BIRTHDAY HAUL 2015 – NEW LOOK/MATALAN

OMG GET EXCITED. Oh, and hi by the way! I’ve been waiting for ages to share what I bought from these two shops with you guys for ages. Well, it certainly feels that way!

We’ll jump right in with the bits I found at Matalan – all of which have been worn numerous times already! I went about a month ago and found a really nice cami with a gorgeous orange/blue floral print on it which I’m seriously in love with, and now I have a kimono in the same print! I also found another beautiful one in the same style, so I grabbed that pretty quick too!

Aren’t they beautiful! It’s super hard to get decent pictures of them being worn, so I’ve borrowed a couple from Matalan’s site! The only con with these kimonos is that they crease suuuuuper easily, so you need to be careful how you store them, and you also need to watch the fabric when you sit down so it doesn’t crinkle up under your bottom. And I’m afraid if you’re like me and don’t iron anything you own; folding it carefully over the radiator to dry won’t work this time – I’m afraid we’re going to have to iron these. Boo.

But other than that they’re great! They’re quite long as you can see in the pictures, so I don’t think they’d look so good with skirts, but they’re great worn with jeans and shorts!

I also spotted these longline cami’s for only £4 each! They’re actually really good quality for the price – they do run a little small though, so I’d suggest ordering a size up if you’re a little concious about certain areas. I bought these to wear with leggings and cardigans but they look great under the kimonos too!

I grabbed a couple of packs of footsies too, because you can never have enough! I love these things in summer. And they’re only £3 for 3 – bargain.

I then went into New Look to get more vests. I already had one at home, but I love the quality of these so much I went and bought three more! They’re the perfect length on me and they don’t lose they’re shape or stretch like a lot of other vests do. These are from NL’s basic line (NOT the ribbed ones) and they’re only £3.99!

On to the item I’ve been most excited about! I feel that if you’re not a size 12 it’s super difficult to find a pair of shorts that suit you. I don’t want my bum out, and I definitely don’t want to scare the local kids with that amount of thigh on show… but I also don’t want to wear shorts than go below the knee. Do you see what I mean? Nightmare.

This is how much I love them – I’ve actually taken a picture of them on my very own butt! Things never look the same on the perfect models, and I wanted to show you guys the true appearance of these. Isn’t that the perfect length?! I LOVE them.
I’ve worn the same pair of shorts for about 3 summers in a row (I have washed them though, calm down), so it’s going to be so nice to wear something different this year!

The last item I want to share with you guys isn’t actually from New Look OR Matalan, but I’m rather fond of it so I’m going to show you anyway! And it was bought for me for my birthday, so it does belong in the birthday haul. I wanted a new black bag and spotted this one in Next Clearance for £16! SO NICE. Again, it’s really hard to photograph – this is the best I could manage!

I had a look on their site and couldn’t find it so I don’t think it’s available anymore; I’m pretty sure it was in stores at Christmas. It’s a pretty basic bag; one long strap and one shorter one, drawstring and magnetic button closure and a little pocket inside – and IT’S SO FLUFFY I COULD DIE. 😉

This is the last installment in my 2015 birthday haul! You can see part one here, part two here, and part three here if you want to catch up… which you should. The weather’s been so lovely here in Essex for the past week so hopefully I’ll be able to put those shorts to work soon! And by work I mean covering my butt… you know what, I’m just gonna go before things get weird.

I made my Minion a buddy!

Look at his cute little smileee! No Minion should ever be alone.

The mini Minion of happiness

I’m so happy I’ve finally done this. Even though I still haven’t seen Despicable Me 2, the adverts have bought Minions to the forefront of my mind lately (and by that I don’t mean they’re all I think about, but they’re rattling round) so I drove 10 miles (according to distance calculator) just to get the right coloured felt so I could create my own mini Minion!

I couldn’t find a pattern on the internet for some bizarre reason, so I had to draw up my own. If you look closely at the hand on the far right side you’ll see that it looks a bit mutated… at least now I can’t get done for copyright, right?

It was surprisingly easy to cut out the body, dungarees, eye and little glasses-y bit.

I’m really not liking his mouth though, it looks a little out of place… don’t ya think? I thought the dungarees were gonna be super fiddly, but it was actually the boots that turned out to be the nightmare. I just couldn’t get the shape right! Since I didn’t have a tutorial and I had to just wing it, I ended up sewing part of the boot in place out of a bit of felt and then having to cut it to size from there…  And I had to sew on the glasses strap after I’d stuffed him, but that wasn’t really a problem. He turned out pretty sweet though! My own mini Minion! I think I’ll end up removing his mouth…

Despicable Me 2!

With the release of Despicable Me 2 upon us, it seems that everyone (the Pinterest community in particular) has gone absolutely mental. And whilst the first one is genuinely a really good film, we all know that one of the main reasons we watch is to see what the minions get up to!

If I was a nail art wiz, I’d definitely have transformed my fingertips into little minion masterpieces by now!

I had a bit of a sorting spree today and I found a ton of hama beads tucked away in a draw, so I will definitely be making these guys!

And I’m pretty sure it’d make my day if I saw a baby dressed up as a minion! This is the cutest outfit I’ve found so far but there’s tons of costumes for kids!

Babies = Minions = Cute Overload

I guarantee that I’d receive some really odd looks and comments if I walked down the street in a minion costume, but if I wore this outfit only fellow minion lovers would understand my outfit inspiration. It’s even got ‘nana earrings!

I want them allllll! I’ve also found mugs, cakes, phone cases, stickers, laptop covers, bedding, slippers, figurines, plushies, watches, games, knitting patterns, key rings, cake pops… the list goes on!