Month: March 2016

Easter Nests with a Twist

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It’s finally here. The weekend chocaholics dream off all year… Well, since Christmas anyway!

I’m talking of course about Easter. Ever since I was little I’ve made Easter nests. They’re one of the first things you learn how to make in school, and a super fun activity for kids (my favourite bit was licking the bowl!)

For those who haven’t made them before, simply melt chocolate, stir in cornflakes, put into paper cases and leave to set in the fridge. Yum.

But now that I’m a “grown up” I’ve started experimenting a bit… and today I’m sharing some twists on an Easter classic.

Change up your Chocolate
Easter nests are traditionally a milk chocolate affair, but as we all know Dark Chocolate is healthier so why not change it up a bit? Or melt two batches and go half and half – the best of both worlds!

Get Fruity
I love Chocolate Raisins – they’re my snack of choice on road trips. Try mizing them in with your cornflakes, the mixture of textures is great too.

Another combination I like is Chocolate and Orange. After you’ve melted the chocolate, grate in some orange zest and stir in before coating the cornflakes. You could even try grating ginger in for a bit of spice.

Go Nuts
I always finished the nests off with Cadbury’s Mini Eggs but chocolate and yoghurt coated nuts would make a great addition.

Two Sale Steals from LTS

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I am a self confessed bargain-hunter. I like nothing better than shopping the sales – so when Long Tall Sally took an extra 20% off their sale stock a couple of weeks ago, I was helpless to resist!

It may well have been the first day of Spring recently, but Winter hasn’t shaken it’s grip on my part of the world just yet. I have a feeling I’ll be getting a lot of wear out of these pieces over the next few weeks.

The wool wrap jacket is exceptionally cosy with the perfect sleeve length. The fairisle print jumper may look a little out of season elsewhere in the world but with this lovely English weather behaving the way it is, it didn’t feel it. The black jeggings are an old faithful pair (if a little faded now) also from Long Tall Sally – in fact I think they were my first ever purchase from the original LTS Manchester store (you can read my review of the new store here).

The boots are another sale bargain – from F&F. Sadly these exact ones are no longer in stock (although I’m not surprised as they really were a great buy!) but they have something similar here.

Long Tall Sally’s New Manchester Store

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If you’ve been following Long Tall Sally’s Instagram lately you’ll know they recently launched a new store in Manchester (my hometown) with a brand new design. What you probably don’t know is that they sent customers in the area a 10% off voucher to celebrate the opening. A new store and a new summer wardrobe at 10% off? How could a girl refuse?!

I took ‘Mum in the Pretty Dress’ along to explore with me and we were both impressed. The space did feel a little smaller than in the previous store but the layout made everything much more accessible. The most noticeable improvement though has to be the changing rooms – they are so much more secluded and private than they previously were with a lovely plush carpet under foot. Finally there was a very thoughtful inclusion of in-store seating. Initially I thought this was for trying on shoes but there were a fair few men folk using them during our visit while their other halves took advantage of those lovely changing rooms.

If you’ve been itching to see more of the redesign here’s a sneak peek. (Complete with racks of the latest TTYA4LTS collaboration which snuck into the store here early!)

Introducing Cali

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As some of you may have noticed, my blog posts have been few and far between over the past few months. I’ve hinted about the reasons for this once or twice on Instagram, but I thought it was about time I shared the whole story. Brace yourselves for extreme cuteness.

Back in October I brought home a tiny little bundle of joy. And I named her Cali.

I knew owning a puppy would be difficult, especially for someone who is in their mid-twenties and has a full time job. So before I committed to the idea I did a lot of research and made a lot of plans. Most of these went out of the window on the first night…

It was a week before I could get more than a couple of hours sleep at a time, toilet training was a nightmare and there are teeth marks on pretty much everything I own. But I wouldn’t trade her for the world.

By far her best feature is her enthusiasm for life. It doesn’t matter what kind of day it’s been – she always acts like I’ve made hers just by showing up. She is completely in love with the world. She loves to make friends and most people love her back (which is just as well because she’s no manners and a bad habit of getting mud on people’s clothes.)

I plan to write more about her in time but for now here are a few snapshots from her first few weeks in her new home.