Next Home Decor Haul

My bedroom is currently undergoing a makeover. I am the kind of person that is always wanting to move around my bedroom or decorate items, maybe I have a creative streak ? However, this time, I was allowed to completely redo my bedroom. This includes painting, having a built in wardrobe and even a couple of new furniture items (not new but new to me). This meant that the other day, whilst browsing through the Next home décor section, I actually could purchase some items. This made me a very happy bunny because home décor shopping is one of my favourite types of shopping! As well as shopping home décor, I also love viewing others home décor. Therefore, I thought I would dedicate a post to my home décor haul and share it with you... enjoy! 

The first thing that I purchased was this cushion. Now I absolutely love cushions! People always joke around about how much women love their cushions, but I honestly do! They just make an area look so cosy and comfy as well as adding a decorative touch. Now my room is painted 3 walls grey and one wall a light/minty green (I say minty because the paint was originally meant to be mint green. However it doesn't actually look very minty... but I still love it!). However, yellow is one of my favourite colours and I wanted to add a little more colour to my room as it was looking a little dark (I don't get masses of light through my window), so I decided I would attempt to add elements of yellow as you will see throughout this post. In order to do this, however, I needed an item that would incorporate all three of these colours. There was a beautiful picture that did this, but it was too big and I would have nowhere to put it. Then I came across this cushion, fell in love and threw it in the basket. It's the perfect size for my chair and I love the picture on it. I absolutely love this cushion and am super happy with this purchase. 

Next, up I got these long twigs with yellow flowers (I am not the best at describing things). I have always wanted some kind of tall plant to put in my room and when I came across this, it was perfect! As mentioned above, I was trying to incorporate a little yellow into the mix and not only did this have elements of yellow, it also fitted into my room theme perfectly. I then came across this very simple vase and thought it was perfect for my new plant feature. I originally intended to go for the clear vase as I thought the grey would be too dark. However, it turns out that this colour was perfect. It's practically clear, just with a tint to the glass and I love it! I think that this feature is perfect for my room and adds an element of elegance. I am already thinking of ways I can use this to decorate for the holidays!

A little while back I purchased a few mini cacti (which you can read about here) and have been looking for a better way to keep them ever since. The other day I came across the idea of using a jar and filling it with sand and stones. So, with this in mind, I began looking for a little tray and jars. However, there was nothing that fit this category in the store. That's when my mum found these adorable little mugs. They fit my room theme (which is kind of all over the place but looks really cute) perfectly and I LOVED them. So we decided to buy three of these for my mini cacti and use the jar idea for the larger cacti. I still have to buy the sand and mini stones but I think this is one of the cutest features in my room. I also got this tray from Sainsburys and think it works super well with the mugs. (P.S- Any fellow Once Upon A Time lovers out there? Do these mugs not remind you of Belle and Rumple or what? I LOVE IT!)

Next, in my haul, I have this absolutely amazing candle. Now, along with my deep loving of cushions, comes this deep loving of candles. My rather impressive collection just continues to grow and I am very much okay with that. The first thing that caught my eye about this was this the pattern and metallic feature of the candle. I am a big fan of this metallic trend and just fell in love with this candle. Then, when I realised that it was a three wick candle. I fell a little deeper in love. A single wick candle excites me enough, but add another 2 wicks and I go a little crazy. I am always seeing these three wick candles in America from Bath and Body Work's I believe, and every time I get a little jealous. So, when I came across this I got super super happy. I don't know if I have just been looking in the wrong places but I basically never come across three wick candles in England so I was beyond ecstatic. Now, in my deep love for this candle, even if it didn't smell absolutely amazing... I probably would have still purchased it, purely due to these other features and my obsession. However, just to top things off, it smells A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I feel like it might be one of those scents that aren't for everyone but I think it smells heavenly. Now I stupidly went and threw away the label but I feel like it was sandalwood or something? If that is even a scent, I don't know. I can't even find it online but you shall just have to trust me when I tell it is wonderful. Very happy with this purchase. 

 This next item is more of a practical item as oppose to decorative. I desperately needed a new lamp for my bedside table and thought this simple one was perfect. I was a little hesitant at first to go for the grey one, as I already had 3 grey walls and as mentioned before, didn't want my room to become too dark. However, my Mum and Grandma thought it would be fine and so I went for it, and I am very glad I did. The lamp is against the green wall and doesn't make it too dark at all! It's a perfect size and fits great with my room. Very happy with this too!

The final item in this haul is this amazing wall art (is that the correct word?). I have been seeing a few items like this lately, the whole '3D but behind glass' kind of wall art thing, and I love it! I think this looks super cool and again adds elements of yellow. The butterflies add to my kind of 'vintage, modern, elegant' theme I have going on. It sounds a little strange I know but I seriously love it and think it looks amazing. The more I look at this piece, the more I fall in love with it and I am super pleased with this find. I could go on and on about how much I love this piece but this post is getting rather long and I am honestly struggling to find words. 

So there we have my Next home haul. I still have a couple more items to add to my room and can't wait until it is finished so that I can share it! I hope you have enjoyed reading this haul as much as I have enjoyed writing it and maybe it has inspired your home décor shopping? 

I hope you have a lovely day and thank you for reading.

Holly X

My Braces Experience: Getting my braces tightened (the 1st time)

About a week and a half ago I got my braces tightened for the first time. So, I thought I would write the second post in 'My Braces Experience' series. The first post can be found here if you wish to read that first.

One thing that surprised me about getting braces was how much it hurt afterwards and for how long too. The majority of my friends had braces in the past and so I was aware that they would hurt afterwards for a little while, but my teeth were so so sensitive for an entire week and most people's discomfort only lasted a few days tops according to my research. Another point that I had taken away from my research was how much it hurt when you got them tightened. Most people had said that the tightening was worse than the fitting... and that made me nervous. Getting them fitted was a really unenjoyable experience for me, for at least a week and then to hear it was going to be worse this time. I was thinking 'Oh great! Will I be living off soup for 2 weeks now?!'. But as it turns out I was absolutely fine.

Getting them tightened

The actual process of tightening the brace was relatively fast and completely painless. If felt really weird and sounded funny in my head. I have no idea why but for me it was just one of those body squirming 'this feels weird' experiences, but not at all painful. It just feels unnatural. 

Post- tightening 

Considering that the actual tightening process had been painless, I automatically assumed that the pain would kick in afterwards. We (my sister, mum and myself) went over to a cafe for breakfast afterwards and I thought 'ooh I better eat quickly before the pain kicks in'. My teeth felt slightly more sensitive when eating but not painful. We then left and returned home where I continued to wait for the pain to kick in. However, the pain never arrived and I remained a happy bunny. I thought it was kind of strange that I had escaped painless, especially after hearing everybody else stories. But I can honestly say that it was a painless experience. Now apparently, this means my next appointment will be more painful but I guess we shall see. I have got 4 and a half weeks to prepare for it anyway.

How my teeth look now

Here is a photograph of my brother and I from the other day compared to a photo prior to getting braces. (I am aware that these are not the clearest or attractive photographs but they are the ones where I thought you could see the difference the most.)

I am honestly, so so impressed with the difference already. That one tooth (the main reason I got braces) is practically straight now and I have only had them 6/7 weeks. Even the dentist appeared to be impressed with my fast moving teeth. I am hoping that this means my braces can come off earlier than I first thought. However, I don't know and trust my dentist's opinion more than my own. 

So yes, here is my braces update. I am super happy with the progress and was very pleased how smoothly the tightening process went. I plan on doing another update in about 5 weeks time once the brace has been tightened again. 

Thanks for reading,

Holly X

My £10 Shoes.

As you read this I shall be camping but today I thought I would share with you one of my favourite recent purchases. These shoes.

 I love shoes. Despite having a million pairs and only wearing one, I still purchased more. You can never have too many shoes, right? This style of shoes is one of my favourites. I have been seeing it more and more recently and every time I see them I cry a little inside (happy tears of course.. and a little jealousy). So when I realised that I needed some new shoes to go with my dress for a wedding, I was more than a little excited. I had been looking online and was torn between this style and a pointed toe heel style. I recently had been loving both styles and was absolutely torn between them. However, last Thursday I was shopping for jeans. I had been needing new jeans forever and with this camping trip creeping up on me (the trip I am on now) I figured that having some comfortable jeans that actually fitted me were pretty necessary. So, we went shopping. 

We decided to pop into Dorothy Perkins. Now honestly, this isn't a shop where I usually shop. However, they had a sale on so of course, we had to pop in. Much to my delight, I found two pairs of jeans that I love but I won't go into that now. Now on the way to the fitting room (to try on the jeans) I came across the shoe sale section. When I found these shoes I just fell in love! They were so perfect and they were on sale ... perfect! However, I then realised they were a size too small and the last in stock. I tried them on in hope my feet has shrunk, but no such luck. Feeling a little defeated I left the shoes. Just as I was about to leave my mum just magically pulled out another pair (by magically I mean she found them hiding at the back) of these shoes but in my size!! I was beyond happy. Feeling beyond excited about these shoes, I took them into the fitting room to try them on. Honestly, they were a little too big in place and a little tight in others, but I didn't care. It was close enough and at only £10 I simply had to buy them. So I did, and I now present to you my wonderfully perfect favourite beautifully amazing shoes!!!

In case you didn't realise, I love these shoes. I am super duper happy with this purchase and will hopefully be sharing my wedding outfit soon.

Thanks for reading!

Holly X

Rainy Day Games.

Last Tuesday (I think) it was a very wet and grey day in England. Despite the fact that it is summer, we have been getting more than our fair share of rainy weather, not to mention the lack of heat. But despite this not so summery summer, we (being my brother and me) are on our school summer holidays. For me, this means I have extra time to blog and focus on other projects such as the redecoration of my room. However, my brother has fallen into the trap of video games. Now there is nothing wrong with video games from time to time. But I personally believe that it is not the most valuable way to spend your time if playing too often. With this in mind, I decided to give myself the task of entertaining my 10-year-old brother for this rainy afternoon, in an attempt to give him a slightly more stimulating and memorable summer. Overall, I think it was a success and thought I would share some pictures I snapped throughout the afternoon.

First of all, we decided to play some good old board games. We played a couple including Cluedo and some dice game (the one where you roll two dice and try get all the numbers down??). We had a good laugh and it was nice to see him enjoying something besides a video game.

A little later, once he was fed up with the games, we decided to bake some chocolate muffins. I thought this would be a good idea because not only would it teach him a little about cooking, but we could enjoy what we had made later on. Plus, children love getting messy!

It proved a little harder than I had anticipated to separate him from the game, but with a little perseverance, we did it. 

One of Alfie's favourite parts of the baking appeared to be the cleaning... as long as he could eat it!

Here is our final result. The baking was a success and the muffins were delicious! They were perfectly moist on the inside and the chocolate chunks were a great idea. 

We even managed to snap a silly little selfie. Overall I think it was a successful afternoon that we both enjoyed. I think it is very important to make time to do things together and make the most of the free time. I wanted Alfie to look back on the summer and all of the fun activities and days that we had, not just a video game. 

I would be interested to hear of any other rainy day ideas, as we do seem to get an awful lot of them over here in England. 

Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend. 

Holly X

My Braces Experience : Making the decision and getting them fitted.

Today's post is a little overdue... actually 6 weeks overdue to be precise. Oops. About 6 weeks ago I got my braces fitted and I wanted to do a little ongoing series about my experience. However, today I will be getting my braces tightened for the first time and I am only just now writing about getting them fitted... oops. Better late than never, right? 

So yes, today I wanted to talk about my entire process of getting braces from deciding to have them to getting them fitted. I know when I was making this decision I was reading a ton of posts and watching a ton of videos on other people's experiences, so I thought I would post my own. 

Deciding to ask 

As you can probably see from the image (rather interesting looking image may I add) above, my teeth were never super bad. I never had a dramatic overbite, or even dramatically wonky teeth. In fact, my teeth were in pretty good shape up until a few years ago when that tooth on the left (right in the image) decided to go on the move backwards. Now the majority of people never even noticed this tooth until I pointed it out, however, I ALWAYS noticed it and it drove me insane. In photographs, I always hated how it looked and thought it ruined my smile (which in retrospect it didn't but whatever I wasn't happy). Anyway, just in case anybody reading didn't know this, you can get braces on the NHS for free if you're under 18 and they believe you need them. So with this in mind, not long after turning 17 we had a dentist appointment. It was only a check-up, however when the dentist asked me how my teeth were getting on I decided to bring it up. I told her how it was causing me discomfort (which it was by this point) and how I didn't like how it looked (which I really didn't) and she referred me to the Orthodontist at the hospital about a 30 minute drive away. This was where all of my friends who got braces on the NHS had gone and where I figured I would go too. After waiting months, I finally had an appointment. 

Going to the Hospital Orthodontist

When we got to Orthodontics we had to wait in the waiting room for quite a while as they were running behind. This was a little inconvenient but I didn't mind too much as I understand that sometimes things take longer than expected. Also, the waiting room was overcrowded due to this delay, again I didn't mind too much. Although it did get quite comical when a seat came free and everybody was too polite to sit in it. Being younger than some of the others standing in the room, I thought I would let someone else have the seat. Although it appeared that everybody had the same idea and we all were standing around this empty seat. It made me chuckle. Anyway, we finally had our appointment where the man told me that my teeth were not too bad, but if I wanted to then I could get braces. I obviously did want them as this tooth was uncomfortable and annoying to me. However, the men then told me that once my braces were off, I may have to wear a metal wire behind my teeth for the rest of my life to stop the tooth going back. Now this put me off. In my mind this meant I would have some huge uncomfortable piece of metal stuck in my mouth forever. "It's up to you" He said, but I had no idea what to do. I couldn't make my decision right there and then so I went away to think about it.

Making my decision 
Not long after my Hospital Orthodontist trip, I had an appointment with my dentist hygienist to get my teeth cleaned. During this appointment, we (being my Mum and me) brought up the topic of braces and my recent trip. We explained what had happened and why I was so apprehensive. The hygienist then went on to say that this wire was actually only very small and lots of people have to get it these days. He said it became unnoticeable and that have braces can actually help to reduce future teeth issues. So I was sold. All of my prior worries had been wiped out and I was sure that I wanted braces. Then we told my dentist that we wanted to go ahead with the braces. However, my head then started to fill with new worries. Would I look horrible with braces? Am I not a bit too old to get braces? They all seem like petty kind of worries but I didn't want to be feeling self-conscious for the next couple of years. Invisalign may have been better, but that wouldn't have been on the NHS so it was out of the question. However, with the days between myself and my eighteenth birthday slowing getting shorter, if I wanted braces then I'd have to decide soon. So I did, and after a little more research I decided to go for it.

Preparing the braces
Luckily for me, having taken longer to decide meant that I was actually able to be one of the fewer people able to get my braces done with my actually dental surgery. This meant that we didn't have to travel so far (great for my mum) and I was in the comfort of my dental surgery (great for me). So around the time of my exams (I believe but it may have been another date) we started preparing the braces. This included having the braces mould completed and having bands between my teeth. Having the braces mould completed wasn't an ovally enjoyable but it was bearable ... for me at least. My mum, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck. While I sat there feeling nervous and not enjoying it but still managing to just breathe through the unpleasant experience, my mum was on the edge of her seat. As soon as it was done and I sat up, looking over to my mum, my mum was frantically asking if I was okay as if I had just undergone some life threatening surgery. Anybody would have thought my mum was the one having braces. It was very comical! Then, I later had 6 (I think) elastic bands fitted between my teeth. I had 4 on my bottom row and 2 on top. These elastic bands were there to make gaps between my teeth in order to allow room for the brace brackets. The bands felt weird for a bit but never caused me any pain.

Getting them fitted
Now I am not 100% sure, but I think it was a couple of weeks later that I returned to get the actual braces fitted. Firstly, I had the bands removed. This just felt weird. Especially afterwards when I had these huge gaps. I felt like a little girl again with my teeth just fallen out! Then I had the actual braces attached. Now I honestly am not entirely sure what she did during this process as I was trying my very best not to think about it. I am an expert overthinker and worried I would get myself all worked up if I thought about it so I tried not to think too much about it. But the process was painless and only took about 45 minutes at the very very most. It was a little uncomfortable and stressful to me but it was bearable. It was once the process was complete that it felt the weirdest to me. During the process I had this big thing on my mouth that made me look like Wallace and Gromit. Apparently I looked hilarious. Anyway this device thing stopped my gum/lips from touching my teeth so it didn't feel all too different. However once this device was taken off, it felt so wrong. Not painful, just wrong. Like all I wanted to do was take the brace off. I felt as if I looked like a duck, but I really didn't look too bad to be honest. At the time I thought I looked awful and I wanted to cry but it wasn't too bad. Some people have issues talking once the brace is fitted, however I luckily escaped this issue so that was good for me.

The first week
A couple of hours after getting the braces fitted, they started to hurt. Nothing too dramatic but for me, it was just this constant dull ache and it drove me up the wall and back again insane. I couldn't eat properly for at least 4/5 days and it took at least a week for the pain to go away. From hearing a number of other people's stories, the pain doesn't usually last that long but in my case it did. After the first week had gone by it started to get easier. I got used to the feeling and how they looked. The pain left (most of the time) and I got better at eating.
Although eating can still sometimes be difficult as my front teeth don't touch like they used to (so I have to eat differently than before), it a million times better than that first week.

Now, 6 weeks in, my braces only occasionally cause me pain and I have adapted to how they feel. I also don't care about how they look anymore as I figure that they will be worth it. Tomorrow is my first time getting them tightened and there will (hopefully) be a post next week as to how that went. But, that is all for now. This post was way longer than I expected it to be but was something I desperately wanted to share. Feel free to share your experiences or tips in the comments. 

Thanks for reading,

Holly X