LuLin Tea Review

Hello!

So our second YouTube video went up today, in which we are reviewing some lovely teas sent to us by LuLin, a York-based company that specialises in Chinese and Loose Leaf Teas. Here is that review, and a couple of close ups of the products...



The teas were fabulous and we really enjoyed filming for this video!

(Information below is taken from www.lulin-teas.com)

Posh Earl Grey: A LuLin Teas take on the English favourite Earl Grey. LuLin Teas have added bright blue corn flowers and zesty orange flowers to create our wonderful Posh Earl Grey Blend. Add a slice of lemon, drink with milk or keep it black for three very different taste sensations.

Lapsang Souchong: The strong smoky scent absorbs you without overwhelming the palate allowing you to enjoy the sweetness the base tea possessed prior to being pine smoked.

Ginseng Oolong: It is made by rolling Oolong leaves into tight balls and coating them in a thin layer of ginseng and liquorice grass. When brewed it is fairly sweet and has a hint of liquorice.

Have you tried any teas from LuLin? We'd love to hear what you think!

If not, leave us a comment (or tweet us @LucyArtley or @LucieClark) suggesting some more teas for us, as we said in the video, we're from Yorkshire, so it's only natural for us to love tea!

(OOTN) Crazy Nights and Snap Decisions

Hello!

Yes, yes, I know this post was meant to be up two days ago, my bad. Sunday night turned out to be quite a random one, more on that later!

If I am quite honest I am really struggling for inspiration for what to write about at the moment, and as the blog has been dormant for a while, I have no posts tucked away for a rainy day. I don't know why nothing is coming to me, maybe it's because I now blog at work too, so my brain is quite full! I am sure I will get back into it soon.

In the mean time I have a little OOTN for you. On Friday night we went out for some yummy food and some cocktails at Slug and Lettuce and watched the snow get deeper and deeper! What happened later in the night involved snow angels and being rather childish, but this is what I looked like before I got covered in snow, (sorry it's not the best quality picture!).

Velvet Jacket: Select

Dress: Browns

Leggings: New Look

Ankle Wellies: Vivienne Westwood

Socks: Primark

Necklace: was my sisters

This weekend was full of good intentions, but the weather got in the way, and then so did my mood. But in my little spell of Debby Downer, I made a snap decision, and this is what happened...

My hair kind of turned purply red! I am in love with it! I mean, I did like the orange, but I have wanted to go purple for so long, and it just took a bit of a bad mood for me to dare to make the change. My sister also straightened my hair, a very rare occasion, but I do like it now, I used to hate it!

Anyway, I don't really have that much else to say, apart from, if you're thinking about making a change, do it, it really makes you feel better :)

Until next time...

I'm back! (again...)

Hello!

Long time no speak!

So after many a Facebook post telling you eventually I will be back, here I am! As you can see the blog has had a bit of a makeover, or make-under as the case may be. I just wanted to make things simpler and cleaner. I hope you like it!

So talking about keeping things simple, I am going to make my blog a simpler task for me. I plan on posting twice a week for now, until I full figure out my routine. I do have Youtube to fit in as well, but baby steps first. I am of the belief if you shake up your routine too much, you will just get confused and give up completely. So the blog will become routine first, and then the Youtube. I even do this with my beauty routine. I got out of the habit of doing things I should be doing, such as using BioOil, but I know if I make my routine 20 times more complicated straight away, I will abandon it and end up doing nothing, and that doesn't achieve anything!

So a few things have changed, and if you have been keeping up with me on Facebook you will know I have moved flat, changed jobs and have had a few personal life changes.

I am now living with my best friend and sister, and we're loving it. This afternoon has been girly-tastic (which is the general theme of the entire flat!). We've done our nails, and now we're sharing make-up tips. I have just taken a break to write this!

My 'little mermaid' nails

On the job front I am now self employed again. This time I am working with a brilliant design agency as a social media manager. How cool is that? I get to blog and tweet and Facebook at work! I will be becoming the studio manager (eek!) once I have done my exam in Feb, (wish me luck). Anyway, it's great, I work with a great team in a great environment and I am very very happy!

So yeah, this year is my year. I am going to embrace all the changes, find the good in everything and I AM going to be healthier! When I say healthier I don't just mean food wise, I mean my mind too. I will talk more about this in a future post.

So yeah, I won't let this turn into a rambly post. I just hope you're all keeping well and enjoying what 2013 is bringing you.

On another note, I would love to know what you would like to see from this blog. I am trying to think of interesting things to post about and am drawing a blank, so I would love to hear from you!

I think my next post will be Thursday, so see you then!

A few life updates and adventures

Good Afternoon, I hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday :)

So I thought I would share some little updates and things I have been doing, with you, now everything has calmed down a bit.

Well I mentioned in summer that I have a new job in a department store. Since then I have moved into the stock room to manage deliveries and I am quite enjoying it. It can be stressful, and it doesn't sound very glamourous, but I have a lot of responsibility, and I am always the first to see the new clothes entering the store, which is exciting :)

However, as much as I like this job I am also undertaking some work experience at a graphics company, which I am LOVING. I am going to write a post about how all this happened shortly, it's going to be a bit of a life lesson post, so if that interests you, keep your eyes peeled.

I will start with the sad news that I have lost my little rattie, Ollie. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but 1st September he lost his fight with the breathing troubles he has always had. I am pretty sad about it all, but Stan is now one little spoilt guy, here he is with his new favourite treat:

So aside from getting used to the routine that work forces you into, I have been working on a couple of personal projects and adventures, the first of which was the surprise party for my mum and dads 25th wedding anniversary, (I mentioned it a couple of posts back). This party was a month and a half in the planning, and was one of the most stressful things I have ever done, but was so totally worth it. Here's a snap of the party as everyone was arriving. The decorations and food etc took 7 hours on the day...

(slightly blurry, but you get the idea)

We had tea lights in jars, fairy lights and bunting on the ceiling. Table diamonds, candles in bottles and jars, doilies and confetti and petals on the tables, bows on the chairs, a ballon arch, other ballons and all sorts of lovely things. I am so proud of everyone who helped: Luke, Rosie, Sam, Molly, Elisha, Alfie, Grandad, Jamie and our Aunties and Uncles who chipped in to make it perfect! 

So apart from that the food and drink festival and Yorkshire Best has been in town and me and Sam decided to go and explore, so here are some snippets: 

Top Left: One of the free Roses from Yorkshire Best and our Prosecco at the Champagne Bar at the food and drink festival.

Top Right: Me and Sam  enjoying ourselves

Bottom: Raspberry Mulled Wine, that I washed down my hog roast with.

And then it was my birthday! I have reached the grand old age of 23, and besides being at work all day I had a lovely day, topped off by going home to see my lovely mum, dad and boyfriend for a takeaway, and then up at 6 the next day to make it back to work for 9! Here are a couple of the lovely things I got:

My beautifully thoughtful photo collage canvas from Sam.

Gorgeous flowers designed by Rosie  one of the many presents from her, including Yankee Candles and accessories, chocolate, Mac make-up, Body Shop make-up, and the lovely ratty rings below:

The absolute icing on the cake is the beautiful DKNY Rose Gold watch from Mum and Dad, I love this so so much that I never want to take it off! I have been after a rose gold watch for aaaages! I am thrilled.

My lovely boyfriend bought me a transformer Wall.E, with a photo of me and him in Wall.E's belly, and when I received him, he was holding a Freddo. To some of you this may sound random, but I love random, and Wall.E, so I am happy :)

Finally I thought I would share a photo of the buns I made for work, I baked them and made the buttercream, then Rosie  piped and helped me decorate, because it was 10pm by this point!

So yeah, I hope you enjoyed my little life update post, I do want to start doing Instagram posts as life update posts, so you can see what I have been up to.

On another note, I finally have a video camera, so hopefully Youtube will be going ahead soon. If you have any suggestions please let me know :)

I am about to go to the Designer Outlet, so I will leave this post here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, until next time :)

Hitting Life's Reset Button

Good Evening!

So a bit of a rambly / lifey post this evening.

This weekend I just felt so, for want of another word, crap. I was frustrated and antsy and I just could not work out what was wrong. Then all of a sudden it hit me, I wasn't living my life.

Now, this sounds silly, but what with moving house, having a holiday, graduating, getting two new jobs (more on that in another post), and organising a surprise party for my Mum and Dad's 25th Wedding Anniversary (which was a huge success!), I just haven't had time for me.

So this Sunday I hit life's reset button. I mentally reset myself. I have been living in this flat now for what? 2 months? And although all my stuff is in it's rightful place, my head is not. So I made a promise to myself that this was no longer going to be the case, that I can make time for everything in my life and be happy.

I started by deciding that although I work until 4pm every day apart from Tuesday (5:30pm), I am going to continue to work until 5 by means of cleaning the house. Therefore I will get my weekends to do things I want to do, instead of spending half the time cleaning.

Secondly, I am making time for me. There are things in our lives that we neglect, that take us 5 minutes and make us feel so much better. Such as, in my case, moisturising after a bath and treating my hair to a bit of TLC. These silly little things make me happier, and therefore I am making time for them. I am also making sure I have a 'proper' treat twice a week; Wednesday, because Wednesday sucks (well apart from next week, it's my birthday!), and Sunday, because Sundays are made to be lazy. So as it is Wednesday, I have just had a bath, bobbed on a hair mask and my posh Elemis Cleanser masky thing and just had a nice old soak, and after what can only be described as an awful day, I feel tonnes better. I should also mention that having dinner at Sam's helped immensely too!

Speaking of Sam, I am also making more time for friends, although, because most of my friends live away this is quite difficult. But being around people that I love makes me a lot happier.

Lastly, I am trying to make time to do things I want to do (besides pampering myself). Be it reading a book, doing some knitting, watching YouTube or writing a blog. I am of the belief that this is MY life, therefore I deserve time to do things that make me happy. 

So yeah so far this week things are working pretty good with my new schedule. I hope to get Wii Fit into this as well, because I really need to get fit, and right now I can't afford the gym, so yeah, that's the next stage of my plan.

I hope that this post has been of some interest to you, and that hopefully you can take something away from it, and try and 'reset' some things that you are unhappy / frustrated with. I just think sometimes it's good to take a step back, re-evaluate and move forward in a way that makes you feel more positive.

So, sorry if I have rambled, but I felt I really wanted to share this with you in the hope it would inspire other to take charge of their lives!

Until next time, :)

Out with the old, and... well just out with the old really!

Just a quick post tonight, I am actually zonked!

I spent most of today cleaning out my bedroom. After the 'no' from Harrods, it seems a sensible time to de-clutter, tidy my life up and start with a new positivity. I was already positive, don't get me wrong, but a tidy room means a tidy mind and I think I just need a bit more spring in my step, (which is funny really, considering it is spring! *childish giggle at own lame joke*)

So I am getting rid of a lot of things and just trying to make the place look generally tidier. I have cleared out a lot of my crafty stuff from my fashion course, and I am donating this to my mums work, and some of it to Rosie. I have also managed to part with the odd piece of clothing and a handbag. Most of what I have is strangely back on trend, so it seems silly getting rid of it all to buy new stuff. Plus, I have no pennies for a wardrobe overhaul anyway. 

At the moment I can't even see my bed, so I will be residing in the bf's room for the evening, and continuing with it all tomorrow. I hope one more day will do it, or else it's going to be a long week, I hope to give the rest of the flat a general clean too. By Friday I think I will be ready for my weekend in Sheffield!

Anyway, I am going to chill out, so see you soon :)