomania hearts here) I will be moving on to this. What excited me most out of these products though was the Betty Hula Anti-bacterial Hand Cream which is scented with champagne and spice. I haven't used Betty Hula products before and this smells and feels divine on my skin.

These three were popped straight into my handbag for their sheer usefulness. I was so excited to see the Bath and Body Works mini sanitiser in the box because I haven't had the chance to try the range before and I've heard so many amazing things, and I haven't been disappointed- it smells delicious! The peach body spray has a lovely scent too, very sweet and fresh which is perfect for a midday pick me up.

Its no secret that my biggest love is makeup so I was soooo excited to unwrap these goodies especially. I actually squealed when I opened the Illamsqua! The MAC lipstick was also a real excitement and I have a post on the way about that beauty. I wasn't as excited about the Baby Lips UK launch as a lot of beauty fanatics so hadn't picked one up before receiving my swap box but I really was missing out, I adore the silky smooth formula and light coloured finish so I have a review of that coming up too :)

So many amazing things. I really was spoilt with this swap and I cannot express just how grateful I am for everything I received and will love using them all. There were also a selection of samples nestled in among the gifts and the package was contained in a beautiful blue box with a peacock on the lid (another of my favourite animals :D)
I am a very lucky lady!

Annie xx

Roses Are Red Etc Etc

Feliz Dia de Saint Valentin Three Little Buhos lovers!

You probably know if you've been reading my blog for a while that I'm a member, and actually, recently was lucky enough to be added to the admin team, of Beauty Box Swaps, a facebook community for beauty addicts to trade and sell their unloved beauty items.

For Valentines day I took part in a box swap with a lovely lady from the group. We set a £10 budget and also added items that we already had and put together a nice box of valentines treats for one another. Because I'm not actually in the UK this valentines day Jemma was very nice and sent my box a little earlier so I could open and enjoy before going away, hence I am able to show you my valentines pressies today :)

Jemma totally spoiled me, as well as all the goodies above she also sent me a some bits and pieces that went straight in to my suitcase before I took these photos including a gorgeous scarf and another pack of Cath Kidston tissues :)

The combination of fluffy socks, Soap and Glory and shiny things is so me, and its clear that she really thought about what I've said I like :)

How pretty are all of my lovely treats? I loved everything that Jemma was kind enough to send me from the floating candles, to the Cath Kidston brooches, from the Benefit minis to the hair pins. There isn't anything that won't be used and loved. So thank you hugely :)

What are you up to this Valentines day? Dan and I are both in Tenerife with my family to celebrate a birthday so we don't have any special plans but are going to find a nice restaurant to have dinner in. Whatever your plans, I hope you're enjoying you day :)

Annie xx

*ps, I'm away until 17th and this post is scheduled so if you comment and don't get a reply, I promise it's not that I'm ignoring you! <3*

What's New?

Hello,
Just a little post from me tonight because I only got home a little while ago.

This evening I attended the Bath Emotional Brilliance VIP launch party and oh boy, it was so fun. I ended up spending lots of money on some of the new range, got a skin and product consultation and ate cake :) What more could a girl wish for? I'll be writing a proper post about that tomorrow morning if I get time before work, if not then it will be up in the evening :)

I've had a touch of bloggers block recently so I'm wondering what sort of posts you lovelies would like to see? I love getting feedback from all of my fab followers so pop me a comment letting me know what posts you enjoy, if theres anything in particular you'd like to see or if you have any suggestions at all. They'd all be a great help!

As regular readers of my blog will know, I've been unwell for the last few weeks with a chest infection that has just been refusing to shift. I'm now on a different type of antibiotics to try and trick the damn thing into vacating. Apparently it's lodged in a "tricky" position which is why I haven't been able to kick it. Fingers crossed eh!

Recently I joined a great little group on facebook called Beauty Box Swaps where you trade all of your unwanted beauty box items and other new or barely used makeup products with other ladies who do want them for items that you will actually get use out of. I've already swapped lots of my unwanted goodies with some truly lovely ladies and got some fab bits and pieces in return. Definitely a group for you to check out!

So thats pretty much all thats new in Annies world at the moment :)
What have you been up to recently? Can you help with the bloggers block at all?
Annie x