Halloween in the home

The clocks have now changed and Halloween is so close I can almost smell the cool air, the sweeties and scrummies! So I thought it was about time we get out the Halloween decorations to make our home feel spookily festive. Since getting Pinterest and discovering seasonal mantelpieces I dreamt of going to town on our own decor for the different times of the year. I adore season change, I adore how you feel the air change and the excitement of future events and holidays to come.

This is how our mantelpiece now looks after it's Halloween makeover! Ideally we'd have a neutral wall behind the decor to really allow it to stand out, but with renting our property and funds, that isn't feasible right now - so maybe next year ;). 

These ceramic pumpkins and the ghost were all from pound land, costing yep you guessed it £1 each. They are fantastic quality, and an absolute bargain, as you can guess as we ended up with three!

The Beware sign is perfect as a focal point and we purchased it for only £3 from Asda! The peeping ghost behind it is a DIY and gift from my friend Hannah. At the far end of the mantel is our mini Yankee Candle in the scent 'Black Cherry' which was also a gift, not necessarily festive but oh my it smells scrummy, and the red is festive right?

Due to our crazy feline we still have some decorations which we will put up just in time for trick or treaters, such as cobwebs, hanging skeletons and also our pumpkins (which actually as of yet are uncarved).

When Halloween is done and dusted, we still wanted our home to feel Autumnal and cosy (until Christmas wahooo) so we have dotted a few things around the house such as this candle surrounded by conkers.

A second budgetted date day

It's Monday and I am only just now having making the time to sit down and blog last weeks date day! I can't quite believe how quickly the last few weeks have been coming and then going. 

So for last weeks budgeted date day we visited a garden centre called Dobbies, I think I may have mentioned Dobbies in a blog post before. We love Dobbies, even though it is a garden centre it mainly has gifts, housey things, candles oh and the scrummiest cafe ever! We visited the cafe and Simon got a hot chocolate which was free with our dobbies card, and I got a not so photogenic diet coke. We was a bit naughty this week and broke our budget, we opted for pannini's rather than scones for lunch completely forgetting about our budget. (Still craving a scone with jam and cream five days on).

With full bellys we had a good old mooch around and the entire top floor was a Christmassy explosion, we adore Christmas, so we we're pretty happy to say the least!

After such a lovely date day we didn't want it to end, so we made the lounge all cosy with candles, snuggled up on the couch eating Halloween cupcakes and watched Get Him To The Greek. Miss Pookie was more than happy to have an evening of sofa snuggles! It was the perfect ending to a lovely, lovely day. 

In total our date cost us £12, which is £2 over budget but completely worth it!

Mini AW14 shopping spree

Im definitely a nosy person, not the annoying nosy who want to know personal things, but the kind that reads blogs, and find interest in the insides of other peoples houses, what they've been up to and what they've been buying. I love it! It's a wonderful snippet into that persons life. So I thought that today for a different snippet of my life, I would show you what I have been buying with my birthday money!

Sunday was my birthday and I was lucky enough to get a nice amount of money to add some pieces to my autumn/winter wardrobe! Above is everything I purchased today. I love how all of the items look together, the colours and textures just scream out chilly weather (my favourite). 

So firstly we went to New Look as i'd been browsing online for some boots! Boots were at the tippity top of my list today. Originally i'd been looking at longer boots, but I saw these and went to boot heaven *sigh*. They cost £27.99 and I was more than happy to pay that, I think they were an absolute bargain. On our way into town I mentioned to Simon I really wanted a tartan scarf for the chilly months, and in New Look this beauty stole my attention. The scarf cost me only £14.99 and it feels like it is really good quality, I can see this getting a lot of wear!

You can buy the tartan scarf here and the boots here. 

Next we went to good ol' Primark where I bought this lovely jumper with Peter Pan lace detail collar for £12. It is a thin jumper, but the super snuggly texture makes it feel really cosy and warm! This will be perfect for this awkward weather where it's too cold for bare arms, but too warm for a jacket. Equally I can see myself wearing this lots as a layer when it gets really cold. I plan to wear this for the first time tomorrow for a pub meal with my friends. In Primark I also grabbed a couple of lacey ankle socks for £1.50 a pair. I already have a pair of these at home and they are really, really comfortable and look super cute on, so I just had to get a couple more.

And last but certainly not least, are these gingerbread man print leggings! They too were from Primark and costed £10, initially I thought the price was a little bit steep for leggings but then I realised how super thick and cosy they were. I found them in the clothes section, which I found surprising as to me they look and feel more like jammies. They are made of the thickest of fabrics and are super, super cosy. I want to put them on right now, but im afraid I might cook in them! They will be perfect for late Autumn and throughout winter, I simply cannot wait to wear them.

And that concludes my mini Birthday shopping spree. Autumn, I am officially ready for you!

The beginning of budgetted date night

As I mentioned in our midweek break away post, just recently myself and Simon have been under incredible amounts of stress. It has left our brains aching and our bodies exhausted, so much so that we haven't had much real quality time together! We had a good ol' chat about pretty much everything that has been going on and we decided that beginning date night/days again would be just what each of us, and our relationship needed. So today marks our first date day again! To avoid slumping into the routine of a dinner every week and to encourage creativity we decided upon a couple of rules. The first being the budget, £10 only per date, and we chose to do these type of dates once a week.

For our first budgeted date day we first went to the Odeon to see 'Lets be cops' which has 'Nick' and 'Coach' in from New Girl. We both loved it and thought it was really funny, we can't wait to get it on DVD! This costed us only £6, as one of my Aunties was kind enough to give us her orange Wednesday code. We was also able to get a Large popcorn and drink combo without breaking the budget, as we used points we have been saving on our Odeon Premier Clubcard.

 After our movie we visited Stanley park, we did plan on collecting lots of conkers for a DIY candle holder. But it was a bit too soon, the conkers were still up in the trees, and any that had fallen had been nibbled by squirrels. The great thing is, we can now spend another day hunting for conkers, and hopefully be more successful! So instead we crunched in the beautiful Autumnal leaves, chatted and I snapped away with my camera - it was perfect. I am now dreaming of doing this day again deeper into Autumn, when it will be cold enough to get a hot chocolate from the cafe!

'Bees they'll buzz, kids will blow dandelion fuzz'

We have had a lovely date day together, and hopefully the first of many! Our entire date only costed us £6, leaving us £4 under budget. For any cinema go-ers we really recommend joining the Odeon Premier Club, it costs a small amount and points add up really quickly, which you can then spend on other movies or snacks and drinks like we did.

Snowflake Day

Today, the 5th of September has been a date in mine and Simons minds since just after Christmas 2013, the date our bambino was due to arrive on! Throughout the entire aftermath of the miscarriage we have tried to take each day as it comes, sometimes you wake up happier than you expect and sometimes sadder, and we've learnt either is okay! Since we miscarried Snowflake there were certain dates and anniversaries that stood out in our mind, the ones we expected would be harder than the other days. Such as, milestones we would have been hitting, scan dates and so on, but of course today being one of the harder milestones. Since day 1 we have wanted to preserve Snowflakes memory and today was an opportunity to do that, and make some traditions along the way!

So heres a little run through of what we did today... 
Simon being the sweetheart he is, woke me up with Mcdonalds breakfast (Yum!) and a bunch of flowers in Autumnal colours. He even surprised me with lovely cut out Snowflakes across the fireplace. After brekkie we popped to Asda to get some balloons to release, because we couldn't find any sky lanterns anywhere (although in the end we both preferred the balloon gesture)! We purchased a balloon for Myself, Simon and Snowflake and included both a pink and a blue one to represent either gender Snowflake could have been. After that we went to the Odeon Cinema to see 'Sex Tape' which we didn't rate at all! But what we did rate was Frankie And Bennys after, (again, Yum!) a cute Italian restaurant where we had tea. Then came the final, most sentimental plan of the day, the balloon release! Myself and Simon have had a 'spot' where we have gone throughout the summer when we just need to escape and feel good. We'd go for a barefoot walk along the beach then sit on the exact same bench on the promenade afterwards. So we thought that would be the perfect spot for our balloon release. Simon held the ribbon of the balloons and I cut the ribbon releasing the balloons into the air! This had so much meaning for us and was filled with so much emotion, it was perfect in our eyes. We plan to release balloons every year on Snowflakes due date, and as we add to our family we plan to add another balloon. Later on tonight we plan to light lots of candles and watch 'Frozen'.

We are both really excited now for another chapter to begin, our shoulders feel as though a weight has been lifted now the due date has arrived and is almost over!

A midweek break away!

Anyone who knows myself and Simon personally will know we have been through stressful situation after stressful situation recently, and our due date should have been this Friday also! So you can only imagine my reaction when Si suggested we go for a cheeky midweek night away to one of our favourite places, Guys Thatched Hamlet.

Guys Thatched Hamlet is canal side which makes for a very beautiful location! It's just our cup of tea, as we like to go for strolls and watch the world go by.

Autumn is in the air!

We usually opt for the Deluxe Executive room, which has a double spa bath and aqua TV (fancy nancy indeed), but this time as it was a spur of the moment thing we decided to get a cheaper room. We love the spa bath so we chose a room that still had the bath, but a smaller version, and we wasn't overly bothered about whether we had an aqua TV or not!

When Simon finished work we took Pookie to the cattery and set off, making it quite late when we finally did arrive! We lounged around in our room for a while indulging in 'Chalet Girl' (Ed Westwick - need I say more?) We then chose to eat at the restaurant which we have found scrummy each and every time!

Nearby is a really lovely garden centre called Barton Grange, it has amazing gifts and things for the house so we went there for a really good browse. We got lots of Christmas gift ideas there!

P.S, Meet my little buddy, Captain Pugwash! He or she is a little kitty that lives on site, she's super friendly and is always up for a cuddle, absolutely perfect for my crazy cat lady self!

An Autumnal bucket list

It may only be the 2nd of September, and it isn't officially Autumn until the 21st September (my Birthday wahoo)! But I have been dreaming of falling leaves and festivities for some time now! 

Here's what we are looking forward too...

Make a big old batch of scrummy flapjack,
Watch Hotel Transylvania,
Go for a crisp morning walk,
Drive around the illuminations,
Get food from the chippy and walk around the illuminations, go in the arcade too!
Go on an Autumnal picnic, hot chocolate is a must!
Watch Hocus Pocus,
Watch The Corpse Bride,
Pick out our pumpkins,
Carve and decorate our pumpkins,
Make goodies for the trick or treaters,
Have a bonfire and roast marshmellows,
Light sparklers,
Decorate for Halloween,
Make DIY Halloween decorations (spiderweb flowers and spider and web mason jar lights)


And here's some things that aren't on our bucket list, but might make yours!
Visit a Maize Maze
Go apple picking
Bake pumpkin pie
Trick or Treat
Visit a pumpkin patch
Eat a candy apple