Homesense #LoveFromFirstFind Event

A couple of weeks ago I was invited along to the Homesense #LoveFromFirstFind in Manchester. If you know me then you'll know that Homesense is one of my absolute favourite homeware shops, so I was super excited when the email landed in my inbox! I arranged to meet up with Abi, my blogging bestie who I've known for years now, we both started our blogs around the same time & it's really great having the opportunity to attend events together. 

On arrival we were greeted by the lovely Fran, who ran us through the plan for the evening, handed us a glass of fizzy Elderflower, pointed us to the delicious buffet of food & gave us a gift card to have a little shopping spree with. Once we had filled up on tasty little canapés & sandwiches we were ready to explore the huge Homesense store at Barton Square in the Trafford Centre. It was much bigger than any other Homesense store I had visited before which filled me with excitement, to me it's like entering a giant treasure chest, you never know what you're going to find but you're sure you'll fall in love with something!

Abi & I spent a good hour or so browsing all the aisles, discussing what we loved, our plans for our new homes & generally had the best evening homeware shopping! The store was presented beautifully, with a huge faux flower display, a beautiful Valentines stand & small room sets arranged to really get your imagination running wild. Whenever I step foot in a Homesense store I come away filled with ideas for our house!

With the gift card I was given I purchased a beautiful bouquet of silk Peonies, a mint wire basket & a set of three cute notebooks. The peonies are the most stunning faux flowers I've ever come across, they are so realistic looking & even feel real too! I know these are going to be one of my most-used & most-loved blog photo prop from now on & they will also save me a few pennies when Peony season arrives as I won't *need* to buy a bunch of fresh ones. The mint basket I picked up is the perfect accessory for our bathroom as it has a grey, white & mint theme & is ideal to store all my LUSH bath products in, I love how colourful they all look nestled amongst each other. I couldn't resist popping the set of three mini notebooks into my basket either, the cute yet simple pastel coloured designs caught my eye & will be so handy for jotting down to-do lists, blogging notes etc etc!
Let me know what you think of my finds! (:
L x

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Oliver Bonas Christmas Preview

Last week I travelled down to London to visit my Sister & to attend the Oliver Bonas Christmas Preview Event. It sounds so cliche to say this but I literally couldn't believe one of my favourite brands not only recognised my blog but also invited me to their press event. It amazes me that people even read this lil blog of mine, so when the email appeared in my inbox I was beyond excited! 

Obsessed with these cushions & the geo print throw, they would look amazing on the new sofa!

Prettiest packaging ever!

Pineapples! & apple trinkets too, so cute

Teeny tasty macarons!

The print on that dress gets ALL of the heart eyed emojis from me

How perfect is the mint coloured coat, it's so pretty & the knitted grey, hat scarf & gloves with the pale pink fur pom pom are amazing too!

The event was held at the Marylebone store, it had been filled with all the new Autumn/Winter range, along with lots of tasty nibbles for us to tuck into plus a nail bar was set up for us to get a manicure too! I was in my element admiring all the homewares, planning on where I'd put certain things in my house & chatting away to the lovely PR ladies. I also fell in love with pretty much the entire fashion range, Oliver Bonas is my most-loved homeware brand so I've always overlooked the clothing but they've got some reallllly nice pieces.
OB have completely steered away from the traditional Autumn/Winter vibe & kept with their style they're introducing splashes of neon, pops of pastel colours & metallics for the upcoming seasons. I feel really inspired to do something different with my Winter wardrobe this year after seeing the pastel & neon colours sitting amongst the greys, I like the idea of a pop of colour & I would never have imagined neon in Winter until now! I'm usually found wrapped up in a red tartan scarf! 
I don't mean to wish my life away but I really can't wait for September to roll around so I can get my hands on some of the things I've got my eyes on! Thank you so much to all the ladies at OB for organising the event & for my amazing goodie bag (so spoilt!), my wishlist was already huge & now it's just ridiculous! (: L x

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The Body Shop Blogger Event

On Thursday Abi & myself caught the train to Manchester to go along to the Body Shop event we had been invited too. Before we went to the store at 8pm we decided to get a Burger at Byron (try the Courgette fries!) & have a browse around Primark, where I spent far too many pennies, oops! I'll do a separate post on that this week though..

The event was held in the Manchester Arndale store, we were greeted by Fiona & her lovely colleagues & told to help ourselves to a milk bottle filled with either milkshake, lemonade or a Malibu cocktail & to tuck into the bowl full of Strawberries & Marshmallows that were waiting to be dipped into the white chocolate fountain - yum! Once everyone had arrived Fiona had a little chat to us about the evening ahead, she told us we could have a skin consultation & our makeup done, plus we had free range of the store to try out all the products. We were told about the new Vitamin C skincare range & were able to test this out for ourselves. One thing I noticed about all of The Body Shop staff was how high their level of product knowledge was. They knew everything & were so helpful with recommending products, spoke with so much confidence about the ingredients used & just really knew their stuff! Abi & I had a mooch around, Abi is a huge Body Shop fan so she was pointing out products she loves & recommending things to me! It was lovely to be in a store full of bloggers & see some familiar faces (Cat & Katie) and do what us bloggers do best... chat about beauty products!

I was completely spoilt for choice in terms of what to buy, I knew I wanted to get the Fuji Green Tea Bath Tea Salts so that I would have a nice bath product to use in the new house, so I picked up a tin along with the Tea Infuser. We were kindly offered 30% off any products that took our fancy, so I decided to get the Drops of Youth Bouncy Sleep Mask, as I had a skin consultation & this was one of the product recommendations. The skin consultation revealed I have dry skin, which means I need to focus more on keeping my skin hydrated, by drinking more water & having a skin care regime consisting of moisturising products. 

Admiring the wall of pretty pastel products! As part of the event we were offered a selection of Mango products if we spent £25 & as I'd really wanted to try out a Body Sorbet for ages I was convinced to take advantage of this offer! The offer included the Mango Body Sorbet, Beautifying Oil & Lip Butter, the tropical fruity scent is amazing! 
I had such a nice evening at the Body Shop store, I've got a super long list of products I would like to try out now & will definitely be popping back in on a more regular basis to build up my collection!   I'll also be keeping an eye out for the new Virgin Mojito range which is being released soon, Mojitos are my absolute fave cocktail so I imagine I'm going to be a huge fan of the new range! Massive thank you to Fiona & her team for hosting the event!
L x

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ax paris a/w press day

Last Saturday I headed over to Manchester with Abi to attend the AX Paris A/W Press day to spend the afternoon looking at their new collection whilst drinking cocktails & eating cupcakes! The event itself was held at the Black Dog Ballroom, a Cocktail bar that was the perfect venue to showcase the A/W collection! The collection consisted mostly of metallic two pieces, leather skirts, fabulous fur coats & plenty of glitter for the upcoming party season! Personally my favourite item has got to be the fluffy fur cream coat (pictured above), I can imagine it being really cosy when it's freezing outside! 
As well as having a look at the clothes & eating cute cupcakes there was also a chance to pose in a photobooth & get a henna tattoo! Abi & I decided to take a few photos, although it took us a few turns to remember to hold our poses until the flash had gone off completely! We kept moving away too quickly so we've got a few funny shots of us mid pose, at least we've had plenty of practice now haha! 
It was amazing being able to hang out in the same room as lots of bloggers & soak up the atmosphere, I felt really nervous to attend as it was only my second blogger event & I get really anxious but I'm glad I went along as I enjoyed the whole experience! I got to catch up with Claire too who I previously met at the South Beach Blogger event & I also met Sindy who was lovely enough to come over & introduce herself to us!  
One of the highlights of the event was being able to meet Kayleigh, I've read her blog for at least two years now so it was absolutely lovely to chat to her in person! Kayleigh, thank you so so SO much for allowing Abi & myself to attend the event, I had the best time & it was so nice to meet you! (: L x

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