A Student's Bargain Kitchenware Haul

Sorry I was absent last week but I was working almost everyday and had rehearsals for a play I was in almost every night so I barely had time to eat, never mind write and take photos for my blog. I am back now however as I have evenings free again!

So it is now less than 2 weeks until moving day (eek!). I am so excited. As I am beginning to get organised with buying and packing all of my necessities for living on my own, I thought I'd share with you a few of my bargain buys.

I am loving red at the moment and so I decided to make this a theme for my kitchenware. Imagine my joy then when almost everything red was on sale and so beautiful! I had a hard time restraining myself from popping everything in my trolley!

The two places I shopped for almost all of my appliances, kitchenware, laundry items and bedroom decor etc. were B&M Bargains and ASDA. There were so many great bargains for a student on a budget yet the quality is still great too. My personal favourite purchase is the adorable owl salt and pepper shakers. Aren't they cute?

Products Photographed:
Red Plates:   ASDA £1 each
Owl Salt and Pepper Shakers:   £1.50 B&M Bargains
Red Bowls: £1 each or 6 for £5 B&M Bargains
Stilton Cheese Pot: 50p from local charity shop (thought it would be cute for storing sugar etc.)
Heart Mugs: £1.99 each or 2 for £3
Heart Coasters: £1.50 for pack of 4

Bursting At The Seems

Hello everyone.

So as promised, here is a post on everything I packed for my trip to Rome. I know it's a day later than planned however after waking up at 3:30 in the morning, flying for 2 and a half hours, and catching a bus/walking in rain when we got here, I was pretty tired and not in the best of sorts for blogging! However, despite being completely shattered, me and my dad did manage to look around Rome a little before it began to bounce down with rain again. I must say though, I don't feel like we've yet seen the true beauty of Rome due to the rain however the sun is shining today so hopefully we will view it in a 'better light' later today once my dad has finished working.

Another positive of the warm weather is that I can begin to make the most of the more summery clothing of which I have mostly (only) packed! Speaking of which, here is everything I managed to pack in under 10kg of luggage...

A selection of shoes - all Primark.

4 light-weight tops from Wallis, charity shop and Primark.

A summery floral dress from New Look.

Light-weight, long cardi from Hooch.

 My PJs

 Skirt and jeans from Primark. Shorts from Newlook.

 Swimsuit from a local shop.

 A girl can't be without her makeup.

Pearl + floral headband and necklace from Claire's,earings were gift,belt from charity shop and purse from Spain.

Some bits and bobs.

So that's everything I packed. Can you believe that I managed to fit all of this plus my camera and laptop into a rucksack? It's safe to say it was bulging at the seems so it should be interesting trying to fit all of this back in again when we leave. I just thought it would be fun to share what I packed because I know I like reading blogs/watching youtube videos of what people have packed for holiday. I hope you enjoyed! Have a lovely day and I'll speak to you soon,

Mollie♥

What are your holiday essentials? Have you ever had a challenging packing experience?

Lama Farmer

Hello everyone.

I hope you've had a lovely week and managed to have a peak at my bonus photo blog from yesterday of my high school Leavers Do.

Now something I don't think I've mentioned before is that me and my family own alpacas-around 13 I think. You know, the usual. Alpacas are small, cuter versions of lamas for those who maybe don't know and I am glad to say alpacas don't spit at humans like lamas do but if you're not careful you could get caught in the cross-fire between two of them. Ew. Speaking of lamas, one of the key reasons for my parents wanting to buy one or two alpacas was because my dad wanted to be able to call himself a "Lama Farmer". The Hodkinsons' purchasing priorities never cease to impress. 
Our alpacas live on our field and are quite sweet most of the time that is until it's time to shear them.... Each year at this time we need to shear them and my parents couldn't do it on their own so it ends up becoming a bit of a family event- again, the usual. I dread this time of year because it tends to be the perfect time for midgies and the idea of chasing, catching and holding down alpacas to be sheared just doesn't appeal to me (I know, shocking). We got through it though and managed to shear the five boy alpacas -just 8 more to go. Woo.
After shearing them however we do get some comic relief when we release them and see what a mess they are despite our best efforts. 

 Looking fabulous.

I think my face illustrates the level of fun I'm having... 

On the Monday it was one of my best friend's birthday. Iona turned 18! I can't believe that she's 18, I feel like an auntie or something who's feeling a little shocked that my little girl's growing up- despite the fact that I'm 4 months younger than her. 
On her birthday Iona was unfortunately working however everyone at work helped make her day special by presenting a little birthday strawberry tart complete with a candle and sang happy birthday to her. Our manager had also bought her some novelty glasses that had "Happy Birthday" on them and insisted Iona served a customer with them on. 
Shortly after, Iona left work and said "see you later" to me and little did she know that she would in fact see me later as me and some friends were going to meet at her house for a mini surprise party. We had all arranged to meet at Iona's at around 7 which was when I finished work so after glamorously getting dressed in a small bus terminal toilet me and my friend went up to Iona's house to find a lovely gazebo full of little nibbles and champagne as well as Iona's poor dad who was fighting off the thousands of midges. We all decided then that we should move the party inside and some champagne and strawberries later we sang happy birthday and had a good catch up.
It was a lovely evening and I think Iona really enjoyed it so successful mission.

After the party I went home for some sleep as I had work the next day and had to be up by 8. That was nothing compared to the time I got up yesterday though which was my day off - 6:30 am! Even the birds were still sleeping. One thing I love about getting up early though is seeing the sunrise; it's a beautiful reward for being awake at ridiculous times.
The reason I was up so early was because me and my family were going to the mainland and were catching the first ferry. Whilst there we did some errands and things and then went to see Despicable Me 2 at the cinema. Overall I was pretty impressed with the film and I loved that they brought in a new female character, Lucy, for Gru -she was so cool- and of course the touches of comedy were really great as in the first film. It was also interesting to watch as a wannabe film-maker because the level of detail in each scene, the use of colour, the life-like animation and the realism in the characters' movements and mannerisms are all fascinating to me to see in an animation.
After watching the film we then did some retail therapy where I think I was very sensible with my spending for a change which surprised even myself and I was very happy with my purchases when I returned home-some summery tops, summery shoes, jeans and the most important... cosy jammies.

That's the end of this week's update apart from mentioning this evening. I went out with Iona and some other friends for Iona's first purchase of alcohol in a pub. She stayed classy with a glass of wine whilst I was of course on the orange juice. We all sat down on the cosy couch in the corner together eating nachos and enjoying the live music playing. Me and my friend Alex got very into the music at one point with our air guitar etc. which led the singer to shout out to us to finish the line "I'm loving angels instead". We were horrifically out of tune but I think our jazzy moves more than made up for it. After that we began eyeing up the pool table and after waiting a loooong time in the line of people waiting to play, me and Iona began our assault of the game. We weren't the best players and everyone watching knew it so after a while it just got a little embarrassing. This is why we may have accidentally knocked one or two of the balls into the pockets when no one was looking. I'd like to add that I won the game though. I was pretty pleased.
The rest of the week I have spent working which for me isn't a bad thing. I'm still loving it there and today in fact a lovely customer out of the blue told me I had "amazing eyes". Aw shucks. It made my day.

Anyway, that is enough of my ramblings for this week. I'll see you next week with either another life post or a second installment of my series called "Mollie's Thoughts" that I'd like to begin to progress. We shall see. Until then,

Mollie

♥